Ari Herstand

1) Wait To Be DiscoveredIf you want a career in music you have to MAKE your career in music. You can't wait for 'the powers that be' to come swoop you up and turn you into a star. You must put in the work. No one wants to work with someone with a great recording but absolutely no...

You know how everyone comes up to you after your shows and they tell you how great you were? That feels nice doesn't it. I sure love it. But how many of them are being genuine or just being good friends? Because I remember talking to a drummer buddy of mine who was so excited aft...

I'll admit it. I'm horrible when it comes to email. I have a contact form on Ari's Take which I was pretty good at keeping up with when I launched the site 3 years ago. But now I'm about 6 month behind on responses. Yikes. Even my personal email I get backed up on - to the point...

Last week Loudr announced that they are making it super easy for artists to obtain a mechanical license to (legally) release cover songs through any digital distributor (not just them). You can read my article on Digital Music News about it here. Harry Fox Agency (HFA) as most of...

I'm sitting at Cherrywood Coffeehouse about 15 minutes from where all the action is happening in downtown Austin. The conference portion of the SXSW festival wrapped up yesterday, but there are a few musical hangover brunches happening around the city. I ended up here at around n...

I was just at a show last night at the Echo in east LA. A band from Philly was the 2nd of 3 acts. The other two were local, but this Philly band was who we were there to see. I went with a manager friend of mine who had been following these guys for a few years. There was a prett...

We all know recorded music sales are dying. It's a Titanic size plank that sales have been marching down for years, but eventually they'll fall off. But we're not there yet. Last year, Americans bought 257 million albums – an 11% drop from 2013. That's still a hefty number, but...

Open mics are a great place to gain experience. When you're starting off, you should be playing anywhere and everywhere. Your first 30 or so shows won't be paid. As they shouldn't be. You're most likely not very good yet and don't deserve to be paid for these performances. Open m...

You know where to play locally. You've been to most clubs and have made mental lists of the venues you'd like to play. Some of them are venues you want to pursue now and some you set as ones to work for when your fan base is a bit bigger. Some you've played and have vowed never t...

Photo by Roman SobusWow. I just had 3 of the most amazing shows of my career. They weren't the biggest audiences I've ever played to or the highest paying shows I've ever had and they weren't the best musical performances I've ever given.These were some of the best shows I've had...