HOW TO SUPPORT YOUR INDIE MUSICIANS & INDIE MUSIC - PART TWO

Today we'll share about how you can support indie musicians & indie music by telling or suggesting these few things below to them. It's okay to telling some things probably they will need it for their music. Helping is unlimited.

A common mistake good artists make is assuming their music will speak for itself. In any creative field the most important thing is to have a good product, but to make your art your career you need to get your product noticed. To become an independent success you must be prepared to make an investment; time, energy, and money. So, the big labels don't understand your vision. If you believe in it then treat it with the respect it deserves. Take yourself seriously and be prepared to put in the work to get the exposure and adoring fans that your work warrants. These are ten tips that any musician should consider if they are willing to make the commitment that may not propel them directly into super stardom, but definitely put you on the road to being heard, gaining respect, and making a name for yourself.

Self-Promotion is not selling out. I come across artist all the time who believe that they sacrifice integrity by marketing themselves. Getting over this hang-up is a very important first step in making the transition from viewing music as a passion or a dream, to understanding it as your career. Professionals go through years of education on various subjects to accumulate degrees and make their resumes sparkle; independent musicians need to be outstanding performers and knowledgeable in how to market those performances. Let go of those inhibitions about "playing the game". If you don't think your music is good, quit now. If you do believe it is good then shout it from the hill tops. Present it as professional quality work and set yourself apart from amateurs and people who treat their music like a hobby. Be proud that you can do it without a big label, promote better than any A&R.

Get a logo. The wonderful thing about being a musician is that you usually attract similar energy; you probably have lots of artistic friends. Put them to work. If you know anyone that has a knack for Photoshop work with them to develop a logo for your band. It is creating a brand; a logo should be simple and recognizable. It should contain the band name and whenever you use it put a web address or MySpace url beneath it. Once you create a logo you can use it for stickers or t-shirts and your fans will be able to market for you. You create music they like; in turn they display or distribute your logo and you get more fans.

Assemble a media-kit. Media-kits are a standard pocketed folder containing an 8x10 glossy photo of you or your band, a one page bio, your CD, business card, and sometimes press clippings. If you are bashful or opposed to suggesting you have a 'look', consider the photo a visual representation of your sound. Your bio should be brief but informative and if you know any professional writers ask them for help. Include a little background information and describe your influences or your sound. Describing your sound is important and it is often challenging for artists, begin with five appropriate adjectives and build a few sentences around them. It is good to mention some of the bigger venues you may have played, and include a couple quotes from reviews when possible. You can also include how many MySpace friends you have, or website hits, and how many downloads you have accumulated. The bio, business card, and CD should have your contact information on them: website address, email, phone number, and address. If you have received some favorable press include a high-quality photocopy of it. Once you have a professional media-kit you can use it to send to promoters, venues, radio stations, or even independent labels. Organizing this information also makes other tasks easier. You can use the same bio for websites, the business cards are good to have when you meet people in clubs, and archiving your press clippings is a great way to monitor your growing reputation.

Join a union. Registering yourself with ASCAP or BMI is easy and necessary. You register your songs with them and obtain copyrights to make sure you get proper royalties and that no one steals your genius. Joining a union also offers health benefits and makes you eligible for discounts on everything from CD manufacturing to musical equipment. In Semarang, there are a few indie band community such as Indi

Harness the power of college / school radio. College / school radio as always been the hippest audience and where many respected musicians got their first spin. Research radio shows in nearby cities that specialize in your genre. Send a simple one page letter and CD. When writing the letter address it to the music or program director and refer to the show you researched by name. Make track suggestions, if there are one or two tracks on your album that all you friend or fans think should be a single then mention them. Include a little information about yourself (or you can enclose your bio) so the DJ has a few facts, and mention whatever radio stations or podcasts have played your music already. Include contact information like that in your media-kit on the letter and CD. Follow up by email to the program director, their contact information can usually be found on the stations website. You will never know if you never try.

Seek out venues & gigs. The most easiest way to seek out venue is register your self to gigs or music events. Most of gigs or music events in Semarang does not needed to be register formally. Generally all you have to is make a call or send a text or send an email. And, sending your media-kit out to these venues or gigs or music events can get your more shows in your hometown or even allow you to organize your own tour. Stay abreast of the scene in your own city; make sure you read local papers to learn about upcoming shows or festivals. Most festivals or showcases will have a website listed to get more information, and the website will tell you how to get in touch with a promoter.

There is no such thing as a gig that doesn't pay. Even artists that are well-established come across promoters that don't want to pay them well, or at all, for shows. It is a judgment call, but bear in mind that even if a gig isn't bringing in money it is giving you exposure and opportunities for more press. But gig is your step to get payed. Gig is good to get your band noticed.

Get Reviewed. Sending your media kit out to local or city paper, or contacting Content Producers for sites like for reviews is a great way to get exposure. Or maybe you can ask your relation to review your band. And Twitter and blog are the options. If your band get reviewed by Twitter account which is has 1,000 followers, we guarentee maybe one or more person wouldn't mind to follow you on Twitter or checking you out on MySpace.

How do you pay for all this? Ah, here is the million dollar question. 

Producing an album, CD manufacturing, merchandising, marketing, media-kits, it all adds up. You are doing all the work of a label, but without the money of one. Well, you or your band need to have a savings account and a majority of the money you bring in from CD sales and shows needs to go right into it. You need money to make money and for the first few years you can expect to reinvest all that you earn from your music right back into it. If you have a nine to five job to pay your bills try to build up a nest egg so that when you feel you are established enough to take the plunge into making music full time you will be able to get by. It is possible to get some financial backing. If you are fortunate enough to have friends, family, or business connections that are looking to invest in a project, approach them. But, do it professionally. Give them your media-kit and put together a professional proposal including a break-down of all your needs for capital, do the research and give actual numbers for what production and promotion will cost. Also, offer the records for how much you are earning from shows and sales, and give them a projection for what kind of return they can expect on their investment. If you don't know anyone who is looking to invest than make it your responsibility to seek out contests and other loan or grant possibilities. The resources are out there, you just have to put forth the effort and look.


These tips can't guarantee you stardom, but they can help you polish your dreams into a real career. It can be overwhelming as you are starting out, but if you work hard enough eventually the wheels you have set in motion will begin to work for you. When it seems like it is too much and the business is bogging you down, just remember your music is worth it. And first and foremost always rock on, represent for hip hop, sing your soul out, or cut it up on the wheels.

We are not trying to say if you haven't done these tips your band won't succeed. We are finding there are many indie bands doing their own way to success. It's all up to you guys. We hope your band will rock. :)

HOW TO SUPPORT YOUR INDIE MUSICIANS & INDIE MUSIC - PART ONE

The music industry is not what it once was, and odds are, some of your favorite artists are fully independent and are no longer supported by a large resourceful infrastructure. So here's a little primer to help you help your favorite artsts. The more support we receive from the community, the more of our time we can spend on our art. 

We are using 'us' for referred to indie musicians.

1. BUY DIRECT FROM THE ARTIST
There's a million places you can purhcase your music online, all for basically the same price. The difference in the outlets is that they all pay the artists very different percentages. So where to buy?
- The artist's own website will always steer you to the outlet where they benefit the most from your purchase.

-CDBaby is great. They were truly built around the principle of how best to benefit the artist.

- iTunes is OK. They do a pretty good job of paying the artists a reasonable amount, cause their business model isn't really to make money on music sales. Apple is trying to make buying music easy, so they can sell you nifty devices.

2. JOIN THE ARTIST'S EMAIL LIST & SOCIAL NETWORKS The easier it is for your favorite artist to reach you directly with show information and new album releases, the less time, money, and energy they'll need to spend to promote those events through less efficient "broadcast" means, like press and radio. Plus, there's a huge side benefit.

3. SPREAD THE GOOD WORD
Joining the artist's email list allows you to easily become a more engaged and active participant in the promotional process. By fowarding announcements to friends and family on an artist's tour route, you become an invaluable assistance in the artist's ability to reach new listeners in new markets.

It used to be the role of the labels to make new artists blink onto everyone's radar. They don't have the money to do that for many artists any more. So now it's the role of the community to spread the good word, in a grassroots manner. The email lists and the social networks are great and efficient tools at spreading the word. And it's gratifying to feel invested in "your" artist's growth and development, from the ground up.

4. BURN SOME MUSIC
We love it when y'all turn on your friends to our music. But be mindful of the line between "sharing" the music, and "stealing" the music. Burning a mixed CD for your friends with a couple songs from each of your latest favorite artists helps us out a bunch. Burning entire albums for them deprives us of possible sales.

And either way . . . the best thing you can do is urge your friends, if they like what you've shared with them, to please please pretty please go to the artist's website and sign up on their email list. That way we can at least benefit in the way of concert attendance and future album sales, from the new fans you've won for us.

5. ATTEND SHOWS This is where artists actually make their living. Simple as that. CDs and album sales tend to be a basically break-even venture. We make them cause they're artistically gratifying, and because they serve as our business cards. We make our living with the money you graciously contribute to us at the door at our concerts. Hopefully, the concerts are an enjoyable and fulfilling experience for you. But, also, consider your attendance to be a small bit of activism . . . your way of supporting the culture that's important to us all.

THANK YOU!
We imagine that, if you've read this far, we've been preaching to the choir. We hope it wasn't all just a verbose statement of the obvious. Some things are obvious in their purpose, but not so obvious in their importance. We hope this maybe shed a little insight into how important some of these obvious measures are to the whole ecosystem of what we do, as indie artists.

ARE YOU READY TO STOP PIRACY?

Our show will held tonight! Be there friends :)

We have free snack, free water, free cigaratte, photobooth and games.

See you there friends!

#SMGEmohMbajak

PEOPLE, INDIE, MUSIC

HOW TO SUPPORT INDIE MUSICIANS BY BUYING THEIR MERCHANDISE

Indie band might get a little bit more if you're established or if you play more time, but big city venues are notoriously cheap. A hundred bucks isn't too much when split between four or five band members, so the merch table is often the lifeblood of an indie act.
However, things are changing. Bands used to rely on CDs, but if you've been paying attention at all to the music industry over the last decade or so, you know that CDs are losing ground to a slew of digital formats. Still, that doesn't mean that your band should ditch the CDs just yet.
Let's consider the other mainstays of a band's merchandise table: shirts and bumper stickers. Your band can probably profit from shirts, because even if a bar or nightclub crowd hates your music, a few might dig your T-shirt design and pick one up. Profit margins are generally smaller for high-quality T-shirts, but don't skimp on the quality unless your fan base doesn't care (protip: they usually do).
The same's true with the bumper stickers, and that brings me to the overarching point of this article: in order to make real money from band merchandise, you need to think about your fans. You need to think about your target audience, how much money they have, whether they drive or not, what aesthetics they care about and other important stuff. Merchandise has changed over the past decade along with the music scene, and people expect a much higher-quality product. Invest in graphic design and never skimp on quality whether you're buying t-shirts, CDs or anything else.
Finally, bands should set money aside from every gig to put towards merchandise. Know what you're investing and how much you expect to get back for your investment. Running an indie band is tough business, but it will be much less difficult to get ahead if you actually treat it like a business. Involve every single member of your band and give everyone a job. Whether you're playing music as a hobby or you're trying to make a living, taking this type of equal approach will help your band avoid tension and improve your chances of making money at each gig.


This is when they will need us to help them, by buying their merchandise. By wearing, or buying you are helping them (certain band) to let people know about them. When you are wearing the band’s merchandise, it will increase people curiousity and people somehow will let them to find any information about the name written there, the band name. Once, when I was in high school, my friend wore a very cool tees and I asked him where did he get those. He answered that was a band merchandise. I began to ask him more about the band. It’s prooved. People will interest to interesting stuff. Merchandise is an alternative way to be creative, and the band could create their identity. We believe when once you're buying merchandise, it will leading you to buy their music. :)