Promo Stuff

[Leonard Smalls]

We recorded a 5 track 1/2 hour mini album, got our mate Jez from the Utah Saints to help us mix it. Then our guitarist's son produced short promo vids which we're doing the drip feed thing with on the various socials... We've set up streaming release dates, have contacted 30+ journos plus 6Music DJs, and may even stoop so low as to play a gig.

Anyone got any more ideas to guarantee some form of musical world domination?

We've done gigs in daft costumes, and none of us touch weed (or any other drugs barring a sneaky Mezcal), even though we're called Weeds (we're even so trendy we don't have a "The"!)

Here's the first promo vid to poke fun at, featuring Pierre, a Belgian performance artist:

 

 

[BigRedX]

I like that a lot!

 

What you need to do will depend on what you want out of the project.

 

If you are happy with simply lots of people listening to your music and don't need any real financial reward then short-form videos like the one above and streaming is the way to go. You'll need to get your tracks on popular playlists which will probably mean searching out ones where you think your music is a good fit and contacting the people who curate them and ask for a track of yours to be included. It's most effective if they are actively looking for new tracks to add.

 

Otherwise you are going to need to get out there and play gigs and have physical product available to sell at those gigs ideally in vinyl form, although TBH if you just want to make money you'll be better off producing an eye-catching T-shirt and sell those instead.

 

For both approaches, my experience is that unless you are very lucky you need to be doing lots of promotion otherwise it's just vanity publishing and no-one but your friends, family and few people on here will ever get to hear it. Even for bands that in the past have been popular I've found that the moment you stop promoting whether that's through playing live or being interesting and entertaining on-line the number of listeners you have will rapidly decrease. Once The Terrortones stopped gigging our sales of physical product and number of streams dropped off very rapidly. At our most popular we could have been out gigging every Friday and Saturday had the money and logistics been right (as it was we were playing at least 3 times a month) and we were selling serious amounts of T-shirts, CDs and vinyl both at gigs and on-line. These days it's down to a handful of streams each month and nothing else.

 

[Hellzero]

Sounds like funky cold wave, I like it a lot too!

[Skybone]

Maybe you should forward it to the folks at CrackedAnkles Records (home of Evil Blizzard). It sounds right up their street to me.

[Leonard Smalls]

Luckily, our singer was in the New FADs who seen to still have a manic following, including 6Music DJs, and our drummer was in the Utahs back when they were still a band.

So we're hoping for a bit of queue jumping and lots of airplay!

Not expecting much money, as we don't have any physical product.

Hoping for a couple of dancey festivals too...

[Iheartreverb]

In my experience the volume of promo has been as important as the it being the right kind.

look at bands at your level or the level you’d want to be at who are in a similar vain, who’s putting their stuff out? Who’s reviewing it?

 

With my last project I started out doing as you have but ended up zero’ing in on blogs/ feeds reviewing the type of music/ bands we were doing and had some good reviews (in niche circles) early on, despite having nothing to offer or show for ourselves.

The same with gigs, we developed relationships with people working with the sort of thing we were doing and played some pretty big supports early on, again within the niche of what we were doing. 
 

[Mykesbass]

11 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

 still have a manic following, including 6Music DJs, 

Very 6 Music friendly. They often pick tracks up through the BBC local radio "introducing" initiative, so, naff as they may seem, don't ignore BBC Radio Rutland or whichever is your local!

[BigRedX]

19 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

Luckily, our singer was in the New FADs who seen to still have a manic following, including 6Music DJs, and our drummer was in the Utahs back when they were still a band.

So we're hoping for a bit of queue jumping and lots of airplay!

Not expecting much money, as we don't have any physical product.

Hoping for a couple of dancey festivals too...

 

That will definitely get your foot in the door as regards getting noticed.

 

However it is my experience that you have more chance getting your music played on proper broadcast radio if it is available in a physical format as well as on-line, and in your case with having reasonably well-known people in the band might even work against you if there is no CD or vinyl version. People receiving notice of your album may well be asking themselves why a band with known musicians in it has only gone for an on-line release. There's only so many slots available for new bands on broadcast radio and unless they REALLY like your music they may well favour another artist who has enough faith in their music to pay to have a couple of hundred CDs or records pressed.

 

It is also my experience, now that everyone can make up their own minds about your music in seconds by checking you out on Spotify or some other streaming service, that reviews are of little value other than good ones being gratification for your egos. Certainly with my bands over the last 10 years no matter how good the reviews have been there is little reflection of this in immediate increased sales or streams. TBH these days there are very few bad reviews for new music. If the reviewers don't like you they simply ignore you. 

 

Edit: As regards money, if you have song writing credits on this you need to be a member of the PRS. Unless you decided to go for a physical release where the numbers are in the 1000s rather than 100s you are more likely to make money off the performance royalties than you are from sales of the album.

Edited yesterday at 14:43 by BigRedX

[Leonard Smalls]

8 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

artist who has enough faith in their music to pay to have a couple of hundred CDs or records pressed

Nowt to do with faith... The band were formed in Leeds, Yorkshire. And in the traditional Yorkshire way none of us have removed our wallets from our trousers since that fateful time in 1986!

[diskwave]

As we did all those yrs ago, buy an old coach, fix it up and get on the road, or am I living in the past with extremely rose tinted glasses. Probably.