Song
George Howard's Comments:“The Hard Way:” Love the orchestration. I assume it’s sampled? Really good mix of the orchestral sounds with the other noises. The drums – I think – could be mixed a little differently – they’re sort of up front, and maybe a little dry in the mix. I also think there needs to be more bass. I’m not sure where it is at all, but it would soften the drum. I might lose the cymbal splashes effects. The vocals are great. Lyrics work well.
It’s a really interesting track. Sort of reminds me of Zero 7 a little. To that end, it would be great to hear some remixes of this. I think this would lead to some added exposure. It’s so chill right now that I don’t see it getting play in clubs too much, but with a remix…it would open things up. I think the world is looking for another Jamaroqui or less insane R. Kelly, and this song shows you could fit that bill.
I also listened to your other songs on MySpace. I dig the reggae vibe on “A War Going On.” I’d sort of prefer to hear a guitar playing the backbeat, as opposed to the organ. The violin is a nice touch – sort of a Scarlett Rivera feel. The politics are a bit heavy-handed, but I suppose the times call for it.
“God Damn” could likely use a remix – or remaster. The volume and overall sound is very different from the others. It is a GREAT chorus, however.
“Romantic Magnetism” is a strong song. It reminds me a bit of what Lilly Allen is doing – which is cool.
I’d recommend you take a look at our section on production on the AHM site. You can find it here. Specifically check out the fantastic advice that Sheryl Crow’s producer Trina Shoemaker offers in her videos.
Mike King's Comments: Great song. You’ve got an excellent voice, and I love the harmonies in here. Good lyrics too. The sampled strings provide a Portishead/ James Bond vibe to this too, which I think is great. You’ve created a really cool atmosphere in this tune. I think the percussion could use a little work, and I might consider pulling the bass a bit higher into the mix. Also – the flange use in here was a little distracting to me. But overall, I think this is a really great song.
Bio
George Howard's Comments: First off, I think you could make the logo a bit smaller. It’s a bit ostentatious as it is right now. Also, Alliance Music Entertainment is very close to Alliance Entertainment Corporation (AEC), which is one of the largest music one-stops. It makes me a little nervous that you have similar names in the same industry.
Beyond that, I’m thrilled that you got the bio in at one page. This is pretty crucial. More than a page, and the chances of people reading the entire thing is pretty slim.
As for the content of the bio, I’m not sure you want to end the otherwise great sentence with “acquired a cult following in early 2000.” The beginning is really strong, but “cult following” is so vague, and kind of a cop out. Also, 2000 is 7 years ago, it makes the reader wonder what you’ve been doing for 7 years. Comparing yourself to P-Funk (which should be capitalized) is a bold move. I’d rather see you say you’re influenced by legends than compare yourself to legends. I’d change “college radio love” to “significant college radio airplay” or something like that. I don’t think colloquialisms work that well in bios.
It’s great that you have toured extensively and mention this in the early part of the bio. This is one of the first questions A&R people (and others) ask. You should include a tour itinerary as well. You likely want to mention the management company. From the way you’ve written this, and the fact that this letter isn’t on their letterhead, I assume you’re no longer working with this management firm.
In the second paragraph, I think you've gotta get rid of all the stuff prior to where you talk about your band that supported you. The opera start bit is interesting (again, probably want to name the person). Get rid of the battle of the band mention; keep in the sold out shows part. While I’m thrilled that you’ve included a quote here – always a good move in a bio — I don’t think this is the one you want to include.
Since we’re now halfway through 2007, you might want to mention when Head, Heart, and Hands comes out. This sentence needs reworking: “Head, Heart & Hands proves Mathien as a prolific song-writer, a multi-instrumentalist and as a passionate producer.”
Maybe it’s just replacing “as” with “is.”
It’s great that you mention that you are marketing the CD. I’d rephrase it to just say that there will be an extensive marketing and promotional push behind the release of HHH, and talk about your touring. I’d definitely get rid of the part where you say you’re taking a break from playing live. No one wants to hear that, and no one wants to hear that you are not giving this effort 100% focus – i.e. lose the mention of the side project.
Instead, end it with something emphatic about your current project.
I know I’ve mentioned a lot of changes, but overall this is a good bio. I do think it would benefit from the changes I mention, as well as through the inclusion of either some quotes from some of your supporters and/or some sample lyrics.
The larger question is what is the purpose of this bio. Is it to try and get a deal, or is it just part of a press package?
We have a ton of information on the promo package, and how to use it. Check out this Editor’s Guide on this topic to get a guided tour of our resources.
Mike King's Comments: First thing – wondering why the lead is Alliance Music Entertainment? This logo is WAY too big. I think that it’s a good idea to tag a label’s logo if there is a certain cache to be had, or if the label is part of your story. If you were signed to Thrill Jockey or Drag City (two great Chicago-based indie labels that have a ton of cred and a particular sound associated with them) having their logo up top might give some writers or booking agents a reason to read more. I’ve never heard of Alliance Music Entertainment, and they don’t come up as a top return in Google. I assume this is the management company you mention in your opening paragraph. I’d remove this logo, and if you think the relationship is important, maybe blow it out a bit more in the body of the bio.
I like the comparisons you use in the opening paragraph. It’s definitely important to give folks a point of reference. It’s funny, but I don’t hear any of these references in the song you submitted! You have a really great voice, and I suggest you put in some more vocal comparisons up top here. You also mention that you got college radio love and have toured the Midwest college circuit. I think it would be great if you could list a couple of the larger college radio stations that have played you, and specific venues you’ve played, and folks that you have shared a bill with. As I mentioned earlier, instead of saying a ‘reputable’ management firm, just say ‘…and signed with Chicago-based Alliance Music Entertainment management.’
I’d remove this negative line from the second paragraph ‘Playing with various rock bands through the end of high school, Mathien was gaining popularity, but overall, was not satisfied with the direction of the groups’ and replace with something like ‘After playing with various rock bands through the end of high school, Mathien decided he wanted to focus his energies more on his own songwriting and solo work.’
I’d like to see a quote from someone else in here, maybe a program director from one of the stations that has played your music? And as George mentions, make sure the timing in this is current. You reference summer of 2007 as being in the future (which it is), but we’ll be there very soon. You might want to try to make this a bit more evergreen by staying away from exact dates for a release unless it is set in stone.
Also: I don’t think it’s a good idea to take a break from playing live. This is what bands NEED to do, especially now. There is no better way to build a base than touring. I’ve written more on this subject, here.
Also, check out this video on the importance of touring by Brad Wavra, the Vice President of Touring at Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promotion company.
Lastly, have a run through this for grammar too (VERY IMPORTANT that folks think you are on the ball with this). Remember, in the US, quotes go after periods. A good resource for this sort of thing is the podcast from Grammar Girl. You use both songwriter and song-writer in here (use songwriter) cd’s (use CDs), internet (use Internet).
George has written a good piece about the elements of a successful bio that might help you out as well.
Photo
Mike King's Comments: You’ve obviously spent a lot of time getting your music together; why not spend some time on your photo? Your music is 1000x better than this image. Remember: press LOVES photos. Can you imagine this photo in the Chicago Reader? Neither can I. I’m not sure what the weekly is in Southern Illinois, but grab whatever is there and take a look at the club listings area. I live in Boston, and the weekly here is the Phoenix and the Dig. Both these pubs list upcoming bands, and you know what? My eye tends to be drawn to the listings that have photos attached. No need to spend any money on this, but you need to get a good photo NOW.
For more on photo and bio specs, take a look at this piece I wrote on Promo Kits.
Web/MySpace
George Howard's Comments: As I mentioned I took a look at your MySpace page, and while it’s decent looking compared to most MySpace pages, it’s really not sufficient for a website. I’m sad to see that there’s no link to your own site. I also wish there was some information under the “About Mathien” section.
For more information on the importance of your own website, check out this video.
To maximize your MySpace page, have a look at this article.
While I understand that you’re taking a break from playing live, I just don’t think anyone can afford to do that, so I’d like to see more shows listed here.
This really leads me to my principal point in terms of marketing. You are undeniably talented, and I believe – what with the respect of Lilly Allen, Matisyahu, etc. – your timing is excellent.
Mike King's Comments: This looks cool, I like how you are keeping your page up to date. However, you should work on getting your own Web site happening as well. I heard a cool quote recently that went something like ‘My Space is like a bar where you can have fun meet tons of people. But if you want to do business with any of them, take them to your own house.’ If you want to move your career forward, having your own site offers you much more freedom than My Space. My Space is definitely part of the Web visibility strategy for any artist, but should not be the only strategy. That being said, when your record is complete, Liam McCormack has put together a good piece on MySpace promotion and sales strategies that might be good for you to check out.
George Howard's Comments: So, what stands between you and success is really strategy. I was really excited to read in your bio about the amount of live shows you’ve been playing, as well as the fact that you’ve focused on college shows. The key is to keep doing this, and to start weaving in non-college gigs. The college gigs are typically much better paying gigs, but don’t generate the type of media coverage that you’ll need to expand your base. In either case, you’ve got to maximize each gig. We talk about this a ton at AHM, and you should check out that information. Basically, it’s a matter of being very strategic and thinking of the live gig as the hub from which all other things emanate. The gig is your excuse to contact the other players in the region; be they press, radio, retail, music supervision, etc.
Here’s a video that discusses this strategy in depth.
There are a number of bands who have gotten HUGE out of the college market—bands like O.A.R., Dispatch, Guster, etc.—and I think you’re well positioned to follow in their footsteps. What these bands did was grew it out of the colleges and began to infiltrate the none-college worlds. Additionally, they managed to create communities around themselves, and their fans identified themselves by being fans of these bands. In order for you to do this, you must first determine your own values very, very clearly (you’re anti-war stuff is a good start). Once you do this, your marketing strategy is to find a community of fans that have these same values and get your music in front of them. This leads to a marketing strategy, which allows you to come up with the financial plan you’ll need to have in order to operate your music like a business.
We’ve developed an Editor’s Guide that walks you through the marketing process. Check it out here.
I don’t think you need a label in the least. You can clearly promote your music on your own and with the help of indie publicists and promoters. You should get your music up on iTunes and the other online retailers. You should have your own site, and be selling downloads from it. As for physical goods, right now you should primarily be selling right from the shows, and trying to build a relationship with local retailers in your strong tour markets. As these relationships grow, you can consider a distro deal.
Here’s a great article on indie retail.
Mike King's Comments: You stated that your goal is to get your name out there as a singer/songwriter, and become someone who can sustain a long career in music. As I mentioned earlier, I think your key to success, especially with your solid musicianship and college radio/touring success under your belt, is to get out there and play. Everything follows the tour, especially for a singer/songwriter. Press, more radio support, radio, Internet buzz, record sales is so much easier if you give these outlets something to talk about through your tour. You have the foundation together – your music is solid – now you need to let people know about it.
Publishing
George Howard's Comments: In terms of publishing, your songs are imminently sync-able. As your connection is already so deep in the college world, I would begin looking for the best aspiring film students and work with them on finding ways to get your music used in their films, and then encourage them to get their films into festivals, where other directors and music supervisors tend to congregate, and who may very well take a shine to your material.
To get a sense of how music supervisors work, have a look at this video.
Prior to doing this, of course, you need to get your affairs in order, and make sure that your work is registered and that you’ve affiliated with a PRO. To get you started with information on publishing, check out this video.
Of course, if you have samples in your songs, you’re going to have to clear them.
If you need information on sampling, check out this video.
Mike King's Comments: George is on the money with his publishing comments. I’ll add that there are occasional workshops that you can attend (I know these exist as SXSW) where you’ll have the opportunity to meet with licensing folks, learn how the process works, and perhaps get your music into a decision makers hands. A cool idea for you might be to create some quick video clips with your music attached to give folks an idea of what your music sounds like as the bed for different scenes.
Here’s a publishing 101 piece based on an interview I did a little while back with Eric Beall, from Shapiro Bernstein Publishing.
Summary/Your Goals
George Howard's Comments: So, to sum up, your music is really, really great. It’s unique and timely without being trendy or derivative. I think you need to tighten up your bio, and with that tighten up your focus. It’s not the time for you to be doing side projects if you truly want to make your music your life. Instead, you need to be focusing all of your energy on attracting and retaining fans. To do this it’s primarily about touring and maximizing each and every one of these tour dates – turn them into events. Once you really get this happening you can exploit technology to continue to give your fans new material. This will require getting together your own site where you can sell your music and merchandise, as well as generate podcasts, blogs, and other things to constantly be feeding your growing number of fans new stuff from you. It really is about sustained connections.
All the while, you should be looking for ways to exploit your music in films and TV. As I stated, this should be done at a local level first, but as you grow, and make connections, and get your music played on meaningful radio—such as KCRW in Santa Monica—music supervisors will start to approach you.
Following this approach I am confident that you will attain your goal and get your name out as a singer/songwriter, and develop a long career on your own terms.
Mike King's Comments: Your music is great, and from what I gathered in your bio, you are also a prolific writer, which is excellent. I would focus on getting your CD done, getting your marketing materials solid, and in particular, getting an image together that can work at press outlets! As this is happening, you should also be getting your own Web site off the ground. Certainly look into online distribution options for your CD, but if you want to really get things happening, you need to tour. Your management company should be working to get you a good agent that knows the college market, and best case scenario, can hook you up with a nationally touring artist that can help you open some doors across the country. Start keeping an email list (if you don’t have one already), and begin sending folks recording updates, demos, tour dates. There’s really no fast way to build a sustainable career, you need to put the work in up front.
John Snyder’s Comments:
I might disagree with George just a tad about the need for and advantages of a great engineer, and producer too for that matter. Of course, as a card-carrying member of the producers and engineers guild, you might expect me to be enamored of our skills. But the fact of the matter is, some people are just good engineers – they love it and they are good at it. I can tell you from personal experience that it is one of life’s great pleasures to work with a great recording engineer. I have been very very lucky in that respect, at least in my generation. But with the advent of the myriad of schools that teach Pro Tools and the other digital recording systems, there are many trained and talented engineers running loose. I’d nab myself one if I were you. The engineer/producer is the first audience. The artist needs an audience, I think, and I think it’s hard to be both artist and audience. And the great thing about a good engineer/producer is that he or she can often say something that is so insightful to the artist that it is inspiring and it changes things for the better. One of the greatest producers I know (Herb Alpert) told me that the secret is tempo, and he has a definite talent for picking the right tempo. Different people have different talents. Of course, these people can also be full of crap, or may be just wrong on occasion. It happened to me once. :) As an artist, you have to trust yourself, but you also shouldn’t avoid a helping hand, especially if it is offered by someone who is as talented at what they do as you are at what you do.
I might suggest a few broad considerations, since George and Mike dealt with most of the specifics. First, I would suggest that artists study their own work. Analyze your performances, do a post-mortem as it were on the performance – what went right, what you need to improve. You should be constantly improving, constantly innovating on some level. And these acts of improvement should not be random; they should be results of a plan. Define excellence on every level – sound, set, song, dress, audience interaction, lights, everything – and then define how you’re going to get there. Constantly analyze and evaluate your progress.
The fact of the matter is, however, the best way to be successful is to play great. PLAY GREAT. It’s that simple. Of course, it’s also that hard. But that should be your pursuit. You play great, your MySpace page will take care of itself (almost). While it is important for young artists especially to take care of their business, to be active and aggressive with respect to the opportunities the Internet and technology provide for artists, it is also true that the music comes first. And it is also true that even though all artists may be thought of as entrepreneurial by definition, they may not be entrepreneurs per se. When I was managing artists, if I could get them to think about their business for an hour a day that was a good day for business. But most weren’t all that interested in the business. Of course, they suffered as a result, financially and eventually physically, but they sure could play great. That’s where the infrastructure of support comes in. We teach kids how to be managers, business people, marketers, engineers, designers, musicians, etc., at the school at which I teach. And there are many of schools like this that teach young people the music and entertainment business. So while it is important for artists to keep track of their business, it is also possible to team up with other professionals to build and monetize your career. But remember, these people work on percentages or for cash money, so you’ll need to have something they can sell and make money from. You get yourself to THAT level, and you’ll attract the team members. George will tell you more about how to determine when you need assistance.
I’m not sure how each of our contest winners views the idea of a contract with a recording company but most young artists think it’s the Holy Grail. Which, of course, it isn’t. The days of the work-for-hire artists, the artists who are promised royalties but never see royalties, is OVER. From now on, record companies work for artists, NOT the other way around. Record companies are SERVICE organizations. Contracts are joint ventures. Companies don’t automatically own the work of the artists. It depends on who pays. If an artist has no money and no record and is going to ask the company to put up the money and take the risk then the artist is probably not going to like the financial consequences of that deal. But what can you expect? Here’s the key to dealing with contracts: if the contract looks like they “old” way, the way in which the artist turns over their property, be very careful and get a very good lawyer. I’d turn around and walk directly away from such deals. But whatever you do, make sure you know why you want and need a deal and what exactly you want and expect from it, and what exactly the company is guaranteeing to do for you in exchange for your intellectual property.
Most bands don’t really know why they want a deal except that they have this mistaken idea that it will solve all of their problems, when, in actual fact, the opposite is true. I am of the opinion that the only reason for an artist to want a deal with a major company, or an “indie” that is owned or controlled by a major, is vanity – pure ego. The odds of coming out are so low and it is such a diversion from your own long-term, self-sufficiency, potentially, that it is a diversion that is not worth the potential payoff – the downside is too great. Of course, there will always be a certain few that receive the “treatment” from a major company and have a successful 3-year career. But there are far more artists who get burned than who have success with a major company. I don’t want to sound too negative about major companies because they provided me with a great life as a music producer, but the business has changed, and not for the better. Opportunity and technology are moving faster than the record companies, and this is good news for the independent artist. My advice? Respect yourself. They work for YOU.
There are many books on the music business. George Howard wrote a couple of them. See our bibliography for some of these. Check Amazon. Also, go get the article “The Long Tail” from Google and read it. It should give every independent musician hope. Your market exists! You just have to find it. Also, two of our editors, Mike and Debbie, work at http://www.Berkleemusic.com, and even though Artists House isn’t affiliated with Berklee, it is true that they offer an array of online courses that are very popular with musicians and those who want to work in the world of music.
Good luck to Ines, Mathien, and the Trench Town Oddities! It will be a pleasure watching you develop and grow as artists and contributing members of the music community.
