Management
You Don’t Find A Manager, A Manager Finds You
I've never had a manager. Don't take this as I never wanted one. I made it the goal of 2008 to find a manager. I didn't find one that year (but I did open for Ben Folds). I didn't find one in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and I'm still self managing my career myself (and have managed ot...
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Don’t Try Out For A Singing Show…
...unless you know how to leverage it. I got a few questions this past week about my take on singing contest shows (from Request a Topic form below). I touched on it in You Should Try Out For American Idol, but I'm going to go a bit deeper.+You Should Try Out For American IdolLet...
Attitude
Skip The Party Tonight, Become a Rockstar Tomorrow
Darren Campbell wrote in (via the Request a Topic below) and asked I write on this... so here it is!'The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now' - Zig ZiglarSome people claim that college is about the party. College isn't...
Management
What’s a Publicist and Should I Get One?
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...
Income
Copyright Your Song or GLEE Will Steal It
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...
Management
The Hardest Part About Being Your Own Manager
I once organized a show with a manager of a band in a city where I had a sizable draw. The show was pitched to me by the manager as a great opportunity for me to get in front of many new fans and make a good amount of money. He told me his band brought 550 to their CD release. I...
Management
Allocating the Duties
If you're the leader of your band (I imagine you are because you're reading this), you can't force your members to do business duties they really don't want to do. Evaluate everyone's strengths and get them to do the jobs that they enjoy doing. Yes, everyone needs to contribute t...
Attitude
Gatekeepers
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...
Latest News
Why This Sound Engineer Lost The Tour
Whenever I'm out at a local show I always pay attention to who's mixing.
Good FOH sound engineers are hard...