Ari Herstand

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...

I've recently been obsessed with one of the local openers' albums for my upcoming tour. I hear a lot of new music. Most of it is average. Some of it below average. And very seldom do I hear a record that stops me in my tracks like this one has. I've been playing it on repeat on S...

I'm doing a quick Midwest tour at the end of the month and I want to meet the Ari's Take crowd! I've hosted a couple meetups before my shows in LA and they went really well. Lots of people exchanged business cards and made connections. Past meetups have included entertainment law...

I just returned from a 3 week tour visiting about 15 states and 3 seasons. Yay America. Most of these shows on this run were on college campuses. I do a fair amount of college shows. They're fun. They pay well. And the audiences are mostly very attentive. However, once in awhile...

It's always been one of the biggest difficulties for an independent musician: how to get their music heard by 'important people.' Influencers. Industry people. Celebrities. Bloggers. Radio DJs. Music supervisors. Promoters. Booking agents. Managers. Labels.The issue has always be...