Category Archives: Marketing Advice

MISADVENTURES IN SONGWRITING: The One Thing You Can Do To Make Your Song Popular Right Now

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When it comes to performing music, the big question on every band’s plate is: How can my band break out? What is the barrier that keeps some bands stuck in gig-hell, while other bands thrive on the festival circuit?

I’ve come to tell you that there is a sure fire gateway to garnering attention. In fact it can be remarkably easy!

Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent book The Tipping Point discusses the processes that occur when ideas become viral. And Seth Godin’s Purple Cow concludes that in today’s world there is only one path to success: to be remarkable. In terms of going viral there are two roads to take, and it’s important to distinguish the two and realize which path is right for you. Do you want good attention or bad attention? I think as an up and coming band it’s perfectly fine to have the latter if the intent is to end up with the former. In terms of your act, it’s important to be remarkable in anyway possible. Since, musical skill and talent takes time you might want to focus solely on being remarkably offensive, whether in form (“they are the WORST BAND I’ve EVER SEEN”) or by crafting your song content accordingly.

Enter “Stem Cellphones” the 8th track from the superbly rocking Boneslinky!. The story of this song starts a few years back when Cap’n Mediocrity and I made a music video for “Diary of an Unborn Child,” one of the strangest pro-life jams ever created, performed by “Bobby’s World”-biting weirdo Lil’ Marky.

The video features an unmasked Mediocrity drifting around as a grown-up aborted fetus. Much to our surprise the video became a bit of a hit on YouTube, garnering over 40,000 views and recieving comments like:

“do you think this is fucking FUNNY?! ASSHOLE!” (yes)

and

“piece of ass raping shit” (huh?)

but also comments like:

“I just laughed so hard. You win the internet.” (well…yeah)

It took a while for the good comments to actually show up. For a while it was just comment after comment of pro-lifers arguing with each other.

And thus my lesson was learned: If you create something that is flagrantly anti-pro-life (note: anti-pro-life is not the same as pro-choice), fanatics are going to immediately jump all over you. It’s just their nature, they can’t help it. And they’re really just standing by waiting for the opportunity to turn your comments board into an endless political debate. So I decided to write my own song surrounding this turbulent issue in hopes to once again incite some lunatics. Who knows, maybe some of them will download the album in order to burn it to a CD and subsequently toss the burned CD into a raging fire!

“Stem Cellphones” is the story of a slacker whose far-along baby-mama falls into a coma. Instead of saving the baby, he opps to harvest the precious rejuvenating stem cells in order to restore parts of his own body that have degenerated after years of alcohol abuse. The song ends with him realizing that his theories don’t really stand up to how science works.

No I don’t really agree with eating your unborn children in order to restore your own failing body, but you have to admit it’s a fascinating concept. One that should probably get pitched to Hollywood and directed by that Human Centipede dude. Now there’s some fucked up shit right there. If you’re pissed off about this song, you should probably just go bother that guy, ’cause people existing only as a bridge between one person’s ass and anothers mouth is a far more disturbing idea than anything the Flute Squad can come up with. At least our songs have happy endings and boobies.

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If you enjoyed this post, check out:

MISADVENTURES IN SONGWRITING: TV’s Corky Is Our ‘The Beatles’ : The story behind a song that honors retarded people for their courageous sense of style.

MISADVENTURES IN SONGWRITING: Nobody Cares About Your Love-Life, Watch Cartoons For Inspiration Instead: How our fearless frontman, Horsepower, writes songs about beating the shit out of people over cartoons and a tasty breakfast.

 

MUSIC MARKETING: I’m Not Making This Stuff Up (Ebook Download)

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It pisses me off when I write a thoughtful post about a marketing idea, or some practical advice on how to sound great live only to find a comment that sounds like this:

“Hey you guys shut up, if you shitty bands weren’t so any good you wouldn’t half to worry about it!!! You guys suck!”

Although the chronic spelling errors hurt my feelings, the comments make me laugh. I can’t help but feel that the reader is missing the point of “Weird Experiments in Band Marketing.”

We started this blog a year ago to start defining “success” as it applies to being in a band. In my opinion there’s a severe lack of useful material out there related to music marketing or running a band. If it is good, it’s usually written by someone who has crossed the chasm to find success somewhere other than playing music.  In fact, look at what happens when you type in “Music Marketing” in Google. Besides a few top-ranked blogs, the results are truly retarded: a bunch of half-assed articles trying to sell bands a duplication service.  A lot of times they’ll add “101” to the end of the title to make it sound educational like “Music Marketing 101”, or “How To Start Marketing Your Band 101”.

Ooh, or maybe you’ll find a video of some dude pontificating on the magic of posting fliers to promote your show (this video cracks me up):

No wonder bands don’t really look to the web for advice on how to promote their band, good content on music marketing is a relatively new concept! 

Do you know what musicians actually search for? Despite all the evidence that a record deal may be the worst kind of strategic partnership, bands are mostly looking for info on how to get signed.

According to Google:

  • “Promote Band” – 8,100 Global Monthly Searches
  • “Get A Record Deal” – 18,100 Global Monthly Searches (!)

Holy shit that’s frustrating! What about the DIY spirit? What happened to that?!?!

If you want skip past record deal pipe dreams, and all the trash marketing advice, read this free ebook by Derek Sivers:

This book has been out for a while, but concisely states everything that you would ever need to know about music marketing. See, I don’t make this stuff up!

Coming up with original marketing ideas is not the focus of this blog. But if you want to read about a band that’s putting these ideas to work, then this is where you want to be.

CHASING BENNY: Email Strategies To Get Famous People To Notice You, Even If They Ultimately Reject You

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Benny said “Thanks but no thanks.”After spending the last 5 years of sending out cold emails for a business I co-run while doing the same to get shows for The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad and Wild Bonerz, I‘ve come up with a some guidelines for writing effective emails when requesting something actionable.

There are 3 rules to know when requesting a stranger to take action:

  1. Assume that they are busy. In fact, assume that they have reached a level of busyness that you can’t even begin to understand.
  2. Assume that they are reading your message amidst hundreds of others. Assume that they read their email on their phone. Make your request as short and direct as possible. Don’t fill your message up with a litany of details.
  3. No response IS a response. Follow-up politely but after about the third time with no response just move on.

With this in mind, posted below is the transcript of emails that led to Benny Mardones listening to Innocent Night. After recording the studio demo, I researched Benny to see what he has been up to. It turns out that he had just released a new album on a label called Warrior Records. I contacted the Jim Ervin, president of Warrior Records to see how we could get Benny on the album.

Subject: Information regarding Benny Mardones

Hi Jim, I am interested in featuring Benny Mardones in a new song by indie rock band The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad. Please let me know if this is at all possible and who to contact to investigate further.

Thanks, Nikc Miller

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Hi Nikc,

You would contact me.  Please feel free to forward any potential details.

Regards, Jimmy

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Jimmy,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Basically, we are a rock band that happens to be huge fans of Mardones and “Into the Night.” We wrote a song and recorded a sort of tribute to that song called “Innocent Night.” There is a bridge to the song that is 6 lines and wanted to get Benny to sing it. Along with that, the song would be listed as “Innocent Night featuring Benny Mardones” on the album.

We own a studio, or can do it remotely which may be easier since we are located in Baltimore, MD.

Please let me know how to proceed.

Thanks again, Nikc

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Hi Nikc,

Yes, Benny’s vocals would most likely happen remotely here in Los Angeles.  Is the song in a ProTools session?  Do you have a recording of “Innocent Night” that he may hear first?  Regardless, I will be happy to take this to Benny, but unless there is up front compensation offered it probably will not happen.

Please advise, Jimmy

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Jim,

The band discussed it and has decided to offer $500 up front for Benny to record vocals for the entire song. Please let me know if this is possible and we can discuss further. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to correspond with us.

Thanks again, Nikc

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Hi Nikc,

Benny has looked at everything, but he does not feel that the song is right for him.  Regardless, he did ask that I pass along his thanks and appreciation in considering him for the project.

All the best, Jimmy

We knew it was a long shot, but had to at least try. Of course when making our offer we forgot The Golden Rule Of Mardones:

“[Mardones] still lives quite well on the royalties received from ["Into The Night]…” (source: Wikipedia)

Obviously $500 isn’t gonna cut it for Benny. The point is that we got Benny to actually listen to and consider performing on this crazy child-molester song that alluded to his own biggest hit. For us, that’s a huge win in and of itself.

By the way, Andrew Warner recently wrote a similar post about email strategies. His site Mixergy is a collection of hundreds of interviews that he conducts with the world’s most powerful CEOs and entrepreneurs. So he is constantly requesting the attention of the unreachable. Check it out!

If you like this post check out:

CHASING BENNY: Listen To Songs You Hate For Song-Writing Inspiration: The story behind “Innocent Night” and about how this song was inspired by Benny Mardones’ hit “Into The Night”