Commercial Music tour blog

Here a sample video from one of the 2009 touring acts Fighting Fiction. Click on the video to go to the band’s YouTube site.

Fighting Fiction myspace page

Here are some brilliant tour (and general success) tips from Martin Atkins (NIN, Killing Joke, PIL). Listen, digest and repeat!

Tour videos – YouTube playlist

As most of the actual touring acts are coming to the end of their
dates now, I suppose this is more relevant to the new second years -
those who will be touring in Summer 2009. Below is a rather
nicely-storyboarded video from unsigned band Hamfatter, whom I discovered today through an article in Media Guardian.

What can we learn from this band?

1. This is a good simple pop song with a communicative central lyric
theme, and a charming/amusing video that further the develops the plot
within the song, very much like CM’s own Kid Charlemaine in 2007 (see embedded video below).

2. The band is looking at non-label forms of funding (they will be asking Peter Jones for £75,000 for 30% stake on tonight’s Dragons’ Den). They estimate that this will increase their cut from physical and digital sales by 1000%.

3. MOST IMPORTANTLY the band has managed to create a news story that is more interesting than ‘band records album’, and it has managed to achieve mainstream national press coverage of their product – almost
unheard of for an unsigned band. There are articles in Guardian Media, The Times, The Mirror and of course the relevant local press.

So, to compile their achievement into a checklist.

1. Have a great product/band/song, with hooks, charm/interest, quirkiness
and audience appeal. Tie it into a well-produced, unusual video on
YouTube.

2. Think carefully about the money. How are you going to get
paid, and are there any interesting/innovative economic models you can
apply to your release?

3. Create a ’story’ that will beget media coverage, and make sure the band name is prominent.

Looking at the Hamfatter example, the only disappointment is that they haven’t updated their own website with the BBC-related news item. D’oh!

Some of the bands have been blogging while on tour. Below is an excerpt from Boy Com’s Facebook group email;

And here’s a link to Kill It Kid’s myspace blog, including their appearance on BBC6 music.

Here’s a blog from Trashy Pearls, based on the press story in Venue magazine;

Anyone else blogging the tour? Send us links!

Joe & Davey

As of yesterday, round 9:00, the BOY COM. ‘Paraphonilia’ tour 2008 is now over!
I gotta tell you, it saddens me as we have been all over the country and it’s been bucket loads of fun, but also, i think we’re all very happy to look back on a great tour! Of course, now it means that we’re starting to write the new album, ideas, demos and bits and bobs are starting to flutter around, and i can tell you, it’s already sounding like a damn good party record! Maybe even THE summer record of 2009? who knows…

Anywayz, really sorry we have been pretty slack with this, bt here’s a quick recap of the last few dates!

Cambridge, Man On The Moon – this was my first time there, and so happy to see Between the bars open for us, as they are a kick ass band! Despite the fact that it was poorly promoted (NOT the venues fault btw!) it still turned out pretty good! nice intimate little gig. oh and big thanx to sean who was so patient with everything!

Nottingham, The Maze: This was ****** awsome! because at the start, there weren’t THAT many people (mainly bands watching each other play) but by the time we went on, people started to creep in. It is a very cool feeling when by the end of your last song, you’ve pulled together a sweet little crowd, all dancin along! so big thanx to the Rebel Soul Collective, and most of all, the great people at The Maze!
The Hope in Brighton was a highlight for me. It had all the right elements. sick ass venue, great gig, great crowd, and of course, partying until 6:00 in the mornin all over town! one of the biggest thanx to Leon, our sound engineer that night, who was one of the coolest guys we’ve met on this tour! naturally if you’re going to spend most your time about your love for Tru Thoughts, Ninja Tune and the Hot 8 Brass Band version of Sexual Healing, you’re bound to have a good time!
Also, big big BIG thanx to olivia, hariet and sam for the awsome crowd of record buyers and also Sam again for puttin us up!

The Golowan festival was really cool as well, coz although it was very a ‘vilage-feast’ type event, it was still a huge marquee with a great stage, and we played one of our tighter sets that day! Also, big thanx to Matt, Martin (really cool sound guy) and Mike – see you guys next year!

Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for – The Strawberry Moon Festival in Staffordshire!

This was so ****** fun, i can’t even start to describe to you how cool it was – but i will.
First up, hands down, biggest stage we’ve played on this tour, with a great crowd, a great weather! We were afraid for a bit that it would be cancelled coz it was raining down heavily, but for some reason, the weather decided to grant us an excellent last gig, by lettin through the sunshine!
And as we play essentially ’sunshine music’, everything gelled perfectly! The set was a really tight one, except for me singing the last chorus on Come On In over both the sax solo and trumpet solo, but they ****** made up for it by just soloin after
Big thanx as usual to Ian Evans @ IME music, Trish and Pete, and to all the staff and bands that played, but of course, huge thanx to all of the people dancin, who then bought all the copies of Paraphonilia (our record) that we had with us!

Thank you all for comin to see us on this tour, we’ll be seeing you real soon (probably october/november-ish) again, and we can’t ****** wait!

Have a good summer,

One Love,

Noah
x

PS, come and see us play with Cage The Elephant, Mystery Jets, Frank Turner, Hi-Jak Oscar,
Whisky Cats etc…..

BUY OUR ALBUM ON iTunes!!! – http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=130208615

Good to see some reviews. We found this excellent one from KIK’s Barfly appearance;
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=292067994&blogID=395936449

And some of the acts are pasting their reviews on the myspace pages;
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=170019056

Touring acts – email your links to Joe and we’ll paste them here – can’t hurt to give Google another link to reference!

Dear touring acts,

We can now assume that your set is fully rehearsed and ready for the road. I’ve been keeping an eye on the various myspace pages during my recent absence, and in most cases it seems fairly healthy – with some outstanding bookings from the likes of KC and KIK.

We’re now in week 12, and formal teaching for the module has ended, so we’re now into ‘by request’ mode. So if you would like an additional meeting (either for a final run-through or a meeting to discuss logistics) please email the relevant tutor.

I’m now back on campus all week, so feel free to contact me or Davey directly with any queries.

Best wishes,

Joe

Cheques will be issued at the end of April, mostly by mail, to the address given on your invoice. Some of the invoices were very professional indeed – others less so. The weaker ones omitted formatting, logo, payment terms and in a couple of cases even the bank account information was not given. So we hope the whole invoicing process has been a positive learning experience!

Joe  will be unavailable this Thursday – Cecilia will be covering for him; in all other respects it’s business as usual. Rehearsals are at the normal times.

We’ve revamped the Thursday rehearsal schedule slightly to enable more people to have access to kit and/or particular tutors during the afternoon sessions. The latest info can be found at the timetables link above.

NOTE – we have had a couple of recent no-shows, with no explanation from the band. Sort this out please – staff don’t get much time to work directly with the bands, so every minute is precious. You must attend your Thursday rehearsal even if your band is not quorate – there’s always something useful we can get on with – instrumental parts, lyric edits, vocal arranging etc.

Next, a quick reminder about bands’ preparation. You should turn up to every rehearsal of new material with a completed chord/lyric sheet (copies for everyone in the band), ideally having distributed rough MP3 demos over email beforehand so that the whole ensemble can learn the structure and work on their own instrumental/vocal parts. Try to avoid wasting valuable rehearsal/tutor time working out the basic chords/lyric of the song – we should be doing something more musically interesting!

Finally, a positive note – the new material is in many cases very exciting indeed – there’s some great stuff coming out at the moment. Even though the EPs are finished, it’s extremely pleasing to see projects still involved in writing new songs.

Joe, Chris & Davey

The first deadline is almost upon us. All business plans are due in at 10am next Wednesday – 5th March. Please submit the following three attachments via email to Joe & Davey;

1. Single-page description of your tour plan. You can include any detail you like but you must include

• geographical area
• type of venues/events (don’t worry if not all venues are confirmed yet – this is normal)
• timeframe/dates
• personnel
• funds required for your ‘float’ (max £120 per individual but it can be less).

2. Excel spreadsheet, detailing

• All projected outgoings
• All projected income

3. A business invoice to Bath Spa University, ref ‘F30 CM2004D Tour Advance – <bandname>.’ A cheque will only be made payable to a business account in the name <bandname> – it will not be paid to an individual or personal account.

These three items should be sent to Davey and Joe as an email attachment before 10am on Weds 5th March. Invoices or paperwork
arriving late will not be paid.

If you do not intend to claim your float, this is fine; you do not need to submit an invoice – but please submit your tour plan (items 1 & 2 above) anyway.

Please discuss the detail of your financial plans with Cecilia and Lucy in your Wednesday tutorial (today) or over email.

Each act should email me a 100-200wd document with their introductory myspace/press release blurb; it should be written for someone who has never heard of you and should be accessible to new fans and industry alike. Most of you have already done this, so it should simply be a matter of pasting something from your myspace or websites.

• To arrive with me by 5pm Tuesday.
• Bring a printout of your current blurb to the session on Weds am, 10am, CP112.
• Bring pen and paper.

Consider the following when writing your blurb;

• Speak to the band’s target market.
• Make it, grammatically perfect. And prefectly speled, wiht on tpyos.
• Give people an idea what you sound like (usually using comparisons to other artists).
• Demonstrate where you are on your career ladder (and exaggerate ever-so-slightly, of course).
• Communicate the band’s USPs, whatever they are.
• Create a story that would make journalists interested.
• Make the blurb exciting and more interesting to read than other bands’ equivalents.
• Don’t include any information that has zero ‘reader benefit’.
• Avoid random superlatives unless they are interesting/fun/humorous/silly/relevant etc.
• Use any press or other quotations that you can get (or create).

See you there.

Joe

We’ve created a link area to your online stores – see ‘Shop‘ in the main navigation on the site. Most of you are using 7digital for downloads (so do explore Ioda and other aggregators to see if you can spread the presence wider). Some are using their own webstore (e.g. Kid Charlemaine’s and WePBs’ bigcartel sites – though these are not actually handling sales yet).

To demonstrate (and to help you to explore) the purchasing process, I have today spent £0.77 each (on 7digital) on Kill It Kid, Maheda and Park Ranger downloads, purchased using PayPal. Bands – your challenge when we next meet is to tell us, if you can, which tracks were purchased.

Trashy Pearls’ webstore has gone the PayPal route based around a .mac site, and presumably the ‘Out of Stock’ on all products means they’re not selling actual product just yet.

It appears no-one is exploring Last.fm, which I believe offers contracts and downloads now for unsigned bands. Let’s discuss this when we next meet.

Please drop me or Davey an email if you have an online sales presence that is not represented here.

Good progress so far with the merchandise presences – keep them spreading!

Joe

In order to make for decent rehearsal times, these times have been pushed back to allow for 1-hour slots.

Kill It kid – 1pm
Tristan Ash – 1pm
Drunkards Ball– 1pm
Nick Williams – 2pm
Trashy Pearls – 2pm
WPB – 2pm
Kid Charlemaine – 3pm
Maheda – 3pm

This is the blog page – it’s the first thing you’ll see on this CM Tour mini-site. The latest news will appear here at the top. Use the tabs navigation for now to familiarise yourself with the acts, or view videos.