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This show originates from www.musicianscooler.com

Are You Ready to Promote Your Band?

If you have a car, a wallet, a purse, do you have something in those items to promote your band?

CD

Promo CD

Flyer

Bio

Sample CD

Business Card

ANY item so that if someone asks about your band, you can hand them something (in theory it would have your band’s website). Don’t be caught without it. You never know when an opportunity will come up. Wouldn’t it be great to say, “I’ve got a CD in my car let me go get you one” instead of “No, I’m sorry.”

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While there may be times when you hate that the “buck stops here” with your band, and it seems like you have to do everything, that is a good thing. It means you are in control.

Recently, Tim McGraw’s record labeled decided to put out another “Hits collection” when he has only put out one album since his latest hits collection. This lead McGraw to say things like, ““I am saddened and disappointed that my label chose to put out another hits album instead of new music,” said Tim McGraw. “I’ve only had one studio album since my last hits package. It has to be just as confusing to the fans as it is to me.”

He also stated, ““I had no involvement in the creation or presentation of this record. Sure I love the songs and I don’t want to take anything away from all the creative people who were a part of making those records. But the whole concept is an embarrassment to me as an artist. In the spirit of an election year, I would simply say to my fans ‘I’m Tim McGraw and I don’t approve their message.’”

As an indie artist, you are in control. You get to say what you album cover looks like, what songs you play at a gig, what the t-shirt prices are, when the album will be released. Yes, you are also in charge of contact clubs, booking gigs, etc. You are in charge of it all. So while you may dream of the day when you have a big record deal, you currently are avoiding the day when you have to write a blog post to apologize to your fans.

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Attracting New Members To Your Band

I recently started a new podcast about Online Dating Resources and one of the things I’ve found is that your personal profile should be positive. Nobody is attracted to someone who complains. You can approach the marketing for your band. If you are putting an advertisement for a new band member, don’t fill it with what you are NOT looking for. Instead, you should simply put what you are looking for in a band member.

Instead of saying “Looking for a guitarist. No druggies, ego maniacs, no alcoholics, with no transporation.” Why not spin this into, “Looking for a reliable sober guitarist who is a team player.”

I Need a Way to Keep All My Social Networking Tools Updated

Jimmy from www.myspace.com/jimmyyukka asks:

The second point  is that currently I have a facebook profile Fast Hands (the drummer) has a facebook profile, I have the myspace for jimmy yukka and potentially a proper website for the band. I would love to be able to edit a blog in one place and have the info appear everywhere. Is there a service you or any of the listeners know of that allows this? I have experimented with rss feeds but both facebook and myspace can be a bit funny about it.

Jimmy,

Thanks for writing. Check out www.ping.fm

He was also looking for a tool for Text Messaging in Australia.  

Why Don’t Clubs Let You Eat and Stay For Free?

James from http://churchofnoise.dyndns.org wants to know about the horror stories of touring.

Unfortunately, its very hard to operate a club in the USA. There is a TON of competition for clubs. Things like a higher drinking age, video games (WII, XBOX, Playstation), there were no ONLINE DATING SITES all of which took some of the fun out of going to a club. Also, in the past some bands have taken advantage of a clubs hospitality.

You Band’s Bio – Who Are You, Where Are You, And Who Do you Sound Like?

Today Dave reviews the Band Conspiracy’s band bio (it needs some work). Remember to get to the point and tell people who you are (band name) where you are (city and state), and what type of music you play.

Review Conspiracy’s “New World Order”

 Today we try a new idea of playing a song and let people comment on it. You can reply in the forums or leave comment.

Other Sites Mentioned

www.chicagoguitar.com should check out the episode about playing Weddings

Need to take information from your fans? Check out www.wufoo.com and www.surveymonkey.com

www.onlinegigs.com and www.geologicpodcast.com were mentioned as they provided IDs.

Well its fall here in the US, and everyone around me is already getting sick. They are sneezing, they are vomiting, it is the official start of “Cold and flu season.” There is nothing worse than playing a gig when you are sick (I once played a gig where I was numb on cough syrup and cold medicine with a fever).

Tips of Avoiding the Common Cold

Wash your hands. How often? If you have to ask – just do it. I just go back from the grocery store. If you sneeze, if you touch your pet,  if you are in between classes at school, when in doubt wash your hands. This goes double important before you eat. Germ are spread through mouth and nasal secretions, so when you go to the grocery store you’re not sure who has sneezed on your cart.

Get Some Sleep

While the myth of getting 8 hours a day has been changed to “most people need about 7.5″ and some people can get by with 6, the truth is if you are tired your body is not in its top form to fight off infections. Keep some gas in your body’s tank, and get some sleep.

If You Fly Stay Warm

We all know that when you are on a flight you are stuck with the air in the plane. Not much you can do about that, but bring some warm outer-layer clothing. Planes can be chilly, and that will weaken your immune system.

Wear a Hat

This is not much of an issue with today’s fashion as almost everyone under the age of 25 is wearing some sort of stocking cap, but when it gets cold the heat escapes from the top of your head. Wearing a hat helps keep you warm.

Stay Hydrated and Eat Right

Your immune system runs on water. So if you are chugging Starbucks and beer, both that aclohol and cafine in the coffee will dehydrate you. Instead drink lots of water (this really is important all year round). My favorite is Fruit 20 from Kraft (Strawberry). Different reports say Vitamin C may or may not help battle a cold. I say take a multivitamin and assume one of those vitamins will help boost your energy.

Now would be a good time to quit smoking

If you smoke, stop! Stay away from other smokers; inhaling their smoke will further irritate your throat and make you cough even more. One of the methods that worked for my ex wife (who had smoked for many years was the quick key.

Lastly, stay away from people who are sick. Avoid close contact with these people, especially during the first few days when they are most likely to spread the infection. Wash your hands after touching someone who has a cold, after touching an object they have touched, and after blowing your own nose. If your child has a cold, wash his or her toys after play. Keep your fingers away from your nose and your eyes to avoid infecting yourself with cold virus particles that you may have picked up.

Take Some Time To Remember Last Year

In my band, I sing all the high harmonies via falsetto. When I get a sore throat the first thing to go is my falsetto (and I have 4 guys looking at me wondering why they don’t hear my harmony). If you already have a sore throat and someone wants to talk to you during break, take them outside. Trying to talk over the juke box will only kill what little voice you have left. Take the time to do these simple things (maybe throw some hand sanetizer in your gig bag while you’re at it) and it can help.

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Dancing with the Stars is Going to Make Me Gauge My Eyes Out

I was at a club this weekend and the band was playing some old 60′s tunes. They launch into Journey to the Center of your mind by Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, and a couple gets up to do their “Cross Country Ballrom Dancing” routine. This included lots of  posing, and (of course) a dip at the end. This has to stop.

Cool MySpace Widget

I was over at www.jimmiebratcher.com when I was he was using some social networking widget called “Gydget.”

You can find it at http://www.gydget.com/home/bands This seems to really boost alot of intereactivity at myspace and facebook, etc. You can sell tickets, ringtones, music and more while you add “top fans” to your widget. From what I’ve seen it’s free.

Cover Band Tips

I saw a band this weekend called Cosmic Candy. They were really talented and did a great job of paying attention to their fans (as in playing requests immediately when people request them). They also took the song “Funky Town” and made it their own.  On the other hand their website promotes their myspace page (www.myspace.com/thecosmiccandyband ) their website is www.cosmiccandy.org I went over there and found it odd that there was no “about the band” that says:

1. Who they are
2. Who they sound like
3. Who is in the band

Remember if someone is looking for a member of the band it won’t work if they are not listed on their website.

Also, if you list where you are playing (and you SHOULD), put the club’s address. This way people can use sites like mapquest, and google maps and get directions. Make it easy for your fans to find you. The other thing I noticed is there was no contact name on the business card (I realize this means anyone can pass out cards).  Business cards are cheap if someone quits and you have to make new cards, its not going to kill you (and you can use those in the event you run out).

Survey Question: Cover bands, Are there songs you thought were going to go over (and didn’t) and songs you thought might lay an egg and instead went over like gangbusters.

Let me know 888-563-3228 (or email me at musicianscooler “at” gmail “dot” com)

Matthew Ebel Launches Membership Site

I talked about this in a previous episode that one way musicians can make money is by having a “Fan site.” Matthew Ebel is doing this exact thing with memberships starting at $5 a month going up to $15 a month. You can read about all the bonus material he will be giving away at www.matthewebel.net I believe he is using the Amember membership script to pull this off.  Amember is around $179 for the script. If you interested in membership scripts check out this list of membership sites at Weekly Web Tools

Tunecore Get Your Music Into iTunes

It appears Tunecore.com now has a deal with guitar center that gets your music into iTunes (you keep all the royalties). Thanks to Marcus Couch of the The Scene Zine Hard Rock Podcast.

Music “Green Bananas” from the news album “Electric Rev” courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network

Save Money and Support The Show

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Get 35 free songs at Emusic by using coupon code at www.emusic.com/musicnews

Why Indie Bands Should Want the Sirius and XM Merger to Go Through

Right now in Cleveland Ohio (the biggest market I’m near) you can’t find much (if any) local music on the radio. In Akron you may find some on the college radio (but only if you play a certain style). Canton Ohio used to have a “Local licks” show, but I think that is gone as well (and probably on Sunday’s at 1 AM).

Right now we are waiting for the FCC to approve the Sirius and XM satellite company merger. This would be a good thing for local bands, and here is my thought behind this. If the two satellite companies merge, they create a great “National” level of radio stations. A person can drive from New York to San Francisco and never change the channel. They will focus on “National” acts.

So how will the local stations compete? They will need to find a niche? The niche is the locality. They can start featuring music you don’t here anywhere else (the current claim I tell to people when I’m speaking of Satellite radio).  It’s time to start being nice to the DJs and program directors. It will take them some time to figure out, but eventually they will need to do something to set them apart from satellite, and that may just be playing your music.

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This show originates from www.musicianscooler.com

Today we talk about are you making it easy for your fans to find you, buy from you, come see you? I went to go see some bands this weekend and I had to use their website to find them and it was awful.

Today’s show is brought to you by the Mevio SuperPanel, which is a way you can get your voice heard and give YOUR suggestions on how to improve the Mevio network by taking exclusive surveys. Once you register for the SuperPanel at superpanel.mevio.com you can get sneak previews of shows, innovative advertisements and cool promotions. The best part is, everyone who registers for the Super Panel and takes a survey has the chance to win cash and prizes. Go to http://superpanel.mevio.com

FROM THE GROUP
From Michael Van Laar

Perhaps this could be interesting for the cooler listeners: In a German musicians’ forum I just read about a quite interesting piece of software sold by an Austrian label. It’s called Rebeat Digital and can be found at http://en.rebeat.com/digital.html . The software allows you to distribute your music via a whole lot of internet music stores and platforms worldwide (list of stores: http://en.rebeat.com/digital/portalliste.html). As far as I can tell, it’s only for European residents, since you a valid EU banking account to use the software.

The software itself costs 99 Euros, which is about US$ 150, as a one-time license fee. Then you have to pay 1 Euro (approx. US$ 1,50) storage fee for each song, also as a one-time fee. If you don’t have a barcode for your album and ISRC codes for your songs yet, you can get the barcode (one per album) for 5 Euros (approx. US$ 7.50) and the ISRC codes (one per song) for 1 Euro (approx. US$ 1,50) each. E. g. you would have to pay 29 Euros (approx. US$ 45) as a one-time fee for the digital distribution of one album with 12 songs. In addition Rebeat keeps a 15% margin from the income of sold songs. I don’t know if these are reasonable prices, but since the list of digital stores looks quite huge on a first glance, I thought it could be worth having a look at the software.

Best wishes from Germany to Ohio,
Michael

Reverb Nation Add Gig Finder
From Lou Plaia
http://www.reverbnation.com/main/features_tabs?tab=Gig+Finder 

Is Your Band’s Website Missing Some iTems?

I went to find some music to see this weekend. My girlfriend suggested that we see a band called Cosmic Candy. (http://www.cosmiccandy.org/ ) Well I want to hear them first. Unfortunately there is audio on their website or their “eye blinding myspace” www.myspace.com/thecosmiccandyband  Likewise I see where they don’t have an email list to keep their fans updated on their progress.

On their schedule they listed the name and city of the club. Do you realize that you are now forcing your fans to google search? Why not provide the address, the phone number of the club. You can also use yahoo maps (or mapquest etc), and then put a link to the directions on YOUR website.

If you are using MySpace for your MAIN website I have two words. MPE .com (ok is that two words) PEple put all their eggs in the mp3.com basket. The site got sold, and people who were maing 10,000 a month are now making 0.

On your Photo album page make sure there is a picture of a FULL CLUB for potential booekrs to see.

They did a good job of putting where they are (Northern Ohio), but they didn’t put their phone number in that paragraph (again make it easy).

AUDIO ON YOUR WEBSITE
The AUDIO SOLUTION that I just LOVE is Wimpy Player that makes it soooo easy to put audio on your website (that can or can’t be downloaded  – you pick). You install the software and upload your mp3s. It’s 30 bucks. Check out the Wimpy Player

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH A NEWSLETTER
There are tons of great email solutions athat are affordable

Fabdrige is great and allows you to email and text people www.tryfanbridge.com

icontact allows you to only pay for what you need.

aweber is a very powerful email and auto responder solution

Constant Contact is used by a lot of people as well

JUNE SPECIAL BUY DAVE’S AUDIO BOOK FOR 9.99 using the coupon code PODCAST at www.musicianlibrary.com

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This show originates from www.musicianscooler.com This is show 198

Today we have Bob Baker author of such books as Guerilla Music Marketing Handbook and   MySpace Music Marketing  is hosting his own Indie Buzz Boot Camp. It sounds like a Music Conference like no other. It won’t just tell you what to do, but HOW to do it.

JUST RELEASED
"How to Tap Into the Lucrative College Music Market – the Ari Nisman Interview" on sale for $37!

Sponsor: Mevio Super Panel http://superpanel.mevio.com

Today’s show is brought to you by the Mevio SuperPanel, which is a way you listeners or viewers can get your voice heard and give YOUR suggestions on how to improve the Mevio network by taking exclusive surveys.
Once you register for the SuperPanel at superpanel.mevio.com you can get sneak previews of shows, innovative advertisements and cool promotions.
And the best part is, everyone who registers for the Super Panel and takes a survey has the chance to win cash and prizes. Sign up at http://superpanel.mevio.com

On the show we have Bob Baker who is talking about his new product

INDIE BUZZ BOOTCAMP
indiebuzzbootcamp.com

Other Bob Baker Titles

MySpace Music Marketing

Guerilla Music Marketing Handbook

Insiders Club

"All Things Bob" including his new "How to Tap Into the Lucrative College Music Market – the Ari Nisman Interview" at thebuzzfactor.com . It will be on sale for $37 for a short period before it goes to its regular price of $77.

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This show originates at www.musicianscooler.com

Sponsors: Get your own .com domain name for $6.95 a year using Godaddy Promotional Code "cooler10" also try cooler1, and cooler2 on other great services from www.godaddy.com

GET DAVE’S BOOK FOR FREE.
Go to www.emusic.com/musicnews and send Dave the confirmation email. He will send you a link to his book Get Your Band Out of the Basement – and Keep them out of the asylum. (Available at www.musicianlibrary.com )

MATTHEW EBEL HOUSE CONCERT – AT MY HOUSE
See Matthew Ebel at "My House" for $10 on May 16th. BUY YOUR TICKETS
Buy Matthew’s new album "Goodbye Planet Earth. "

FROM THE GROUP
Les from http://detroit.insomniaradio.net and http://www.zaldor.com enjoyed the Shannon Curfman interview in last week’s episode. Check out his Flickr photos

Kevin from www.kevindoucet.com points out how cool Beau Hall had a glitch on his site. Beu said to take his music for free. See how Beau is giving it away for free at http://www.beaurocks.com/beau2

BRIAN STEPHENS RUTURNS! – THE MUSIC PRO SHOW IS BACK ON THE AIR
Check out Brian’s great Podcasts The Music Pro Show and Brian Stephens TV. Everything (along with his book) is at www.brianstephens.com

TALES FROM THE ROAD "Pop Tart Napalm"
A fun story of Accidental Vanilli and pop tarts from Hell courtesy of Jeff Martinez of www.myspace.com/jeffmartinezbassist and www.BornInWinter.com

TIP SHEET UPDATE from Paul at www.mesasand.com
My Next Hit is gone, but Paul points out that you can get this service from Broadjam using the Primo Mob service and their "Transmit: service. Check it out at broadjam.com

MAKING MONEY WITH YOUR MUSIC BY SELLING SHEET MUSIC
Pete Huttlinger is selling tabs of his music on his site. This makes sense as guitar players want to know how Pete is pulling of his phenomenal playing. I looked into this and there are a few programs that make it easy to convert your music to "tab" or sheet music. This was inspired by www.petehutlinger.com who is a mind boggling musician

Guitar Pro 5 $49 Geared towards a guitarist, but also prints out a "Standard" staff.

Finale PrintMusic 2007 ($69)

MakeMusic! Finale PrintMusic 2008 Music Notation Software ($79)

Then you could use a free program at www.primopdf.com that allows you to make anything into a pdf and sell it to your musician fans. This would work for Christian artist (so an artist might cover your song in church), if you have songs for children a school or day care may buy it so the children can sign it