Our friend over at the Historical Inebriant posted a little advice on The Historical Inebriant Blog . As a marketing pro, professional alcoholic, and music fan he gives a bit of important advice. We repeat it here for your review. We will also follow up with this post with more advice on how bands should be marketing themselves.
An open letter to New Bands
I heard a great band yesterday, granted they were only 2 out of a 4 person band, but they sounded great, had some wonderful original music and did some inventive covers of some well played songs…however, they haven’t really marketed themselves so chances are, you’ve never head of them. I am not a musician and will never be (and I’m pretty cool with that). I do, however, love music. I really, really love live music, and if you have a band I want to hear you and maybe tell some of my friends about you, and maybe bring them to see you, and maybe we will buy one of your CDs but know that unless your band is really, really big – you have to do most of your own publicity and marketing. Thursday through Saturday I tweet about bands playing in my local area (Stamford, CT). There are about 6 venues that will have live music on those nights and I try to cover them all. However, so many times I will get the name of the band from the bar but that’s it. I will try an internet search and often won’t come up with anything on the band. Hence this post.
*********Disclaimer*********
I know nothing about the music industry – and never will. These thoughts are from a non-qualified, non-professional, never been in a band, can’t play a note, can’t sing karaoke, can’t read music, can’t keep time – guy off the street… that being said…
***************************
I came across a band on twitter the other day (if you’ve never heard of twitter stop reading this right now (I mean it – stop reading and google twitter!) composed of three brothers ages 12, 10 and 9 who do pop/punk pretty well (for 12,10 and 9). You can read a bio of them on Facebook, you can hear their music on SoundCloud and you can follow their gigs on twitter. Their music will get better and better with time, but the most important thing is that you can find them & hear them NOW. Isn’t that what this is all about? Being heard, being known, having people who like your music come to your gigs and buy your music and share their love of your band with their friends? Granted, the band I mentioned had help, (follow me on twitter @thi_stamford if you want to know who they are) but again the important thing is to realize the marketing(gasp) is an integral part to the music and if the music is important to you, then the marketing has to be also.
I have a friend who does sound for bands (professionally) (BNK Productions), I have another friend (Focus In Digital) who takes photos of bands (professionally). I like to write and see bands live (amateur). We have talked for months about putting down some of the absolute basic things that every band needs to have to make this whole music thing work, but even we are torn between other commitments and have not have a chance to sit down together. After yesterday’s events, I am starting the list today with what I believe is a no-brainer Number One thing to have and my friends and I will add to it over the coming days.Number One:Get a facebook account in the name of your band. Ok, yes I think facebook sucks, (I think most people do) and I think if I see the word timeline one more time I’m going to dig out my eyes with a dull soup spoon and scream till my ears bleed. But, I tell you what my friend – there are 500 Million facebook users who probably feel the same way . Open an account (its free Btw –FREE) under the band name and make the other band members administrators to the account so you all can post to it from your personal facebook accounts. Buy smartphones so you can post about your travels and gigs on the fly. Use the camera on that phone so you can take take cool pics (more to come on that) of your gigs (or yourselves) and post those. Take some video and post it. Even not so great quality is better than nothing to your fans (do not use bad quality though). Put some music up there, (we will have much more on that later) even if its just you working through a new song. “Like” other bands on facebook so you can message each other about how sucky facebook is. Mention you are on facebook at your gigs so people can “Like“you (second gasp) and then push out notices of your next gig to them using events so they will know and remember to show up to hear your great music. List all your events – who knows I might just be in East Bungalow on the 28th and I would catch your show there. Give away some some downloads of some of your live stuff in exchange for a “like” and/or build up an email list with offers and giveaways. And then – when you reach about 35,000 likes and its a mad house wherever you play, just send me an email and say “you were right about that whole sucky facebook thing”.
And finally our pics from the show, taken by our partner @ Focus In Digital (give the slideshow a chance to load)
One thing to notice in this gallery is the crowd at the stage. In all the other galleries out in the media, these photos are shown as the crowd for the next act when in fact they were there already watching The Matt O’Ree Band play.
As mentioned previously, The Matt O’Ree Band returned to Stamford, CT. This was a two night engagement. The first night at our old home venue The Rack N Roll Cafe involved a night of acoustic music from the boys. This show was planned to be as a completely different experience to what the area was about to see the next night. Two sets of blues, and rock tunes played not necessarily toned down, just different timbre and energy if you will. Speaking with those in attendance it was clearly a great idea. Some had seen The Matt O’Ree Band in the past and really enjoyed seeing them in this dimension. Others were enjoying their first experience with them. These first timers were telling me that the music was awesome but you could feel it could explode at any moment and they were getting this anxious feeling to see that happen. That was what the next night was for…….
6PM August 2nd, Stamford, CT. The annual Alive @ 5 Concert Series was at its 7th and final show. Frank Viele and the Manhattan Project had already left the stage. At this point, quite a few thousand had come into Columbus Park for the show which featured Foreigner as the headline act. The local Classic Rock station 95.9 The Fox had their morning djs up MCing the show. I took a position at stage left near the merchandise tent to see the reaction. I look through the crowd. This was a very mixed audience with almost equal parts of every age group. But there just a couple rows back. A sizable group of young kids. Pre-teens, mid-teens, late-teens. and early twenties. They introduce The Matt O’Ree Band. That moment the world seemed to change. That moment it was proven that musicianship and pure Rock & Roll energy are still appreciated in today’s world of Lady Gagas and techno wizard dance music. I watched these kids down front explode. Dancing and screaming with every note from Matt’s guitar and Eric’s keys. Shaking their fists to every beat of John’s drums and the rolling groove laid down by Scott’s bass. I walked around to see the reaction. People are on their phones yelling to someone on the other end “ARE YOU HERE YET? THESE GUYS ARE FUCKING AMAZING! HURRY UP!” And similar statements. Many were dancing. Some just shaking their head to the beat, some tapping their foot. The crowd continued to pour in and load up at the stage. Pushing to get closer. Screaming at every song. Whistling and cheering at every guitar or organ solo. Then John’s drum solo! This was not that every rock concert drum solo. And people recognized that! I heard shouts of “really?”. As the solo progressed the crowd began to surge with even more energy. The here and there whistling became more and more present. The once and a while “YEAAAAAH” became a building wind of screams. The band joins back in to finish the song and now the crowd is just jumping up and screaming with their hands reached out as if to try and grab their handfuls of this magic pouring off of the stage.
At this point, I could not tell you how many people were at the stage area. You couldn’t see through or around it. This was the view near the end of the show taken from Matt’s IPhone (notice how far back you can see hands raised?):
Matt O’Ree from the Matt O’Ree Band takes a photo of the crowd at the last Alive @ 5 in Stamford 2012
After the show. The guys signed autographs and took pictures with lots of people as the crowd waited for Foreigner to take the stage. Word comes to us that Foreigner wishes for us to stick around to meet up after the show. A crew member of Foreigner’s informs me that the guys in their band feel they have to really step up their game because of the way The Matt O’Ree Band energized this crowd. After Foreigner’s show the members of the band came back to the bus area to talk to the guys and express how impressed they were.
To me the greatest moment was during the autographs after the M.O.B guys came off stage. I happily retell the story here. With a crowd of people surrounding the guys, I noticed a kid of maybe 12 or 13 years old standing behind Eric as Eric signs an autograph. Eric turns and the kid reaches out his hand and touched Eric’s shirt. Eric leans down and the kid quietly says “you were really great”. I notice two Xs written on his hand in magic marker. This came from the entry gate to signal he was under age for alcohol. Turning to the kid, I joke about the marks and ask Eric to autograph his arm so the Xs would look cool! Eric was hesitant but a smile came over the kids face and he says “would you please”. After Eric signs his right arm he also asks him to sign a pair of white sunglasses. Eric does so and shakes his hand. The kid runs off to his parents who were standing just off to the side. They reach out to him as he shows them, with a big smile on his face, his souvenirs from Eric.
Eric Safka of The Matt O’Ree Band signs an autograph for a new young fan.
If you did not get the chance to see either or both performances. You missed quite a lot. But we will be posting pictures soon from both nights.
BNK Productions is proud to represent The Matt O’Ree Band in the North East. They are an amazing bunch of guys. Caring and friendly, but powerful in their craft. Their CD’s are available on ITunes or Amazon. And you can check them out at their website: www.mattoree.com
Also check out photo galleries from:
The Stamford Advocate (many of the crowd shots in the daylight in this gallery were during The Matt O’Ree Band’s performance)
And also check out these awesome pics of the acoustic performance the night before from Aaron Kershaw
Most of all, keep an eye out as we bring them back in couple months as they continue to tour the country.
