DJ, Producer, and Songwriter Diplo offers some helpful insight into his interesting creative process as well as some of the insecurities that most artists grapple with as they enter “studio” mode. Check it out here. It is from The Creators Project series, which is definitely worth a look.

While Diplo is involved in numerous cool, fun projects, he is probably best known to date for his work with MIA and the track Paper Planes.

An increasingly important source of revenue is licensing your music for use in films, television shows, and commercials.  Licensing music for these uses has several appealing aspects:  you are paid relatively quickly, usually within 30 days of the music usage, it can be considered “found” money, since you already have recorded the music there is no additional cost to you, and the money can occasionally be substantial.  The range of money paid for the use can be anywhere from $100 to $100,000+  (the latter amount is usually for hit songs in global campaigns, major films, etc.)

Music licensed for film/TV/commercials  generates income for the songwriter (called sync rights), and for the owner of the actual recording (master rights).   If you own your recordings and you have written the songs on the recordings, you will get the income for both sync and master usage.  Nice.

A downside to be aware of when thinking about licensing your music, and that is how will your music be used?  What scene will be using your song?  In what context will it be used?  Are you okay if your sensitive ballad is used ironically during a slasher scene in a B movie or worse, perhaps running in the background while an ad spokesman pitches a hemorrhoid cream.   If at all possible you want to maintain control over how your music is used.  Hopefully you can sign off on each licensing usage, approving of the scene, length of usage, fee, etc.

Some artists use brokerage houses that will represent your music to interested parties on your behalf.  They may be seeking “pre-cleared” music, which means to represent you they require pre-approval to license your music at a fixed price and for any kind of usage.  Find out from them the scope of usages they pursue before you sign up so you know how your music may be used. Of course take a look at the money they are offering you after all expenses are removed too. How much do they take for their own fee? Are they paid by the end music licensor (film/tv/ad co.) or are they getting their fee from a percentage of your income? In general try to avoid retitling, whereby whoever licenses your music re-registers your song with a new title for that specific licensing usage and in turn takes a piece of the performance rights income that would normally go directly to the songwriter. There are differing views about this, see some here.

There is a simple way to  greatly improve the chances of getting your music licensed.  Remove the vocal tracks from your mixes. The need for instrumental music is much greater than the need for vocals.   Sometimes vocals can get in the way of dialogue in a scene or the lyrical content may stray from the mood that the instrumental is providing.   Whenever you are in the studio, before you master your tracks save a vocal free mix of each song.  Whenever you submit a track for licensing, let the interested party know that an instrumental version of the song also exists.

I was speaking at a recent NARM event and some artists asked about how to get in touch with music supervisors and others seeking to license music.   Info on that below along with some other sites you might find interesting:

Music Brokerage House (they represent pre-cleared music for licensing uses):  Sir Groovy

Music Supervisor Directory: Music Supervisor Guide

Interesting Music Supervision and Licensing: Rock River

The Future of Music Licensing and Evaluation?: Pandora’s Tim Westergren

An efficient way to get your band’s career moving is for each member to take on particular band business responsibilities.    In doing so, take a realistic look at your different personalities and experience.  Someone more outgoing can deal with setting up and later conducting interviews with media/blogs/etc. in a given city.  Another can handle tour logistics (lodging, expenses, merchandise, fees).  Perhaps someone else can keep media and venue databases up-to-date or write band bios and keep social media fresh.   You may need to double up personnel in some areas, but what is most important is that you are doing things yourselves, learning as you go, relying on each other, and saving money along the way.  First and foremost you need to create your  music, but at your best you are also a small company trying to make a living.    Don’t hire someone to do something you can handle doing yourself.

Derek Sivers, the visionary who created CD Baby (and a very nice guy), asked some people for tips on on how to best deal with the promotional-intense music convention scene.   With South by Southwest just around the corner, here are my thoughts:

1.  Be open to fortuitous error. More often than not, the really big meeting that may have instigated your convention attendance won’t even be where your future lies.  It will be the person you bump into by the escalator or who strikes up a conversation after spilling beer on your shoes at a gig that can change your life and help your career.  You are surrounded by talented people with shared interests, don’t presume anything about anyone and be OPEN.

2.  Have a business card. It may seem old school, but after a good conversation, being able to hand a simple, tangible artifact representing yourself is helpful to people.  Make sure it looks good and that you like it.

3.  Don’t eat alone. You are surrounded by so many people with common interests and goals.   The time for quiet reflection is  when you get home.  Right now, dive into the stream of humanity.  Make yourself known (nicely), and learn about people.

4.  Pace yourself (especially drinking.)  ‘Nuff said.

5.  Don’t be shy. Insecure?  So is everyone else in music.  Fuhgeddaboutit.  This is your opportunity to make an impression.  When you meet someone, find something that interests you about them, ask questions ,and learn about what they do.   You’d be surprised how often their pursuits might benefit from your talents or vice versa (see Point 1.)    You don’t want to miss out.

6.  Follow-up. Within a week after the convention, when  you have had a good conversation with someone and exchanged information, follow up with a short e-mail reminding them of where you met (remember, like yourself, they have probably met more people than they can specifically remember and things start to blur.)  Let them know you enjoyed meeting them and ask them to keep you in mind if they need assistance with anything.   Put your contact info by your signature so they can easily cut and paste it into their own contact list.

7.  Learning one ‘big idea’ per day is a very successful convention. If you are in a meeting where you are learning something important to you, stay until you’re satisfied.   You seldom get anywhere by rushing around and cramming too many meetings into an hour.  You won’t absorb it all.

8.  You never learn by talking. Listen.

9.  That said, talk when you have something to say and then allow the other person to respond.  If you find yourself talking for more than 30 seconds at a stretch, you aren’t talking, you’re pitching/self-promoting.  The pitch can come at a later date.   Right now, engage and enjoy.

10.  Make sure your digital identifier website/myspace/blog is functioning well before the convention. When you meet people and give them your card assume they will check out your site to learn more about you and your work.  Remember, your site is representing you.   Is it readily understandable for the user?  Do all your song links work?  Make sure you have tested everything.

11.  Hit the Salt Lick.    Great barbecue and vibe about 30 miles outside Austin.  Yum.

In today’s world,  everyone creates.  With A&R execs becoming relics of the past, it’s up to a microcosm of taste-makers and local communities to point out the good stuff amidst a sonic avalanche of mediocrity.

The good news is that moving your career forward isn’t dependent on the subjective whims of a few gatekeepers.  While this means you have to work harder than ever to make yourself known,  at least it’s now up to you.

Journalist Paul Rogers sums up the current situation well in his excellent LA Weekly article:  A&R Starmakers:  The Vanishing Gatekeepers.

A normally laid-back guitarist friend of mine was in a panic.  His band had been picked to open for a headline act in front of a couple thousand people and it would be their biggest concert to date.  He was no stranger to performing live and always felt it was the best part of his life as a musician.  So, why the stress this time?

It’s pretty common for emotions to surface at inopportune moments before big shows.  Fear or nervousness fueled by the realization that maybe your career is actually progressing, and the reactions of this particular audience to you onstage may somehow determine your future, “The higher you climb, the further you may fall” mentality.  You can easily obsess about the myriad of things that might go wrong for the big concert.

The solution?  Have fun.

Many of these incidents are uncontrollable, however your reaction is.  Yes, strings break, drummers lose time, vocalists forget lyrics, monitors sound terrible, and PA’s go out.  Next.  To an audience, the technical problems that are your worst nightmare are rarely an issue for them.  Most of the time they don’t even notice something is amiss (for better or worse.)  What they inevitably do notice is how you are reacting on stage.  Suck it up and plow ahead.  You are presenting an energy on stage and the audience is highly sensitive to it.  After all, that’s why they are out seeing you live instead of listening to your music at home on their couch.

When a band visibly implodes when a guitar string breaks it is their reaction that pulls the crowd’s attention away from the music much more than the compromised guitar sound.  Conversely, I’ve seen a band lose their entire PA sound on stage, make a joke about the problem with the audience and then turn their set into an unplanned acoustic evening that left thousands of people roaring with approval.  Such response was aided largely by the crowd’s admiration for the band’s dedication.  They were sharing their music live as best they could under difficult circumstances.   The band weren’t going to let details get in the way of  time with their audience and this gesture resonated deeply.

The more you are able to mentally pre-acknowledge mistakes as an occasional part of the live experience, the better you’ll be able to deal with incidents as they occur which, in turn, will help keep the audience focused on your music, performance, and energy.   Remember,  your best live performances are the culmination of continual feedback between the you and the crowd.    You are partners,  dependent on each others energy to elevate one another.   Do your part, problems be damned, and dare to laugh along the way.  Your audience has your back.

Between writing songs, recording music, touring, paying bills, and day-to-day responsibilities, you can be on an endless wheel of activity.  Sometimes it is easy to get in the habit of throwing out random elements of your work out to the public when time permits.  One week it’s a new song.   A month later,  you complete your  bio and forward it to a college radio station.  Weeks after that, you send a song to popular music blog on a whim because you have created something you and the band are excited about.

Flickr image from user, hotdiggitydogs

When it comes to marketing your music, stop and think about the various marketing elements you’ve created  in terms of when you will use them, and how they can be most useful.  By controlling the timing of when you release information in a particular market to enable it to hit in a focused manner, you give yourself a better chance of being remembered by people.

If you are going to play in a new town, have the college radio station be receiving your music about the same time as the local music critic or hipster blog site.  Have your posters posted at the club or around town by local fans at the same time these other activities are going on.  An isolated single play of your music on a radio station may well be forgotten by someone listening in their car.  Your song playing on the same station while the driver notices a poster on a building with your band’s name and graphics on it the same day,  followed by their spotting your record review on a music website that evening,  has a much greater likelihood of getting your band on that person’s radar.  These elements would not have the same power if they each occurred months apart.

Timely, coordinated marketing efforts strengthen each other, and  increase the impression of your band among the public consciousness.

There are radio promotion services that can help get your songs to the music directors at radio stations.  These services can also follow up with the stations to see what they think of your music.  If you don’t have the time or ability to send out your music and keep track of the stations, perhaps this option can make sense.  The drawback is it will cost you anywhere from several hundred dollars up to a few thousand dollars.

Flickr image from user, Roadsidepictures

Hiring a service may make sense eventually, but initially, the best, most efficient, and cost effective way to get your music a chance at radio airplay is to start small and do some research.  Target only specific stations that you think will relate to your music.

Go to a station’s website and look at their playlist, like this one from KEXP.   If you like the songs a radio station is playing and can imagine your music fitting into in the context of everything else that station plays, you have a better chance of being a good fit.  Some of this is obvious.   If you are a hip-hop artist, it is likely a waste of time to send your music to a country music station and vice versa.

Even within two stations playing the same genre of music (i.e. modern rock), if you listen carefully you can often find subtle differences between the sounds of the stations.   This research can help you tailor your music submissions to stations best suited for you. Listen closely and be as objective as you can.

Once you identify a station that seems like a good candidate, do not send a “Dear Sir/Madam” type of generic letter with your music.  Do your research, find the name of the Music Director and address them by name in your correspondence.  Let them know that you know what their station is about.  E.g.: “I’ve liked hearing Field Music and Tahiti 80 on your new music show and I think my enclosed music fits in well with your station.  Could you give it a listen and see if you agree?”

If you’ve performed live in the same town as the station, mention the venues you’ve played, and include a few favorable quotes from local media if you have any to help distinguish your music from the pack of submissions that radio stations receive.

Two weeks after you send the music if you haven’t heard back from anyone, follow-up with one phone call to the person you addressed the music to.  Whether you reach them or their voicemail, introduce yourself, the band you are with, and then let them know you’re following up on a submission and that you would love to know their thoughts.  Leave your phone number and e-mail address.  If you don’t hear back from them, take that as your answer for now.   They probably aren’t interested.  Yet.

Don’t worry about it.  Move on, focus on your music, and keep building your following and career through continued songwriting, touring, and marketing.  It doesn’t mean the radio door is closed forever.   Just keep developing your story.

In working with bands/artists over the years, several truths have emerged in my interactions.  One is that incredibly gifted creative people occasionally don’t grasp the correlation between their daily decisions and the longevity/success of their careers.

A band once proudly showed me the new t-shirts they had designed to sell on the road (merchandise sales being an important source of income for touring bands.)

I stared at the plain white cotton tee.

“Flip it over, I don’t see anything.”

“Well, there’s nothing on the back either, that’s the point,” they responded.   “There’s nothing there.  Its minimalist.”

I’m all for bucking popular trends, but putting the band’s name on your band shirt that you are selling to your fans is, well, kind of the point.

“Hm.  How will people know it’s your band’s shirt?”

“Here.”  They held up the left cuff of the short sleeve within inches of my face.  Sure enough, there was the name of the band, in 12 point type.  It could span 3, maybe 4 grains of rice laid end to end.

“How much are you going to charge for it?”

“We don’t know yet.  Ten, maybe fifteen dollars.”

Conceptually, and perhaps artistically, their approach makes sense.  But it seems risky to bet on people paying five times the normal price for a tee shirt that, minus some illegible tiny type, they can get down the block.  In attempting to make a living with your music, you need to be mindful of what motivates people to buy your work.    It is especially important if you are counting on paying for tour expenses like gasoline and food from your sales income on the road.

Whether it is music or merchandise, people want to identify with some aspect of your identity, your creativity.  It is good for you to have fans spreading the word about you, whether through the music on their stereo or the shirt on their back.  Great looking, interesting merchandise should represent you well, and will sell much better than poorly executed or ill-conceived efforts.  If you can’t do it yourself, then hire a graphic artist or design company whose work you like, and make sure you approve their final design before it goes to the manufacturer and a hundred t-shirts/buttons/etc. are printed.  It will pay off in the long run.

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Finding the right artwork is often about searching around until you meet a person or company you ‘click’ with and whose work inspires you.  For our money, here are some examples of fine artwork/merch services.  If there are others you want to share, drop us a line.

T-shirt/Merch companies:  http://www.propagandatshirts.com/

Buttons:  http://www.busybeaver.net/

Designer:  http://www.michaelrenaud.com/category/work/design/

Posters/postcards:  Infocomm    http://www.wpco.com/pricing.php

When you feel ready to introduce your band to media, venues where you would like to perform, a music programmer at a radio station, agents, managers, or anyone else, you’ll want to have a bio.

The objective of a bio to briefly share enough about your music and your band to invite curiosity on the part of a reader who knows nothing about you.   Many people reading it may still be deciding whether they are going to listen to your music or not.  A good bio will nudge them towards giving your music a listen.  It is not the right forum for your life story or a dissertation on creativity.  In fact, ideally it will fit on one page.  Two at the most.

It should also have a picture of the band or band related artwork.   Put some thought into these visuals.  It should appeal to them or pique their interest.   For better or worse, the people receiving your information often make quick judgments.   They simply get sent too much music.   Remember your task:   get them to want to hear your music.   It should also contain factual information such as where you are from, members of the band, a comment or two on how the band came into existence, and perhaps a mention of some of your musical influences or likes.  Always be sure to include contact information such as a band contact, e-mail address, phone number, website/myspace address, and mailing address.

A press release is similar to a bio but is more incident specific, with a newsworthy announcement. For instance, you are announcing your upcoming release date, or you just were picked to open for a popular headlining act.

It is very helpful to remember these general writing principles.  I’ve put some band-specific comments in italics beneath each “C.”

THE FOUR C’S IN WRITING

CONCISE:

You have a clear point and you only include the information that is absolutely necessary.  You are getting to the point quickly.

Keep your bio or press release length at one or two pages.  Never more.

CREDIBLE:

Your writing is believable.  You must offer proof (in the form of details).

For a new band, it is best to stick with the facts and not opine too much about your ambitions.  It is one thing for you to espouse about how great your band is.  It is another, much more powerful thing, to quote a respected third party talking about how great your band is.  Example:

“Our band, the Dudes, display life-changing musical genius that will twist the fabric of time.” 

- Jay Dude, lead singer, the Dudes

vs.

“The Dudes are the most incredible band of this generation.”

- The New York Times

CLEAR:

Your reader knows what points are important and how they fit together under the umbrella of your topic sentence.

keep your bio focused on the points you need to communicate and don’t stray from them.

CORRECT:

Your writing is free of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.

Nuff said.

Below is a recent press release written for us by an excellent media company, Girlie Action Media, http://www.girlieaction.com

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INDONESIAN INDIE POP GROUP

WHITE SHOES & THE COUPLES COMPANY CMJ AND L.A. DEBUTS

“One of the sweetest sounds in underground music today.” -TIME Magazine

Indie pop group White Shoes and the Couples Company from Jakarta, Indonesia, are bringing their mix of orchestral pieces, clap-along pop tunes, and dandelion-delicate love songs to New York and  Los Angeles for the first time, and returning to San Francisco.

2008 has been a great year for White Shoes The Couples Company.  The band performed at the SXSW Music Conference in Austin, Texas in March to rave press review, and sold out one of the best music venues in San Francisco. They’ve been named one of the Top 25 Bands on MySpace by Rolling Stone, featured in Time magazine, praised by Pitchfork and named  “One of the Most Crush-worthy Bands” by All Music Guide

Their new EP Skenario Masa Muda will be available October 28, 2008, a follow up to their self-titled debut, released on the Chicago based Minty Fresh record label.  Singing in both English and Indonesian, this sextet makes pop songs that you’d be excused for thinking had come straight off the soundtrack of Katamari Damacy, or a tender Sonny Chiba movie.

Indeed, these former art school classmates (the band met each other while attending the Art Institute of Jakarta) cite 1970s movie soundtracks as an influence.  No surprise, as it’s easy to picture a bell-bottom-entangling embrace to at least a few of their sweeping tracks.  Asian directors have already spotted the band’s cinematic sound, and have featured their songs in a pair of Indonesian films, Janji Joni and Berbagi Suami.

White Shoes & The Couples Company tour dates:

October 25,  10pm at Spike Hill, 184 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

October 30, 8pm, at Spaceland, 1717 Silverlake Blvd, Los Angeles

November 2, 10pm at 330 Ritch 360 Ritch, San Francisco

For complimentary tickets, to schedule an interview with the band, or more information

please contact:

Jennie, 773 665 0289; jennie@mintyfresh.com

www.myspace.com/whiteshoesandthecouplescompany    www.mintyfresh.com

audio, photos, bio: www.mintyfresh.com/promo/whiteshoesandthecouplescompany