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Sentric Music Managing The Music Revolution

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Thursday, October 22, 2009 

Category: Music
The clocks must go back soon. I don’t actually know when exactly, but I do know it must be soon as I’m currently sat here staring at a never ending inbox, still shattered following three days of Mancunian shananigans (which my feeble body couldn’t even finish off the last evening of – I’m obviously not as Rock N Roll as I used to be). Oh yes; it was In The City.

My sixth year at the musical conference was my first one where I actually had some input of sorts in the form of a Sentric Music showcase and also partaking on a publishing panel. Both of which, I’m utterly chuffed to say, went rather well.
So here is what was said, what I learned and what I think.

-    Rick Falkvinge – Chairman and founder of The Pirate Party – certainly knows how to cause a stir. Giving a presentation to potentially the hardest crowd he’s probably ever had the pleasure to stand in front of, he called the need for change in copyright and intellectual property laws. And despite holding his own and raising a few interesting points by calling up on various historical technological landmarks to support his various cases, he was ultimately undone by one eager member of the crowd who told him to “fuck off” and went further to rubbish his historical references buy claiming “what does it matter what happened in medieval times? If we were in medieval times now I’d burn you at the stake”. Although maybe a tad crass his feelings seem to be echoed by the crowd with one of Falkvinge’s points especially upsetting the masses: reducing copyright to five years. A rather obnoxious suggestion that superciliously undermines pretty much everyone in the industry. From what I could gather his only argument for this was in order to allow fans to produce ‘mash ups’… I hope the readers of this blog don’t need me to inform them why the needs of the industry and all those trying to make a living from it are greater than those fans who wish to make mash ups (not that they can’t or shouldn’t; they’re great promo tools at the end of the day, but reducing copyright to five years?!) and I hope over the course of my blog writing history, and indeed the fact I do Sentric Music, I have done enough to prove to you all that I’m all for a forward thinking industry, but this my friends is not the man to vote for.
-    Rick Falkvinge also looks a bit like Colonel Stuart from Die Hard 2 (thanks for @StevenOakes for pointing that beauty out)
-    The P2P panel agreed that the industry was missing one key thing: Optimism. I’m not sure I agree with this statement, but it’s maybe because I haven’t been in the industry for as long as some of the panel members have been. Granted, the world is lacking a pinch of the stuff at the moment and maybe it’s simply because I’m sooo bloody happy that my middle name could be ‘Rainbows & Kittens’ but it’s really all rather exciting at the moment isn’t it?
-    John Webster, CEO of the Music Managers Forum – “The MMF would like to see rights holders take more risks, and mimic P2P services”. He’s clever as well, he help set up the Mercury Music Prize and Now! That’s what I Call Music so he’s worth listening to.
-    The P2P panel also argued that the major players in the industry were stifling entrepreneurialism. As I come from an indie company it’d be great for me to wave some paper in the air whilst simultaneously mumbling and shouting something in that way that back bench MP’s do in the House of Commons, but again I don’t think this is true anymore. It may have been as little as 18 months ago but the majors appear to be allowing access to their catalogue to a whole variety of services so far this year. This could arguably be seen as a “throw enough poop until something sticks” tactic, but at least they’re saying yes right?
-    20 year old Paul Curry built a website when he was 16 that was used by over 250 million people and even with that success saw the industry as so backward and difficult to work with that he’s already moved on. That’s quite a sad fact and after listening to him speak he was clearly a very, very clever guy but ultimately he was a software industry entrepreneur rather than a music industry entrepreneur. Not that that’s a bad thing whatsoever of course, but he contradicted himself at one point by saying Radiohead’s In Rainbows was a good example of how ‘free’ can work (which it isn’t) but then suggesting that his websites ‘tipjar’ raised nowhere near enough cash for him to live off. Is that not the equivalent in this case? In the statement: “I like Radiohead so even though I can have it for free I’ll still give them some cash” couldn’t Radiohead be substituted with his website? Still, compared to what I was trying to do when I was 16 (insert your own joke here, but do be kind).
-    Anthony Volodkin however appears to be cut from a similar, yet at the same time ultimately different cloth. The creator of the rather influential Hype Machine discussed his story with the editor of Drowned In Sound and his passion for music really shone through. The highlight of the conversation was when he discussed the reason of his love of music blogs and about how they’re written by people who simply love music so much they feel the need to share their thoughts about it with no financial agenda influencing their words (in the majority of cases anyhow).
-    The Duty of Care panel took a look at the responsibility an artist’s team has in their welfare. Some argued they shouldn’t care whatsoever; they work with them, they’re not their nanny, whilst others argued it’s in their inherent interest to care; if the artist isn’t well then they’re not producing the goods so then everyone inevitably suffers at the end. It took a surprisingly long time for the word ‘empathy’ to be used and for someone to remove all hierarchical structure altogether; we’re all human after all, shouldn’t we just look after one another anyhow? All aboard the train to music utopia.
-    The panel looking into computer games opened my eyes somewhat; now I’m fully aware how much the gaming industry is booming, but it would appear it’s exceeding even my educated estimations at the moment and the future potential is stunning. The panel were keen to discuss the concept of ‘Cloud Gaming’ which they believe will happen in 8-10 years (which probably means it’ll happen a lot quicker). Cloud Gaming sees the complete disappearance of hardware as everything you need will be online and accessible via a high speed internet connection, ergo you don’t need the latest offering from Sony or Xbox in order to play computer games. Take down that initial financial hurdle of having to purchase a console and the industry truly becomes global meaning the level of potential exposure for artists becomes phenomenal.
-    On the panel I took part in the topic of conversation was what publishers are doing in the current industry that isn’t necessary traditional and as everything that Sentric Music does is pretty untraditional I hope my ramblings were of use to someone.
-    The geekathon panel (I say that in a wholly positive manner as I am also a geek at heart, and even aesthetically some may say) saw social media experts pretty much agree that Trent Rezner is doing everything right so look at what he does and try and apply it to your situation. This, of course will be near on impossible but hey, don’t shoot the messenger.
-    John Niven (author of the rather good read ‘Kill Your Friends’) publically invited Ed O’Brian of Radiohead fame to “suck on his balls” due to the bass players recent outspokenness on behalf of the FAC.
-    During the final ‘free for all’ panel, the audience was asked to shout out who their favourite band of the festival was and rather brilliantly the majority vote went out to Sentric Music’s very own Gallops! I assure you this is the truth as well; I wouldn’t be so disrespectful as to lie to my dear, dear readers. It’s just that we have some of the best UK talent on board here at Sentric Towers!

This leads me very nicely onto the artists I managed to catch over the conference. Here are the highlights…

MidiMidis (Sentric Music Showcase) – Winners of our ITC 09 competition sent the simplest tech spec I’ve personally ever witnessed: Two guitar amps, a mic and a 3.5mm jack which was then connected to a Sony PSP handheld gaming device. They then performed music that can be best described as The Strokes writing a soundtrack for a Sega Master System game, circa ‘Alex The Kid’. Very interesting and clever enough to disperse any preconceptions of gimmickry, it even instigated BBC Introducing to tweet: “MIDIMIDIS last song rocked. Called Nemesis, out in Nov. Tune.”

Dutch Uncles – One of the three most talked about bands of the weekend (alongside Gallops! And Frightened Rabbit), Dutch Uncles have been causing quite some fuss within the Manchester scene in the past few months securing high profile support slots with the likes of Maximo Park and Bombay Bicycle Club. There lead singer oozes the Mancunian idiosyncrasies of Byrne, Curtis and Morrissey without coming across pastiche and I’m very happy to say we’ll be working with them here at Sentric very soon.

Dirty Goods (Sentric Music Showcase) – Funky Welshman Dirty Goods certainly delivered on one latter part of their name and thankfully appeared well groomed quashing any worries about the former. Their 50 word bio that was submitted to the ITC Live Guide convinced a couple of lovely folks from Sony Pictures in LA to come and catch them opening the doors to potential syncs in the future; a good example of how important a well written bio can be.

Jamie Ley (Sentric Music Showcase) – The former front man of Jamie & The Lionhearts who is now going alone brought with him some actual fans who sang along with the actual words and everything. A lovely voice that has a touch of Nutini about it whilst still staying original, Ley has a few big boys sniffing around him at the moment and rightly so as even though he falls thoroughly into a saturated genre he’s still managing to stand out.

Gallops! (Sentric Music Showcase) – Before In The City began I claimed there will be three phrases guaranteed to be used at some point over the course of the conference, one of which was: “Were you at (insert artist name here) last night?! They KIILED it”. I’m rather chuffed to say that you can well and truly insert Gallops! Into that gap, because they indeed did kill it and kill it good (I should point out to people reading who don’t keep up with ‘Youth Culture’ that ‘Killing It’ in this context is actually a good thing and no, I don’t know either). Instrumental organised chaos with a drummer who caused me to agog my face off. Brilliant.

The Federals (Sentric Music Showcase) – I’ve was looking forward to seeing these ever since they came on board at Sentric Music and thankfully my anticipation didn’t lead to disappointment. I could throw around many buzz words to describe these lads but it simply boils down to good old fashioned dirty rock and roll. I like these, and so should you.

Frightened Rabbit – The Drowned In Sound showcase was always going to be rife with talent thanks to the ears of the sites editor and Frightened Rabbit shone majestically. Scotland is churning out some quality music at the moment alongside artists such as Twin Atlantic and Sentric’s very own Nacional, maybe it’s time I visited that old friend of mine in Edinburgh.

So there you go, that’s enough eh?

What I’m listening to this week: All of the bands mentioned above, Quartershades new single (out now) and The Snake The Cross The Crown

What I’m reading this week: Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History Of Nearly Everything‘ Warning – don’t read unless you want to feel rather unimportant.

Stay tuned

sP
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Thursday, October 08, 2009 

Category: Music

The line up has been finalised after competition winners MidiMidis caused nothing short of a ferocious debate within Sentric Towers over who should take the elusive fifth slot. Thank you to all who applied, it truly was a hard decision.


So the line up as it looks now:


The Federals

Gallops

Jamie Ley

MidiMidis

Dirty Goods


All kicking off at 7pm @ Electric Boogaloo,  just across the road from the ITC Head Quarters – The Midland Hotel.


The Federals – Exploding out of the soulless back streets of York, The Federals bring a vitality, urgency and immediacy to the music scene. Fast and furious, these four angry youths are putting the rage into garage with an arsenal of spiky potential rock n’ roll classics.

Gallops -  “Gallops, who have inherited more than horsey wordplay from their successful precursors. While they’ve harnessed the jerky propulsion of Foals, the riffs-as-rhythm of Pivot and the synthy tomfoolery so beloved of Battles, it’s all built on a bedrock of post-rock and they’re not afraid to unleash guitars as heavy as, say, Russian Circles (NME).”

Jamie Ley – Jamie Ley was born in the eye of a hurricane and he swears that the wind was whistling in C sharp major that day. Swapping between a variety of instruments including piano, ukulele and guitar whilst wooing audiences with his Buckley-esque vocals, Jamie Ley’s soulful creations certainly stir the emotions.

MidiMidis - MidiMidis are two brothers-in-law who spend an obsessive amount of time in various bedrooms experimenting with retro MIDI and 8bit sounds from the likes of their AMSTRAD CPC 464 and ZX SPECTRUM. They are the only band who compose all of their songs using 8bit and MIDI whilst adding late 70's New-York style guitars and crooning vocals.

Dirty Goods – Dirty Goods are an elctro-pop/dance two piece from South Wales.  Formerly of “super scratchy indiests” (NME) Jump The Underground. Influences are drawn from many a musical genre but sounds of Chromeo, Daft Punk, Pheonix, Basement Jaxx can all be heard. Safe.


Want to know why these guys are ones to watch? Then listen here and quench that curious thirst of yours...


[soundcloud width="100%" height="185" params="" url="http://soundcloud.com/sentricmusic/sets/sentric-music-in-the-city-showcase-2009"] Sentric Music In The City Showcase 2009! by  sentricmusic


Not an artist but want to check out In The City? This year the UK’s international music convention launches its new, open to the public, ITC Live Wristband -  bringing 150 bands over 3 days to the streets of Manchester.


Showcases confirmed alongside Sentric Music’s include NME Radar, BBC Introducing, Xfm, Popjustice, SJM Concerts, Now Wave, Big Scary Monsters, Swn, Front Magazine, Love Music Hate Racism, Same Teens, Future Sounds, Drowned in Sound, Rock Sound, Fierce Panda, and Murkage.


Quite simply you’ll be seeing the crème de la crème of the unsigned music industry all for just over £20 if you buy one now!


It’s going to be a good one this year. Sentric Music are going to be there so come and say hello and watch one of us show just how ignorant we actually are about this Music Publishing business as we take a seat on the panel: “PUB-LABEL-UBISHING – DEFINING THE LINES OF THE FUTURE” Read here for more information.


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Friday, September 25, 2009 

Category: Music
There is a new blog up (which is very, very good might I add, annoyingly one of the best yet and I barely wrote anything for it!).

Head over to www.sentric.wordpress.com to read it.

It's about branding yourself as an artist. Here is an extract to whet your whistle.

"most successful branding does work on the principle of simplifying complex offerings into single, powerful propositions. That said, branding in a commercial sense apes the concept of character as applied to often inanimate objects or large organisations. It tries to give them a personality – multi-faceted just like you and me. But they always have an ‘essence’, a key attribute that they drive home. So in that sense, Orange (the telecoms co. not the fruit) ‘owns’ the colour, Apple (the technology business not the fruit) ‘owns’ the attribute of  ‘design’ regardless of product, Virgin (the multi-service behemoth not the …) owns the attribute of ‘pioneering underdog’.
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Thursday, September 03, 2009 

Category: Music
....................

There is a new blog up! Go to www.sentric.wordpress.com to see

Here is a bit to wet your whistle.......

.. ..

During one of my numbers this said woman looked at me, shrugged and mouthed the words “Who’s this?” at me. I duly ignored her. Twice more this happened out of the corner of my eye until she actually wandered over to me and asked aloud a matter of inches from my ear, apparently oblivious to the fact I was singing a full volume. I cracked, shouted “MAXIMO PARK! IT SAYS THEIR NAME IN MASSIVE LETTERS ON THE STAGE!” and continued singing, the transition of singing to shouting was so fluid it might have actually been part of the song. Anyhow, to cut a long story short this woman then told me Leeds wasn’t as good as V festival for two reasons; firstly I was informed the weather in V the previous week was scorching, when questioned how the current meteorological status of the festival was anything to do with the good folk of Festival Republic, she took a pregnant pause, decided to ignore the question and went on to point number two which was the fact that Leeds festival’s crowed apparently resembles that of a student union bar. She continued to emphasise her personal age related crisis by presenting the field to me with a sweep of her arms repeating the phrase “student union bar” on several more occasions. I made a swift departure.....

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Thursday, August 20, 2009 

Category: Music
There is a new blog up! Go to www.sentric.wordpress.com to see

Here is a bit to wet your whistle...

So there you go, eleven tracks that all have qualities about them that make them sync worthy. Hopefully this blog will help you to listen to your own music and think about how you can make that new track simply irresistible to (insert generic car brand here) so they’ll therefore give you shedloads of cash so they can use it to push their rainforest destroying, carbon emitting, death boxes.

And there is a lovely Sentric Playlist as well:

Sentric Music Blog Playlist  by  sentricmusic
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Monday, August 03, 2009 

Category: Music
Hello Myspace readers!

I'm moving the blog over to our Wordpress account as it's better for stats and what not.

Please go to www.sentric.wordpress.com (or click here) for the latest blog entitled 'Latitude Adventure 2009...'

and features this paragraph to wet your whistle:

....................

The night finished with an obliged visit to the main stage to watch Grace Jones (Myspace, Spotify). I say obliged as although I appreciate Miss Jones and her musical heritage, I would have happily swerved her performance if it wasn’t for the upteen number of people who, when on finding out I was attending Latitude, all beseeched me to go and watch her and as obviously I’m a sucker for trusted recommendations I happily complied… Turns out it’s just like watching a pensioner with an attitude problem dangerously close to having her fufu out on stage....


Look forward to seeing you at Wordpress!

sP
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Tuesday, July 28, 2009 

Category: Music
Hello Myspace readers!

I'm moving the blog over to our Wordpress account as it's better for stats and what not.

Please go to www.sentric.wordpress.com (or click here) for the latest blog entitled 'Let the industry come to you...'

and features this paragraph to wet your whistle:

Several times a day I send and receive emails to various contacts with links of artists who are currently being ‘kept an eye on’ by the industry and in pretty much every single occasion these ‘tips’ come from the utter grass roots of the industry; the student promoter who puts on a gig every couple of months during term time, the intern at a budget studio who is getting some experience, the keen blogger who writes for free in their local music magazine etc. These are the people who will see you at your first gigs when you’re both under-practiced and overwhelmed so the nicer you are to them and the more you improve as they watch you develop the more likely they are to talk about you and slowly but surely the industry will find its way to you.

Look forward to seeing you at Wordpress!

sP


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Thursday, June 25, 2009 


http://www.we7.com/user/view-playlist?playlistId=5...

I’m currently working for an indie music publisher, working with over a thousand unsigned/independent artists helping them to make money from their music and promote them on TV/Adverts/games etc. Music has always been my passion and the following are 7 songs that could been seen as landmarks in shaping my musical taste.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2009 

Category: Music
According to Abba, money is a thing of hilarity if you are lucky enough to have plenty of it in the first place, but as the majority of artists I know are yet to have written enough über hits to fill a musical and then some on top; it appears to be more of a thing of worry then joviality.

Here at Sentric Music we've distributed a lot of money to a lot of artists and quite often when I inform an artist of the amount coming to them I usually add the question "So what plans have you got for this cash?" within the email as I'm genuinely intrigued to know where it's going to be spent.

So I thought this week I'd pick a  figure (£2,000) and propose some ways in which it could be spent to help you out.

A few justifications before I begin.

Firstly; why £2,000? There are a good few of our artists who have received more than £2,000 from us since joining Sentric Music so I don't believe it's an unattainable figure to achieve. Also, I've mentioned several times before that if you're seriously wanting to make a career from your music then you have to realise it's an investment. If there are four of you then £500 each isn't too big of an ask really is it? If you're a singer songwriter then just go put £15 on red 16 on the Roulette table at your nearest casino and you'll be fine.

Secondly; every artist's situation is unique. Hopefully at least one of the areas mentioned within this post may make you consider a potential avenue for your cash.

Thirdly; money is highly more effective when used within conjunction with a strategy (a point that @Mr_Trick feels very strongly about). It's all very well having a couple of grand in your pocket, but if you randomly piss it up a proverbial wall without a plan to accompany it then it'll be far less useful then if you did. Read here for advice on how to apply basic business theory to your music.

Ok then, let us begin (I asked a few friends their thoughts as well).

Equipment - Who do you want to sound like? Muse wouldn't sound like Muse if they didn't have the futuristic gear they do and The White Stripes wouldn't sound like they do if they didn't have all the vintage gear behind them; both of which cost a lot of cash. If you want to sound like The Wombats however you'd probably end up with £1,750 spare after kitting yourselves out.
Never rush a purchase; do your research online firstly. Do you really need a new guitar? Or would an effects pedal give you the sound you're looking for at a fraction of the price? Once you've narrowed down your search then go and annoy the staff at various music shops to the point of insanity by trying out every alternative and most importantly; don't be intimidated by that one guy that every guitar shop has who is in his mid thirties and is insanely good at 'masturbating the fret board' and who makes your ropey rendition of the solo from Night Train by Guns 'N' Roses sound as awful as it truly is. They may be able to compete with the guys on the G3 tour, but they've never set foot on a stage in their life so you win. Fact.

Recording - I like to think it's pretty much essential to have at least 3 tracks recorded to a high level of quality good enough to be played on the radio if the opportunity occurs. These tracks can be then used for a lot of things; giving them away for email addresses for your mailing list, content for websites/MySpace etc, you could put them up for sale on iTunes if need be (although I don't think it's worth releasing anything digitally until you've got a decent fanbase going). A friend of mine who is an A&R for a major label suggests "Find a really local engineer/producer and spend a little bit of money working on a couple of tunes. If they're on the same page as you and you're happy with the sound and direction they're taking you in, then spend some more money and do some more tracks. If not, find someone else". A wise point there; don't commit to spending too much money until you're happy with the engineer/producer.

Pressing - You could get a hell of a lot of CD's pressed for various reasons; selling, sending out, frisbees, mirrors for guinea pigs etc, or you could get a few vinyl pressed to sell to your hardcore fanbase. If you are going to get some vinyl pressed then don't go crazy with the amount, get enough pressed to satisfy the demand then when they sell out you can tell everyone on your website that 'YOU'VE SOLD OUT!!!' and therefore must be really good so when the next single gets pressed other fans who missed out may be more eager to click and order therefore increasing your sales. It's not technically lying per se; it's just not telling everyone how many you had to sell to actually sell out.

PR - As Amy Woodhouse of Creative Cultures rightly says: "If you are creating a buzz and you've got a small tour lined up and/or are recording of a few songs, investing in some PR can help to alert the industry to a new band on the scene with potential. Don't go mad with this, you aren't Pete Doherty just yet, but a few well placed calls and emails may help to secure you some column space both online and offline - and the power of the media shouldn't be underestimated. There are a lot of small music PR companies who can help you with this without breaking the bank." It's very hard to get decent media exposure unless you have contacts within the media outlets themselves so a good PR person can be worth their weight in gold, but they can also charge their weight in gold as well. Before committing to any PR work always be sure to ask what campaigns the company has worked on in the past and do a bit of research into how well it worked for the other clients. A good PR company should have stats to back up any campaigns they have so be sure to be filled in with any analytics available to you: data is valuable. Read here for more info on analytics and how you can apply them yourself for free.

Transport - We all need to get around now don't we? You can get a second hand white van for under a grand these days which allows the rest of your budget to be swallowed by the other costs that come with owning a vehicle. Gigging outside of your local city is pretty much essential but don't aim too far; try and conquer an area bigger than your city but less than 'the north' or 'the south' I.E. the north-west or the midlands etc.

Tour - If you're already lucky enough to have transport sorted you could organise a small tour of the UK, or if you're feeling adventurous and are incredibly frugal; the EU. Sentric artist 'Baddies' have a bucketload of European festivals lined up due to some clever and strategic gigging in Holland. With help from Music Glue they played a few dates in Holland a couple of months before the music industry conference Eurosonic, at these gigs they collected email addresses and distributed free MP3's and whatnot in order to create a fanbase. Then when they returned for the Eurosonic conference they invited loads of booking agents to their gig who then witnessed loads of Dutch people dancing like loons and singing along to a band who don't even use the same currency as them. Booking agents: Impressed. Baddies: summer of European fun now lined up.

Radio Plugger - Radio plugging is a tricky art; they can cost you a lot of money with absolutely no guarantee of return, but then when they do get it right it could end up being the best money you've ever spent. When you start receiving high profile airplay, not only do you gain the exposure to the listenership, you also earn performance royalties which you could put against the initial cost of the plugger. Be aware though; radio plugging is extremely competitive and you're up against the big boys within the industry.

Lessons - Have you got the technical guitar skills of John Smith or Ian Britt? Do you have an audience silencing voice like Andrew Metcalfe or Liam Frost? Can you drum to the ability of Suren De Saram? If not, maybe you need to tone your talent somewhat. Being outstanding at what you do will always get you attention, if you've ever seen John Smith play winter live then you'll know what I mean (and if you haven't then watch this video and prepare to be agog)

Branding - I've used branding as an umbrella term here as it could include the services of a graphic designer, a photographer, a stylist, some new clothes, a drum skin etc. Branding yourself is nothing new and is something I'm quite the advocate of, even if it's as simple as something as a colour, a shape, a 'look' etc. Get a logo, get some good pictures (where YOU'RE NOT stood leaning against a brick wall, Out From Animals and Everything Everything had some great photo's, check them out), make sure your website/MySpace/Twitter etc is all aesthetically similar to help build and maintain the brand within your fanbases conscious.

Event - Why not throw a massive party? You could dress up an industry showcase as a single launch or just a 'normal' gig if you wanted to be a bit sneaky about it. Once you've convinced some important industry people to come down to your gig bribe your fans, friends and family with free booze so they all go mental when you come on stage making you seem like the next Arctic Monkeys to the sober, and a tad confused, industry types at the back.

Web Presence - A domain name won't cost you more than twenty quid, but if you want a high, high, high quality website then expect to pay a lot of cash. But you don't need a high, high, high quality website. So don't bother.

Music - Another tip from the A&R gentlemen from before that initially failed to cross my mind: "If I was in a band I'd probably spend a bit of money on buying music and getting as many influences and ideas as possible, although no with Spotify this is an expense saved." If you're in a group then make each member compile a mix CD (or Spotify playlist) of their favourite music, swap them and swot up on each other's influences and remember, if the bass player loves Journey then you're inclusion of that rare Radiohead B-side just might be what he needs to help him gel with the rest of you.

Video - When most people see a professional looking video they expect that the artist in question has some financial backing behind them (more so than a couple of grand) so this is a good way to get people to grab people's attention. 'New Franchise' by Grammatics and 'Dorothy Millette' by Screaming Mimi are two very good examples of music videos that didn't cost too much to make but look brilliant. Caroline Bottomly from Radar Music Videos suggested that she'd spend the money on a tour whilst filming everything and then commissioning a music video from the subsequent footage. She went into so much depth that I'll link to her full response at the end of the blog.

Live (as in life) - Gerd Leonhard argued "I'd pay myself to start blogging, sharing photos on flickr, setting up my video channels on Youtube, launch a Twitter channel, do Facebook etc --- build my audience.  Getting engaged is what costs time which is £££ these days!" Time is indeed money so if you could justify leaving your job/girlfriend/boyfriend/children behind and use the money raised to live off whilst you spend 24/7 Tweeting things like "follow my band... LOLZ!" then go for it. Jokes aside though, I know artists who have done just this and used their savings to spend a good few months focusing on their music and nothing else and in the circumstances I know of it has usually paid off in some form or another. You can set yourself targets; "Within two months I want to have achieved, X amount of followers on Twitter, have 3 new songs recorded, have made 5 new contacts within the radio industry, have one of my tracks played at least once on BBC 6Music" etc.

A Sim Card – This obviously won’t cost you much, if anything at all, but in the responses I received from my blogosphere friends Tom Robinson (6Music DJ and new music advocate) noted “I would also buy a cheap PAYG mobile phone & sim card to receive calls for for my "manager". Either you or a friend can field these; many business people prefer not to deal with the artist direct.” – An interesting musing there to take on board.

Holiday - or you can sod it all off and go on your jollies.

Have a gander here for suggestions from Andrew Dubber (New Music Strategies), Tom Robinson (6Music DJ), Amy Woodhouse (Creative Cultures), the A&R gentleman, Caroline Bottomley (Radar Music Videos) and Gerd Leonhard (Media Futurist). - Click on names for Twitter links.

What I've been listening to this week: Liam Frost and Skeletons

What I've been reading this week: the musings of David Mitchell.

Stay tuned

sP

Follow me on Twitter @sentricmusic
........ ..

According to Abba, money is a thing of hilarity if you are lucky enough to have plenty of it in the first place, but as the majority of artists I know are yet to have written enough über hits to fill a musical and then some on top; it appears to be more of a thing of worry then joviality.



Here at Sentric Music we've distributed a lot of money to a lot of artists and quite often when I inform an artist of the amount coming to them I usually add the question "So what plans have you got for this cash?" within the email as I'm genuinely intrigued to know where it's going to be spent.



So I thought this week I'd pick a random figure (£2,000) and propose some ways in which it could be spent to help you out.



A few justifications before I begin.



Firstly; why £2,000? There are a good few of our artists who have received more than £2,000 from us since joining Sentric Music so I don't believe it's an unattainable figure to achieve. Also, I've mentioned several times before that if you're seriously wanting to make a career from your music then you have to realise it's an investment. If there are four of you then £500 each isn't too big of an ask really is it? If you're a singer songwriter then just go put £15 on red 16 on the Roulette table at your nearest casino and you'll be fine.



Secondly; every artist's situation is unique. Hopefully at least one of the areas mentioned within this post may make you consider a potential avenue for your cash.



Thirdly; money is highly more effective when used within conjunction with a strategy (a point that @Mr_Trick feels very strongly about). It's all very well having a couple of grand in your pocket but if you randomly piss it up a proverbial wall without a plan to accompany it then it'll be far less useful then if you did. Read here for advice on how to apply basic business theory to your music.



Ok then, let us begin (I asked a few friends their thoughts as well).



Equipment - Who do you want to sound like? Muse wouldn't sound like Muse if they didn't have the futuristic gear they do and The White Stripes wouldn't sound like they do if they didn't have all the vintage gear behind them; both of which cost a lot of cash. If you want to sound like The Wombats however you'd probably end up with £1,750 spare after kitting yourselves out.


Never rush a purchase; do your research online firstly. Do you really need a new guitar? Or would an effects pedal give you the sound you're looking for at a fraction of the price? Once you've narrowed down your search then go and annoy the staff at various music shops to the point of insanity by trying out every alternative and most importantly; don't be intimidated by that one guy that every guitar shop has who is in his mid thirties and is insanely good at 'masturbating the fret board' and who makes your ropey rendition of the solo from Night Train by Guns 'N' Roses sound as awful as it truly is. They may be able to compete with the guys on the G3 tour, but they've never set foot on a stage in their life so you win. Fact.



Recording - I like to think it's pretty much essential to have at least 3 tracks recorded to a high level of quality good enough to be played on the radio if the opportunity occurs. These tracks can be then used for a lot of things; giving them away for email addresses for your mailing list, content for websites/MySpace etc, you could put them up for sale on iTunes if need be (although I don't think it's worth releasing anything digitally until you've got a decent fanbase going). A friend of mine who is an A&R for a major label suggests "Find a really local engineer/producer and spend a little bit of money working on a couple of tunes. If they're on the same page as you and you're happy with the sound and direction they're taking you in, then spend some more money and do some more tracks. If not, find someone else". A wise point there; don't commit to spending too much money until you're happy with the engineer/producer.



Pressing - You could get a hell of a lot of CD's pressed for various reasons; selling, sending out, frisbees, mirrors for guinea pigs etc, or you could get a few vinyl pressed to sell to your hardcore fanbase. If you are going to get some vinyl pressed then don't go crazy with the amount, get enough pressed to satisfy the demand then when they sell out you can tell everyone on your website that 'YOU'VE SOLD OUT!!!' and therefore must be really good so when the next single gets pressed other fans who missed out may be more eager to click and order therefore increasing your sales. It's not technically lying per se; it's just not telling everyone how many you had to sell to actually sell out.



PR - As Amy Woodhouse of Creative Cultures rightly says: "if you are creating a buzz and you've got a small tour lined up and/or are recording of a few songs, investing in some PR can help to alert the industry to a new band on the scene with potential. Don't go mad with this, you aren't Pete Doherty just yet, but a few well placed calls and emails may help to secure you some column space both online and offline - and the power of the media shouldn't be underestimated. There are a lot of small music PR companies who can help you with this without breaking the bank." It's very hard to get decent media exposure unless you have contacts within the media outlets themselves so a good PR person can be worth their weight in gold, but they can also charge their weight in gold as well. Before committing to any PR work always be sure to ask what campaigns the company has worked on in the past and do a bit of research into how well it worked for the other clients. A good PR company should have stats to back up any campaigns they have so be sure to be filled in with any analytics available to you: data is valuable. Read here for more info on analytics and how you can apply them yourself for free.



Transport - We all need to get around now don't we? You can get a second hand white van for under a grand these days which allows the rest of your budget to be swallowed by the other costs that come with owning a vehicle. Gigging outside of your local city is pretty much essential but don't aim too far; try and conquer an area bigger than your city but less than 'the north' or 'the south' I.E. the north-west or the midlands etc.



Tour - If you're already lucky enough to have transport sorted you could organise a small tour of the UK, or if you're feeling adventurous and are incredibly frugal; the EU. Sentric artist 'Baddies' have a bucketload of European festivals lined up due to some clever and strategic gigging in Holland. With help from Music Glue they played a few dates in Holland a couple of months before the music industry conference Future Sonic, at these gigs they collected email addresses and distributed free MP3's and whatnot in order to create a fanbase. Then when they returned for the Future Sonic conference they invited loads of booking agents to their gig who then witnessed loads of Dutch people dancing like loons and singing along to a band who don't even use the same currency as them. Booking agents: Impressed. Baddies: summer of European fun now lined up.



Radio Plugger - Radio plugging is a tricky art; they can cost you a lot of money with absolutely no guarantee of return, but then when they do get it right it could end up being the best money you've ever spent. When you start receiving high profile airplay, not only do you gain the exposure to the listenership, you also earn performance royalties which you could put against the initial cost of the plugger. Be aware though; radio plugging is extremely competitive and you're up against the big boys within the industry.



Lessons - Have you got the technical guitar skills of John Smith or Ian Britt? Do you have an audience silencing voice like Andrew Metcalfe or Liam Frost? Can you drum to the ability of Suren De Saram? If not, maybe you need to tone your talent somewhat. Being outstanding at what you do will always get you attention, if you've ever seen John Smith play winter live then you'll know what I mean (and if you haven't then watch this video and prepare to be agog)



Branding - I've used branding as an umbrella term here as it could include the services of a graphic designer, a photographer, a stylist, some new clothes, a drum skin etc. Branding yourself is nothing new and is something I'm quite the advocate of, even if it's as simple as something as a colour, a shape, a 'look' etc. Get a logo, get some good pictures (where YOU'RE NOT stood leaning against a brick wall, Out From Animals and Everything Everything had some great photo's, check them out), make sure your website/MySpace/Twitter etc is all aesthetically similar to help build and maintain the brand within your fanbases conscious.



Event - Why not throw a massive party? You could dress up an industry showcase as a single launch or just a 'normal' gig if you wanted to be a bit sneaky about it. Once you've convinced some important industry people to come down to your gig bribe your fans, friends and family with free booze so they all go mental when you come on stage making you seem like the next Arctic Monkeys to the sober, and a tad confused, industry types at the back.



Web Presence - A domain name won't cost you more than twenty quid, but if you want a high, high, high quality website then expect to pay a lot of cans. But you don't need a high, high, high quality website. So don't bother.



Music - Another tip from the A&R gentlemen from before that initially failed to cross my mind: "If I was in a band I'd probably spend a bit of money on buying music and getting as many influences and ideas as possible, although no with Spotify this is an expense saved." If you're in a group then make each member compile a mix CD (or Spotify playlist) of their favourite music, swap them and swot up on each other's influences and remember, if the bass player loves Journey then you're inclusion of that rare Radiohead B-side just might be what he needs to help him gel with the rest of you.



Video - When most people see a professional looking video they expect that the artist in question has some financial backing behind them (more so than a couple of grand) so this is a good way to get people to grab people's attention. 'New Franchise' by Grammatics and 'Dorothy Millette' by Screaming Mimi are two very good examples of music videos that didn't cost too much to make but look brilliant. Caroline Bottomly from Radar Music Videos suggested that she'd spend the money on a tour whilst filming everything and then commissioning a music video from the subsequent footage. She went into so much depth that I'll link to her full response at the end of the blog.



Live (as in life) - Gerd Leonhard argued "I'd pay myself to start blogging, sharing photos on flickr, setting up my video channels on Youtube, launch a Twitter channel, do Facebook etc --- build my audience.  Getting engaged is what costs time which is £££ these days!" Time is indeed money so if you could justify leaving your job/girlfriend/boyfriend/children behind and use the money raised to live off whilst you spend 24/7 Tweeting things like "follow my band... LOLZ!" then go for it. Jokes aside though, I know artists who have done just this and used their savings to spend a good few months focusing on their music and nothing else and in the circumstances I know of it has usually paid off in some form or another. You can set yourself targets; "Within two months I want to have achieved, X amount of followers on Twitter, have 3 new songs recorded, have made 5 new contacts within the radio industry, have one of my tracks played at least once on BBC 6Music" etc.



A Sim Card – This obviously won’t cost you much, if anything at all, but in the responses I received from my blogosphere friends Tom Robinson (6Music DJ and new music advocate) noted “I would also buy a cheap PAYG mobile phone & sim card to receive calls for for my "manager". Either you or a friend can field these; many business people prefer not to deal with the artist direct.” – An interesting musing there to take on board.



Holiday - or you can sod it all off and go on your jollies.



Have a gander here for suggestions from Andrew Dubber (New Music Strategies), Tom Robinson (6Music DJ), Amy Woodhouse (Creative Cultures), the A&R gentleman, Caroline Bottomley (Radar Music Videos) and Gerd Leonhard (Media Futurist).



What I've been listening to this week: Liam Frost and



What I've been reading this week: the musings of David Mitchell.



Stay tuned



sp




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Thursday, May 28, 2009 

Current mood:  tired
Category: Music

(To see this blog somewhere a lot prettier then go to www.sentric.wordpress.com)


As you’re no doubt all aware last week was the second Liverpool SoundCity festival and I was in attendance for quite a bit of it so I thought I’d let you in on my shenanigans…


As we were an official Twitter partner of the festival I was instructed to arrive at the Beatles themed Hard Days Night hotel early on Tuesday morning for my rendezvous with ‘the tech guys’ to discuss ‘how this Twitter malarkey works’ which took all of thirty seconds. I do feel for these so called ‘tech guys’ at times, especially at conferences like this where they sit huddled away in the corner making sure everything works and never referred to by their first name. As I was Twittering away all through the conference I was sat next to them throughout and not once did I hear them say “have you turned it off and turned it on again?” so it was nice to dispel that myth.


The panels at LSC really took a step up compared to last year with the speakers being both vastly experienced and rather knowledgeable within their respective fields of knowledge. I’d argue they were potentially a bit ‘too big’ to fit in with the ethos of Liverpool SoundCity at times but I did learn a fair few things over the two days:


-          Nic Harcourt believes there isn’t any decent music radio in LA. After hearing this I contemplated telling him about ‘Rock FM’ and that he hasn’t got anything to moan about. Or my favourite radio station ever: ‘Riviera Radio’ which can be found in Monaco and seemingly only plays the Pet Shop Boys 24 hours a day. I’ll never forget the ident “Riviera Radio; where traffic… JAMS”. Listen here.
-          Mr Harcourt believes the ‘OC Effect’ isn’t as powerful as much as it was around 4 years ago as it had become more saturated. I think I’d agree with this. A friend of mine owns every single Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack released and my better half has a few OC soundtracks to her name as well. As these were the two shows which are seen to have rejuvenated the power music can play within a show and at the same time successfully launch artists careers by pushing them under the noses of potential fans the soundtracks have shifted millions of units. Nowadays more and more shows are utilising new and unreleased music to good effect but as the choice is now greater there is no longer one or two flagship shows to chose from.
-          Nic also believes that radio is more important to an artists career here within the UK than it is in the US. I’d agree again here as the US has no real national station like we do here in the guise of BBC Radio 1 and 2. If you’re A-listed on BBC Radio 1 then there is a very good chance that you’re probably going to chart the week your single is released
-          Jonathan Shalit believes that “Young consumers are the most powerful influence on the music industry”.
-          The panel entitled “The future of the music industry” agreed that Radio 1 is the biggest tastemaker within the UK.  I do agree that BBC Radio 1 is rather important and if I was an indie artist with a few grand to spend on promoting myself I’d probably throw it towards a plugger but that doesn’t mean you can’t have success without their backing. Cliff Richard being a prime example of that – that geezer releases a track every Christmas and usually scores at least a top 20 with it without Zane Lowe shouting over the top of it or Tim Westwood giving him ‘mad props’ (which is something I would love to hear). Perez Hilton also got an honourable mention as a tastemaker within the pop world.
-          Different professionals prefer different media. The sync panel pretty much agreed that they prefer receiving music via MP3/download links whereas A&R would rather receive a CD. Bear that in mind before you go committing to getting hundreds of discs pressed which will end up being nothing more than landfill.
-         The sync panel agreed that UK music has certain kudos to it that other countries music doesn’t. The panel was made up of various Americans and a solitary German who were all very complimentary about our music scene. Here at Sentric we’ve had a fair few placements for our artists on US TV as of late and I believe that the fact we’re British has helped us significantly in that market.
-          The decision to ‘go’ with a track is a shared one between the creative and the budget holder in theory. But the German representative from TWBA stated rather staunchly that he was in charge of the cash and therefore it was his decision. Quite recently we were a gnat’s crotchet away from securing an US advert for an international company which would have been worth upwards of £12,000 to the artist, but just as the deal was about to be signed off the creative changed their mind which ruined our weekend somewhat. After we put the Lambrini back on ice we suggested we may be able to clear the track for a bit cheaper if needed but they assured us it was a creative decision, not a fiscal one so that may give you an idea into who really is in control.
-          The ‘art’ of A&R is grossly misunderstood according to those who do it for a living. There is definitely an air of truth to this as I come across many people who assume A&R scouts just find artists, sign them to the label and then jog on afterwards to find the next big thing all over again. Whereas in reality a truly good A&R person acts as a voice in-between the artist they signed and the label they signed to. Thus why you hear constant horror stories about artists who sign with a label only for the A&R person to leave/get fired/OD a couple of weeks later and they then get lost in a sea of artists with no marketing budget or tour support. (Read ‘Ask the A&R‘)
-          According to Rob Swerdlow (the Kooks manager) a good record label should have two types of A&R person; one who signs artists for trends and one who signs artists for longevity. A rather good point here which I’d assume is already in practice at certain labels within the industry, wheter the A&R person in question knows what they are to their boss is a different question though and if they do know they’re employed to sign trending artists then lets hope they don’t use that in their sales pitch; “Yeah, you should definitely sign with us! Why? Because you sound just like that Little Boots bird so I reckon we could shift a hundred thousand units with you before dropping you before the second album”.
-          According to Phil Saxe all the best music lawyers are in London. I have no idea if this is true or not but my favourite music lawyer is indeed in London. Is it wrong to have a ‘favourite’ music lawyer?! That’s a niche drunken pub chat right there; ‘Top 5 Music Lawyers… Go!’ I don’t think I have five, but I would as well as my favourite I’d also include the one I interviewed for some uni work I did once. He was nice.
-          Gary Calamar (music supervisor and all round lovely guy) says you should expect to work for free within the music industry if you want to eventually make a career from it. Pretty obvious stuff but always worth reiterating.
-         In the US Warner will not sign a band without taking the publishing with it. Amazing little fact that. God help the artist who signs that deal.
-          Universal will only make a publishing offer once a band has proven they can generate income. Another very interesting fact which proves majors aren’t willing to take may risks anymore which opens up opportunities for smaller indies to grab bands on their way up. Hurray for entrepreneurialism eh?
-          Music education within the national curriculum needs a bloody good looking at. When I was at school it was all recorders, keyboards and stumbling horrifically through various traditional songs. Not once did we learn about the actual business of music and what the concept of copyright was. The panel argued that if kids were taught about copyright at a younger age then they may respect it more and be less inclined to steal it which is an interesting angle which I might just agree with. They also praised Fergal Sharkey for his continuing work within the industry to raise awareness regarding this are.
-          Don’t approach agents, let them approach you. There is no point sending your music out to agents, once you’ve reached a  level where you’re regularly pulling crowds and making enough ‘industry noise’ they’ll come find you and offer you something.
-          “They (major labels) just need to die”. A quote from the festival director Dave Pichilingi. A potential epitaph maybe?


So that was the panels! Now for the gigs.


Casio Kids – Had high hopes for these after several people informed me that I ‘just needed’ to check them out and alas, they were vastly underwhelming. After several G&T’s I thought I’d come up with the perfect comparison: “like Friendly Fires but castrated” but now in the light of day I’m not too sure.
Toyko Pinsalocks – Easily one of the highlights of the festival. Three Japanese ladies doing candyfloss pop with quality bass lines and floaty synths. Lovely.
Bicycle Thieves – Along with Sound Of Guns these guys are the current Liverpudlian tip and their set didn’t disappoint. They sound a bit like Queens of the Stone Age. And I really like Queens of the Stone Age. So I quite like them.
Black Lips – Oh dear me these were awful. Treat them as you would a Mexican pig; avoid at all costs.
Eugene McGuinness and The Lizards – I do prefer him without the Lizards if I’m honest but still a very talented young man.
Lee Broderick – If you like pop then you’ll like Lee Broderick, it really is that simple. His scouse manager somehow managed to majestically blag a hotel room performance which was seen by some of the sync agents attending the conference who were very impressed. A fantastic example of how a good manager can make all the difference at times.
Minion TV – it was the first time I’d seen these guys perform since Sentric Music secured them a Lexus advert and I’m rather glad to say they can pull off their rather epically massive sound live.
A Cup of Tea – Another one of my highlights of the week played a tragically under attended show in above the once legendary Parr Street Studios. Someone once described them to me as sounding “like Four Tet after they’ve raved to hard” which is a pretty good description.
White Lies – I could only stay for three songs and luckily for me they played two singles during that brief stint! I do think these guys have some great songs on their debut album and they can indeed pull it off live, but it’ll be interesting to know what the follow up album will sound like.
Soft Toy Emergency – A lot of buzz around these guys at the moment thanks to the whole Tings Tings success of 2008 and they’re also managed by the guys who look after Elbow so the combination of those two things could be promising. Enjoyable set, but for me they’re far more interesting when they calm down a bit and make their songs a bit less frantic.
Dan Black – I really enjoyed DB’s set despite him clearly being a bit dishartnened by the lack of crowd at his Little Boots afterparty set. The two singles shone out the most with ‘Yours’ being the definite highlight of the set. I was a little bit suspicious of the fact his voice may have been autotuned though, can anyone confirm/deny this?
Post War Years – If you’re yet to catch these guys live yet then do so immediately. Their live show is very strong and the album sounds even better when you listen to it again the morning after.
Ed Zealous – These guys were ace. Apparently one of them gave up being a professional football to be their drummer. You have to appreciate that utter madness/passion.


I strayed away from Liverpool SoundCity on the Saturday night as I discovered two of my favourite bands were sharing the stage over in Manchester which was an opportunity not to be missed:


Grammatics – If you read the blog often you’ll know how I feel about these guys; they’re just bloody brilliant. The crowd were a tad inpatient as the lager flowed down and they wanted to singalong with their favourite Geordies, but any misplaced attention was well and truly stamped out when they finished on the rather epic ‘Relentless Fours’ (Spotify link). Brilliant.
Maximo Park – The new album is slowly growing on me (almost painfully slowly – if it was anyone else I’d have given up by now, but I owe it to them to give it more time) and the tracks genuinely work better live then on record. I won’t lie though, it’s the oldies that make me smile/sing/dance/jump etc in ways that a lot of other bands can’t. Paul Smith’s lyrics at times verge on genius and the atmosphere was immensely joyous. Also brilliant.


Well there you go; my week in at Liverpool SoundCity. There are several other anecdotes that didn’t make the cut so if you see me buy me a drink and I’ll tell all.


What I’m listening to this week: Tokyo Pinsalocks and Doll & The Kicks


What I’m reading this week: An Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry.


Stay tuned.


sP


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Friday, April 17, 2009 

Current mood:  happy
Category: Music
(NOTE TO MYSPACE READERS - If you got to www.sentric.wordpress.com it looks a whole lot prettier!)
You’ve heard me mention Twitter in
the last few posts and it’s been lovely to see a good few artists
joining the micro-blogging revolution and following me accordingly.
Recently I’ve had a couple of artists ask what they can do to increase
followers and therefore push traffic to their sites/Myspaces. So as
ever, I looked into those puppy dog eyes and I just couldn’t bring
myself to deny you my mediocre-at-best advice. Here are some tips…
(Please note that for hardened Twitter users some of these points
may seem a tad obvious so if they do then just shut up and move on to
the next point. I love you.)
1) Choose a short name
There is no point having a massive Twitter name as straight away
that restricts what people can say to you in replies and therefore may
put them off conversing with you which is what Twitter is all about
(for me anyway). Remember that your followers have to put their concise
witticisms into an already restricting 140 characters so there is no
need to confine them further by having a username along the lines of
@genericindiebandnameunitedkindgomonlineROFL. Take Sentric Music artist
‘The Second Hand Marching Band’ – they rather sensibly went for @shmb or Tim and Sam’s The Tim and Sam Band with Tim and Sam (which is 39 characters by itself); they’re known on Twitter as @timandsam. Short is sweet.
2) Tell people
Sounds like quite a simple one but it’s quite surprising the amount
of artists that are on Twitter but don’t tell their fans. Anywhere you
have web presence; MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, mailouts, blogs, email
signatures etc put a cheeky link to your Twitter page to encourage
people to follow you.
3) Don’t be too self indulgent
I won’t follow you if every tweet is about your music, even if I’m a
massive fan of what you do. It’s quite boring. Set yourself a nice
little ratio; I..’d suggest around 4:1, so for every tweet about your
music you tweet four other things unrelated to your artistic endeavours
that could be about anything whatsoever. The joy of Twitter is so
people can get to know you and your many, many foibles and twittering
constantly about how you “just can’t get that middle 8th right” on the
new song you’re writing isn’t really going to interest anyone.
4) Talk to people
Someone who just tweets self indulgent sentences thinking they’re
some form of 21st century Western haiku making machine is going to
struggle to raise followers. Talking to people encourages them to
follow you and to retweet you which is one of the best ways to increase
followers. Try it now, start something with @sentricmusic and lets have a chat eh?
5) Retweet often
If you read a tweet that either makes you go “Ha!” or “Hm!” (which
is the ‘I just learnt something new me’ noise that I’ve mentioned
before in previous posts) then retweet it so a) the people who follow
you who don’t follow the original tweeter get to make the same noise
and b) the original tweeter sees you’ve retweeted him/her and may
follow you in return or engage in conversation.
6) Utilise the free Twitter widgets and platforms
Get yourself to Twitter..’s download page and go giddy. Get
the widget and put it on your MySpace/website so the whole world knows
what you’re up to. Also, don’t bother with the Twitter web interface;
it’s slow and not very pretty. There are many Twitter platforms
available and I..’d personally recommend Tweetdeck. It’s quick,
easy to use and great for setting up various filters so you can put all
of your followers into various categories i.e. ‘Industry’, ‘Friends’,
‘Fans’ etc thus to keep the OCD side of your personality happy.
7) Know what you’re doing
Remember the following:
- If you write a standard Tweet then all of your followers see it.

- If you start a tweet with someone’s username (I.E. @sentricmusic)
then the person you replied to will see it, regardless of if they
follow you or not, and also everyone who follows both you and the
person you’ve replied to will see it.

- If you want to talk to someone without anyone else seeing it then use the Direct Message function.
Learn that and you’ll be fine.
8 ) People unfollowing you isn’t a band thing
Ever hit that refresh button and your followers have gone from 75 to
74?! Don’t panic my good friend, this isn’t a bad thing. People
regularly cull followers if their tweet streams get too messy or quite
simply you may have just offended someone with that tweet you made
about Iraq and Palestine needing to ‘just chill out and relax a bit’.
People will come and go so don’t take it personally. Saying that, if
your followers drop by about 50% and the other 50% are still only there
because they missed the tweet then you probably have done something
pretty bad.
9) Aim high now and again
Sentric Music artist Alex Highton (@alexhighton) recently got ‘props’ from Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk
- rather suspect American actor who is pretty much now only famous
thanks to being married to Demi Moore) who has over a million followers
and humble Mr Highton’s MySpace received a lovely surge in traffic.
Granted this may be a bit of a one off but why not chuck the odd
celebrity a reply in hopes they pick up on your music.

The day Stephen Fry tweets me (@stephenfry) I just may delete my Twitter account as that is the no doubt unreachable zenith I’m aiming for.
Right then, I reckon those nine points should help you on your way to a healthy Tweet life.
I’ll just finish on a few people that you should be following:
@jonathandeamer – Clever bloke who is quite funny when he puts his mind to it

@mr_trick – Regularly tweets about music industry news

@seaninsound – Main guy behind ‘Drowned In Sound’

@dubber – Clever bloke who runs this very useful website

@popjustice – Good source of LOL’s

@sentricmusic – Obviously

@mychemtoilet – Music blog
Thoughts?
What I’m listening to this week: Stay With Me (Baby) by Lorraine Ellison, the EPIC ‘Dance Like A White Boy’ by Master Shortie and Drowned In Sounds first quarter playlist on Spotify (Click here to listen).
What I’m reading this week: Not really ‘reading’ per se but more looking at See Mike Draw
Stay tuned
sP
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Friday, March 27, 2009 

Category: Music
The Sentric Music blog has increased in readership quite a bit since
I started penning my grammatically suspect ramblings a couple of years
back and thanks to this there may be a whole host of educational
goodness that you may be missing out on. So this post’s purpose is to
hopefully bring to light any posts that may have slipped your fickle
21st century concentration spans.
Now for those really regular readers who don’t miss a post
I can only apologise as you may have just come across with a feeling of
being cheated; like when you turn on your favourite American sitcom
only to find it’s a clip show, but alas, you can use this post to tell
others about the blog and therefore you’ll have someone to talk to
about it other than your internal monologue who, despite putting up a
good argument at first, always appears to agree with you by the end of
your debate.
So using a mixture of hits and positive feedback from both artists
and industry alike, here are the ten essential Sentric Music blog posts
for you to get your senses around:
1) The Top 8 Things Unsigned/Independent Artists Do Wrong
The post that has received the highest amount of traffic and had
proven to be the most viral with artists from as far away as New
Zealand and Canada getting in touch to comment about my arguments. You
may also notice that through these ten posts I also link to some other
posts within these mentioned posts for which I can only apologise for
being so eager to get you all to read my blatherings. I still stand by
all eight points I mention in this post despite a couple of them being
ripped to shreds by a few artists but I feel I should add a little
extra to each post entitled…
With the beauty of hindsight
– there would be a few more things I’d obviously include that weren’t
about when I first wrote the post, Twitter being the main one. Rather
foolishly I’d also add a ninth point regarding where artists can get
money to help fund their work via people like us at Sentric Music,
although a point like that is included in post number two:
2) If I was an unsigned artist in 2009 I would…
A post which is similar to the one above but a bit more focused on
achievable goals within a 12 month period. They laughed when I said I
could tell the unsigned and independent artists of the world about
Search Engine Optimisation, but I proved them wrong! I even tell people
to look at some old Sentric Music posts which is what I’m doing here
isn’t it? Mmm, will people tell me I’ve jumped the shark? Please do
remember people that I do often blog on topics suggested by the readers
so if there is something you think I should delve into then please get
in touch and let me know.
With the beauty of hindsight
– I should have included something about industry showcase gigs: South
By South West, In The City, Liverpool Sound City, The Great Escape etc.
You need to pick the ones you feel best suited for and, if indeed
you’re ready at all, go about researching how the artists get picked
and how you can better your chances of attaining a slot. That said, the
next post argues that said industry showcases could actually do you
more harm than good:
3) Ask the A&R
I received a lot of comments from artists who had their eyes opened
somewhat by this blog which was the main reason I set about creating
it. It’s remarkably surprising how many artists see the finishing line
to be an offer from a major label when today’s industry can offer so
many alternatives. I was chuffed with the answers I received from the
A&R guys who didn’t hold back with their honesty and gave some
answers that even surprised me at times.
With the beauty of hindsight –
I’d have liked to have asked another two or three A&R people their
thoughts as well but unfortunately they were unable to give me the
answers in time. Also it could be a good idea to do this post again but
from the perspective of A&R guys at indie labels rather than majors?
4) How to apply basic business management theory to your music
This post never received the love I felt it deserved which may just
be the geeky side of me coming out. Studying some form of business from
school through to university meant I constantly had to churn these
things out and apply them to various things and it was when having a
debate in the office about the validity of them (“you never use them in
real life; what’s the point in learning them?” etc) that I thought
about applying them to an artist’s perspective. It would be interesting
to discover how many artists out there have actually sat down and done
a PEST/SWOT analysis after reading this blog and if any good did come
of it, but hopefully it’ll have at least made a few people think
outside the box in regards to what they have at their disposal.
With the beauty of hindsight
– I probably wouldn’t have included the drummer joke in the second
paragraph as I received a complaint about that. From a drummer of
course.
5) 8 Tips on how to make the most out of your mailing list
A pretty much ‘does as it says on the tin’ post which should be read
by any artist who emails their fans no matter how sparsely. It’s
borderline gobsmacking how many ‘email etiquette’ rules are strewn to
one side by artists who email hundreds of people all in the ‘CC’ column
informing me of uninteresting news about something I don’t care about
as I never asked to be on their mailing list in the first place but
they just stole my email from the ‘CC’ column of another idiot who made
the same mistake the week previous. Grrr.
With the beauty of hindsight
– I’d have somehow gotten in touch with Gordon Brown to introduce some
sort of law which means ALL artists have to read this post or a post of
a similar ilk as it’s common enough sense really and once you’ve read
it once it should stick. It’s not rocket science; it’s email.
6) Webber you know it or not
One of my favourite posts due to the inherent geekiness of it.
Arguably one more for artists managers than artists themselves, but
anyone with a touch of web savviness should be able to stumble their
way around it to utilise all the free web tools mentioned within the
post. I don’t think I can put into words just how impressed I was with
Google Analytics when we first added it to the Sentric Music website;
if you don’ use it on your own website then get on it A.S.A.P. If raw
data makes you as happy as I (granted, it’s a bit of a niche fetish)
then this will make you one jolly bunny.
With the beauty of hindsight – not much to say here. Apart from Twitter again I suppose but you know about that by now right?
7) Press release me, let me go
Press releases are a tricky thing to get right and this is at no
means a ‘be all and end all’ guide on how to write them; it’s just my
personal opinion. I’ve no doubt there are people who do press releases
for a living who may read that post and spit proverbial feathers over
the advice that’s given, but so far it’s received decent feedback and
is actually the second highest viewed post.
With the beauty of hindsight
– I would probably argue that unless you have something to flog, ie. a
new album/EP, then it’s probably not worth doing a press release
whatsoever. When I receive a demo all I really need to know is any
future gig dates coming up so I can catch them live if I enjoy the CD
and maybe a photograph so I get an idea of what they look like.
Eight) Gig + etiquette = getiquette
A post that was pretty much therapeutic for me as the artist who got
in touch to compliment the blog was one of the worst I’ve ever had the
displeasure to work with. I’m now out of the promoting game and if I’m
honest I don’t miss it one bit, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it at the
time and I learnt quite a lot of things during but it’s not something
I’d ever like to get back into. I can only imagine at every level of
gig promotion; from 100 capacity venues to Wembley Stadiums, you’re
going to come across the same problems of egos and arseholes. Again,
it’s worth me pointing out that I worked with some bloody lovely
artists as well and I made some genuine friends, but if you are an
artist, do have a gander at this and if at any point you realise you’ve
been a bit of a numpty to a promoter in the past then drop them a
cheeky MySpace message and let them know you’re aware of your
shortcomings. It’s endearing to hear.
With the beauty of hindsight –
I would also add to the list ‘do your bit; share your kit’. If a
promoter asks you to share some of your kit then please don’t look at
them as if they’ve just asked you to donate a kidney.
9) Money Money Money
This post has some interesting responses from artists: some agreed
wholeheartedly and others felt that I was being unfair with my
comments. The fact of the matter is: if you are an artist then you need
to be prepared to invest in yourself at the beginning of your career at
an absolute minimum. It’s all obviously up to each individual artist
how much they believe they should spend, be it the bare minimum to get
them to gigs and back and cover equipment costs to spending thousands
of pounds on posh studio time, merchandise, a mini bus for touring etc.
Of course there are companies like SENTRIC MUSIC that can help you earn
a few bob on your way.
With the beauty of hindsight
– I would argue that merchandise isn’t the best way to make cash as an
unsigned/independent artist but ensuring you’re on top of your various
royalty income streams is of upmost importance to make sure you’re not
missing out on any money that is rightly yours. Again, not to sound
like I’m plugging but that is exactly what Sentric Music is here for
and this leads us rather nicely too…
10) The blog that justifies what I do
I’ve blogged it before and I’ll blog it again: ignorance towards
performance royalties within the UK is dangerously rife. You are owed
money EVERY time your music is played in public: gigs, radio airplay,
TV airplay, discos, clubs, restaurants and bars, discos, gyms etc. It
may be pence or it may be pounds but at the end of the day is cash that
is owed to you.
With the beauty of hindsight
– The PRS have since dropped their £100 membership fee to join their
service so it’s now free but at the same time I should point out that
using Sentric’s service still has several benefits that arguably
outweigh joining independently; back-dating claims (whereas when you
join you can only claim from your membership start date), we do all the
admin for you (which, I assure you, is worth the 20% by itself alone),
we put your music forward for TV exposure and international advertising
campaigns, we can knock your music up onto iTunes and we’re here for
any music industry advice you need in general. Hurray!
So there you go, please fire this around to whoever you feel would
benefit from it and if you have any suggestions for future topics then
don’t hesitate to get in touch.
What I’m listening to this week; Journey, Pet Shop Boys, Baddies and Post War Years.
What I’m reading this week; mainly verbs
Stay tuned
sP

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Thursday, March 12, 2009 

Current mood:  aggravated
Category: Music
So I thought I'd dip my toes into this as a couple of Sentric artists have asked for my humble musings on the matter and as that’s what this blog is all about (to serve you good people) let's crack on shall we?
 
So you probably will have seen in the press/blogosphere/twittersphere that YouTube (who are owned by Google) have removed all official music video content from the site due to a dispute they’re having with PRS For Music who are asking for more cash off them to pay the writers and composers of said music.
 
Cue outrage.
 
Now there are arguments for both sides of this disagreement (although for me there are more valid ones for a certain side than the other) but throughout my web trawling I’ve come across some dubious at best statements that scream ignorance and have come out of pure ill education.
 
There is a brilliant Mitchell & Webb radio sketch where they’re presenting a spoof current affairs show asking the good folk of Britain what they ‘reckon’, an excerpt of which goes like;
 
“You may not know anything about the issue, but I bet you reckon something. So why not tell us what you reckon. Let us enjoy the full majesty of your uninformed ad hoc reckon, by going to bbc.co.uk… clicking on ‘what I reckon’ and then simply beating on the keyboard with your fists or head.”
 
Now I’m not usually one to back down from a debate but if I’m ignorant about a certain subject I tend to stay out of making my opinions public or at the very least prefix it with some kind of ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ statement which relinquishes any future vituperation that may have been directed towards me. I’ve been asked by a few people to make comments on things before for websites and newspapers which I’ve had to politely decline simply due to the fact I don’t know a thing about them. The best of which was when I was asked to contribute to a debate in the Liverpool Echo where the central question was “Do you think bail is granted too easily in this country?” Why on earth ask me that?! I’m a music publisher so therefore my knowledge regarding the UK judicial system is pretty thin on the ground.
 
Anyhoo, my take on this is that Google are going to have the ‘reckoners’ of this country back them in their slagging off the PRS as they just aren’t too clued up with what’s happening.
 
I’ve no doubt there will be people educated within this are who will be on Google’s side and that is more than fine, healthy if anything, but there will be a whole cacophony of contributors who’ll be siding with Google/Youtube because (as my rather brilliant colleague summed up) “people have an emotional link with YouTube; it has funny clips on it”.
 
Google are brilliant. Pretty much everything they do simply ‘works’, they’re consumer focused and have revolutionised several sectors of the new media industry. They also offer a lovely bunch of free tools that can be utilised by savvy unsigned/independent artists which I wrote a post about in the past. Click here to read Web-er You Know It Or Not and educate yourself into becoming an efficient artist. Despite my fondness for Google I would have to argue they’ve been a tad ‘arsey’ with their approach to this whole situation. So much so I just contemplated using the word ‘conflict’ rather than situation in the previous sentence when really it should have never escalated past a simple ‘discussion’.
 
Here are some bits and bobs you should probably know:
 
Google’s PRS license expired in December 2008 and the two parties have been in talks to renew
Streams of premium music video content have risen nearly 300% (up from 75million to almost 300million a quarter)
Despite this rather significant rise, Google want to pay the PRS 50% less than they did previously despite their music usage suggesting they’re significantly underpaying
At no time did the PRS instruct Google to withdraw the content from the site, this was Google’s own doing
 
I’m hoping that for those unaware of those facts previously will have read them and made a ‘hm!’ noise thanks to the knowledge just bestowed upon them. (on a side note, the ‘hm!’ noise I talk about is one of my favourites in the world as it means I’ve just learnt something interesting. I must make said noise several times throughout the average episode of QI).
 
It’s borderline lunacy for Google to expect to pay half what they were paying previously despite usage increasing 300%. Isn’t it? And then to withdraw all the content is just playing dirty as there was no need to whilst discussions were taking place. It was done to bring light to the situation and to make the PRS look like money grabbers to therefore make the ‘reckoners’ of the UK dislike the PRS even more than they already do.
 
We all know the PRS doesn’t do to well when it comes to its public perception; we read stories about how they’re demanding money from small businesses or they’ll fine them and sometimes they don’t help themselves. But this isn’t Joe Blogg’s Mechanics, this is Youtube, a company Google purchased for $1.65 billion. Surely if they’re using the content then they should pay for it? Let's not forget that Google made $5.7billion in the quarter of last year.  Share the wealth eh?
 
Another problem is that the ‘reckoners’ think that Coldplay, Robbie Williams and Kate Nash don’t need any extra money from Google as they’re no doubt rolling around in pools of cash already. Fair enough point, but how about the other artists trying to make a living from music who aren’t celebrities? Beth Orton spoke out in favour of the PRS the other day on the BBC 6Music website.  The female singer-songwriter is testament to the fact that artists rely on the royalties from their music to live:

"It’s been lovely for me because I’ve had the last two years to just concentrate on my little girl.

"That’s been from working really hard for 10 years and then being able to live off the back of what I’ve done when those little royalty cheques come in."
 
Now I don’t read Heat magazine but I’m guessing Beth doesn’t grace their front cover as often as Leona Lewis does. And how about artists even more grass roots then Beth Orton? A certain Sentric Music artist had their video streamed 38,175 times during a quarter last year and would you like to take a stab in the dark of the royalties they received from that? A whopping £2.62. An average Premier League attendance watches your video and you barely get enough for a pint of lager in return.
 
So there you go; I hope this blog has helped a good few of you make up your mind about the Google vs PRS situation and if you hear any ‘reckoners’ chatting otherwise then please send them to this post to hopefully educate them somewhat.
 
On a related note another artist's asked me about the best way to go about commissioning a music video and unfortunately I’m pretty inexperienced in that area so rather than reckoning something I'd rather send you over to the lovely Caroline Bottomley at Radar Music Videos who are pretty clued up about that sort of thing.
 
What I’m listening to this week; some cheeky Florence and the Machine demos I was lucky enough to acquire (there are a couple of belters; the album could be potentially brilliant) and Everything Everything.
 
What I’m reading this week: Charlie Brookers column. A constant source of Lol’ing.
 
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.

Stay tuned.
 
sP

18:19 
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009 

Current mood:  happy
Category: Music
....................

Music synchronisation has long been something artists have had an inherent
interest in due to the obvious rewards it offers, mainly the combination of
both exposure and cash. Lovely.

It also has a history of successfully breaking artists into the mainstream, if
it wasn’t for Levis I would have never discovered Babylon Zoo’s
"Spaceman" and the consequences of that aren’t even worth
contemplating.

So how do you get your music on the new iPod advert? Or in the Eastenders caff
whilst two people have a miserable conversation about their miserable lives? Or
on the new Paris Hilton show where she chooses an idiot from a line of idiots
to be her new idiotic best friend? (Little in joke for the newsletter readers
there – email info@sentricmusic.com if you want to be added to it or click here
to read the last one).

Well read on my friend and hopefully the following advice will help you on your
merry way.....

First of all let me just break down some of the lingo I’ll be chucking
hither and tither during this post:....

Synch (synchronisation) – The act of putting music on top of visuals
(TV, Movies, Games, Films, Websites etc) or other audio (Radio adverts etc).

Creatives – The people who work for advertising agencies/production
companies who have "the vision" of what they want their final product
to look like.

The Client – the brand/company which the product (advert, TV programme,
website etc) is being made for and who the creatives are working for

Music Supervisors – the people that look for the track after they’ve
been given their direction by the creatives....

1) Find people who know what they’re doing and let them worry about
it.....

Unless the Creatives have your track in mind already and they’re knocking on
your door with a briefcase full of cash in one hand and a contract in the other
then getting your music under their noses is not the easiest thing to do. So
much so that it’s peoples full time jobs to get chummy with music supervisors
in order to get the music they’re representing on their radar.

Your best option is to find a synch agent or service (like Sentric Music of
course) who’ll be pushing your music on your behalf as they’re the people
who’ll be wining and dining the music supervisors whilst slipping them a cheeky
sampler CD in-between the fish and soup courses.....

Music Supervisor - “Delightful Haddock that”

Synch Agent - “Indeed”

Music Supervisor - “What’s the soup again? Winter Vegetable Melody? I
must say it’s awfully nice of you to take me out like this”

Synch Agent – “No worries! Just thought it’d be nice to catch up, and
the soup is Leek and Potato I believe... Talking about Leek and Potato soup
have you heard this new track we’re representing by (insert Welsh band's name
here)?”....

As you can see it’s a fine art that shouldn’t be sniffed at.....

DON’T PAY UPFRONT for a service like this. There are a few companies out
there that will ask for cash in exchange for submitting your music for
advertising campaigns and what not but I'd personally avoid these like the
plague. Go for either a publishing service that will push your music for free
(like us), wait until a synch
agent approaches you due to their love of your music and ask to represent you
or wait for a traditional publishing deal to come along. If either of the
latter two do happen make sure you seek legal advice before signing anything
and remember: copyright is king so always lease and never look to sign over
your copyright for an extended period of time.....

2) Know who owns your rights and make sure they get on with one
another.....

In the majority of cases the core readership of this blog will own the
copyright to both the master recordings and the songs themselves. If this is
the case then you have nothing to worry about as once you’ve given the OK to
whoever is pushing your music for synch then no more permission needs to be
sought after.

If you have a label you need to make sure they know that there is a publisher
pushing your material for synchronisation as permission for the master rights
is also essential before any use can be confirmed. With the contacts we have in
America who have placed some of Sentric Music’s artists tunes on programs on
VH1 and MTV they’ve always requested music that is ‘pre cleared on both sides’
which to put in laymans terms means that they can use it without having to get
permission from both us and the master rights holders first. This is due to the
hasty turnaround deadlines the TV industry works to and also because of the
time difference between us and our Atlantic neighbours.

We have strong relationships with many record labels and once we’ve been given
permission by both themselves and the artists to begin pushing the material
then we go and do what we do best and in the majority of cases there is little
problem. However there is one label in particular who haven’t been the best
(they’re a major, no surprises there) and therefore we’re unable to push the
artist's music for synch, which is a pity as the album is bloody well
marvellous!....

3) Always record instrumental versions of your music.....

Having an instrumental version of your material handy is always a brilliant
thing to have and usually doesn’t take up much of your precious studio time
(just take off the vocals, level it a bit and bounce it down so I’ve been
informed – although my experience of sound technology is limited to me
recording myself playing the intro to Plug In Baby on a second hand acoustic
guitar through a mini disc player when I was a teenager... I could have been
Timbaland).

If a creative really likes your track it’s very common for them to request an
instrumental version as well so when they’re cutting up the music to fit the
video they can work their magic. So have one available, and let whoever is
pushing your music know!....

4) Be patient.....

Over any one advert there may be a whole gallimaufry (which is ‘loads’ to a
normal person) of music supervisors searching and submitting music to earn
their percentage so competition is fierce. You may be up against thousands of
other songs so it’s going to be rare that your track is the perfect one for the
placement. Or even if it is perfect the client might not want to use it anyway
and go for something else that they want which may be for various reasons:
helping out a friend at a record label, they think the other track will be a
better match for their brand, or they might just be an idiot.

We recently submitted some music for a particular advert which worked extremely
well and the creatives also agreed, but for a reasons only beknowst to her, the
client wanted to use M People. Having to explain why M People are no longer
culturally relevant in a world full of HD TV’s and Twitter isn’t the easiest
thing to do without sounding downright patronising and we’re currently waiting
back to hear her response.

I've known certain music supervisors who were in their jobs for years until
they landed their first synch deal and this isn’t due to them being bad at
their job or having a narrow musical knowledge, far from it, it can just
genuinely take that long for something to pay off so just chill out and enjoy
life in the interim ok?....

5) Demos aren’t good enough....

If you get to the stage where you’re submitting music for briefs then don’t
bother sending in a demo version of your new song that you’re convinced
"is going to break you" because firstly it’s not and secondly as soon
as the music supervisor hears the opening four seconds and realises the
production quality is poor then it’ll be deleted, never to be heard again. Here
at Sentric Music we sometimes have to listen to hundreds of tracks with the
purpose of whittling them down to an acceptable number to send to the client
and if the production quality is poor then we simply can’t submit it.....

6) Apply self censorship....

Be sure to read the brief and to listen to any reference tracks mentioned by
the creatives/music supervisors. If they say they’re looking for something that
is both energetic and sounds like "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead then
don’t send something in that is purely energetic, but sounds nothing like Lenny
and Co.

I know it’s exciting to imagine your music on an advert for a multinational
brand and I know it’s exciting to consider that a placement on a worldwide
advert could be worth upwards of £100k but if your music doesn’t fit the brief
then simply don’t submit it.

If you submit something that doesn’t match you’re going to piss off the music
supervisor who will then be less inclined to listen to anything you also send
in the future.

If you haven’t already got it then check out Spotify; it’s a music
streaming service that is ad-funded in a similar vein to We7 and has a great
catalogue of music behind it. In pretty much every brief that we send out there
will be a couple of ‘reference tracks’ and Spotify often has these available to
listen to which should give you an idea what the creatives are looking for.
Once you have downloaded Spotify then click here to listen to a
cheeky playlist we knocked together here in the Sentric office!....

So there you go - six tips to help you get your music synched.....

I know I’ve mentioned Sentric a couple of times in this post already and I
often stress that this blog is purely for advice and not for marketing but on
this occasion I feel it is relevant so bear with me as I do a bit of
plugging.......

If you sign up to Sentric Music then
you’ll automatically be added onto our briefing distribution list where you’ll
receive regular requests for music of various genres. We have been successful
in placing music on nationwide TV advertising campaigns, we regularly have
music placed on TV programmes (with Hollyoaks being a repeat customer) and we
have a number of companies within the States pushing our music for synch. As
ever it’s free to join up and if you go to the About Us page on our
website you’ll find testimonies from some of our hundreds of users. Right,
marketing done.....

What I’m listening to this week: Bombay Bicycle Club, The Jane Bradfords and And
So I Watch You From Afar....

What I’m reading this week: Catch
22 by Joesph Heller and Smalltown America’s blog....

Stay tuned....

sP....

.. ..



12:35 
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Monday, February 09, 2009 

Current mood:  working
Category: Music
Afternoon all...

Regular readers will be aware that a few posts ago I asked you to send me in any questions you’ve ever wanted to ask the A&R of the major label world as I had three plucky volunteers who were willing to bare all (albeit anonymously) to help you in your quest to make a living from music.

Two major label A&R Scouts and one Publishing major A&R scout were kind enough to take part so thank you to the gentlemen in question who I’ve no doubt shall glance at this post when it’s uploaded.

I offered the scouts anonymity as I wanted their answers to be as honest as possible. A few of their statements may well and truly annoy the core readership of this blog, but alas poor Yoric, sometimes the truth hurts and the sooner you can take their advice on board the sooner you might be living that ever more elusive dream of yours: a house in Beverley Hills, the signature Gibson Les Paul, the on/off relationship with a miscellaneous girl group member and of course, a whole melange of crippling addictions.

So here are the questions, followed by the answers and a couple of humble musings from myself.  (Please note, very little editing has been applied to their answers; just the odd spelling and grammatical bits and bobs)

Numbers: 1 = Major Label A&R, 2 = Major Publisher A&R, 3= Major Label A&R, 4 = Me.

•    What do you look for in a demo?

1.    This is an interesting question. Most of the demos I get are ones I've asked the artist to send; therefore at least I already like something about the act. In terms of unsolicited material, in all honesty it's very rare that it will even reach us, and if it does it will most probably go un-listened. A large percentage of my week is taken up listening to things I've found through reliable sources around the country, therefore 'getting in' with good people in your local area is much more valuable than sending a s**t load of jiffy bags to record labels!

2.    Something exceptional, or with the potential to be exceptional. When you're signing an artist you want them to be exceptional in every way or have the potential to be, but a demo could be a great vocal, song or sound. From that point you can then see a gig or meet them to see what else they've got.

3.     Big fat hooks. Songs are the only thing that really matter. Without commercial songs, then there's no reason for a major label to get involved.

4.    Some interesting answers here – our first chap took a different angle to the question than I initially intended but never the less gave some extremely good advice. How often have you sent demos to labels (either Indie of Major), publishers (again, Indie or Major), management companies, booking agents, promoters etc to never receive a reply in return? If you sent out a hundred; how many replies would you perceive as a ‘success’? 10? 5? 1?! I'd argue that every single one of them CD’s should have been given to someone who actually wanted to listen to them. Fans at shows, friends on myspace, followers on Twitter etc. Tips fly around the industry daily and 99% of the time they originate from a grassroots level; studio workers, local promoters, local music bloggers/press etc. Be bloody nice to these people as they’re the ones in contact with A&R and they’re the ones most likely to give you a nod the next time they’re asked for a tip.

The second answer is to be expected: of course they’re looking for something exceptional as no one is going to take a punt on something average. I pretty much guarantee that every artist reading this will have commented (either aloud or in their thoughts) on an artist in the charts; “How did they get signed? My music’s much better!” and although that may be true in certain aspects, have another look at the artist you’ve just criticised because they have something about their music which has spurned someone to throw cash at them. When you can start seeing something exceptional in every popular artist then you can begin to look at your music in a far more objective manner.

The third answer is rather honest; if you can’t imagine your music on Radio 1 or Radio 2’s playlist then arguably a major isn’t for you. They want hits and a niche act isn’t going to sell hundreds of thousands of units.

•    Does the quality of my recording matter?

1.    A shit recording is a shit recording, but at the end of the day if it's a good song it will shine through. The quality of the recording shouldn't really matter, although a better recording would be preferred (though I wouldn't say essential). More developed ideas and a detailed look at the 'production' would also be nice. Arrangement is always something to look at I.E 8 minute tunes are a bit of a turn off... unless it's f*****' mint!

2.    It obviously needs to show you off as best as possible. at the very least the song and quality of voice, but if the demo isn't of a great quality production wise you'd hope the artist has an idea on the production and sound of the album they want to make.

3.    On the whole it should be the best it can be. The best you can make it with the resources available to you. You want to make a good impression. Of course if it’s a production led project than it’s more important than for an indie band for example.

4.    Ergo – it doesn’t really matter that much. They’re looking for ideas, for structure and for potential. If they like your songs they’ll find you, watch you live and if they’re impressed by that probably have a chat with you about production and various other things.

•    Do you still want CD demos or are MP3s better?

1.    Both have advantages and disadvantages, I'm indifferent really. An MP3 is better for ease, although it can clog up your inbox resulting in it either bouncing back or getting deleted to free up space. A simple MySpace link is sometimes better than both!

2.    Any - Mp3s, CDs, MySpace links.

3.    CD’s addressed to me. MP3s just sent at random to me clog my inbox. 4.    In my experience most A&R aren’t fussed about how they come across music. As MP3’s can by quite space heavy then a link to a site where they can download a song may be a good idea as well as a link to where they can stream it. If they love the track they’ll no doubt get in touch for a copy.

•    Is it true that you guys won’t listen to a track if it hasn’t got your attention after 30 seconds?

1.    I wouldn't say it's entirely true, but you can usually tell after about 30 seconds where a song is showing any promise, or whether it's gonna stay along those 'steaming pile of s**t' lines...

2.    No, but there's only so many hours in the day so if there's nothing exciting in the first 30 seconds of a song then you might ask questions about arrangement.

3.    Try and think of a great pop song that didn't get your attention within 30 seconds. You're ultimately trying to get people to buy your music; A&R guys are just trying to put themselves in the shoes of the public. If it does nothing within 30 seconds, what impression is it going to make coming out of a radio in the background of someone's morning, or behind someone's conversation?

4.    I think it’s pretty safe to say I'd save the lengthy intros for the album.

•    How much do trends effect your decision in signing artists?

1.    You do have to keep in mind what is commercial, and what is right for the market place, but once you start looking to jump on a trend is when you've already missed it... New, innovative and interesting bands/artists/music is always much more inspiring for me!

2.    You need to be aware of what trends media are focused on but a genuinely incredible artist will work regardless of what trends are occurring.

3.    Probably more than most A&R guys will admit to, but then again artists with a 'current' sound have been the cornerstone of major label signings since the industry began. It’s just the way fashion dictates commerce of any kind. I’m not going to sign someone who sounds like Louis Prima today, but in 1955 it would have been a decent decision.

4.    I partly agree with the statement number 1 gives regarding “once you start looking to jump on a trend is when you’ve already missed it” but that sounds like an A&R man who wants to be the forefront of a movement. Four years ago it would have been lovely to sign the Arctic Monkeys, but someone still signed Little Man Tate afterwards. Copycat artists are abundant in the industry and are to be expected whenever a truly inspiring band is broken (I should say that although I refer to these acts as ‘copycat’ I’m not accusing them of plagiarism in the slightest as often they may have been around longer than the act that breaks the genre, it’s just the term that is used). Answer number three is honest and rightly so; trends do indeed dictate commerce and the music business is just that – a business.

•    Do artists ever get signed from sending in demo’s? Or will the A&R always find the artist via their own means?

1.    I can't say that this has never happened, but it would be very, very, very rare for this to happen now. I'd always prefer to find something by my own means, although if we didn't get any demos sent into the office we probably wouldn't have anything to laugh about!

2.    It does happen occasionally, but usually it's via your own means.

3.    I believe that talent bubbles up and rises to the surface wherever it exists.  Whether it’s a music teacher, or a booker at the local pub, or a mate etc there tends to be someone who can pass on the word of a good artist. Steve Winwood was a 15 year old in Birmingham when he began in Spencer Davis Group, but word started to get out about this kid with an amazing voice and people started taking notice. The likelihood that a great artist is first heard by an A&R guy from a demo tape before they've already passed in front of some other 3rd party is slim, so while it’s not unfeasible that someone could be signed from a unsolicited demo its far more productive for me to be in touch with someone who can aggregate artists in early development, whether that's a regional scout, promoter, music college rep, or just a punter commenting on a blogs.

4.    All three answers echo my comments on the first question, it’s the people within your local music scene that are the ones you should be buying beers for. Are you that group who never Kit Shares? That guitarist who never brings his own amp because it’s ‘vintage’? That 4 piece who never do any gig promotion ‘because that’s the promoter’s job’? Then welcome to mediocrity my friends. Just play nice eh?

•    How important are playing industry showcases like In The City and The Great Escape?

1.    I would say they're becoming less and less important. The Great Escape is different; I feel it's much more geared and aimed towards the punter rather than A&R. In The City for example, has now become a festival for the buzz bands rather than an opportunity to discover great new bands. I won't advise people to play them, even if you are great and unknown; you're a very small fish in what is generally a massive pool of utter shit! Don’t ever pay to play a slot at a festival like this!!! The demise in festivals like this is only a result in the way the industry is moving. Bands are generally being discovered a lot earlier!

2.    It's not essential to play them by any means but If you're an exceptional artist, ready to get signed and with a bit of buzz (whether industry, media or from live gigs) then they can be a great opportunity. But if you're not ready and play a bad gig it can be a bit of a setback. I think Great Escape is good for overseas bands who have usually spent more time developing/gigging and get to play a few shows to labels and media.

3.    They're a good opportunity for A&R to tick a large number of acts off in a short space of time and catch up with each other. In terms of finding brand new things they're not great. Playing them can be a great way to get in front of a large crowd of industry; but that can be both a blessing and a curse.

4.    Mixed feelings towards industry showcases then – the one bit of advice you should take for gospel is in answer one; NEVER pay for a slot. It’s ridiculous they even get away with it in my opinion. Another good bit of advice can be found in answer two; if you’re not ready then don’t accept a slot. I know it’s exciting and all that but a bad gig can set you back a number of years rather than refusing one year, getting a hell of a lot tighter and then playing the next year where you’ll actually turn heads.

•    Do you feel your job is becoming slowly redundant due to changing technology and whatnot?

1.    I hope not... I don't think so. I'd like to think they'll always be a need for people to A&R records. A good A&R person is just as valuable as any artists! And in a very crude sense provide quality control to the music that is put out there. Then again it depends what technology you mean?

2.    I hope not! People still want to hear great music, technology has changed the industry but if you're doing your job well it's more the distribution and way the public discover music that's changed. I think there's still a need for people who can help support and develop artists.

3.    If there's money still to be made out of music, people will still want to invest in it, and while they do there will always be a role for the talent scout and developer of talent.

4.    I'd suggest answer three sums this up rather fantastically and answer two I agree with in terms of its more then way people discover music that has been affected by new technology.

•    If you were an artist; would you sign to a major label?

1.    Depending on the artist, and what we'd be looking to achieve, Yes! It also would depend on which major label... Someone else in the industry once said to me "A lot of A&R people are very apologetic about being/working at major labels. They should just think “f**k it, we're the biggest label in the world, and we can do this, this and this for you..." It's true, major labels might not be able to provide the same sense of delicacy to a release that a twee indie can, but they can still break records for fun if the raw product is there! And with the right A&R could easily release 'indie' records eg Fleet Foxes. They’re just not really geared towards doing the hard, slog/ground work that leads to low level sales.

2.    If it's the right people involved and they share the artist’s vision then major labels can still be very effective.

3.    No one spends money chasing a success like a major record company. If you think you are an artist with true mainstream potential, then I don't think there is a better place to be. If you're niche, then stick to a friendlier deal at an indie.

4.    All fair answers here in my opinion. Depending on genre, market, if you ‘get on’ with the people who would be shifting your material and various other variables then there is no ‘right or wrong’ in terms of if you should be go with an indie or a major, or indeed go it alone.

•    Have there been any immediate effects on you due to the current economic climate?

1.    Not really. It just makes finding good, new stuff all the more important.

2.    Not yet, but I'm sure it'll impact in the next 12months 3.    Sales are down, so our remit has been squeezed a bit. A left field act that might have sold 100k in the UK at the start of the millennium and wiped its own face financially is now selling a fraction of that and not worth being in business with. Majors naturally have to look more at the mainstream, which I think will ultimately lead to us missing out more and more on the freak one off act that starts leftfield and moves mainstream to smash.

4.    One says no, one says not yet and one says yes. There is nothing like consistency eh? From my experience the old recession appears to be taking its toll on advances and majors being less keen on taking a punt on new acts. They’d rather hold on for that extra six months till the band proves itself by attaining a stronger fanbase and then pay them a bigger advance. Granted they’re narrowing the risk but they’re also potentially missing out on those leftfield acts that answer three mentions that when they go huge, they make most money on.

•    Any other general advice?

1.    Be in a band because you love playing in a band with your mates, not to be famous. If you get focused on the end goal you can easily lose sight on what's important, and that is writing great songs! If this get's lost you'll just turn into a bitter c**t!

2.    The most important thing is the songs and quality of the artist. After that it's about surrounding yourself with a team of good people that you trust, working hard and getting a bit of luck along the way.

3.    Work hard on the music, everything else is peripheral.

4.    I’ve lost count the number of blogs I’ve posted which after numerous thousands of words of advice end with “but all that doesn’t really matter as long as you write good songs”. This blog, and indeed all the other bits of advice I’ve written throughout the years are only to help get you noticed amongst the sea of other artists out there: Write, write and write some more. And once you’ve done that practice, practice and practice some more. Then maybe write a bit more after that. But be sure to practice what you’ve written. You get the idea.

So the three main bits of advice to be taken from this?

i)    Concur your home town – it’s the locals that will tell the A&R about your music so make sure you play your local area (and I don’t just mean your village/city, I mean an area like ‘The North West’) often, be nice and treat everyone with respect regardless if they’re a muppet or if they support your rival football team. It goes a long way.

ii)    Supply to demand – Anyone who you think of sending an unsolicited demo to probably doesn’t want it so distribute your music to those who actually do until those you originally wanted to hear it come to you.

iii)    Do it for the music – As someone-that-a-Google-search-couldn’t-find rightly said; “if you want to be famous, kill a celebrity”. Write music because you love music. Sounds almost insultingly simple to say but it’s good to remind ourselves of the basics now and again...

What I’m listening to this week: Paraffin Oil Shop (the outro to ‘Stabs’ is ace) and Doll & The Kicks

What I’m reading This Week: Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (not the Peep Show guy, the author)

Stay tuned

sP

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Last Updated: 10/8/2009

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