On a shoestring project part 39

  Sweeney's basement on Dame street tonight every one! We're pulling out all the stops for this one, it's going to be a rocker.

  The King Kong Club was great fun as always, the Village is such a great venue to play in! The sound is just to die for, and the lighting system is top notch. It makes you as a musician think, this is what you want it to be like! As to the competition, it all comes down to how big (and loud) crowd you can bring in. On the night there were bands with much bigger following and they deservedly wont the night. But we made new friends, built up our mailing list nicely and we are dying to see the video.

  It would have been nice to get to record our album in a top notch studio with a top notch producer, but it was not meant to be. The day after a competition like this can be bit of a downer, and I could see this in the faces of my band mates. I have been around the block long enough to learn not to get your hopes up until some thing really is happening. We did pull out all the stops to bring in our supporters, but it just wasn't meant to be. And this is such a good point, there are ups and downs in music business, and very often lot more downs. You need to build up a tough skin, get used to rejection and most of all, never to give up! But I have been planning things bit further a head anyway. It is good to have always something in the future to look forward to. So usually day or two after a concert we take a break, but then it's back to rehearsals and start preparing for the next show. We had the Sweeney's to look forward to. We could get focused on something new, not dwell on the past. I came across on the net this concept that what you are going through in music business is actually past, or more so, its the fruits of your work from weeks, months or even years a go. True, but bit deep...

  Anyway, we all know and/ or use Facebook. It is a great tool to promote bands, events, companies etc. But also great way to keep in contact with old and new friends. I have talked about Facebook promotion in the past, but let me go back to it for a minute. I am pretty patient man, but came across something I personally think you should never do to promote your band. There is certain event organizer, not very active and this is why I have been patient with them, here in Dublin. If they have an event coming up, what they are promoting, they post an poster image on Facebook and tag all the people on their Facebook friends on it. As a result this poster turns up on everyones wall... I would highly recommend against this. If you do so you will only annoy all your friends, for example this organizer is the only person who I have canceled as my friend on Facebook. You can Email the link to them and ask them to post it, but it should be everyones own choice, what do you think?

  Next week Sebastian is going for a short trip back to Poland to charge his batteries:-) And of course we will stuff his pockets with E.P.s for some serious networking. It would be great some day in the future to go and play some concerts in the guys home country. Speaking of which, for our Polish friends, check this out: http://www.terazrock.pl/user.php?UserId=10141 And for those of you (me included) who don't understand Polish, it is a profile of our band in Poland's main rock music magazines website. Europe is full of music magazines, so Google for them and send emails asking if they review independent artists. Its never too early to start spreading your bands name. And very often the readers of these magazines are targeted audience, priceless!

  Our new video “Everybody dies”is doing well, 600 views in youtube. Its also getting some views in other sites as well, for example Metalireland.com. I also submitted it to BlankTV, if you like your punk rock, you need to check this out:-)

  So thats our updates and tips for this week, we'll be back for more next week:-)

  J.P.

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 32

This week I'll do this other way around. First of all, jpkallio.com will be taking part in the King kong club in the Village on Wexford street on Monday the 11th of April. To get an idea what’s going on, on the night, this is in the words of the organizers:

"Dublin's Biggest and best, Live Musical Gameshow!
The one band that gets the most claps at the end of the night goes on to the next level for the big prizes. Judged By our Fabulous Replica of The Empire State Building.... CLAP O METRE!
Prizes include festival slots at Vantatastival, KnockanStockan, Life Festival, N.P.L.D festival, Temple House Festival, Support The Hot Sprockets at there album Launch.
It is free entrance and free for bands to enter...
Beer 3 and 4 euro..
Each band is also video recorded and put onto our YouTube space; (check it out when you get the chance, to get a feel of the night...)
Each band is interviewed and recorded live for our Radio Show on RTE 2 XM."

So we need all you in there to support us :-)

Also big thank you to every one who came in last Thursday to Captain Americas - It was a great night :-) And we have some photos and Video up here again. I also started to document our 100 concert challenge on its own page. I am sure it will be almost impossible to get video and photos from all of the 100 concerts, but we will do our best :-)

That’s the updates for this week, and now to the meat and veg. As you know I have been talking a bit about the band promotion. I actually think radio is going through changes as much as the most of the music business. I personally was never a big fan of radio. I was always very picky about my music, and mainstream radio very rarely had any music that would get me exited. But I do understand the importance of it and lots of my friends regularly listen to radio (Tomek is a fan of Radio nova here in Dublin). To get to any radios play list is very tough for independent artists. And you can feel like throwing money down the drain by sending CDs to radio station and not even knowing if any one opens the envelope... And here is few points I would like to make. If you record, produce reliance and promote your own CD, then you basically are an independent record label. And small labels relay need to keep their spending to minimum. So I would not just send CD to a random Radio stations, let alone 100 of them. If you want to go after some radio play, research the radio shows that might play your music. Make sure your music would suit their play list, again no Reggae to Death metal stations, and vice verse. Then it is time to make contact. Drop an Email, polite one; no one likes a smart ass, or a big ego. I have dealt with lot of people in radio over the years and my personal experience is this: Most people in radio are music fans, they might not like your music, but some one will. And yeah, in big commercial station money talks, record companies and radio stations have relationship and for a reason. Radio makes its money from advertising, and they only can sell add slots if they have the listeners. And it is no brainer to figure out that what's on top of the charts got there for a reason, because people bought the tracks. So yeah, as annoying as it might seem, it all comes down to business. But I do believe that small indie or internet radio station that actually likes your music is worth a lot more, than your track played once in any of the main stations. So dig deep, look for specialised radio shows that suits your music.

The next thing to look at is all the different types of internet radio. They can go from online pod cast to sites like last.fm. I would recommend checking out Jango, It is a payed service but you get some free plays when you first join. Also there are lots of companies offering to distribute your music to stations for a fee. To me this comes down to control. If the company offer a “world wide” service, how do you really know what got played? I have opted for a service, that I will test drive for the next 3 months. Of course I am hoping to get radio play for us, but also to review the service. So as you know, there are lots of companies looking for your hard earned money, so let’s see if we can make sense of them as well. I'll let you know all the details of this service and how it works in the following weeks.

I have mentioned in the past about the importance of an email list. On our last concert we had a simple A4 signup form, and this proved to be very successful. Try it out :-)

And one more thing. After the success of our first video, we would like to make a new one. We are bit short on ideas at the moment, so we would like to hear from you what you think it should be like. Here is the song , so get scripting, or just even small ideas, we'd love to hear them all:-)

Everybody dies by jpkallio.com

Talk to you more next week.
J.P.