United States

Alright.so we all have to go through it but come on.i have been through like 3 bands in the past year and we always come up with some brutal stuff but thats it.something comes up and there are no shows,labels,or anything.so what am i missing?i also live in a redneck town so there arent many of us brutals left,maybe thats it.anyway,anything would help so what do i do.btw musicians always wanted if ur in ky and wanna go through some bullsh1t

Yea I had the same prob with my last band, the angle obscure we played a tight live show & had some good compositions but it's hard to get the same group of ppl out to shows if you don't stray outside your home area.

Heres a vid of my ex-band if anybody is interested
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYEfmWXxMM8

ALL HAIL BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME!!!!!!!! Metal is not boring

Or... You could try not being so one sided.. Music industry has forced people to pick some type of genre they feel like they belong..

The reason great bands became great bands was because they transcended genre boundries.. People ask why we don't have any new bands coming out that get the same following that say the Rolling Stones do..

Well because the Rolling stones aren't just Rock & Roll or Blues or Country or Pop they play it all..

#2 Metal sucks. It's uneventful, unchanged, and boring. Music is suppose to be about exploration of the soul, Empty Vessel, surrender to the flow, etc, etc.. It's pretty hard to be an empty vessel when you're pissed off.

#3 to the guy who thinks music is better now then it has ever been.. I laugh at your stupidity. Seriously? LOL.. Take of your Sheep Goggles.

Dude... Not all metal sucks, Check out "between the buried & me". They cover the whole spectrum & have great composition constantly. But i suppose they would be classified as "Prog Metal" but whatever. The main moral of this comment is that "Good" music is music that has been written well, NOT associated to it's genre. You must not compose much, I take it. The possibilities are ENDLESS

In answer to the OP's original question - hell no! If everything was hunky frikken dorry, you wouldn't have anything to rage about, & metal, as we know it, would die.

Not 100% true Phil. You've got Voivod who are pretty much Sci-Fi, The Accused=zombies,worms, monsters...etc. the list of bands goes on.

Rage just happens to be an easier topic for bands to tackle cause there's so many injustices out there...there's also the worst Pop music to date these days, I hope that alone inspires outcasts to "give it to the man".

Face it , "Metal was never the music critics choice of music" .... Randy Rhoads said that 28 years ago in Guitar World magazine.
They (M tv) pulled the plug on it in 1993. Metal does it's best when it's not mainstream, like Rap is today.
Today music is being controlled by a media mogals, egotistical producers, who intervene a bands creative process and most music today is written by a few number of song writers .... but (sh) it sells ....

Today music is being controlled by a media mogals, egotistical producers, who intervene a bands creative process and most music today is written by a few number of song writers .... but (sh) it sells ....

I don't know. Never in my life has there been so much freedom to write, perform, record, produce and distribute music without "being controlled by media mogals, egotistical producers, who intervene a bands creative process". The difference is there is such a huge volume of noise out there it is ever more difficult to stand out above the noise floor and get noticed. The material, musicianship, creativity, and performance have to be 10 times better today than in 1980 to get noticed playing metal music. Right now there are 100,000 mediocre metal bands with no work, and 10 really good ones with amazing talent.

When you get to the point where you pack every venue with screaming, paying fans, you sell 100 CDs at every performance, and every bar owner knows who you are and wants to book you to play next week, you will have a product that sells. Until then you are just part of that noise floor of metal bands that goes unnoticed and unbooked.

Getting booked nowadays can be tricky too.

Getting booked nowadays can be tricky too.

I don't know what that means Kru. There is less work to go around these days but a booked gig means a performance contract and a payday. We provide live entertainment and the client provides a performance fee. No tricky stuff at all. In 40 years of doing this, we have always been on time and given our all, and no client has ever tried any funny business with our fee. We have been rescheduled due to forest fires, remodeling overruns, rain out, etc. but we always work with them to reschedule another date. Building relationships with clients is a big part of what we do.

Promote
Sell
Schmooze
Promote
Sell
Schmooze

oh...

and promote.




My original metal projects in the past had success or failure based on how much time we spent outside the rehearsal room. Go to clubs and venues you want to play and pass out flyers, CD's and get to know people. Be the fun part of every night out. Not just when you are on stage. Make sure the venue promoters and owners see you , know you and make sure the bar tender knows you. Execute nights out ever weekend like you are in the military. Hit spots that are known for metal heads. Head shops, skate shops, mom's basement. What ever it takes to just get yourselves known. We did this in my hometown, LA, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Austin a day or two before a show. Eventually you will have a small group to help.

But you have to keep working it yourself if you want to do this indy.

Promote
Sell
Schmooze
Promote
Sell
Schmooze

oh...

and promote.




My original metal projects in the past had success or failure based on how much time we spent outside the rehearsal room. Go to clubs and venues you want to play and pass out flyers, CD's and get to know people. Be the fun part of every night out. Not just when you are on stage. Make sure the venue promoters and owners see you , know you and make sure the bar tender knows you. Execute nights out ever weekend like you are in the military. Hit spots that are known for metal heads. Head shops, skate shops, mom's basement. What ever it takes to just get yourselves known. We did this in my hometown, LA, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Austin a day or two before a show. Eventually you will have a small group to help.

But you have to keep working it yourself if you want to do this indy.

Good to know.

Promote
Sell
Schmooze
Promote
Sell
Schmooze

oh...

and promote.




My original metal projects in the past had success or failure based on how much time we spent outside the rehearsal room. Go to clubs and venues you want to play and pass out flyers, CD's and get to know people. Be the fun part of every night out. Not just when you are on stage. Make sure the venue promoters and owners see you , know you and make sure the bar tender knows you. Execute nights out ever weekend like you are in the military. Hit spots that are known for metal heads. Head shops, skate shops, mom's basement. What ever it takes to just get yourselves known. We did this in my hometown, LA, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Austin a day or two before a show. Eventually you will have a small group to help.

But you have to keep working it yourself if you want to do this indy.

Yep. That was the Van Halen formula in 1975 and it worked. Those guys were everywhere! We used to play the same club circuit back then and every night after a gig we would go out to the parking lot and all the cars were plastered with "Van Halen appearing here next week. Don't miss it!" flyers.

We even shared the room with them a couple of times at Gazzarri's on the strip. They put on a great show. Guess who got the recording contract?

Getting booked nowadays can be tricky too.

I don't know what that means Kru. There is less work to go around these days but a booked gig means a performance contract and a payday. We provide live entertainment and the client provides a performance fee. No tricky stuff at all. In 40 years of doing this, we have always been on time and given our all, and no client has ever tried any funny business with our fee. We have been rescheduled due to forest fires, remodeling overruns, rain out, etc. but we always work with them to reschedule another date. Building relationships with clients is a big part of what we do.

I should have been more specific. I was referring to band's that are trying to get their name out, or just trying to get their first few gigs.

There's a huge soup line to play these days, at least where I'm from. There's more bands than ever, so clubs are always booked 3 to 4 months in advance.

Promote
Sell
Schmooze
Promote
Sell
Schmooze

oh...

and promote.




My original metal projects in the past had success or failure based on how much time we spent outside the rehearsal room. Go to clubs and venues you want to play and pass out flyers, CD's and get to know people. Be the fun part of every night out. Not just when you are on stage. Make sure the venue promoters and owners see you , know you and make sure the bar tender knows you. Execute nights out ever weekend like you are in the military. Hit spots that are known for metal heads. Head shops, skate shops, mom's basement. What ever it takes to just get yourselves known. We did this in my hometown, LA, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Austin a day or two before a show. Eventually you will have a small group to help.

But you have to keep working it yourself if you want to do this indy.

Thanks for posting that. Well said. I wasn't even thinking about the bartender...big mistake. They're the ones who know everybody, and just about everything.

The bar tender in clubs can be your best friend. They are the most common person asked "so who the hell are these guys?" when very few in an area know you. The answer will be posative or negative based on how well you treat them, the wait staff and the door people. That is more often than not, more important then how nice you are to the owners and promoters. Staff will often move from club to club and security often interacts with many other venues. If they have a posative memory of you, your band and band mates, that will stick if a promoter or owner asks the rhetorical question "who the hell are these guys" when they open that media pack or e-mail with an EPK.

I knew almost every bartender, door man and sound guy in the valley here at one point. (In clubs that hosted heavy music) It paid off.

That is just one portion...