The reviews are up now (here) and I think that just proves how awesome we are

But yeah, don't worry - I won't forget my roots here on the LFS forum when I'm picking up my first Grammy

More gigs posted up. Some times and prices still to be confirmed though.

Looks like we didn't get a wildcard vote after all. The damn judges picked other bands who could bring more people. Stupid non-talent-based competitions.

Time for yet more pimping! And yet another competition! And gigs in the OP again.

Orange are running an unsigned event to help some more bands on their way to stardom (or drug rehabilitation at least) via Orange Unsigned Act. This is how easy it is.

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Vote once per day (for Albany Down, obviously)

That's it. At the end of the month, the 25 most voted bands get through to the next stage along with the 25 judge favourites.
Those 50 bands are entered into a sort of Pop Idol competition where they all live together for a bit and the public votes for their favourites. The winners probably get some good stuff, but I've not even looked that up.

An account is required to vote, but it's all free. And as of right now they've not actually added the Vote button yet but I understand there'll be an email sent round when they do.

Please help. Your clicks could save a starving musician today.

Quote from Dajmin :

At the end of the month, the 25 most voted bands get through to the next stage along with the 25 judge favourites.
Those 50 bands are entered into a sort of Pop Idol competition where they all live together for a bit and the public votes for their favourites. The winners probably get some good stuff, but I've not even looked that up.

So you want our help to win a competition and you don't know what the prize is?

And you call yourself a musician but you want to go through "a sort of Pop Idol competition"?

Death to everybody involved, it's the only way.

Normally I'd agree with you, but at least this one does actually require you to be in a performing band at such a stage that you have a demo to use. Which at least puts us a few rungs up the ladder from the Poop Idle lot

Incidentally, the prize is a record contract (which is hardly a surprise). And they're claiming it's a "big" one. So I expect nothing less than a 1-year, £10 million deal out of it. That'd be big enough

If you care at all about the music you're making, you really don't want a major label deal. The only thing they can do for you that you can't do for yourself is global distribution, and they won't be interested in doing that anyway unless you have a miraculously huge hit or three here in the UK.

In the meantime you've got to put up with them changing your band and your music into something they think will be commercially viable and by the time they're done with that you'll be no better than the other TV talent show-winning scrubs that have been filthying up the charts for the last ten years.

With dedication and hard work you can be selling records in the UK without their help, and if you do have a surprisingly big hit on your hands they will come to you, and you'll be in a much stronger position to try to strike a fair deal.

Your time would be better spent writing, recording and touring, and getting friendly with the promoters.

See, the advantage that those TV talent show people have is that they have enough money that they can do it full time. The ones that don't write have the issue of keeping a writing team with them, but we don't have that problem. If we had the cash to give up our jobs and spend our days in a studio or just writing songs, that would be fine. Right now we get 4 hours per week and I couldn't afford to rehearse any more regularly than that.
So I'd happily sell my soul and make a cheesy pop song or crappy Xmas #1 if it meant I could give up my job and do the music full time. I'm too old and have been chasing this too long to have any scruples left.

But the industry is no longer about recording. Piracy has pretty much killed off album releasing as a profit-making system. That's why you're seeing a lot of older artists move into live shows again, like Madonna and Michael Jackson.
A live show (and of course merchandise) is the only thing artists have left to sell, and there's not enough of a crossover between the single-buying kiddies and the gig-attending public to mean that silly pop hit isn't going to hurt your attendance.

This isn't something I've only just thought of y'know

Quote from Dajmin :

See, the advantage that those TV talent show people have is that they have enough money that they can do it full time. The ones that don't write have the issue of keeping a writing team with them, but we don't have that problem. If we had the cash to give up our jobs and spend our days in a studio or just writing songs, that would be fine.

Do you know any bands that are swimming in cash? I don't, and never have! There just aren't that many rich musicians - it's not something that you get rich doing.

Anyway, all I'm saying is if you've only got limited time available for developing and promoting your band, then I think you could be doing something more constructive with that time.

So instead of 4 hours per week, living in a residential complex with each other 24/7 isn't going to allow us to do more writing? And I don't know any, but compare that to the ones who have had a stint on TV. How many people from Pop Idol or the X Factor have got to the residential televised stage and then gone back to work stacking shelves? Practically none of them; nearly every one gets to do something music-related, even if it's not necessarily the top prize. That's all I'm fussed about.

Besides, it's not like we're taking time out from a busy schedule to do it. We're only getting a handful of gigs every month

Quote from Dajmin :

So instead of 4 hours per week, living in a residential complex with each other 24/7 isn't going to allow us to do more writing? And I don't know any, but compare that to the ones who have had a stint on TV. How many people from Pop Idol or the X Factor have got to the residential televised stage and then gone back to work stacking shelves? Practically none of them; nearly every one gets to do something music-related, even if it's not necessarily the top prize. That's all I'm fussed about.

Well there's that bird with the tits who apparently can play piano, but the press are more interested in her tits. I can't think of anybody else. One of the other goons from Popstars was doing a cheesy song-and-dance theatre tour last year. Hardly creative stuff. Can you think of any others?

Quote from Dajmin :

Besides, it's not like we're taking time out from a busy schedule to do it. We're only getting a handful of gigs every month

I think it's time for a crap analogy: When you get paid, do you put the money in the bank or do you put it all on the lottery?

Personally I'd be booking more gigs. Of course you'll probably lose money in the short term doing shows, maybe even in the long term if there's not much of an audience for your music. That's why I suggested finding a/some suitable promoter/s who can get you decent bookings, who already know where your potential audience are. Listening to your band I think you'd do a lot better outside the UK, but I'm no expert. Find someone who is.

Funnily enough I'm far less interested in the UK's sort of closed and cliquey "you must be pop or r'n'b or we don't buy stuff" as much as I would be in the far more "we'll buy anything that's good" chart in the USA. I can't really speak for the rest of Europe or the like, but Japan also seems to be nuts about UK rockers too. There could be a lot of gigs/fame/money/limitless power and resources mwaa ha ha in that. We're also thinking about doing a mini-tour of Aussieland because our bassist has a fairly large fanbase over there. The crazy buggers.

I mean I can see your point about not selling out and all, but just because we're not seeing Gareth Gates or Will Whateverhisnameis doesn't mean they're not still in the industry (and TBH not seeing them works for me). I'd sooner inject acid into my retinas than watch these shows so I wouldn't know the folks from them if I fell over them. but I'm sure the news would tell us all about it if they were spotted down their local Tesco.

And at least this version is a show specially for actual bands, with some well-known industry judges (Jo Whiley and the like) so it's not quite as shamefully soulless as the pure pop ones

The problem is that all of this costs money. Getting to gigs costs money, accomodation costs money (if we're not near someone's house), and a professional promoter taking their cut is going to eat us alive. And on a personal note, my gf and I are a bit skint at the moment as it is, so it's not like we've got savings to fall back on any more. I think it's a little early in the band life to start thinking that far ahead, but obviously the idea might have merit some months down the line.

Quote from Dajmin :

The problem is that all of this costs money. Getting to gigs costs money, accomodation costs money (if we're not near someone's house), and a professional promoter taking their cut is going to eat us alive. And on a personal note, my gf and I are a bit skint at the moment as it is, so it's not like we've got savings to fall back on any more. I think it's a little early in the band life to start thinking that far ahead, but obviously the idea might have merit some months down the line.

Again, if you've got a promoter who's used to working with certain venues they'll often have cheap accommodation available (rooms in fans' houses that they'll let out for a few quid are quite common) but there's only four of you anyway, you could sleep in the van. Yes touring does cost money but it doesn't have to be that expensive, and if you can establish a following you can potentially make a few quid, or at least get to the stage where touring pays for itself.

If you're skint to begin with then at least you don't have anything to lose.

Speaking of the USA: There is a larger audience available, generally, for live music on the coasts and in college towns. You can almost make a living as an unsigned band gigging original music over there if you're good but again you'd need to have the right people working for you and they'd need to be confident that you'd pull in the punters. One potential issue is working visas, which are extremely difficult to come by, so you would probably have to be paid off the books. Lots of places are willing to do that though, so if you can actually get into the country in the first place you could wire the money home and it shouldn't be a problem.

I suppose you'd have the cost of renting backline equipment and instruments... I've never done that so I don't know how expensive it would be. If you turned up at border control looking like a band going on tour you'd probably be sent back to the UK, so safer to rent.

Voting is finally up, so you can help us (even if Kev doesn't agree with it).

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Vote once per day (for Albany Down, obviously)

The easiest way to find us, in case you get lost, is by going to the Rock category, the letter A and I think we're on page 5. You can't miss the name.

Quote from sendspace, about the DVD :

This file has been deleted. Please contact the uploader and ask them to upload the file again.

Are you the uploader?

Well I'm not, but I know the man who is I'll give him a poke and see if we can get it uploaded again.

I wonder what happened to it though. Odd.

Apparently the hosting company is trying to discourage active links from places like MySpace, so a lot of them don't work. But if you copy and paste the URL into a new window it should work.

Here's the current active link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/3k8ycw

Thanks for that, sounds like an interesting band from the few songs I heard. I'm going to watch the DVD and then I get back here to write what I think.

In any case, good luck with it!

love ur song wasted

New gig posted up.
November 29th, Purple Turtle in Camden.

I love that venue, it just screams "proper rock club" - black walls, decent sized stage, sticky floors, big fake turtle hanging from the roof.

Cheers master_lfs.5101, that's probably my favourite song too. I keep saying we need to be chasing the US crowd rather than the really closed and inbred UK chart, but crossing the Atlantic is expensive and we'd need to take a few weeks out to do as many places at once as possible. As soon as we manage it I'll be screaming it from the rooftops

no gigs in London from 15 to 23rd of November? I'll be in London then and like to see you guys playing

Not yet anyway. We might have some booked by the time November comes though

Forgot about this...

I like it. Sounds really fun to watch you guys live. There aren't many bands out there playing that kind of music, so keep it up.

Oh, and when you happen to cross the Atlantic, come pay us a visit down here.

Quote from Dajmin :

Not yet anyway. We might have some booked by the time November comes though

excellent, keep us (me) posted

New gigs posted, blah blah blah. See post #1

Sadly for Osco, the latest November one is just outside of his London visit. Sorry

nevermind
you suck anyway