How much do you really know about touring and gigging?
Miccontrol.com offers the following advice:
1) Chose the right venue
2) Keep it varied
3) Promotion
4) Invite the press
5) Create buzz
6) Create a mailing list
7) What you do on stage is as important as what you do off stage
Over the better part of a decade, Anti-/Epitaph recording artists Solillaquists of Sound have built a movement in their hometown of Orlando that’s transcended music alone. By contributing their skills, interests, and unique personalities to the city in which they live, Solilla’s four members have built a strong and long-lasting community of friends, family, and fans.
Just as they’ve always approached other facets of their career, with unorthodox methods, the Solillaquists of Sound are now introducing an outside-the-box approach to promote their latest album, “No More Heroes”. With the Hometown Heroes Tour, Solilla will establish themselves in some of the country’s most culturally vibrant cities through a month-long residency in each town. SoS will live in each community and integrate what they do into that place’s already existing art, music, and cultural scene. In essence, reinventing the way a group can tour.
“In the time that we spend in Austin, we hope to develop a relationship with the community that the normal, ‘one-day-in-and-out’ national tour schedule doesn’t allow,” says DiViNCi, producer/MPCist for Solillaquists of Sound. “Not just a ‘Hi, do the show, Bye’ routine, but a deeper connection with the fans and the scene that they have created/belong to.”
Starting February 27, 2010 SOS will be living and working in Austin for a period of four weeks, culminating with a showcase at this year’s South By Southwest Festival. In the weeks leading up to the event, Solillaquists will appear and perform at local events, promote the showcase through radio appearances and in-stores, teach classes, organize lectures, connect with art groups in the community and engage in recreational activities with fans.
And it doesn’t stop there – the Solillaquists plan to take this method of touring to other US cities later this year. The group will also be implementing this movement overseas, as they are relocating to France for a month immediately following their Austin adventure.
“The connection that we create with these cities and the relationships that we develop all tie into breaking down the wall between us and our fans,” says DiViNCi. “That element is going to play a massive role in the theme and direction of our next album.”
To read more, go here
Check out their music here!
Touring on the Cheap
- by Albert Le & Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writers
Touring can appear to be the pinnacle of achievement for an artist. Others know it’s not so glamorous.
Lavish tour buses, parties, and exotic traveling is usually a cramped back seat, exhausting nights after a long set with sound problems, or getting left at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. And if you’re a one-man-band, like No One Conquered, Wyoming’s Israel Cilio, you may just find yourself alone with a broken radio and nail polish remover in your gas tank to improve the mileage of your forest green Subaru Impreza as you drive to your next unpaid gig. But there are ways to make touring less painful.
For Israel, it started with a wedding in California, four states away from his temporary Nebraska home. “I decided to stay with friends as I drove, then I decided I would play music at their houses along the way. I also got on couchsurfing.com and set up house shows that way.” Not everyone has three months and the guts to throw their guitar, harmonica set, and a few slide projectors in their trunk and leave. And that’s okay.
More likely, you’re part of a band that’s gotten a lot of plays on your Myspace page, maybe your EP got a positive review from a reputable blog, and someone in the band was organized enough to secure venues for a nine-show, out-of-state tour. The only problem is your budget is minuscule.
The next thing to consider is do you need a crew? Probably not. Jake McLaughlin, touring manager and sound guy for Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos says, “My philosophy on everything in the music business is that you should not pay anyone to do anything until you can’t do it yourself.” While Jake isn’t in charge of booking the shows, he is in charge of just about everything that follows – from getting the band paid to waking them up. “I get in contact with the promoter and let them know what they’re in for, how many people are in the band,” there are eight people in the band, “I talk about money, ask if there’s a hotel nearby, find out what time we need to be done.” He also takes on a large part of the driving responsibilities, which is great for the band members who don’t feel comfortable maneuvering an old converted school bus.
To get the most out of your tour here are a a few of Jake’s tips: First, if you need a tour manager, “find someone who’s trying to get their foot in the door and will even go for free the first time, that’s what I did when I was 18 … Always ask venues if they have a discount with local hotels, because 8 out of 10 times they do. They usually have hospitality when you play; beer, drinks, sometimes food, Or they’ll have a buy-out. Instead of food they give $10-20 per band member to go buy food around town. A lot of bands don’t know it’s available or don’t fight for it and miss out.” As a side note, from a guy who knows, he adds, “Don’t have a huge band. That gets really expensive.”
The third problem is fairly obvious: transportation. Not to dash all your dreams of touring with a bus, but don’t tour with a bus. Not unless you have eight people and nowhere else to put them. As gas prices soar, the most economical way to tour with more than five is the standard van-and-trailer. If you have less than five people, including crew, then traveling in a car with good mileage can save tons of money.
Not only does a van save money, it prevents the bus from doubling as a hideaway. One could potentially stay hermit-like in a bus for days, leaving only for gigs. In a van, you’re forced to go outside and interact with new people and to see new things. Unorthodox as his Tour-of-Homes may have been, Israel did more than stay with friends along the way, he made them. For him, meeting people and seeing places was payment for playing, and the only way he had a place to sleep.
Because gas is so expensive, try to plan your trip in way that flows geographically. If you’re going from Texas to California it doesn’t make much sense to start in Santa Fe, move on to Austin, Sacramento, and Phoenix all to play your last show in Vegas. If you can organize a logical order to your trip and manage to place all the high paying gigs at the beginning of your tour you’ll have extra cash for the rest of the trip.
Stolen gear is a sad but common song among touring musicians, so consider purchasing an anti-theft device for your vehicle, like a steering wheel or break lock. Parking the back of your van against a wall or in a well-lit corner of a parking lot at night can also reduce the risk of a break-in.
As for sleeping accommodations, there are a lot of great ways to find cheap places to stay. Like Israel, you could network with friends and family, ask the venue about hotel discounts (which can be substantial), and look on couchsurfing.com. You can even step it up a notch and try www.betterthanthevan.com, couchsurfing’s musical counterpart. There are search customizations within the site to match your needs (keg party vs. tea party, etc.), as well as the ability to rate certain hosts and bands. And … depressing as it may be, for the days that you can’t conjure up a free room, sleeping in the van is always an option.
A “rider” is a list of things you want the venue to provide for you; commonly catering, equipment, and techs. Try to keep these lists as small as possible. In the end you’ll be paying for them anyway, so try not to ask for too much. The more you ask of a venue, the more they’ll charge for the show (or they’ll find more creative ways to make sure you get screwed before they do). Don’t forget to ask about hospitality, which can greatly reduce your expenses. The tech rider should be short and precise to make it easier on the venue (and leave less room for error). The tech rider includes general stage requirements, lights and sound gear, and sometimes use of their crew.
If you’re not totally broke when you pull out of your driveway, and you aren’t banking on the kindness of your hosts, you may want to work out a financial system for the trip. Mainly, how to eat. A per diem is cash a band member receives each day for food and other expenses. These can be handled through management firms or just an honest and mathematically competent band member. Starting out, per diems will usually be offensively small to keep costs to a minimum.
While almost no one would ever recommend going on the road broke, Israel’s proven that there are ways to do it. And if really good planning alone doesn’t cut it, there’s always faith in your fellow-man. “I was running out of money in Denver. I made it to Boulder and only seven people came. They passed around a pipe during my set and afterward everyone was very happy, I talked to a guy for 20 minutes and he said, ‘I’m going to give you all the money in my wallet.’ I thought he probably gave me five bucks or something, I looked at the bills later and he ended up giving me $100.”
For those of you with less luck and more organization, creating an Excel spread sheet or using some sort of accounting program can help you watch your spending.
Having a good merchandise booth can be the difference between eating at a restaurant for dinner versus not eating for a day. Israel agrees, wishing that he’d “prepared more and better recordings to sell.” In place of a merch booth, Israel traveled with his laptop, prepared to burn a CD for anyone who happened to have a blank on-hand.
Shirts, hoodies, CDs, posters, and stickers are common placeholders in merch booths, but getting creative can be lucrative. Though not his own idea, Israel says his favorite merch item was a pair of underwear with the band’s name written on the crotch. You can also run a sale or sell a combo-pack of items, which can be more profitable than selling everything by itself. Selling original merch like, stencils of your band’s name or logo could also be a big hit (and make it easy for fans to spread the word – literally). Decorating the merch wall where your apparel hangs makes it seem like you actually want to sell your stuff, too, so don’t skimp out.
Like dessert – saving the best for last, the cherry on top, the alpha and omega – your music. If you cannot make it through a full set at home, you probably shouldn’t try to do it on the road. If you want to see how far you can go on no money and a lot of faith in your music and humanity, why not? If you’ve been dreaming of touring for years and feel that your current musical project is nothing short of genius, then get on the road.
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