What does this mean? Well, hopefully bigger and better gigs. We did the NACA thing last year as The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad, but we were not picked to showcase. After talking to alot of the attending students, it turns out that bands who don’t showcase tend to not get booked. So I decided that this year we would put a bid in to showcase, and only if we were picked would we do it.

But first, we had to find an agency. After the last NACA fest where we played a prank on Scott Alexander of Yomyamyeemyaz Agency, it was obvious that he didn’t want anything to do with us. Luckily, we weren’t (just) fooling around at last years NACA:

See that girl who won the 3rd place in our Hot Ass Contest? That’s Amanda from Amanda Kay Entertainment. She’s our agent and has totally hooked us up.

Most bands would say “What a waste of time, we didn’t get booked!” But we’ve already learned a ton from our experience at NACA and met a lot of cool people like Amanda who are shaking things up.

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Learn more about Wild Bonerz here!

Our relationship with Scott goes way back to when he was performing and living in Baltimore. Now that he is living and working in Brooklyn, we see him a whole lot less. Recently we got to see him more because we partnered with him as an agency to present at NACA (more on this partnership’s Fails and Wins in an upcoming post).  When we do see him, he never fails to remind us that we drink and goof off way too much. Based on that concept we decided to have Ryan and Curtis convince him that I had seriously gone off the deep end and that it was time to intervene.

Not only was Scott unamused, he was actually visibly upset. By the end of the weekend I caught him on video telling us about how we should be careful about Going Overboard when we get to fooling around (he meant this on a personal, as well as, professional level.)

Just a few days ago, he challenged me to talk a little bit about Going Overboard and how it can hurt your band. Instead, I’d like to put my own positive spin on this concept.
 At its most basic incarnation, Going Overboard means doing something outrageous.  When you do something outrageous and it goes horribly wrong, feelings get hurt, you lose a few fans, and you miss some opportunities. On the other side of the coin, if you try something outrageous and it works out, you look like a genius, you gain a TON of fans, and people beat down your door to get a piece of you.

Some good and bad examples of Going Overboard:

• Radiohead went overboard when they decided to let fans pay what they wished for their new album. (This is now imitated so much that its practically protocol for indie bands trying to sell an album)

• Kanye West went overboard when he hopped on stage to speak his mind during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. (He looked terrible for it. She gained a ton of sympathy. The parodied scene became an Internet sensation.)

• Barbet Schroeder went overboard when he walked into a producer’s office and threatened to cut off his own finger with a chainsaw if his movie lost financing. (He’s still directing tons of films with all ten digits firmly in place.)

• Devin Townsend went overboard when he decided to do a stylistic 180° shift. He gave up drugs and alcohol while writing, recording, producing and releasing 4 albums in a two year span. (He is now, arguably, more popular than has ever been.)
  

Whether the results are positive or negative, it’s a lot riskier to go overboard. It’s not necessarily more effective than consistently reinforcing the boundaries of taste. But it is definitely more fun, creative, and rewarding. It results in getting further along with relationships than you would have by just being polite. The most intriguing thing about Going Overboard, is that it is rarely intentional or planned.  Going Overboard just sort of happens. Then things, good or bad, (finally) start to happen.

Using Curtis “King” Crispin’s big brain and laser-pointer thermometer, we created a mini-event in our booth. The “Hottest Ass Contest” was born:

The execution of the contest was a 3-step method that happened in tandem. Ryan would talk people into our booth and explain our contest. Curtis would use the laser-thermometer to take the temp. All the while I would write down the info presented on each person’s badge (name and school) with their individual ass temperature. We’d leave them with a postcard and a copy of Die Humpin! and a dollar for participating.

The week that followed was hectic. We searched for everybody we talked to on Facebook and friend-requested them with a message that read like this:

Yo! Thanks for stopping by and talking to us at NACA. Also thanks for participating in our “Hot Ass” Contest. The average temp was 80.17907 degrees. You registered [their temp], so you’re right on track. We’ll have some video of the whole thing posted soon. Have a good one!

The beauty of this technique was that we didn’t have to waste time rehashing the details about our band, or worry about them not responding if they didn’t like our music. In fact, we didn’t talk about our band at all, we talked about THEM and they definitely remembered us.

Not only did most of the people we met accept our request. We got a couple of sweet messages back like this:

this:

and this:

Compared to the really lackluster results we got last time by doing the standard thing (emailing the attendee list that’s given to everyone who presents), this method was a smashing success.

Next week: The prank we pulled on Scott Alexander at NACA!

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If you like this article, check out:

The Mild Facebook Stalking Technique For Bands At Conferences: A quick primer on how to use video to follow up and connect with the people you meet at conferences.

What We Learned At NACA: A few things we learned from the last stunt we pulled at NACA

A Few More Things We Learned At NACA: Some quick tips about what to bring and do while you’re at NACA

As you can see we had a hell of a time:

The way it turned out was that I had recently bought a Flip Mino HD camera and was using it to shoot, well, everything. When we returned, we got the bright idea to cut this video together post it on Facebook and tag some of the folks we met on the video. These people turned into Facebook friends, and then eventually Facebook fans. Had we planned the whole thing out we probably could have maximized this technique to gain at least 100 fans for Facebook.

The moral of the story: Most people will be curious to see themselves in your video. Compared to a standard email, it is so much more effective as a context-building tool. As long as the video is decent and not exploitive, they probably won’t get pissed at you for tagging them.

By the way, I created this video for Derek Sivers’ presentation at South by Southwest, which I highly recommend contributing to if you are a musician. Hopefully he will be teaching people our little trick of being mildly obtrusive using video and Facebook!

1. Bring Video

The videos we made for the conference were a great way to quickly show off our bands to potential show promoters. Having video readily available is a great way to get into a rhythm of pitching several folks at one time, without spending too much time on one person. While that in itself sounds terribly impersonal, the fact of the matter is that there are a ton of bookers at NACA who want to quickly get your message and move on. It’s important to maximize their time at your booth by quickly leaving a lasting impression.

2. Take Video

All the video I took at the event was taken with the awesome and fairly unobtrusive Flip Mino HD camera ($150 at Costco). While this camera has some flaws, its a great way to cheaply document your experience. And while we were mostly just fooling around, it made our booth a bit more of a spectacle and therefore much more memorable to those who stopped by to speak with us.

3. “I got my own booth!”

It seems to be a great advantage to “have your own booth.” We joke about it in the video, but it’s true. At agency booths, there is a wall behind the representative plastered with pictures of 10-50 artists. If you are represented by an agency your picture will be posted amongst these artists. Instead of creating a personal interaction with potential bookers, you are ultra-genericized. You basically trade your awesome individuality for a little more credibility, a deal that I don’t think is necessary until you’ve reached saturation in your own market.

4. Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding) Is Awesome

Yup. Looking past all the sleaziness that you can find out about Dennis Haskins on Google Image Search he seems to be a genuinely nice guy who was more than happy to put up with our stupid shit.

1. Food Is Key

Having something to eat at the booth is key to having a popular booth. While a couple of booths had candy, we had the freshly baked vegan cookies of Scott Alexander. The fact that they were vegan was a huge selling point too. Since there is a ton of junk food available in Lancaster, many of the visiting students were burnt out on it. But its not everyday that you can try a vegan cookie, and hell it may even be good for you.

We still got weird excuses about food allergies and stuff. Honestly, they probably thought we laced the cookies with drugs or something, we’re pretty strange looking dudes. Add to the that the fact that two out of three of us in the booth were dressed in costume.

2. The Kazoo Paradox

While 90% of the college students are delighted to receive a free kazoo (one of our promo items), only 10% of that group know how to play one. I’ve always thought that kazoos were the most intuitively designed instruments. I was wrong.

As it turns out, people tend to first try to play the kazoo backwards (using the air hole as a mouthpiece). They then figure out the correct orientation only to fail by simply blowing air through it. Next, they blow harder, thinking that more air may create some kind of sound. Fourth, they take the kazoo out of their mouth in frustration. Finally, someone says “Just hum something.” Bingo!

3. Hall & Oates Are No Longer Popular

When pitching our cover project Wild Bonerz, I kept using the fact that we cover Hall & Oates as a selling point. I got a lot of blank stares. As it turns out, if you were born in 1990 or later you probably have no idea who Hall & Oates are, but you probably know the songs. Instead I should have mentioned the fact that we cover Michael Jackson since he just recently, ya know, died. Sorry Hall & Oates, but one of you will have to die to reclaim your spot in popular culture. Sad.