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BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
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srr said:
Hey BonsaiK, I just stumbled across this blog and I'd like to say thank you for this thread. It's quite rare to find people so open and willing to talk about the biz. So for that thanks so much!

I'm from the States and am in a phycedelic/prog/rock group that's been together for about 8+ years now. We've been doing quite well on our own and have released 3 full length albums. We've been putting in a lot of that leg work that every artist has to do, promo, press, design, financial, booking/touring, creating and building the buzz, and of course writing, etc. And from all that have been building quite a following world-wide.

Things are still growing but we feel that we're butting that ceiling a bit. Because of our independence, we don't have the resources to get us on tour packages nationally and internationally and to expand our exposure to that "next level", or to get consistent guarantees to cover travel costs. We'd prefer to stay as independent as possible to retain control over the art and music but we're still open to building our team like management, agencies or even a good indie label. But how is it that we start a dialogue with these people? What do they want to see? Just a standard press package? How should I follow up with these people after I've first contacted them? We've submitted stuff to people in the past but have had little luck getting much of a response from them. Your thoughts would be awesome
A small label would probably do you wonders just from the point of view of handling some of the logistic stuff that you've been doing yourselves up until now, and also giving you the security of accounting. Of course, they have to like what you're doing, so look only for labels that are involved in your type of stuff.

You don't need much in the way of a press package, and to be honest, less is definitely more. People at labels have a serious case of tl;dr. My standard reaction when I get a glossy colour multi-page press kit is "who the fuck do these people think they are?". The only function of any attached press kit is just to get people to give your music a go.

I answered someone else's question of "what are the do's and dont's of submitting stuff to radio station and record labels" with the following post, I'll cut and paste it here:

me said:
Do:

* put your best song first. Whoever listens to it will start at track 1. Make sure this song is good and reasonably representative of your project/group as a whole.

Don't:

* have a lengthy intro to your first song, or some other wank. If it doesn't jump out at the listener with something immediate and catchy in the first 10 seconds, forget it. It's a bad choice for a first song because the person listening to it may not even listen past the first bit. This even applies to genres like prog rock which are notorious for wank. Save the two-minute atmosphere-building acoustic intros for when you actually get that record deal. If you best song happens to be the one with the big intro, then put your second-best song first - or just use your better song and chop the intro.

Don't:

* bother putting more than four songs on your demo. Less it better. One is perfect, up to three if you feel the need to show different sides of your music.

Do:

* be good at what you're doing. Make sure whatever you're sending out is the best quality performance you're reasonably capable of.

Don't:

* be too fussy about audio quality. It's a demo, meaning demonstration. You'll be amazed how forgiving some places are about audio fidelity. As long as everything is clear and can be heard, and the performances are good, that will do.

Do:

* include a biography. I want to know shit about your group, like where you come from, who is in it, if anyone in the band has any history worth noting, and what I can expect the music to sound like. A picture is also considerate, assuming you're photogenic enough to not crack the camera lens, but make the picture part of the piece of paper, don't attach separate pictures.

Don't:

* include a fucking essay. I have a rule in my office - if office correspondence of any kind doesn't fit onto one side of one A4 piece of paper, it goes straight in recycling. Also don't fill your bio with art-wank, make it real. Humour is good, wankery is not.

Do:

* write a personal note to the person you're sending it to, thanking them, and include it with your CD and bio. This happens rarely and it always puts me in a good mood when I get a nice note. Putting the person who is potentially helping your career in a good mood is a good situation for you. Needless to say, brevity is good - the recipient's name at the top, two or three sentences and your signature at the bottom is about right.

Do:

* ring up the place you're sending it to beforehand and find out who in there you should attention it to, and let them know that your product is on its way and when they could be likely to receive it.

Don't:

* harass them for airplay/a record deal/whatever. They know why you're sending it, so don't be a pest, just put your best foot forward and let them work out whether it's something that they want. Rest assured that you can't "talk them into" liking it, they'll either like it or they won't, for whatever reason.

Do:

* ask about formats - some places prefer MP3s, some prefer CDs, some prefer vinyl, and some would just rather you upload your songs somewhere and send them a link.

Don't:

* use some bullshit format, like cassette, USB sticks or whatever in order to be unique and get attention, unless you're specifically asked to provide songs in this format. It'll get attention alright, but it will be the wrong sort. I've still got a USB stick that a band sent to me once, I deleted their shitty songs off it and now I just use it as my office USB stick. Thanks, band, whoever you were, I forget now.

Don't:

* (in the case of a radio station) get friends and relatives to ring up and request your own music! Or even worse, ring up the radio station pretending to be a punter and request it yourself! DJs are sly to this because it happens all the time, my radio station keeps a permanent list of whatever bands are currently ringing up requesting their own shit all the time so we know exactly how much contempt to give anybody who calls.

Do:

* use packaging that stands out. Standing out is important. Also, make the spine legible!

Don't:

* use packaging that makes your product difficult to file on a shelf.

Don't:

* forget to put on it the names of the songs and most importantly, your contact details! Track times are also considerate, DJs in particular like this.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. There may be one or two other points which will occur to me later.
If you have further questions, fire away, as I know I haven't covered a lot of stuff, I have to go now but I'll check back later.
 

starbucks89

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Apr 21, 2011
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Ham_authority95 said:
Where would I go to negotiate with iTunes(or similar places) to sell my music online?
While I agree that iTunes is the biggest name in the online music business, I think a more practical suggestion would be something like Getonic (www.getonic.com), especially if you're just establishing yourself as an artist/band. It's sort of an online marketplace for digital goods - including music. it's free, user-friendly, plus you can embed your "store" (aka your product, aka your music) anywhere on the internet (facebook, blogs, email) which is great for exposure.

best of luck to you!
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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starbucks89 said:
Ham_authority95 said:
Where would I go to negotiate with iTunes(or similar places) to sell my music online?
While I agree that iTunes is the biggest name in the online music business, I think a more practical suggestion would be something like Getonic (www.getonic.com), especially if you're just establishing yourself as an artist/band. It's sort of an online marketplace for digital goods - including music. it's free, user-friendly, plus you can embed your "store" (aka your product, aka your music) anywhere on the internet (facebook, blogs, email) which is great for exposure.

best of luck to you!
I hope you're getting a reasonable rate from them for starting an account here just to post that.
 

starbucks89

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Apr 21, 2011
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BonsaiK said:
I hope you're getting a reasonable rate from them for starting an account here just to post that.
Just an avid supporter of the site, actually, though I see why you'd think that :).

On a somewhat related note (this being a music-biz thread and all), I have a question for you about the Australian music industry (or any English-speaking music industry, for that matter). As someone who is still struggling to make a name for her music at "home" (Israel), do you have any advice on getting my music distributed overseas? Is there a designated office/agency/whatnot meant for international artists, or would it be more effective to just keep my stuff online and/or focus on getting domestic distribution (at least for the time being)? Any other advice on the topic?

Thanks!
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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starbucks89 said:
BonsaiK said:
I hope you're getting a reasonable rate from them for starting an account here just to post that.
Just an avid supporter of the site, actually, though I see why you'd think that :).

On a somewhat related note (this being a music-biz thread and all), I have a question for you about the Australian music industry (or any English-speaking music industry, for that matter). As someone who is still struggling to make a name for her music at "home" (Israel), do you have any advice on getting my music distributed overseas? Is there a designated office/agency/whatnot meant for international artists, or would it be more effective to just keep my stuff online and/or focus on getting domestic distribution (at least for the time being)? Any other advice on the topic?

Thanks!
Advertising here will get you mod wrath, so please don't do it, whether you're getting paid or not. It also amuses me that you're telling me that site is "great for exposure" and then the very next thing you do is ask me about getting more exposure. I guess the site isn't that great for exposure after all, if you still have these concerns.

To answer your question, there is no "agency". Even if there was, it wouldn't know what to do anyway, because the industry is fragmented and ever-changing, so it would be useless even if it did exist. Most non-profit organisations set up to "help artists" honestly do fuck all. If you want to get your music distributed overseas you need to approach an international distributor with your product. You can either do this yourself, or you can attempt to get signed to a local label that has a relationship with such a distributor. Be aware though that nobody buys CDs on a whim anymore and that there's not much point getting international distribution if you're not also touring internationally, because those CDs simply won't sell. So investigate the viability of touring before you consider this step. Whether to focus on your local market or not depends on what music you're doing and if enough people care about it. If they do, go for it, if not then you might as well skip to the international step straight away. Plenty of Australian bands do this - if they specialise in styles that aren't popular locally, they go to Europe, Asia or the US as soon as they can, tour around, build a name and then come back here for holidays. If it's do-able somewhere as geographically isolated as Australia, then I think it should be doable in Israel too.
 

Ham_authority95

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Dec 8, 2009
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What other genres besides hip-hop have particularly vicious feuds?

And have you ever seen peoples' friends deliberately start fights in the crowd so that the band can say "Man, the crowds have been vicious!" for publicity?
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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0
Ham_authority95 said:
What other genres besides hip-hop have particularly vicious feuds?

And have you ever seen peoples' friends deliberately start fights in the crowd so that the band can say "Man, the crowds have been vicious!" for publicity?
First question - they all do, you just don't hear about it as much. The classical music world is always a hotbed of bitchiness and backstabbing, exacerbated by the fact that people are often forced to work with people they don't like grudgingly because of the sheer size of orchestras. Straight-edge and pro-drinking punk bands hate each other with a passion. Glam metal guys and death metal guys don't get along. Reggae guys have fueds like you wouldn't believe. And so it goes. You hear about it more with rap because rap is mainly in the US and those guys have seemingly ready access to guns, and also it's really commercially successful right now as well as the hot music for parents to vilify at the moment. Sure, there's Biggie and 2Pac but that was an exceptionally weird circumstance, remove that event and it's the same shit that goes down in every other scene. The music industry is a competitive place. I've heard it's really bad in the US with the punk scene on the east coast with bands carrying weapons and basically acting like glorified street gangs, however (if that's true) I think that says more about the culture of US then anything to do with the actual music. Where I live I know it's pretty laid back and I can only think of one "band A beat up band B" incident in the last fifteen years, and in that case the band that started the fight found themselves quickly banned from the scene and couldn't get a gig anywhere in the entire country, they pretty much destroyed their own careers by starting that shit.

Second question - no, never. I have however seen friends' bands bring a big rent-a-crowd of friends who all start moshing or circle-dancing or whatever, that's completely normal. But actual real violence, hurting other people deliberately? No way. If you want an audience to come and see your gig, getting people to beat them up probably isn't smart, yeah it'll get publicity perhaps (from the police) but what it won't get is your audience coming back. Fights happen so often in pubs that it would barely be newsworthy anyway, what shocks most people about the punk/metal/[insert your favourite extreme music style here] scene once they find out about it is that in actual fact very few fights happen at all compared with your average pub or club (and those few are usually started by outsiders who confuse moshing with real violence). The reason why is obvious - the music is like a safety valve that releases all that pent-up emotion, after you've been moshing for an hour or two you don't really have the energy or will to start actual fights with someone over some nonsense.
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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Ham_authority95 said:
How much do parties help anyone in the music industry, in terms of social networking?
Well, "industry functions" I tend to avoid unless there's free food, not because they're bad for business but just because I hate the self-congratulatory fuckfaces who inhabit that end of the business that likes to put on functions. Your more informal party that might be thrown by some guy who knows some guy in a band is more worthwhile, go to those. In fact, it's a bad idea to say no to parties or social outings in general. It's highly unlikely that a party will present a make-or-break opportunity in its own right, but it certainly can't hurt to get to know people a little bit better. If you can manage not to do anything truly retarded at such a gathering (like getting drunk and puking on yourself, starting fights, sexually harrassing people etc) then chances are you'll stand out amongst all the wastrels and people will think you're generally a good guy. That can't hurt.
 

Shivarage

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Apr 9, 2010
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You may have seen this coming but xD

Lady Gaga- Born This Way

Madonna- Express Yourself

I'm gonna have an educated (by you) guess and say the song is actually only very very very very VERY similar so it's not plaigerized

either that or it was Gaga's homage to her inspiration or something, am I right?
 

gyroscopeboy

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Nov 27, 2010
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BonsaiK said:
reg42 said:
How much is the industry effected by things like Autotune and other voice-altering software? A lot of people say it's just genres like RnB and industrial (although industrial often uses it for a different reason) which use it, and I was wondering whether that is the case, or if other genres have started using it.
Let me explain a bit here about how Autotune works and what it is for. Autotune, as we know, is a pitch-correction tool. It gets a pitch and moves it to the nearest musical note. The degree to which the note is moved can be adjusted. The robotic sound that people associate with Autotune is what results from turning that slider all the way up to 100%. The industry has a special term for this - "hard" Autotune. This is the type of Autotune that you hear on everything from T-Pain and Kayne West to Cher's "Believe", Lady GaGa, Skinny Puppy, Brokencyde, etc etc. However, you can be more subtle than that. A bad singer often won't miss the note by much, they'll often just be a teensy bit flat or sharp every so often. By using Autotune in a more subtle way, we can give those shitty singers a gentle push in the right direction, without stripping the "natural" sound out of their voice.

However, now Autotune has a reputation. When people hear hard Autotune now, they immediately get suspicious, and start thinking "gosh, I wonder if that person can sing". That's why very few singers who can't sing use hard Autotune, because they don't want people thinking that they can't sing! T-Pain can sing just fine without Autotune. So can Lady Gaga. The ones who can't sing are using "soft" Autotune, they're using it so softly that you can't even tell it's in there.

Oh, and all popular genres use it now.
A lot of studios are using Melodyne now, gives a whole lot more freedom in tweaking vocals :)

Also, i'm (some-what) in the Australian music industry too, which labels, etc. do you work for? (If thats not a taboo question) :)
 

gyroscopeboy

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Nov 27, 2010
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Ham_authority95 said:
What other genres besides hip-hop have particularly vicious feuds?
Black Metal for sure! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes
The singer of Burzum went and stabbed his Mayhem band member to death.
 

gyroscopeboy

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Nov 27, 2010
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BonsaiK said:
Ham_authority95 said:
Where would I go to negotiate with iTunes(or similar places) to sell my music online?
Er, if you want to go to iTunes, then you... go to iTunes (or wherever). Go to their website, follow the links provided for artists. The website will walk you through it. Some people I knew deal with an "agent" who handles all that stuff but to be honest it's no hard. If you're computer-savvy enough to use an Internet forum then iTunes won't provide a challenge.
I've found that without a distributor/label doing the asking, the folks at iTunes are notoriously hard to get a positive reply from.
 

Ham_authority95

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Dec 8, 2009
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gyroscopeboy said:
Ham_authority95 said:
What other genres besides hip-hop have particularly vicious feuds?
Swedish Black Metal for sure! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes
The singer of Burzum went and stabbed his Mayhem band member to death.
They're from Norway, not Sweden...
 

gyroscopeboy

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Nov 27, 2010
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Ham_authority95 said:
gyroscopeboy said:
Ham_authority95 said:
What other genres besides hip-hop have particularly vicious feuds?
Swedish Black Metal for sure! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes
The singer of Burzum went and stabbed his Mayhem band member to death.
They're from Norway, not Sweden...
Yeah probably should have re-read the article haha...im not a metal fan, i just remember that story. Fixed!
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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Shivarage said:
You may have seen this coming but xD

Lady Gaga- Born This Way

Madonna- Express Yourself

I'm gonna have an educated (by you) guess and say the song is actually only very very very very VERY similar so it's not plaigerized

either that or it was Gaga's homage to her inspiration or something, am I right?
Who knows. They sure do sound pretty similar, mainly because Gaga is pulling off some very traditionally Madonna-style vocal melodies and phrasing. I'd guess and say a homage, although I'd put Freddy Mercury above Madonna on the influences list for Lady Gaga. Apparently Madonna loves the song, so I guess mission accomplished if that's the case.
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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0
gyroscopeboy said:
A lot of studios are using Melodyne now, gives a whole lot more freedom in tweaking vocals :)

Also, i'm (some-what) in the Australian music industry too, which labels, etc. do you work for? (If thats not a taboo question) :)
Melodyne, whatever, I could have said "Auto-tune or Auto-tune-like products". I guess I'm using the word in the same spirit that people say "hoover" when they're going to vaccuum something.

No, I'm not going to answer your other question.
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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gyroscopeboy said:
BonsaiK said:
Ham_authority95 said:
Where would I go to negotiate with iTunes(or similar places) to sell my music online?
Er, if you want to go to iTunes, then you... go to iTunes (or wherever). Go to their website, follow the links provided for artists. The website will walk you through it. Some people I knew deal with an "agent" who handles all that stuff but to be honest it's no hard. If you're computer-savvy enough to use an Internet forum then iTunes won't provide a challenge.
I've found that without a distributor/label doing the asking, the folks at iTunes are notoriously hard to get a positive reply from.
I wouldn't know from personal experience as I've only ever dealt with them as part of a label, but I have unsigned friends who managed to get deals with iTunes just fine. Apparently it took a little while, but it wasn't by any means impossible.
 

BonsaiK

Music Industry Corporate Whore
Nov 14, 2007
5,635
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gyroscopeboy said:
Ham_authority95 said:
What other genres besides hip-hop have particularly vicious feuds?
Black Metal for sure! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes
The singer of Burzum went and stabbed his Mayhem band member to death.
Like the Biggie/2Pac example, that's just one very unusual isolated incident which isn't characteristic of how bands in that genre normally operate.
 

Shivarage

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Apr 9, 2010
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BonsaiK said:
Who knows. They sure do sound pretty similar, mainly because Gaga is pulling off some very traditionally Madonna-style vocal melodies and phrasing. I'd guess and say a homage, although I'd put Freddy Mercury above Madonna on the influences list for Lady Gaga. Apparently Madonna loves the song, so I guess mission accomplished if that's the case.
Yeah, if I were at the other side (created my legacy and financially secure), I couldn't care less who was plaigerising me, as long as it didn't suck and wasn't a direct copy

although, maybe Gaga earned Madonna's respect so she can pull that off without any legal problems... I dunno xP