Promoting Your Act

Don't neglect your local paper when it comes to promoting yourself or your band — it'll often have a page dedicated to the local music scene, like SOS's local paper, the Cambridge Evening News.

Your recording's complete, packaged and ready to shake the world. So what do you do about it? Big George looks at step one in the promotion merry‑go‑round.

The best advice anyone will ever give you on how to promote your act is "Don't bother. You haven't got a chance". The road to international stardom is paved with broken promises, missed opportunities and never‑had‑a‑hope‑in‑hell‑to‑begin‑with's. But if you let that sort of thing stop you trying, you didn't have the right stuff to begin with.

Promoting your act's latest (and most likely first) release is a major uphill struggle. Whether you're promoting yourself or paying for a professional plugger to do it for you, it's an expensive business. If you think you can do it with a couple of phone calls and one chance meeting with Chris Evans you might be right — but don't bank on it.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and Bono didn't buy a castle until his fifth album.

You see, promoting your act isn't a matter of playing your track and sending your photos and biog to the right person and then everything taking care of itself. To 'make it' (snigger — I'm sorry to laugh, but the concept of 'making it' is so alien to real life inside the music industry. Do you know, some people think that one play on the radio is 'making it'; others think that getting into the pop charts means you've 'made it'; I'm told that people actually still believe that getting signed to major label is 'making it', and an appearance on Top Of The Pops is the definition of 'having made it'. How wrong they all are) is rather more difficult, and it takes many forces working in tandem to even scratch the surface of success.

Once you've got a foothold with the media (whatever aspect and however it comes off), you have to push even harder and keep on pushing, otherwise you'll be trodden on by the next act right behind you — and there are thousands of them, all vying for that elusive top spot.

Glimmer Of Hope

The late, great — well, the late, anyway — Frankie Goes To Hollywood. TV worked a treat for them...

Before Alan (Fluff) Freeman had even started as a DJ, a wise old man called Lao‑Tse said a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. So, step one on the road to 'making it' (ha ha ha, sorry) is being bloody sure that your product (get used to that word) isn't a half‑baked piece of self‑indulgent nonsense which only you and your Mum think is any good. It doesn't matter how small the recording budget was, if it's not in the same Poptastic ball park as the kind of records you want to push aside, you'll trip on your first step. A lot of people never get up from the horrendousness of that kind of fall.

But let's assume your music will be massive as soon as the general public get to hear it. There are many directions you can go in, but before you even start you need, at the very least, a biog or a one‑page write up on the band, its aims or philosophy, which should be short (and entertaining to read), and four really good photographs: two black and white and two colour. The photos should all be very similar in content and approach (you want people to make the connection between them when they see one in a local paper and another one in a magazine like Sound On Sound. Talking of which, how would you get a feature about your act in SOS?

Infiltrating The Ranks

John Peel. His show is one of the great playlist‑free oases on BBC Radio.

Sound On Sound, as every reader knows, is the very best magazine in the world with regard to Hi‑tech Music Recording, so they're not going to be interested in a piece about how you choose your stage gear. Similarly, a fashion magazine would not be the slightest bit concerned with how you revolutionised the process of vocal sampling using time‑stretch parameters. So tailor your approach to suit whoever you're sending your stuff to, then call them two days after you've sent it and see if they're interested. But remember, every month every magazine has got three times as much copy as it can print, so if you haven't got exactly the right spin on the story you're offering them, it won't get in.

A much easier place to start your media blitz is your local newspaper — come to think of it, anyone's local newspaper. As everybody knows, the local press excels at profiling flower shows and highlighting the lack of community policing, but is it any good at helping to kick‑start a global music career? The answer is Yes! Not because of the in‑depth reporting it gives or its pioneering efforts to discover new musical talent, but purely because it gives positive press coverage, with a photo. Whatever you do, though, don't let the local paper take the picture, unless you want to look like a local counsellor opening up a new child‑care centre. Give them one of the four fabulous pictures from your press pack. Building a press portfolio is very important, as it helps you get ready for step one of the process of promoting yourself. So at this stage of your career, whatever you do, don't make enemies of the press; wait until your third album is number one.

It's All About The Music

The headquarters of BBC Radio: Broadcasting House in Portman Place, London.

Let's talk about your product. You will need copies on CD or, if your product is on vinyl only, at the very least a dozen CD‑Rs. You will need at least 200 promotional copies to send in the post; the CD‑Rs you would give to radio stations personally. Cassettes are a good thing to have as well, but they do not — and I repeat, DO NOT — constitute a front‑line assault weapon in the promotions war. They are good to give people to play in their cars, and that's the only place they'll be played.

Just remember: it will take longer than a year of solid hard slog promoting yourself before you can even consider being a failure.

Promoting yourself is a giving thing, and that doesn't just mean the product — it takes a lot of time, effort and money. Think about how much you've spent on equipment over the years. If you're serious about getting somewhere in this business, what percentage of that cost do you think should be invested into getting you there?

Old Bands For New

When this version of 'West End Girls' was released it was a hit worldwide — but it had, by then, taken the Pet Shop Boys 18 months of relentless promotion to break the song.

You have to remember that the last thing the record industry wants to do is break a new act — they're too busy collecting the sheer profit they make on selling back catalogue. If you don't believe me, go into your local record megastore and count how many old records are for sale compared to new releases. By my unscientific reckoning (which took three hours counting on my fingers) it's 250 records recorded before the '90s to every one recorded in the '90s. Or, to put it another way, which will perhaps make you see sense and take the advice given at the beginning of this article: there are at least 2000 different back‑catalogue titles to every debut album on sale. And whatever theory you want to use to counter that conservative estimate, the fact remains that retail is everything. No amount of stories in magazines and local newspapers counts diddly squat compared to a punter paying hard cash (or plastic) for your music.

But enough of this defeatist talk: Rome wasn't built in a day, and Bono didn't buy a castle until his fifth album. As a matter of interest, probably as much money was spent on promoting U2's latest album as it cost to build the big stage with the lemon on top.

Let's see if we can get as far as step one of the process. You have got an excellent product (which isn't a lemon) and you want to promote it. That isn't just repeating what's already been said, it's trying to get a handle on what you want to achieve (although you'd better get used to repeating yourself over and over again, in meetings and when you do interviews). Ask yourself some serious questions:

• What do you want to achieve (apart from world musical domination) in the short term?
• Have you got more product in the can?
• Do you release it commercially under your own steam first? (For a detailed look at how to go about that, see the May '97 issue of SOS).
• Are you prepared to work hard on making the first step work?

There is never too much you can do beforehand — even going to the right places to be seen by the right people doing the right things. If you can create a buzz in the scene you plan to dominate, promoting yourself will be a whole lot easier.

Just Turn That Dial

George promotes himself to Richard Allison of Radio 2.

The best way of selling your record by the lorry‑load is to get masses of TV and radio air time. To take TV first of all, if you're no‑one then there's no chance, unless you want to go on a sad talent show. TV producers have major labels courting them on a routine basis and these days the old pals act is more than just a nod and a wink, it's a shareholding. As for MTV and VH1, they play videos by Nirvana, Sheryl Crow and Wet Wet Wet. If you can find a way to get on TV, go for it: it worked for Frankie Goes To Hollywood 14 years ago, and look what happened to them (as shown above).

With regard to radio play, there are two areas to look at

• BBC
• All the others

I don't include pirate stations, as they cover a very small area and have an even smaller (zero, in fact) impact on the general record‑buying public. Oh, for the days of pirate stations broadcasting from a rust‑bucket ship in the North Sea, playing music which wasn't corporate‑sponsored bland nonsense! (See Sounding Off, January '97).

Radio 1FM has a fantastic policy with regard to new music and embraces specialist shows where presenters can play their own personal choice, whereas local commercial stations have a playlist of 200 records (all safe, established artists) and DJs are allowed no personal choice — which, although disgusting, won't change at all in this century. Apart from Tina Turner's latest record, they play one or two Hot Oldies per hour. Hot Oldies mean the same old records coming round and around again, like Thin Lizzy's 'The Boys Are Back In Town' (you'd think it was the only song Phil Lynott ever wrote, which is another sick thing about local radio — no sense of musical history or quality). So, unless you can find a way of blackmailing the owner of a local radio‑station chain, you have no chance of getting local FM radio play, period!

This is a hard business, and the hardest part of it to crack is step one of the promotion treadmill.

The Best Of British

Luckily, Radio 1FM does not exist to please advertisers by aligning them to established hit music which supposedly reflects well on their companies. The BBC radio has a forward‑thinking policy that plays more new music than any other station in the world. But a lot of it is still playlisted. Records on the Radio 1FM 'A‑list' will be played between 20 and 30 times every week; on local FM stations the A‑list will be a lot more conservative and be played as many as 60 times a week. To get onto the A‑list of any station you have to be part of the establishment or be flying up the pop charts at a turbo‑charged rate. And that doesn't mean entering the chart at number 79 and then dropping out the next week, as is the case with so many records these days. Entering the lower end of the chart might, just might, propel a record into the 'B‑list', which will get you between eight and 20 plays a week. But records that go onto the B‑list and are dropped the next week tend never to get heard of again.

The most you can hope for, to start with, is an appearance on the 'C‑list', which will give you between four and 10 plays per week (depending on whether the DJ broadcasting likes your record, as C‑list plays are the only list mainstream Radio 1FM DJs have as personal choice). But, unless you can back this up with a positive shift in record sales and/or mainstream press, you'll be off the nation's airwaves in a week.

To get onto the Radio 1FM playlist there's one man you have to get to: Jeff Smith. Every week he will see around 20 different professional pluggers for 10‑20 minutes. They will play him their latest offerings and then he'll take the records to a playlist meeting with various programme producers to finalise the week's lists. Apparently, if you try hard enough there's the chance he will give you five minutes of his time, although he didn't return any of the 10 friendly calls I left on his voice mail.

The Specialists

This is not the case with the many and varied specialist shows on Radio 1FM. These are not dictated by playlists at all. Which is one very good reason we should be very proud of the BBC. Shows like One In The Jungle, The Essential Mix, and Westward's Rap Show, and DJs such as Pete Tong, Andy Kershaw, Danny Rampling and (the greatest human being in the entire music industry, who ought to rule the planet, not just because of his eclectic musical taste but because he is the toppest bloke on the planet) John Peel are able to programme their own shows. And that means playing your track!

Getting a few radio plays on a specialist show might not mean your record going platinum, but it can lead to other things. Major record companies might not be forthcoming in signing and developing new acts from scratch, but they're always picking up new records with a bit of profile in their quest to own as many small labels as possible. A couple of plays on Radio 1FM can often be the impetus for your record to be picked up by a major for a label administration deal or for distribution. It can also help to get your track licensed for a compilation or loads of compilations, which can be quite a nice earner and can greatly assist in further releases.

But before you ring the BBC and ask to speak to one of the DJs in person and demand they play your record, STOP! Don't blow it by being a pain in the butt with a pile of crap and the wrong attitude. Do some detective work. Find out who the producer of the show is. Don't just think you can call Tim Westward up and he'll agree to play your track every Saturday for the rest of the year.

Know what to send: some people only play CDs, whereas John Peel has a passion for vinyl. Some like to know a lot about who you are and what you do, others just want the record. Professional pluggers know these things — it's their job. If you're doing this yourself you will have to find out for yourself. That alone will take time and effort.

Just Hanging Around

Hanging round BBC Broadcasting House in Portman Place is definitely a wise move. If you keep your ears open and your mind alert you will find out who's who. You will see people taking boxes of records in: these are either record company reps, producers or DJs. Now's your chance to impress — without seeming like a mental axe murderer. Knowledge is power, and outside the most famous and revered broadcast building in history is a good place to go about gaining some.

Most (but not all) of the current breed of stars have never needed to hang around outside the BBC with the autograph‑hunting anoraks. They use professional pluggers, but that costs serious money — or does it? The Spice Girls allegedly didn't pay a penny to the company that plugged them. They, or the muscle behind them, made a percentage deal from their record royalties. I tried to get this rumour confirmed or denied by the relevant parties, but the response was a series of "no comment"s and non‑returned calls. Funny, that — but from what I could gather everyone was blissfully happy to have been involved in the arrangement.

This is a hard business, and the hardest part of it to crack is step one of the promotion treadmill. As well as getting radio play you have to generate record sales, press, public interest, foreign interest and TV coverage. When no‑one seems the slightest bit interested in you and your music, it will hurt, bad. But that's not to say all is lost: you may be going about it the wrong way, on the wrong day. Keep trying. It took the Pet Shop Boys 18 months to break their first record, 'West End Girls', and look at them now — financially secure for life, doing what they want to do, adored by millions of people across the world... that can't be bad.

Just remember: it will take longer than a year of solid hard slog promoting yourself before you can even consider being a failure. This article has only looked at how you go about taking step one: the next thousand miles can be the most exhilarating or heart‑breaking you will ever endure, but if you're not prepared to start on the journey, you will never get to the destination. In the words of another wise old man, Dr John: "Quitters Never Win & Winners Never Quit"!