"Have fun, make art."

Art For Art’s Sake

The constant talk of the need to monetise music is somewhat confusing to me. Just because you make art, doesn’t mean that you deserve to make money out of it.

art –noun

1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. (Dictionary.com)

Re-read that again then just for yourself “… what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance”. That’s what should be both the motivation and the payoff for musicians, to make something beautiful and significant.

Whats more, great art is rarely spawned by the singular desire to make money. (I’m sure many would argue that the two things are mutually exclusive) why did Bowie make “Changes”? Why did Lennon and McCartney write “A Day In The Life”? For me, if you want to make money, become an accountant. If you want to make art and make music, then get on with it. Making art is not the precursor to making money from your art (if you make an axe, it doesn’t mean someone should by rights buy that axe from you).

Do you make and perform music? Why did you start to play? Why did you join a band or do your first performance? Think back, what was your motivation?

For me, I can trace my lineage directly back to seeing my Dad playing rock ‘n’ roll to friends and strangers at locked door/closed curtains drinking sessions held outside of licensed pub hours. He performing for the entertainment of others, for no charge. His payment; the lit up faces and smiles of people sharing in the experience. In essence, my Dad is a Fun-Pusher.

This is why I’m proud to say, “I’m in Hope and Social, and I sell fun“. Now while it may not be the trendiest or coolest product (it’s not sex, it’s not good looks, the right hair or skinny jeans), it is a currency all of our own. We have our own particular brand of fun – it involves fans and new friends alike, and it goes with us to every show. We create an experience and something different happens at each and every show. What’s more, unlike a CD/a record/an mp3, it’s not copyable; you can’t put it on a disc or a hard-drive and play it on your mp3 player.

Why we don’t deserve to earn from music

Firstly, your art may not be to the liking of many people; hell, it could be rubbish. Furthermore, people may not want to give their money to you. That’s right, people may be making their decisions based not on how good your stuff/product/music/package is, but on how much they want you to have their money. There are many and varied reasons why people may choose not to buy your wares, what we can do however is give people good reasons to buy (On a similar subject and for some further reading, here’s a great post by John Sheldrick on Music Think Tank about the many reasons Why You Should Pay For Music).

While I don’t think anyone deserves to make money from their music by right, I do believe that artists deserve the opportunity to make their music making sustainable, and then hopefully profitable. Part of that is minimising costs; making sure it’s not costing you to say put on a show , or perhaps press your CDs, taking advantage of social media, digital distribution and the new, free ways of connecting with people. This is why I urge people daily to sell their music as a PayWhatYouWant download (and physical CD if you’ve got the stones to do so). PWYW gives people the opportunity to not only pay what they want, but also who they want. It is with this in mind that musicians need to push forward now, with a desire to make art, to do great things and to move people to want to part with their money, and put it into your bank account.

So, Why Make Music? Why Make Art?

I am driven to make music, I’m in part defined by it. I must do this, I cannot function without music being a central and vital part of my life. If you don’t feel that way, then maybe its’ worth thinking about other ways of making your living? Music is such a powerful and attractive force that non-musicians also seek to work in music; PR’s for example will work, often for far less money than they would in say retail PR just because they want top work in music, the same must surely go double for the musician.

I remember when I first started writing music, it was my hope that one day someone would come up to me and tell me that something I’d made had moved them, in the same way that music has moved me. If someone tells you that your music is the soundtrack to their getting ready for a Friday night, that it helped them through a difficult time, or that it’s inspired them to make art, then there’s your musician’s wage right there. I believe, should be the pre-cursor to your musical career; this has to be the drive that makes you write, rehearse and perform.

The “hopefully inspirational”, but probably actually just a little bit self congratulatory bit

Through PWYW, through special events and through peddling fun like I saw my Dad do for free twenty years ago I’m now in the band I’ve always wanted to be in. Hope and Social have grown into an old-style, good-time show band. Like a Yorkshire E-Street Band, we’re a spectacle, an event. We’re certainly not just a gig (though if that was the case, we’d be a damn good gig). What we do is economically sustainable, it pays for itself and sometimes a bit extra for us all to live on, but mostly, it is the reward in itself. Furthermore, by adopting and embracing new opportunities to connect and share with people, we’re now at a point when we’re far more viable than anytime when we’ve invested thousands of pounds on advertising, PR, pluggers. Sustainability first, then profitability.

Just as important as taking advantage of all the new opportunities we have today though, let’s not waste our lives, time and energy complaining that everyone gets their music for free and start giving people damn good reasons to put their money where your singer’s mouth is.

...or maybe you just need to guess the talent buyer's favorite color.

Most new bands approach the first part of their careers like this: We need to find an audience, but in order to find an audience we have to play shows. If we want to play shows we have to get a talent buyer to book us, but talent buyers are going to want to know we can draw an audience before they’ll ever consider letting us play. It’s a frustrating catch-22.

Thankfully, it’s also not the only (or even the best) route to finding your first audience or building your initial fan base. It just means that you’re going to have to go around the gatekeepers and find fans somewhere else.

I’ve put together a list of three somewhat unorthodox suggestions to help you break free of the catch-22 and think outside the venue. Each of these three activities is designed to help you find an audience when no talent buyer in town will let you play.

1. Play to the line.

This first idea comes from Martin Atkins. You may not be welcome to play inside, but they can’t stop you from playing outside, can they? Keep track of when big acts come into town. Make sure you’re there and bring something to play. Perform for the line outside the door.

Think about it – they’ve come for music and here they are just waiting outside with nothing to do. So, give them something to listen to! Put up a sign with your band name and pass out demos for free. Give away bottled water if it’s hot, or hot chocolate or cider if it’s cold. Bring someone along to walk around with a clipboard to take down names and email addresses in exchange for buttons or even the demos.

2. Host a living room show.

Leverage the resources and connections that you already have. You have friends, right? Well, invite them all over to your flat and tell them each to bring a friend of their own. Put on an awesome show and hang out afterward to connect and find out who enjoyed your music.

Take down names and email address and network to see if anyone might have an in with a more established band or even a venue. At the very least you’ve built a solid list of people you can count on when you approach that talent buyer next time.

3. Target local listeners online.

I talked about the various online tools available to bands for uncovering potential fans in a recent post. If you are really starting from scratch I would suggest using these online tools first to drill down into your local scene. The line outside the show of an established band in your genre is all but guaranteed to contain people likely to enjoy your own music. In the same way, targeting an established band’s fans online will greatly increase your chances of finding new listeners.

Once you figure out where to find potential listeners you need to initiate a conversation. Notice that I didn’t say that you need to send them messages that say “Check out my MySpace page!” or “Listen to our new album for free!” Those messages are completely unnatural and you’d be better off trying to sell them a vacuum cleaner. A real conversation starts with a simple introduction. You both live in the same city or region (because that’s who you’re targeting right now.) So right away you have something in common. Sending someone a free track will be much more meaningful after it has been established that you are a human being rather than an automated account or a marketing intern.

These online connections can be leveraged in several ways in landing that elusive fist gig. Crowd-source them – find out who would come out if you had a show, and where they like to see bands play the most. Offer an incentive if they commit to coming – a free piece of merch or an exclusive track that only the members of your network who show up will get. If you are really successful in connecting with a decent number of people on Twitter, MySpace or Facebook consider forming a ‘petition’ that includes your new fans’ names and email addresses. I would imagine that your friendly neighborhood talent buyers would be much more receptive to you with something like that in their hands.

No Excuses

The most important concept that I want to get across is that the only person who can hold you back from launching your career is yourself. Booking agents, talent buyers, club owners – none of these people owe you anything. They are never going to care as much about what you are doing as you do, and you shouldn’t expect them to. If one of these gatekeepers is standing in your way there is no reason why you shouldn’t simply find a way to go around them. Independent artists live and die on their ability to find creative solutions for difficult problems. So get creative.

I’ve given three simple suggestions but I’m sure there are artists who have done many crazier things to get their gigging off the ground. What have you found to be successful? What have you tried that has failed miserably? Let me know.

Living room photo by raisin.detre.

A goal is only as good as the strategy put in place to reach it. In my previous post I talked about Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans concept, and expanded it a bit to include the three other groups that make up an artist’s fan base: active, passive and potential fans.

This model may not be perfect, but I think defining these sub-groups is helpful because it allows an artist to have a different approach for each different kind of fan.

I’ve put together a series of posts with some practical tips intended to get you started in finding fans and moving them up through the pyramid. The goal of course is to cultivate as many true fans as possible so that you can eventually quite that day job (if you haven’t already) and develop a self-sustaining career in music. This first post deals with finding and evangelizing potential fans.

This series is just intended to get you started and is by no means comprehensive. Hopefully you’ll have some additional ideas – please feel free to share them in the comments section.

Start Local

The hardest part of building a fan base is often finding an audience in the first place. The best place to start looking is in your hometown. You don’t have to travel, which means you have little to no expenses. You probably have a decent idea of where bands play and what kinds of bands play there.

You also have the added benefit of a community that wants to get behind you. Everybody wants their city to have a thriving music scene. Sure, if you live in New York or LA you might find that nobody cares whether your band lives or dies. But in the rest of the country most people want to support their local bands.

Here in Chicago I met recently with Mike Sosin who manages a talented local artist named Dick Prall. We spent much of that meeting talking about ways we could have a positive effect on the local scene. I can think of so many others – Erik Peterson of Plugo.la, for example. Supporting local artists is his business. There are people in your community who want you to succeed. Find them and you will have an incredible resource at your disposal.

If you can get to the point where you can consistently sell 300 tickets in your city then chances are you’ve got a strong enough base to begin exploring the surrounding region. Find bands that are selling those same 300 tickets in neighboring cities and ask them to gig swap. You open for them in their city, they open for you in your city. You expand your reach and build your network in the process.

Utilize Online Tools

Beyond conquering your local scene you also have access to the entire world online. The internet has made it easier than ever to target the potential fans at the bottom of the pyramid. People wear their musical tastes like a badge of honor online. If you find people who listen to music similar to your own you’ve got a great place to start making inroads.

Search Twitter, join relevant Facebook groups. Set up Google alerts  and TweetBeeps for not only your band name but the names of your influences as well. Figure out where these people are and go after them. Send them free tracks and if enough respond from one particular place, make sure you can set up a show nearby to invite them to.

Martin Atkins, author of Tour:Smart, calls this ‘pouring gasoline on sparks.’ Find out where the sparks are and begin penetrating that city, or that region until you’ve turned those sparks into a bonfire.

Live Performance is Key

Notice that both of these examples revolve around live performances. Yes, you can distribute your music online and acquire new listeners and potential fans that way. And you should – maybe it will cause a few sparks to spring up in unexpected places. But the live performance is where the connection happens. Potential fans become actual fans at the show.

Where these tips helpful? As I said in the beginning this post is in no way designed to be comprehensive. It’s still very much a work in progress. What have you been doing to find and evangelize new fans? What has worked, and what hasn’t? Share the wealth in the comments section – you never know who might benefit.

Time for our recap of what went on in the music industry this week. Make sure to check out anything you might have missed and leave your comments. Of course our coverage of music news is by no means exhaustive, so if you know something we don’t submit a story.

Most Popular:

• Imogen Heap shows us that DIY pays off – and takes a lot of work – Taking an objective look at what some are calling the ‘new music business model.’
• What the music industry and the credit crisis have in common – Greed is greed.

This Week:

• What makes a great live performance? – Guest post by Andrew McMillen.
• New Music Releases: August 18th 2009 – New music by Temper Trap, Cave Singers, and Choir of Young Believers.
• What will it take to unite artist, industry and fan? – An editorial on the future of the music business.
• Imogen Heap update, plus full streaming of new album – Check out free streaming of Imogen’s new album Ellipse.

Other News:

• MySpace buys iLike for $20 million
• iTunes captures 25% of all music sales, 69% of downloads

Music Video Picks:

No new videos this week. Check out the archives.

This Week in Music History:

1963 - Stevie Wonder became the first artist ever to score a US No.1 album and single in the same week. Wonder was at No.1 on the album chart with ‘Little Stevie Wonder / The 12 Year Old Genius’ and had the No.1 single ‘Fingertips part 2′. This was also the first ever live recording to make No.1. (This Day in Music.com)

Australian electronic pop artist Hunz

This is a guest post by Andrew McMillen, a music writer based in Brisbane, Australia. Andrew is coordinating blog content for an Australian music event, One Movement For Music, which debuts in October 2009. The blog at OneMovementWord.com contains interviews with artists and speakers appearing at the event, Australian music news, as well as guest posts exchanged with the likes of Creative Deconstruction’s Refe Tuma.

For both music fan and critic, the most exciting live music experience is the great unknown. Bearing witness to an act you’d not previously heard, but becoming completely immersed in their art. Becoming an instant convert to their cause. Becoming willing to hit the merch desk immediately after they’re done playing in order to buy something – anything! – that the band have created; to have, to hold, and to listen. Those are the kinds of performances that music critics such as myself love to write about; they’re also the kinds of performances that A&R folk spend their careers trying to witness, in order to sign and release the act’s music on behalf of their label.

I’ve been a live music critic since June 2007. Two ‘great unknown’ performances stick in my mind. The first was in September 2008. I was reviewing an industry showcase event for the Brisbane-based Big Sound music conference. Four bands each had thirty minutes each to show their wares and attempt to build rapport with a crowd largely comprised of wary industry vets and conference delegates. Second on the bill were Melbourne band The Temper Trap, of whom I had no concept. Their first couple of songs were enjoyable, if unremarkable. Then they played the track ‘Sweet Disposition’, which is embedded below.

The singer’s high vocal range elicited the kind of spinal shivers you can’t manufacture, and the beauty of the chorus hook brought tears to my eyes. Four minutes later, my accomplice and I traded incredulous, “what-the-fuck-just-happened?” looks. One of the most passionate, astonishing and affecting single performances we’d ever seen, is what. I wrote:

“Witnessing support bands unexpectedly and effortlessly capture the complete attention of an audience is always a joy to behold; the thirty-minute set that unfolds before me is a stellar example of this phenomenon. The Temper Trap’s brilliant pop contains all of the expected ingredients, but with the added spice of Dougy’s incredible voice. The performance of new single Sweet Disposition is one of the most moving, inspiring events I’ve witnessed this year. Outstanding.” – Andrew McMillen, Rave Magazine, September 2008

No surprises, then, that The Temper Trap used the resultant industry interest to sign a record deal, tour the world and release their debut album to wide acclaim. In a Japanese hostel in June 2009, I saw the video for their track ‘Science Of Fear‘ on MTV, and smiled at the progress the band had made in nine months. This is the kind of rare success story – predicated on pure passion and talent – that unites music fans, music critics and industry professionals.

My second example is less impressive in market reach, but closer to my heart. In November 2008, I accepted an assignment from my editor to review a couple of local bands on a rainy Thursday night. With a different friend in a tow, and little more than a hope that the bands would be entertaining enough to fulfil our craving for live music – and the necessity to describe the proceedings in 200 words – we were witness to a similarly inspirational performance.

The second band were an electronic pop trio called Hunz [pictured top], of whom I was vaguely aware, based on the animated YouTube short that a workmate had shown me months earlier. My friend and I stood close to stage, among a few dozen of the seemingly equally-ignorant. Before long, we were spellbound by their skillful contrast of dark electronic sounds against uplifting pop melodies. I was one of several to buy the band’s CD from the singer/keyboardist at set’s end, and thanked him for the performance. I wrote:

“Hunz augments electronic samples with his unique voice and live drum and bass to produce an enchanting sound. Why haven’t we heard him earlier? Blame ineffective promotion, blame infrequent performances; it doesn’t matter, as there’s several dozen new fans appreciating the trio’s thoughtful, restrained pieces. The frontman graciously accepts our hastily-spent cash in exchange for his remarkable debut, When Victims Fight.” – Andrew McMillen, Rave Magazine, November 2008

That particular musical discovery stuck with me for months. Hunz’s album was never far from my Winamp playlist or iPod scroll-wheel. I shared their music far and wide; months later, I met the man behind the band, singer/keyboardist Hans van Vliet (a.k.a. Hunz). Our mutual appreciation – from humble musician, to music critic and passionate fan – forged a friendship that soon led to an offer to become the band’s manager; a role I continue to inhabit and cherish. View an animated YouTube clip below to get an idea of the band’s sound; visit Hunz’s Bandcamp page to download some tracks for free.

These two examples are atypical of most live performances I see. While I can eke enjoyment out of the vast majority of shows I attend, my housemates could attest to the regularity with which I arrive home and state a show was merely “okay” or “good”. The reality, though, is that “good” isn’t good enough; “good” means I probably didn’t buy your CD after the show, and that your act probably won’t win their way into my playlist.

I often read about how there’s more music being played and listened to by more people than ever before, and how the live show is where artists traditionally earn the most coin. Since the role of the music critic – in my mind – is to sort the gold from the pyrite, it’s vital for touring artists to develop an engaging, memorable show that’ll convince guys like me to champion bands like yours. When I review live music, I want to rave about bands I love, instead of painstakingly pinpointing my disappointment. As both critic and fan, I want to be excited and inspired, not bored and unimpressed.

Written by Andrew McMillen for OneMovementWord.com.

Andrew [pictured left] writes regularly for The Music Network (a weekly Australian music industry magazine), Mess+Noise (an Australian music site), Rave Magazine (a weekly Brisbane street press), and his blog.

Contact Andrew via email or Twitter.

It’s time again for our recap of what went on in the music industry this week. Make sure to check out anything you might have missed and leave your comments. Know something we don’t? Submit a story.

Most Popular:

How to create a release strategy for the new music marketplace - Capitalize on the new ways fans are consuming music.

Why the music industry still needs taste makers - Sometimes recommendation engines just don’t cut it.

This Week:

Listener value vs. commercial value - What makes music valuable, and who is it valuable to?

Moby’s best selling track? The one he gave away for free - For all those in the music industry who are still not convinced that ‘free’ can play a defining role in an artist’s business model, here is yet another success story.

Animated Moby interviews himself -An animated Moby is asked questions about his new album Wait for Me by Dog, another animated character who is also voiced by the musician.

Number one way to make sure your band fails - There’s no secret formula to insure that your band will be successful, but I can tell you one fool-proof way to guarantee its failure: stop gigging.

Music Video Picks:

No new music videos last week, but check out out the archives.

This Week in Music History:

2002 It was reported that Dr Dre had become the richest music star after earning £62m in the last year (approximately one hundred million in US dollars), £37m from his own earnings plus £25m from his record label Aftermath. (This Day in Music)

There’s no secret formula to insure that your band will be successful, but I can tell you one fool-proof way to guarantee its failure: stop gigging.

It’s so basic, yet I have been consistently surprised at how many bands come to me looking for help getting their careers off the ground who treat gigging as a chore. When it’s time to pound the pavement and book a few shows they procrastinate. They focus on reworking their songs, doodling potential album artwork, updating their MySpace page – anything – and come Friday night they’ve got nothing lined up. Fame and fortune are postponed another week and they’re left wondering why their career still hasn’t taken off.

There’s been a lot of talk recently (on this site certainly) about the need for bands to connect with listeners and cultivate a fan base that will launch them to the next stages of their career. There are a lot of ways to do that. Social media platforms like Twitter and MySpace have been getting a lot of attention, and really can be excellent tools to engage with listeners. Yet, these tools are just distractions if they aren’t supplementing the connections you are already forging with live audiences.

The artist/fan relationship puts down roots live. They can see your face, and you see theirs. They get to watch you screw up, and you get to watch them move along with your music. It’s loud, it’s messy, and you share it with every person in the room. You can’t reproduce that in a recording, and you certainly can’t reproduce it in a 140-character status update.

Gigging takes work, but it’s not a chore – it’s your job. Every aspect of an artist’s career is built on live performance, and if you forget this you are setting yourself up for failure.

Greg Kot, in his new book Ripped, focuses on the story of an unlikely but high profile independent artist – Prince. While the diminutive 80’s pop star and his music may not seem relevant to many of you, it turns out he is actually an interesting example of an artist bucking the traditional system and striking out on his own. In particular, his frequent release cycles and emphasis on touring have made him something of a forerunner. Prince had a deal with Warner that was reportedly worth up to $100 million, but he was unhappy with the control the label exerted over his creative process. Prince was (still is) a prolific songwriter and wanted to release several albums per year. The label limited him to one and also kept him from releasing Sign O’ the Times as a triple album in 1987. Apparently it is very unwise to cramp Prince’s style (and oh, what a style it is…) because after this he began to do everything he could to get under the label’s skin. He all but stopped touring, he wrote the word ‘slave’ on his cheek in black permanent marker, and famously changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol.

When his contract finally ended, Prince released a new album, Emancipation and went into business for himself. Prince has always been a bit nuts, and being independent hasn’t changed any of that – if anything it has only highlighted it further. Within a couple of years of being ‘set free’ from Warner, Prince had released nine albums worth of material. Album after album flooded the market – experimental tracks, archived material, new music, and who knows what else. People thought he was crazy.

Yet, look at the industry today. We’ve got thousands of artists and millions of songs that are available at the touch of a button. The days of waiting three years between releases are long gone. I’m talking frequency here, not volume – nine full albums worth of material is way more than necessary. But if you release a couple songs every few months, your fans will stay much more engaged and you will have the opportunity to remain front of mind in a crowded marketplace. If you really still want to release a full album, you can compile them at the end of the year and sell it dressed up in creative, high quality packaging along with some extras you had saved for the occasion.

Also, look at the way Prince handles touring. He is constantly changing things up. He’ll spend a few weeks playing one venue, or give away free post-midnight performances at previously unannounced locations. When he does do a conventional tour, he makes it worthwhile. He once packaged his new album in the price of the concert tickets and everyone who came to his show walked out with his CD. The record shot immediately to the top of the charts.

This is creative stuff. Not all of it is going to work for new or unknown artists, obviously, but it can all be scaled and applied to wherever your career is at right now.

I’ve been talking a lot lately about a band’s first gig. The first gig can be one of the most difficult milestones in a band’s career if they don’t already know a few of the right people. It’s a vicious cycle: you have no following because venues won’t book you, venues won’t book you because you have no following. So what is a band to do?

Get a following.

It used to be that the only way large numbers of people could hear a band’s work was for the band to play as many gigs as possible. Playing out is still the best way to gather a loyal fan base (and get paid) but if you aren’t being given that opportunity you have to find other avenues to get heard.

Fortunately, getting heard has been made much easier by the internet. Any band anywhere can make their tracks available for download through any number of online services with a few clicks. It’s still a bit daunting for some artists, though, so I wanted to put a quick list together to help make sense of how to get an online following and translate it into real gigs.

1.  Give Your Music Away
The goal is exposure, right? You are trying to get gigs, not sell records. There is nothing wrong with selling records – except that fewer and fewer people are willing to pay for them – but the best way to get as many listeners as possible is to remove any obstacles between them and your music. This includes cost. Most people will sample a track they’ve never heard of if it is free. If they have to pay for it they will likely pass it up in favor of a band they know they like. Utilize BitTorrent, Last.fm, Pandora, etc.

2.  Connect With Your Listeners
Don’t just toss your music into the wind and pray that it lands on fertile soil. Unless your tracks are that good, cultivating fans takes some follow up. When you make your music available, make sure that it is as easy as possible for them to find you if they like what they hear. You should have a MySpace page, you should be on Facebook, and fans should be able to follow you on Twitter. Better yet, you should have your very own blog with your band’s name as the domain whenever possible. The more your new listeners are able to connect with you, the more invested they will become in your career.

3. Leverage Your New Fans
There is an added benefit to utilizing social networking tools to connect with your fans. I’ve already talked about this in a previous post, but it bears repeating. Venues are looking at how many people are connected with you on these sites, specifically MySpace, and translating that directly into your potential to bring the crowds to your gigs.

4.  Promote Yourself
Once you’ve got people listening to your music and following you around online, you need to make sure the venues know about it. Your promo packet should have everything they would need to find your social media ‘resume.’ The standard demo, photo and bio shtick is not enough to get you a decent gig any more. Besides, if you have this ‘resume’ out there you want them to see it because it shows them that people are paying attention to you and want to see you play.

5.  Close the Deal
If a venue has your promo packet and they’ve had the opportunity to check you out (whether or not they have) you need to close the deal and ask for the gig. Learn to think and act like a good salesman. I’m not talking about schmoozing. What I am saying is that you need to stop approaching the transaction as though the venue holds all the cards. If you have done the things I mentioned above and you have the online presence to prove it, there is no reason why you can’t expect to get a gig when you ask for one. I will talk more about this in a separate post, but the difference between a mediocre salesman and a great one is that the great salesman expects to make the sale.

Hope that helps. Questions? Comments? Feel free to let me know if anybody has any other tips to get new bands where they need to be.

I was talking with an artist this weekend about his career, and he told me about some of the trouble he’d been having getting that first gig. Although he had previously been part of a band that played out on a regular basis, it has been a few years and most of his connections have dried up. Now he is starting from scratch and not having much luck. He’s got quite a few things going for him – a unique catalogue of material, a lot of talent and he knows how to put on a good show – but he’s contacted just about every venue in town and nobody seems to want to take a chance on him. Everybody asks the same thing – do you have a Myspace page? He gives them the address and never hears from them again. So what was it about his Myspace page that was driving them away?

From the venue’s perspective, MySpace really is a great resource. Because of the culture that has built up around music on MySpace, a band’s Myspace page is now a pretty reliable place to get a feel for whether or not they’ve got a decent fan base. All a booking person has to do is log on to an artist’s page, check how many people have connected with them, and maybe listen to a track or two if it looks like it might be worth it. If the artist has several thousand friends and most of them leave messages like, “I love this music more than my own Mother,” there is a good chance that they are able to get a few people to show up at their gigs. If quite a few of these friends are from outside of the artist’s local scene, it shows that they should be able to draw a crowd for even out of state shows. Lot’s of friends = lot’s of tickets.

Here was my artist friend’s problem – he hadn’t really understood the importance of MySpace, so he didn’t spend much time developing his presence there. With fewer than one hundred friends, he wasn’t making much of a case for himself when booking people visited to check him out.

It was clear that this was one of the factors preventing him from landing a good show. After we talked he decided to fix the problem, so he spent several hours finding people that he thought might be interested in his music and invited them to be his friends. In two hours he nearly doubled his connections and is now well on his way to building his presence on MySpace – and his credibility with venues.

It seems pretty basic, but if you want to make money as an artist or as a band, you HAVE to have a MySpace page and it HAS to show that there are people out there who like you and want to see you perform. If you take the time to do this well, it can be one of the best ways to land those first few shows.

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