Archive | August, 2011

31 August 2011

20 ways to get more gigs for your band (part 1)

When you talk to musicians they all seem to ask one question, how do you get gigs? It is relatively easy to get bad gigs (pay to play etc) but getting decent gigs is still tough. It is hard pushing yourself without a booking agent but the only way to build your team (management/booking agent/PR [...]

25 August 2011

12 low cost promotional ideas for musicians

Times are hard for everyone at the moment, especially musicians. Unfortunately you can spend a lot of time signing up for free promotional sites online that will do nothing to raise their profile. Your time is limited, as are your funds so you need to focus on the free and low cost promotional opportunities that [...]

23 August 2011

10 lessons DIY musicians can learn from Radiohead

Being an innovator in the music industry is never easy, but Radiohead have managed it both musically and in terms of their engagement with fans and labels. When the band started in the mid 80′s there was no Youtube, no Live Unsigned to post gigs on and no Twitter. Now you can do most of the [...]

19 August 2011

How to get the most out of your band practice

Rehearsing can be frustrating when all you want to do is be up in front of an audience and getting out there and doing it for real. What happens on stage is directly related to what happens in the rehearsal room. Get it right here and you will have more chance of building a fan [...]

16 August 2011

How do DIY musicians create viral videos?

When we think of viral videos we often think of cute cats, the Star Wars kid and free hugs. They are also an incredibly useful tool for DIY musicians to connect with a large audience. However it’s not easy to make a viral video happen, if it was everyone would be doing it. You can’t [...]

12 August 2011

How to promote your music using online forums

Online forums aren’t cool and they are not the most obvious place to promote your music. You are probably better off focusing on social media, blogs and listings on Live Unsigned initially. But Forums do have some things going for them, they are where the really keen, evangelical fans hang out. The super fans. The fans [...]

09 August 2011

A standard letter for bands to send to promoters

Getting gigs can often be a very competitive business, everyone wants the best slots. Often bands struggle to know what to say when approaching promoters via email to get the first few gigs. This is our guide to putting together a very basic, to the point, generic email to send to promoters to get you playing [...]

05 August 2011

Google plus for musicians

Google Plus is Google’s latest attempt at a social network. It is like a stripped down Facebook or like Twitter if you could use more than 140 characters, with a few cool additional features. You can post links, photos and videos as you can on most networks but you can also filter people you are [...]

03 August 2011

How to organise your first national tour – part 3

In the final part of this post we look at street teams, budgeting, merchandising and avoiding strained relationships on the road. Here are some more things that you need to bear in mind: Build relationships - Don’t be late or annoy promoters or behave like an egotistical rock star. In the early stages of your touring [...]