20% Music 80% Promotion

Last week I really sped through a synopsis of what I was trying to accomplish with this series, so this week I'll try to slow it down a bit and move a little more step-by-step. At the same time it highlights the reality in this biz that creating content to share with other people (ie. products, music, etc.) is the easy part - it's about one-fifth the battle! I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "The music will sell itself." You could be John Lennon but without massive amounts of promotion no one will ever hear of you. Why do you think every generation finds Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon? They created an event - an emotion - and drew upon it masterfully with their music and live shows (the best bang for your buck promotion out there) as well as compelling media. But the audience members who were there, that got their minds blown (in more ways than one), that became dedicated life long fans, wouldn't have even known to listen or go unless it had been promoted.

When the email came through to do the show the first thing I started thinking about was how I would define its success. At this stage in the game it's not always about the money - it's about growing a relevant network of fans and professionals. I remember watching a sermon by Rev. Al Sharpton where he told the congregation, "If you want to be successful, go hang out with successful people." I spun this into my own mantra: Find the most successful person you know and become indispensable. When my roommate, Doug, started hiring me to do street team work for his festivals I saw an opportunity to apply my mantra. For the next nine months I showed up on time, stayed late, stayed productive, and volunteered extra time. This yielded an opportunity to be on the production team for Earth Day San Francisco 2012 and am excited to be a part of a great group of talented people. Martin refers to this as selfish philanthropy. If you want to get someone's attention, if you expect them to give you fifteen seconds, find what they need and give it to them.

Back to the show - how would I define its success?

1. Educate my network about what I do without spamming them to death.

2. Be asked to do another show.

3. People bought alcohol

4. Larger sponsorship for the next show

5. Not fucking up on keyboards

6. Had fun.

As you can see, money never was a direct definition of success here other than to get help promoting the next show. I knew better. At least not at this stage in the game. That's another concept from Tour:Smart - Keep your ambition in check.

I believe that people listen to music and go to shows, or experience art in general, because they relate it to an emotion. After I've defined what I'm expecting from the show I can shape out what type of feeling or emotion I'm trying to recreate. In this case, my band in focus, Heart of Orion, has a lot of revolution themed songs - which fits right in to San Francisco where there's rallies every other month. We've been peddling a new track called, Let's Get Loud, as well as a remix I did of the same song, which is a call to get vocal about things that are important to you. So when I try to define an emotion-set for this show I get:

1. Revolution

2. Motivated

3. Energized

4. Strength

5. Reclaimed Power

6. Fun

I have to credit my fiance, RhondaK, for the tagline "A revolution you can dance to." There in one short, clever sentence, the audience subconsciously taps into those emotions listed above. Add to that statement the picture of a fist with a star radiating from it. It screams, "We have a cause and you can have fun while you're at it." Now you see we've taken it from being just a band playing onstage to an event. People will almost always go to an event before they go to a show.

I put a lot of importance on nurturing my relationships with various networks; whether it's on Facebook, Twitter, and ReverbNation, or present and accounted for. Interacting with people on a real level not only opens your exposure to new or different ideas, it increases the chances of those people paying a little more attention when you do, occasionally, plug your gig. Here are some examples of how I nurtured my network.

1. Lucky me, Martin Atkins is open to chatting with people about the biz. It was a great relief NOT to say, "Wow, what a douche bag." I enjoy reading his posts as they pass through my ever-moving ticker on Facebook. Every now and then I'll jump in on a conversation if I think I can be intelligent about it and he responds in the same voice of his book. Really, I just want to hear how Martin Atkins says, "Fuck yeah!!!!!" Putting that on my to-do list. I really find some of his quotes inspirational, so as part of my personal Facebook campaign, I like posting them on certain days of the week. This interaction was to be really useful later on.

2. My fiance is a librarian specialist, works in a college library in Florida, has an undergrad in marketing. I was able to turn to her for the taglines, written voice, press releases, and a plethora of grassroots marketing techniques. Google will only get you so far, my friends. Libraries have access to much cooler shit. One of the best assets you can have on your side, according Guy Kawasaki, author of Rules For Revolutionaries, is a research librarian. He is so right.

3. Became a motivated worker for Green Zone Productions (Doug)

4. Entered a remix contest for the song Disease by Gary Zon's Industrial band Dismantled. Using that as a frame of reference, I was initially talking to him about appearing on my cover of Radiohead's Creep. I really pushed the Disease remix, promoting it to my fan network and really did get better responses than I anticipated. Then it dawned on me - it'd be way cooler to perform with him live than just on a song. When I found out we could bring another band with us to Bottom of the Hill, and after getting Martin's opinion of the situation, Gary was the first person I asked to fill the spot with his Electro-Pop project Aerodrone. What I have as far as a bargaining chip is a spot on the bill at a pretty well known venue in town.

5. Yes, I have a scheduled list of topics I make sure to talk about at least once a day on my social networks. I had gotten some feedback from my friends saying that I came off more as a "fan" than an "artist" and therefore it was weird when I tried to plug my music. Again, RhondaK to the rescue. Together we develop a schedule of posts with specific themes for each day of the week. Right away, within thirty days, my Haunted Echo stats doubled on ReverbNation. The brilliance of this technique is that it is easily applicable to whatever brand you are trying to pitch and it's not spam! It keeps you real and promotes what you do at the same time. I plugged the schedule into my Google Calendar and everyday I check it to see what I should talk about that day. Recently, this just got a whole lot easier. Enter www.roost.com. Here I'm able to create and schedule my posts, assign the days and times, and even have access to a library of resources for content. On Sunday I create a post or two for each day of the coming week and now I can multi-task a bit better. This is also a great legitimate way to gain Facebook likes as when you click on the link, your Facebook page (not profile) pops up in a banner-sized window that sits on top of the screen with a Like button. It's not a pop-up - it's a browser frame.

Another concept talked about in Tour:Smart is the buy-in. This is when a band, or artist in general, pays for the ability to join a tour or show. This helps spread the cost of production and promotion over a bigger fund. Even in RhondaK's tiki bar sign world, she buys a space at a promoted event in the hopes of utilizing the show's built in crowd. It's a gamble in the end. Sometimes you rock the bank and sometimes you bleed. But you just keep on doing it because it's great exposure either way.

When Gary told me he'd need a guarantee to book the date, I decided to take the concept of the buy-in and narrow it to just one night. I am aware that San Francisco is notorious for how hard it is getting an audience to come out to a show. It's like pulling teeth. Here, I'm thinking that if you combine event and cause with a cool band from out of town, now it's really starting to get interesting. Plus, hey, since I'm getting him a paid gig, maybe he'll pay a little more attention to the remix I did. He is releasing a new EP soon...

Now, we have no money but I have a couple ideas on how to scrounge something up.

Synaptic Discharges Blog Edition Week 3: Making Shit Happen.

Website

Halo Askew Entertainment

Music

Haunted Echo

Heart of Orion