LA-based band Sad Robot recently wowed the judges at Los Angeles Music Network’s LAMN Jam and walked away with the grand prize. Shortly afterward we caught up with them and gained some insight on their opinions on marketing and branding, performing and touring, and the importance of attending industry events. Read more.
When playing international music gigs, singers and flutists have it easy. Drummers, guitarists, bassists, and keyboard players, on the other hand, have to figure out more creative solutions to manage their gear. If your music-making equipment is larger and more cumbersome than a standard airplane carry-on, how do you ensure that, when you take the stage miles away from home, you have the gear you need to a give a performance that you can be proud of? Read more.
While technologies like Square are becoming more and more popular, there’s still a coolness factor – they’re new enough to elicit wide-eyed looks of wonder from grown adults (jaded New Yorkers included). For now, at least, paying for an independent album via credit card on someone’s smart phone, and signing with a swipe of your finger, is fun. Read more.
Whether you’re driving north from the east coast to play a coffee shop in Montreal, bringing your electro-pop act to a string of clubs in Tokyo and Thailand, or presenting a midnight set at a jazz festival in Germany, performing music gigs abroad can be an incredibly rewarding and cool experience — but one that brings its own set of challenges. Here are tips from seasoned musical world travelers to help you make your international music gigs run as smooth as possible. Read more.
The most important thing to do when dealing with money is to make sure to write EVERYTHING down. A good way to keep tabs is to put all the info in Excel. We divide it into date, gas, food, lodging, salary (how much we pay our musicians), pay (from the venue), CD sales, t-shirts, tips, extra. At the end of each day we total it up. There are two main ways to make money as a band: 1) Guarantees/door/bar percentage, and 2) Selling merchandise. Read more.
Many people have asked us how we transformed our band into a sustainable business, touring 250 days a year. We’ve created a series of videos to help explain what we’ve learned over the past few years in the hopes that it will help you learn how to get gigs and get more good bands out on the road. We’ll explain how to book music gigs that are well attended and pay guarantees, promote your shows, make extra money, build a following, and describe who wants to take your money (and why you shouldn’t let them). Read more.
Traveling to play music gigs is expensive. Being on the road also takes a lot of planning, time, energy, and day-of alertness for travel plans to be flawlessly executed. Whether touring around your favorite regions of the globe or traveling to a far off city for a music conference, there are a few tricks and tips that can help make your travels go smoothly, and keep your bank account afloat at the same time. Read more.
Dealing with live sound at a music gig can often range anywhere from a minor annoyance to a major catastrophe. Broken PA components, weird-sounding rooms, difficult on-site staff, or the lack of someone present who can actually mix live music can be just the tip of the iceberg. On the bright side, there are any number of tried and true ways to minimize your on-the-gig headaches when it comes to dialing in your live band sound. Here are just a few live sound tips to keep you sane — and sounding great. Read more.
Are you in danger of playing too much in your chosen markets? We all want to gig more often, but have you really taken a look at how gigging too much in a given market might impact your ability to grow? Read more.
Touring as an indie doesn’t mean getting on a luxury bus and having a tour manager handling gigs, logistics, accommodations, and meals. Here’s some good advice on how to tour culled from loads of blog posts and articles we’ve published on touring. These highlights should get you thinking about the ins outs of how to get gigs, what an indie tour can be, and touring tips to take with you on the road. Read more and download your FREE guide.