kuchner country

New demos and a report from the field.

Hi Everyone—

I just came back from a busy week in Nashville making demos, and meeting with writers, publishers, producers, and folks at BMI, SESAC, and NSAI. Here’s my report.

New Songs. My latest songs are online. They are all contemporary male country. Drop me a line if you’d like a CD.

• “Backwards“ http://www.marckuchner.com/song/4
• “Shade” (a rewrite) http://www.marckuchner.com/song/0
• “Men In Big Machines“ http://www.marckuchner.com/song/3
• “Hooked“ http://www.marckuchner.com/song/11

Advances. Labels are expecting more and more from artists. It used to be that labels would act as banks for artists, and advance them money against their earnings to make their first album and promote themselves. Apparently more and more labels are expecting artists to show up with backers who will pay for the artist’s first album! It makes you start to wonder why exactly you need a label. (Actually, if you’ve been paying attention, you have probably been wondering that for a while!)

All-in-one deals from Independent Labels. Another new trend is that independent labels are expecting artists to sign deals where the label—-now called an “entertainment group”—-provides, production, management, and promotion, etc., all lumped together into one deal (this used to take several separate deals with several different parties). By controlling all these different aspects of an an artist’s career, the indie labels put themselves in a better position to negotiate with the major labels, when they come knocking on the door to buy out the top artists.

MySpace. Several times, when I walked into someone’s office, a browser was open to somebody’s MySpace page. So Nashville has caught on to MySpace. If you aren’t on it—-get on it now! (Here’s my page.)

Don’t worry about how many listens or visitors or comments you are getting; nobody knows how to judge what that means. But labels, publishers, PROs, etc. all are interested in evidence that you are working hard: touring and playing out. So make sure you post your tour schedule and any good news tidbits you have about prizes you’re winning or who you’ve opened for. And put up three amazing, amazing songs!

Music Row. got a new single? Send your CD to Music Row magazine for Robert Oermann to review. Everybody reads it.

Music Row Communications LLC
1231 17th Ave. S.
Nashville, TN 37212
(615) 321-3617 (Hours are M-F 8:30-5:30 CT)

Jango. There’s a new internet radio concept called Jango that seems to be emerging. It got a strong review from U.S.A. Today. You pay for your first 1000 or 2000 plays ($30 or $50). Then if you get 50 positive reviews, you go into permanent rotation—-mixed in among major label artists. I tried it with my song “Curiosity” and it went into permanent rotation after abut 900 plays, and now it’s being played next to Martina McBride and Alison Krauss.   www.jango.com

Best,

Marc 

2/13/09

Hi Everyone—

I’m busy this week gearing up for a trip to Nashville (anybody want to meet for coffee, Feb 22-27?) but I wanted to pass on a few tips in the meantime.

Can You Duet. Auditions will be held March 7, at the Wildhorse Saloon, 120 2nd Ave. North Nashville, TN. The Tape Submission Deadline is February 20.   See this website for more info:

http://www.cmt.com/shows/series/can_you_duet/series.jhtml

Taxes. Tax Season is here.   If you are making money from your music, or if you plan to make money from it in the next 3 years, you should be saving your receipts and keeping track of your income and expenses. You can deduct your expenses from your music business earnings when you calculate your taxes.  And you can sometimes amortize your expenses over several years, so even if you aren’t making money yet, you could be racking up future deductions.

So talk to your accountant!

Best,

Marc

1/15/09

Hi Everyone,

Happy new year!  I hope you’ve recovered from the holidays. The traffic here in the DC area is crazy right now; everyone’s piling into town for the inauguration.

Here are the tips.

Deal on music videos.  I talked Washington State videographer Eero Johnson into offering my friends a special deal.  He normally charges roughly $1500 to make a video for one song.  But if you mention this newsletter and contact him (eero@videoonestudio.com) before the end of February, he’ll make you a music video for $950.  This is a very good deal if you live in Washington; Eero’s work is polished and eye-catching.  Having a video can open many doors.

See http://www.videoonestudio.com/

How to Ace A Radio Interview.  Since this month has been slow I thought I’d offer you a few words on how to handle a radio interview.  (See below)

Keep the music going + turn it up!

Best,

Marc

_______________________________________________________

How to Ace a Radio Interview.

by Marc Kuchner

1/15/09

Once you start getting some airplay, you will inevitably be called upon to do some radio interviews.  A radio interview is a fantastic opportunity to collect new fans.  But there are also many ways an interview can go wrong. So I thought I would use this newsletter to tell you some of what I’ve learned about doing interviews and how to make them work for you.  I learned some of this by taking a course with former TV newsman George Merlis; I recommend his book “Mastering The Media” if you’re looking for more information.

To ace an interview you need to 1) Prepare Your Stories 2) Practice, and 3) Work with the Interviewer.  Here’s how.

1) Prepare Your Stories. 

You might think that an interview is where a media personality asks you questions and you answer them.  That’s incorrect!  Or at least that’s the wrong way to think of it.

To a good artist, an interview is an opportunity for you to tell stories and anecdotes that you have prepared in advance.  The “questions” the interviewer asks you are just cues to help you lead into each of your stories.  

So before the interview you’ll need to prepare the stories.  So take out a sheet of paper or open a fresh window on your laptop and write down some stories you can tell, or at least some notes to help you remember them.  During a radio interview you can place this sheet in front of you and read the stories off the sheet!  (You can sometimes do that on TV too.  But if you can’t, don’t worry, TV interviews are short—-you can probably memorize whatever you need to say.)  

Here are some of the stories you will need to prepare.  You can (and should) use the same ones over and over again on different radio stations.

An embarrassing/zany/comic moment story.

Radio interviewers love to ask about embarrassing moments and funny things that happened to you.  These stories are an opportunity for you to show off your sense of humor and also your humilty.   

They might ask “What’s the craziest thing that ever happened to you on tour?” or “What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” or more gently, “Tell our listeners something secret about you that nobody else knows!”. 

This kind of question is your cue to launch into your comic moment story.    So prepare a story that people will find entertaining.  Ideally it should be about life as a musician!  E.g. “I was backstage one night with Lynyrd Skynyrd and the amplifier fell on my foot…”  

I guarantee that you will be asked onf of these questions—it might even be the first one that comes up.  So make sure you prepare an entertaining story (that’s not too embarrassing.)

How did you get started being a musician/singer?  

This is another classic radio interview question that new artists get tripped up on. Maybe the truth is your Mom gave you piano lessons and then you were in the school play and you really really love Tim McGraw so you want to be a singer.  That’s OK.  But it’s boring. Try to come up with something that’s unusual and different.

You need to come up with an anecdote that people will find entertaining.  Tell a story with a hero and a villan.  Make it funny, scary, ironic.  Just come up with something unique.  Remember, you should tell the truth (of course)—-but you don’t have to answer exactly the question that was asked!

For example, maybe you found this old guitar in the attic and you used to strum it randomly and loudly to annoy your brother.   Then one day he say “I bet you couldn’t play an actual song on that thing because your a girl and girls are stupid. So you took the guitar and hit him in the head with it.”   And the rest is history…

You may also get asked: Who are your influences?  That’s probably an easy one.  Just make sure you prepare something so you don’t sit there staring at the ceiling for 5 seconds thinking about it.

The story of the song.

You probably have a single or two that you’re promoting.  You’ll need to be able to say something when they ask you about it.   What’s the story behind it?  Why is it special to you?

Well, once again, your goal when you answer the question is not to state the facts like you’re talking to your Dad or to a jury.  You should not lie—but you don’t need to directly answer the question!  The true story of the song might be that the demo tape showed up in the mail and your manager pressured you into cutting it.  But don’t say that.

Say something like “That song’s very important to me.  I’ll tell you what this song means to me.”  And then tell up with a story about a moment in your life that the song resonates with.  Is the song a breakup song?  Tell a story about your first breakup, and say “whenever I sing this song, that’s what I’m thinking about”.  Or is the song about trucks?  Tell them a story about your first pickup truck.  Just make it entertaining and make it about you.

If they pressure you about the business details, you might want to say something like this: ”We listened to thousands of songs from all over before I finally found this one, and when I heard it I knew right away that this was going to be my next hit.”   If they ask you if you write your own songs, the answer is yes!    (If you really don’t know anything about songwriting, give me a buzz and I’ll get you started.  I don’t promise you’ll be happy with the results for the first 8 years, but at least you can say you do it.)

Try to guess what else your interviewer will ask about you. 

Read your own bio and try to guess what will catch the interviewer’s eye.   Do you have an unusual hobby? (If not, maybe you should get one!)   Play a sport?  Like to bake?  Repair motorcycles?  Come up with a story about one of those activities that radio listeners will find entertaining.   If there’s nothing in your bio that will catch your interviewer’s attention, make sure you put something in!

I’ve worked for many years as a professional astronomer so I always get questions about astronomy.  You better believe I have an entertaining story or two to tell about astronomy for when that topic inevitably comes up in interviews.

Try to think of some aggressive interview questions and prepare your answers to them. Not every interview is friendly!  ”Why should people buy your album when there are so many good records out there?”  ”Your music sounds just like this other song I know; did you copy it?” etc.  Even if your interviewer is trying to have a laugh at your expense, you can still look cool, if you prepare.

While you are preparing your stories, keep your audience in mind. Remember, the typical radio listener is stuck in traffic somewhere, bored out of his/her skull and desparately in need of distraction.  This listener does not care about your manager or about your label or about the nuts and bolts of business.  (Do you really even care who George Strait’s A&R rep is, for example?) 

The public wants to hear about UFOs.  Love.  War.  Comedy.  Famous people.  Sex. Beauty. Life.    Be as entertaining in your interview stories as you are in your music.

2) Practice. 

The interview situation is unnatural.  You’re used to having conversations with people. But an interview is not a conversation (see above).

So you’ll need to practice dealing with this strange situation and steering the interview towards the stories you want to tell.  Find a partner (e.g. friend manager, band member etc.) who can play the interviewer and ask you questions.     For example, almost everyone speaks with time fillers (like “um” “uh”) etc.  You’ll need to practice to get those out of your speech.

Also you’ll need to work on controlling the flow of the interview.  Practice telling your stories in response to the questions, and making it sound like your stories are somehow responses to what the interviwer has asked.  Here are some examples of what you might say to help control the flow.

“Here’s something else that might interest you about me…”

“No I’ve never been too drunk to remember the words. But here’s another crazy story about me…”  

“No I don’t have any hidden body piercings.  But let me tell you about my pet gerbil/new single/entertaining story/website etc.” 

“Don’t forget to ask me about…”

Making this sound smooth takes some work.  So practice, practice, practice.  Have your partner first simulate a friendly interviewer and then a hostile interviewer.

Tape record your practice interview and listen to it.  Keep an ear out for things you’ve said that might be taken out of context and learn not to say them.   Learn how not to say “uh” or “you know” or other time fillers that make you sound stupid.

When you are done telling your story, close your mouth!  A common mistake people make on interviews is that when they run out of material they have prepared, they keep on talking, babbling about something they didn’t really mean to say, trying to make conversation or make friends with the interviewer.  That’s not helping your image.  Tell your prepared story, then shut up.  

3) Work With the Interviewer.

The interviewer is looking to get as much entertainment value out of you as he/she can.  So feel free to offer advice that will help your interviewer attain this goal. This way you can steer the interview the direction you want, so the entertainment is not at your expense.

The best way to help the interviewer is to feed him or her interesting facts about you ahead of time.  You will have an opportunity to interact with your interviewer before the interview and send him/her things.  Send him or her your promotional package, including a fact sheet about you, and a well written bio.  

Before the interview starts you’ll be chatting a bit with the interviewer.   This time represents an important opportunity.  During this time (when the interviewer or the technical crew might be checking levels, testing equipment, etc.) tell the interviewer how to pronounce your name.  Then tell the interviewer what to ask you about.  Do you have an intereting story about how your pet gerbil crawled into your guitar?  Say “Don’t forget to ask me about gerbils!”

During the interviewer, never talk down to the interviewer (I’m sure you wouldn’t do that).  And also, remember that the interviewer is not your Dad or manager;  you don’t need to look up to him or her.  You and the interviewer are both stars—-on the same footing.

Here’s a good way to think of the interviewer during the interview. Pretend the interviewer is a guy/girl you think is hot—-and you’ve just met. So you’re flirting a bit.  But you’re also being careful, coy, and cool so you make a good impression and you don’t show all your cards.  Got it?

Finally, don’t forget to use the interview as a way to tell the audience about your next gig, your website, and your album.  Usually interviewers are sensitive to your need to do this!  But don’t hesitate to say “Do you mind if I take a moment to tell people about my new album?” or otherwise find way to work it into the conversation.

This little bit of self-promotion is part of how you get paid for your time doing the interview.   Don’t let this opportunity go to waste.  Make sure your album is available on the shelves, your website is up and running, and you have a gig booked in the area.

Good luck!

12/13/08

Hi Everybody—

The new Keanu Reeves movie is out, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. While they were filming it, one of the actors called me for advice on how to act like an astronomer.  I told him to try writing country songs. Unfortunately the movie’s not doing so well.

Anyway, here are the tips.

Indie Acoustic Project Awards.  Submit  your CDs to The Indie Acoustic Project by December 31 to be eligible for their “Best CDs of 2008” Awards.  This is FREE. The prize seems to be that you get featured on the IAP website. There are many categories (no plain old “Country” but there’s “Alt Country” and ”Americana” and “Roots”).  See:

www.indieacoustic.com 

Yet Another Website to Post Your Music On.  This one is free and it seems to have real heart.  It’s called The Modern Vocalist. It features blogs about vocal technique, microphones, licensing, etc:  

http://themodernvocalist.ning.com/

I started a Country Singers group—-please join in! 

http://themodernvocalist.ning.com/group/countrysingers

Twitter.  Are you on twitter yet?  Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby) talked me into signing up for it as a way to make new contacts and find new fans.  It’s already paid off for me; I found some new (signed) cowriters on it.  If you are a facebook fan, you can do your twittering on facebook.  Just go to

http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ 

and add the application.   Tell me your twitter name and I’ll follow you.

http://twitter.com/marckuchner

Keep rocking, and try not to eat too much over the holidays because you have to stand up on stage and look good. (unlike me)

Best,

Marc

11/20/08

Hi Everybody—

It’s just starting to feel like winter here in Baltimore.  Here are the tips!

Aria Recods. This label is looking for country artists to sign.  They are an independent label associated with Jim Allison, the well known Nashville producer who helped Billy Ray Cyrus get started.  So put together your best package and send it in!  Their address is at:

http://www.ariarecordsnashville.com

Yet Another Website to Post Your Music On.  It seems like there’s a new one every few weeks.  This one is called Artist Underground (it used to be American Idol Underground).   It costs $10 to post each song.  Posting a song enters it into whatever contest they are currently running (with typically $250 in prizes), and allows visitors to the site to rate it anonymously.

http://www.artistunderground.com

Got Attitude?  I’ve got new female uptempo online called “Done With Bad Boys”.

http://www.marckuchner.com/album/0

Keep rocking (in a country way, of course)—-

Best,

Marc

10/13/08

Hi Everyone—-

In this mailing I thought I’d describe some pay services that offer opportunities for country artists, i.e. gigs, producers and labels looking for artists, radio shows, etc. Just let me know if you ever need to be taken off the mailing list. Don’t forget to drop me a line every now and then and tell me about your latest accomplishments!

Sonicbids.  (www.sonicbids.com)  This service allows you to create an online “press kit” and submit it to a a variety of opportunities ranging from gigs at street festivals to radio shows to TV licensing pitches.  It costs $49.95 per year to join.  The submissions range in price from $2 (e.g. for internet radio shows)  to $40 (for the big ego international competitions).  Do a little math and its easy to see who is making money here—but it’s not that expensive if you’re careful, and this site has helped me take some priceless steps in my own career.

Bandit.  (www.banditnewsletter.com/).   This old-school tipsheet is emailed to you once a month with about 25-30 listings per issue covering all popular genres—R&B, Urban, etc.  They have three country-relevant listings this week, a manager looking for artists to represent, a publisher, and an investor.  It costs $93 per year.

Taxi  (www.taxi.com)  This now famous L.A. company has developed an impressive record of placing songs from independent artists into music libraries and TV.   They also attempt to place artists with producers and labels.  You upload your mp3s and bio and picture to their website, and then you submit these to listings in their tipsheet, which is, frustratingly, anonymous.  A subscription is $299.95 for the first year, and somewhat less for subsequent years.  The tipsheet spans all genres, from Jazz to World to Video Games, but right now, for example there are three listings for contemporary country artists.   The best thing about Taxi is that most of the time give you an intelligent critique of your submission—-you don’t get that from sonicbids or bandit.

It’s instructive to see what the listings are looking for in an artist.  For example, a current country listing on Taxi says “the whole artist package must be there - touring experience, growing fan base, online presence, etc”.    So I hope you don’t mind touring (and that’s before you get signed!).

Keep making good music—-

Best,

Marc

9/5/08

Hi Everyone—-

Here are some new tips.  Just let me know if you ever need to be taken off the mailing list.  Don’t forget to drop me a line every now and then and tell me about your latest accomplishments!

Do you have a music video?

“Fade To Black”, a TV show aired twice a week in Nashville on Comcast Cable, is now accepting submissions from local artists. The show goes out to over 220,000 homes in Davidson county on Channel 19. Steve Lockett, the show’s producer, says “I will try and play almost all videos that I receive as long as they meet the following criteria”: 

1.) Must be a music video (no live performance footage - try and have a story- boarded video)

2.) No foul language or nudity unless censored

3.) I am open to all genres of music.

Send a DVD-r (and if possible a CD of your music) to:

Fade To Black TV P.O. Box 187 Madison, TN 37115

Include a signed piece of paper saying that you are the copyright owner of the original song on the video ad that you are giving permission for the video to be aired on cable TV. For more information, email Steve Lockett at: FadeToBlackShow (AT ) aol.com, or visit the website at:

www.fadetoblackshow.com

If you want to send in one my songs, I’d be more than happy to supply you with this signed piece of paper.

Music News Nashville.   This site has a big list of other places to submit your music to, mostly magazines and websites. Just look at: http://www.musicnewsnashville.com/publications.htm

Best,

Marc

8/22/08

Hi Everybody—-

I hope you’re enjoying the last few days of summer.   Thanks for all those birthday wishes!  Here are the latest tips and news items.  Just let me know if you ever need to be taken off the mailing list.

Missile Records.  Joe Mitchell from Missile Records in Mississippi contacted me looking for Country artists. I don’t know anything about them except that Joe seems to be very enthusiastic.

Send your demos to:

Joe F. Mitchell 

Missile Records

PO Box 5537

Moss Point, Mississippi 39563

Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.  Tell him you’re an artist/band/singer (as opposed to e.g. a writer or a producer).  And please mention my name in your cover letter.

How do you recognize a hit song?  Here’s one company that thinks they know how: Platinum Blue.

http://www.platinumblueinc.com

For $10 they will run your song through a computer (it needs to be a full band recording, i.e. radio ready) and tell you whether or not it could be a hit, based on fancy software informed by a database of all the top 40 songs in the last few decades.  The website says that the service is temporarily unavailable—-but stay tuned. An informal survey of my friends in publishing and A&R suggests that not very may people believe in this method yet.

But—-they had all heard of this company!  And that probably means something. So I figured you should know about it too.

Focus Groups.  How do the major labels pick songs to put their marketing power and dollars behind?  One way is to use a focus group.   That’s how Hitpredictor works.

http://www.hitpredictor.com

This company plays your song to a bunch of real, random, bored humans and asks for their opinions, and converts the answers into a numerical score. Even if you can’t afford the $1500 it takes to hire them, check out their website; it has charts of current hit songs and how they scored in their system.

How do you pick songs?   As a songwriter, I need to know!  So if you have a minute, I’d love it if you’d jot down your thoughts and email them to me.  And let me know if your methods are top secret, or if it’s OK for me to share them with, e.g., this mailing list.

Best,

Marc

8/8/08

Hi Everybody—-

I hope you’re having a good week.   Here are this week’s tips and news items. Just let me know if you ever want to be taken off the mailing list.

Derek Sivers.  The founder of CDBaby, former circus performer, and gazillionaire, sold CDBaby to DiskMakers and quit to do other things     (sit on the couch?   watch TV?). In any case, he now has a website (sivers.org) that contains a variety of new resources for artists. I particularly recommend his free ebook on music marketing.   

ITunes.  Ever wonder how to sell songs on iTunes?   If you try to do it through the iTunes/Apple website, you will just waste your time; they will sit on you application for a month and then probably turn it down.   On the other hand, go to

Tunecore (www.tunecore.com)

and pay a modest subscription fee (it adds up to about $40 per year for a whole album) and they will put your songs on iTunes and several other web venues (Rhapsody, eMusic, Amazon, GroupieTunes and Lala).  Even with Tunecore, it takes a few months for the songs to get into the iTunes system, though, so do this right away once your album is done!

Linking to your songs.  Once you have songs for sale on iTunes, you’ll want to put a link up on your website/myspace page etc. to your itunes songs so people can buy them. Here’s a tool that will help you do that:

http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStoreServices.woa/wa/itmsLinkMaker

You can also do it by right clicking on your product in the iTunes store and pasting the link into your page.

Birthday. My birthday was yesterday (August 7).  Hooray!  

Best,

Marc

8/1/08

Hi Everybody—-

Every now and then, as I work on my songwriting, I stumble across opportunities and news that I can’t do much with (since I can’t sing to save my life) but that might be interesting to my friends who are artists and managers.  Here’s what I learned since my last email to y’all. Just let me know if you ever want to be taken off the list.

Season 8.  American Idol Season 8 Auditions are underway.   The remaining auditions are in San Juan (August 2), Kansas City (August 8), Jacksonville (August 13) and E. Rutherford (August 19). For details, see

http://www.americanidol.com/auditions/

More about Country Radio.  In the last email, I gave you a link to a list of radio markets (i.e. geographical locations) of different sizes.  But you’re probably wondering what stations are in those markets!  Here where to find that information, together with lots more country radio resources.  This is a wonderful site designed for Country Music DJs.  You’ll need to register to use it, but it’s free and takes only a few seconds, and then you get to be in their directory.

http://www.allaboutcountry.com/

Little Dog Records. LIttle Dog Records (Los Angeles) is encouraging demo submissions from artists—-mostly rock/country/americana.  They are a small label but I believe they signed a distribution deal with Mercury Nashville (now UMG).   The company was started by Pete Anderson, Dwight Yoakum’s longtime producer.   Here’s the link.

http://www.littledogrecords.com/home/About-Us/Submissions.html

Keep rocking!

Best,

Marc