In these blogs, you would see me talk down on band competitions like, “Battle of the Bands” and other stupid contests. Bands would do just about anything for recognition and become more established, and they think that doing all this stuff is going to help them become more well known and successful. So you ask me, “Why do Kev hate band competitions & contests?” Well, I’m about to explain why.

I know this is going to be really harsh but it needs to said. Why don’t I agree with this stuff? Simply put. It is cheating. How is it cheating? I believe it’s a quick and cheap way to get recognition & success.

A band can get well known and popular without being a part of these things at all. There are other ways of becoming an established act. How? Just make the music, put it out there and see what happens. Let the music speak on it own. When I get a band going, I would want to see how my music will do without being a part of this stuff.

Doing these competition things is just not a good career move, just my opinion. I mean, fuck. Do you really want to see your music head down that way?

Bands have become popular by not being a part of these competitions, I’ve seen it before. It has happened to a lot of bands out there. Don’t worry about contests and awards. They’re not important and nothing special. Just keep writing the music, playing the gigs, and you’ll grow a large following just by doing that. Doing these competitions makes a band look desperate, and I don’t want to look desperate. I want to make it look like that I’m enjoying this and truly being appreciative of the fans support.

Nothing wrong with doing contests, do what you want to do, but don’t do way too many of them. Contests are a huge fuckin’ waste of time, when all you should be doing is making the music and playing the gigs.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good opportunity every now & then, but I won’t obsess with it. I don’t need to win 20 hours worth of studio time or win a slot to play on a major festival, when a good opportunity for me is just getting an actual gig booked at a club I haven’t played before. Or getting any kind of gig, is a good opportunity for me. Another good opportunity are fans supporting your music and liking it, that’s all I pretty much need. Screw all the bigger stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kev

I know there are plenty of local websites, radio stations, newspapers, etc. that love to interview bands & musicians. You know what? In my opinion, most of that stuff is crap when it comes to band interviews. When bands get asked to do an interview for a website, radio station, or a newspaper, most bands would jump on the opportunity ’cause interviews is good marketing and promoting for your music.

If the interviewer wants to get more respect from the band, the way to do that is not ask the same damn questions that you ask every other band. I’m sure the band gets the same damn questions every interview they do and I’m pretty sure they get tired of answering the same stuff. Don’t make the questions too easy and simple. Make them different and unique.

If you want to entertain your readers and the band’s fanbase, you want to make the interview entertaining. Almost every local band interview I read or hear, you always hear the same questions being asked, “What inspired the music on the album”, “What is the songwriting process like”, “What instruments do you play”, “What is this song about”, etc. *yawn*

Hmmmm….lets see, how about questions that are more interesting? Here are some better questions to ask bands: “How old were you when you first picked up the instrument”, “What was the first song you learned”, “What equipment did you use”, “How do you come up with songs? Do you improvise them or write them down”, “What scales did you use for that solo”, “What is your dream guitar that you can’t afford?”, etc. Ask musician questions like those, and they would be talking non stop.

Soon I’m going to start doing band & musician interviews in this blog, and I’ll show them how it’s all done.

Kev

Loren Weisman put up another great blog on how musicians using staged names for your career:

Read the article, here.

I agree, that a lot of musicians seem to be using nicknames or staged names. Even a lot of unsigned musicians been making up names for themselves. It’s happening more and more.

Why do musicians do it? It’s a good marketing ploy, period. If solo musicians released music under their real birth names, their music may not reach a wider audience. A staged name, fans would recognize that artist a little better.

My actual name is Kevin Brockway Jr. I used to release music under this name, but I figure it would be better, if I come up with a staged name. I tried to come up with all kinds of different staged names, by writing down on a piece of paper. Didn’t like any of them, so I thought, why not cut my name in half and just call myself, Kev Brock?

The name seemed to work successfully as people know me better that way. People always called me Kev, sometimes people called me by last name, that’s how I came up with it, so I put ’em together. That’s how the Kev Brock name came out to be. Now that name is all over the internet and all over the world of local music.

If I still released my music under my real name, then people would have a hard time getting used to.

There is nothing wrong with changing your name to release your music. Musicians do this stuff all the time.

Kev

These days, the world of unsigned music seems to be a huge hit on the social networking giant, Facebook. Pretty much all musicians are promoting their stuff to get heard either on their fan page (or like pages) and even their personal pages.

On my facebook pages, I use my fan page, to promote my music related stuff. I use my facebook fanpage as my official website like a lot of unsigned bands seem to be doing. On my personal page, I use it to talk about whatever, interact with friends, family, supporters & fans.

Thing that bothers me about facebook is that not only that people have weird communicating skills on them, a lot of people on there seem to be getting hurt & upset easily, when you decide to be honest & criticize them about something. A lot of people will mistakenly see it as if you were trying to bash them or trying to put them down, when you are only trying to be nice, and helpful.

When musicians get too upset and pissed off, over a little bit of honesty, are they really this emotional and sensitive? Maybe a little bit, yes, but I truly believe that when musicians get too defensive over certain things you say about them, it is definitely all ego for sure. Some musicians are pretty self centered, period.

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record and repeat myself, but I just go by how bands & musicians socialize with people on facebook and other places online. The fact is, that a lot of musicians have horrible communicating skills.

Some musicians can be easy to get along with and some can take criticism by fans, but most of them can’t take a little bit of truth. I can handle criticism with no problem. I don’t mind a little bit of honesty when people talk about me, but as long as people are not attacking or bashing, I’m okay with that.

When you put up a facebook page for everyone to read and everyone to post on, people are not going to write on it however you want to. Everything is not going to be perfect on your facebook pages. You will run into some positive people and negative people. You will also run into some honest fans that will give you a bit of criticism.

I try my very best to keep my internet world as positive as possible, but no matter what happens, negative and honest people will always come around. That’s just the way the internet is. You put yourself out there for the world to see, people will be honest about you.

If you or your band can’t handle a mixture of responses and emotions on facebook, then you shouldn’t have gotten a facebook page to begin with. What is it with musicians getting emotional over silly stuff? Oh that’s right, they want to think they’re so important and talented all the time, so you don’t deserve to criticize them.

Bands think they can have all the right to criticize the amateurs but when you decide to criticize them, it’s the wrong thing to do. Boo hooo….

This is why I don’t write on band pages too much in facebook, you never know if their tempers will flare. Bands have anger problems around here, and that’s what I’ve been trying to say in my blogs for years.

Kev