Musician self promotion/marketing?

With the internet the way it is these days is it more favourable to self promote and organise releases / touring yourself?

Or is it best to still try get a manager/record deal/promoter?

  On 7/16/2013 at 1:09 AM, miim said:

With the internet the way it is these days is it more favourable to self promote and organise releases / touring yourself?

Or is it best to still try get a manager/record deal/promoter?

I get the impression that it all comes down to the art of contacting and self-promotion without being spammy. Personally I follow a lot of niche record labels and cassette artists and other "close knit" and underground and/or local collectives. I feel like seeking out such groups are the best bet for true satisfaction. Unless you are just flat-out trying to become popular that is.

Personally I always think of this quote from the TV series Extras:

  Quote

Trey: All right, listen to me, Andy. I can't help you because I don't know what it is that you want. Every time you come into my office it's something different. One day it's all about not selling out, being an artist, next day you just want your face in the paper. What do you want? You want to be a world-famous movie star or do you want to be the tortured genius creating great art?

Greg: Look -- do you want fame and fortune, or do you want integrity and respect?

Andy: Both.

Trey: Right. Well, there are only a few people in the world who have both those things. And you will never be one of them. What do you want?

 

As for touring booking agents seem helpful and useful still. If you're just doing one off gigs or DJ sets I'm sure your just fine contacting venues and like-minded artists yourself.

How can you not be spammy tho? Basically unless people seek it out themselves it would be classed as spam!

How does one not be spammy?

  On 7/16/2013 at 1:09 AM, miim said:

Or is it best to still try get a manager/record deal/promoter?

Sure, if you sell hundreds of thousands albums each year.

Not really there's plenty of bands who don't sell that many records and have such things, just wondering if its necessary?

Not necessary as far as I can tell.

(you haven't mentioned what your goals are, though, and those goals pretty much determine the answer...)

Touring with a band while writing songs with a vision to recording and releasing a record. I don't like labels but it would be alternative/electronic/rock/noise...

Yeah, you don't need (or want) to involve middlemen to get that done! Do it yourself IMO. At least for the first tour.

I wouldn't even know where to start, I put out a self released CD in 2011 but didn't hardly promote it apart from about 20 gigs. I sold enough CD's to Cover my costs and got really good feedback and people now still say it good. Now I have an awesome band and loads of new material that's totally different, I'm just a little lost and confused as regards branding and promoting and what I should be doing! ;$

ideally you'd want someone else to do all the promotion/booking/PR stuff for you. It can be as low-end as a girlfriend who is good at writing and wants to support your work or something like a label with a lot of money/resources behind them who has connections to all the tick-boxes (pitchfork, resident advisor, fact mag, the wire, SXSW, mutek, demf, decibal fest, etc)

If you're going at it alone, the best thing you can do is learn to do a little bit of pitching yourself. Write up some one sheets for your band, but do it in a way that doesn't come off as a marketing package. Tell an interesting story, set yourself apart from other musicians who make similar music. Give the person reading it a reason to pay attention to you.
It's an uphill battle no matter what, even if you're lucky and magically get someone to do all this stuff for you. Even bands that get this kind of hype at first don't get it forever.

one just have be good enough and he'll be known and respected now, he can be genius now and he'll be respected in the future but for peace of mind he can always be neither

check out this guys series of vids on promoting. i like em a lot.

sorry, just notice i posted the second of the two vids. heres the first one.

Its all about non-intrusive self-promotion. Unfortunately nowadays it is all about who you know, rather than how good you are.... Get emailing journos who have reviewed something similar to you in the past, gently push for a response like a week later.... make sure your mails are personalised to that person as well.... read some of their articles, comment on what they have been doing etc etc....show an interest in their work and they might in yours! Keep the mails short and sweet as well! make sure you include the option to stream AND download - never attach files to the mail or use HTML.... keep it simple and you should have a chance (if the music is good!)

good advice Al. without mentioning the name of the artist or band, is there someone in particular that you helped give a 'leg up' or kept a relationship with who was relatively unknown when you reviewed their work?

I ask this because the proliferation of digital music promos has a negative and positive side. For you being the journalist, you'll be hearing a lot more unsigned, inappropriately targeted and 'demo' quality music, but the positive side is you might actually find a new act that you find promising and pluck them out of relative obscurity. I find myself slipping a lot in terms of understanding the landscape of the post mp3 promo world. I fancied myself pretty good at it back when CD promos were the standard, now I feel like I don't know what the fuck I'm doing (even after following your instructions for many years in terms of e-mail promo formatting)

Do you also see the model that Pitchfork represents starting a trend of how other music journalist outlets operate?

to me the model they set up is more like 'here is what band is popular or hot and rising in this obscure scene you've probably never heard of' instead of 'here is a new scene we've found' or 'here is a new artist *we* plucked out of obscurity'.

hmmm difficult question as i started off in PR first, so i approached journalism slightly differently to start with..... WIth regards to promos and stuff i either get them off people i know or PR companies. I dont generally get any unsolicited stuff to my actual working email (i do to my other ones somehow but not to my working one....) Generally speaking it depends on who you are writing for really... The bigger sites like PopMatters, Pitchfork, XLR8R, Resident Advisor have upload systems so it is generally down to the journo what they cover as you simply write your review and upload it, and 9/10 it will get published.... Some bigger ones (like the 405/Data Transmission) everything goes through the editors and it depends on the relationship you have with them as to whether they publish it.... I wish it were a case of being able to pick something gold out of a pile of shit, but people just dont seem to be on it really.... THe majority of stuff i cover as said comes from PR or labels (usually ones i am already friends with) very rarely do i get something directly from an artist.... (tho did just get a promo from ZoeB)....

Also music journalism is very ego driven.... it gives people who dont create the chance to be part of a scene, and they dont want to give that up... They like the free music, free entry to festivals and shows, the free merch and all that jazz so more often than not, the people who can give them the most stuff get covered...as a result you get the same old stuff being covered time and time again.... You'd be surprised at the strangle hold PR companies have on the industry....they will represent like 20/30 labels at a time, often in the same genre - therefore they have LOADS and LOADS of power.... they can bargain for coverage in effect, which if you are a small artist represented alongside, say Aphex, the PRs could in theory withhold the Aphex promo (which everyone wants) until said smaller artist is covered....which is why people want to be represented by them, but they cost the earth! (price range between £400-£2000 per campaign - lest not forget retainer driven PR at prob AT LEAST £600 per month, every month without fail....)

So for me, the proliferation of digital promos had not freed the industry as it was supposed to - it has instead firmed the grip of the labels and organisations who have the most money....

Music sites are built with advertising money as well.... and who advertises on the major sites? Big labels! If you owned a big magazine, would you risk your advertisers pulling your funding by being idealistic? i dont think you would....

So, nowadays you need to make sure that you have someone who is connected on your side, to grease the wheels for you, persuade them it is worth it etc etc.... Small labels can still be broken, they just need a personality and a good handle on fan promo via FB and Twitter (can under estimate grass roots support) - because even tho all the above might be a exaggeration of the truth (only slightly), publications cannot ignore a ground swell of support from fans, hence why Skrillex and the EDM brigade has done so well - they dont get major coverage in mags (they do on the radio however - but that is a different topic - the thing that makes you a superstar is radio, still) but still sell loads of records.... Advertising is the new payola...

hmmm is there a way to change my name on this board...? if im gunna dish the dirt it should probably be un a Nomme De Plumbe no?

make youtubes or vimeos, and list all the silly little details (equipment, genre , motivation, emotions, or whatever you like) about your music, then people will find it via google searches. if they like it you will gain an audience, even a small one, and they will spread your stuff to torrents and what.cd and other pirate sites. what's totally lame is sending out mass messages. it's cool when people find your funny sounds then contact you then you check out their music and get to start up conversations etc. now it's not like there's a famous guy who looks down on everyone else. it's more about community and friendships of people with similar tastes and outlook on life, which is brilliant.

if you want to go the opposite way there are options but you might feel dirty afterwards. there was a guy called khonnor i remember who did a really glitchy acoustic "idm" album and he somehow managed to get reviews in 100s of magazines..... pretty sure that was paid for marketing, paying a marketing company or promoter? who knows hehe. clever guy, totally lame music though!!! pretty sure you can get a 3 year old kid to smack some white and black keys on a piano, record it and get reviews in every paper. but the type of marketing people who arrange that sort of thing are the lowest scum of the earth.

by the way, usually whoever listens to your music and enjoys it will be contacting you in some way and trying to communicate things to you, like ' i want an mp3 ' or ' you should put this on vinyl' or ' can i get the whole album ?' or sharing it with each other on file sharing sites etc. if lots of people start saying the same thing then you can get ideas about where to take things. if lots of people you never heard of send you emails wanting to sign you then it probably means youre going to get signed by a well known underground label. if it's one nutter trying to sign you, better hone your craft/art!! if nobody's asking for mp3s or vinyls or t shirts or albums then it's a waste of money trying to force a crowd to eat a giant turd sandwich. failing that you can just pretend you made everything with a roland sh 101, for some reason people love that machine and will look at anything associated with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khonnor

turd sandwich - now available on MTV, haha

why would you say the marketers are scum of the earth? They are just doing a much needed job in todays saturated music market...

psychological methods to sell should be destroyed! - nice minutemen lyric

  On 7/23/2013 at 3:17 PM, AK47 said:

why would you say the marketers are scum of the earth? They are just doing a much needed job in todays saturated music market...

They aren't really needed and are ALWAYS behind the curve when it comes to promoting anything new or interesting unless it's demonstrably saleable. Depends on your definition of a satisfactory audience but word of mouth (albeit via facebook/twitter) is still an effective way of getting people to go to things. Besides, if you're touring then the venue will usually do its best to promote the event because they're ultimately the ones who suffer most if nobody turns up.

i dont think they are necessarily the scum of the earth, but they have significantly changed the color of the relatively smaller scale electronic scenes in a negative way

i think you are tarring all 'marketeers' with the same brush here.... yes there are unscrupulous people, but the vast majority are in it because they love the music and want to work with it. Getting people with influence to listen to music is a hard thing to do for people who have no contacts/are not business inclined.... word of mouth is extremely important but t usually comes from the first instance via a blog, and 7/10 that blog will have been sent stuff by a PR (or failing that will have heard of it from someone in the music industry).... its about a combination of utilising the PRs contacts and copy writing skills on top of your own social networking chops topped of with liberal doses of RL promo....

Walds, point me to something that is interestng and good (ahead of the curve as such) that has NOT been promoted by a marketing company...

Also not all PR is over the top expensive (most is.... but not all :))