What's up guys?

I'm new to the site and I've been reading a lot of the threads and I can honestly say that a lot of you have great things to say and are very receptive to everyone's ideas. I am glad to be part of such a great site.

First, for those who haven't checked out my previous threads, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and the purpose of this thread...

I'm the lead guitar player of an alternative hard rock band based out of Miami, Florida (Im not trying to promote my band, but if you'd like to know about it, let me know! and I'll be glad to share my music with you) our music is along the lines of Sevendust, Incubus, Tool, and Alice in Chains...

As many bands nowadays, we are applying a DIY(Do-it-yourself) method...and so far everything has been working out great. We released our album independently, distribute it through many online sites, get great comments and friends on myspace and other online communities, and put on a great live show...

However, being the case that we are from Miami, Florida and I don't know if you are all familiar with the Rock Scene down here... but, it is practically inexistent... We get gigs often, but we are not playing with bands that share our own genre...sometimes we play with Hip-hop bands..and other times with really pop-indie bands. Therefore, its a little harder to target and capture a specific audience, which is the first tool in effective Marketing and Promotion.

So, I would like to know how your local rock scene is...and I'm talking about shows at pubs, bars, night clubs, I'm not sure if you guys attend or support your local music, but would like to know if your area is fond to promote and encourage local music, specially rock, and what the audience response is? DO they attend to the shows frequently, have you seen great acts form or come out from your local scene? any information would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
Jose M

I live near a college town - Harrisonburg, VVA - of about 40,000 (the college, James Madison University, has about 18,000 students.) The rock music scene here is strange to say the least. The city has a number of bars but the music played in most of them tends to invariably be classic rock,'80s rock, and country. There is a bit of a basement scene, though that tends to be almost exclusively emo, pop punk, and maybe a little bit of goth. It is extremely difficult to secure gigs if you're a rock band doing original music. Of course, bars don't exist to give struggling rock bands a chance to show their stuff; they exist to make money for their owners and employees. People who go out to party on a Friday/Saturday night want to hear music they're familiar with...stuff that makes them want to drink and dance and yell and fight. The scene was a lot more vibrant back in the early to mid '90s during the grunge boom. My old band, Book Of Kills, used to pack people into bars during that time...thanks largely to the influence of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Nowadays it's a very different story for a number of reasons. Too, rock is no longer the king of pop music. Kids listen to a wide variety of styles from hip hop to alternative to classic rock to country to emo to metal. They will attend a show if you can give them a reason, but if you're older and play so-called "alternative", you're pretty much out of luck unless you're famous already.

Hi Jose,

My first bit of advice would be to get in a van and drive. It's great if you can get a touring circuit in your home town, but if there's a gig 2 or 3 hours drive away, and you can make arrangements to play with like-minded bands from there, then there's the opportunity to do a reciprocal arrangement and arrange double-headers at home with someone of a comparable genre.

Here in Birmingham (in the UK, not Alabama), the bands that seem to do well are the ones that get out of town and will book themselves gigs in places they won't be able to reasonably catch a cab home from.

Hope that helps.

Yes, as far as getting known...the truth is that the way that worked in rock and roll fifty years ago is the way that still works: You play for as many people in as many places as you can.

Hey guys, I apologize for not replying sooner, I have been recording and playing some shows with my band.

Jim- Thanks a lot for your response.

I agree with you that rock doesn't appear to be the king of pop nowadays, but according to RIAA statistics on consumer trends you can see that rock genre has topped the charts since before 1999 ( I have posted the link for all of you guys to check out http://www.riaa.org/keystatistics.php?content_selector=consumertrends ) click on the 2006 report. As you can see Rock has constantly topped the charts with a 30 + %. I think it might have something to do with public awareness the fact that we don't see rock as powerful as other genres. Before I saw these statistics last year, I thought Hip-hop or R&B was growing bigger than rock...but maybe all of this is false thinking is creative by their marketing campaign. I see and hear hip-hop,etc everywhere all the time and I always see people enjoying a hip-hop beat more than a rock song! So I can't think what we are doing wrong?

Andrew- Thank you for reading my post and giving me your valuable advice.

It seems like you were picturing my band in your head when you wrote this post on Friday April 4. The reason I'm saying this is because of course, Friday night my band Venejer had a gig with more hip-hop/jazz bands, AGAIN. And right after the show we were all thinking of relocating to Orlando...People have been telling us for sometime now, even the FOH engineer told us last night "You guys are amazing and you are ready to make it big, but the first thing you gotta do is get out of Miami...there is no rock scene here".

I am up for applying the "if they don't come to you, you have to go to them" principle.

Cheers,
Jose M

This isn't a long-term solution, and might be musically problematic, but I play in a big sonic rock electronic pop thing in New Zealand. Massive gear demands, niche audience, etc. There are like 4 cities in the whole of NZ that are feasible to play as a big rock outfit, so we've decided just for fun to put on a smaller more portable tour playing acoustically. We're taking a van and are playing ten shows around NZ's south island. It's just the nature of New Zealand's music scene. I could either fight it tooth and nail, or, for the time I'm here, I can figure out creative ways to make the most of the scene.

Or, for example, the other night we played a support set for a well-known electronic band. So instead of playing our normal set which wouldn't have gone down well with the different genres, we just decided to leave drums and everything at home and spent 3 weeks practicing one 25 min song just for this show using an MPC, multiple synths and a few vocoders. What could have been an awkward mix of genres ended up working perfectly together.

What am I getting at? Adapt to the circumstances. Play around and have fun! Don't be too precious about what you try and put yourself out there. If "out there" isn't a good match for your music, Andrew is of course absolutely right: drive and build relationships with other bands. However, in addition, maybe you can find occasional ways of making yourself fit your circumstances.

-Mark (www.theenrighthouse.com)

That is a very interesting approach, Mark!

Who knows, maybe one day we will leave our instruments at home and ask the rappers to sing a beat for us while my band sings acapella! haha that should be interesting.

P.S. Mark! I checked out The Enright House website and your music! Amazing, I want to congratulate you on writing such beautiful songs. Great vocals, great arrangements, and all the CD reviews on your website pinpointed each aspect of your release! How long have you guys been together? What do you play in the band?

I also checked out your videos and really enjoyed your acoustic performance of "solitaire" as well as the youtube original video, is there any more band members or it's just you 4?

As I'm writing this, am also waiting for my girlfriend to get out of class to pick her up, keep an eye open for a purchase on Cd baby today, because I'm going to buy her your music, I know she's going to love it as well.

Cheers and keep the music coming!

P.S.2: I will also add you on myspace...keep an eye for my band VENEJER. We are an hard rock band, but we enjoy all kinds of music! and yours is great.

Thanks for your reply, man
Jose M

Hey Jose,

Thank you so much man for all the kind words. I really appreciate it, bud. In terms of the record, it's just myself in my living room, really (I'm the one singing and playing guitar in the live vid). I got the band together for the purpose of playing live. We started as a three-piece, then went to playing as a 4-piece in the Solitaire live video, but are now back to being a 3-piece again (vox/guitar/loops - synths - drums). Starting around June/July I'm going to be working on performing solo shows (guitar, loopers, tapes, mpc, etc), as well as playing some duets with Evan, the pianist you see in the video.

No doubt I'll have very fluid line-ups over the years to come, switching back and forth to different ensembles depending on where I am and where my curiosity takes me. In terms of recordings it'll always be me with occasional help from outside people (i.e. on the last record I had friends play guitar, viola, drums etc on a few tracks here and there).

I see myself more as a composer/producer who loves playing out live, but isn't too precious about how the songs are interpreted. For example, I would be as happy playing Solitaire as it is on the album as I would be playing it acoustically or arranging it for string quartet. This approach has the added advantage for me of combating the familiar song-burnout syndrome so many bands have after years of playing the same songs the same way. It's amazing how malleable songs can be without losing their heart and soul.

Anyhow, my friend, I'll keep an eye out for you on myspace! Would love to stay in touch and hear how your shows come along in the future.

All the very best to you,
Mark

It's worth mentioning for the record, perhaps, that I am an Enright House fan. :)