On a shoestring project part 41

  Even though Sebastian was on his holidays last week, we've had a busy week. Our music has got around lot :-) First of all the Punk Britannia show played us on Tuesday and the show is repeated Thursday nightPunkrockdemo.com. After the weekend the show will be available at Studsandpunks.co.uk. Also we'll be featured at the http://www.1234punkrock.de and Tide 96.0 FM (Hamburg, Germany). Also a video of us in the King Kong Club semi-final came out:-) So here it is, let us know what you think.

  Now as I talked about this last week, our show at the Whelan's is only week away. We really hope you all can make it in. It is going to be a really cool night. We've been sticking up posters around town, but it's hard to get every where, so if you have any places where you would like to stick a poster you can either copy it from here and print it out or get in contact with us and we can drop them down to you (in Dublin). So here's the poster again.

  I have heard from quite few people in the past few months’ compliments on how we promote JPKALLIO.COM. To me this is great to hear as we do put lots of hours in to it. But at the same time, I can't stop wondering why isn’t everyone doing it? I do understand that there is the weekend worriers who just do it for fun, but if you do have any ambitions bigger than that, get to work! All the information is at your finger tips, right in front of your eyes. Internet is full of valuable advice; Google is a tool I use every single day. How did I get our music to these radio shows and podcasts mentioned at the beginning of this blog post? I found the radios and podcast shows on Google, I visited their website, I listened to their shows, while I was doing other work (writing blog, designing gig posters...) and if it sounded like we could fit the bill, I contacted them. Send nice email with bit of info on you (who you are, where you're form and who do you represent). Now I personally think that this is an important part: on the server where our website is (Thanks Greg for the space) I have also posted our E.P. Tracks as high quality mp3s, so I can include links to them on Email. I would highly recommend against emailing any sound files, unless you have been requested to do so. The links I send, the person can download the files if they like them :-) And if not, well at least it’s not going to fill their Email box. If they want a physical CD, I'll gladly send it to them, but if your mp3s are high enough quality, it is actually faster and more practical for podcasts and internet radio, as they would end up compressing your CD files anyway. I talked about the difference of commercial radio, independent and internet radio in the past and lot of people in the podcasts and internet shows are music fans, and if your music is good enough quality, they will be happy to hear about your band.

This actually leads to another thing: In the past few months I have heard stories of bands investing their hard earned cash to some studio time, but the results being not very encouraging. It can be tough work if you are new to it. The studio environment can be intimidating, especially if it costs several hundreds a day and the clock is ticking. But I know these bands and I know they are capable of producing good recordings... Just because there is a sign on the door saying it is a studio, it does not mean you will come out sounding good. Some of the best engineers I have worked with are able to produce a dissent recording with minimal equipment pretty much anywhere, and no amount of fancy recording equipment can make you sound good if the person using it can not use it. I have worked on both sides of the recording process and still do. My two cent on the subject is this: first ask for some resent project done by the engineer with the equipment studio you're going to use and pay for. You are paying lots of money! You won’t buy car without test driving it, you won’t buy new guitar without trying it, possibly reading reviews about it on the net. It is your right to hear what they can do, and if they have problem with this, just walk away! Fancy equipment is nice, but worth nothing unless the engineer has the skills. And when you schedule your studio time, by the love of all the goods of rock! Leave enough time for mixing. This is where you will make the magic happen. This is where you glue all the elements together. I remember working on a compilation CD I had a track years back, and talking to the engineer, this guy was a pro, been at it for years and knew his way around the desk and computer. He said you should spend as much time on the mixing as you do on the actual recording. At the time I thought it sounded bit too much, but years later I have come to realize the wisdom in his words. Even this can be bit excessive on most people budgets; it is something to keep in mind.

Well that was a bit of a rant again, but it just gets to me a bit when the artists end up being the payers in a business that would not exist with out them ;-)

Back for more next week!

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.