Tech consultant for Olympia, Lacey, And Tumwater

PRESS AGENTS: Top ten ways to make me not care

Press Agents

So I have been doing independent (meaning I loose money doing this) for a couple decades now. I have read so many press releases that I have become beyond jaded about them. There are key words and phrases I look for to dismiss the artist. Seriously I do. So here are the top ten things a press agent can use to get me to NOT care about the artist they are pushing. Another great list made by someone else can be found HERE.

1. Some version of the artist being the next big thing
When I hear a band is “burning up the charts”, I assume it is some lame pop artist that sucks.

2. They will kick your ass and rip your face off!
Phrases like this are used for artists that are brutal for the sake of being brutal, but can’t play worth shit. This means that the craft of writing a solid song was forgotten before the first note was recorded. I like it heavy, but where’s the song?

3. The band “leaks” a single on their MySpace
Ok, if it comes from an official source it is not a leak you moron

4. Not making it clear what style of music they play
Yeah, I know it’s cool to say you hate categories, but if you can’t at least nail it down to hard rock, metal, punk, pop, or polka, I will assume the band plays polka and not care. Get to the point. People have short attention spans. This includes my readers and myself. And most importantly, don’t hide the info. Make it big, bold, and loud! As if the band was proud of what they do.

This includes (but is not limited to) the band being cute and witty about MySpace categories. Many times I can’t find any info on what the band plays, so I open up the MySpace page. Then I see the band listing themselves as Christian Rap to be cute and witty. So I dismiss them because I don’t cover Christian Rap. Many times they are not that style, but I don’t have the extra five to ten minutes to listen to their music to find out if I should even care. Once you convince me to care I will listen. First you have to convince me I should care though. I don’t care about Christian Rap, so if I see that I won’t investigate a second further to find out you were just joking.

5. Sending the press release as a doc, pdf, jpg, or gif file
You are adding extra steps to my busy schedule. So you are starting things off by being a pain in the ass. Why would you want to start off our relationship with me hating you? Yes I despise html emails, but they are the industry standard. So I am forced to forgive that. So send it as an HTML email or if you don’t know how to do that without sending it as an extra file, just send it as plain text.

6. Putting stuff not for public in the middle of the press release
Ok, I honestly do not read every word of every press release. I just don’t have time. So I glance over things, copy, and paste. So if you do not place that info after the standard three pound signs you are risking people posting the direct download to the cd you are trying to increase sales of.

7. Tracking URLs in your HTML email
Ok, this is one of the reasons I despise HTML emails. Any internet security expert will tell you to watch out for questionable links. Everyone is encouraged to “view status bar” and mouse over links before clicking on them to make sure it is the link it claims to be. Then you press agents go and give us some super long tracking url with a domain none of our readers have heard of. This makes them question the integrity of our site. It makes them feel unsafe. So stop with the tracking urls. If the website address is www.website.com then it should say www.website.com when I mouse over the link. Otherwise people don’t think we are a safe site. I know your reasons for doing this questionable behavior, but please understand my reasons for asking you to stop.

8. Where are the current press shots?
Now a few of you labels have great press areas where I can grab one in seconds. Others always include some massively large image in the actual email (which is perfect). Others have your Facebook page updated with good sized press shots. One of you (yes just one that I know of) is now anal about keeping their website updated. THIS COMPLAINT IS NOT FOR ANY OF YOU! I love you people! It doesn’t matter that every single one of you has a different method of getting me the current photo. I can remember that no problem. The ones that make me spend hours trying to find a current press shot really piss me off though. There is nothing like taking 45 minutes to post something that should have taken 10 minutes just because you didn’t give me a current photo! Many times I just pass on the press release because trying to find a press shot pissed me off so much.

9. Headlines
Why does a press release have 4 headlines? Stick to one. What is most important? What is the newest info? What is the most newsworthy? Also, don’t make it a book. It’s a headline. The shorter the better. It doesn’t have to contain everything. Lastly, try to put the band’s name at the beginning of the headline. It helps readers browse over for the bands they care about the most.

10. Hidden links
Ok, fine. Use your stupid HTML email. It makes my head explode, but I will suck it up if you would do me one favor. Whenever possible, display the url. Don’t say, “Go HERE for more info” and have the word HERE link to their website. Display the url so I can just copy all the text and paste it in. Otherwise I have to view your email in text form, copy it all, paste it into notepad, clean up your html mail abortion, and then paste it into my system so my readers don’t have unclickable words of CLICK HERE.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. “What are you, some copy and paste blogger or a real journalist?” Well, pasting your press releases is not why I got into this. Pasting your press releases has never been why I do this at all. It gives me zero pleasure and gets in the way of why I do this in the first place. I have wrote less than 20 reviews all year last year. I would have loved to do more but I was wasting all my time fighting to post your lame ass press releases! I would love to stop posting press releases, but many of you depend on me replying with “Info posted at ___” to know if I am interested in that release.

So please help me get back to actual creating, writing, and doing real journalism by keeping the ten items above in mind. I can’t be the only one bothered by these things. Thanks.

Another great list made by someone else can be found HERE.

Why are bands still so anal about taking concert photos?

Camera

I remember back in the 90′s when I first started going to shows and trying to take photos I understood that you had to have a special pass to take photos. There were many reasons, but one of them was so they could stop people from using flash and blinding the band. They also knew that these photos could be sold. Of course there was also quality control.

Then ten years later cameras started getting smaller and smaller. This was also when the first mobile phones came out with the ability to take photos. I remember clearly talking with a friend about how there was no way the annoying photo pass rules could stay around much longer when every single person at a concert will have a camera in their pocket. So how in the hell are there still such strict rules?

Most concert venues will not let you in with a pro level camera without a photo pass. So then only horrid low quality photos taken with crap mobile phone cameras are allowed. So much for your quality control. Same goes for many top level artists. Back almost half a decade ago Ozzfest was a full scale touring event that went coast to coast. Now it is a shell of it’s former self, but I’m sure the rules are the same. If you have a photo pass you can take photos of every artist on the tour except Ozzy. So the only photos of Ozzy are done with mobile phone cameras. I had a staff member for my site RockMyMonkey who fought to the front of the stage to get me photos of Ozzy. This girl did a great job, but I was asked not to use the photos. It was hinted that if I posted any photos of Ozzy that my site would never be granted photo passes again. So a great majority of the photos you see of Ozzy are low quality stuff that makes him look like crap. Does Sharron not want him to look good? If she let people with photo passes take photos it would help a ton with quality control. So if you want your artist to look like crap, make it hard for serious photographers.

Then there are dinosaur artists that just don’t get it at all. These are the bands who can barely pack a club and don’t tour the U.S. much because so few are paying attention any more. They could use some good press! They will get extra security to hunt down anyone that even looks like they are going to take a photo of the band with even a mobile phone camera. They also threaten and bully photographers to insane levels! Do they wonder why they have no draw?

So for the sake of quality control can we please set the cameras free? Otherwise only the lowest quality photos will be posted of your artists. Press agents, managers, performing artists, and record labels, you are only hurting your artists. It’s time to wake up and see that the horses have already left the barn. There is a local venue run by a large casino that wouldn’t even let me take photos when I had a media pass! In fact The Emerald Queen has the chairs so close to the stage that a photographer couldn’t take photos without getting in some fans way. The view must suck for those fans either way, so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? The point is that even when the artist hired a press agent to make sure I was allowed to take photos, the venue security ignored the media pass!

Then make sure that only people with pro level cameras are allowed in the photo pit. It’s getting crowded in there. Too many people make it hard for the serious photographers to get a shot that makes the bands look good.

My Aunt sells women’s shoes & she’s more tech savvy than your record label!

Saturday I was downtown and was reminded that I hadn’t talked to my aunt in years. I heard she was having some minor tech issues with her business, so I figured I would stop by and see if I could help her. Well, we started talking and I was shocked to find out that she was picking this stuff up faster than most high school kids! I was thrilled to find out that there wasn’t a ton I could teach her. She had recently went to some tech conference and had that moment where the magic light bulb goes off. As she is telling me about this conference, the only thing I could think of was how much I wish every music industry contact I work with could go to this conference.

The music industry seems to take three steps forward, two steps back, and four steps to the left somehow. It makes me want to jump for joy that they are trying, but then land on their head when doing stupid things with these great tools they have finally opened up to. Now I will almost never name names on this blog, because I love the people I deal with in the industry. They are great people who are just making mistakes. So when about a year ago a worldwide label announced that they would no longer work with online publications my head just about exploded! Let me make it clear that I love this label, love the band’s they have, and think very highly of my contact for said label. My contact has zero to do with this decision, so this is not about the person I work with. That being said, why would a label cut off online publications at a time where print magazines are dying quicker then the cd sales they try to blame on downloading?

So recently this honestly outstanding label leaps into the truly wise decision to stop sending physical promos. This can make life more simple for not only the label, but also for writers. They even have it set up so I can just toss it into an RSS feed so it downloads their new releases without me even thinking. So what’s the problem? They tell me that my writers can’t get separate accounts, can’t log in with my account, and I can’t give them files I download. Instead they have some system where for each release (and each writer) I have to specifically request a 24 hour account. The writer has 24 hours to download the file or we have to start all over again. Can you see how they took this great tool and crippled it?

This is how the music industry adopts technology. It’s like paying to hire a top model and putting her in a potato sack and a pigs mask. It’s like taking an amazing ice skater and whacking her in the knees. It’s like having Yo-Yo Ma play your inauguration ceremony and having him lip sync to a tape. I could go on, but you get the idea. It’s like they want to use technology to bring things forward, but instead of listening to the people who know about such things, they are getting their info from their spam folder. Why do they keep falling for scams and listening to the wrong advice? How can we get them to use technology more efficiently? I’m serious. Please someone tell me! My aunt can grasp this stuff to sell womens’ shoes I think they can…right?