This is the reason why you don’t get an answer.

We got a mail to our festival the other day. First with the totally wrong name on the festival. Sure, that can happen in all your cut and paste. Then the letter continues by asking questions that obvious is on our homepage, things like which dates the festival is, what kind of genre do we prefer, how much do we pay for each band. I mean why should I go through the process answering questions like this for a band that we probably are not interested in booking?

So, I just write back a link where all the info around our application process is. And told them that our real name is this.

To be honest, I think we are pretty good to answer these emails. We actually get thousands of just mails from bands/bookers/pr people just sending out from different mailing lists not knowing where and to whom they are sending. It’s part of the game, and that is why I guess 99% are just deleting the emails and don’t answer them. We try at least to give you the right info even though we know it’s just another mass mail out.

Then now two days later the artist goes on to our Facebook page writing nasty things just because we answered back with some info.  This is the reason why so many have stopped writing back. Now we must deal with an artist that is not even in the closest chance to be booked being annoying in our official channels. Yes, it’s much easier to just delete the mails.

This is also, the reason why you never give feedback to anyone sending in a song. Most people probably would be thankful and nice but this small group of idiots that would start to mess up things or start to answer back that you are wrong. You have really no time to give feedback in the first place. Now you are in a position that you should defend your opinions.

So, when you are annoyed that you never get any answers. Here are some tip-offs. Try to be personal. We all hate those mass emails, yes, they are easy and convenient to send out. But you rarely get answers on them.  Okay, it will be quite massive to be personal, but it’s the only way to get a response. I have an e-mail list of over 300 supervisors around the world. Yes, it would be darn easy to just make a send out with a generic email. But I spend two days sending the info as the generic email but add two personal sentences at the top.

But how will I be personal with all these 300 have I meet them all? Many I have met but even if I meet them it’s very few I know that well. Instead, I also spend time going to their homepages or social media and check for updates. You pick up that they just moved or a reason success placement almost anything and you do a nice comment on that. Like: I saw that you just moved office, how is the new place?

You will directly stand out. It’s hard to ignore when a thing like that comes in. Then you also have to get that when they answer back: Thanks, the new place is really great. That it’s not an opening to have a long chat around the music that you sent in. You know they have seen it. So after the answer just put it down until they contact you. Though in many cases I get back other things like, The new office is great, listened to your music do you have more songs with this artist? Then, of course, you are in to send some more.

Yes, this is painstaking to do. At the same time, you also get info. Maybe your contact has left the company and has a new position. Voila, you get in the new person in the first company and hunt after your old contact with the new company that now has a better position. You can also find out other things Like if a festival has changed style, it has a new theme. Information that is good to know.

I wish it could be less time consuming, but some a-holes have made it into what it’s easier to just delete emails.

Please get the gatekeepers back!

No there is no human right to give out music! Even though many crappy musicians seem to think that. I just had a nutcase that really made me think the forbidden words “it was better before”.

This particular idiot wants to change Spotify link system, so it fits his different releases with different names. No, the world won’t adapt to your stupid artist's uncertainty. We have been back and forward with his name change for three months and have changed in at least six different versions. For what? Nothing really. It’s just that he doesn’t understand how to separate things from his account through Spotify artists. Will it change his career? Not really his eight listeners probably will not see any difference.

The gatekeepers were the people that we're keeping these loose cannons of the map. Right now, we have a missive brown wave of shit music that has no existence justification at all. Yes, there are so many musicians that claimed that the gatekeepers were the reason that their great music never reaches an audience. Know what, without gatekeepers, your music still didn’t reach an audience. So now they claim that if they don’t get success is because they don’t get into Spotify’s playlist.

It’s because they really do bad music. In pure English “they suck”. And we would need a tool to sort these worthless people out, so the professionals don’t have to waste so much time with their nonsense.

There is nothing wrong about doing music on a hobby level. The problem is when a hobby person starts to think that they would get the same benefits as a professional hard-working musician get. No, you won’t get the same status, money or att3ention since you are not working as hard as the people that get this kind of treatment.

Is this a problem, really? Not to compare with the environmental problem we have. In the small scale of the music industry, it starts to be a problem. It’s getting harder and harder to be exposed to new good music. Either you get exposure to the massive brown wave or you had back to old stars that you feel is safe. And in this new world, all music is presented.

I hear more and more normal listeners, not the once that are super interested in music. No, the average joe that complains that it’s so hard to find new good music. Even in the younger ages.

The live industry seems to be the new gatekeeper. They can’t fill their venues with the brown wave shit like the digital outlet can. Here you need to curate your entertainment and get the audience to trust your choices.

If the digital outlet would ever become a gatekeeper again. They need a system like if you don’t get over 10 000 streams the first month, they just take the song off the internet in total. Impossible I know, but still, I can dream about it.

Your will stands and grows in the forest.

Yes you feel that your project is important, we know that but there is a proverb that my grandmother always used - Your will stands and grows in the forest!
Which means you have a will but it's not powerful or important enough.

That will can get you in deepshit trouble. I was just called up by one of my co-workers. Her son is seriously sick for the moment so she is not in the office taken some days off. Suddenly an artist comes up in the feed that he so urgently needs to know the ISRC code for one of his songs. He couldn't find it on the distribution page. Around five minutes he starts to call my co-worker. She doesn't have her phone number on the page, but if you search you can find her number in other press coverage. She is trying to decide which medication to get for her sick child and this artist is calling on and on again. In the end, she had to call me to get the code out there.

First of all the ISRC is put there by the artist. He should know what the code is. He should have his own record over that. Second what is so in a hurry that you need code the same five minutes? It's an old song from years ago. He would have gotten the code from us during the day. But there is no reason for us to drop everything that we are doing just because an artist doesn't have their shit together.

Then calling people with a number you just found online is not ok. This is the reason we don't have phone support any longer is that people misused it. To many just go for the phone. And even if she had answered, she doesn't know the code and had just said you have to wait. Another thing about this it's also happened during lunch hour. So you would expect people to be at lunch even.

In this case, sure it takes me one minute to find it and send it over. Still, the silent closing door was shut on this artist. I'm definitely not gonna do any favors for him. It's not ok that my colleague had to deal with this small crap of shit because an artist doesn't know or understand the manner.

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Know what favors you ask about!

Imagine that I write you an email. You know me but not that well, we meet on your consert and had a beer afterwards (that you paid). That was also two years ago and you haven't heard from me since that.

Hello, hope everything is ok. I was just wondering a couple of things. I'm trying to become a musician and was wondering if it's smart to start a song with a D-accord or is it better if it is an A? I read that many hits start with a D so maybe that is good.
Also, I struggle to write songs. Can you write a couple of good songs that I can put my name under? I don't have any money but I would rather just give out music where it says my name. Can you also record them? I find it hard to record songs and I don't have the time. I was thinking since you like music you can record them and then I just come in and sing the vocals, and the vocals have to be written so it suits my voice.

We are thinking to get gigs, but it's really hard. I saw that your band had a couple, can you cancel it and then we can get them? The gear would be nice to borrow for those gigs. Can you drive them out for us and how much will they pay us to play there?
Regards.
New guitar hero.

Now you think that this stupid letter I would never get. I received three last week. It's just that I have transformed the letter so it fits to a musician.

First one was asking for advice for a good distribution system, sending it to our distribution department asking for advice since his distribution didn't take care of all the things. the funny part is that we do but we really don't want such idiots in the system.

Another one was sending me the info sheet to claim a song. Thinking that I should fill it out for her because she didn't understand or had the time.
In the next sentence, she asked for advice on a good  PR company, well I run a PR company so I should send the work to someone else?

The third one was asking for gigs. Tell me that he had seen that my bands got a lot of gigs so he wondered if he could get the emails to the places where my bands played.

And this is just last week.

I just wish there where a drivers license to give out music so we could get rid of the damn idiots. Sure I know they don't mean to bother, but some thinking should go into it.

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Doing the impossible

I was just down to the local grocery store to pick up some breakfast. I was standing in the queue line to pay when an older lady just pushed her way through up to the cashier.

- My bank card is stuck in the ATM!

Of course, the cashier can't just stop what they are doing and go and help the lady. So she picks up her phone and calls for someone in the staff to come and aid her. Then the old lady just says.

- Can you hurry up, I have an appointment at the hairdresser.

Like that is the cashier's fault. The ATM machine, in this case, is just on their premises, it's not even their machine. Second, if the card gets stuck, well it's because you have pressed your code wrong three times, then the machine takes the card. So most likely this situation is created by the old lady's own fault. Now though she is just blaming the poor cashier that has nothing to do with it.

She tries several numbers but since this early seems like no one is in the office to help the cashier. So she makes a call in the speakers, then she keeps on bleeping the stuff that the other customers that are there shopping. You can just see the little lady become more and more agitated.

- I'm in a hurry you know, I have my appointment!

I mean it hasn't gone even two minutes, and yet she is demanding things from a person that has nothing to do with it. Then a guy from the shop arrives and goes out with the lady to the ATM. On my way out I need to stop to get a thing where the ATM is and overheard the conversation. of course, the lady had punched the wrong code three times and for safety, the machine kept the card. And of course, the guy from the shop floor have not authority to open that machine. Witch, in fact, is like asking anyone in the street to open a random ATM. Still, the lady blames him and is kind of rude and annoying. She wants help now and goes before everyone else even though the mess she is in is created by herself.

This is so common right now. It seems like people think that the earth is spinning with them in the center of the whole thing. And any obstacle is just to lay down like a three-year-old kid and scream on the floor.

Fix this! Seems to be the mantra people think everybody else should do, even if it is darn impossible. A friend got ordered yesterday to fix "some festivals". The point is that is not his job, he work with other things for this artist, but not booking. But just because he have once fixed a gig, suddenly the lack of festival bookings are his problem. and he know that the artist will think he is not good enough or work hard enough if he doesn't do that. He pointed out that they need a booker. Well, then the question went over that he should fix a booker for them.

Right now I probably will be a very impopular person, but I will start just saying, sorry I can't help you.

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You can't make gold out of cowshit!

I’m a member on a channel where you post music industry related jobs on Facebook. Time to time you get these really strange things where a musician by mistake gets in. Usually, the problem with these people is that they really don’t know how it really works and their efforts become kind of desperate since in the most cases the lack of info could be replaced by talent but not the opposite around. This came in today… everything in red is my comment on it.

Hello!
Right now I'm searching for my band ********,

I checked the band. The numbers are okay. 7000 facebook followers (well every post only get around 2 to 3 likes so the engagement is really really low). Youtube has around 20 000 spins on the video. Well, these numbers are easy to buy so I checked Soundcloud. Around 100 plays on Soundcloud, yes here you can easily see the real figures. Then they have released some stuff on Spotify. All songs around 28 000 streams, the worst is the latest single where the songs has 17447 and 17473 streams. Never that a b-side the same amount of stream as that the a side. Here you have clear evidence that this band streams themselves and boost other figures. So I started a song, and yes here is the real problem. No real talent sounds like billions of other bands that want to be Foo Fighters. So when you read the rest of the letter have in mind that it’s impossible to do what they ask.

someone who can act as a "manager" on a project basis.

This is like trying to have a drummer as a project and still want the drummer to be full time. A manager is very close to the band and has to plan things years ahead. To have it on a project basis is just plain stupid. Okay I can understand that no one wants to work for free on this band they are too unknown to make any money

We have been working since 2014 on our Debut album, which has now been recorded, mixed and mastered with own money.

This is not what you want to hear. As an industry professional you want to be part of the process to minimize errors done by amateurs. They released an Ep 2013…it took them 4 years to get to something new. , es they have released some live ep and then a single 2014 and 2016. But that’s it. Especially in times where you have to be release stuff almost on a week’s basis.

We have previously released our first EP and some singles and videos via my own company, ****.

Okay so you have opened up your own company. Well stick to that. What should this manger do?

What we need is now "shopping around" the album to A&Rs, companies, booking agents, the media, etc. to build a team and collaborate for the expansion of the band through, for example, licensing from the album, buyons and dyes.

STOOOOP! You are talking different ways. Either you shop with A&R:s, but my suggestion is not to have recorded the stuff just doing demos. But then you should not do the other stuff. Booking agents, they can’t be “shopped”, when you make enough money on each show, they contact you. Before that they are pretty useless. Sure there are mangers that takes in bands as favors, but that is much bigger names and also that they have something to go on. The media, well this you only go on if you going to release the stuff yourself.  So make a decision go by your own company or seek out a company? Doing both at the same time is very contra productive. License the album, for god sake this mainly is done if the band has a track record. You would be lucky just to get anyone interested in this.

I therefore seek a hungry and committed individual or team who is or is good at getting contacts, writing sales texts, and having good communication skills to track leads over the phone and to book meetings to help me build my team and create good teamwork .

Getting contacts? Well today there is no problem to reach anyone. There are things like facebook, linked in, twitter, Skype, WhatsApp, email and even their phones are online. I will tell you why you don’t get an answer (since I think you have tried but not got one thinking it was the wrong way), your band haven’t got to the level where someone would make money on it and then they just don’t replay. But having someone collect these contacts just to collect them is plain stupid.
Write good sales texts, also here if the band is good enough and the story is good, you can just write, a really short mail telling the highlights give the links and it will work. No sales text in the world can cover up that the music actually sucks.
Track leads? What leads, you really think that if someone answer you that then you can book a meeting like a sales person and meet the label and try to sell in the band. It never happens that way. That is just annoying and most people will never take meetings just because it is annoying. Meeting is when you have something that you will do together and there is an interest. Teams are not built in this way stop acting like it is a sales book from the 80:s. Even the commercials for toothpaste has stop doing this.

What I offer is my own knowledge with my own contact network, my own commitment and drive, and of course payment on a monthly or project basis.

Your knowledge, hmm I guess the value of zero is zero. Your contacts, well you just seek someone to give you contacts so I guess you don’t have any. Your commitment, yes you are committed but in the totally wrong way. Start with getting a better band, better songs and stop faking numbers and get back when that is done. Use that salary to get on some courses to learn the basics.