I always use Jill as an example of someone who’s been grinding out a living as a working musician in between crazy label signings. She’s successful because she builds great relationships with her fans and she’s not afraid to pull some clever stunts to meet new listeners. Riding the wave of attention around net neutrality, [...]

Kathryn snapped this photo of a CD-R stuck to a telephone pole:

Gotta admit it’s a cool and aggressive way to get your music “out there.” (Via BoingBoing.)
My only criticism: there’s nothing on the CD to describe what the music sounds like. Is it hiphop? Singer-songwriter? Is Hyena a DJ? Would I grab a random CD [...]

Virgil Dickerson of Suburban Home Records is asking his blog readers for advice on how to (cheaply) promote a tour for one of his bands. He’s already got a partial list of ideas posted and a few responses (mine included) in the comments.
What is effective promotion, really? I think it has to do with your [...]

I remember the first time Jennie made me listen to Green Day. We were both working at our college radio station, and I was still mostly listening to Paul Weller. I had no clue what to make of them, and I would never have expected, fifteen years on, that they would become rock royalty.
Along the [...]

Speaking of Music Hates You, Patrick’s got an amazing post on his personal weblog that exposes an experience that every working musician reading these pages has experienced at one point or another. The difference between bands that make it in the music business and bands that don’t is the ability to stand up to the [...]

If you use email newsletters to announce gigs and communicate with your fans, you should read Jakob Nielsen’s new article entitled Email Newsletters: Surviving Inbox Congestion. Some interesting revelations from Nielsen’s survey:

most people spend less than one minute reading a newletter
they only read 19% of the content (wow!)
67% of readers completely skip introductory text

It’s no [...]

I’m one of the guests on David Hooper’s Music Business Radio this week, and we talked a lot about street teams and growing your own audience. (We talked a lot about Music Hates You, in fact — the guys have been experiencing tremendous success by really getting obsessed about locating and playing for their fans.)
You [...]

Back in about 1996, I decided to shift my career away from music programming and toward production. That’s because I simply didn’t have the memory capacity of my colleagues, who can remember everything about every act they’ve ever heard. (A colleague of mine, when hiring new staff, would use the question — “Tell me about [...]

Yes, back when guys like Cousin Brucie and Dick Clark could open a mic and cause a Sam Goody stampede, radio (and TV) could dictate what records flew off store shelves. Not today. Focus groups and sales forecasts determine what goes on an FM playlist. So if you’re still trying to exert yourself to get [...]

I guess with folks dissing MySpace and the Sandi Thom incident souring fans on the idea of an internet-generated music superstar, it makes sense that YouTube is the new meme on the block. I’ve been digging all the tracks from Panic! at the Disco that I’ve heard on Sirius, but I saw an article cross [...]