I've got a band...

Massive on Myspace and other social networking places. Numerous websites about the band including fan-made sites.

Some decent reviews but admiteddly we should aim at getting more of them - its quite difficult to get mag reviews if youre unsigned..any tips?

Toured the UK, Europe and Canada totally DIY. Building fanbases abroad. Currently have no distro/no label we just burn and sell our own cds and merch.

When big touring acts come to our local area in our genre, we're always asked to support them. Often asked to support the smaller touring acts too because we can pull the crowd.

So how do we advance from here? I don't feel we're yet strong enough to encourage our fans to buy and pre-order one track to get us in the charts just yet. Plus it would be difficult to mobilse the whole of our fanbase at once without TV support or major press.

We struggle to get press, we have a video but have struggled to find addresses/supervisors to get it on TV, tried musicians channel though and had some play there.
Had play on local radio stations and a track played a couple of times on BBC Radio1 but nothing major.

Labels won't entertain us as we're not a 'popular' genre.

We're trying to do as much as we can DIY but with so little info out there, it's hard to know what way to go? Where do the managers learn? How should a band plan it's way forward?

Any help greatly appreciated.

A link to your stuff here would be a good start guys, you could get a lot of help.

I agree with Mart. Why can't you mention who you are ?
I think your focus is a bit wrong. Not saying that what you have achieved is wrong or bad but as an independent artist or label you should first of all build your HOME. Then invite the world to come and ask them to bring more. Not unlike how a church grows in an area. You already have fans on Myspace and other networks. How many are moving onto your own fanclub ?
Start getting them to join your mailing list if you can.

Also use Myspace and sign up to www.artist-first.net or use www.finetunes.de or another aggregator to get your music on Itunes. However, PLUG your single to your fans and friends on Myspace. Look at what Ugly Rumours did to get into the top 20 (Ok purists i know they got to 21 but that is another thread). www.uglyrumours.com. Whatever you think about the track itself, they mobilized people and that is a cracking 'sales letter'.

Build it and build it and build it. Forget about trying to do it the Major label way. Send a brief News item press release to the media and tell them about what you are doing but build your fanbase 2 by 2.

PS: Post a link on here. There are many on here who can help you.

...also, press is relatively easy to get.

Just make sure you have a story, the "We are a new band from Woking" for example is not headline grabbing.

"We are a new band from Woking that are really into goat breeding, help us in our quest to play on the moon" will get attention for example.(yes I know that`s silly but you need an angle)

You have to stand out from the crowd and look creative in every form of what you intend to be your full time job.

If you believe in your product, SELL yourselves.

I've worked with a small niche label in an advisory role. And I must say that we often advise bands coming to us to press up the CDs and flog them themselves. If you are not directly chartable, it makes no difference that they are not being scanned at retail. You're making sales. However, you do need some sort of producer or someone that can give a realistic outside view (quality control).

It's a long, hard slog doing it DIY. But until Prince Charming comes along, do you have a choice?

Speaking of popular genres, I was at a very small festival in Europe this summer. There were the usual round of interesting local bands that didn't really make much impact beyond the first two rows. But then a scruffy bunch of hippies turned up singing rocked-up sea shanties and brought the house down. People were buying TWO t-shirts at a go. This band will never get major radio or TV as they are not a popular genre, and the funny thing is they don't seem to need it as they play across France and Belgium quite a lot. It would seem to me that your concerts are the main thrust for you at the moment. So squeeze them for every opportunity to build e-mail databases and sell whatever can be sold. And keep up the pressure on the local radios where you are playing. Any anecdotes you could provide them about the last time you played there?

Can you recommend any software for the email lists?
We would like to get one running, as many band myspace accounts are getting frozen and/or deleted and we would hate to lose contact with those fans.

we've tried running small mailing lists in the past,but once they grow, the software fails.

We have have also got collection of a few hundred postal adddresses from when we tried a free 'fanclub' unfortunately it cost too much to keep posting things out!! And we werent sure how legal it was to hold postal addresses...data protection and all that...

nice story about the hippies! yes, right now it's mostly the gigs bringing us the money, but we do sell cds online using paypal.

thanks for the suggestions so far guys.

playing abroad actually seems much easier than getting a gig here.

venues promote their own nights, they pay you well, in Canada especially, there seems to be kids who go to concerts just for the fun of it....just to be a part of an active scene and to find new bands.

we really enjoyed ourselves out there playing to at least 200 people a night and selling tonnes of merch.

there was no pay to play like here in the UK.

A friend of mine moved to Boston 'cause he could gig regular there and people were there for the music, he couldn't make a living here.

Where's the sounds?! Post a link to your Myspace site.

Mailman is pretty good for managing mail lists and has a web front end. Unfortunately I can't recommend a hosting provider since I just host my own server on the end of a piece of wet string from NTL. That said, I'm sure someone must do hosted mailman services.

Cheers,

--Chris (chris at stryngs.com if you want to ask more...)

Guys, you are doing it and making it happen...get the music on a download site where your fans can buy it...sod the charts and keep going.

I feel for you, the UK is well known for poor payments from small venues and pay-to-play is rife, especially in London. Other countries embrace the music and actually want it to get played in venues!

Even UKbands.net has began to support pay to play, a company that was once the first step on the ladder for young and new artists booking DIY tours from scratch.

Whatever happened to the Musician's Union?

Some days I feel like I'm scraping by following a live musical path here when once the life of a musician was so easy going.

Even the tax dodgers are avoiding the music biz now, as it's so much harder to make money from gigs compared to what it was a few years ago.

Hmmm..whatever did happen to the Musicians Union?

They seemed to fail to attract new blood and support at some point.

I was at a meeting ten years back in which it was concluded that the only way forward for the union was to push the public liabilty insurance in the membership.

All the gigs I do today are insured by my own union card, the "union of musicians" is actually prevalent in the non members sadly.

An MU member rang a friend of mine during an MU conference ages ago and asked if he could sort a band out for a knees up in the evening at short notice and how much it would be.
My friend replied that it was obviously priced at Union rates.

"As much as that?" He was told. I kid you not.

Hi

Just a quick question, we're an unsigned band that had a song featured on a compilation CD which is now available to buy at HMV, Virgin Digital, Wallmart and a few other online sites. As the song is available to buy and download individually, is it legible for the charts, or a there all sort of rules and regs governing this?

Thanks

Sam

Yes it is Sam, but try and get onto as many sites as possible, and make sure your CRSC coding is done or your sales won`t get logged.
Some download companies do this for you some do not.

m

and make sure the song is registered with PRS/MCPS or you won't be able to collect mechanical royalties.

Many thanks guys