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The manager is the most important person in your operation. Your manager is your teammate. Your partner. Your friend. Finding a manager is about timing, being in the right place at the right time and, really, making it seem like you don’t need a manager.

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 night I had an incredible show at one of my favorite places to play in the country, The Hotel Cafe. I got to meet many awesome Ari's Take readers. At the end of the night, after I finished chatting with everyone by the merch booth, I glanced at my mailing list clipboard and...

I get a lot of emails from musicians asking me questions. I try to answer as many as I can, but I've been noticing a few serious email faux pas lately that I feel I need to address. This isn't meant to shame anyone, just help you understand how to best use the form of communicati...

CDs are nearly extinct. I, for one, still enjoy getting a physical disc, browsing the liner notes, reading the credits of the string players on track 8 (who aren't credited on iTunes downloads) and using one more of my senses (well two if you count the smell of paper and plastic)...

I desperately wanted to get my song 'Last Day' on Grey's Anatomy because I thought it was just perfect for the show. So I researched who the music supervision company for the show was and discovered they had a blog. I read up on the blog and found that one of the music supervisor...

Once you have a show confirmed you should send one final email that includes all of the necessary details. This acts like a contract. Most venues with capacities under 600 don't typically work with contracts - especially when booking directly with the artist. Even if they do work...

One of my friends, let's call him Tom, is in a fairly successful band (especially in his local city). Tom couldn't get the radio DJ of the local show to reply to his emails or play his band on the radio show and Tom felt he deserved to get played. After about 5 emails, instead of...

When I was first getting started in Minneapolis I took note of other local bands who were somewhat successful locally. I was not yet. I sent these bands emails to the extent of 'Saw your show last night. Love your sound. If you ever need an opener hit me up.' As you may expect I...

Once you get to know your scene better you'll notice that the gatekeepers at the top are friends with each other and they talk. If the top promoter in the city likes you and respects you then he'll tell the venue he works most with and also the music editor of the newspaper as we...