Quick feedback on band promotion

Originally posted by Bagster:
Besides CityPaper, are there other periodicals DC music fans read – or good listserves?

Rumor has it, this kick-ass website is under development, which would allow local bands of all shapes and sizes the ability to promote themselves to a large audience. I'll let you know when i hear more about it…wink wink, nudge nudge

Originally posted by Bagster:
Besides CityPaper, are there other periodicals DC music fans read – or good listserves?

Or you could try www.arlingtonmusicscene.com

but they're kinda klicky….

Originally posted by Bagster:
Besides CityPaper, are there other periodicals DC music fans read – or good listserves?

Try On Tap and Music Monthly. Smaller circulations but still worthwhile.

Also research Internet radio stations whose playlists align with the band's music. Much easier to crack than broadcast radio.

Couple of standard references: http://www.musicdish.com/bookstore/books/howtopromote.php3
http://www.musicdish.com/bookstore/books/indiebible.php3

And of course, they'll want one of these for their website: http://www.tourvote.com/buttonplace.html

Here's another publication to check out that covers DC and Bmore:
http://www.musicmonthly.com/

MindCage
Mindless Faith
Deep6 Productions

Don't read free papers!

Why are they free?

Originally posted by Dupek Chopra:
Don't read free papers!

Why are they free?

Because they have different business models from the paid-circulation papers. If you're thinking they are just pimps for their advertisers, well, ALL newspapers are pimps for their advertisers. The free-circulation papers just go about it another way.

I've lived in at least two cities where a local alternative (free) newsweekly was by a long shot the best paper in town.

get your name everywhere. stickers, posters, flyers do whatever you can to get your band's name of every toilet stall, on every phonebooth and on every homeless person….wellmaybe not the latter of it all but you get my point. in connecticut record stores will play what you give them

Originally posted by Liberte:
Because they have different business models..?

Pardon my French, but that sounds just like a load of happy MBA regurgitation.

Originally posted by Dupek Chopra:

Originally posted by Liberte:
Why are they free?

Because they have different business models..?

Pardon my French, but that's just a load of happy MBA horseshit.

Pardon my English, but I'm not an MBA and it's just a load of basic economic reality. A business model is simply a description of how you spend money and how you get money in the door to pay yourself and your bills. Every business has one, whether they call it that or not.

Free newspapers have a model that lowers their distribution costs by enough that they don't have to charge the reader for putting a copy in his or her hands. There's nothing about that which necessarily compromises the readability of the editorial content. If you choose to believe otherwise, that's your prerogative. Just don't expect not to get called on trying to pass that opinion off as based in fact.

The original topic of the thread was how to help musicians trying to find a new audience in a new location. The free papers are one potentially useful avenue for promotion, because plenty of music fans manage to get past voodoo bullshit prejudices about the nominal cost of something being the same as its value. They find it worth their time to pick up and read those papers which provide interesting and useful content, again and again and again. Is there some reason the band in question should NOT want to reach those fans (who by the way number several hundred thousand weekly readers in Metro DC alone)?

Originally posted by Liberte:
Is there some reason the band in question should NOT want to reach those fans (who by the way number several hundred thousand weekly readers in Metro DC alone)?

Honestly, I can't comment. I tried to read a free paper once, but there was something in the pulp or the ink that gave my fingers rather a virulent atopic dermatitis. Hey, you're the business factotum, not me. You've been to Woodstock. You like to bandy terms like "business model". I'll just have to take your word for it, okay? Peace, love & IBM to you.

Originally posted by Dupek Chopra:

Originally posted by Liberte:
Is there some reason the band in question should NOT want to reach those fans (who by the way number several hundred thousand weekly readers in Metro DC alone)?

Honestly, I can't comment. I tried to read a free paper once, but there was something in the pulp/ink that gave my fingers rather a virulent atopic dermatitis. Hey, you're the business factotum, not me. You've been to Woodstock. You like to bandy terms like "business model". I'll just have to take your word for it, okay? Peace, love & IBM to you. [/QB]

And peace to you, bro. It's still a free country, nobody should have to suffer an allergic reaction to material they don't want to read in the first place.

ask sparks

I think you can go far if you have a cool logo on a sticker. Give them out to kids to put on their cars, no need for them to hear the band first, and then the buzz will grow.

Always thought this would be a brilliant scheme, much like the Gabbo episode of the simpsons.

Originally posted by Sir HC:
I think you can go far if you have a cool logo on a sticker. Give them out to kids to put on their cars, no need for them to hear the band first, and then the buzz will grow.

Always thought this would be a brilliant scheme, much like the Gabbo episode of the simpsons.

Yeah although it wasn't a cool logo, emmet swimming's logo appeared all over the dulles toll road at all the ticket booths for awhile.

I've started targeting the mallcore kidz by giving Hot Topics in the area some tracks off our newest CD to play in the store which they seemed very happy about doing…

MindCage
Mindless Faith
Deep6 Productions

send the radio station a disk….keep requesting them on the radio. maybe eventually get playd when no ones awake or the right person will hear it.

Originally posted by flawd101:
send the radio station a disk….keep requesting them on the radio. maybe eventually get playd when no ones awake or the right person will hear it.

It would also help if you stuffed a plain envelope full of Monopoly money and enclosed that along with your disc!

Just thought of the most brilliant scam. You send out the CDs with 1/2 a $20 bill with the songs supposedly offering clues to how to get the other half. Heck, makes people have to listen to it to get the money.

Or just send the CD in an envelope with a couple of really ratty dollar bills in it along with a post-it note saying, "There's lot's more where this came from, if you know what I mean..?".

Sending CDs to radio stations is an excellent way to enhance the revenues of the CD manufacturing and duplication industries. Except as part of a carefully targeted total promotional effort, it is less likely to help a band prosper than spending the same money on lottery tickets.

So who should the fistfuls of cash go to, then?