Archive | January, 2011

31 January 2011

Squats with live music in Berlin – Koepi 137

To begin our series on squat venues in Berlin we’re starting with one of the best known places for underground music, the legendary Koepi 137. Koepi 137 is home to over fifty people, and its venue space, Koma F, is a leading punk rock venue. It is housed in an apartment building slightly more than [...]

28 January 2011

How to get the most from an interview

It’s great when you’re approached to do an interview by a blog, magazine, radio or even TV. It’s another thing to do an interview that people remember and gets people listening to your music. Professional PR people spend serious time briefing clients on what to say in interviews and you can use some of these [...]

25 January 2011

How long will it take to be build an audience?

One thing we’ve been asked a lot recently is how long will it take to build a fan base. Will it be weeks, months or years? Why do other bands seem to get big much faster? Ariel Hyatt (the online publicist) recently said she thought it would take about 7 years for a band to [...]

22 January 2011

14 day festival to support Liebig 14 in Berlin

Founded in 1990, shortly after re-unification, Liebig14 is one of Berlin’s oldest established squats. As a quick glance at the ‘Chronology’ page on their website will show, their history as a home and venue has been one of continuous legal uncertainty and negotiation with various landlords: the current property owner, Suitbert Beulker, has secured an [...]

21 January 2011

Twitter for musicians part 2

In the second part of our post on the benefits of using Twitter we look at some ideas for more experienced users. Manage your time. Twitter isn’t your marketing campaign, its just part of it. If you spend all day on Twitter you won’t have anything interesting to tell people about, go out into the [...]

18 January 2011

Twitter for musicians part 1

Twitter is one of the best tools to connect with your audience, if you are prepared to put the time in. If you look at ten different musician’s Twitter feeds you will most likely see ten different ways of presenting yourself on Twitter. There are no strict right and wrongs, the most important thing is [...]

14 January 2011

How to get a (better) record deal part 2

In the second part of this post on signing a record deal we look at what you should ask the label before signing. A few things to consider: Will your band be a priority for the label or not? What happens if the label decides not to release the album, who owns it then? How [...]

11 January 2011

How to get a (better) record deal – part 1

Although it is possible to do really well completely independently some people still want a record deal, some see it as a form of validation. Some artists only want to concentrate on the music and let the label handle the business (although I’d argue that its easier to concentrate on the music if you have [...]