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10 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Booking A Gig

9/29/2014

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From our good friends over at Grassrootsy , here is a great guide on booking gigs:

As I painstakingly work to finish booking my Fall tour, this post has popped into my head. If you have other questions that you find yourself asking on a regular basis, stick them in the comments section.

In no particular order…

1. Is it Worth the Trip?It’s not a home gig? 
Then you need to decide if you’ll be wasting your time or not. Nothing like driving home from a gig that was 4 hours away and saying to yourself, Wow I cant believe I just wasted a tank of gas for that!.

2. Will it Move Me Forward?
Will the show put you in front of a new audience? Will it be a a door opener? Will it be a resume builder?  In every situation (or as many as possible), you want to be playing for new potential fans in addition to existing ones. You don’t want to be a fly on the wall b/c anyone can do that. Make sure the shows you pick truly allow you to show off your talent and uniqueness. This will be what moves you forward.

3. Do I Want to Do it?
Sometimes you have to play the sucky gigs that pay well in order to play the good ones that don’t. But with those exceptions aside, you just shouldn’t take gigs you’re not excited about. Nothing worse than playing a show because you felt you had to. You never have to do it.

4. Is This the Right Room For Me?
Don’t play rooms that don’t make sense. If you do alot of covers, you’re not going to go over well with an audience that goes to shows for original music.  If you don’t play covers, you most likely wont go over well at a 4-hour long gig. If you’re a rock band, playing in a listening room just wont work for your sound no matter how much you like the space. Be smart in your room-picking decisions.

5. Can I Draw People Out?
Truth be told, you could be playing in the same city and on the same street, but it’s often much harder to pull people out to a venue that’s under the radar verses a venue that everyone knows. Sometimes you have to pick the venue with the better reputation simply because you know it will increase your turnout by 20 people…even if it means you’ll make less of a cut or have a harder time dealing with their management.

6. Can I Fill The Room?
If you cant pull out 100 people, don’t play the larger room.  Filling a small room is exponentially more important than scraping to fill a larger room.  Also, keep in mind: just because you can fill a room in a city on a Friday night doesn’t mean you can fill it on on a Monday. Consider date of event, time of event, and whether its an all-ages or 21+ crowd. These little details factor heavily into the night’s turnout. 

7. Is it Worth the Work?
Nothing wrong with a little work, right? Right! But there’s also nothing worse than lugging all your equipment, spending your whole evening setting up, playing, and tearing down only to get paid $50 to play to a crowd that didn’t even notice you were there. It wasn’t worth it…especially if you didn’t make some serious new fans or sell alot of CDs. You’re wasting your time. Re-evaluate and ask yourself if this type of gig is helping you reach your long term goals.

8. Will The Other Artists Pull Their Own Weight?
If there are 3 bands on the bill, each band should be helping to promote. You should not be doing all the work…and if you are, you should get out of that situation quickly. If the money is being split 3 ways, then each group needs to contribute what they can to make the show a success. No slackers allowed. It’s not fair to the people who are working their butt off.

9. Will I Go There Again?
This isn’t the average question most of us ask, but it’s a good one. Try to play in cities that you want to visit on a regular basis. When you consistently visit that city every 2-3 months, building a following becomes very easy and systematic. But when you’re playing cities that you’ll never return to, its hard to build upon your fanbase in that area. Read: ”How to Get From “Local Artist” to “Touring Musician”.

10.  Is it Good Money?
Money isn’t everything.  Trust me. Making money is secondary to making fans. Once you make die-hard fans, the money will come. However, making money is still important if you are a working musician.  Some terrible gigs are worthwhile simply b/c they pay. When you are considering whether or not to take a gig, it is often important to consider whether or not it will pay. It can also affect your booking process and you may have to leave your Fridays/Saturdays open only to paid gigs (maybe until a month out) before giving them away so quickly to pro-bono events. 

Ok, so use these questions to guide your booking process and let us know if it helps!
Good luck!

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This Season in Manta Ray RecordsĀ 

6/10/2014

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Well, here comes the summer and we are officially through half of 2014. We hope that everyone in the Manta Ray Records family is having a creative and productive year. We have some new programs and exciting campaigns that we are working and putting to use on our artists. We are currently scouting new acts for this coming year, if you know of some fresh talent send them to us.
musicsubmissions@mantarayrecords.com
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Studio Offers

This month were offering 10% off any professional product pkg or major project booking, including E.P. and full album projects.

We will also offer the rate of $30.00 an hr ( 2hr minimum ) if you mention this blog offer when booking.

Good Triumphs over evil!
(at least this month)


This quarter’s hot artists have been our inspirational and Christian artists with a lot of activity. There has been a lot of buzz about Timika Petersen, few chosen and Stereo. They are a dynamic 12 piece inspirational group that is tearing up the Carolinas. They are hitting major Christian events in the area, check them out!

Friend them : https://www.facebook.com/TheFewChosen

Closely behind them are Sparkie and the Tones of Joy, a fantastic gospel quartet that is getting massive amounts of airplay in several major and mid radio markets.

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On the secular side, we’ve seen major movement from Baltimore Rapper Lil Tae, Kaoru Yamazaki, and those hard hitting rock powerhouses in Kill Betty.

We enter the Asian and Russian Markets as Yandex joins our network

We have added the Russian markets with Yandex, this is a major retailer and the leading streaming service in Russia. We have already seen a lot of activity across the board since they joined the Orchard. Many of our groups are receiving heavy international play, The Godz in particular racking up, tens of thousands of streams from all over the world.


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Spring Radio sampler

Our 2014 Spring radio Sampler was so good, we decided to make it available to everyone. Featuring some of Manta Ray Records hottest artists, Juice Bruns, Something Complex ,Noble Animals, Alex Vans, Cherry Tree, Kill Betty, Psykotic Melody, 3pm, Red Carpet Whiskey and others pick up a copy here

http://www.amazon.com/2014-Spring-Radio-Sampler-Explicit/dp/B00JQOFSB2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402015765&sr=8-1&keywords=2014+spring+radio+sampler





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Beats for sale

Our producer and artist in residence Auddio Viddeo or AV has finally put out a page with some of the beats that we have for lease and for sale. We have beats both for songs for sale and free promo beats to use on your giveaways, give them a listen and then contact us for more info!

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Noble Animals – Tour and Record

Noble Animals are in the studio recording the follow up to the Bueno Bueno EP, they have been working with Manta Ray Records producer Kyle Stevenson on a fantastic new batch of music, that is going to open up our favorite “animals “ to a huge audience. The new songs are phenomenal. The band will be starting a tour in September for the Northeast. Stay tuned for more details.
Go friend them on facebook now! https://www.facebook.com/NobleAnimals
Look at those smiling faces , how can you not friend them?

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The GODZ interviewed

The Godz, specifically Larry Kessler, were interviewed for German based Psychedelic Baby Magazine and should appear in next month’s issue. The article includes stories about The Godz, Jimi Hendrix, Mehr Baba, Sonic Youth and others. It also talks about upcoming tour plans and possible new recordings. A must read for any Godz fan!

http://psychedelicbaby.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-Psychedelic-Baby-Magazine/132214110131581?sk=timeline


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Juice Bruns

Rapper Juice Bruns received airplay all across the country with his song Crossroads during a nation wide campaign with Howard Rosen and associates in Los Angeles. The record was on a national college radio promotion for over 10 weeks. It was played at many college stations across the country. The Music Director of the top college station in the country, WTBU, raved about the song and everyone is looking forward to see what this young performer’s next move is.

Locally, this young rapper is making a splash as well. Juice headlined an appearance at Loyola University this past April, and plans to do many more college shows this year.

Check out his song “Crossroads” from Manta Ray Records in digital retailers World-Wide!

http://www.amazon.com/Crossroads/dp/B00I5AHVR2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402176621&sr=8-1&keywords=Juice+Bruns


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Something complex

Josh and Drew of Something complex have been doing shows in support of their latest release on Manta Ray Records Catharcism. They recently did the 2nd in their series of shows with Gallery 788 “Alternative Hip-Hop in Hampden, look for the next in the series, coming soon.


https://www.facebook.com/somethingcomplex


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Psykotic Melody

News from the PM camp is that they have parted ways with Lead singer Quazi moto and have signed Dennis Shockley to the group. The group quickly re-cut one of their songs with Dennis on vocals and debuted the song with Matt Davis on 98 rock WIYY fm here in Baltimore. The next night the headlined at the Ottobar and pushed it to the limit with Dennis singing. They will be back after a brief time off for re-tooling the show and they promise to be back with more surprises.

Friend Them : https://www.facebook.com/psykoticmelody1





Look for new songs by Ama Chandra, Yella Jesus, A.V., The Godz, Kill Betty. Psychotic Melody and others from Manta Ray Records

If it rocks Baltimore, we’re on it.




Written by:
Mike Diamond
Director of Operations

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