5 Words To Avoid When Promoting Your Music

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When promoting your music, getting heard and seen is everything. Cutting through the noise, being the loud-and-clear signal, making sure that people know who you are and what you’re about. These are your goals – and you have a lot of competition.

This is life for the modern musician. For you.

The words listed below may seem harmless at first glance, but you need to rethink them if you want to separate yourself from the competition. Attention to the finest of details is what distinguishes the great from the merely good, okay, and rubbish. Using these words (or in some cases using them in the wrong way) can instantly lose you potential supporters – and even attract the worst kind of attention.

What follows may sound harsh, but it’s important. Music industry professionals are hypersensitive to the words that follow, and if you want to win them over, you need to think like they do. You need to understand how their brains work – and if you can do that, you’ll leave everyone else in the dust. Read more…

Posted on 14 September 2015

Naomi Scott / Fifi Rong / Geovarn / Princess Slayer / Jungle Doctors / Bella Figura [Live Review – Under The Bridge, London, 26/2/2015]

music week radarAs a music venue embedded into Stamford Bridge (the stadium called home by Chelsea F.C.), Under the Bridge was an appropriately unique venue for this unique show. An industry showcase set up by trade paper Music Week, networking hub MusicConnex, promoters ILUVLIVE, and south coast music school BIMM, it goes without saying that the high-profile nature of this show inevitably brought its own special set of performance pressures. A quality showcase set has the potential to push an act to the next level, while a duff performance can see a band crossed off “Ones To Watch” lists in the blink of an eye.

On top of the potential for mind-freezing attacks of performance anxiety, this was not Read more…

Posted on 27 February 2015

Unsigned? Don’t use that word. [Music Business Advice]

“Unsigned” bands define themselves as failures. They divide Bandland into two camps – the lucky Signed, and the green-eyed Unsigned – and then announce to the world that they live in Loserville. The “unsigned” team is the team that never wins. Read more…

Posted on 08 December 2014

Chronographs – ‘D.O.T.S’ [Review]

DOTS Artwork FinalChronographs are one of my favourite bands of right now. Their current project – writing, recording, and releasing a song a month for a year – is, in my opinion, more relevant to modern life than the more traditional album release cycles still employed throughout the record business. Each time Chronographs release a track it describes precisely how they feel right now – or have felt very recently. Read more…

Posted on 31 July 2014

A Guide To Chronographs [Special Feature]

chronographsChronographs are a recent discovery, and they’ve made a real impact in a very short time. I’ve written a lot recently about how I try to offer constructive criticism where possible; but I just can’t think of any way to improve this band. Chronographs are like a firework with a lit fuse. Your best course of action is to stand well back, and watch them go. Read more…

Posted on 10 July 2014

How To Deal With Criticism [Music Business Advice]

Since becoming a music blogger, I’ve had some amazing experiences. Nothing gets me buzzing like the discovery of a brand new band capable of blowing my mind into smithereens. Artists as diverse as Dorje, Signals, Princess Slayer, Shrine, In Dynamics, Mike Dawes, Project RnL, Inner Pieces, and Lunatrix all knocked me for six when I first came across them – and the knowledge that tomorrow it could happen all over again is what keeps me writing.

However, it’s not all been great. I love what I get to do via TMMP, but there is a dark side to music writing. I’m not just here to be nice; I also have to be harsh at times. When reviewing music, I’m a critic – and the word ‘criticism’ is, as we all know, associated more directly with negativity than anything else. Criticism is a part of life, something we all experience, and it’s hard – sometimes impossible – to not take it personally. Often this is because the person doing the criticising is just letting out their own frustrations and not considering us at all. Read more…

Posted on 06 July 2014

Ben Minal (Crowdfunding Expert, Serial Entrepreneur, And Drummer From Dorje) [Interview]

ben minal

UPDATE: TMMP has been reborn! This video has the full story:

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Over the past few years, crowdfunding has become one of the music industry’s most talked about topics. Adopted by acts as diverse as art-pop legend Amanda Palmer and Canadian tech-metallers Protest The Hero, crowdfunding has made headlines worldwide and opened many eyes to the power of direct-to-fan business models.

Ben Minal created one of the top Indiegogo campaigns of 2012 before he had even finished university. Beating a target of $7,500 nearly three times over, Ben was able to send his band Dorje (fronted by YouTube guitar star Rob Chapman and completed by guitarist Rabea Massaad and bassist Dave Hollingworth) on a two-week UK tour alongside The Drills, themselves fronted by regular Bon Jovi sideman and session legend Phil X. TMMP sat down with Ben Minal to talk about Dorje, crowdfunding, the future of the music business, his current projects and passions, and how a man ordering a pizza changed the course of four careers. Read more…

Posted on 11 June 2014

Arcane Roots – ‘Over & Over’ [Review]

arcane roots over and overFirst off, let me just say: This tune is fucking immense. It’s anthemic, even joyful, heavy as fuck, and is wrapped up in a unique sound that can be readily identified as belonging to Arcane Roots – regardless of what the “Biffy Clone” critics claim. Now, there’s a certain amount of Biffy in there, yes – after all, music is rarely made in a vacuum, and artists of all stripes have been influenced by others – but Arcane Roots deliver their own special twist on Biffy’s brand of new-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. Read more…

Posted on 09 June 2014

Give It Away – Or Just Give Up? [Music Business Advice]

Free Music.

Having read those words, your brain is most likely already overflowing with thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Free music is, to say the least, a controversial topic that raises all kinds of questions, such as these: Read more…

Posted on 31 May 2014

A Message For Musicians Who Live In The Real World. [Music Business Advice]

In 2014, fifteen years after the first warning signs heralding the now legendary decline of the recorded music industry, the blame throwing and endless infighting that centres around that most black hole-like of music industry topics – online file sharing – continues.

What cannot be argued, however, is the simple fact that what happened over the last decade and a half definitely happened. Now, it is time to either find a solution to the problem of making a living as a musician in the twenty first century, or continue looking backwards, missing new opportunities, and eventually succumbing to the musty bargain bins of cultural irrelevance.

A complete solution that is universally embraced and applied  by the whole music business has yet to appear. And before we can hope to reach that point, we have to ask: Where do we start? Read more…

Posted on 27 April 2014

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