[I am Mick]

As members of small, unsigned, independent bands, we all could probably agree that the biggest challenge in reaching our goals is simply just being heard. With Myspace dead and filled with only bands and companies trying to promote themselves, it's safe to say that's hardly an effective form of picking up new fans. I decided to create this thread for musicians to come together and share useful places on the web that any band should consider being part of, ultimatlely just trying to get our music out there.

[I think it goes without saying that your band should be on myspace (actually probably not), purevolume, twitter, and facebook.]


BANDCAMP
http://www.bandcamp.com
WHY: This is by far the easiest way to distribute your bands music through free downloads, pay what you want downloads and set price digital downloads. You reserve the rights to your music, the album artwork remains attached and you can even embed your lyrics (so users with iPhones and iPod Touches' can scroll the lyrics as they listen to your music.) You can check real time stats of all the downloads your band recieves, and I wouldn't be suprised if this site grows into something incredible.

REVERBNATION
http://www.reverbnation.com
WHY: Honestly, ReverbNation does so much, I couldn't even begin to explain it. Here's a snippet from the website.

Quote:

We provide innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Unlike typical "closed" communities, artists use ReverbNation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion across the Internet as a whole — be it via social networks, blogs, or the artist's homepage. Tools like TunePaks, FanReach, and Widgets give the artist the power to spread their music and information virtually anywhere. Real-time stats then provide a 360-degree view of how the music is spreading, who is listening, and which fans are actually passing it on to their friends and posting it on their pages. For more information on what ReverbNation can do for artists, click here.

ABSOLUTEPUNK'S FREE MUSIC FRIDAY
WHY: Linda does an awesome job putting out a collection of free music from a plethora of great, signed and unsigned artists. My band noticed a huge boost of our plays and downloads on the Friday it was posted. If you have music you're giving away, definitely submit it here:

Quote:

Please send any new submissions to reviews@absolutepunk.net with "Free Music Friday" in the subject line.
Submissions should include your band's name, title of submission (and whether it is a full length, EP or single song), myspace or website link, and similar bands for the "recommended if you like" section. Please upload it to a downloading website such as mediafire or megaupload and send that link.

LEGAL FREE MUSIC.TUMBLR.COM
http://legalfreemusic.tumblr.com/
WHY: If you're giving away your bands full-length, EP or just a single song, this is an amazing blog to submit it to. My band recieved almost 100 downloads of our EP in the first two days after submitting it to the blog. Submission is easy and the blog runners (googirl8907 and Wait_For_It) post material regurlarly.

AMIE STREET
http://amiestreet.com/
WHY:

Quote:

On Amie Street, the community determines the price of music. Every song starts cheap (or even free!) and increases in price up to 98 cents as more and more people purchase it.
This ensures that you get music at a sensible price. If you find cheap songs or albums, that means they're new to the site and/or undiscovered; conversely, when you pay top price for an album, you know that a lot of people think it's really good.

NOISE TRADE
http://www.noisetrade.com
WHY:

Quote:

Artists sign up, then upload their music to create their custom NoiseTrade widget. They can then embed their widget anywhere they're visible online. Fans who see their widget can sample the music and download it for free, tell friends via Facebook, Twitter, or email and even tip the artist. When they're done, fans can even grab the widget and automatically add it to their own website, blog, or favorite social networking site.

LALA
http://www.lala.com
WHY: Let's listeners play your music from any computer through their browser.

GIMME SOUND
You upload your music for free download, but you still get paid depending on ad revenue and how many downloads you receive.
http://www.gimmesound.com/

LIVE UNSIGNED
http://www.liveunsigned.com now has a 'featured show' facility, where for a very modest fee (£2) you can get your band's show at the top of the listings.

Now feel free to add onto this :)
PLEASE DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE AND JUST PROMOTE YOUR BAND HERE.

[CromRockRadio]

I run a online radio show that plays punk, ska, Oi!, hardcore, and psychobilly
if you have a band that plays that kinda stuff send me a couple of tunes and I'd love to throw em into rotation.
www.live365.com/cromrockradio
or you can bug me at
www.myspace.com/yesiambetterthanyou
everysong played can be clicked and purchased on itunes or amazon.com
I'll also mention you on the myspace page for other folks to see
and add your music to upcoming podcasts.

[mherbert]

So my buddy Josh just told me about this movie production company that makes independent films and they're looking for unsigned bands and musicians to put on their movie soundtracks. Their website is www.imadeamovie.com and apparently you just join the community and upload your music to the Soundtrack Music Submissions group and if the Studio Director likes your music, it'll be featured on the soundtrack for one of the movies that they're producing. It's not without pay either. I guess you get co-publishing rights along with publicity for your music. It seems like a pretty good idea to me. What do you think?

[Webnretail]

Hi! Looking for a way to get heard??

My name is Claudia, I work for a company called Web 'n Retail and we specialize in web marketing. I know Independent bands like yours don't have a lot of money to spend, but I also know that D.I.Y is the future of the business and we want to give you a hand.

We are very excited to offer our brand new Indie artist 6-month subscription marketing campaign at just $100 a month. If you have four band members, that’s merely $25 per band member per month. We charge record labels $2012 for the same services, but you’ll get it for $600. Take a look at some of the artists that we’ve previously provided our services for.

Partial Client List: bit.ly/ProjectList

Click here to see everything we will do for you for just $100 a month. www.bit.ly/6moCampaign

If you are serious about getting your new album or single out there, our subscription package does just that; it gets the word out in a big way and drives traffic to your website of choice. Additionally, our services more often than not put your album or track(s) at the top of many Google searches as well!

Over the course of 6 months, we will post your info and music 10 times every month on news aggregator and bookmark sharing sites. We’ll e-blast your info and music to 2000 radio stations or 2000 press sites. We’ll post on 10 major PR distribution sites, and we’ll get you exposure in clubs and with DJs and podcasters; if you have a video, we’ll also get you exposure in restaurants, hotels, clothing stores, theme parks, and on cruise ships.
To round off our 6 month campaign, we will include your music in our virally marketed monthly top 10 CD or download list, and finish up by submitting your URL of choice to 75,000 global search engines. Before we start the process, we will also help you sign up with royalty organizations so that you will be paid for any of your music played on the Internet or in clubs.

If any of this sparked your interest, e-mail me back here or give me a call at 818.453.8777

Check out our website here --à bit.ly/WnR-LM

Claudia

[Erik the Orange]

The blog I mentioned creating is up at http://unsignedfindmusic.tumblr.com

I've worked with AP bands, and would like to keep this blog moving and gain a following, so e-mail me if you'd like to be a part!

[mikewagner1992]

LISTEN TO RACING HOMER!!!
myspace.com/racinghomer

[cbaksa]

http://www.altsounds.com might be worth a shot. It gets around 50,000 unique visitors per month. We sent a self-made press release their way announcing that our record was free and they posted it verbatim. Here's the link in case someone wants to try their hand at getting a similarly written piece posted on the site: http://hangout.altsounds.com/news/12...-download.html.

It definitely spiked visits to our sites and increased our album download rate for a couple days. Worth a try. Just make sure you send it as if an outside party sent it. Instead of saying "hey dudes, check out my band," try just sending a well-written release in the third person, with no personal note or explanation.

[mikewagner1992]

Originally Posted by I am Mick

please delete this. this is a thread to help other musicians, not promote your own shit. make your own thread like everyone else

In what way exactly is this thread supposed to help musicians if you're not supposed to promote your music? Are you supposed to give places where you CAN promote your music? I'm not trying to be a smartass. I'm asking an honest question.

[mikewagner1992]

Originally Posted by shafterdoug

I'm surprised no one has mentioned bandcamp yet. It's an amazing new site that lets artists put up their music for stream and download in a very user and artist friendly format. It's clean and customizable, and you can sell physical merch through there as well as change prices, add songs and put liner notes, lyrics, etc all with just the click of a mouse. There's no middle man (cd baby, tunecore) that takes money and time to get a song put up on itunes or amazon and listeners get to choose the kind of file they download so they don't have to be stuck with a shitty Mp3. Instead they can grab a wav, Flac, AAC, etc.

Check out www.bandcamp.com for more info.

To see what a bandpage looks like in action you can head to http://buckeyeknoll.bandcamp.com

I highly recommend bandcamp as a tool for DIY musicians.

How exactly do you get people to follow or listen to your band? Cause I just started a bandcamp page for my band and I don't really get how to really put it out there

[I am Mick]

Originally Posted by mikewagner1992

In what way exactly is this thread supposed to help musicians if you're not supposed to promote your music? Are you supposed to give places where you CAN promote your music? I'm not trying to be a smartass. I'm asking an honest question.

If you read the first post, you would see this was a place to post links to other sites that help network/promote your band. Most other musicians (aside from a few idiots) have been sharing some great sites to help your band. To promote your music, make your own thread like all the other bands have.

[thepayoff]

by the way, my suggestion would be www.blanktv.com

[eriatarka24]

You can @ these sites on Twitter to let them know about yourselves:

http://www.alterthepress.com
http://www.reviewrinserepeat.com
http://www.thesoundalarm.com

Also have a Purevolume account

http://www.purevolume.com

[shafterdoug]

Originally Posted by mikewagner1992

How exactly do you get people to follow or listen to your band? Cause I just started a bandcamp page for my band and I don't really get how to really put it out there

One of Bandcamp's strengths and weaknesses is that it does not have a social networking component. Personally that is one of the very attractive parts of bandcamp since everywhere else is weighed down by all the social network bullshit. What this means for you is that it's up to the musician to promote and drive people to their bandcamp site. Many musicians I know use it as their music store since you can customize everything on it so easily and you can even create a domain name that links straight to your bandcamp page. Example: http://buymymusic.com

Fact is you have to bring people to your bandcamp site. It's awesome for streaming music, lyrics, production notes and of course selling or giving away music for whatever price you desire.

Hope this helps a bit.

[sean-reid]

Originally Posted by Castaway01

You can @ these sites on Twitter to let them know about yourselves:

http://www.alterthepress.com
http://www.reviewrinserepeat.com
http://www.thesoundalarm.com

Also have a Purevolume account

http://www.purevolume.com

Thanks for recommending us.

Please don't "tweet" at us, just send us an e-mail (news@alterthepress.com) or use the contact page on the main site. Oh and don't bother with the other two ;)

[Erik the Orange]

My blog has done reviews for 37 unsigned bands, it's at http://unsignedfindmusic.tumblr.com, just drop me an email and I'll do my best to help you guys out