Tickets- Hed Kandi Launch Party '09
- 2020rocks. Late Show Featuring Stanton Warriors
- 2020rocks. Early Show Featuring Sway Live
- 2020rocks. Launch Party '09 Featuring Laid Back Lu
- 2020 New Years Eve Masquerade Ball
- Gehenna Vii Vii Vii
- Metronomy - Shockwaves Nme Awards Tour 2009
- The Wombats - Shockwaves Nme Awards Tour 2009
- Tricky - Shockwaves Nme Awards Tour 2009
- Shockwaves Nme Awards Show 2009 Present Tricky
Office Parties: OUT. Rock’n'roll parties: IN
Written by: Hugh Platt
We love Christmas here at Music Towers. We’re running a video advent calender at the moment up there in the video box - go on, look up and to your right a little bit. Every five days we’re going to collect them all so you can catch any that you’ve missed. Think of it as an early Xmas present.
Speaking of which, Christmas is also the time for parties. We’ve all been to office parties before, and I think we can all agree that they suck harder than an elephant given a bowling ball-sized gobstopper. You get drunk with people you wouldn’t normally socialise with even at the barrell of a gun, eat some stale crisps, get off with that girl from accounts, and pass out on the bus home and are late for work the next day becasue you woke up at the bus station in Ealing with a hangover that rates alongside Hurricane Katrina in the damage-stakes.
Well, we here at Music Towers want to put a stop to Bad Christmas Parties. So much so that we’re throwing one of our own. On December 11 - next week, calendar fans - alongside our friends Beef Warehouse (that’s them there in the picture up at the top) and BigSexyLand, we’ll be throwing a FREE party over at new venue, South Of The Border. It’s right in the heart of Shoreditch, mere minutes walk from Liverpool St Station and Old Street tube. If you’re going to be about next Thursday, drop us an email to david at musictowers dot com to RSVP!
I have a band, a myspace page, now what?
Written by: David Harrison
So you have written some bitchin’ songs, made a MySpace page, and maybe even bought a domain name. You’ve had a few local gigs – but what now? Well, it’s going to cost you a bit of money, and a lot of time.
1. Organise your mailing – even if it is just one from your Outlook Express. Allow people to get on it. You can use a lot of third-party solutions such as Yahoo Groups / Wufoo / Icontact Zookoda - whatever service you feel is suitable for your costs or project.
2. Don’t over-plug your projects - people get very bored if just signed up to you out of politeness. Ask them to add you to their Safe List, as otherwise you’ll end up in the SPAM box.
3. Make your own webpage that isn’t MySpace – you don’t know how?
4. Use blogger.com and post news regularly. Link to friends’ websites, and ask nicely if they will link to you in return. If you feel the need, let a few free tracks to get out.
5. If Blogger does not ‘do’ enough for you – use Drupal and an automatic install of it on Machine Networks for £3.50 a month. Sony use Drupal for their artist websites, and The Onion use it for their very popular news site. Wordpress and Joomla are other alternative free content management systems to consider, this page is a Wordpress page.
6. Install Google Analytics on your page – this will let you find out why, when, and how people use your website. It sounds fancy is actually easy-peasy, and will help you in the long run.
7. Find some relevant music blogs, and/or aspiring writing people to review your work. To your face, usually everyone will tell you they like your work. If they have to put their opinion into words with their name in the byline, they may not be so inclined to be gracious.
8. Everybody still loves it? The record is still the best thing the world hasn’t heard? Excellent.
9. Are you sure? If you push your band before you are ready, you can garner black marks next to your name for years, as people remember “oh, that band from ages ago? They suck!”. Oh, still cool you are? Let’s go then.
Don’t hate the Media; become the Media
9. Channel 4 Slash music / Bebo / Trig / Moblog / Sellaband / Slice The Pie / YouTube / Yahoo 360 / Upcoming / Last.Fm / www.scoutr.co.uk / musicnation.com / Facebook….
There are a million social and music networks out there. None will make you famous, but they all can contribute to awareness about, and drive traffic to, your precious project.
Make sure they all link to each other (that’s how Search Engines work). Ideally, if you can use RSS feeds from your Blogger/Drupal page to do that it will save you updating them manually.
10. Post any cool articles about yourselves onto Digg / Shoutwire / Technorati / Del.icio.us or similar.
11. Register with the http://music.podshow.com/ Get any airplay? Blogs say nice things? Quote them on your website. Tell all the Podcasts where they can buy your stuff.
12. Get a mate to write a review on Playlouder.com / DazedDigital / Bizot.ch or similar contributed editorial websites.
13. Register your tracks on www.Last.Fm. Play them a few times. Make sure your friends that use Last FM have copies and play them a few times. If you have a budget you can force a 1000 plays on people for a £100.
14. If you have got this far, then you seem to be taking this whole thing seriously. Well done
15. Sign up for My MCPS/PRS / myPPL / www.catcouk.com / and go get yourself some ISRC numbers (congratulations, you just made yourself a record label). Make sure that these ISRC numbers are in all your records and the outlets that sell send them on, as that is how the charts are made.
16. Want more info about making a label? Check here: http://www.bemuso.com
17. Set up and Indiestore page – put a couple of tracks up for sale, and throw one in for free. Make sure your Myspace / Indiestore / Homepage all have relevant links to each other.
The Dark Arts of Distribution
18. Okay, this is all very well, but we want to see our releases on iTunes and on Amazon. These companies do aggregated distribution for independent artists, and it will cost you a bit more. If you were Radiohead, you could cut a deal…but you aren’t as famous as them, so you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way:
www.dittomusic.com
http://www.emubands.com/
http://advantage.amazon.co.uk/
http://www.cdbaby.com/
19. Okay, you want your releases in local record shops. Ask them about stocking them on a sale and return basis. Keep an Excel spreadsheet of your distribution.
20. Don’t understand Excel? Find a manager that does, and love him for it. Offer to pay him and hope he says ‘no’.
21. HMV: you want our releases in HMV round the country… erm I must confess I don’t know how to do that.
Some of the distributors that feed into them are: Vital:Pias / Pinnacle / Cargo.
Call them up, ask them questions, and prepare to be ignored.
I know from previous experience, when I have said we are expecting to sell 2000 copies of a release, they still don’t get back to me. It is tough for them. It’s only if you can guarantee you are going to flog 20k records, ask them for an advance.
22. By now your marvellous Record is stocked with main online retailers. Logged with MCPS / PRS / your performances are on PPL. Everything is in place.
23. Read this Radio Play guide: http://www.tomrobinson.com/writing/radioplay.htm and do what Tom Robinson says.
24. Make some printed CDRs in see-through sleeves, with very simple details of the tunes with the release date on it. These are good for promotions. If you want to sell to the public you will have to get some nice ones made (don’t use the Impact font or I will send assasins to kill you).
. Send it to radio stations, hand-picked and hand-written like that Tom Robinson said.
26. If you can’t come up with a suitably controversial publicity stunt, how about calling up the radio and requesting your own track, that you know they have as you sent it in? Just don’t tell them that you’re in the band.
27. Press: there’s a lot to be said about understated presentation. Club together with some like minded bands and pretend you have a press company. Copy the format of this Duffy Press Release (Congratulations you have a Press Company - charge for it!). Politely nudge and convince writers that they like they are onto a winner if they cover this band, and offer to do some interviews.
Find the review writers of magazines, email them and ask for a contact address to send them a promo. Then send on your CDs. Be subtle and charming.
28. Web Traffic: use digg / shoutwire / blogs / if you have a show make sure you are linked too. Get the blogs that cover you to link to you. Ask the indie music sites if they take advertising? Might only cost you £30 here and there.
They say that money is the live show
29. Can’t get gigs? Book your own shows you will make/lose more money if they work that way. Makes sure you can make them more of an experience and get known for good parties, rather then be on that 8:00pm 20-minute slot where you’ll be playing to the barstaff and that guy sweeping up.
Use wegottickets.com to sell tickets they are independent ticket agent.
There are always ailing pubs that want a few people in.
DON’T label things as showcases – it is very pretentious.
DO build a scene without exploiting your friends.
DON’T stick stickers in the toilet there is an ancient curse that it means your band is sh**t.
30. Approach some promoters of new band nights, and arrange to have a few gigs here and there. Send the listings to Gigs@PAentertainment.com and/or clubs@paentertainment.com . The promoter should be doing this, but they might not. This is the universal organisation that flogs gig listings to the newspaper websites.
31. If you have made a CD or T-shirts. TAKE THEM TO THE GIG AND SELL THEM. Chances are you will make more money from them then the show.
32. But you want to get some good support slots?
For that you need an agent, but they aren’t going to be convinced until they think there is a load of money and success behind it. Generally all agents will only take on a project if a label or significant press is behind it.
Find a band that you would suit a support, and find out who is their agent is, and approach someone in their company, asking if they have any slots to fill - local or otherwise. You will only get £50 though, even if it is at Wembley – but you will sell merch.
X-Ray | Coda | Helter Skelter | Itb | Primary | The Agency | CAA | William Morris will probably cover most bands between them.
33. Try and get on festival bills…it doesn’t have to be Glastonbury or Reading, these days there are a million and one smaller festivals around and they need bands to fill their stages. Approach promoters in advance (not just when it starts to get sunny and you fancy playing outside) – they often book 9 months in advance.
Publishing
34. Registering with the PRS and PPL is the grounding for this. All your monies from Radio Play, TV, Films, etc, around the world will be fed through these guys. If you are not registered, you won’t got anything. It’s that simple.
35. Take PRS forms with when you perform, and send them off yourself. If you know any DJs, get them to include some of your tracks in their PRS playlists.
36. Sync: Now is the time to exploit the family and friends. Use yourcontacts. Anyone work in advertising / TV / Films? Send them copies of CDs, with a concise biog of your press and radio play. Don’t harass them, but do find out if they listened to it.
Now this is possibly the most important one. If you can get your tune on a big advert, you could expect anywhere from £20-60 grand. That is bigger then most record deals you are likely to get.
37. Are you now saying something like “I can’t believe that we did all that and haven’t had any sort of break yet!”
Or maybe “No label is interested / No publishing company got in touch / No magazine ever covered us / No Agent ever replied / we never sold any downloads” or similar?
38. Maybe you are just not good enough. If you did all that, then you should have a press company and a small record label by now and have learnt how to make search-friendly websites from scratch. Maybe your skills weren’t meant for the stage?
39. Maybe your sound isn’t in fashion (it happens)? It took Pulp ten years to get a record deal. Work out how much you are prepared to put into this project, in both time and money, before calling it day.
This list isn’t complete
40. “You left out a lot information about Merchandise / Publishing / Tour supports / Branding / Compilations / Video Promotions / Web Animation….” Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes I get the idea - this list is a work-in-progress, and I have tried to write about things I have done.
LIVE: Airbourne & Stone Gods @ London Astoria - 28 November
Written by: David Harrison
London’s Astoria is on it’s last legs. It’s almost time to switch off the lights and call in the wrecking ball. I was just passing the place and found myself thinking: “Airbourne are on tonight…might be the last chance to go there…” The venue is full of proper old skool characters, the smell of denim and leather and overpriced canned lager. I even saw ‘a’ girl!
First on is Sounds and Fury, looking like every axeman Guitar Hero ever shat out. They really throw their hearts into it, but sadly nobody in the audience can bring themselves to bang their head, or even sway a little bit. They just stand there, wondering when some good music might come over the PA.
Next up on support are Stone Gods, currently sitting astride the rung of their own personal ‘can we headline yet?’ ladder. Coming across one-part Def Leppard and one-part really-chugging-and-hard-dirty-riffage, guitarist Dan Hawkins is the only person all night that doesn’t seem to pretending. He stands, slender in the corner, delivering storming string twizzling while the singer, Richie Edwards, acts like he has ‘arrived’. Hawkins is the star of the evening by miles, and he never said a word, barely looking up from behind his hair.
It’s their second night on the trot here at the Astoria, and Airbourne have almost sold out both. Are we really that deprived of AC/DC here in the UK that these jokers can get away with this? Everybody seems quite excited by the whole thing, while I look on baffled. I swear their last london gig was the Borderline, and it was just an ‘okay‘ show, with their then-support act Skirtbox seeming a more exciting prospect. A more enthusiastic hack enthuses to me that “this everything that I’m about”, while I’m just confused. Has a little brain bug taken over these people’s minds?
Airbourne’s frontman, Joel O’Keefe, screams at us for bleeding hours. No smiles, no sense of Irony, no thanks that he has upscaled from the Borderline - nope, Joel O’Keefe and his headbanging buddies seem to act like they are actually are AC/DC.
The crowd is happy, outside in the smoking corner. People accept Airbourne are a ‘AC/DC but cheaper’ ticket. Fair point, but I just can’t get any sense of fun out of it. It’s just wholesale rip-off, fronted by a long-haired James Blunt lookalike. Some say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but to me this band feel like a leech, taking every stylistic nuance, and distilling it into a cynical money-making project, aimed squarely at AC/DC fans’ wallets. It’s no surprise that the best track of the night is a cover of ‘Whole Lot Of Rosie’, to which Hawkins returns to the stage to join in.
Go on - watch it if you don’t believe me:
Airbourne might have 8 Marshall stacks on stage, but you can see only 2 of them are mic’d up. The guy screeches a fake, ear-busting banshee noise all evening, even when he talks, not once dropping the horrid stolen veneer. Airbourne are the trade description of pretentious.
pre.ten.tious
/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [pri-ten-shuhs] Show IPA Pronunciation–adjective
1. full of pretense or pretension.
2. characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.
3. making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious
4. This ruddy Airbourne band that do my head in, I still have a headache.
VIDEO: The Gaslight Anthem - ‘Old White Lincoln’
Written by: Hugh Platt
Last month we mentioned that The Gaslight Anthem had a new single, ‘Old White Lincoln’, coming out to co-incide with their December mini-tour, but didn’t have a video for it. Well, we do now, so have a gander:
The video for ‘Old White Lincoln’ by The Gaslight Anthem:
Speaking of tours, the band are coming back in February and March for a proper jaunt around the UK, so if you miss them this week, you’ll still be able to catch them in a couple of months time if you’re as taken by their The Boss-esque rock. You want tickets? Then click here, dear readers.
December
3 - Glasgow, Garage
4 - Manchester, Academy 3
5 - London, LA2
February
2 - Portsmouth @ Wedgewood Rooms
3 - Birmingham @ Academy
4 - Manchester @ Academy 2
5 - Bristol @ Academy 2
6 - Brighton @ Concorde
8 - London @ Shepherds Bush Empire (NME Awards Show)
March
2 - Norwich @ Waterfront
3 - Nottingham @ Rock City
4 - Dublin @ The Academy
ALBUM: The John Henrys - ‘Sweet As The Grain’
Written by: Hugh Platt
Country Music frightens me. You know that scene in Terminator 2 where he walks into the bar, beats that guy up, melts his face on the kitchen hob and nicks his threads? Country music was playing in the background. Not to mention every brain-scarring psycho moment in Deliverance - remember the kid with the banjo? Exactly. Country music is the twangy veneer on nasty things.
Except The John Henrys don’t play up to my self-created stereotype. At all. The Canadian five-piece have about as much darkness to them as an over-enthusiastic children’s TV presenter, locked in Dr Smile’s House of Happy Pills.
The John Henrys play ‘Thought Yourself Lucky’ live:
Their 60’s shake-shuffle and hazy blues might not be enough for me to get over my fear and prejudice of all things country, but in amongst all that twanging I hear an album that smells like the first whiff of a fresh whiskey bottle, rather than the glum final dregs. The John Henrys are Good Time Boys, not Good Ol’ Boys, and foo to you if you can’t enjoy a bit of that.
‘Sweet As The Grain’ came out today on True North Records. For more info, check out their official website and their MySpace page.
Another Short Call Show: BISHI
Written by: David Harrison
So you can’t afford Manu Chao, but still want some continent-crossing modern masterpieces in the next week? Well, Bishi is playing the Camden Monarch on December 10, and it’s only £4 with a flyer.
The Monarch used to be the Moon Under Water or somesuch, but it will be home to Bishi next month as she celebrates a year that has seen her wangle her way onto Jonathon Ross, The Culture Show and Des O’Conner Tonight. Yes, DES O’CONNOR TONIGHT.
She is trying out her new material on the sssh, so pop along and have a look.
Manu Chao announces surprise London show
Written by: David Harrison
Apologies to anyone reading this that doesn’t live round the corner to the Kentish Town Forum in north London, but Manu Chao has just announced a surprise show there for December 16. The last time Manu Chao played London, he sold enough tickets to pack out Wembley Arena, and for my money they were the was the only band putting in the effort at Glastonbury 2008.
Tickets are here
Tickets are here. I’d get a move on if I were you.
I Set My Friends On Fire: the band you never heard of, are coming to sellout a festival near you soon
Written by: David Harrison
So: the design is perfect, the name and logo are excellent. It seems they have fourteen billion MySpace listens already and 100 date tour. Already no doubt sold more records then Guns N Roses and The Killers combined. And nobody has ever heard of them. I can already see them on main stage at Download or Bloodstock or somesuch, book them up now.
Music Towers can only assume thar this summer, I Set My Friends On Fire will come over here to blow our tiny little minds, with their accomplished mix of hardcore electro, High School Musical pop, and their comedic yet postive outlook.
Here is them putting all of that into practice, in a YouTube video masterclass:
VIDEO: The Count & Sinden ft. Rye Rye - Hardcore Girls
Written by: David Harrison
This should make me feel old - it wasn’t like this in my day. I should talk at full volume in a grumpy old white man voice, saying “This isn’t real music. Real music is Soundgarden or Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’, or Led Zeppelin‘.
I should be dismissing this as “Yes, very good, but not my sort of thing”. <aybe I should dislike it for simply being on the same label as Emmy The Really-Not-Very-Good-Let-Alone-Great.
I would say all those things…but i am too busy grooving. Someone put me in the club, this move is too fresh to waste!
Seems they are doing a London residency, down Old Street way -
The Count & Sinden present:
MEGA MEGA MEGA
With guests:
Nov 27th – Skream, Emynd & Bo Bliz (Philly), Frankmusic
Dec 4th - Chase & Status, Example, Mystery Jets DJs
Dec 11th – Sunship, Mistajam (BBC 1Xtra)
But don’t go to the one on the 11th - come to our Beef Warehouse party instead.
EP: Kono Michi & The Stone Ghost Collective - ‘The Grey Eulogy EP’
Written by: Hugh Platt
I love Christmas. Society takes a step back from all the bollocks it preaches for the rest of the year (Don’t Drink So Much. Don’t Eat So Much. Stop Snogging Random Strangers You Meet In the Pub. Be Miserable. Be Quiet.) and instead everyone acts like they should (Drinking Too Much. Eating Too Much. Enjoying Mistletoe Too Much. Having Fun. Singing Songs). Big Coats! Mulled wine! Presents! The slim hope of snow! Dr Who Xmas Specials! And the record industry slowly grinding to a halt as everyone starts chucking up Best Ofs and re-releases for the Christmas rush. Meaning we get to spend more time with our feet up, listening to the records we think we like, rather than those we think we ought to cover. Yes, Christmas is a good thing.
Another reason to celebrate this Winter (well, if you live in The North, that is), is because Kono Michi and The Stone Ghost Collective are embarking on a mini-tour to promote their new collaborative release, The Grey Eulogy EP. Four tracks book-ended by covers of ‘The Look Of Love’ and ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, it’s at once both wintry and warming. With both acts solid staples of Shark Batter Records, their covers were never going to be straightforward. ‘The Look Of Love’ slips from a whispering murmur to the edge of ghostly nervousness, as opposed to the retching sweetness of the Bacharach original. ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ pairs an unexpected outback twang with Kono Michi’s violin, and the addition of Brendan McAndrew of The Stone Ghost Collective on vocals - sounding like a young Tom Waits if he existed solely on a diet of honey and lemon - suprises us by finding a new spin to put on a song we thought well and truly spun out.
Kono Michi & The Stone Ghost Collective hang out and practice in France and Switzerland:
It’s with the two original tracks that the EP crackles and pops though. The title-track, described by the band as a “death-bed ballad”, mixes maudlin lyricism with a warmly uplifting melody, mulling over its sense of mortality. It feels right that we’re listening to it now, during the onset of Winter, with the song feeling delicately crisp, rather than glum and grey.
‘War Correspondence’ reminds us a bit of long-forgotten LA-electrolocists, Snake River Conspiracy¸ only without that boring obsession with making bad covers of The Smiths. Combining a killer chorus of “You lie on your back / it’s a mortar attack”, it manages to be robotic without having to sound like a cheap automated sex-product (Goldfrapp: take note). It’s addictive like an arcade game that you can’t stop pumping pound coins in till you’ve blown your bus fare home. A genuine contender for Track of the Year.
‘The Grey Eulogy EP’ by Kono Michi and The Stone Ghost Collective is out now on Shark Batter Records. They’re on a micro-tour of the north of the UK from tomorrow - get yourself here to see if there’s a date near you.