[atlantaprog] Re: online promo

My sense is that, yes, most of MySpace is pure BS. But it has become an expected thing with most people who book bands these days. It's an easy way to hear what a band is about without having to filter through their own hype. Many bands whose websites I visit are so "arty" that I can't find any REAL information about them. Most band bios just go on and on about their personnel changes over the years and what other bands the members have been in and about how they've "built a strong local following" blah blah blah. What myspace does is give a booker a chance to see what a group sounds like, and get a feel for what sort of draw they might have and what type of audience they would appeal to based on friends comments, etc.

It's been very educational being a "booking guy" - I find it amazing how many bands email us whose email is so cliched or poorly written that i don't even take the time to look at their site. And when my interest IS piqued and I do go to their site - if I get a bunch of confusing graphics and cryptic interfaces, I click out of it and go to their myspace page (like I said, EVERYONE has one these days) and within a minute or two, I know if they're a band who would work well at Eyedrum. If they do seem like someone we'd like to have, I will go to their real site and explore it a bit.

Another thing that is VERY important in trying to get bookings for your band - give them someone to compare yourself to. Regardless of how distasteful it is to try and compare yourselves to other acts, it is often the best way to catch someone's attention - and make sure that 1. your comparisons aren't a bunch of acts as equally obscure as you are, and 2. that your comparisons actually give an idea of what your music sounds like. You don't know how many times I'll see something like "our influences are Johnny Cash, Stravinsky, the Beatles, and Zappa"... Huh??? One way you can mitigate the distastefulness of such comparisons is by using language such as "people who like Crimson and early Pink Floyd would probably like our music".

A

PS - an anecdote re. this listserv. One of the other guys on Eyedrum's music committee is also a full-time booking agent for several local clubs. He is a real mover and shaker in the local club scene and he's very open minded about what he likes - but he doesn't put up with BS. He was an early member of this list and occasionally he would put a promo announcement of some non-prog event that he thought might appeal to prog fans - but every time he did, he got flamed by some of you prog-snobs out there, so he just said to hell with it and quit the list serv. And now he has a pretty sour opinion of Atlanta prog fans - SO - lesson to be learned - WATCH YOUR ATTITUDE, you don't know who you might be alienating!


On Mar 2, 2006, at 10:02 AM, canarioab@xxxxxxx wrote:

<x-tad-bigger> Andrew, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't see much use for MySpace.  I've not 'gotten' it since the hype started, and it looks to me that bands have very little leeway when it comes to setting up your webpage.  I guess it's good if you're just surfing around for music and only want to go to one format or domain, but otherwise ... bleh.  Thanks for some honest comments.</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>April</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>-----Original Message-----</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>From: Tegethoff, Andrew T. <Andrew.Tegethoff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx></x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>To: atlantaprog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>Sent: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 09:56:07 -0500</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>Subject: [atlantaprog] Re: online promo</x-tad-bigger>

MySpace - I set up a page for the Taybacks about a month ago. Meh.
<rant>
Quite honestly, I think MySpace is worthless. It reached critical mass
a year ago, and now every musician in the universe HAS to have a MySpace
site. So then, what's it worth? Not a whole hell of a lot.
Although every teenybopper in the universe seems to love it, the site
REALLY sucks. HARD. I'm sure it's the wasp's nipples if you're 13 and
want to talk nasty with your friends and put up Disturbed songs that
auto-play everytime one of your little hoodlum friends clicks on your
site.
But it's among the worst website interfaces I've ever used, the whole
"friends" thing is just total BS, and compared to the Venerable Olde
Mp3.com... well, it just doesn't compare at all. YMMV.
</rant>

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