School of Hard Knocks: Treat it like a business run it like a BOSS

Being in a band and not promoting it is like having a business and wanting to keep it secret. You will not succeed and no one will know about your band unless you promote it... and my advice is to promote it like a business and run it like a boss.

BOOKERS/PROMOTERS

It's not a booker's job to get people in the door to see YOUR BAND. It's their job to book a solid show with good bands that promote themselves, work out the ticket prices, make sure the security and sound are locked in and advertise the show by using the venues advertising budget or their own to do so. No one cares about your band as much as you do, therefore no one will kill for your band but YOU. Unless you're paying said promoter to promote just your band its their job to promote the club/venue. So don't sit around bitching about promoters/bookers not doing their "job" promoting your band when that's your job.

If you feel a booker/promoter isn't doing good enough, then do it yourself. Go direct to the venue owner/manager and try booking your own show.

It's not always as easy as you think.

MERCH

Merch is key to making money. DUH. You have to sell shit to make money.

You should have shirts, cd's, shot glasses or whatever to sell at every show. If you make unique flyers for your shows (like we do) print out larger size versions and sell them for $2-$5. We made poster sized flyers had them mounted on foam core and made anywhere between $15-$40 on them.

This helps when you get stiffed by the venue or booker/promoter for payment or when you play a free show.

Set up a Paypal account for the band and get a credit card swipper so you can accept cards where ever you are.

You also need free stuff like stickers, picks, etc for the broke people.

OUT OF THE BOX THINKING:

Being an advertising professional I have to think of out of the box solutions for clients who are looking to stand out in their field. It's the same thing we need to do as bands. If there are 3 or 4 other shows the same weekend we're playing a show we have to come up with a unique theme or incentive to get people to our show, like a car dealer during a holiday weekend.

Facebook invites aren't the only way to promote shows. There are thousands of internet radio stations that cater to unsigned bands as well as blogs. Get those people involved too. Give away a spot on your guest list as an incentive or host a raffle where a winner can get a bundle of merch from all the bands on the show that night.

Most bars have alcohol vendors that would be willing to help pass out flyers if you throw their logo on it.

These are just a few tips from my experiences. Get out there and find your own unique out of the box ideas.

Look at what small businesses are doing to draw customers.

Other people's children

I had a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about other people's kids.
Her son is 9 and in Boy Scouts. She told me about a certain boy coming over for a sleep over and how the boy stole money for a fundraiser and when she brought it up to the mom, the mom pretty much denied it and blew it off. I would have marched my ass to that lady's house with a baseball bat and a friend dressed up like a cop to get that shit back. With intimidation of course, not violence.
Luckily I don't have to deal with other people's children as much. My son hasn't made any outside of school friends that aren't our friends' kids. Mostly our friends raise their kids similarly to us so we don't have huge issues.

We did have this one couple who brought their kids to our house for a barbecue and the kids proceeded to rip Hayden's room to shreds while the parents didn't check on them once.  They took lego creations apart that I had carefully put together for him and tossed the pieces in the air like they were dollar bills at a strip club. It's been a couple years and we still haven't been able to find all the pieces to one of the sets.

The worse experiences we had with other people's kids were with our old roommates kids. He would sleep until 2pm and his kids would run around the house all weekend unless I got up and watched them. They destroyed some of my candles, some of Hayden's toys, and ate most of our Halloween candy one year tossing the wrappers in random places all over the house ie: behind the toilet, under beds, in between books on the bookcase, etc. We tried to get our roommate to take responsibility and discipline them, but he was a lazy jerk and didn't have any respect for us.
I also witness a lot of rude kids at the parks. There are kids in our neighborhood who play at the park every day until dark and never do I see their parents around. I've had to tell kids to watch their mouth around my son who were the same age or just a couple years older. This one ten year old girl drops more F'bombs  than most musicians I know. Another kid walked into our garage and stole our skateboard. We didn't know till a neighbor saw him riding around on it and it had a bipolar sticker on the bottom.

I know my son is not perfect. He battles with being a picky eater and won't eat new foods at other people's houses. We try to work on that every day.

Like Louis CK, I'm amazed at the lack of responsibility people take for their children's behavior these days. I believe a lot of parents are too wrapped up in their own shit to care for how their children behave around other kids and other adults.
Take the damn time to teach your kids manners, and PAY ATTENTION to what their doing. It's not other people's responsibility to teach them manners.
Also, kids learn from example, if you're a jerk and lazy your kid is going to be a lazy jerk. If you sit on your ass yelling at them all day, they're going to be unhappy and will probably act out at school or with other kids. If you don't teach them respect for other people's things they'll throw legos around my house like a jackass.

Here's 25 Manners Every Kid Should know by the time they are 9

Dr Sears' 7 ways to teach children manners.

Happy Friday the 13th

I can't breathe. Well I can but my nose is stuffy and my throat is scratchy. I caught some kind of illness that had inflicted my husband, my son and my coworkers. I have been attacking it back with a vengeance or rather with cold medicine and sinus soother tea.

But with the sickness comes the FALL!!! I love the fall, LOVE IT. 

Right now the stores are filling their shelves with Halloween decor and with my obsession of skulls this is the best time to buy my year round decor.

One of my favorite blogs Beautiful Mess has a great post of 20 ideas for Fall . I am all about the food for sure. 

Tonight we play a show at the Dive Bar. It is exactly as it sounds a DIVE BAR. But we love it and haven't played there since they relocated.

Another great FALL kickoff was our band photo shoot on Monday. We got to sneak peek the upcoming Fright Dome and pose next to the blood and guts. The shoot was done by Radiant Inc. We wanted to get some new photos to show off the new lineup and prepare for all the great things coming up.

Here's one of my favorites. You can see the rest on our facebook. 

Our new guitar player Brian is second from left. He's been a great addition to the band and helped rekindle the creative fire in all of us. 

We have some great things in the works and have brought back some of our older songs to pay tribute to our 10 year anniversary.

Hope everyone has a great Friday the 13th and if you're in Vegas come down to The Dive Bar around 9pm.

Bittersweet

Photos by Mozzchopz Music Photography

The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of hard work and hard rock for my band and I.  A few weeks ago our guitar player Rob had to step down from his position in the band and we had to try to find someone quickly to replace him. Well I guess we didn't HAVE to try quickly, we wanted to since we had shows lined up and we didn't want to have to cancel them. Cancelling shows is awkward. 

We found a good replacement in Brian Jackson whom we wrote about on facebook. 

We've been working him in and he's doing an amazing job so far.  We have been practicing more than usual and actually utilizing the beautiful rehearsal studio.

Saturday was Rob's final show with us. We played with Hemlock again but this time they were celebrating their 20 year anniversary. The show was awesome and the club was packed. A perfect farewell for Rob. 

Rob was guitar player number six for .bipolar. and honestly I'm getting tired of the two year curse we seem to have.  

Being the front-woman/manager it's frustrating when a member has to walk away due to life priorities, chooses to dump us with a dear Brian and Charlie letter that we find in our studio along with the absence of their gear, or just flat out disappears with no note or inkling as to why.We lose unrecorded songs, quality band photos, and sometimes a good friend/brother. Sometimes it feels like all my hard work, blood, sweat and tears are in three other people's hands. Being the independent person I am having my fate in someone else's hands is not easy for me to cope with. 

Rob did some great things with us and his departure is bittersweet. We wish him the best and hope he's able to return to music in his own capacity soon.

In the meanwhile we're excited for the new things on the horizon.