MARKETING...

A good half these blog posts are concerned with PROMOTION. These days, "making it" in music entails more than just good writing–it requires good marketing, too. Used t'be, that was somebody else's job, and there were plenty of somebody-elses to do it. As little as 30 years ago, a band or soloist with some original material could just go down to Mildred's little radio station in Tillamook and play it live on the air. A lot of professional musicians got their start that way. If the DJ thought your stuff was really good, the DJ could connect you with a recording studio (there used to be one of those in Tillamook), and you could cut a record that you and the DJ could shop around to other stations, and if people requested it a lot, and/or the DJs played it a lot, you got famous.

Those days are mostly gone. With very few exceptions (and Mildred's station is one), the stations don't have DJs; they play preset (sometimes pre-recorded) lists of "hits" dictated by somebody in the Corporation on Another Planet that owns the station. Requests? You don't get to request anything that isn't on the "hit" list (if you get to request anything at all). Outsiders mostly don't get into this system, because there aren't the openings any more that outsiders used to be able to get in through.

If the foregoing sounds like a complaint, my apologies. There is no point in complaining–one simply has to deal with Reality as one finds it. And the reality, I think, is that you end up marketing yourself because there isn't anybody else left to do it.

There appear to be two promotional tools the outsider has available. One is LIVE PERFORMANCE; the other, THE INTERNET. No matter how tightly the Powers That Be limit the pressing, distribution, and airplay of songs, they can't control what people play and listen to live. You got something to say, you get out there–everything from street corners to (hopefully) concert halls. Eventually (hopefully) you'll make money at it. It means that the writer has to become a performer, too, even if he didn't want to–and become semi-good at it, because there isn't any other vehicle any more for promoting your material except yourself.

The Internet is the promotion and distribution system the Powers That Be don't control. NOBODY controls it (it's been called the last refuge of anarchy). Anybody can use it; you just have to figure out how. There's no instruction manual, but there are some folks shaping up as good role models–people who are doing things that work.

I've collected probably a couple hundred names and edresses of people over the past couple of years. These are people who've bought CDs, signed sheets asking to know when the next CD is coming out, asked where I'm playing, or sometimes just asked to be "friends" on MySpace. From my end, I'm planning on having another CD out by Christmas, am working up the venue list for Concert Season this summer, and keep putting out new songs. Can the two be melded together?

I asked some folks I "know" online for advice, and got some.

FIRST, I need a "Joe Website." I apparently "own" a domain name already–nakedspacehamsters.com, bought for me by a friend–but haven't done anything with it, because I haven't had (or haven't learned) the tools. I need to upgrade "Alice" the computer with more RAM and Windows XP and a newer version of Adobe Photoshop to do that–but those are planned purchases with the first paycheck from my new job.

The Website will function like a virtual train station, primarily providing links to a bunch of other stuff that already exists: the songs (on Soundclick), the projects with other people (wherever they are), the Concert Season schedule (maybe on MySpace), the blog (currently on MySpace and Google's Blogspot). A "subscribe" button if people want to get e-mails (and an "unsubscribe" button for when they want to stop. A one-paragraph "Breaking News" block I can update constantly–daily, if I want. I have run across one writer who has mostly done this, and I can just imitate her.

The Website is also a "one-stop," like Oregon State Economic Development uses for passeling out grant and loan money. All you have to do is go to this one place and you can get anywhere and anything you want.

I think I just created myself a big pile of work to do–and all I wanted to do was write and play songs. Still, I'm anxious to get started.

This blog has already got a little lengthy–and I was trying to imitate Jonathan "Artist 2.0" Coulter and do shorter blogs. I have updates, but they'll have to wait for next time.

Joe