E urope - Parent Directory

d i fferent perspective. They want to know how musicians can exploit the
extraordinary technology of the Internet to expand the audience and enable
more musicians to make a living doing what they love, and improve the
quality of life of consumers.
In a sense musicians may be in a better place today than they’ve ever
been before. Taking a cue from the cyber-bard John Perry Barlow, I believe
we could be seeing a paradigm shift from the domination of the “music
business” to that of the “musician business.”
The more things go digital, the more we crave authentic, roots-based
music; the more music that’s available to us, the more we seek niches that
provide meaning and navigation through all the choices; and the more
worldwide radio shows through satellite radio, the more we desire shared
cultural experience via local djs.
If we had to, all of these trends can be placed under one banner that
reads: the larger the world economy the more powerful its smallest players.
H e y, we’re talking about you.
Peter Spellman is Director of Career Development at Berklee College of
Music, Boston and founder of Music Business Solutions, a training gro u n d
for music entre p reneurs. He’s the author of The Self-Promoting Musician,
Indie Power: A Business-Building Guide for Record Labels, Music
P roduction Houses and Merchant Musicians and his newest, Indie
Marketing Power: THE Guide for Maximizing Your Music Marketing.
Find him at mbsolutions.com
r a d i o a i r p l a y
GETTING RADIO A I R P L AY
by Lord Litter, host of Lord Litter’s Radio Show
© 2009 All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission
It was the late 80’s and I was doing freelance work for a commercial radio
station. The first thing I discovered was an enormous heap of releases in
the hallway. Here are some hints how to approach DJs. An important
aspect of a release surely is that it can be used to promote the band/
musician. If you don’t take care of certain areas, your music m i g h t be on
a i r, but no one will get to know who you are and where they can buy your
music...so the whole promotional effect is lost.
H e re are things that give me trouble and that I think may cause other
DJs to NOT play the re l e a s e :
1. Every item you send should have a clearly marked address. Info
material will be separated from the CD, so if there is no address on the
c o v e r, then you’ll get no play listing, your address will be not spread
e t c . . .
2. Since the CD became t h e medium of choice, some bands should send
magnifying glasses with their releases. Sometimes covers look great
but the writing is either much too small, or the use of colors make it
impossible to read. Make sure it as easy as possible to identity the
name of your band, the song order, and a contact address.
3 . The more well known a DJ is, the better the promotional effect. It also
means that a known DJ gets piles of releases every day. Therefore, the
time to care about the individual release shrinks to almost seconds,
leaving no time left to care about questions like: What the name of the
band is, and what the title of the release is.
4. Give all of your material a professional approach. It is impossible to
read ten pages to get the basic info about a band. Send a reduced
informative version of your material with the offer to send more if
interested. A link to your website is what I appreciate.
5. DJs are human beings - yes they are! Treat them like you want to be
treated. No need to send endless letters, but a short “Hey, thanks -
airplay really appreciated!” proves that you *care* about your music
and about the one that *cares* about your music - the DJ.
6. The best way to get in touch is to check in before you send your
music and say something like “We heard about your show from ...
would you be interested in our music? If the DJ doesn’t answer you
can forget him/her anyway. You might not even get playlist later. T h e
basic idea here is to keep it somehow personal. You’ll discover that it
creates a very positive effect - in some cases you might even find a
f r i e n d !
7. If you send CDRs (I do broadcast these!) make sure they really work!
I have one CD player that doesn’t take badly burned CDs. So, if your
CD (in the running order of the show) must be played on that player
and it doesn’t work, it will not be played.
The basic idea is: make it as easy as possible to handle your material.
Before you finish your material, take it to the printer, if the required aspects
are not clear, change it. I know it’s a lot of work, but the alternative would
be: become rich, hire a professional promoter and watch how your release
will be thrown away with the others. The answer is always “somewhere in
the middle” as we say in Germany.
L o rd Litter has earned the reputation for producing and delivering what is
a rguably one of the world’s best independent music programs. Since the
early 1990s, Lord Litter has known the pulse of independent music, and
t o d a y, indie musicians from all over the planet know that his program is
one of the ultimate destinations for their music. Website: www. L o rd L i t t e r. d e
RADIO A I R P L AY 101 - COMMERCIAL A I R P L AY
M Y T H S
by Bryan Farrish, Bryan Farrish Radio Promotion
© 2009 All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission
♦
When talking to people who are launching their first couple of projects,
invariably the same misunderstood points come up concerning commercial
r e g u l a r-rotation airplay. H e re are some common myths:
D J ’s play the records
This only applies to non-commercial radio, and specialty/mixshow radio.
The majority of people in the U.S. listen to commercial regular- r o t a t i o n
radio, and on these stations, the DJs have no say at all in what is going to
be played (unless, in the case of a smaller station, the DJ is also the PD).
So, the biggest pitfall to avoid is asking a DJ at a commercial station “Can
I give you my CD for possible rotation?” The DJ is not allowed to say
“No”, and he/she is probably not going to explain that only the PD can
approve regular rotation. The DJ is just going to say “OK”.
Why do they play it?
Good songs do not mystically spread to other stations. Every single song
you hear (or every syndicated program you hear) on commercial regularrotation
radio is on that station because of layers of promotion and
marketing. The song you hear was the one that made it, it beat out the other
300 songs that were going for adds that week. What you don’t hear are the
endless phone calls, faxes, trade ads, personal meetings, consultant
recommendations, call-out research, and other things which went into
getting the station to add the record. The station owners make it a
requirement that DJs make it sound like they picked the music themselves.
College or specialty/mix-show will expand to commercial
Just because you do well on non-commercial or specialty/mixshow radio, it
does not mean anything will happen on commercial regular-rotation radio.
Nothing at all will happen at commercial unless a separate, higher- l e v e l
campaign is put into place to take the record into regular rotation. T h e
pitfall here is that a listener will hear something on college, and then a
month later hear it on commercial, and conclude that the college caused the
commercial to happen. The listener did not know that both campaigns were
in place simultaneously, and the college simply went for adds a month
e a r l i e r.
You have to be signed
Untrue, being signed is only a signal to the stations that the basic marketing
practices are going to be done right. If you have the budget, you can
duplicate the marketing practices of larger labels, provided you know how.
www.indiebible.com The Indie Bible – 10 th Edition