Scott Palahniuk wrote in (via the Request a Topic below) and asked about cover songs and how an opener should order their set. And Ian J wrote in asking: 'they ask you to play for three hours, but having that much original material is hard. Is it singer/songwriter suicide to sing...

I was going to write an entire post about the world of music PR and discuss when it's time to get a publicist and what you should expect to pay and WHAT THEY DO (most musicians have no idea), but I figured why not just interview a successful music publicist (and one who I have wo...

I know basic US music copyright law. I mean, I'm no lawyer, but I studied it in college and just spent a couple hours on the US Copyright website to brush up. Technically as soon as you put your song in a fixed form (paper, cd, digital counts - performing it does not) then it's c...

I've played countless 'local' gigs with a 4 band bill where everyone had an equal draw, many 'opening' gigs where the headliner clearly brought the majority of the room and I've headlined (both locally and on tour) where I clearly brought the majority of the room.When you're just...

As much time as you spend in your rehearsal space perfecting your sound, it won't mean anything if it's botched coming out of the PA. All the money you spent on new pedals, amps, guitars and strings doesn't matter if the mix is off in the club.The sound guy (or gal) is the most i...

I (digitally) sat down with Kyle Weber, one half of the brother-Weber founders of Indie On The Move, to discuss their excellent booking resource for DIY musicians. As I wrote in Booking Your Own Tour: A How-To Guide, I used their site when booking recent tours and found it to be...

The hardest thing for musicians to hear and the reason so many are held back for so long lies in a simple, nauseating realization: your music doesn't matter.Of course I think the music matters. All musicians are passionately, desperately and hopelessly in love with music. It's wh...

Last year I went on two national tours covering 40 states and played over 100 shows. I booked nearly every show. It was my first time visiting about 30 of the cities and many of the other cities' venues I had never played before. Both tours were financially successful. Let me sa...

I hope you have heard by now that Facebook has changed the way that users see Page posts in their newsfeed. Before this move, Facebook's algorithm to display Page posts in users' newsfeed was mostly based on how many users initially interacted with the post organically (liked, co...

Anyone who has seen my solo live show knows that I have a lot going on on stage. I run multiple instruments and microphones through a mixer into my loop station and out to the house. I have quite a bit of gear setup on stage for a solo artist. I've played over 500 shows and just...