For Your Submission - Monstervox

This is a interesting site when you submit your songs and people do head to head voting on what they like, and then leave feedback, though not always constructive. If you have thick skin and just want a nother place to get heard, check it out

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Monstervox

Resource of The Day - Craigslist.com

Craigslist is basically a large classfieds site, but its a great place to meet other musicians and to find gear and other music related items.

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Craigslist

Resource of the Day - Google Ad words

If you have a minimal budget, this is a great way to drive traffic to your website based on certain key words that you provide. There is a wealth of information and help in using the system. I would suggest starting of using the basic system and grow into using all the other tools like traffic analysis and custom keyword control.

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Google Ad Words

For your Submission - SnoCap

It is a safe assumption that you have a myspace by now, instead of just getting plays for your songs, might as well sell them as well. This is a great feature because it is a point fo sale right where people are listening to your music, a true no brainer.

The link for this one is in you admin view in myspace, make sure you look for the link.

Expose Yourself! - It isn't about luck

So a new guerrilla martketing tactic I am going to share is one that I started about 1 hour ago and already has provided enough traffic to move us from 36 to 21 on the charts, in one hour.

It's the most powerful FREE marketing weapon on the planet, well it appears that way.

FRIENDS.

Not those untalkative myspace friends who won't lift a finger for you. I am talking about your inner circle. And how is this achieved...email. Now craft a nice message to your friends with a link provided to your website or your EPK...send it to all your friends that you know love to share messages with their friends...are you seeing a pattern emerging...ahh haaaa

Exponential growth of people exposed to your music. Now my theory is still in it's test phase, but the way i figure by the time you hit the 7th degree of separation(Kevin Bacon), and everyone passed to at least 5 people, by the 7th degree you would have been exposed to 17,878,525...Now thats exposing yourself!

Myspace that Matters : reverbnation.com

I wouldn't call myspace the mecca of all places to get exposure for music, and sometimes it all comes down to saturation, actually with myspace it really is all about whoring the music out and hopefully a few people along the way become fans, which seems to be the case. Interacting with the fan base is crucial though, not just adding friends for friends sake. I have made some great contacts with myspace so i can't really knock it...

so another site that works cool is reverbnation.com

Pick your best track and use the message board and comment away with it! Don't do a thousand bulletins...one to your fan base is enough. After that go to highly saturated sites and leave a comment...not a lot of comments on one site, one comment per site and schedule to do this as you have the free time. Also, pick artist sites that are related to your style...no one cares about folk on a Hip Hop site!

Dictatorship vs. The Collective

One thing I find fascinating about the band dynamic is that essentially a band is a collection of "wills" all willing themselves into an end result. This leads to a big soup of chaos and often times complete destruction of an otherwise friendly and enriching journey as musicians.

Over the years I have experienced several different variations of the "Collapse". That place where the band hits a certain plateau and then falls flat on it's face, often times right before an ascension in some form of progress or direction. One thing I will cover in a different post is what sadly can be seen as the fear of success, and it seems to be a very strong trait amongst musicians.

From the outset I have a very strong opinion that a band must decide whether it falls under the "will" of a dictatorship, or if it can flurish in the realm of the collective. The dictatorship is an understanding that the creative force in the band drives the decisions and asks, but is not guranteed, complete band participation. The collective is an agreement amongst all members (to the point of a written agreement) that every member shares equal share, and ever member participates in every process, with equal energy.

Over the next two days I will dissect each in it's own entirity, with a rant on the good side and the pains of both sides of the fence. I have my preference, but before adding any influence either way, I will try my best to share my objective obersavations of each.