Buying Fans??

Everyone wants to sell you something. Whether it's a used car or a record deal; don't trust them. There's truth down there somewhere, but you've got to dig to get to it. You want to know exactly what you're getting, what it can do for you, and why you need it.

Sometimes, the digging is all done for you. Take this example. Below is an email I got from some promotion company (If your music is out there, you probably see these as well - one every few months or so at least). Basically, for a fee, they will sell you facebook fans, youtube plays, and website hits. They sell numbers. And I'm not okay with that. So, I sent them a reply:

From: Label - DianaHolland

Subject: Hi, Alex Brubaker you will love this Reverbnation Music Promotion

Date: 02/15/2012 6:22 AM

Hi Alex Brubaker my name is Mike with http://TalentHouseLIVE.com, the #1 site for Artist Development and Promotion. I've listened to the majority of your music and I think we can help you convey your talents to a much bigger audience.

Talent House Live will help you promote your music and grow your fan-base with our innovative marketing and brand management services. We specialize in a number of services like ReverbNation Promotion, Artist Development, FaceBook promotion, Twitter fans, YouTube promotion, DatPiff promotion, album cover designs and much more.

I am truly passionate about our dedication to help "Indie Artists and Indie Record Lables" with new and creative ways of marketing that traditional record labels can't match. If you are looking to launch your music career to new heights using internet marketing then check out Talent House LIVE. Get Revernation Promotion athttp://talenthouselive.com/portfolios/reverbnation

http://talenthouselive.com/portfolios/reverbnation 
Get 10 percent Discount on all other Promo when you use the code mikepromo 
Call Talent House Live directly @ 800 871-2314 and tell them Mike Referred you.

and my response:

To: Label - DianaHolland  

Subject: reverbnation promotion

Date: 02/15/2012 1:12 PM

Mike,

Thank you for the email and reaching out to help. However, I do not prescribe to the idea of "selling plays." It's a great business model, to find young, naive artists and to show them big numbers; who wouldn't jump at that? But it's never about the numbers. It's about the music and the fans. When you turn your fans into numbers, they remain numbers. And numbers are not sustainable. Hype is not sustainable. This creates anomalies in statistics and makes overnight success look like a great thing. It's not. You need fans, not numbers, to sustain that. And if you don't know your fans, they might as well be numbers.

Music is something I see as a career. For me, it’s a career on the side, but still a career. A career in music is built on relationships with fans, friends, and other artists. One builds a career one gig at a time, during one song at a time, by one fan at a time. It’s not some one night stand with 100,000 faceless names.

Sorry, but my music is about the music and the fans. I won't cheapen that by buying fans and plays like some sort of commodity.

Alex Brubaker 
www.alexbrubakerguitar.com

Matt Walsh at the Collaboratory

Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting to hear Matt Walsh speak at the Collaboratory at Messiah College. I know, I graduated last year, but I still help out with Collab and really wanted to hear Matt. He and his family are missionaries at the center that I was at in Burkina Faso two summers ago. That, and he’s got good things to say.

Through his talk, he had a lot of great things to say with regards to work in Burkina, as well as work in other non-westernized cultures. Though one thing struck me… and I think it has to do with actually having gone over there and being a bit older and, perhaps, a bit wiser.

His point, the shot no one saw coming, was that sometimes we need to impede our successes. We need solutions that are both “good” and also sustainable. An overnight boom in anything is seldom sustainable and, often times, it’s “goodness” is measured strictly in quantity. In the case of Matt’s work, he provided many examples of foreign aid on things like crop yield that, overnight, would double or triple yields, but in the process would cripple communities and actually increase poverty in the area.

In the case of this blog, with the main focus on music, the same can be applied.

One of your worst fears as an artist is to explode overnight. So many strive for it and anxiously await the day, but it seldom does any good. You’ve seen it so often (i.e. top 40), where all of the sudden everyone is singing the same song and everyone likes the same band and it seems like everything is going well for said artist.

Fast-forward a week or two from that instance. Has the song been forgotten? Overplayed ad nauseam? Has the artist been forgotten? At that point, maybe not. But then fast-forward a few years. In almost all cases, you’ve got a burned out act playing dumpy bars and clubs, riding the coat-tails of the good ‘ole days.

Instead, you want something sustainable. You don’t want a fling with success, you want a career in it. And a career is sustainable. A career isn’t made with a hit. A career isn’t made by hype. Those are quantitative results, recklessly obtained with no regard for quality. People see that and that’s why they forget about you.

You need to build slowly. The fans you get shouldn’t be the drifters, following whatever the tastemakers are saying is hot. The fans you get you want to be life fans. Those are fans that know when you’re in their city and know when your next big project is coming out. Those are the people who you talk to after the show and have meaningful conversations with. Those are the people that you smile to and thank for coming to the show. They will build your career and sustain it for you.

It’s always about the fans; always about the people. If it starts to be about the money, the hype, and the fame, you’ll all but be forgotten tomorrow.

Birthday Post

So yesterday was my birthday. Since I haven't blogged in a while, I will post regarding births.

Stop having children. If you can't put the effort forth, don't bother; you'll spawn children that also don't put any effort towards anything. They will make poor music and poor life decisions. Fact.