Helpful Band Links - 9/24/07

Posted on September 24, 2007
Filed Under: Helpful Links

Try to contain your excitement but here are this week’s helpful links. I try not to have any kind of conscious theme when putting these together but it’s pretty obvious to see where my head has been the last week or so. Regardless, I think that band promotion and management are two of the things that unsigned artists tend to ignore or gloss over when, in fact, they are two of the most important ingredients for building a music career. As always, feel free to discuss in the forums or share any links that you think people might find helpful.

Unsigned Band Promotion
This site specializes in helping bands promote their own websites. They have a mix of good (”Target your local press with articles, press releases, news…“, “Non-profit organisations often need support at local events. If your band fits the bill, offer to play.“) to obvious (”Network and forge relationships with anyone in the business!“, “Ask fans to: buy your music, spread the word, tell a friend…“) to just plain strange (”Get your hair re-styled - so you look different!“, “Translate your lyrics into foreign languages.“) advice peppered throughout their site. They aren’t traditional promoters by any stretch since their focus is strictly on web promotion but they still have a lot of useful information for anyone looking for ideas on how to build their fan base using the web.
Music Business Solutions
This is the home of the Music Career Juice podcast series that we reviewed here. MB Solutions is full of great information and resources for planning and building your music career. It’s definitely worth a visit if you’re looking for more information about starting out in the music business.
Josaka.com
Recording Your Demo
Studio 101
I included two links to this site simply because they both provided relevant information. The first link is an overview of the studio recording process. It’s not specifically about recording a demo but it does contain some useful information (especially if you’ve never been in a studio before). It covers some of the pros and cons of both live and multi-track recording as well as descriptions of the recording process for each instrument.

The second link is geared more specifically toward recording a demo itself. It also covers live recording versus multi-track recording but it contains other helpful tips as well. Some of the tips include allowing enough studio time for all of the tracks you want to record (should only be 2-3 tracks at most for a demo) and putting the final CD away for a few days before listening to it again. It’s amazing how a few days away from the recording can help you pinpoint issues or problems you might want to fix.
Music Industry News Network
The Music Industry News Network is exactly what it’s name implies, a network of music industry news. You can search the site and read the various press releases from a host of industry insiders, music promoters and bands. The best part of this service however, and the reason I’m even listing it here, is that you can submit your own press releases for free. Whether you’ve got a big gig coming up, are releasing a new CD, or have launched a new band website you can post a press release about it here and have your news available on a major music news aggregator. And did I mention that it’s free? Well, it is. It may not be sliced bread or its equivalent (the lack of RSS feeds is a bit of a downer) but any promotion is good promotion and free promotion is best of all.