Man This Is A Lotta Work! (a.k.a. Where The HELL Have You Been, Stephen?)

Hello Family!

I checked my blog today and realized it's been over a month since I've posted anything here.

WTF? Where does the time go?

I have to tell you family, I eat, sleep, laugh, cry, and otherwise live this music experience. Or I should say the music business end of this music experience. I have yet to party like a rock star. (But I certainly have great expectations for the night that will happen.) I have yet to snort lines of coke off Jake Gyllenhall's ass and go running naked through the streets of LA. (I have every expectation that will NEVER happen. At least not the coke part...) I have yet to trash a hotel room. (Who's paying for this? Oh, I'm paying for it? Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and put this vase down...) I have yet to get a blow job from Hugh Jackman in the VIP section of the hottest club in LA, or bend over and take it like a man from Gerard Butler in the middle of a Chinese restaurant over Peking Duck. (This WILL happen, ladies and gentlemen. "The Secret" tells me so.) The only bottles I've popped are Tylenol. My debit card doesn't work as well ever since I Magic Markered it black. The last thing I threw in the bag was groceries. No family, the life of a "rock star" has yet to happen to me.

So what the hell have I been doing this last month? Working. It's absolutely incredible the amount of work that goes into doing this music thing. It never ceases to amaze me. And the time that must be invested in doing what must be done is astounding.

True confession time.

Family, I'm pulling it all out of my ass and seeing what works and what doesn't.

Meaning, outside of the countless books I've read on "the art of building a business" I really don't have any other expertise at my fingertips. I don't have a record executive who says what works and what doesn't. (Keep your "fucking suits don't know their asses from a hole in the ground" comments to yourself, please.) I don't have a program director at a radio station telling me what works and what doesn't. And most of my family and friends have never been business owners of any kind. They've spent their lives working for other people. So I don't even have people that genuinely care about me as a resource I can go to for guidance on how to start and run your own business.

So basically I'm pulling it outta my ass and seeing what works and what doesn't.

And so far so good, I have to say. Pretty much everything I've done so far - with some VERY glaring exceptions - has been met with good results.But man is it time-consuming!!!!

I've basically spent last month gathering information on college newspapers and college radio stations and contacting them all to see if I can't get my CD reviewed and played on their stations. I pored through HUNDREDS of newspapers to see which colleges did reviews. Most only review movies, if they do reviews at all. Out of the hundreds of newspapers I looked at, I was left with a little over 200 newspapers that I then had to turn around and contact to see if they'd review my CD.

After that was done, I did the same with college radio stations. I pored over hundreds of college radio stations around the US. I had to find out what type of music they played. After finding the stations that played my genre of music, I then had to see if they accept submissions from indie artists. Once I found out that information, I had to contact a little over 200 stations to ask them if they would accept my submission.

Now the last part I really didn't have to do. Most college radio stations that play my genre of music will automatically accept submissions and have a contact page on their website to tell you where to snail mail it. However, I decided to be smart about it. Most indie bands and artists just submit unsolicited music to college radio stations in hope of them being listened to and played on the radio. What I decided to do was contact the radio stations and ask them if I could submit my music. And even if I don't hear back from some of them, it is my hope they at least opened my e-mail. I'll be sending my CD to them regardless of whether they answer me or not. But this way, hopefully, once they do get my CD they'll remember my e-mail and maybe my CD will get to the top of the "listen to" pile rather than the bottom. Yes, it's an extra step and it's too early to tell how well it will work out. Again, I'm pulling it out of my ass and much like Caroline from that good old OutKast song, sometimes it smells like roses and sometimes it smells like poo-oo-oo-oo.

But no matter what, it's time CONSUMING. I probably put in 25 - 30 hours a week on music business stuff this past month.

The good news in all this is I only have to do the grunt work once. Meaning, I'll never again have to spend hours on end trying to find college newspapers that will review my CD or college radio stations that will play my CD. Because I now have all that information at my fingertips. Some information may change, but by and large it will stay the same. So when my sophomore CD drops, I'll just have to recontact these places to ask if I could send them my materials. And most I will already have a working relationship with. So it'll be a quickie phone call to Joe Schmoe Music Director, or Jane Schmoe Music Reviewer to say I'm sending my stuff rather than sending out an e-mail to the great unknown and hoping for a reply.

So the lesson in all of this is regardless of what type of business you are setting up for yourself, it requires a LOT of hard work. Work that you don't anticipate. Work that will wear you the hell out.

But if you love music as much as I do, it's worth it.

Peace.

-Stephen
http://stephendc.com
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