How to not get your band booked part 2: The 39 annoying things that bands do

In the series of ‘How to not get your band booked‘, first off I recommend reading the piece I just linked, and second I bring to you ‘The 39 annoying things that bands do‘, written by the booker of a renowned underground St. Louis venue called the Creepy Crawl.

This helps us get a glimpse at the venue’s point of view in terms of booking, and makes us realize that although bands consistently think that their gigs are their time to shine, and theirs only, the venue shouldn’t have to put up with all the ego-inflicted individualistic nonsense.

Great read that guarantees many laughs.

Here are a couple of extracts:

2. Out of town bands that show up and say “We decided to bring another band with us, don’t worry, they just need gas money and pizza.”

9. The out of town band that was lucky to get the gig, brought absolutely nobody, bitched all night long about their time slot, when told they had 1 song left in their set play 4 more anyway who when being paid out $50 in gas money asks “Is this the best you can do?”

17. Bands who pester you to book their bands “side-project”. Side-project is another name for self-indulgent crap so embarrassingly bad they can’t dignify it with a name and gives them a cover why none of their friends will come see them “perform”. (Would you go see your friend masturbate if they asked you to come watch?). Note to bands: think of your side-project as a project never to get booked again.

26. Bands who when you tell them they have 1 more song left because they’re running late into their set decide to play a 45 minute opus full of self-absorbed guitar solos which in the course of playing covers in its entirety side 2 of Pink Floyds’ Dark Side of The Moon.

32. Bands that give long-winded lectures about respect… how we need to respect each other, the world we all live in, ourselves, God, our fellow man, other “artists”, Picasso, Left-handed midgets, respect this, respect that etc etc… What are these guys in the Mafia? The next morning you discover the parking spot they were parked in the night before is completely covered with empty water bottles, soda cans and Taco Bell.

39. Bands that read this list and then send us emails like this one:
“dont take this the wrong way i am just a guitar player but ur annoying list was some what funny, but it makes u guys seem like a bunch of pricks u would not have ur joint with out the annoying bands. i frequent ur place when my friends play but if u dont treat the bands that deserve respect with respect they will not play shows and tell others and so on and so forth just a little concerned.“
… This is just a small sample of annoying things that bands do that we came up with at the Creepy. We could go on and on with this….

Read the rest of the 39 pointers here. You can also access this document by going to the Creepy Crawl’s website here.

And as mentioned above, if you want another hilarious read on “How to not get you band booked”, I highly recommend you read How to not get your band booked (a veteran’s tail).

mruff.

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Indie On The Move: a great ressource for finding a booker’s contact information

There are many music venue directories on the net and it’s virtually possible to find even the smallest of live music joints if you are willing to spend hours on end searching for them. When booking a tour these repertoires can come in very handy when you’re looking for places to play, but many don’t include the most essential of elements to do so: the booker’s or the venue’s contact information.

‘Indie On The Move’ does a remarquable job at handing it out to you. This website was devised by the band members of Zelazowa who have toured around the States and Europe playing over 500 shows in the past years.

The concept of the site is pretty simple and won’t overwhelm you with useless gimmicks. You create an account comprised of a list of venues, some notes and a dedicated email system, and you browse through their numerous venues adding those you would like to contact for your tours or gigs.

Don’t expect to encounter tens of thousands of venues yet but it is a work in progress. Based on a user generated content model, their database grows as users add information. And besisdes, most venues in their  system are the ones you’ll want to play at (‘Indie On The Move’ only concentrates on US venues by the way).

Many of their venues have phone numbers, descriptions and ratings, but the common denominator is the bookers’ contact and/or the venue’s MySpace page. Every venues has an email address (well at least the dozens I checked), so you can easily start booking your gigs and know where you’re headed.

A very informative ‘Touring Tips’ section is also included on the site, so if you’re planning your first tour, it’s probably best to start there.

And one other thing, the service is entirely free.

Gigdoggy sends its warm regards to Zelazowa and encourages all touring bands to give ‘Indie On The Move’ a try.

mruff.

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Why bands should consider playing house concerts

Why house concerts?

Playing bars, pubs and clubs isn’t the only way to host a live show. You don’t always have to cope with the usual business aspects of booking a gig in some rut negotiating with a ill-tempered club owner paying you peanuts (kind of extreme, but you get my drift). There are alternatives, and one of them is performing a concert in the comfort of somebody’s home (or your own by that matter).

There are very interesting advantages to trying this out:

• You usually get to plan it how you want.
• Most house venues demand donations ranging from $5 to $20. In many cases the people hosting the show leave %100 of all proceeds to the musicians. Let’s do some quick math: $15 donation/entrance fee with 40 people attending will net you an easy $600 for the night, merchandise not included.
• The people hosting these shows are PASSIONATE about music, so most will leave you all the earnings, plus throw in a free cooked meal and possibly a place to stay for the night.
• These concerts engage the artist and their audience in a level of intimacy that’s incomparable with a traditional venue. This can lead to healthier fan relationships and of course (sorry to always lay down the cash concerns) better merchandise sales.

A couple of websites so you get the idea:

This one site called Concerts In Your Home is a resource/community for artists and hosts. Hosts can search more than 500 artists on the site, and artists can search detailed profiles of more than 200 house concert presenters in the US, Canada, UK, even Australia and New Zealand. Most performers play blues, folk and acoustic styles, so nothing too extreme. Anyways most places don’t have a PA so musicians prepare acoustic sets.

In the same vein we also have HouseConcerts.com. Here the model is a bit different as this site proposes a listing of people who offer their homes to host shows.

For Canadian house concerts you can also  check out www.acousticroof.ca.

There is also houseconcertsyork.co.uk who conduct these events around York, UK.

Besides ‘Concerts In Your Home’, most sites are pretty local and isolated, but by surfing through the web you’ll find tons of them. The house concert movement is definitely stirring.

A couple of quotes so you get an even better idea:

I’ll leave you to some quotes I gathered talking with some house-concert-aspiring-ministrels:

I haven’t done that many house concerts but the ones that I have done have been some of my favorite shows. I generally feel that I’m “at home” and playing for friends. Pay is generally as good or better than small venues. Success level, attendance wise, seems to relate to the host’s knowledge of his or her environment and enthusiasm in promotion. I absolutely love playing house concerts and I’m very grateful for the trend.
Ronny Elliot – www.ronnyelliott.com

I think they are awesome and a lot of times way better than a club gig. People are actually there to hear you which is not always the case in most clubs. Each house concert is run differently, but for the most part, it seems typical that they charge anywhere from $5 to $20 at the door and a lot of times give the artist %100. Some take a percentage, it just depends. Artists also get to sell merch in an intimate environment, compared to a club where that is nearly impossible. I love these gigs and wouldn’t mind supplementing them for clubs gigs altogether (ok, maybe not completely: most home concert throwers have their own guest list, so I could not omit clubs altogether or else a lot of fans would miss out on live shows!)
Rachel McGoye – www.rachelmcgoye.com

I’m finding myself playing more and more house concerts, though I have not given up on live-music in public settings. The appeal is pretty straightforward, provided the host and audience understand the
casual-but-professional dynamic (or are at least willing to follow): low overhead (save, of course, the benevolence and spirit of the host!) and thus much better pay (even 10 people at $10/head makes for a better night than many places’ll guarantee!); great environment in which to connect and interact (vs. noisy pubs, for instance); not nearly so lonely if attendance is light or I’m not as known in a particular community; etc. Word is out, though, so presenters are becoming bombarded just like everyone else in the community.
Wes Weddell – www.myspace.com/wesweddell

And to conclude, here is an extract of ‘The Complete Guide To House Concerts‘ Kevin Kelly (author of the renowned ‘1000 True Fans‘ manifesto) promotes on his website:

At the end of every house concert, at least one person will approach you because they want to set-up a concert with you at their house. And once people find out the Suzie is going to host one, many more will want to show you off to their friends and family too. Before the night is through you will be in the lovely position of adding several names and numbers to your house-concert file and following up with them to book a firm date for each show.
When you play bars or cafes, it is frequently a struggle even getting the booker on the phone. With house concerts you are constantly juggling plenty of gig offers, which come with guarantee money, a guarantee audience, and a minimum of hassles. What could be better?

Apparently there is a booming market for these shows, so if your set can be performed acoustically it seems pretty worth while to give them a shot.

We’ll be posting other quotes on this subject shortly, so stay mruffed.

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HearWhere: live concert listings for your city, powered by myspace

Now this is a cool site. Event and concert listings have always been around on the web. Everyone has his unique resources and websites to dig them up and find a spot to listen to a good live concert. But if you don’t have a system it can soon turn into a hassle leading to ordering a pizza and watching a movie instead. Well now I’ve decided to use HearWhere. You type in your city (or any city for that matter) on the front page and kablamo! you’ve got yourself a listing of virtually every concert scheduled for weeks to come. The beauty is that the listing comes with a pic of the band, a player containing all MySpace songs and the venue’s name. The cherry on top is the map pin-pointing down the venue’s location when you click on the event. So if ever you’re bored one night and wanna listen to some music, I would suggest browsing through this site over any other.

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When bands, fans and venues meet online before the show: Ourstage/Live Nation’s music marketplace

Mashable, the renowned tech/start-up blog, brought to my attention that Live Nation is now in partnership with Ourstage to help bring venues and bands together (interesting Q&A with Ourstage CEO Ben Campbell). The resulting ‘Marketplace’  proposes gig opportunities promoted by Live Nation that bands can sign up to. For those of you who don’t know Ourstage, it’s basically a ‘hot or not’ for bands, where users vote between two acts of the same musical genre. At the end of monthly contests, the most popular bands win prizes ranging from money to being featured on famous online-music stores like AOL music. For it’s part, Live Nation have been engaging in distribution, marketing and promotion deals with major artists like Shakira, U2, Madonna, Coldplay, Jay-z and Nickleback in the past months. With this new deal, Ourstage seems to be aiming to establish a presence in the indie scene.

Since the dawn of online-music, social networks have been concentrating on music and band profiles, leaving the touring industry as an untapped market for web 2.0 start-ups. The Live Nation-Ourstage venture gives a boost in that direction. Seeing how Ourstage bands must be higly ranked for Live Nation to consider booking them, I think the majority of bands won’t benefit from this feature, but this is an interesting service that uses the power of social-networks to help bands get gigs. DeepRockDrive is about the only other service I can think of that does this, but they too have a model unfit for smaller unestablished artists. These still remain exciting times for the touring musician, and another reminder that fan-validation and web 2.0 strategies are key to innovative online-music businesses.

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How to not get your band booked (a veteran’s tail)

I used to be in a band. We were total noise. If you put 2 gorillas in a room with some instruments with heavy effects on them and gave them a really good drummer, that would be us. We didn’t rehearse, we had no songs, we had no structure. We did have a television that showed unpleasant things like Charlie Brown cartoons, graphic scenes of violence, and parts of the show ‘Friends’. The tv usually was smashed before the end of the set. We didn’t have a record out or t-shirts or anything. It was just a release for us. We had no aspirations. Yet we managed to play Chicago, Detroit, and the Knitting Factory in New York City.

These are the words of a guy who’s been on all sides of the live concert equation. I’ve been the promoter. I’ve been in the local band. I’ve been in the touring band. I’ve been the patron. I’ve been the sound guy. I’ve been the bartender. I’ve been the door guy. I’ve been the janitor. I’ve been the groupie. So there isn’t an angle I haven’t seen.

Check out his amazing article that sets the record straight from the club-owner/promoter standpoint of the live-gig business. Hilareous and informative. A must-read.

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What bands should know about playing in clubs (1)

“I’ve been in a number of bands in the Chicago area through the last 12 years, and I’ve played a lot of clubs and had both great and not so great experiences.

But from the small cafes to the Metro and Double Door, one thing will always be true: Venues are in it for the money. They are businesses. That’s what they do. Undoubtedly, there are places with people who run them who genuinely care about the music and the musicians, and who will treat you fair and treat you well. But the chances that you’ll run into a straight ahead business mindset are far greater.

The key to playing the bars and scene in Chicago is to make your expectations realistic. Any venue in the city is just that. A space. But it’s a space that is just as easy to use to your advantage as it is for them to use you.

Playing The Elbo Room on a Tuesday night at 11pm is not going to make you a star. It probably won’t even make you $50. But if you know that before you play, and you go in wanting to play a show and rock out anyway, you’re going to have a good time.

I’ve played the Elbo Room and The Wise Fool’s and Lilly’s and a host of other bars to audiences of 75+ and audiences of less than ten. And I’ve never had a bad experience, because I knew what I was getting myself into.

I wish I could make music for a living, and I admire anyone who can. But we’re not going to make money from these bars and clubs. And badmouthing them isn’t going to change much of anything – because we’ve been doing it for at least ten years. I wonder how many fewer posts there would be on this board if we all just realized that smaller clubs and bars in this city are pretty much just here to give us experience rather than money?

On any given night, I’ve likely made more money through merchandise and CD sales than through collecting a door cover that might or might not be accurate or even available, depending on how many people said they were there to see me.

So use these venues to your advantage. Have a great live rehearsal. Make a handful of new fans. Sell a t-shirt. Flirt with the bartenders. Just don’t expect that you’ll get paid what you think you’re worth. Because we never do“.

(Jeff Brown, www.myspace.com/jeffbrownrocks, www.reverbnation.com/jbxl3)

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Why bands should consider online music licensing (2)

Last week we went over 3 sites that allowed you to publish and license your music online. Today we’re going to discover quite a few others. There are lots out there to be honest, most of which are fairly new and up-coming, and we should be expecting more to appear as internet is slowly (well actually rather rapidly) transforming itself into the main platform for the music industry’s new business model.

These sites deliver what is called royalty-free music, meaning the buyer doesn’t have to pay royalties for any commercial use of the music. We also call this pre-cleared music because the provider of the music granted in advance the rights to use the master recording. Both pre-cleared and royalty-free go hand in hand. Most these sites all function with the same model: non-exclusive deals (exclusivity referring to not being able to place your tracks on another site), site takes 50% of earnings, site supposedly has contacts in all major media conglomerates and so on. For the sake of not making this post boring, I am just going to list the sites that are the most relevant to musicians:

• Audiosparx
• LicenseMusic
• eStockMusic
• AttackTrax
• Musync
• Dittybase

These site are made to sell music more then to promote the musicians but they can represent a an income stream. It’s browsing through such websites that one realizes the true competition out there. Here I only displayed those who allow you to upload your music, or who make it clear that this is possible. There are much more royalty-free ‘stores’ selling pre-cleared music out there but who have their own roster of composers. The music quality is good and the prices are going down due to competition. This is great for content creators and not so much for artists. Nonetheless, these sites represent opportunity to sell your music and get recognition, so even if it can’t guarantee results, going down the music licensing path is worth a shot.

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