How to pitch your band

STEPH FROM PERTH

Ask any scene folk how their day is going and you’re generally greeted with a short sentence that usually contains the word “busy”, “crazy” or some huge sigh suggesting one or the other or both. 365 stupidly full on days a year minus public holidays and the odd occasion where you manage to take a holiday and ensure you’re visiting somewhere that has little to no phone reception and absolutely minimal wireless capabilities. Because, shit, it’s a largely overworked, underpaid passion we’re dealing with here.

When you throw in the odd email that one gets from an unknown talent – and I use the term ‘talent’ loosely - into a regular day spent responding to the barrage of emails, calls, obligations, problems and so forth, it’s usually the last thing you want to deal with. Particularly as, usually, said band feels the need to express just how professional, dedicated, ambitious and amazingly unique they are. PROBLEM – every fucking band thinks the same thing.

So here are my top tips to get yourself noticed when pitching your band for management/bookings/supports/etc etc:

DON’T WRITE A FUCKING ESSAY
Keep it to the point – no one has time to read your psycho babble and most people want to be able to answer something as succinctly as possible so they can delete it and move onto the next new message that’s just been received in their inbox. Bottom line – no one cares if you played at some small venue last week or that you’ve written 3 new songs since February or that the demos on your myspace are only 49.5% mixed and that you’re planning on using these rad new plug ins with some no name producer that was recommended to you by a friend of a friend who knows someone in the “industry” to get it sounding super pro and slick and that you should have them ready in the next 65 hours or so and to be patient because better product is on its way and once it’s heard there’ll be a much clearer picture of the sound and how uniquely awesome it is in comparison to everything else that’s out there at the moment.............................

PERSONALITY GOES A LONG WAY
I got an e-mail the other day from a singer/songwriter wanting to enquire about management and the e-mail literally went from introduction to “I’m sure you get these all the time – my music style is pretty folky, I love writing songs, I’ve supported *insert a couple of impressive names here*, blah blah blah blah… you get the idea” to which I instantly went to this person’s myspace to check it out. We are all humans here, not robots deciphering characters on an email client. This person treated the recipient with some respect and conveyed a bit of humour, and such a simple tactic alone can get people to take notice. Be careful not to sound like a wanker, though – there is a fine line.

YOU ARE NOT UNIQUE
If you use that word in your pitch, the band police will be around to your house to beat the living snot out of you.

JUST WANTED TO CHECK YOU GOT MY E-MAIL, I’VE HAD SOME PROBLEMS WITH MY COMPUTER RECENTLY…
No you haven’t, you just don’t have the balls to ask me straight whether I read your first email and like what I heard and are instead using this tacky excuse to try and suss it out. Now, a follow-up e-mail or phone call is cool, it shows you’re serious, however, when you start to get into nagging territory – I recently had no less than six requests from the same band about a support, each time telling me how perfect they were for it – you are quickly fucking things up for your band. This reminds me of a Family Guy episode where Stewie is playing Pictionary and his team mate goes “A Jackal. Jackal! It’s a jackal! It looks like a Jackal. Jackal? Jackal? It’s a Jackal. Jackal?” Time runs out, to which Stewie smacks the table and yells “If it wasn’t right the first time you said it, why the hell would it be right the next ten times??”

Hot Bands in Perth !!!

STEPH FROM PERTH

Being involved with a number of local acts makes it hard to get out and see new bands regularly, because most of my time is spent focusing on my own roster. Which is a good thing, it means I'm doing my job. Plus, as we all know, the percentage of good new acts in comparison to the amount of new acts is stupidly low. However, here's an example of bright sparks and ones that should burn out as quickly as possible for the benefit of bettering the human race.

THE BLOODS

Picture this: your son is captain in the grand final for his A-league basketball team. They’re leading by one with eight seconds left in the fourth quarter and all they need to do is retain possession to win the first championship for the club in 74 years. Instead of playing it cool, he tries to be the hero – fakes past one defender, then the other and has a clear passage to the hoop. He goes up for the slam but doesn’t get enough air – the ball bashes itself against the rim, ricochets all the way to half court where a member of the opposite team whips it up court for the easy lay-up and the win. The moral of this story is that white men can't jump, and they can’t play punk reggae either.

www.myspace.com/tbloods

GENGHIS

Four-piece fronted by a female bass player than can belt it out with the best of them, playing catchy indie pop rock in the vein of The Breeders, coincidentally enough. And they do a Breeders cover too. Now while their influences are firmly on their sleeve, this isn't, thankfully, at detriment to the sound, merely a great reference point to build their own ideas from. These ideas are based around simple songwriting with killer hooks - guitar and vocal wise. The keep it simple, stupid notion works wonders here.

www.myspace.com/thebureauofperth

PANAMA

Band comps do sometimes pull the odd gem out of their arse, and this year’s Ampfest final was no exception. Panama came out of virtually nowhere to kick everyone in the face with their love of 70s retro – one of the guitarist dudes was wearing a Led Zep shirt… of course. Their vocalist was the highlight, and by highlight I mean holy shit, his set of pipes was amazing. With each band member around the 17 – 19 year old mark, it’ll be exciting to see where these guys progress to in the next couple of years.

www.myspace.com/thatpanamaband

Now speaking of 70s rock…

As with anything that becomes part of mainstream culture, electro clash and respective sub-terms/genres has very limited time left at the forefront of the public's consciousness. It's a welcome relief for many, myself included - I find these days that comfort is derived from consuming as much of the 60s/70s as possible, getting back to the heart and soul of music, and staying as far away from its antithesis, that which electro clash encompasses for me. It wasn't cool back in the 80s, and yet has become glorified beyond a joke. Big Brother Holding Company's 'Piece Of My Heart' speaks to me on so many levels.

So it's interesting these days to enter into debate about whether it'll be the 70's or the early 90's that makes a "return" and becomes the next mainstream fad. Either is welcome with open arms. I'm banking on our retro brother to steamroll drum machines and synthesisers before the end of this decade. Just look at some of the amazing releases that have reared their beautiful head in 2008 already - Black Mountain, The Raveonettes, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Warlocks, The Kills, The Black Hollies, Dead Meadow... dear cut and paste acts, put that in your pipe and smoke it.