Caroline Collective » Bandcamp

Upcoming: Bandcampus – Booking Party

david — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 05:13:39 +0000

One of the best things you can do for yourself as a band is to start touring as early as possible. As Mike King puts it on Artist House Music‚Äôs blog, ‚ÄúTour Early and Tour Often.‚Äù He also mentions that in order to do this effectively, ‚Äúbe sure that your live show is awesome.‚Äù And again he is correct. But too many bands get caught up on the latter advice without realizing that the former is really what creates that engaging performance. Playing too many times to the same people burns yourself out from gauging the crowds reaction and puts the audience too close to the music to objectively evaluate your live shows.

That’s why on January 31st we‚Äôll be holding a Bandcampus: BOOKING PARTY for Houston bands. We‚Äôll provide the tables, chairs and the internet. We‚Äôll also be giving you a venue list for Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Victoria/Corpus Christi as well as a mad-libs style email contact form and a mad-libs style phone contact form and review the process of contacting (and following up with) a venue to book your band.

We held a similar Booking Party in July and the results were exciting: ¬†One band, Liquid Kitchen, was able to book two shows within 72 hours of Bandcampus: BOOKING PARTY. Another band, Insert Name Here,¬†booked one show for themselves that week and continue to use the scripts to book themselves shows.

Come to Bandcampus: BOOKING PARTY and make it easier for your band to start finding new audiences to play in front of.

WHAT: Bandcampus: BOOKING PARTY
WHEN: January 31, 2010, 2-4pm
WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline, Houston TX 77004
WHY: Book your band to play in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and more

‚Äì
Regular BandCampus sessions are (mostly) held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where we‚Äôll all educate specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

Bandcamp: BANDIZE

Matthew Wettergreen — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:19:45 +0000

Organizational skills usually do not rank high on a bands’ strength’s list. And that’s ok because there is usually someone available to help them through that, be it a manager, organized friend, or monthly Bandcamp sessions. Join us this weekend for the next installment of Bandcamp: BANDIZE where you’ll be shown a new tool, Bandize (http://bandize.com), that can help you organize your band from the ground up. Ajit D’Sa, Co-founder of Bandize will be on hand to give a tour of the program and to provide a workshop with bands to get them set up on the progam itself.¬† Check out the information from Ajit D’Sa about his talk:

Band Members

What is your current organization process like for your band? Chances are for most indie, self-managed bands, it’s woefully inefficient. Bandize aims to change that. By building an easy-to-use suite of tools for bands, bands can easily achieve organizational management goals easily. Schedule and keep track of every aspect of a tour, merch inventory and relases, accounting including IOUs, gig payments, and merch sales, asset management (in case your gear gets stolen while you’re out on the road!), contacts and communication, etc. Put it all in one place on the web that you can access at any time from anywhere.¬†Then once you have your gigs and/or tours set, sync them with your social networks in one step, saving you the trouble of logging in to each one and posting it there.

Bandize co-founder Ajit D’Sa, former independent band member and manager, will show you the methodologies behind Bandize and behind getting organized – truly organized. This is your true first step in realizing that your band is a small business, and that you need to start thinking like a small business owner in order to give yourself a better chance to succeed.

“The goal of Bandize was to make it easy to use, even on the road, so that the drunkest member of the band should be able to update band info at 4am after a show.”

You can keep chasing after that record deal, but Bandize will help give you a leg up when negotiating your contract with labels. Find out how and what that means.

Band Managers
Also, if you are a band manager, this session is for you as well. Bandize gives you the ability to manage multiple bands from the same account. (See http://bandize.com/multi for more.) Assign tasks to the band members. Give them a place to log gas, meals, and expenses in real time while they are on the road. Print out tour books and day sheets based on the tour information that you are already managing, right from within Bandize!

What To Bring

Whatever you use currently to keep track of your contacts, tours, gigs, accounting — bring it. Whether it’s spreadsheets, notebooks, scraps of paper, a shoebox of receipts, whatever. And bring your laptops. Bring pictures of your instruments and amps, pedals, vehicles, etc (preferably in digital format), serial numbers, receipts, paperwork, whatever. The more info the merrier.¬†During our workshop we will be actually inputting data into Bandize and getting you hooked up. By the end of it, you should never have to reference one of those pieces of paper or spreadsheets ever again!

Managing your band can be a fun collective band effort. And it should also directly increase the value of your band. It will seriously change your life.

WHAT: Bandcamp: BANDIZE – “It’s like Basecamp for bands!” (http://bandize.com)
WHO: Ajit D’Sa, Co-founder of Bandize WHEN: 8/16/09 2-4pm
WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline Houston TX
HOW MUCH: $5 a person / $8 per band

Regular BandCamp sessions are (usually) held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where we‚Äôll all educate specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

Bandcamp: BOOKING PARTY

Matthew Wettergreen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:28:45 +0000

At a previous Bandcamp we heard from Gretchen Schmaltz of Western Civilization and Sara Winter of Warehouse Live talk about how to book and promote a show outside of your local market. Still, few bands have taken that knowledge and applied it to booking shows. In speaking with bands we’ve received the same answer: they’re uncomfortable with the process of contacting venues and securing a show. Taken at face value this makes sense. It’s much easier to contact a friend venue owner or a known local booker to get put onto a show. Contacting a stranger and asking something from them can be a difficult proposition and is not something that artists are comfortable with. Another challenge is having a process partitioning the time to contact venues and get ahold of a decision maker.

The fact remains: Overplaying your local audience is not the way to improve your performance skills or increase your income. It IS however a good way to exhaust your audience and decrease your popularity. Bands who are looking to improve their performance skills and expand their audience reach should be playing regularly outside of their local community. Playing in different markets in your surrounding geographical area will expose new audiences to their music and can create an additional revenue stream.

While most bands acknowledge the importance of playing outside their town there seems to be a lack of the practical knowledge on exactly how to secure shows in a region where they have no contacts. Until those contacts are secured and cultured, one tried and true manner of securing a show is contacting venues or other bands. This month we’ll tackle the first method in a way that will not just teach bands how to do it but show them.

Bandcamp: BOOKING PARTY will be a workshop where bands will work together to contact venues to book gigs in cities within a four hour drive of Houston.

Here’s how Bandcamp: BOOKING PARTY will work: We’ll start with a brief overview talk about how to contact a venue about a show, what information to include, what to say, persistence vs. annoyance, and tips to keep in mind. A whiteboard will be gridded out with a list of Houston’s major surrounding cities and dates that bands will select from. Bands will then be given a form email to fill out that helps to describe their sound, their accolades and what they’re asking for. Then bands will be given a printout of venues that match their city for them to email. They will then contact all the relevant venues in that date range and ask for show availability to secure themselves a show. Later in the week, using the to-do list for contacting venues, they’ll follow up via email or contact the venues by phone to further contact between the venue/venue booker and the artist.

WHAT: Bandcamp: BOOKING PARTY

WHEN: July 12, 2009, 2-4pm

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline, Houston TX 77004

WHY: Book your band to play in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and more

HOW MUCH: Bandcamp sessions are now $5/person, $8/band

Things bands will need:

a tentative list of dates that you are available to play

a laptop (notify us if you don’t have one)

a press kit (not a dealbreaker, can be constructed at the workshop)

Bands will be given:

A mad-libs style form email to tailor to their band

A printout of venues for the city that corresponds to their block on the grid

A to-do list for contacting venues to get a show at that venue.

–

Regular BandCamp sessions are (mostly) held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where we‚Äôll all educate specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

Bandcamp: COPYRIGHT

Matthew Wettergreen — Fri, 08 May 2009 03:52:46 +0000

The concept of copyright is thrown around in many contexts both inside the art world and in our daily lives. Few people other than attorneys understand the true rules, regulations and rights of copyright holders or those looking to use copyrighted items. A firm base in what a copyright is, how it is used or why you should use it could be extremely useful for musicians and arming them with knowledge for their careers. This month’s Bandcamp: COPYRIGHT will introduce several concepts that will give you a headstart and allow you to learn some things about the copyright world.

Of particular interest to musicians attending Bandcamp are the ones who will remember how important a completely formed home base and outpost strategy is to a successful musical career. Employing the digital landscape to promote your music means that you should be well versed with Creative Commons.¬† This new way of copyrighting your material makes it easier for others to digest, reuse and remix your works. The result of this is less discussion over the wrangling of money and ownership and more art creation. Some of the available Creative Commons licenses take the pain out of deciding upon attribution, derivation, commercial use and sharing rights.

This session will be led by TALA representative Erin Rodgers who works at TALA and doubles as an entertainment attourney.

In this session you’ll learn such things as:

What copyright is
The rights granted to copyright holders
How to protect your rights as individuals or groups
How to copyright your music and why you should/n’t
What types of copyrights are available
How to license your works Creative Commons

Any additional questions you may have for Erin please add to the comments section.

WHAT: Bandcamp COPYRIGHT

WHEN: 5/10/09 1-3pm (what a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day)

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline Houston TX

Regular BandCamp sessions are held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective (this particular one was rescheduled) sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where we‚Äôll all educate specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

Bandcamp: SXSW AUTOPSY

Matthew Wettergreen — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:36:40 +0000

Reprinted from Matthew Wettergreen’s Site:

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the bands who attended and the creative professionals who volunteered at Bandcamp: SXSW PREP. Because of this event bands were prepared to promote themselves and be discovered when they attended SXSW a couple of weeks ago. Special thanks to the bands who made the drive up to Austin a couple days early and played the Houston @ SXSW party (sponsored by Kirtsy, Schipul, Werkadoo and AYN Brand).¬† We heard from national members of the tech and music community for the remainder of the week about the party and how positive a party of this sort was for the success of Houston’s music, film and technology communities.

SXSW is now over for this year, all that’s left is that hope that you learned something and came back with new ideas and contacts. We recognize that the summation of each individual experience totals to a wealth of knowledge for the community. In an attempt to share that knowledge and capitalize upon that creative energy, this Bandcamp: SXSW AUTOPSY will be a discussion of the results of SXSW. We’re interested to hear your activities, the successes, failures, new ideas, people to look out for, tips and any tricks to share with your community. The result of this Bandcamp should be a document of new ideas and new concepts for everyone to ponder, execute or employ to maximize your exposure over the course of this year.

Even if your band didn’t hit SXSW, attend this Bandcamp to learn some new ideas that would work anywhere, not just at SXSW. If you’re not in a band but you like Houston community, attend this Bandcamp to hear about the successes from your local musicians. The best part about this Bandcamp is that it will be run by YOU as Matthew Wettergreen will be speaking at a conference the exact time as Bandcamp except in Chicago. Grace Rodriguez of AYN Brand and Ned Dodington of Caroline Collective will be on hand to facilitate but the knowledge and sharing should come from YOU the bands.

Did you know that Bandcamp has now been running for 6 months? We think this meeting would be a good time to let us know what is and is not working for you or what you’d like to see from Bandcamp in the future. If you’d like to let us know privately: mwettergreen@gmail.com.

WHAT: Bandcamp: SXSW AUTOPSY

WHEN: April 5th, 2009 1-3pm

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline Houston TX

Please note that the originally scheduled Bandcamp: COPYRIGHT will be rescheduled for May 3rd so that Joe Stallone of Bracewell and Giuliani and Grounded in Music may teach the session.

About Bandcamp

Regular BandCamp sessions are held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime in between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where the community education model teaches specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

Bandcamp: SXSW PREP

Matthew Wettergreen — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:53:24 +0000

Join us at Caroline Collective on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 for Bandcamp: SXSW PREP in conjunction with Caroline Collective’s Houston @ SXSW. Bandcamp: SXSW PREP will be a workshop pairing volunteers with musical artists working to get prepared for SXSW with the following goals:

1. Prepare press materials and basic online presence items for bands playing at sxsw
Any band playing in Austin during SXSW needs to be prepared to promote themselves given the chance. Playing a show is just the start of that promotion. Artists need a press kit, songs hosted online, video posted online, booking and contact information somewhere as well as physical cds to sell to interested parties or to give to record labels or booking agents. Many bands are unprepared for this situation and are lacking many of these items. By providing musicians with creative experts bands can receive focused attention to generate or upload these items to a location on the internet that raises the artists’ visibility.

2. Select bands to play at three (3) Houston focused day parties showcasing Houston musicians, filmmakers and interactive members
Only 23 artists received official SXSW showcases to this year’s conference for whatever reason. So for that reason we have taken it upon ourselves to host several day parties showcasing Houston musical talents.¬† We will discuss these parties at Bandcamp: SXSW PREP but you MUST attend this meeting to be considered to play these showcases.¬† We will have details for these showcases at Bandcamp on March 1st and will select from the bands that are in attendance only.

This Bandcamp is for 1) Houston musicians attending SXSW as official selections and 2) Houston musicians interested in playing at one of the Houston focused day parties and 3)¬† interested parties looking to donate a couple hours to help generate these materials.

We need skilled graphic designers, web developers, copywriters, PR reps or any other creative professional which would be able to donate time and services for a couple hours to help bands prepare their online presence and press materials for SXSW.

WHAT: Bandcamp: SXSW PREP

WHEN: March 1st, 1-3pm

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline Houston, TX

WHY: Prepare for SXSW, get selected to play in free showcases at SXSW

About Houston @ SXSW

SXSW can be a daunting but rewarding experience. Houston @ SXSW is a series beginning the 1st of March preparing the Houston community for achieving the highest level of success at SXSW and celebrating those attending the conference.

Events:

Bandcamp: SXSW PREP, March 1st, 1-3pm, Caroline Collective, Houston bands prepare press materials and online presence for SXSW

Craft Night: SXSW, March 10th, 7-10pm, Caroline Collective, Help Caroline Collective prepare their schwag materials for SXSW: origami

CC/Werkadoo Business Class: Resume/Portfolio Preparation, March 11th, 7-10pm, Caroline Collective, Learn what your marketable skills are and prepare your resume/portfolio

Pre-SXSW Party at Caroline Collective, March 12th, 6-9pm, Caroline Collective, Meet other members of the community attending SXSW from Houston

Houston Party I, March 17th, 12-9pm, TBD Austin, Celebrate and spend time with other Houston community members in tech, music and film

Houston Party II, March 18th, 12-6pm, TBD Austin, Day party with Houston musicians showcasing

Houston Party III, March 19th, 12-6pm, TBD Austin, Day party with Houston musicians showcasing

IndieHouston.org Day Party, March 20th, 10am-10pm, Co-Lab, 613 Allen St, Austin TX, Day party with IndieHouston.org

Bandcamp – ONLINE PRESENCE

Matthew Wettergreen — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:35:51 +0000

Your website is one of the most important tools you have as an artist. It‚Äôs a place for people to discover and listen to your music, contact you, purchase your merchandise and more. Your website acts as a promoter, publicist and dj and it does all this 24/7 for anyone in the world.

In addition to the positive benefits of a website, having a home base on the web is one of the basic building blocks for becoming a successful band. It is essential to have a home base that ties in other online tools such as facebook, myspace, flickr, youtube and other community based sites for musicians. Still, there are a large number of bands that set up a myspace page thinking that it is both sufficient to act as a promotional machine and that they have (in very little time) accomplished the step of cementing their online presence. By employing only Myspace they are rendering themselves mostly invisible to the greater web audience.

One of the barriers to actually setting up a website seems to be the lack of knowledge surrounding how to accomplish this. Also, bands seem to think that getting a website is something that is difficult or more time consuming than regular utilization of Myspace or other community based tools. Getting your own website set up can be done simply, beautifully and free, depending on what you‚Äôre looking for.

Come to February’s Bandcamp and learn effective strategies for maintaining an online presence that utilizes a full complement of websites and techniques. Led by Matthew Wettergreen, this session will be hands on, including demonstration of available sites and a discussion of strategic planning based on available time commitment.

Bring your laptop.

There will be an ENCORE session of this month‚Äôs Bandcamp at the end of the month on 2/22. If you can‚Äôt attend on Sunday, check it out at the end of the month, or come twice to pick up a new perspective and plan for your online presence.

Things that you will learn at February‚Äôs BandCamp
-¬†¬† ¬†Improved tools beyond Myspace for online presence
-¬†¬† ¬†the Wheel and spoke concept of web presence including a home base and digital outposts
-¬†¬† ¬†designing a strategy for employing these digital outposts and selecting the ones that work for your band
-¬†¬† ¬†Learn how to set up your own website in 15 minutes
-¬†¬† ¬†Learn how to measure metrics for your site to determine your audience and what content is the most interesting to your visitors
-¬†¬† ¬†An overview of other digital outposts other than Myspace that are just as effective for artist promotion
-¬†¬† ¬†How to integrate your digital outposts to your website
-¬†¬† ¬†Free email accounts for your band
-¬†¬† ¬†Places to seed your music, video
-¬†¬† ¬†Where to sell online: amazon, itunes, cdbaby, napster
-¬†¬† ¬†Locations to post your photos online (flickr, photobucket, etc.)
-¬†¬† ¬†Ideas for driving traffic to your site

WHAT: Bandcamp ONLINE PRESENCE

WHEN: 2/1/09 1-3pm AND 2/22/09 1-3pm

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline Houston TX

Bandcamp: TOURING

Matthew Wettergreen — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:52:46 +0000

Due to super secret reasons and everyone’s insanely crazy schedule for December, we decided
to reschedule Bandcamp: TOURING for January 4th, the next first Sunday of the month. While
there was no official Bandcamp on December 7th, Gretchen Schmaltz of Houston’s Western Civilization was on hand to provide one-on-one mentoring for bands in attendance. Adam Newton of Dryve Tyme Onlyne posted a recap here. We are sorry to have rescheduled and hope everyone has a great holiday month.

Following the incredibly educational session of Bandcamp: OFFLINE PROMOTION led by B-Boy Craig and Kerry Melonson, next month’s bandcamp will focus on booking and touring. This session will be led by Gretchen Schmaltz of Western Civilization, a Houston band that tours 150 dates out of the year (bet you didn’t know that). Ms. Schmaltz will provide a step-by-step process for booking a tour for your band including tips and tricks to contact bookers, routing logistics, a packing list for tour, and best practices for promoting in an away city.

Bandcamp: TOURING will also have a talk by Sara Winter of AEG-TMC/Warehouse Live. Ms. Winter will speak about the responsibility of a band either home or away booked onto a show with respect to promotion, playing schedule, and getting attendance.

Terry Crane of Commerciant will give a product demo of their handheld credit card processing machine. Studies have shown that a great deal of opportunity lost by not being able to offer credit cards at an artist’s merch table. This simple to use wireless device can help touring bands process credit card payments to help alleviate the financial burden of touring.

Finally, we are asking bands to submit a tour proposal to us: length, desired region, budget, why…then we will select one of these proposals and book that band a tour. We will transparently detail every step of the way so that others can learn this process and provide guidance for our (mis)steps. By collectively sharing the Houston Music Community’s expertise and advice we’ll be able to demonstrate it’s actual strength.

WHEN: January 4th, 2009, 1-3pm

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline

WHAT: Bandcamp:TOURING

Regular BandCamp sessions are held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where we‚Äôll all educate specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

About the initial Bandcamp

What is BandCamp About? Music, Musicians, Artists, Bands, marketing and promoting your band, booking a tour, dos and don‚Äôts, selling your music online/offline, old guard vs new guard, etc.

There are several goals to Bandcamp. First, to deliver tools to Houston musical artists that will allow them to more effectively practice their craft. Second, to open lines of communication between all members and levels of the Houston Music Community. Finally, it is our goal to cohere and direct the Houston music community towards a path that will allow us to gain national recognition for the talent and expertise of the musicians and genres sprouting up and fostered in Houston.

We hope to accomplish these goals through an open forum and discussion about the music scene in Houston occurring between musicians, artists, the people who service them, booking agents, club owners, recording studios, and the press which writes about the music scene. We additionally plan to hold how-to sessions for artists and members of the Houston music industry to bring us all up to a level of shared knowledge in such skills as booking, recording, merchandising, online/offline promotion, touring, management and licensing.

Bandcamp: OFFLINE PROMOTION

Matthew Wettergreen — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:06:29 +0000

After the resounding success of Bandcamp on October 19th, we will continue focusing on the sustainability of the energy generated by holding regular Bandcamp education sessions. The first education session will be held on November 2nd from 1-3pm at Caroline Collective.

The topic will be OFFLINE PROMOTION and will be taught by Kerry Melonson of Satin Hooks, B-Boy Craig and Jacob Calle. These three gentlemen will give a talk on promoting using various methods that have nothing to do with the internet. Employing flyering, postering, word-of-mouth, traditional media outlets and subversive methods bands can promote both their brand and their upcoming shows. Following the formal talk the remaining time will be spent mentoring bands one-on-one to evaluate their current promotional methods and develop both short term and long term plans for these promotions.

While Craig, Kerry and Jacob will be leading the session, we ask that other superheroes of offline and street promotion attend this session to ensure that there is a knowledge share between bands and experts as well as a healthy ratio of experts to musical artists. We also look forward to listening to these experts weigh in on best practices alongside the day’s speakers.

Please sign up using Eventbee; those who attended the first Bandcamp are well versed with the capacity limits to the room as well as the planning involved based on projected numbers. Your name (but not email) will be added to the list at the bottom of the page.

Regular BandCamp sessions will be held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime in between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where we’ll all educate specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.

Don’t forget about your homework assignment from the first BandCamp:

1) Write a bio of your band and style and email it to revelryreport@gmail.com. We’ll post them either on the Scene Wiki or on another website.
2) Promote and attend this session, again, on November 2nd, 1-3pm, at Caroline Collective. The topic will be OFFLINE PROMOTION and brought to you by BBoy Craig, Kerry Melonson and Jacob Calle
3) Contribute to and edit Skyline blog’s Scene Wiki at http://www.theskyline.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

About the initial Bandcamp

What is BandCamp About? Music, Musicians, Artists, Bands, marketing and promoting your band, booking a tour, dos and don’ts, selling your music online/offline, old guard vs new guard, etc.

REGISTERED ATTENDEES:
Matthew Wettergreen
Philip Beck
Ian Wells
Kerry Melonson
Craig Long
Jacob Calle