#jimrosecircus NUMBER 1 MISTAKE BANDS MAKE

We have all seen bands make hay out of being anti-establishment. They revel in thumbing their noses to the music industry and the fans eat it up. I assure you they weren't anti-establishment until they were hooked up to the big machine that creates the fame. 

Rage Against The Machine opened for me and it was one of their first live gigs ever. They did no raging and in fact while thanking me they said something to the effect of: "If we ever get famous we won't forget this, Jim". Of course other than Tom the guitarist I've never seen or heard from any of them since. Seeing Tom doesn't mean much because he goes to a lot of social events. 
I will say that Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam were more from the heart about the anti-establishment ramblings, but there were angles and other motives connected to them as well. I know this to be true because Eddie and I were pretty close friends back in his angst days. 

I love Eddie, Tom, Rage and Pearl Jam. My point is that a band that is anti-establishment before gaining fame is doomed to failure because the actual number of people who can make or break careers these days is less than 400, and everyone knows each other. 

If a band causes trouble and has no fame leverage, word spreads quick and top shelf entertainment bizz people will have nothing to do with them. Those bands are in effect over. They can still do a few regional small shows and pretend to be rock stars, but any chance at a bite of the big apple is gone. It sucks too because I've seen really talented artists get labeled as trouble and deep down they weren't. They were playing a role; their mistake was playing it too soon.

#JimRoseCircus

#JimRose

#jimrosecircus new artist DIY tips

One thing that I see time and time again on tours with other DIY bands is the blurring of the line between business and creative on the way up.  When you are on tour with a band, make friends with them, hang out with them, party with them, whatever… but don’t turn every hang into a networking meeting.  From what I’ve seen, it never works as well as a band thinks it will.  A lot of times they don’t make a lot of the decisions anyway (because they aren’t a DIY like you… They have higher ups to answer to).  If their manager is around, THEN put on your business hat.  If you’re hanging out, grabbing a beer with the headliner after a show, just hang… Don’t start selling yourself for other tours or collaborations.  All that fun stuff happens with time and with a good relationship. 

Finally, this is a full time job.  If you’re going to “do it yourself”, expect to do A LOT more work than if you were just going to be on some label where they do the work for you.  Lots of emails, late nights, early mornings, hiring, firing, failing, problem solving, budgeting… PLUS the creating, writing, performing, practicing, interviews, photo shoots, video shoots… EVERYTHING.

#jimrose
#jimrosecircus 

JIM ROSE APPROVED

If you're in a band, please read these detailed 

7 Reasons Why No One's Coming To Your Shows 

from digitalmusicnews to get you closer to a full time music career:

1- You suck
2- You Play Out Too Damn Often
3- It’s Not An Event
4- You Aren't Selling Advance Tickets
5- You Think The Venue Will Promote
6- You Rely Solely On Facebook
7- You Aren't Going Out Into The World
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/01/23/7-reasons-empty-shows

#jimrose
#jimrosecircus

DO IT THE RIGHT WAY

"Knowing how to promote your band is the first step towards the achievement of your goals in the music industry. As a musician, your goal is to progress in the local scene and the entire music industry. However, promoting a band is not a simple task. It requires amount of effort that is similar to that of creating your music. Nevertheless, there are simple ideas that you can follow while promoting your band to realize the desired results." 

Click on the link below to check out the 60 top tips on how to promote your band:

http://www.lastminutemusicians.com/how_to_get_gigs/?p=1426

#jimrose

#jimrosecircus

NEW DIY MARKETING INFO

From http://diymusician.cdbaby.com: 

"How your day job can help fuel your music promotion: an interview with Daemon Hatfield

Many music industry books and blogs tell you that you’ve got to be single-mindedly focused when pursuing a music career. Think, live, breathe, and dream music. Remove all hurdles and distractions. Give it your all.

But success comes in many forms, and nowadays it’s possible to have a fulfilling music career while also staying active in other pursuits and careers — to say nothing of maintaining a family or a solid long-term relationship.

DJ/producer Daemon Hatfield falls into the later category. As a content creator for a hugely popular video game news site, he’s been able to find opportunities to connect his day job and his music career, boosting his profile in both arenas…."

Click on this link for the full article:
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2014/03/how-your-day-job-can-help-fuel-your-music-promotion/

#jimrosecircus

#jimrose

BIG AGENTS SAVED THE MUSIC BUSINESS

Once the free downloading of music became acceptable to the mainstream, record companies found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy. Blood was running down the streets. Mid sized and smaller bands were all axed in a matter of months. 

If Mick Jagger can't get no satisfaction and Bono still hasn't found what he is looking for, then imagine how those poor bands felt. 

The bigger acts didn't get out unscathed, they had their tour support pulled. It used to be that tours lost money but the revenue was made up for by the record sales. That all changed. Now bands have to tour leaner and meaner. That's why we now rarely see a full bells and whistles stadium tour. It's also why ticket prices made a huge jump.

Record companies stopped signing new bands. They couldn't afford to make the ad buys, pay the A and R personnel to wine and dine radio stations or cover the costs of an effective PR campaign.

New bands are the life blood of the music industry; they keep bringing the younger generations into the fold. Sure the Stones and Bruce and the established acts still have a career, but they are getting long in the tooth and don't exactly speak to eighteen year olds like they used to. The music industry has to look inward and ask tough questions.

What was finally ironed out to fill the record company void was a new relationship between big agents and promoters. Think of the United States as forty large markets. Each market has a King Kong promoter. The agent calls the promoters to book the tours. Now every large established act takes out an agents pet baby band to play the middle slot. The promoters are given a fair price to take on the package and to pay the baby band well. The promoter can't piss off the big agents or they get replaced so they know they have to make the new band famous in their market.

After hanging up with the agent, the first thing the promoter does is call the local big radio station and tells them they have to start giving air time to the new band. The promoter then calls the daily newspaper and says a feature story needs to be written about this new band. The same type of calls are made to the weekly and monthly newspapers along with all internet publications in the market as well. They all do what the promoter tells them. The reason is because the promoter is the gate keeper. 

Who gives the radio station 30 tickets to U2? Who gives the daily newspaper 20 tickets to review Elton John? Elton John doesn't need the review and it doesn't take twenty people to write a review. Who gives twenty tickets to the weekly, monthly newspapers and internet publications? The promoter does and no one in the media wants to lose that access. They all get VIP seating and free drinks. The promoter is now allowed to take four hundred tickets from the big shows and throw them around like confetti to the media. When a small band goes out on a tour playing to seventeen thousand to forty thousand people a night for two months they are on their way to real fame. The big agent send them out on several of these tours and that's how bands get famous now. It's also the reason record companies line up to sign the bands after they hear the artists are with a big agent. 

Unfortunately small agents have taken it on the chin and it's career suicide for bands to work with them because these days you won't make it by playing to forty people a night for seventy nights out of the year.

#JimRose

#JimRoseCircus

WORK WITH JIM ROSE CIRCUS?

The word is out that I am going to work with a couple of bands this year. I've received some messages from artists asking to be considered. Please know that I can't be spread too thin so I have already selected the bands I want to work with and am in the process of sending emails to them directly. In all I will be sending out about 15 emails. Bands break up all the time or are in different phases of careers but I'm sure about 15 emails is all I will need to send out to narrow down to a couple of right fits.

I chose these bands because of their amazing talent and the type of music my friends in the  bizz are looking for this year.

I exchange emails all the time and have helped answer questions for a lot of people since my DIY marketing video was released and I will continue to be friendly like that, but it doesn't mean that everyone is the right fit for this special project I'm doing for a couple of bands this year. If you didn't get a direct email from me don't fret. Maybe we can work together next year or something.

So that there isn't any confusion this is the email I sent to the bands I'm interested in:

"Let's start off by getting on the same page so we can begin to answer each other's questions.
1) The music biz has changed a lot in the last few years. A career's fuse used to be lit by a record industry signing. Now they are fourth on the food chain because their revenue streams have dried up. The chain goes in this order: Big Agent, PR, Promoters, etc.

Now in 2014 the big agents are in charge of (touring, sponsorships, soundtrack work, etc, etc.) One thing to be careful about with the less experienced managers is that they try to push agents to the point of tarnishing your reputation. Bands can be guilty of this as well. The music business has less than 400 people who control careers. If there is friction everyone hears about it. This isn't an issue with all managers. I am just putting it out there.

2) Lower level agents can't get you high exposure tours.

3) Big agents are the only avenue in this era. They can put you in front of a lot of people opening for one of the known bands that they represent, or festivals etc. .  On another note, pay to play is a rip off. A big agent will never put you in that position.

I would appreciate it if you would also review these points:

1) You must be 20 years of age or older and out of school.

2) Will you put in the effort to make things happen? 

3) No one can have work,or domestic requirements that would keep you all from going out to do shows for a couple of months at a time. If you do, this will not work.

4) You are in charge of your own funds. The tours you are sent on are designed to make you good money. You need to have a couple of hundred dollars saved. You are in charge of paying for your first tank of gas etc. :)

5) I serve as an evaluator. The fee I charge is not funded by you. My job is to line you up with the right team. The way to do it these days is to be represented by one of the top players in the industry. I receive a fee after I have assembled the team, paid by them. Real agents have a full plate. They just don't have the time to find the artists. 

It's important that we are the right fit. If I goof up and propose mediocre talent, flakes or bands that are hard to get along with then the window gets closed. Let's be professionals. If we set up meetings then everyone must be on time.

I've researched and have found that your exposure and media coverage needs to be pumped up a bit to attract the bigger entertainment entities. Don't worry I used to own a PR company and I will show you how to DIY the press. I will help you do it with confidentiality. I have no interest in taking any credit for what we do together.

Again please know that you or a combination of your band members need to have a good work ethic to make this all happen. 

For approximately 5-8 weeks your band will need to be sending press release emails out. Sending these emails to push you as artists will require about 10 hours of time a week. If that is too much of a commitment we shouldn't go further at this point.

If you do have the time to help me push your band, then the next step is to have your entire band read this email and watch this video.  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9PZgMchV2E  

Remember this video was made to show people how much you can get away with using light hearted media tricks. This doesn't mean that you have to follow the same path. There are many ways to get a relevant press pop: charities, political issues, etc.

Doing good community events can get as much publicity as controversy. Again the reason I did this video as part of a charity event was to show people that they don't have to fear the media.

The next step, after everyone in the band has watched the video and has read this proposal here, we will set up a Skype meeting with all band members present so we can see each other. Shoot me back an email with the day and time the band usually gets together so that I can compare it with my schedule and see what works for both of us. If you don't have Skype it's an easy set up and only takes about three minutes to download the app. 

I believe in you and think we can make magic together to get you out on stadium, arena or big festival shows across the country.

Thanks,

Jim

Skype contact: jimrosecircus

#jimrose
#jimrosecircus

WHAT HAPPENED TO RECORD COMPANIES?

We have all heard the story about a band playing their heart's out on stage while a mysterious person in the audience was lurking around. After the gig the mystery man approaches the band and tells them he is a record executive for a big label and wants to sign them to a contract worth millions. The band signs it on the side of the stage and instantly become mega stars. If this story was ever true it sure isn't now.

Due to the revenue streams drying up because of the ability to download content for free, everything has changed. Record companies now wait until the artists are signed by a big agent before approaching. The reason is because of the new paradigm in the music industry. There has been a power shift over the last couple of years and the big agents now have a strangle hold. Do the big agents want this new power? No they don't. They would love to revert back to the old days when record companies were in charge of PR, promotion and getting bands airplay. The music industry still makes many people a lot of money. Someone had to step in and save it after the collapse of record company spending and it was the big agents. If they hadn't have stepped in there would be anarchy. 

Anarchy sounds good in principle but it's a disaster for the music industry. Anarchy would mean that there would be no structure in place for artists to rise to the top and get out of a 40 mile radius of their home town. Anarchy would mean that there would be no system to weed out the bands that suck. 

How did big agents save the music industry? I will explain that in my next blog.

#JimRose

#JimRoseCircus

BANDS BE CAREFUL CHOOSING A MANAGER

In the 1990s managers were a very important part of the music industry. They used their connections to get their bands record deals and made sure the deals were for maximum money. You could trust around 70 percent of them to be honest and try real hard. They did this for 15% of the artists gross income.

The record industry colapsed in around 2002 due to free online downloading. Most of their revenue streams dried up and they quit signing bands that didn't already have a media foot print. High end publicists became more important than managers. Small cheap publicists hearts are usually in the right place, but they don't have the connections to get much more than blogs or small mainstream press mentions.

Managers have been left out on a limb without much to do. It's usually better to hire an entertainment attorney to do a one time negotiation for around $400 than to have a manager take 15 % for the rest of your career.

This has turned most of the "manager" entity into scrambling for other ways to make money. For example: asking for a monthly fee or suggesting pay to play gigs; both of those proposals are rip offs. 

Bands be careful: over 60 % of managers operate that way these days. 

There are still some who do it for the right reasons but they are the ones who have established bands, and to them we salute you.

#JimRose

#JimRoseCircus