On a shoestring project part 37

  As you know from last week’s blog, life as a musician has its ups and downs. This week we have some great news! Jpkallio.com was selected as the wild card in the King Kong club! So we are performing at this months Semi-finals in the Village on Thursday the 19th of May. As you might know from the last time, it is the band with loudest claps, wildest cheers and craziest fans that gets to the final. They have an Empire state shaped Clap O Meter that measures the volume of the cheers for every band at the end of the night; it's pretty cool looking apparatus!

Also the upstairs venue at the Village is a brilliant, great sound system, amazing lights. It’s going to be one cracker of a night, and we need you there to support us. Here is a link to the event on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160127527383064
You can select your friends to invite to it, if you are on Facebook and we would really appreciate if you could do so :-)
  The next bit of good news is: jpkallio.com has a new video out! And boy we are proud of this one ;-) Check it out!


  The video is once again a DIY production, our favourite kind of production ;-) I built the set, Qra set up the camera and we just went for it. And I can tell you; those guitar heroe games have not a patch on the entertainment value we got out of it! Then Qra edited the video and we were ready to go. Once again I am trying to make few points here: first videos don't need to cost an arm and a leg. Second: the promotional value of cleverly shot good looking video is priceless!
  So we hope you will enjoy this video, and share it with as many friends as you can. I was talking to a friend of mine last week online. And he asked when we will be on tour in Europe. Well I told him that it is way too early for that! We need to build some following first online. It comes down to the same thing; the value of the band is how many people they can bring to a venue. So if you are reading this outside Dublin and would like to see us play live, you can do us a favour and share this video with as many of your friends in your area as possible, so that when we eventually approach a venue, we can say: look, we have had ex amount of views from your area on our YouTube video.
These really are some of the great tools of the modern music business. Most social media sites offer you statistics and analytics that if used correctly can be valuable tools.
  And how about last week? As you know, Qra was in a bad way with his back, but we still had some concerts... So Krystian Mazur stepped in. And he did unbelievable job, considering he had a 24 hour notice to the first concert!

Krystian on our way to Leixlip

The Wednesday night in the Pint was quiet, I think most people were either broke or partied out after two bank holiday weekends on the row, but this kind of suited us fine as Krystian got to run through the set without too much pressure. On Thursday we were in the Arthurs bar in Leixlip. This was a great night! It is so nice to play at a band night when all the other bands are just nice people, no egos ;-) We were first on and Krystian really stepped up to the task! We made loads of new friends.

The second band of the night was 9thlife, a melodic metal band rocking it hard! The have been taking a bit of a break from gigging due to some line up changes, but this was their comeback gig, and boy was it good! No signs of rustiness here. The last band on the night was The Lost Colours, young acoustic rock band. It is so great to see young guys who understand the business and treat it as such! These guys had some great rhythmic play and tight harmonies. Both of the bands, I am sure you will hear about in the future.

  Also we will be playing the basement of the Sweeney’s bar on the 25th of May in the Juke Box night, so if you can't make it to the King Kong, then see you in the Sweeney’s. But sure, why not come to both :-)
Talk to you more next week. Oh yeah and almost forgot to tell you, Qra's feeling better and will be with us next week in the King Kong!
J.P.

On a shoestring project part 31

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I've had a good look around in the past six months of the music scene in Dublin. I looked in to venues and promoters who put up shows for independent and up and coming bands, I looked in to local bands, what they do, how they promote them selves, where they play, how often they play... And I have found out few things that might need attention, and I will try to do my best to help this situation.
  First of all, we all know there are few cool venues around the town, where you can get a gig with an indie band. But I would like to see a list of venues and band nights online where any band could go and try their luck. But of course this is not as simple as just set it up and every one is happy. First of all, if I would post every venues promoters contact details, I think they would be ready to lynch me after a month of mail boxes full of not so great music... Second thing is that this list should be informative as well, there is no point trying to push your reggae band in to a heavy metal club. And if you just want a venue list, that’s what the Hot Press yearbook, is for. So what I will try to do is going to take me a long time and probably lots of help from musicians and music fans. As you know jpkallio.com started a 100 concert challenge, where to build up following, mailing list and social network lists. With in this challenge we will perform in quite few venues. So as we go along, I started a page on the blog where I will post the venues we played, and with the venue promoters permission I will share their contact information and some details of the venue and what kind of music they are looking for. I will work out the details of this page in the next few weeks, but the start up is already up. One-way or another it will be a free list, but again I do worry that the list will be abused by musicians who just waist promoters time... So be nice people:-) I also want to get a bit of a conversation going, where other bands and artists can share their experience of the venues and submit other venues. So first of all, let me know what you think of this idea, and also if you have any venue suggestions for the list you can send them to jpkallio@hotmail.com, or the comment section on the Indie Venue List page, that way they are there for every one to see.
  Second, I was very surprised how few up and coming bands have website! For the love of all good in the world, this is not that hard to do! There are loads of services on the net where you can get a template for a website, and I would be very surprised if you did not know any one in your friends who knows a bit of HTML. I started from the bottom... I think it was an Web design for Dummies, or something like that, about 12 years ago. But being a musician, I know it is sometimes hard to manage your time, and it feels like another over whelming task. I would like to make a web design guide for musicians, but to me right now that just seems more than I can take on. But maybe in the near future. Do you think this would be useful? And would you use it? For now, try it your self, there are endless amount resources online. If this fails, try to find some one who is willing to do it for you just for fun. Remember, it does not need to be the best website in the world. I believe that just an ok website is still million times better than no website. If you can't find any one, then try contacting some colleges and see if they can put you in contact with some students who might want to do this just to build their portfolio. The next step up from here would be getting a professional to do this, but be careful with your hard earned cash, shop around wisely. If all else fails, contact me. I am a musician, not a web designer, but I have done quite few sites so far and for a small fee I can get your website up and running.
On top of the website you need to have presence on as may social media sites and music sites as possible. I talked about compiling a list on them way back in one of the earlier blogs. But for now on our websites link list there is a links to our social media sites. Not all, but the ones that seem to be working for us. So just click on the link and sign up your own band up, and when you do, make us your friends :-) I will be tweaking this list almost weekly so keep an eye on www.jpkallio.com/links.html
  And hey, don't forget about our next concert! 31st of March in the Captain Americas on Grafton Street. The show starts at 10 with a support band and we'll be on right after them. This will be number two in our 100 concert challenge. I will leave you this week with a new video from our first concert :-) This is a song called “News” Back for more next week.