I have quite a bit of unsigned/local bands & artists in my own facebook page. Sometimes bands promote themselves really well and know what they’re doing. Sometimes they’re really shit about promoting themselves and horrible at it. Why are bands sometimes horrible at promoting themselves in facebook? I can name ten of these reasons in no particular order…

Warning: This post may ruffle some feathers of musicians but the truth needs to be said.

• Obsessing with getting as many likes as possible – Can bands really be this selfish and desperate? All they think about is getting more fans. Your focus shouldn’t be on trying to get as many fans as possible. Your focus should be on making the great music and getting people to like it. Let the music speak on it’s own. Make it, get it out there, and let the people decide if they want to support you or not.
• Giving fans rewards when this band reaches a certain number of likes – You see it all the time in facebook. When bands reach to a number of 5,000 fans or 7,000… they’ll say things like, “Hey facebook, thanks for helping us get to 7,000 fans and for this here is some free music for you to download for a week”. Pretty lame and stupid, in my opinion. The fans don’t realize that they are being tricked. As explained above, the only thing that bands care about is getting more popularity. They don’t give a rats about you, sorry to say.
• Using facebook as an official band site – I freakin’ hate this. Too many bands have been using facebook as an official site as of late. It seems like that the, “(name here).com” domain names are dead. Keep in mind people, that not everyone uses facebook. A lot of people avoid facebook like the plague so you have to have an official site. A lot of bands use official websites with their own domain names sure but they hardly ever use it. All the action is on facebook. You must promote yourself a lot on both. I did most of my music promoting on here over the years. A lot of people heard of my music and came out to my shows ’cause they heard about me on my blog. It works, trust me!
• Using Itunes, bandcamp, spotify to exclusively release your albums – Another thing I hate. You should release your album on your official band page. Bands used to do this but social media is definitely changing things around. Using Itunes, bandcamp, spotify to release your music is all good and cool but don’t use that stuff to release your albums exclusive. That stuff should be secondary. Be careful here.
• Using their personal page to promote their band stuff – Another thing that pisses me the hell off. Your personal page and your music facebook page should be two separate things. Your facebook personal page should be used for non-musician related stuff. Do all your band promoting on your facebook “like” page. Doing band promoting on both personal and the like page is ridiculously stupid. It’s over promoting, that’s why. If you’re gonna post on a personal facebook page, we want to know who you are other than music. I don’t promote my music too much on my personal page… I use it for other things.
• Posting how high their songs went up the charts (from sites like broadjam, reverbnation, etc.) – Really. Nobody cares if your song is no. 1 on some music site. They aren’t like the Billboard charts or anything. They post this stuff to make themselves look good and talented. Just another example of jerking yourself off. Another example of musicians thriving on flattery.
• Promoting the same thing more than once – Another thing that bands have a big problem with. Posting event invites, show flyers, status’s, etc. more than once. All you need is to post it once. Posting the same thing 10 times will lead people to “unlike” your page. You don’t want to lose your fans support, do ya?
• Posting facebook memes and humorous photos to entertain their fanbase – I understand you need to entertain your fanbase by giving them a good laugh or some inspiration by posting facebook memes but that’s what your personal page is for. On your facebook band page, should be band related stuff only. Bands can sometime go a little overboard by being too funny. Do you wanna be comedians or musicians? Watch how you put yourself out there.
• Getting people to vote for too many contests – There is no need to enter every band contest/competition you see out there. This is one thing that bands get pretty obsessed of doing… getting people to vote for stupid & ridiculous stuff. Not a cool way to promote yourself. Are you that desperate to win something?
• Thinking that playing local shows is a “tour” – I just laugh at some bands who think playing a bunch of shows around the Capital Region is a tour. They just book a bunch of shows, and make some silly flyer that lists all the gigs and calling it a “tour”. Sorry but playing different cities like Saratoga Springs, Albany, Troy, Schenectady, etc. is not really a tour. A “tour” is a band who travels around the states and the world. That’s just the way I look at it. I just call playing shows around the Capital Region, “gigs”, not a “tour”. I think bands know this. They call it a “tour” anyway ’cause their egos are so big and they want to make themselves look like they’re going somewhere with their music.

I think that pretty much covers it. I can come up with more but those are the ones I can come up with for now.

Kev

There are too many local musicians around here lately that want it. National fame. A lot of them want to make the big time. I shake my head at all of this and ask myself why? Once they get there, I’m pretty positive that they aren’t gonna like it. I don’t think I would want fame with my music with the way the industry is going these days. The industry isn’t what it used to be. Today, music in the industry are all fake and manufactured bullshit. It’s crazy. Most music today is all auto-tuned with the singing and too much technology that makes these artists sound so good. When you do get there, it’s going to be pretty stressful for you. You will get controlled by industry big shots. You will get told by the producers how to write your songs. The labels will pick the songs to release on albums for you. The label will also choose the single to release on the radio. Do you wanna lip synch on stage and even get forced to fake play your instruments? Do you want to get bombarded with interviews with the media and the press? You’re gonna be busy all the time for sure.

Do you really believe that fame and fortune is all that glorifying? Once you get there, you’re gonna realize that fame and fortune isn’t all that glorifying as you think. You’ll realize that you’re still a human being and doesn’t make you all that special. The only difference is that you’re richer and got a lot more recognition. Musicians in the national industry today don’t even care about fame. A lot of them are just musicians like the rest of us. They just wanna do what they wanna do. Keep playing music that they spent most of their lives doing.

In this day and age, a lot of famous bands and solo artists have dropped major labels they used to be signed under and then they end up either self-releasing their album DIY style or release their albums under their own label. When you see so many artist dropping major labels and releasing albums their own way that’s when you’ll know how bad the industry is getting. Even they don’t mess around.

I’ve always said it’s best to release music unsigned. Even the independent record labels are all shit as well.

On top of all this, you don’t need fame when you already have a bit of fame by releasing your music publicly for the whole world to see and people listening to it. You may not be world known yet but at least you have minor fame. You should be proud enough for getting your fans to like your music. That’s all the fame you really need, right?

Why would you want to be a mainstream commercial artist? I think the mainstream is really lame and it continues to get worse. I don’t buy too many new albums anymore. Maybe back in the earlier days in the industry like the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s… fame would be cool then but today? LOL! Today’s industry is garbage. ALL OF IT!!!! It would be really hard to get fame. If you’re really serious on making it then you would have to write music that would fit today’s mainstream. You would have to write pop songs like Justin Bieber or rap stuff like Chris Brown. You’ll have to write music that will get the teenagers going crazy.

The rock n’ roll lifestyle of fame is pretty much dead. Musicians trying to get fame are just wasting their time and life. Just play your music and enjoy. That’s all you need to make yourself a happy person.

Kev

One thing I’m noticing lately with local bands is that a lot of them use the same gear at their gigs. They use the same guitar and amplifiers at all of their shows. Pretty much the same equipment, all the time. Is this a good idea? Nothing wrong with it. I understand a local musician can’t afford a lot of gear but if you wanna perform live all the time, you gotta have more gear and instruments. The thing is, you wanna experiment with different sounds. You want to learn how to take tone a little more seriously.

For example, if you look at all of these professional musicians who work for the independent labels and the music industry, they would use more than one guitars on stage and different amps to experiment with different sounds. On stage, the more professional bands don’t like to sound the same at every song. They usually find the right gear to find the right fit for the right tone on each song they play live. A lot of the bigger bands take guitar tone very seriously. The guys in the major labels who play on stage would have a collection of way over 20 guitars or more. They use different amps and guitars to get the right tone and stuff. Hard to explain but I think you get the point by now.

For a local band, you don’t need a very large collection of gear on stage but you should have at least 3 or 4 guitars.

I’m gonna wanna get more gear myself at some point. I already have a few professional sounding amplifiers, a few guitars, and a P.A. system. I have one acoustic/electric and one Hollow body electric guitar. I’m also gonna wanna get myself a solid body electric and a regular acoustic guitar sometime down the road.

You should also try experimenting with different effects. There are all kinds of cool pedals out there. I don’t have a lot of pedals. I have a few of them. I would like to get more of those someday as well.

You want to discover your tone and sound. That’s what it’s all about. Do some research on tone and sound. There are all kinds of gear and guitar magazines out there. I’m no genius at tone and sound yet but I would like to learn more about it myself. That’s the thing with a lot of musicians. A lot of them don’t take tone seriously. They just plug in and play. Not caring about their sound.

I take tone pretty seriously when it comes to guitar playing. That’s why I stick with Ibanez guitars ’cause they have a sound that fit me perfectly. I do plan on trying other brands of guitars someday. I wanna try Takamine or Washburn sometime. I would also like to try a Fender Strat and a Gibson Les Paul if I can ever afford those someday, ha ha!

I’m kind of having trouble with cash right now but when I start working again, I’ll start saving for more music gear. You wanna make your studio recordings and live shows as best sounding as possible so you should take tone and sound more seriously. When you want to play gigs on a professional level, you gotta have more gear. It’s good to sound fresh and different. Sound more interesting.

Kev

Whenever you criticize a band or the local music scene, chances are, you are going to get called a jealous person by other people. Whether you’re criticizing a band’s music or their so called success… you’ll get called jealous. I’ve been dealing with this for years. I’m like, seriously? That’s the best comeback people can come up with? That is usually all people got. When I call out this band or that artist… you’ll get called jealous by their supporters/fans or you would even get called jealous by the band themselves. I usually laugh at these attacks and just ignore them. Why? Think about it. What is there to be jealous about of these bands/artists around the Albany area? Can you think of anything? I’m willing to bet they can’t because simply put, there is nothing to be jealous of.

Sure, they may have gotten a “little” exposure of a few little opportunities that really mean nothing but they are still not the biggest band in the world that these guys make themselves out to be. The truth is that other bands are no bigger or better than me. They are no bigger or better than anybody else either. The question that I have to ask is, if these guys in bands think they’re so damn big and so great at what they do, then what are they doing still stuck in Albany? As long as you’re stuck in Albany playing music, you’re nothing. Albany is not much of a music scene. As musicians, we’re all on the same level together. There’s no such thing as “who’s bigger than who” around here.

So what, you may have won a few contests, opened for a famous act or toured another country someplace, congratulations, I’m happy for ya but that still doesn’t make you bigger than me. You’re still a local musician and you’re still unsigned. If you get accolades, good opportunities, exposure and whatever… the last thing you want to do is act like you’re bigger and better than everyone else after that. Calling people jealous ’cause they’re opinionated is probably the lowest and most unprofessional thing people can do. If you were a real professional musician, you would just accept a critic’s review as an opinion and nothing more. People are gonna be opinionated, there’s nothing you can do about it. Nobody’s jealous. Just honest.

Bands really need to let the music speak on it’s own around here ’cause none of them want to do that. Most all of them want to think they’re good at everything and they have to defend themselves after every time someone says something negative about them. I used to be like that but it’s a pretty unprofessional thing to do. I learned to ignore the critics and learn to accept people’s opinions. Ignore them if I don’t like ’em. You won’t get any respect if all you’re gonna do is keep defending yourself from the critics and negative people. Like I repeatedly say you earn the respect, not demand it. It’s your job to win people over, respect won’t fall in your lap. Just shut up, work on the music, ignore the critics/negative people and music life would be much easier on ya. Trust me.

Musicians like me should have all their right to speak out about bands and the local music scene in general. If all you’re gonna do is call us jealous, then we win. There’s nothing to be jealous of, especially over a local band.

If you wanna prove that you’re good at what you do and if you wanna prove that you’re big/successful… then keep doing what you do. A good attitude to have is to let people have their opinions. Just accept them for what they are, and be flattered  and be inspired by the negative opinions. Don’t just be inspired by the fans. Be inspired by the haters too. Think about it right… you wouldn’t be where you are musically, if some blogger online wasn’t calling you out online, right? Isn’t that a good enough sign that you could be big & successful? Absolutely! If you’re getting a mix of hate and love toward you, then you’re going somewhere. Don’t respond to the negative critics out there and that includes me. You should be flattered as hell that the Brock called you out.

With all this being said, bands will never follow this advice ’cause their egos are so huge. Their egos are just as big as a hot air balloon. They want positive feedback and responses on everything ’cause they obsess with flattery. They want to look like they’re so big all the time. They all live in different delusions and fantasy worlds. I never had that attitude. I always acted like people never cared about my music and it’s better to be that way.

Kev