King4ADay's Musicians Resource Blog

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posted by King4ADay @ 10:49 AM 0 comments

Three Things Not toTake on Tour

So you're bands about to go on tour for the first time? You have the van all packed up, ready to go and everybody's anxious to hit the road. The experience can be a lot of fun, but there are three things you should definitely NEVER take on the road with you.

1. Drugs and Paraphenalia - This is the most obvious , but so many young and old musicians alike make this terrible mistake. I know several musicians who have outstanding warrants in different states because they got busted on tour. If you need to party, it's not hard to find when you're playing shows every night, but carrying that bong or pipe in the tour van is just plain stupid.

2. Fireams and Weapons - No, no, no - don't pack a Glock in the glove compartment or anywhere else when touring from state to state. If you happen to get pulled over because of out of state tags, and the police find a firearm, then you can count on the whole van being searched. My band made the mistake of letting our drummer bring a gun with us on our second tour and we spent 4 hours having the van searched on the side of the road, even though the gun was registered.

3. Girlfriends and Boyfriends - This is the worst one you can ever bring along. Leave your girlfriend or boyfriend at home with your drugs and guns. Touring causes enough stress, and nobody needs an all day lovers quarrel in the van in between shows. The only circumstance this is applicable is if the girlfriend or boyfriend are in the band or manage the band. Otherwise heed my warning.

Also, on your first tour, try to be friendly, polite and courteous to the other bands, clubs and people you meet. A good impression goes a long way, and you never know if the soundguy you once pissed off in Peoria will come back to haunt you later down the road. Burning bridges is only advised if the people you are dealing with are total creeps.

posted by King4ADay @ 1:29 PM 0 comments

Promoting Your Band on The Internet - Part I

Part I
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Using Message Forums
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Message Forums are a great way to generate some hits to your bands website and make new friends, fans and followers. Most message forums allow you to use a signature with your posts; it is critical that you put your bands homepage, myspace, bandmix or jamconnect page link in your signature. Whenever possible, format your link so the link click text contains only your band name, or a motto or slogan for the band. You will be helping out your cause not only by possible new people clicking onto your site, but you will also get a very valuable backlink to your website which helps big time with your band being found in search engines. Also, some forums are veryanal and put a nofollow tag in all outbound links, meaning your posts are only half as valuable because they don't contain a true backlink. Personally, I try to stay away from those type of forums unless they have tons of members and a lot of activity, in which case, you will probably get a lot of hits from posting.

The key to attracting forum readers to clicking on your link is the quality and content of your posts. Always try to use proper gammar and punctuation, capitalize in the right places, and avoid foul language. Reply on topic and if you need a side discussion, open a new thread, by all means, open a new tread, it's only going to get you more attention. By now you must be wondering where to go to get started; here are some links to a few active forums I know of. If anybody has any others, add them in the comments.

http://forums.afterdawn.com/
http://forum.jamconnect.com
http://www.audioforums.com
http://www.musicianforums.com

posted by King4ADay @ 8:35 PM 0 comments