You should by now be thinking of how you’re going to manage your band’s triumphant rise to fame over the Festival Season next summer. To make things a little easier for you, we thought we’d collect together the contact details of a few of the major ones here:
A London based talent competition during May that doesn’t really fit into the festival bracket, but would still be a good platform to get some publicity for your band. More details here:
Born from a birthday party in a barn, this growing festival is now in it’s seventh year, definitely worth checking out for it’s friendly, grungy vibe. Held over the weekend of 7th-9th August, near Sixpenny Handley
Glastonbury are running their ‘Emerging Talent Competition’ again this year – to enter, get two tracks ready to upload to their competition visit this page:
A recent arrival in London’s calendar, this year’s lineup is rumoured to include the fabulous Fat Freddy’s Drop – if you fancy treading the boards with them, apply here:
Not a tents in a muddy field number, this, more a kind of Nationwide, multi venue festival. Last year’s competition was won by Ben Howard, a young man from our neck of the woods who’s gone on to support Jason Mraz and Fink. Apply for this years competition here:
All the way up in Scotland, this one. Again official applications aren’t open yet, but you can get in ahead of the crowd by mailing demos to this address:
BIG DAY OUT LTD
PO BOX 25241
GLASGOW
G2 5XS
—
V Festival
Across two venues, Chemsford and Staffordshire, this is one of the big mainstream festivals – more people means more competition for slots, but more exposure if you get lucky…
Band Name: Polina Kourakina
Genre: Acoustic Alternative with a hint of Jazz and Blues.
[EDIT: 3rd person from a 1st person perspective usually makes my hackles rise, but Polina is really enthusiastic about her music, so give her a chance and check out her stuff ] When Polina Kourakina steps up on stage, there’s a small giggle and wink of a smile across her face. She then lightly hops up on the stool provided for all the show and tell individuals, and clears her throat. She then quickly makes the scene fill with a presence of calm serenity and young minded spirit by stating “here’s my soul in a bundle of 6 strings tightly wound on my guitar”. The song starts slowly, increasing in tempo, which makes your heart beat with the rhythm. Finally an astounding sound of a voice crawls out of that tiny little girl, proclaiming her love for the music. The reason I believe polina kourakina is so unique compared to other musicians is how she controls the scene, and draws people in with her choice of poetry, and chord progressions. Undeniably I cannot see her on the face of some poppy magazine cover, but yet on a tour bus heading to a strongly awaiting town of individuals waiting to hear the songs of life, love, pain, and hope. What does her music sound like? It’s soothing, original and calms the soul. Polina has played in many places, from café’s in D.C., to the dive in bar in San Diego. This shows to most that no matter what coast you’re on, you’ll love what you hear. She, will be the best, and greatest, but what this little young lady has, no other can match up to. Her love for the music, you
see through her soul when she is on stage. The riffs with her voice, the choice of jazz notations seep into your every crevice finding you inside. Inspired by her mom, and loved ones.
Music Marketing dot Com have dropped a line about this guy’snot so novel scheme of selling space on his blog (and his shirt) for a given price every day. You send him a t-shirt, he wears it, and promotes your product for a day on his blog, with the first of Jan costing a dollar, and the 31st of Dec costing $365 ($66,795 in case you’re wondering). While I don’t recommend selling out in quite such a flagrant manner to any aspiring musicians, it does underline the power of brand presence. If you’re going to go to the trouble of organising a tour, getting yourself in front of thousands of people and making a spectacle of yourself, then you might as well take an appropriate sponsor along for the ride, and charge them for the privilege. Unless the idea completely repels you find someone who will benefit from being associated with your music (it could even be a charity if you’re concerned about the whole corporate whore thing) and get them to give you some shirts to wear and stickers for the van. They might even pay for that video camera you’ve been meaning to buy, so that you can get your performance and their logo up on youtube; it needn’t be a blatant thing – get your mate’s t-shirt printing company, or someone else local who has a real connection with your band to help you. Music is a business these days, and business is about relationships – look at sponsorships as a way to build them. This can be a two-way street as well – you can get exposure by them promoting the relationship through their own channels, and maybe even playing at their business events – don’t be afraid to look for ways to grow together with other businesses, especially those close to home or in your area of the market; safety pins and punk music, florists and hippie-folk, brylcreem and Rockabilly…
I am a solo performer/producer from a little Village called Tollard Royal. I produce all my music from my bedroom recording on a zoom H4 and putting all the sounds together on my laptop. Away from studio work I also have a live setup. I use an MPC, Kaoss Pad 3, Boss RC-50 looper and a wide variety of instruments that I bring in and out of soundscapes and loop based melodies.
I love making music. It would probably drown me If it could, but I try and keep my head above the flow. Just to keep myself in control of time. If I don’t I find myself surrounded by instruments but not able to record because the dawn corus is too loud and the fact that the sun is rising makes my feel ill. I get lost in another world when I am making music, sometimes I stay there for hours on end. Untill eventually I am forced back into reality by a sound that wasnt made by me. I dont feel these hours are wasted. If anything there some of the best hours of my life. But there also the shortest. The world is an incredible place and has so much to offer. I realised a few years ago that I don’t think I could ever be truly sad because there is always something far bigger and more incredible than anything I could be sad about. My life is quite pleasant though. So I could understand if you can’t relate. Its just, trees, to me are enough to keep me smiling forever. When I make a piece of music that I think matches what I think about trees, I will have got as far as I can get musically. Please enjoy my explorartion untill that point.
My website: www.memotonemusic.blogspot.com
My myspace: http://www.myspace.com/williamyatesmusic.
[Edit: memotone is James' (our support engineer) favourite artist on RouteNote after the Bloody Tentacles (his own band)]
Bio: Hailing from the south coast of England in a blur of whiskey soaked rock n roll meet Jenna’s Revenge!
The four piece, consisting of the charismatic “Sic” McLaren’s often astounding vocals, Craig Farley’s neck-breakingly catchy guitar riffs and blistering solos, the ever groove laden bass rumblings of “Super Nice Brad Ice”, and the hard hitting punch of Greg Daley’s drums, play an energetic blend of unashamed, “old school”, feel good rock music.
The band always give a frenetic live show that has seen them play alongside the likes of New Wave of British Heavy Metal legends “Tygers of Pan Tang”, controversial pop-punks “Towers of London”, friends of Iron Maiden “Voodoo Six”, the Myspace phenomena “Koopa”, and American guitar hero Adam Bomb.
Jenna’s Revenge aim to entertain and delight you and with song subjects ranging the full ambit from strippers to warfare all covered with tongue firmly in cheek we’re sure you’ll find something to tap your toes to!
Inspired by a wide range of influences from Extreme, Queen, Motley Crue and Skid Row to Rod Stewart, the Quireboys and the red hot chilli peppers, along with a list of other bands that could go on for several pages, Jenna’s Revenge set out to make music that we enjoy since there seemed to be a serious lack of bands around that were doing that for us! Hopefully you’ll like what we do too as that’s pretty key to our plan for world domination succeeding…
If you haven’t got one, why the hell not? You can buy a domain from Active24.co.uk for about £5 a year, a little more if you want some hosting space. And that’s all you’ll need to spend, in any case, this is not money spent. This is money invested. Set up a paypal sales account, sell two CDs through your website rather than someone else’s shop and you’re in profit.
There are a lot of different ways to go about creating content for your website – sites like Wix.com and Wordpress.com offer simple solutions and templates for building content rich, good looking websites very easily. Shop around for a platform that offers you the features you’re looking for. You don’t need to be a graphic designer, there are skins up there for you to choose from. You don’t need to be particularly computer literate, there are guides to walk you through putting a site up on your domain, and you can post on forums for help, or call up your hosting company for tech assistance if you’re totally stuck.
There is no reason you can’t have a fully working site built and running over a weekend, and no excuse for trying to promote a band without one. A little initial effort will pay you back, and soon.
With reference to the maintaining a mailing list, your own site is an ideal place to put a google form to get information from your fans when they visit you. If you’re really slick you can even put one into a Sprout widget, and combine it with your band’s music, videos and pictures.
You should by now be thinking of how you’re going to manage your band’s triumphant rise to fame over the Festival Season next summer. To make things a little easier for you, we thought we’d collect together the contact details of a few of the major ones here:
] When Polina Kourakina steps up on stage, there’s a small giggle and wink of a smile across her face. She then lightly hops up on the stool provided for all the show and tell individuals, and clears her throat. She then quickly makes the scene fill with a presence of calm serenity and young minded spirit by stating “here’s my soul in a bundle of 6 strings tightly wound on my guitar”. The song starts slowly, increasing in tempo, which makes your heart beat with the rhythm. Finally an astounding sound of a voice crawls out of that tiny little girl, proclaiming her love for the music. The reason I believe polina kourakina is so unique compared to other musicians is how she controls the scene, and draws people in with her choice of poetry, and chord progressions. Undeniably I cannot see her on the face of some poppy magazine cover, but yet on a tour bus heading to a strongly awaiting town of individuals waiting to hear the songs of life, love, pain, and hope. What does her music sound like? It’s soothing, original and calms the soul. Polina has played in many places, from café’s in D.C., to the dive in bar in San Diego. This shows to most that no matter what coast you’re on, you’ll love what you hear. She, will be the best, and greatest, but what this little young lady has, no other can match up to. Her love for the music, you
Genre:Alternative Minimal Electronica
Band name: Jenna’s Revenge
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