Palm in the Face

(Pictured above: a poster that a management company made which was described to us as a showcase with Sony BMG..... but relax; it wasn't)

Hello hello :)

I am back with another (post-gig) blog. My band The Winters and I had a gig on the Sunday just gone and in short it was a total fallacy, a crime, a washout, a vacant lot, an ill-made money maker or maybe just a waste of time and effort.

The man who had ‘organised’ this gig didn’t show until our first song started, he sat hunched in the camping chair with his dog awkwardly hunched in his lap like a bad omen. And it really was.

He stayed for three of our songs and later sent us a text explaining that due to some personal events taking place at his home he had had to make a quick getaway. But apparently he had loved the show and wanted to organise another meeting of which we have already had over a dozen.

  

 

 

(Pictured: the actual event, which was less flattering than this rather mediocre photo indicates.)

 

As a result of this awful gig and the angst I felt in the aftermath I decided to look further into the individual efforts I could be making which may in turn result in avoiding these terrible gigs.

I have been reading some interesting articles on how the work rate of a musician has changed in recent times, with much more effort surrounding social media and the hype that is conjured to create a fan base and ultimately attract enough attention that even record labels want a bit of what you have got going on. This is the new stage that musicians are playing on; and every little thing counts.

Brenna Ehrlich is an editor of an online music and entertainment site called Media & Amp and has some great tips which she shares in her article 10 Best Practices for Bands on Facebook. http://mashable.com/2011/07/11/bands-facebook/.

This is full of great ideas for emerging bands, giving us all lots of good ideas on how to create Hype. Making events exciting, Networking and posting about different bands with a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ mentality. There are plenty of ideas and she clearly has an idea of where things are headed in the music industry. Music alone isn’t enough.

I also watched an interview with alternative rock outfit Mutemath’s lead singer Paul Meany  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqAmlyGjX8 in which he talks about the role of a musician being more of a real job in the current climate. He talks about hustling online to create a buzz and to keep people interested in Mutemath and their music.

This is an established band, who have had tour regularly and have a huge following internationally, and yet they still have to keep their finger on the pulse of online networking to stay afloat.

 

Until next time :)