The unsigned music scene is one of the cruelest industries that one can subject themselves to as a career.
The hours can only be described as phenomenal, the expectation to perform acts of incredible fine motor precision and finesse immediately following and ensuing often backbreaking manual labor are unbelievably high, and worst of all the pay is usually, well, nonexistent. So WHY do we do it? As someone I know very well once replied to that very question in an interview with a popular rock magazine distributed in the United Kingdom some years ago.
â??My feet are blistered, the calluses on my hands are bleeding, Iâ??m hungry as hell and I smell like I died already, sometimes I ask myself â??Why?â?. When I get up on stage and the lights go down, I look at my band and out to the crowdâ?¦ And I donâ??t ask myself stupid questions anymore.â?
So if you are as determined as I used to be, even if a little less pretentious, then no-one will ever be able to convince you of anything other than this is who you are and what you are meant to do with your life. So, here are 7 lucky tips you donâ??t hear everyday that are guaranteed to help you on your way to becoming a successful local musician, and possibly even land that crucial recording/distribution/management contract.
1. Remember Names
In this day and age, the vast majority of your band’s bookings will be through Facebook/ Myspace/ Reverbnation or directly through email to your bands booking address. This means that the chances of you communicating in person with the person who is employing the services of your band for the evening are extremely slim to none at all, especially if youâ??re booking for a tour that crosses several different cities. Upon arrival at the venue, before loading in your equipment, find the promoter, sound guy and venue manager/owner (if possible), thank them for hiring/accommodating you and remember their names! Most bands performing that night wonâ??t bother, but if you ensure to thank them once again after the show and use their names when doing so, the first thing they will do is try to remember yours, and the next time they are booking a show of your bands genre, you will be one of the first to come into their minds.
2. Talk to Everybody
It can be difficult to make friends in such a competitive industry, everybody seems to be out for themselves and your competitors would far sooner see you break-up than see you advance beyond their level professionally. It is unimaginably common for bands to sit in opposite corners of the room with their selective entourage/support groups and make no attempt to network with the other artists. The same can almost always be said for the fans who have attended the show for the purposes of seeing only one of the acts, this is a problem that is universal in local/unsigned music scenes around the globe and can be an extremely difficult nut to crack. Before and after you have performed, every member of your outfit should be out in the crowd, networking/selling merchandise/handing out fliers or even just being friendly and breaking down the tiresome stereotype of the arrogant band member. The days of arrogance being cool are long gone, and will find you no more successful than the bands that never were. Talk to everybody, every show, every time.
3. Your Merch Stand is your Temple
If you are often in attendance at unsigned gigs, you will be familiar with the sight of a table in the corner of the room, with a closed box on top of it, labeled with a piece of A4 scrap paper that has â??MERCHâ? scrawled on it in black marker pen. Many bands and artists will spend months using this incredibly un-tempting marketing campaign and wonder why they havenâ??t sold any of the CDâ??s/T-shirts/Posters or button badges that sustain a band through the most difficult stages of their career. Invest in the following:
A powerful, but portable, desk lamp for high visibility
A mannequin to model your t-shirts
A large piece of wooden board to display prices/samples
Finally, itâ??s no good having a beautiful merch table without somebody attending it! Ideally someone outgoing and attractive to really help your sales!
4. â??Janeâ? Gets You Gigs
One of the scariest and most daunting tasks of being in a band on its way to the big-time is cold-calling venues in an attempt to secure a slot on your tour; a place to launch your latest album/EP or even just somewhere to play that isnâ??t a garage! The usual process when you finally manage to get through is to be given an email address to send your EPK (electronic press kit) or your latest tracks/videos/reviews, alternatively you will wait for what is usually an excessive amount of time to be put on to the in-house promoter, who will then give you the email addressâ?¦ Itâ??s a soul-destroying and impossibly infuriating task. Well, hereâ??s a tip that will guarantee you a 70% increase in the likelihood of you being able to confirm a date at that venue there and then, over the phone!
Instead of calling for yourself on behalf of your band, have a professional (20-30 year old) sounding woman with knowledge of your band and ideally the booking/touring/management process call â??on behalfâ?? of your band. This could be your girlfriend, your sister or even your mum! It may sound crazy at first, but we guarantee that having a professional sounding woman at the end of the phone will get you 5X the amount of shows from cold-calling that youâ??ve ever had. Try it.
5. Lights, Camera, Intro!
What does your stage show consist of?
30 minutes or as much as 2 hours of some of the most incredible unsigned music ever conceived on the planet? Then youâ??re off to the right start! That certainly wonâ??t keep even the most avid live-music fan bouncing for your entire set, you need to turn your show into something that the audience would expect to find on a stage 50 times larger than the one you are appearing on. How can this be achieved on an extremely small budget? 3 simple waysâ?¦
Lights: Fairy lights, rope lights, mini-strobe lights and even Christmas lights! They cost just a single or double digit sum of your local currency and when wrapped around the drum kit, amp heads and especially the lead vocal microphone stand, all of sudden you find yourself with something none of the other bands performing doâ?¦ Your own stage! See if you can makeshift a switch to a small strobe-light that can be activated on stage, now when you hit the crescendo of your performance, or even the finale, youâ??ll be amazed at the reaction you will receive with your own affordable lightshow!
Camera: Record every performance/practice/meeting/hang-out that you have. How do you expect to improve and understand your performance if youâ??ve never even seen it!? After 50 shows, whether you thought they were terrible or not, you will come out with a distribution-worthy live video, which will do incredible things for your performance and credibility as a band.
Intro!: Possibly the single most effective and inexpensive ways to increase the suspense and production value of your performance at any venue you can possibly perform at is to cheaply record or even download an intro track to play for the first minute of your bands performance. Some common choices are:
Jurassic Park
Metal Gear Solid
Terminator
You get the idea, instead of wasting the first several minutes of your first song on trying to get the smokers and mingling-fans in from the outside or the bathroom, play an intro track through the P.A system (CD/Iphone/MP3 Player will work!) and increase the suspense of your performance massively!
6. The Musicians Union + PRS
http://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/
http://www.prsformusic.com/
If you are an unsigned musician in the UK and you donâ??t belong to both of these societies you might as well stop performing publicly. The Musicians Union and PRS are there to help ensure that you have a successful career, if you want to be taken seriously and be a professional, join both of these societies.
7. Have a Presence
Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Purevolume, LastFM, Bebo, Tumblr, Twitter, Grooveshark and any other website that is available! If you can make a profile for your band on a website than make sure you have a presence there and use it to itâ??s absolute full potential!
Always create band profiles in the third person, itâ??s not pretentious, itâ??s professional.
In Conclusion:
Being in a band or even worse, a solo artist, is the hardest job in the world. There are no short-cuts and no easy ways to the top, but, if you follow these steps than we GUARANTEE the rate of your progression to rapidly increase in a noticeable way!
This app offers an ideal way to simplify tax recording proceedures. No more lugging books and sheets of paper around to work out your tax. Now you can work on your tax records on the move or at your convenience . . .
Who actually enjoys working out complicated tax returns and paying recording? Well, I haven’t met anyone who enjoys it yet, apart from accountants who wouldn’t do it if they weren’t being paid to do it. Well, the good news is that this app makes tax calculations seem like a breeze. Don’t wait until the end of the year to trawl through all your paperwork, use CalculatorTax to keep track of tax percentages and it won’t be so much of a headache when your tax returns need filling in.
A whole host of functions are included in CalculatorTax. Such as copy & paste functions, adjustable rounding up and down modes, landscape oriented paper tape, up to 10 digits allowed and also a two line display mode. This app, by Digital Mind is only a mere $.99 to buy and will save you a few headaches for sure. Great for tax recording and many other uses.
‘Tip & Share’ is the ideal way to organise your tip transactions within  a restaurant environment. After all, it’s hard to keep tabs on tips and how to fairly share them amongst your employees. Well, this app is the answer to your prayers . . .
This retina display optimised app makes it easy for your employees to log their tips in ‘Tip & Share’, so that tips can be easily shared out amongst employees at the end of the day, week or month. You can either enter the tip amount in, or as an option you can work in percentages. There are plenty of features within this straight forward app, including the ability to round amounts off and the ability to email a tip summary report to yourself or your employees. But what about tax? Well, there is a tax deduction feature in this app also. There is even a flashlight included if the staff are serving in a dark environment, so that you can get a clear view of the tip in hand.
Let’s face it . . . tips motivate staff, and tip sharing creates morale between the staff and everyone feels as if they are working as a proper team. This is perhaps more important than the actual tip itself. If you don’t keep track of tips and share them, there is a danger that your staff will just give extra attention to known tippers only. Do you have many staff members? No problem, as this app can track tips for up to 100 staff members. Let’s get real here . . .how many restaurants have you been in with over 100 staff in the branch? So this app can basically handle any sized restaurant. This app is priced at under $1, what a low price to build priceless teamwork and morale within your restaurant or service business. Get ‘Tip & Share’ for convenience and ease of use.
Clock Solitaire+ by Jeremy Moeder is ideal to pass the time away. But it’s no ordinary game of solitaire . . .
This game is a spin off of the standard game of solitaire in that it has a novel twist – the game is in the shape of a clock. This makes it ideal for all ages to pass the time away, or perhaps you’d like your children to become more familiar with the analogue clock layout. Nowadays everything has gone digital and it is surprising how many young children look at an analogue clock layout as if it’s some alien time code. This app if perfect for fixing this issue. Sometimes it is refreshing to download a simple, straight forward app, without all the added functionality that can make a simple concept into a button strewn graphical menu layout nightmare. Let’s face it, most of us just don’t have the time to get into games that require training and layout familiarisation.
Clock Solitaire+ is an app that keeps things neat and simple. If these promo codes get snapped up, never mind as the app is only priced at under $1 and an App Store link is at the bottom of this post. Not just an ordinary version of the game of solitaire.
Float, by Elevate Entertainment is a simple, addictive and ingenious game with many game modes from which to choose from. Bop your balloon that is ballooning to float left or float right, up or down depending on where you want to float your balloon through ingenious varying game modes.
The game is cute and has smooth graphics and physics effects. To move each balloon, you just tap on one of the sides of the balloon and it will bounce in the opposite directional angle to where you tapped. There are many different shaped balloons ballooning in many different colours. There are even heavier than normal star shaped balloons.
There is a bar on most levels that gets lower as the levels progress. You get more points if you hit the balloon up from below this bar.
There is ‘Normal’ mode where the bar gets lower and more balloons appear. You can get extra points throughout the game by hitting ‘colour combos’. Beware of repeatedly hitting the same balloon. The idea is to tap on different balloons with variation, which cuts out any urge to cheat.
‘Timed Mode’ is as it suggests, whereas the ‘Zen’ mode is just for relaxation and would be ideal for very young children who haven’t got hand-eye coordination quite yet.
‘Limbo Mode’ simulates a limbo bar which gets lower with every balloon tap, and there is the ‘One & Done’ mode which blows up and adds balloons one at a time, until you can no longer keep up.
‘Hot Potato’ mode is where you have to avoid tapping certain balloons. Although it has to be said that I couldn’t figure out how you identify which balloons where the ‘hot potatoes’ to avoid. Perhaps I’m missing something there.
‘Danger’ mode is a fun level to play as the balloons rise instead of fall. You have to avoid the dangerous spikes that scroll down from above.
In the ‘Up & Away’ mode the balloons also go ballooning and rise from below and the idea is to stop them escaping.
Last but not least is my favourite mode, the ‘Vacuum’ mode. This was really fun to play, as an industrial vacuum appears at the top of the screen and sucks up the balloons. The vacuum changes colour, indicating which coloured balloons it is accepting. If you accidentally let a different coloured balloon escape into the vacuum, it damages the vacuum. The vacuum gets lower and lower as time goes on.
This game is a good example of a solid idea for an app, as the game doesn’t sport any complicated graphics as such, it’s just a neat, effective, well programmed app that will appeal to all age groups.
Float has had over 1.6 million downloads and has 50 achievements to unlock. The developer claims that this is an app to make you feel happy and come away with that ‘feel good’ feeling, which I think it certainly does. Get ballooning with ‘Float’.
Chicken’s Quest, by Gu Gu games is a game of tactics where you only have a certain amount of time to plan your strategy. An evil plot to capture the chickens’ eggs leads you on a rescue mission to guide your chicks back to their parents. Save the chickens.
There is a good storyline animation at the start of the game and really thorough in-game instructions. There are varied soundtracks and backgrounds and you have the option of collecting stars for points. There is a leader board and many achievements to unlock.
I love the bubble themed main screen with each button bouncing around.
The object of the game is to guide the chickens to safety by first scrolling ahead and viewing the terrain that the chicks have to cross. Then you only have a small time frame in which to remove objects in the way and cover up water hazards.
There are different types of obstacles, such as metal crates, destructible crates, logs and other objects.
There are also other objects such as bombs to blow up objects that are in the way of the chicks. The stop signs slow up the chicks and there are other objects that are introduced later on in the game that you can use to assist the chickens.
Robot 99, by Fu-Design is a game that requires speed and dexterity. Is it an i Robot? Is it a robotic missile? . . . No it’s Robot 99! The whaky story behind the game is that there are robots in the clouds that sometimes fall to earth. Your job is to rescue the robots by spring boarding them back into the clouds.
On the screen there is a ‘Powerzonia’ area where you have to tap on the robots to propel them downwards, so that they then bounce back up to their home in the clouds.
This game has something about it that makes it feel both original and oddly enough gave me that ‘Jamie and the Magic Torch’ feeling, for all you readers who might remember this cartoon from way back (Oops, I’m showing my age there).
You have the option to press and hold a robot robotic missile type character in the ‘Powerzonia’ area for extra points. There are multiple levels which you can only unlock after achieving the required points on the previous level.
The only suggestion that I would suggest to the developer would be to include a ‘How To Play’ information button on the main screen. This is because although there are in-game tips, I was so focused on tapping on the robots, I didn’t get a chance to fully understand the effectsgoing on at the bottom of the screen. This would be quite easy to program and incorporate into the game. If there is an outside chance a player will get confused over something, they will, so it’s best to cover all your bases I think. It’s the i robot game of the iPhone.
However, after playing the game a few times over, I saw in my peripheral vision that you need to press, hold and drag the robots so that they hit the launch pad at the bottom off the screen to be effective.
There are also medical packs to restore a life. You start off with 3 lives on each level.
All in all a simple, fun game which is challenging enough for players young and old. Send your i robot like characters off in robotic missile like fashion.
I am a dog lover and have two types of different dog breed; a Labrador and a Thai Ridgeback. I try to understand their needs and behaviour and have posted this blog for all of the other dog lovers out there to do the same. I hope you like it and find it useful.
1) The dog can be traced back 40 million years.
2) Jackals and wolves are part of the dog family.
3) There are certain foods which can be harmful and at times fatal if eaten by a dog; chocolate, macadamia nuts and cooked onions contain caffein and if consumed by a dog it is very poisonous. Also pear and apple seeds contain arsenic which can kill a dog.
4) Dogs have sweat gland between their pads of their feet. They also pant to keep themselves cool. The longer the nose, the better the cooling system. Dogs also pant when they are excited or nervous.
5) Dogs have three eyelids; the third one keeps their eyes lubricated and protects them from foreign bodies.
6) Puppies are sometimes rejected by their mother if they are delivered by cesarean if they are cleaned up before given back.
7) A puppy is born blind, deaf and toothless. Touch is the first sense that a puppy develops.
8) A female dog carries its puppies for about 60 days before giving birth.
9) Dalmatian puppies are born completely white and develop their spots over time.
10) If a dog has a large pointed head it will live longer in comparison to a dog with a flat face which have a shorter life span.
11) Dogs with large square heads and large ears are better at hearing subsonic sounds.
12) A dog’s nose is very unique, like a human finger print. Dogs can smell cancer on a human’s breath, dead bodies under water and natural gas 40 feet below the Earth. On average a dog’s nose is 1000 times stronger and more effective than a human’s.
13) A dog has a wet nose in order to collect chemical droplets in the air.
14) Dogs have the ability to see in colour but see better in dim light.
15) A dog can run on average at about 19 mph; Greyhounds can run up to 45 mph. Speed depends on the type of dog breed.
16) By smelling other dogs’ urine, they can tell whether the dog is old, young, sick, healthy, happy or angry. Some dogs aim high when urinating to show it is tall to intimidate other dogs. You sometimes see small female dogs cock their legs up in order to achieve this.
Some dogs urinate on top of another dog’s urine to leave their scent and show dominance.
17) The Beagle and Collie are known to be the noisiest dogs.
The most intelligent dog breed are the Border Collie and the Poodle.
18) On average, a dog can understand 150-200 words, including hand signals and facial expressions!
19) Dogs are naturally pack animals and they need closeness, touching and petting to be happy and content. Studies have shown that the more love and attention a dog receives, the more healthier it will be.
Two dogs alone can form a pack.
20) If a dog is frightened it will put its tail between it’s legs in order to cover the scent gland around the anal region.
Dogs try to sniff what looks like another dog’s bottom, but in fact close to  the tail near the anus there is a scent gland. It gives off all sorts of information, such as age, health, happiness and sadness.
21) A dogs temperature should be around 101.2 degrees F.
Here are a couple of common “Why” questions:
1) Why does my dog eat grass?
Dogs like to explore and sniff around. Grass to a dog is sweet, has an interesting feel and generally tastes nice.
Some dogs crave nutrients such as fibre, minerals and vitamins. Grass can replace the nutrients a dog feels is missing.
Healthy dogs can eat grass without vomiting and it simply passes through the dog in a stool. However, if a dog eats grass in order to vomit it can be due to a couple of reasons; firstly, if a dog has eaten something which has upset its stomach, it will eat grass to vomit and generally feel better afterwards. On the other hand, if a dog continually eats grass in order to vomit it could be for a more serious problem like an internal blockage or a parasitic infection. If this is the case then your dog needs a vet.
2) Why does my dog eat birds poop, cats poop and cow poop?
This is mainly due to dogs having a craving for protein, minerals and fibre. Most animals’ poop contain these ingredients and they taste nice to a dog. However, it is not healthy in the long term to allow your dog to eat faeces of another animal because of the bacteria. It can cause diseases.
A dog has 1700 taste buds.
Finally, here is an excellent tip for those little naughties that won’t stop digging.
Fill the hole with the dog’s own poop and cover it over . Dogs hate the smell of their own poop and avoid it at all costs. Do this each time a new hole is made and eventually the dog will give up digging. Believe me . . . this really works from personal experience.
Depending on the type of dog breed, the dog will be either prone to digging as in my Thai ridgeback dog, or not, as in my labrador who is as good as gold.
Put on your cowboy boots and become an outlaw with ‘GunsNGlory’. Early settlers of the West get an onslaught of outlaws to contend with as you try and hinder their progress with bullets, dynamite, gatling guns and arrows.
Guns ‘n’ Glory is a Western themed free game with multiple levels. Since I first downloaded this game a year ago, I’ve been surprised by the amount of updates the developer has made to the game. There are many more features and levels now.
The object of the game is to wipe out the settlers and stop them passing through the labyrinths of valleys. On most levels, only a certain amount of settlers are allowed through. However, on some of the more advanced levels, no settlers are allowed through whatsoever. You must manoeuvre your outlaws to outwit the setter’s progress.
Each settler that you slay earns you money, which you can use to hire characters to add to your gang of outlaws. Settlers on horseback earn you more cash and wagons earn you even more. There are even wagons containing gold which earn you a pretty penny, but are more resistant to being destroyed.
To hire someone into your gang, you simply tap on them to purchase them. There are many hired hands you can take on, including gunslingers, Indian fire arrow characters, crazed Mexican dynamite throwers, coughing and wheezing old timers with blunderbuss guns and even sniper cowgirls.
You can also upgrade each member of your gang. I found that upgrading the gunslingers and positioning them at key points on the map was really effective.
As well as being able to hire gang members to increase the size of your outlaw group, there is the ability to hire cannons and also Gatling guns which you can also upgrade.
You can scroll around the map by swipe-dragging on the screen. Power up crates appear in various places on the map. The types of power up crates include sheriff points, to minimise the damaging effect of settlers getting through, speed crates, which speed up the unit’s rate of fire, increased damage crates, which do as they suggests, as well as crates of money.
On some later levels, their is a kind of outlaw hating governor figure who is hard to kill and only appears as you are about to complete a level.
When you download the game it comes with adverts, which you can pay (just 1 dollar) to be removed and the last few levels are optional in-app purchases. However, the adverts didn’t personally bother me and the in-app purchases are at a fair price. There are so many free levels in this game that it is worth playing even if you choose not to purchase add-on levels.
The game has great graphics and fun sound effects. I liked the fact that you are playing the bad guys in this game.
I can’t really fault this game, but maybe one upgrade would be to make it clearer on the levels map exactly which level you last played, as after I ended a game and came back to it a few days later, I was sometimes confused at which level was due next.
That being said, I cannot think of any flaws in this game, as it is stable with good, fun, addictive gameplay.
Best of all, it’s free, so you can’t go wrong with this outlaw type game. So give it a shot, if you’ll excuse the pun. Gather up your band of outlaws now…
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