Every guitar player wants to be Yngwie, Eddie, Zakk, Vai, etc. We have our “Guitar Heroes,” and we strive to be just like them. Well why not help your fans out? That’s what Steve Vai Did.

He took his instrumental albums and create “Karaokee” versions of them with his guitar taken out – so you can put yours in. He is working on having his music put into tab form so people can but the tab, practice, and then play along with the naked tracks.

There are multiple “Naked Tracks” albums available. This just shows that Steve Vai knows his audience (guitar players who wish they could play like him) and is helping them do what they want (play like him). He does this he continues to create new material that they will then need to purchase the original, then purchase the nake track, and then tabliture to figure out how to play it (or try to play it) again.

If your music reaches ages 15-25 you may want to consider using Silicone Wrist bands as a way to remind people to visit your website. They great thing is, they are pretty cheap to create (You can get 100 for .99 each – then sell them for $2 and make $100).

The church I attend is using these to promote an Easter program called “One” (as in bring ONE person to church with you on Easter). In wearing this, I’ve had people ask me “What’s up with the bracelet (as I’m not 22)” wich gives me an open door to tell them about (and invite them to) my church. If it works for God, why not your band?

Take a look the next time you are at the mall at people’s wrists. These things are mega popular. You could use them as a way to make some money or just give them away. My thought was you could do a few things with this. If you had set up a members only area of your website, you could give a silicone wristband to each person who signs up to identify them at shows as members. Another simpler idea is to have your website on the wristband. This way when someone asks, “Whats on your wristband?” they can tell people about your website and how great your band is.

Cool, cheap, effective.

Sounds like a good marketing plan unless your typical fan is 58 (And who knows they might buy one for their kids).

I’ve had people that are in my boat (not enough time to keep up with social media) ask me about automating their tweets, blogs, etc. Its an interesting question, but its not easy to answer. First I had to get educated a bit on exactly what is possible with software such as tweetadder ( I don’t own this software). I went to their site and watched all their training videos. They show that if you want to – you can have your twitter account run on auto pilot. It really depends on what you are using twitter for, and what you want from your followers.

Pick up your shogun and aim at anything

If you use twitter to simply tell the world what is going on, and hope they listen. Sure you can automate that, and automate finding people to listen. Why do I feel that is OK? Because your having a one sided conversation. It’s all tweet out and not tweet in. As you are not building a relationship with anyone, I also feel that you are doing what I call “Shotgun marketing” where you throw it on the wall and see if it sticks. While tools such as Tweetadder have impressive tools to help you find people that would be interested in your music, or niche, if you automate everything you will look like a robot and turn people off.Tweetadder costs you $55 bucks, and you can set up your twitter account and it will find, follow, unfollow, retweet, reply, and more without you lifting a finger. If you’re looking to grow your twitter following quickly with somewhat qualified followers it would work. The tools make it a very educated shotgun, but none the less a shotgun.

Looking to build intimacy with your fans

If you are looking to gain a better understanding of your fans, then automation can’t do that. Tweetadder can find more people who are interested in your music, but people are pretty smart. If I mention someone in a tweet and get a “thanks” message almost instantly, I’m thinking you are a robot (which will turn most people off). Building relationships takes time and work. There really is no way around that.

Where Automation Pays Off

In watching the Tweetadder videos, I can see where actions such as unfollowing people who are not following you, or doing a search and following the users in those results could be a time saver. They also include many tools to help your automation appear to be human. The key though is if you want to build relationships you will need to genuinely interact with them.  Tweetadder even mentions in their training videos that if you turn everything on that is possible in the software, you will more than likely lose followers as it will be blatantly obvious that its not you sending a “thanks for following me” message at 4 AM.

Much like everything else in life. Automation in moderation. For more information go to www.tweetadder.com

Just heard about this site.  It has a limited reach at this point, but it looks interesting.

GigMaven is currently available for NY, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Ohio and are looking to expand further.  For more information check out the GigMaven website

If you’re interested in the book Socialnomics you can buy it HERE  at amazon.com

One band I was in made a nice chunk of change by finding products that were inexpensive to make, and then sold them for a small fee. In my case it was sunglasses that cost $1.00 to make and we sold for $2. We sold over 500 pairs one summer. I found a new product that fits this criteria. The product is temporary tattoos. You can have 1000 tattoos created for $89. That means your cost is about .09 each. You could then sell these for $1 and if you sold 10 of these a show you would make $9.1 profit.  Granted these are small 1.5″ X 1.5″ tattoos and you could get bigger sizes for more money. For example a 3″ X3″ has a #20 cost. You can still sell these for $1 and make over .60 in profit.

The best part of these is they are temporary. It’s a way for fanatic fans to show their support at the gig, and best of all they can do it again and again and again.

You could have your logo (and website) put on to the tatto0, and sell these on breaks. Don’t just think this could work for a punk band. You can use this for any band as they are temporary. For more information go to www.musicianscooler.com/temptattoo

UPDATE: Use the coupon code cooler5 to get 5% off your order (which adds to your profit margin).

I just heard about bandcamp from a future interviewee. I had not idea that this website had so many features. Here are just a few:

Name your price downloads
Real Time Statistics
Viral Distribution
Sell physical and digital products
Download Codes
Discount Codes
Bonus Download Items
Sell in just about any currency
Mailing List Tools

oh yeah… for now. It’s free.

Check it out at http://bandcamp.com/

For more resources check out http://www.musicianscooler.com/links

I got sucked into an informercial the other other for the yudu screen printing system.

It seems way cool (as all products do on and informercial) and I was really waiting and waiting to find out how much does the yudu cost?

Well I’m still wating. I sent an email to the comany (I haven’t heard anything yet), but as this advertisement shows you can use it for a month for $33 bucks. This is cool as you can create a lot of shirts ina month. My question is does anybody know how much this thing is to keep?

Obviously more and more people are expecting music to be free or $.99 a song, but nobody expects t-shirts, bags, hats, etc to be free. As a podcaster I would like to make some t-shirts for people who send in info to the podcast, or contests, etc.

If you know someone who actually has this system, please let me know.

I just found out about a new FREE resource for musicians called Gig Donkey. Here are some of the features:

• gig calendars for your website
• band rehearsal scheduler with reminders
• track your pay (or lack of)
• create set lists and print them for gigs
• manage contacts
• manage inventory
• fan e-list signups for your website or mySpace
• upload song lyrics
• shall we go on??

I’ve got a video at the bottom of the post. If you try it out come back and let us know what you think of it?

Dave’s Birthday Kindle
Dave turns 45 this month and the old man’s eye sight isn’t what it used to be. Chip in at www.musicianscooler.com/birthday and help him get a kindle (so he can read music business books and share the information right here). Rumor has it there are surprises for those who donate..

Today we have the return of “multi-link Monday” We are talking

www.artistdata.com is a great tool that allows you to put your schedule in one place and have it posted all over the Internet like myspace, facebook, sonicbids, fanbridge, and more. Check it out at www.artistdata.com (free with a more advance version for a small free).

www.musformation.com is a website that is basically 11 websites crammed into one site. It’s update aroudn 20 times a day. If you want recording tips, marketing tips, music news, its all there.

www.bandmetrics.com is a great tool to see how much people are talking about you on the Internet

musicscout.com is NOT a great site. when I tried it on my droid phone, I get an error. Great first impression.

Music “one two three” by Artificial Intelligence in Texas