Indie Band Guru

Ok everyone, it has been a very busy summer. Tons of great festivals and local shows. We met many excellent new people and learned of some fantastic ideas to get your band known. But now let’s get back to work.

Indie Band Guru will be adding a bunch of services to the already very useful site. We know that you guys want to just focus on writing and performing great music so use us for all the little things you need to get your music out there in front of new fans, labels, and record buyers.

IBG is launching writing services such as artist bios, press releases, and one-sheets. You are a musician not a literary genius! Also we will be offering booking and publicity services for select bands at very cheap prices.

We are actually looking to take on one special band to focus our knowledge and energy on for absolutely no money out of the artist pocket. We need a group of truly dedicated, professional musicians that are willing to put in the work to get their name out there. Contact us with some music and a letter why your band should be this Band!   All we ask is that once we show you what we can do for you, spread the word and let other hard working bands know what we can do for them. 

Lets get this party started!

I love it when I come across a band who has great music that also understands that they have to work hard to get known and are willing to invest both time and money in the band to achieve thier goals.

Let Indie Band Guru introduce you to Last Nights Vice, a phenomenal rock band from St. Louis, Missouri.  They have both the talent and sheer determination to make it.  Thier stage show demands attention and seems to gather them more fans with each show.

Where Last Nights Vice really stand out though is in thier promotion efforts.  The band even has a mascot.   Speakerhead is a big box they made with a working speaker that they wear on thier heads and play thier iPods out of.  LNV uses Speakerhead at both local and national shows blasting thier music for all to hear.

Last Nights Vice also has been promoting thier new album ‘Perfect Little Noise’ with promo videos they made with the help of some movie maker friends.  Another reason why networking is so important.  Check out the videos HERE.

The band also orders glossy, full colored flyers to promote shows and the release of the new CD.  The flyers also include download codes that can be redeemed on thier website for a free track.  When I asked them how they afford it all they said “Mostly we pay for them with money we make from shows and merch sales.  We decided years ago that we would be in the red for a long time.  We definitely pump a lot more money in that we get out.  It is actually cheaper to do a 5000 bulk run of glossy flyers though.  At about $0.03 a piece, as opposed to black and white paper flyers from Kinko’s that cost about $0.07 a piece.” 

The bottom line is, Last Nights Vice is willing to do whatever it takes to get thier music out there to the masses.  Hard work pays off.  Nad it helps that the music is damn good.  Check them out for yourself at www.lastnightsvice.com

  Here is something every band should do. Get videos of yourself up on YouTube! It is damn easy and great promo. One of our favorite hard working bands, Lil Daggers from Florida, show just how easy it is. Video your live show and use some free editing software from the web, and you can make a video that gets some attention to your music.
  Here is Lil Daggers doing “Hungry” live at Don Pedro’s with some funky video editing mixed in. The sound isn’t great but you get the point.

Let’s see your videos!

Thanks to technology today it has become so much easier to actually record an album of your own.  A good band with a decent ear no longer has to shell out a ton of money for the privilege of recording in a studio.  You can now have your own studio right in the basement and record a damn good album.

But once you get your heart and soul recorded on tape, or more likely digital media, is it really finished and ready to be released to he world?  In a word, NO!  There will be many little problems on the recording such as pops, clicks, equalization issues, etc.  This is where the services of a good Mastering Engineer come in. 

The music mastering studio is very different from a normal audio recording studio. The room is set up in such a way as to perfect the acoustics of the room to accurately monitor sound.  The mastering engineer needs to hear in detail each mix.  By working with an experienced mastering engineer, the recording artist is also open to more creative opinions and technical advice.

Your recorded material, ideally at the original resolution, is processed using equalization, compression, limiting, noise reduction and other mastering processes such as editing, pre-gapping, leveling, fading in and out, noise reduction and other signal restoration and enhancement processes.  The songs are also put in the proper order, commonly referred to as assembly or (track) sequencing.

In our travels we came across a great company for these needed services.  Check out Sound Affair Ltd.  They have been doing it for over 30 years and have put there touch on some great albums.  They have the only complete Focusrite Blue Mastering system in North America.  Trust us it makes a difference.  Thy are located in Santa Ana, California but you do not need to even attend your mastering session.  you can upload your files directly to them using FTP on their website.  They offer test masterings and free consultations.  When you have the need, get in touch and give them a try.

It is true in every type of media, Repetition = Recognition,  just look at commercials.  Seeing or hearing something one time really won’t help it sink into a persons consciousness.  But seeing or hearing something repeated over and over will work its way into the human mind and deliver the desired effect.  Recognition.

Now lets apply this to our music marketing.  Seeing the same band name, hearing the same song, and seeing the same logo will make an impression and people WILL remember your name.  That is the start of getting your band known and popular.  This can be done very easily and at next to no cost.

Get the crowd you deserve

First off, play shows often.  Not in the same spot 4 times a month, but get out there in the surrounding towns.  Get you band’s name on different venue marquees.  Now list all your shows in every media you can.  Get the show listed in the local newspapers.  The venues will help with this too if they run ads.  Post the show on every website you can find with show listings.  Put flyers (with your band name in big letters) everywhere that you can.  Bombard the viewers sense of sight.

Another great way to get your band name in front of people is with stickers.  A simple sticker with the name and logo of your band extra large is ideal.  They are cheap and can be placed in all kinds of locations.  Some of my favorite spots are in venue bathrooms, stop signs or traffic lights on busy roads, even outside on the street in heavily traffic areas.  People seek out stimulus when they are in a stagnant position, such as stopped at a red light or using a toilet.

Even more importantly, always talk about your Band.  Don’t just mention that you are in a band, but say I am the singer/guitarist/bongo player for Band X.  When a person hears the name it will work its way into their memory through another sense. Hearing as well as sight. 

The brain works in mysterious ways but when a band name is repeated over and over to someone it will eventually stick.  Even if the future fan doesn’t know how they know your band’s name, they now know it.  Now the next time they see that you are playing a show they will think you are even more famous then you are because they have heard that name somewhere before.  True music fans hate missing out on the next big thing so they will get to your shows, buy your CDs, and talk about how they knew you before anyone else.  All this because they have seen and heard you band’s name so many times that they feel that they know you.

Try it and you will see the results quicker than you think.

The Plan: Provide an Apparatus that Introduces Indie Artists’ Music to Listeners looking for new independent music

– Immitter.com presented their plan for a new internet startup at the 2010 DEMO Conference in Los Angeles, CA this past weekend.  Immitters’ specialty is music; its platform is the Internet. Immitter proclaims itself as the Internet Music Transmitter. Its mission is to broadcast music from aspiring independent artists to its intended audience — people who value it.

Immitter operates on the premise that everyone enjoys discovering new music. Many of us are willing to venture beyond the traditional label driven model to listen to music from aspiring artists. We do not, however, have time to sort through current platforms for independent music discovery, namely the millions of profiles on Myspace music, Last.fm, and tons of other social networking sites. And, even more problematically we don’t always know where to begin when confronted by an overwhelming number of unsigned bands to sort through.

Jermaine Kelly and Andre Nurse, cofounders of Immitter, understand  this very specific problem — they are independent musicians endeavoring to get their music to its intended audience. They founded Immitter in response to meeting listeners who are open to discovering hidden musical gems being overlooked by the major record label model. Though those audiences are open to listening to aspiring musicians, they are not open to spending hours sorting through hundreds of music profile pages on social networking sites to discover them.

The solution is to deliver the music to the audiences. Currently, there is no Pandora like promotion engine that broadcasts music from aspiring independent artists. Musicians hoping to have their content heard must wait for people to stumble upon it. Immitter imagined the possibility of aspiring artists being able to upload their original content onto a transmitter to be broadcasted according to specific parameters, just as Pandora does with music from labels.

The company and website www.Immitter.com  are still in their infancy, but they may be some potential there.  At Indie band Guru we are always on the lookout for great new music and ways for bands to get their music out to the world. 

Let us know your thoughts about Immitter and its’ potential.

So, if you didn’t know already, Indie Band Guru has been around for a while helping market independent bands, both online and through diverse guerilla marketing strategies designed to capture the attention of fans in different ways. We had been very, very selective in the bands that we have worked with limiting it to 1 or maybe 2 bands at a time so we could remain focused and do the best job for our clients. We now are thinking of expanding since we have more members of the team, and more experience.

I was looking around at some of our competition. Some great companies, some decent, but a lot of jokes out there trying to make a buck of of struggling indie artists. I came across this video that I thought was hysterical. Look at this guy! The outfit, the gold cross! And does he look high as a kite or is it me.  He moves his arms around so much that I am getting dizzy.  He has some good ideas but has to work on some things.

Check it out. 

If you are a serious band and interested in getting the word out there about yourself, get in touch and lets see if we can help out. (Please don’t go with this guy!)

authored by Marc Montfleury (aka Eloh) of Indie Band Guru

 It’s 9:30 pm on a rainy Saturday night. You have spent the last two to three weeks sending out sending out bulk emails, passing out flyers, texting everyone in your circle. Your Facebook, your Myspace and your Reverbnation pages are stock full of event invitations that you have sent out and posted in hopes of filling out a room.

An isolated room, in the back of or down a staircase, of any random bar in the city. This room costs no less than $10.00 to get into. You are scheduled to go on at 11:00 pm. Yet by the time you load in and try to get settled, someone with a clipboard steps up to you with one of two lines. “We are running late so you will have to go on at 1:00 am”. Or “I know you are scheduled for 11:00 pm, but get your stuff onstage now and get your set started as quick as you can”.

 You are a good sport right? So you do as you are told. Even though the band ahead of you was slated to hit the stage after you, and you are forced to play a 30 minute set as opposed to the 45 minute set you came prepared to display. You get on. You do your thing. Some people clap, others just stare as if you have done them some cosmic wrong in a past life. By the time you are finished, everyone that played before you has taken all of their “People” and moved either upstairs or to the front room of this random bar.

 You pack your stuff up and for the final kick in the balls, Mr. or Ms. Clipboard comes to inform you that instead of 15 people, you only got 12 in the door and next time you need to hit the minimum or they will not be able to work with you again. Oh, and you will not be paid.

This is where I get a little pissed off….. *(read the rest of the article Here!)