Sunday Night Rambling

I should be working on our CD tonight but cannot get into it! I tend not to do things unless I am in the mood. Anyway, I need to compress a bit from the weekend.

First of all, let me say that I admire those of you who have been talented enough to make a good living in the music industry. For the rest of us, I believe that most of us do it because it is almost a passion. I wish that I would have had the band in the 60's that we now have. I may have made some different choices but at the time I decided to do something that I knew I could raise a family and spend time with them. I am approaching 71 and am having the time of my life. If I were to rate this on the amount of money we are making it would not be much to talk about. Bands in general are struggling. Most musicians I know do it because they truly enjoy it. We have been together for 2 years and it was difficult to get a venue in the Twin Cities. You have to start somewhere and we did. I have been asked "why are you guys playing in a place like this" several times. Things have changed a bit. Last weekend we had a record crowd at the place we played and we are hired once a month for the next year for more money. This is what is happening at most of our venues. They like you if you draw a crowd. You can be the greatest band in the world and no crowd, no more bookings. Pretty simple isn't it! What are the experiences that you folks are having or have had? Also, why are you doing it.

All of this creates other problems. We always have people ask us for our schedule. In todays market I believe that you must have a web site to post your schedule. We do not. We didn't plan on having to have one. I do a mailing to a list people when we have a gig but it looks like we are going to have to build a web site. How are you handling this and are to some good tools out there to do this with. We are not going to hire anything done at this point and I am not looking to be a web master so some advice on what are you doing?

We are a cover band and for unknown musicians like us we have no other choices. Steve has written a song for our CD which is pretty good. People seem to really like the cover songs and really get into it. We have our versions of the covers which work well. What are you folks doing and how does it work? We try to use a set list and do so for sure during the first set. It goes like clockwork. Later it gets a bit disjointed as we start picking songs the crowd it liking. Steve has to change guitars on some of the songs so it takes a few seconds. The crowd seems to love it but I really like to click them off quickly. What do you do. Anyway, just thinking out loud and am taking the evening off. Maybe I will have a cold one and thanks in advance for you ideas!-- Darwin

Hi Darwin,

I don't have much to contribute to this post, but I just wanted to say again that you make me look forward to retirement. I'm not in a rush, but when that day comes I want to follow your example and really enjoy it!

My last band was more of a loose collective, and as it was all original and largely improvised the set lists were unusual. Since percussionists outnumbered the "note players", the lists were pretty much just a series of rhythms. The horn players and I would just jot down some quick noted about modes, and that was it.

Lately I've been thinking about finding a cover band. My last trip down that route fell apart when we disagreed over the kinds of venues we wanted to play. The majority of the members wanted to become a function band, and dress up in tuxedos to play wedding receptions and corporate events. The lead guitarist and I weren't into note-for-note covers, or playing Celebrate and the Hokey Pokey, so we split off to do our own thing. We never got a gig, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Being surrounded by 80s-era G&Ls has me thinking about playing the music they were meant for.

Ken

One of the easiest things to do for a website is to use a blog. They have templates and are designed to be updated easily. You are probably only wishing to have your schedule, some photos, bios, and maybe some sound clips or merchandise to sell? If you go this route you can and should purchase your own domain name and have it used to access the blog. Blogger, a popular blogging source for example, can be accessed either through the name you set up with "blogger" in the URL like www . blogger .com / the Darwins or it can appear to be a formal website URL like www . theDarwins . com. Another benefit of using Blogger rather than other blog sources is that it is part of Google and your blog/website will show up in a Google search better.

The best domain name to aim for would be "the Darwins" or "the Darwins band" adding "band" if the actual name is "the Darwins" and it is already taken. [I don't know the name of your band] ...somethng that doesn't take anythng special to remember or figure out asking, "What was that band we saw the other night? Let's see if they are playing somewhere this week." Or, "I liked the way they did that song let's see if they have a CD."

Salmon and Ken. thanks for your input. Salmon, I just checked and the domain name for our band and it is available. I already have a domain for my own website but may get this one and use you suggestion. Thanks.-- Darwin

Darwin, one other option to an actual band website is just a Facebook page.
There may be many reasons not to like Facebook, but this is one application that to me makes sense.

It's free, it's easy, and you can post photos and videos of the band as well as update your schedule.

Just a thought................

A lot of people do not belong to Facebook and a membership is required to fully access pages there.

A lot of people do not belong to Facebook and a membership is required to fully access pages there.

MySpace seems to have become a site for bands now. I don't think any sort of membership is needed to view pages there.

If you think your band will be around, I would secure a domain name now just for the future because it's cheap. I was a little late to the party and couldn't get the .com for my name.

But honestly, a Facebook page is probably all you really need for now instead of a website. Almost everybody uses it.

Will

Facebook is a possibility although I am not a fan of facebook. Will, I think your domain suggestion is what I will do. The name of the band is available so I will just probably pick up the domain and build something this winter. Thanks all for your suggestions, they are helpful. -- Darwin

I don't belong to Facebook. There have been Facebook pages that I could not get beyond a preliminary intro page. However, the G&L Facebook page seems to be fully accessible to me. So maybe there are levels of privacy that can be selected. Setting up a blog allows you to have something at your domain. A blog is as easy to set up and use as answering a few step by step questions then logging on to type a letter and hitting save to update it. If Facebook is equal or easier to use can a Facebook page be the home for a domain name so that www . theDarwins .com lands you on your Facebook page? A blog can do that and if you use Blogger it will show up easily in a Google search.

I am done making the case for a blog based domain name home.

Salmon, I think you have a good idea. For now I am going to get the domain name so that is covered. Then it is a question of what to do. A person I recently met has offered to help me with some of this and he has a large web site of his own. He thinks that what we need is very simple so I plan to get together with him soon. Thanks for you input Salmon, it is appreciated.-- Darwin

Facebook is by far the easiest and most visited site to check out band pages. Uploading videos, photos, gig guides, updates and all that stuff is dead easy. The only problem is that unless you want to spend money on promoting something then you only reach people who 'like' your page, and getting those 'likes' is tough - my new bands page only has 100 odd, and at least 10 of them are my friends on the other side of the country who are extremely unlikely to show up at a gig. Also, I'm not sure if a Facebook page would show up in a google search result for someone looking for 'country band Melbourne' or something like that. And yeah, you can set privacy to minimum for a band page.

If you're going for a website then make it very, very easy for potential clients to find a demo, preferably a video demo, from the home page. And have some good photos so they know they aren't hiring a bunch of toothless bikers or the the KKK or something scary like that. A list of the songs you're doing helps too - with my old band a lot of people booked us because they were able to see what we played, and if they've already got a request lined up before you've got to the venue you know they'll be happy.

Playing covers is what people want to hear. If you have originals play them too, just keep whoever is there happy

Jamie, I talked about facebook with one of our bandmates today. I am going the web site route as I want to post our schedule, some pictures, possibly some video/audio clips and our song list. I need to figure all this out anyway because I am going to maintain my own KRS website. Thanks for the input. This will be a winter project. -- Darwin

I would echo other peoples sentiments: Fb, Twitter and the like are not going away. I think these sites are the new standard vehicle for disseminating information. Why make people go to your specific site and navigate whatever UX you design to get basic information when they could get updates in their twitter feed or facebook news feed?

This is just my opinion, which is almost worth what you pay for it, but I would be careful about having anyone help set up a site. You may get locked into needing that resource to make changes, maintain it and debug it when things go wrong. Make sure you completely understand all the tech they are deploying and you are either competent working with it or you're comfortable paying them to come things. You're also gonna be on the hook for hosting fees and such.

If you are unwilling to use a social media service (Facebook, twitter) then the next easiest solution is probably Google sites.

In terms of having dropping in your own CMS and having access to all the CSS its not the best. They also rely on some techniques that are out-of-vogue to web developers. In spite of that, you can actually create some very professional looking sites. There are even app plugins to extend your site if you want (e.g. e-commerce). Much easier to use than a wordpress site and infinitely easier to maintain.

I agrree ... Fb seems to be the norm out here even though I don't have have FB .....

FF and Bf, you may be right but I am still researching. I would like a site where they can key in the band name and get what they want. I personally dislike Facebook but if it is the right tool, i will get over it. My understanding is that people would have to "like" us to get notified. Maybe I need to know more about Facebook. I have a sign-on and get annoying messages every day about friending someone or do I know these people. This probably shows my ignorance but I am still open to ideas. If you have information for me I would love to have a PM from you. I would like to take it off the forum after these initial ideas. Thanks again everyone. -- Darwin