General Music Chat

The funniest thing about all this is a) how opinionated this bitter, old, twisted, failed muso Kramerguy is and b) how much interest, and thus publicity, this post is attracting.

No, not really. We see a minimum of 10 spams a week here, for new websites, just like yours, that want to offer us musicians a "service".

Regarding bitter... if fortuitousness and skepticism is "bitter", then so be it. A person with opposite traits tends to be the fool who is often parted from his money.

Is this your question you so desperately want answered? - "What kind of promo are you doing to get club owners, and more importantly - club-goers to use your site as "the place" to visit for such information?"

You really need to ask? I only asked like 5 times.. Your last response completely dodged that question.

The "honest" response you so desperately crave is this - we are taking it as it comes.

Yeah, that's what I thought. No plan.

Did we have a $20,000 marketing plan sussed prior to launching? No. But do you think Zuckerberg had one when he created Facebook in his college dorm?

You didn't really think this one out, did you? Facebook had a single and specific goal, and the target users were all in the same category. Facebook also had HUGE sponsorship and a marketing army behind them very early on. He pitched that idea to many sponsors and got financial backing LONG before he launched.

YOU are basing a business that relies upon two different and specific groups, yet you only thought about how to market to ONE, and took offense when someone asked "what about the other?".

It's like having a dating service that only markets to straight men, and didn't think about how to get the women on the site. it's stupid.

The Gigman is merely an idea we have launched to help local bands advertise their gigs, and an idea that is still evolving, including our promotion and marketing ideas.

And that's great, but as you admitted - you don't even know, or have considered yet, exactly HOW you are going to get the absolutely essential "non-musicians" to go to your site, just "hey lets put up a brick wall, spam some band forums, and then our site will be really cool and popular"...

We also play in bands, have jobs, go out, etc etc AND do the Gigman to help local bands. We don't, however, sit on chat forums looking for an opportunity to knock such endeavors. I'm disappointed in myself for wasting the last 30 minutes responding to such stupidity, for this reason below...

Did I ever once personally insult you? I questioned your business and marketing plan. If you can't handle the truth, I suggest that you might put on some serious sunblock, cause life is going to kick the sh*t out of you.

I get paid to sit at a computer.. paid very well in fact, considering that I spend all day surfing the web.. jealous? You should be.

I find it absolutely astounding you question why bands would want to advertise away from their home sites in fear of "competition"?

No, you clearly misunderstood the point I made. I'm not going to bother explaining it, like you said.. waste of time.

What, do you want to always play to a room full of just your mates? Do you think people only like one band and that's it? Are you scared other bands are better (highly likely)? Possibly the dumbest concept I have ever heard...you should be ashamed, and anyone else who has this view, and we don't want small-minded retards on our site...f off

WTF guy? Did I really hurt your feelings that much? I called your business plan what it was - a pile of crap. how the hell can you possibly be in a gigging band, and not be able to accept criticism? Do you tell bar-goers to F off when they don't cheer after a song?? You seriously need to evaluate yourself.

To answer your 'concern'... I am friends with most bands in my area, it's a stupid stupid concept to think of other bands as competition, the same band can't do every club rotation every weekend, we need each other DUHHHHH. You speak as if I didn't notice that.. BUT......

WHY the hell would I post on your site and direct my fans to "look" at your brick wall? They already come to my site for that. NOW... like I said previously, if I knew that "other people" (bar patrons, not musicians) were looking at that same wall that might come out to see me, then I could see the point of using your site... but I think it would be a colossal mistake to send my fans to your wall so they can check out all the other bands playing the same night as me.. it has nothing to do with fear or rejection.. it has EVERYTHING to to with me wanted to maximize the turnout at MY show, not some other band in some other bar.

Moving on to point b)

Yes we have posted on or "spammed" music forums as you put it, but isn't letting people know of a new music website a good thing, and one of a forums purpose?

There's a fine line, and as I recall, you posted a response right in the middle of another thread "Go to gigskdng.com" !! You brought the term "spammer" on yourself. Also remember... we see these threads constantly, daily.. and you ARE going to get grilled... get used to it or GTFO.

We are not trying to get any money, or steal other sites traffic, or whatever other bizarre theories you can conjure up...

I call bullshit. You may have started this as a free 'service' but I guarantee that if it found a way to make money, you wouldn't lose sleep collecting that money, would you? And you did start it in the hopes that it would be successful, no? You've also so far compared your site to Facebook... and have referred to it as a "business"...

we simply had an idea, did it, and are now letting people know its there, that's it...and even if we were, would that be so bad? Is capitalism illegal? Do you think any business starts out with any other goal?

Well, you just claimed you weren't doing it for the money, then claimed you are doing it for the money.

Yes we hope people use our site, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't use others...we encourage it, as the more places bands advertise their gigs, the better it is for live music...we are currently engaging in various promotional activities, like this one (cheers), through print, radio, and online mediums. We agree this will be extremely hard, and also agree 99% of the time, businesses like ours fail...but we are having a shot, and believe we will be the 1% that succeeds

So, you admit that your business plan sucks, with a 99% chance of failure, and you are doing it anyways.... yeah, thanks for cluttering up the internet with yet another set of future broken links and garbage sites.

And lastly, the conspiracy theory on us making another account...again, you should be ashamed...the idiocy is truly interesting

It's been done before... and you suggesting history doesn't repeat itself is far more idiotic than me suggesting that it indeed does.

Good luck to all your bands and we hope you use our site to promote live music. If not, all the best

Yeah, and make up your mind, if you are going to spend 30 minutes insulting me, don't choke at the finish line and tell me to have a nice day. Try this:

Blow it out your ass fuktard.

gigman ... you just got PWNED!!

Kramer is asking Why would a general music fan go to your site in the first place? What is the draw? What keeps your site from being another boring stagnant music site?

Pardon me, but my bands site is for the folks that come see my band. Why would I wnat them looking at the bands in my area. In marketing one of the golden rules is never give your competition any acknowledgement. Never mention them. SO Myspace is screwy when a band has literally hundreds of other bands as friends. Weve tryed to limit it to bands that we actually know and have something in common with.

Im not knocking your site, but anyone can do exactly what you are doing. I hope you make some rock stars, I really do. But answer simple questions when asked OK.

Have you ever run your own business (besides your band)? Your statement about the golden rule in marketing about never giving your compettition any acknowledgement couldn't be further from the truth. I WANT people to know about my compettion. I WANT people to know that I have something different that people might like better than the competition. I WANT people to know that I may NOT have a service they need so I PURPOSELY SEND THEM TO MY COMPETITION. Then guess what, when people go to my competition and I have what they need my competition sends them to me. Did you know that in Japan almost every small business has advertisiements of their competitors plastered all over their stores telling people to find stuff they don't have and VICE -VERSA. One of my biggest competitors in Kansas City sends me leads EVERY MONTH. You WANT to tell people about other bands because YOU"RE BETTER THAN THEM. You want to tell people to compare your band with other bands BECAUSE YOU COMPARE FAVORABLY. I love the concept this guy is selling. It's WAY COOL. One place where music lovers can look and see numerous advertisements for all kinds of bands. I can't wait to get my band's poster on a site with all different band posters. This way whatever mood somebody is in that night they can find the band that will satisfy that mood. This concept is COOL. It's SIMPLE. It's DIRECT. It WILL draw interest because there's so many different bands in ONE place. On your poster on this site you could easily have your band's web address or myspace page or Bandmix page for that matter. This is a WINNING concept, I hope it works. This kind of reminds me of a business directory in a classified newspaper: a bunch of my competitors and other non-competitors in one handy location...

Bob, I have to disagree with you on this. No biggie, Im involved either thru ownership or sit on the boards of 5 successful business's to answer your question. In business you have to know your competition, their strengths and weakness's, so if a comparison question comes up you can address it, but I would never bring up a competitors name or product in a conversation. If the customer brings them up, I will be able to address their concerns.

In music there is limited entertainmant dollars these days. On a myspace acct why would I want to publisize a competitor unless it was going to benefit me. I may be wrong, but I dont want another band just like mine advertizing a gig the same night as one of mine thru my contacts. I am greedy when it comes to that, my goal is to win, call it killer instinct or whatever.

Ive been running business's since I got out of college and have done well, Im open to new tricks as you have to be in this day and age. But I respectfully disagree with what your saying.

On the gigman concept anything that places your name in a new location is good. If its another resource for placing your name in front of people that otherwise might not see your name, if it leads them to you its a good thing. But once they get to me I dont want any distractions from competitors. Just my 2 cents.

The gigman thing may work and I hope it does I want everyone to have as much success as possible, I try to approach all this in a positive manner.

Kramer I appreciate the way you try to uncover things that come up, but maybe your turning into Craig Maxim a little too much, if you know what I mean. If you got any direct issues with me just pm me and we will work it out.

CRIP, YOU GOT ONE OF THOSE DOGS?
WHAT MOVIE WAS THAT? Everyone loved that pup.
You Up For Some Rock Jazz Non Fusion Country pop Playin it in your face kinda stuff , OH with a classical twist?

This post got way to serious, had to put my axe away, you gonna call your dogs off?

No .. ain't my dog... Here's my beast:

I just saw this one. Guess I am just waking up this weekend.

I have no idea what's going on here.



I do know that it grinds my balls to hear some unknown piece of self-advertising sh*t crack on Kramer, with some half-assed line about failed muso's.

Hey Gigfag, how about going to another site to shamelessly self-promote your gay, useless site about nothing and crack on those people.

This site has teeth and if you are not careful, it's your day in the barrel.

You remind me of half a dozen get rich quick assholes that tend to troll our waters on a regular basis.

Too bad I can't ban your ip from here./>!

I would NOT be in business today if my competitors hadn't sent me leads they couldn't handle. It's the same in music. Do you think that you are the only band that your fans know about? Do you think that you "OWN" your fans? Also, if this concept takes off (and I hope it does) wouldn't it be to YOUR advantage to let people who don't know about you to find you on this board? If you were to utilize this concept you don't have to tell your fans about the board if you don't want to. That's up to you. We have an alternative newspaper that lists almost every venue in town and who's playing there. They break the venues into categories (rock, blues, jazz, country, etc.). Also the Kansas City Blues Society lists all the blues bands and the venues and who's playing there. This is just a list of names. This board is a significant advantage over those lists because it gives much more information about your band and can link to your websites. As a marketing concept I LOVE this idea. jw123, I strongly suspected you've been involved in your own business the way you market your band. I'm not sure Kramer has ever run a business though. There's a bunch of marketing books written by Jay Conrad Levinson called Guerilla Marketing. You guys need to pick up a copy of these books and read it. It's a real eye opener. If the gigman's concept works, and it is reasonably priced, I think it would be a real benefit to just about any band. A one stop shopping site for music fans would eventually get a lot of traffic. The more eyes that see your band's name the better off you'll be. Don't be afraid of competition, they'll make you money if you RECIPROCALLY SEND EACH OTHER BUSINESS. We need all the business we can get these days and we need to HELP each other.

Bob,
It's not that this guy had a bad idea. It's not a bad idea at all. BUT, it's a poorly thought-out execution, and will invariably fail. Also consider that this is a concept that dozens of start-ups are also doing right now, he just packaged it in a different color wrapping paper.

In the end, my whole argument revolves around the fact that this execution of the idea is the critical flaw, and leads to the inevitable failure.

Everything you say about competitive business is true, many business like ours rely on symbiotic relationships with each other. My beefs are about planning, marketing, and execution. Outside of the actual idea, this guy has nothing.

ooops.... dammit... wrong thread.... was posting silly vids that were supposed to be in the United States thread.... my bad

I'd like to see this one succeed, or another one by the other start-ups succeed. There may be hundreds of people eventually looking at a website like this in every market someday, just as there's hundreds of people who read the listings in the local entertainment newspaper. I don't view ANY band as a competitor to mine. Every band is different. If your band is hot you're going to get gigs anyway. Getting as many people to know about your band as possible is going to be good for business. If your band ISN'T hot then yeah you do need to worry about the competition. If a website like this or one simlar ends up being free or very inexpensive I say it's good for business and worth trying anyway.

To be honest I thought this was a good idea really. I used to do a lot of promo work and for the most part my artistic work was seen for a few minutes on the street and for about a second when people turned up to get drunk.

Packaging is a vast side of any business, even music. I think the Author however should tone down his attitude since memories are long and far reaching.

No offense to anyone meant.

Cheers.
Chippy

At first I thought gigman had a good idea. Then, after reading Kramerguy's response, I changed my mind and thought it was the beginning of a good idea. Then, when I saw gigman's response to that, I thought he was dodging the question a bit, and getting a little heated up that anyone would question his idea. Then, when I saw Chris4Blues post and Kramerguy's responses to that, I thought these were great ideas and could be helpful to someone wanting a site like gigman's to go over. So what I have to say (my 2 cents) is this:
Gigman, this is a forum and a forum is for exchanging ideas. You came on here to promote your site and that's OK. It might turn out to be a musician's dream someday, but not if you ignore good (and might I add free) advice from seasoned musicians who have been there. I think you got off on the wrong foot with Kramerguy and you need to re-read the posts and look for the things that will make your site more appealing to all involved. Your site looks good and judging by the construction of it, whoever designed it knows a bit about building good sites and would have no problem incorporating some of the suggestions that were made. I'm not saying use all of them. Just the ones that you feel would be a big improvement. I personally would rather visit a site like yours than someone's myspace page that is trying to do the same thing, just because it shows more initiative on your part to create something from scratch (something I couldn't do if I wanted to). I hope your site does well, but I don't think it will if you push good ideas away just because you initially didn't like where they came from.

Can't we all just get along?

Oh, also, I tried doing a search for the US, any month, any state, any city, for Rock music and got no results. Is this because your site is still new or because I didn't sign up? Just wondering.

I mention a buck and now every one is putting up two cents. HOW ABOUT A NEW SONG OUT OF YOU RAT , Would be greatly appreciated!

You got it giongi2. I put up 3 more. This is still older stuff as I am not set up doing my home recordings yet. Be back on track soon I hope.