My band's album was due out today (EDIT: it's getting all legal now)

digitalscream

Strangefan said:

digitalscream said:

Strangefan said:

Please dont take this negatively  but it's not the early 2000s anymore
I assume your unsigned hense you having to  pay for the "priveledge " of the promoter? Everything they do you can do yourselves, getting on radio stations is a waste of time unless is a major station , you 100% have to concentrate on social media, and immediate content.

It's not promotion, it's public relations - there's a distinct difference. And a good PR representative will have contacts that are unavailable to other folk; that's the whole point, you're not paying so much for things that are beyond your skill level, you're paying for (reliable) access to those contacts.

Ultimately....yes, it would be possible in the strictest sense for us to do that part of the job ourselves, but it'd be monstrously time-consuming to do it and much more hit-and-miss; there's a big world beyond social media which needs to be dealt with, and it's simply more effective to pay somebody who does it every day. At least...it's supposed to be.

I'm sorry to say but I disagree, (again only opinion) record companies are not interested in you unless you have a certain amount of presence and a certain following, they are risk averse, having contacts means nothing if you're not up to scratch in the areas that matter to them.
You know as much as me that the music is now not the selling point your sellability is and how you promote, music they have to give out for free, gigs merch and ad revinue is what's key.

The only people in the business who are interested in your music are independent labels  as they have less to lose, but you certainly won't make any money with them in the current musical climate. And certainly will take you a very long time to get your moneys worth. 

This is nothing to do with record companies, though...? We're not chasing a deal at all, from a big label or an independent one. PR is nothing to do with that.

It's not directly about promotion, either. It's about paying a publicist to use their contacts in much larger publications and radio stations, who trust them to provide them with good content, to get you a bigger platform to plug your music. Most of those contacts get hundreds of submissions a week, and thus binning all the ones that aren't from trusted contacts (unless there's a stellar reason not to) is pretty much accepted practice.

Hence...PR. Plus the consultancy that goes with it, from somebody who's seen lots of successful and not-so-successful releases.

Bridgehouse

Is your PR aim to generate audience, sales, gigs or a combination of the above?

Strangefan

digitalscream said:

Strangefan said:

digitalscream said:

Strangefan said:

Please dont take this negatively  but it's not the early 2000s anymore
I assume your unsigned hense you having to  pay for the "priveledge " of the promoter? Everything they do you can do yourselves, getting on radio stations is a waste of time unless is a major station , you 100% have to concentrate on social media, and immediate content.

It's not promotion, it's public relations - there's a distinct difference. And a good PR representative will have contacts that are unavailable to other folk; that's the whole point, you're not paying so much for things that are beyond your skill level, you're paying for (reliable) access to those contacts.

Ultimately....yes, it would be possible in the strictest sense for us to do that part of the job ourselves, but it'd be monstrously time-consuming to do it and much more hit-and-miss; there's a big world beyond social media which needs to be dealt with, and it's simply more effective to pay somebody who does it every day. At least...it's supposed to be.

I'm sorry to say but I disagree, (again only opinion) record companies are not interested in you unless you have a certain amount of presence and a certain following, they are risk averse, having contacts means nothing if you're not up to scratch in the areas that matter to them.
You know as much as me that the music is now not the selling point your sellability is and how you promote, music they have to give out for free, gigs merch and ad revinue is what's key.

The only people in the business who are interested in your music are independent labels  as they have less to lose, but you certainly won't make any money with them in the current musical climate. And certainly will take you a very long time to get your moneys worth. 

This is nothing to do with record companies, though...? We're not chasing a deal at all, from a big label or an independent one. PR is nothing to do with that.

So why pay the cash if you're not wanting to get recognised and get distribution? 

digitalscream

@Strangefan - read the edited post above. There is a distinct difference between "promotion" and "PR" (and a massive difference between either of those and "record label"). At this point, you're probably better off Googling it, because I'm obviously failing at explaining it myself

Bridgehouse said:

Is your PR aim to generate audience, sales, gigs or a combination of the above?

Audience. Sales would be nice, but after this many years we're past the point where we think we'll ever make a living off it; it's more about believing the songs are worth listening to, and inserting them into as many ears as possible.

Bridgehouse

digitalscream said:

@Strangefan - read the edited post above. There is a distinct difference between "promotion" and "PR" (and a massive difference between either of those and "record label"). At this point, you're probably better off Googling it, because I'm obviously failing at explaining it myself

Bridgehouse said:

Is your PR aim to generate audience, sales, gigs or a combination of the above?

Audience. Sales would be nice, but after this many years we're past the point where we think we'll ever make a living off it; it's more about believing the songs are worth listening to, and inserting them into as many ears as possible.

Yeah, I can see the value in PR for that. Not sure you’re getting value at the moment tho

ICBM

Legionreturns said:

It sounds like they need a spot on the B ark with all the telephone sanitisers and hairdressers. 

Not hairdressers, they contribute enormous value to humanity compared to parasites like this.

Strangefan

It's all good, we shall settle this man to man at metal to the masses, finals (assuming we both get through:D) 

digitalscream

Strangefan said:

It's all good, we shall settle this man to man at metal to the masses, finals (assuming we both get through:D) 

Dude, at this point I'm hoping I'll still have a band by then :P

Besides, last time we got to the final, the comment from the judge was, "Yeah, you'd have sounded heavy...in the 70s."

I don't think there's much hope

Strangefan

digitalscream said:

Strangefan said:

It's all good, we shall settle this man to man at metal to the masses, finals (assuming we both get through:D) 

Dude, at this point I'm hoping I'll still have a band by then :P

Besides, last time we got to the final, the comment from the judge was, "Yeah, you'd have sounded heavy...in the 70s."

I don't think there's much hope

Yup. This is the reason we had a hiatus, everything about music..... Apart from the actuslly music itsself sucks! 

Stuckfast

Let's face it, quite often the music itself sucks too.

fretmeister

Damn.

I was really looking forward to torrenting it.

digitalscream

Well, that's the first deadline missed, given that they read the message at 5:13pm yesterday, and they had 24hrs from that point to send us evidence that they'd actually done the work they claimed to.

I'm shocked.

Kittyfrisk

They'll probably pull the '24 hours, within normal working hours' stroke... gits 

digitalscream

Kittyfrisk said:

They'll probably pull the '24 hours, within normal working hours' stroke... gits 

Given that they ignored us for the entire week running up to our release, including the release day itself (they hadn't even noticed that we announced the launch was being pulled), and then finally responded after close of business on the Friday...that may not hold water

Bridgehouse

digitalscream said:

Kittyfrisk said:

They'll probably pull the '24 hours, within normal working hours' stroke... gits 

Given that they ignored us for the entire week running up to our release, including the release day itself (they hadn't even noticed that we announced the launch was being pulled), and then finally responded after close of business on the Friday...that may not hold water

You’re forgetting - working hours are different when you work out of your garden shed..

Snags

ZBridgehouse said:

digitalscream said:

Kittyfrisk said:

They'll probably pull the '24 hours, within normal working hours' stroke... gits 

Given that they ignored us for the entire week running up to our release, including the release day itself (they hadn't even noticed that we announced the launch was being pulled), and then finally responded after close of business on the Friday...that may not hold water

You’re forgetting - working hours are different when you work out of your garden shed..

As someone who used to work out of a garden shed, in my experience they were longer. I suspect this lot have a work period just long enough to secure new business and issue invoices before knocking off for the week.

Bridgehouse

Snags said:

ZBridgehouse said:

digitalscream said:

Kittyfrisk said:

They'll probably pull the '24 hours, within normal working hours' stroke... gits 

Given that they ignored us for the entire week running up to our release, including the release day itself (they hadn't even noticed that we announced the launch was being pulled), and then finally responded after close of business on the Friday...that may not hold water

You’re forgetting - working hours are different when you work out of your garden shed..

As someone who used to work out of a garden shed, in my experience they were longer. I suspect this lot have a work period just long enough to secure new business and issue invoices before knocking off for the week.

Sssssh stop giving my secrets away

rze99

I’m so sorry you are in the middle of dealing with such incompetent twats.

I remember only too well trying to navigate The idiocy of the industry morons.

Sorry you have to put up with this shit and the anxiety it brings.  Too many bad memories of arseholes and f wits 

 I’m so glad I’m not trying to make a living in the business anymore and am enjoying just music for its own sake. 

Best wishes. 

digitalscream

Still no response to the complaint, and we've raised a PP dispute to try to get some of the money back.

Also, the plot has thickened somewhat with contact from a couple of other people who've been conned by them, along with conversations with some well-regarded folk in the PR world who have provided a fair bit more detail. Which, sadly, I can't go into without revealing who they are (and I don't want to cause them any trouble, given that they're helping us out).

MattBanshee

digitalscream said:

Still no response to the complaint, and we've raised a PP dispute to try to get some of the money back.

Also, the plot has thickened somewhat with contact from a couple of other people who've been conned by them, along with conversations with some well-regarded folk in the PR world who have provided a fair bit more detail. Which, sadly, I can't go into without revealing who they are (and I don't want to cause them any trouble, given that they're helping us out).

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