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Suppose They Put on a Show and Nobody Came

Stagemom — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 01:01:45 +0000

Most of y’all probably aren’t old enough to remember, but back in the late 60s, one of the anti-war slogans went something like “suppose they put on a war and nobody came?” The idea was if everybody simply refused to cooperate with the draft, there was no way the powers that be could arrest everybody… if they tried to start a war and nobody showed up, that would be the end of war.

So what’s that got to do with music? Well, aside from the fact that there were some really crappy anti-war protest songs written at the time (grin)… Let’s turn it around a bit and ask: what if somebody tried to put on a show and nobody came?

Unfortunately, that happens a lot. Way too often.

A whole lotta empty seats

A performance venue near here put on a show last night. The artist was actually pretty well known. I’m not going to name either one of them to avoid embarrassing anybody. As it happens, the hall wasn’t even half full.

Why? The hall itself features many shows throughout the year, and many of them are sellouts or near sellouts. As I mentioned, the artist is well-known and her style of music is very popular in this area. So why didn’t more people show up for this performance?

You can’t control the whole world

I think there were two reasons. First, as it happens, last night was also the same night as the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. Lots of people who otherwise might have come to the show were probably at home, glued to their TV set. (Well, maybe not literally glued… but you know what I mean.) Unfortunately, this isn’t anything either the artist or the venue could have known about back many months ago when they were negotiating the show.

But, ya know, it may well happen at some point in your performing career that something “big” happens to come up on the same night as one of your shows. In fact, if you play out more than occasionally, it becomes a matter not so much of “if” as of “when.” So, when it happens, what are ya gonna do?

In my opinion, the best solution arises from the second of the two reasons why I think the show didn’t attract more of an audience.

And that reason can be summed up in one word: publicity. Or more accurately, the lack thereof.

Your audience isn’t psychic

This is a pet peeve of mine. So many artists sit back and wait for the venue to promote their show to the people in their location. Meanwhile, the venue expects the artist to be promoting their appearances to their fan base. The upshot is, nobody promotes anything to anybody.

And then they’re all astonished when nobody shows up.

Listen, you can’t count on the club or the hall to promote your show. In at least some cases, they booked you because they thought you would come with your own built-in “following.” But no matter what, I can guarantee you, they’re expecting you to bring in at least some kind of crowd.

In this case, the venue did do some promotion — actually, more than many do. They print up brochures every year, listing all the acts they’ve booked for the “season” and inviting people to either reserve season passes, or buy tickets for the individual shows they’re interested in seeing.

The problem is, the venue has to promote the brochure itself — get people to notice it, pick it up and read it — before the brochure can do its work of promoting the shows.

And they placed an article in the local newspaper a week before the show. Now, this isn’t all that hard, really… the local rag only comes out once a week and will basically print any press release sent to them by a local business. But at least they made the effort, so kudos to them. As I say, that’s more than a lot of venues would do.

Again, there’s a problem, though. This is a small town — a really small town — and the paper generally only gets read by a portion of the residents. Now, would it be reasonable to expect everyone who reads the paper to attend the show?

Of course not! But it’s hard to fill a hall when you only attract a small fraction of what started out as a relatively tiny pool of people to start with.

Tell ‘em all once, tell ‘em all again, then repeat

You need to cast your net wide. And like a good commercial fisherman, you need to cast your net over and over to maximize your chances of catching enough fish to make a living.

Don’t rely on one method of letting your fans know where you’re going to be. Make use of your newsletter, your blog, your MySpace page, press releases or interviews with local newspapers, posters in the windows of other local businesses (not just the venue where you’re going to be playing), local radio interviews, performances or interviews on local TV shows… brainstorm different ways of reaching out to potential attendees and make use of as many of them as you can.

Don’t assume some fans are “too far away” to travel and use that as an excuse to not tell them about some of your performances. I have traveled over 3,000 miles to see one of my favorite performers. Even if you don’t have those kinds of devoted fans now, one day you may well do. So give your current fans the opportunity to be true fans — tell all of them about all your shows.

Don’t limit the notification to your existing fans. While, if you’re lucky, some of your existing fans will bring friends — who may become “converts” — to the show, your fan base will grow much more quickly if you take the initiative to reach out to non-fans yourself. So make sure at least some of your marketing materials speak to your musical style… maybe compare yourself to other well-known artists or describe your style. People who like that kind of music just may be intrigued enough to come down to see you, even if they’ve never heard you before.

And don’t just tell them once. Keep reminding them. Don’t expect everyone to record the date on their calendars or PDAs the first time they hear about it.

If you’re lucky, the venue will promote your performance, too. The combination of the two could be impressive. And even if the venue doesn’t do much (or anything) to advertise your show, you’ll still have it covered with your own efforts. Either way, you’ve taken charge; your fate is at least partially in your own hands. You’re not just hanging around waiting for something to happen — you’re making things happen.

And isn’t that better than sitting around complaining because the venue “didn’t do enough” to bring in a crowd?

RIAA Tactics a “Failure”?

Stagemom — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:04:40 +0000

From the ThreatLevel blog over at Wired comes this story: File Sharing Lawsuits at a Crossroads, After Five Years of RIAA Litigation

Some interesting stuff in there that I didn’t know (and some that I did):

The RIAA has only won once in a jury trial, out of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lawsuits they’ve filed. And that verdict is set to be overturned and a mistrial declared, because the judge has decided in light of subsequent rulings that he committed a “manifest error” in his instructions to the jury.
Most people the RIAA threatens end up settling out of court. But the settlement money doesn’t go to the musicians whose rights the RIAA claims they’re “protecting” with this campaign of terror. Nope, it all goes to fund additional investigations and prosecutions. Shame on the RIAA!
Some lawyers are working on putting together a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA, accusing them of engaging in “sham litigation” tactics. (In other words, extortion.) According to one of the lawyers, the RIAA knows it costs more to hire a lawyer to fight the charges than to settle, so most people settle for a few thousand dollars rather than risk going up against the well-funded RIAA in court and potentially losing big. (In the one jury case they’ve won so far — the one that’s about to get sent back for a retrial — the judgment was for $222,000.)
The whole thing has been spectacularly ineffective in stemming the flood of shared music and video. And the RIAA’s own investigative tactics — as well as the legality of some of their accusations and actions — have come under scrutiny in several states.

I’ve written here previously about how forward-thinking artists like Trent Reznor and Radiohead have adapted to the changing times and figured out ways to make a profit without hauling their customers in to court. For years, independent musicians (that is, those without the backing of big labels and their teams of attack lawyers) have been figuring out new and innovative ways to connect with their fans, share their music with the world and still make a living.

The point is, the people who share music or video are often the biggest fans of music and video. Alienating them, accusing them of being criminals and threatening them with draconian penalties is not the way to treat your most loyal fans.

Even the RIAA admit their campaign isn’t doing anything to actually stop the tide of file sharing. They’re simply hoping they can scare enough people to slow things down a bit. But ya know? “Scaring people” isn’t necessarily the best way to win friends (or to make a living).

Why not find a new business model? I think it’s high time the big labels and their buddies in the RIAA join the rest of us in the 21st century.

So what do you think? Is the RIAA spitting into the wind, and it’s time they and the big labels got with the program? Or are they simply looking out for the legitimate interests of hard working musicians everywhere? Do the alternative business models of people like Reznor and Radiohead hold promise? Or are they special cases whose business model can’t be easily adopted by other independent artists?

Bargain Recording and Production — Maybe Not Such a Bargain

Stagemom — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:40:56 +0000

One thing we see in the recording studio fairly frequently: a new customer arrives with a few home-recorded tracks, and just want my husband to “clean them up at bit.” Just a little mixing and mastering, dontcha know. They think this is a fine way to save a bit of money on their recording project.

And depending on what kind of product you want to end up, it might be. The sad thing is, the clients often seem to think they’re going to walk away with a high end CD-quality result.

Listen, I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade, but your second-hand low-end Casio keyboard does not sound just like real strings or a real drum kit or, well, a real anything.

And even if you have high-end, expensive gear, this may not make your home recording idea any more viable. Remember: the key to high quality production isn’t the cost of the gear, it’s the experience and skill of the operator. A highly-trained woodworker could create beautiful heirloom furniture with nothing more than a hammer, a saw, a chisel, a screwdriver and maybe some sandpaper. In the hands of an inexperienced operator, thousands of dollars of high-end power tools may not make much more than a pile of expensive firewood.

Now, I’m not saying you have to book time with the top local music producer, hire expensive studio musicians and rent out the highest-end studio in town for every little project. What you need depends very much on what you want.

Your home-grown tracks may well be good enough if what you’re creating is a simple demo to help get you gigs at local nightspots. But if you want something a little more polished — say, a CD to sell at those gigs — well, the bottom line is you’ll get out of it what you put into it. You can’t start with crap input and expect professional quality output.

It’s okay to go with a bargain solution when your needs are simple. But if you’re looking for retail-ready or airplay-ready audio recording, don’t cheap out. Sure, you may save a few dollars on the front end, but you’ll never be happy with the final product.

Breaking in to the Music Biz

Stagemom — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:22:56 +0000

I recently got an inquiry from a reader. She said her sister and fiance were both very talented musicians and wanted to know “who to contact” to get them started with a career in the music business. I started to email her back, but realized the answer I was writing might be useful to more than just her, so I’m posting it here instead:

Sorry, I don’t have any magical formula or inside contacts to launch your sister and fiance to stardom. What I can tell you is what’s worked for several friends of mine who are now making their living writing, playing and recording music.

And that’s to play out. They’re never going to make a living as a performer unless they perform. So if they’re talented and interested in a music career, they need to get out and start booking gigs. Maybe they’ll have to start playing for tips at the local coffeeshop, or playing for a share of the door at a local club. But if they stick with it, learn about about marketing themselves, and develop performing chops, they can eventually move up to better-paying gigs.

Is it hard work? Yep. Does it take time? Usually. Is it the only way to become a successful musician? No, of course not. But it’s the best way to go in my opinion. There are loads of incredibly talented people out there, but the ones who make it are the ones who get out and hustle.

If you want to stay independent (which is probably the most lucrative and satisfying alternative these days), you need to build a fan base. And there’s no better way to do that than to get out there and start playing in front of some of those potential fans. If, on the other hand, you aspire to the “traditional” path of getting “discovered” by an A&R person from a big label, the best way to attract the attention of a label (and get them interested in the potential profit they could make by signing you) is by consistently generating buzz and selling out shows where ever you play. Honestly, I don’t know of anyone who’s been “discovered” while sitting around in their living room.

The second thing would be to not quit the day job, and save the money they make from playing out to pay for recording. If they don’t write their own songs, perhaps team up with a local songwriter or two so they’ve got some original music to record. If they’re going to record cover tunes, they’ll need to pay royalties in order to be able to legally release the recording, and they’ll need to bring something unique and fresh to the performance to make it worthwhile for others to listen and buy.

Getting people to come to your gigs to start with is great. But if they like your music and buy a CD or download a few MP3s, they’ll start marketing you without your having to do anything. They’ll talk about this great new artist they “discovered” and spread the word to their friends and family. Which can lead to bigger audiences, better venues and more CD and merchandise sales (which in the end means a bigger paycheck for you).

Once you’ve got some fans, you can offer for sale all kinds of things besides just CDs: autographed photos, T-shirts, limited-edition “premium” versions of your recordings, etc. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. You might want to read my article on making a living as a musician with 1,000 true fans and my take on Trent Reznor’s new model for music business success for some more ideas.

And it all starts with getting out of the house and playing gigs.

More Music News from the Online Front

Stagemom — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:05:23 +0000

In a pair of somewhat related stories, Radiohead won’t repeat their “name your own price download stunt” (or so they say), but meanwhile…

Metallica seems to be changing their minds about online music downloads.

It isn’t that the music download experiment wasn’t successful for Radiohead. It worked well for them, as it seems to have worked for other musical artists such as Trent Reznor and Prince. From what I can tell, it’s just a matter of “been there, done that” now — they want to move on to try something else new.

And given their history, when Metallica’s Lars Ulrich says, “We’ve been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor and in twenty-seven years or however long it takes for the next record, we’ll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the Internet,” that’s just about as radical a change in attitude as I’ve seen recently.

The point is, no matter what Radiohead, Metallica and other forward-thinking artists do next, the Internet is going to figure in their marketing and sales plans. The online world offers unprecedented opportunities to connect with your fans and get your music in their hands. The trick is to figure out a business model that works for you and for them.

So, what sort of out-of-the-box ideas can you come up with to use the power of the Internet to get closer with your fans and make a living from your music?

Do You Really Need a Producer?

Stagemom — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:16:23 +0000

One of my favorite musicians, James Lee Stanley, has a great journal I highly recommend to any performers who want to take their gigging, audio recording and CD sales to a higher level.

Awhile back, he offered a series of article on music production. James has self-produced most of his albums (he’s recorded over 20 CDs). But does he recommend self-producing for others?

Well, according to James, if you have four things in place, you can consider producing yourself. And what are those four things?

The ability to listen to yourself critically. Does it work? If not, do it again, as many times as necessary.
Distance from the project. You know how hard it is to proofread something you wrote yourself? You tend to read what you meant to write, not what’s actually on the page, so you can easily overlook typos and grammatical errors. But when you come back a day or two later, they stand out like a sore thumb. Same thing with your music — do what you need to do to ensure you hear what’s actually there, not simply what you intended to record.
The willingness to cut something from the project if the first two points above reveal to you it doesn’t belong. No matter how much you like the song, no matter how cool the effect sounds, no matter whether the vocalist is your best buddy… if it doesn’t work, it has to go. You have to be ruthless.
A trusted adviser. This could be a friend, your significant other, your recording engineer, etc. No matter how critical, distant and ruthless you are, it’s still helpful to have another set of &lquo;outside” ears to listen and critique. The trick is, they have to be willing (and able) to be honest — if necessary, brutally honest. And you have to be willing (and able) accept their honesty. If they’re going to tell you it sounds good (even when it doesn’t) just to avoid hurting your feelings or starting an argument, they’re not going to be much good to you.

If, after considering it, you decide you might be better off with an outside producer, James has some excellent tips for finding a good producer without spending a fortune.

Getting Social With Your Fans

Stagemom — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:40:43 +0000

In my last post, I asked the question: Can you get by with only 1,000 fans? As it happens, according to Kevin Kelly, the answer is “yes!” If they’re True Fans, that is.

This time, I’d like to take a closer look at specific techniques and tactics you can use to reach those 1,000 True Fans.

Over on The Future Buzz, Adam Singer has written an awesome post just chock full of tips and ideas for how to tap into social media and user-generated content to build your fan base. It’s a little long, but well worth the read. Don’t just skim this one, as there are hidden gems lurking in almost every paragraph. Here are a few highlights:

Don’t Do These Things

Number one rule, don’t be a dick.

In other words, don’t spam. Don’t relentlessly talk only about yourself everywhere you go in the social space. Most of all, don’t just do the same old tired things everybody else is doing. Adam compares it to shouting in a noisy, overcrowded room — the rest of the noise will drown out what you have to say.

Think (and Act) Different

Step One: Take Care of the Basics

Instead, learn the right way to “pitch” bloggers. Track what others are saying about you online, and be sure to thank them when they say something nice. Set up (non spammy) profiles and play nicely on the social networking and social bookmarking sites. Create (and use) an email address database to keep in touch with your fans.

The goal is to make sure you’re easy to find online. When you go on to step two (Viral Marketing), you want to be sure you’ve already got all your ducks in a row. It’s like throwing a party — you want to make sure the house is tidied up and the party food is set out before your first guests start arriving.

Step Two: Go Viral

Adam has some great ideas for viral marketing techniques that have the potential to work well for creative artistic people.

Create fresh, unique and compelling content and submit to social bookmarking sites (or social networking news sites, as he calls them). Excellent advice: take the time to look around these sites and see what the “citizens” of these communities like before you go charging in there submitting your stuff right and left.
Create your own music videos and submit them to YouTube and elsewhere.
Can’t get signed to a label? Create your own. Distribute your own music.
Team up with other creative people to get more exposure for your music.
Give something away.

The point is, the current online environment offers tremendous opportunities for dedicated, talented, passionate musicians to interact with their fans in ways the old models never allowed. The potential is great. Will you take advantage of it?

Can You Get By With 1,000 True Fans?

Stagemom — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:47:41 +0000

Came across a couple of interesting articles recently.

The first, by Kevin Kelly, is entitled 1,000 True Fans. In a nutshell, the idea is if you can cultivate a relatively modest number of “True Fans” you can make a comfortable living in music (or any form of the arts) without ever having to hit the Big Time — which, let’s face it, doesn’t happen for too many people.

Kevin makes it clear there’s nothing magic about the number 1,000 — you might be able to make it with as few as 500, or it might take 1,500 (or even a few more).

But the point is, you don’t need to try to attract millions, or even tens of thousands, of fans. The kinds of numbers he’s talking about are very do-able.

The key is, these have to be True Fans. Not casual fans who will download a track or two, maybe buy a CD, and put you out of their minds. No, to quote the article, True Fans are different:

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

And it’s not just about putting stuff out and waiting for these True Fans to snap it up. You have to work the crowd. Be willing to get down in there and interact directly with these fans. It’s all about building relationships with these fans.

If you’re not willing or able for some reason to do that, you need to have someone else — a manager, a fan club president, a publicist, etc. — who will handle the direct interaction and nurture the fan relationships.

There are some comments on this article from doubters. People who don’t think it’s possible to make a living with only 1,000 (or fewer) fans. Frankly, it looks to me as though most of them are missing the point. They’re writing off the idea without even trying it. They aren’t thinking in terms of True Fans. Yeah, for sure you won’t be able to make it with only that many casual fans, but True Fans? Oh, yeah.

Look, for a long time, I was a True Fan of a musician. I literally traveled thousands of miles a year to see him perform all across the country. I bought every solo CD he released, T-shirts, posters, promo photos and every CD released by his bands (past and present). I scoured eBay for out of print releases on vinyl and various bits of memorabilia. I even designed, maintained and SEO’d his band’s website, managed fan e-mail and handled online publicity requests on his behalf — for free.

Between what I bought from him and the value of the services I provided at no charge, I made (and saved) him thousands of dollars a year.

Now, imagine that extended by 999 other True Fans. Imagine this small army buying your CDs and merchandise, bringing their friends to your shows and encouraging those friends to buy CDs and merchandise. Imagine them bugging the booking agents at local venues to book your show, starting fansites and fan blogs on the web, and writing glowing reviews of your music on CDBaby, MySpace and anywhere else they can find to post them.

Oh, yeah, 1,000 True Fans could very well be just enough.

(Next time: some ideas for how to connect with these fans online)

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Stagemom — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:19:23 +0000

In the words of Dave Barry, I swear I’m not making this up.

Ladies and gentlemen of the band and orchestra, I give you the VIBRASS.

From the sales pitch:

VIBRASS is a completely new device for massaging the lips and facial muscles. A vibrating mouthpiece gently massages the lips increasing the blood circulation. VIBRASS helps to relax and regenerate the embouchure after a concert or practising. Tired and aching lips are no longer a problem.

So, for all you brass and double reed players, if you’ve got issues with a tired and aching embouchure, relief is at hand (or at lips, as the case may be).

Hat tip to Dave Barry’s Blog for bringing this “Musical Product of the Millennium” to Mom’s attention!

No related posts.

A New Model for Success

Stagemom — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:17:39 +0000

The mainstream media is abuzz with the news of Nine Inch Nails’ latest experiment in building a new business model for musicians. Following on the heels of Radiohead’s efforts last year, this represents an exciting and invigorating new direction for the industry — and, most interestingly, one bypasses major labels and their traditional distribution channels.

The industry has been trying to argue for some time now that music sharing “steals money from artists.” They’ve used scare tactics to try to convince musicians that music sharing will leave them all penniless on the street, with hand-lettered cardboard placards reading “will compose for food” propped up against their tattered guitar cases.

Now, in my opinion, those arguments are pure hokum. And these latest moves by Trent and Radiohead simply confirm what I’m thinking. Music sharing and the big bad Internet thingie may have an adverse effect on the income of record company executives, but it seems to me all the changes of the past few years are actually terrifically empowering for musicians.

Now that music can be easily copied and distributed electronically, the old business model is unworkable. And it’s too late to go back. The genie is out of the bottle. Instead of trying to shove the old rules into the new model, it’s time for people to start thinking of some new rules. Which is exactly what Trent and Radiohead have done.

That’s probably why the whole thing has “the industry” in such an uproar.

Seems to me the Grateful Dead did okay while allowing (or more accurately, actively encouraging!) their fans to make and share bootleg recordings on a massive scale. So I’m pretty sure music sharing is not the problem, at least not in terms of depriving musicians of the ability to make a living.

The real problem — as I see it — is a fundamental flaw in the system the way it’s been set up, with virtually all the cards in the hands of the labels and virtually none in the hands of the artists or the fans.

And I think another big part of the problem is, the labels have for years convinced everyone the music is the product. In my opinion, it isn’t. If that were the case, there would be no real reason to attend live concerts — it’s a lot easier, it’s a lot cheaper, and you get better fidelity and production by listening to a studio recording.

No, I think the product is the artist, and the experience of interacting with other fans. That’s why people endure standing in line for hours in the hot sun or freezing cold to score tickets to hot shows. That’s why they’ll sleep out on the sidewalk to be first in line for a “general admission” show so they can get the best seats. That’s why Deadheads would spend all their disposable income attending concerts around the country even though they already knew every song by heart and probably had several hundred (thousand?) bootleg concert recordings already. That’s why one of the first things fans do when they get their new car is put stickers advertising their favorite band on the back, why they join fan mailing lists and clubs, and why they use their favorite band’s logo as their forum avatar.

The way I see it, basic music tracks are becoming like ebooks or whitepapers in the corporate marketing world — marketing tools you use as teasers. Put them out there free or at very low cost, with a goal — not to make money directly from selling the ebook or the whitepaper (or the music track) — but to use the teaser to capture people’s interest, so they come back to you for “the good stuff.”

And by “the good stuff” I mean tickets to your concerts, tour T-shirts, programs and schwag, limited-edition colored-vinyl albums, paid fan club membership, holographic posters autographed by the band, access to special invitation-only live chats with the artist to discuss the making of the album, etc.

In other words, the kinds of things fans will pay good money for that are pretty hard to duplicate and “share” online (or offline, for that matter).

The really cool part is many of these “premium products” are well within the reach of the average artist to offer their fans. No major label backing required. Screws the labels’ business model a bit, but they’ve been screwing the artists and the fans for decades.

Karma’s a bitch sometimes.