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Here at LAist, we get hundreds of e-mails a day, sometimes at the rate of one e-mail per minute. Press releases, invites, statements and tips all flood our boxes. Many of these e-mails are from bands. Whether they are local or traveling through, there are lots and lots of shows every single night in this town and that adds up in the inbox (and sometimes it's coming at you from multiple sources at the same time: the manager, a publicst, a tour rep/venue, the band themselves).
Each e-mail tends to come with pages of information, links to MP3 downloads or long-loading MySpace profiles and a long list of tour dates to scan through. Needless to say, with the amount of e-mails and dedication needed to pay attention to each e-mail opened, many music ones get ignored.
Then, step in a music publicist Meredith Kotas from Pirate! Promotions in Tennessee. She sent this genius e-mail out today titled "Why you'll get less e-mails from me...":
As I have become friends with more and more writers, I've realized how much you guys hate getting emails from me daily. So, I'm going to start sending out "Monday MP3" emails that have one Mp3 and one sentence on each of my bands (usually just 6-7). This way, you can pick and choose which bands you'd like, and which you'd want to follow up with. (Love them all? Like a few? Hate everything? No worries, just let me know.)
We can't tell you, especially music publicists, how great of a thing this is. More is less. And less e-mail sent means more e-mails opened (would David Allen of "Getting Things Done" and Tim Ferriss of "The Four Hour Work Week" be proud?). This is not a cure all for music promotion, but one step to more local bands getting better coverage and attention.
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One reason music fans have it hard in LA....
is because most of the bands we have to see arent that good to begin with
if I see one more band with a chick on the keyboards playing generic pop songs I will BLOW UP
anyway, the key is a GOOD LIVE SHOW, of which there are many in LA. many many many many. LA has great bands, great venues, a great scene, and great fans.
BRING THE ROCK AND THEY WILL COME.
i second that. crank up the volume and rock.
yup. most of the bands are just so-so. some bands that are kinda big in LA think theyre hot shit when they're not really all that great.
because of mostly mediocre bands, la crowd typically gets turned off. obviously we like to stay 20 feet away from new bands we dont know about.
PRs like to send out emails starting with wordy bios of the bands, the glory of music and then tell us to check em out. no offense, but i never give a shit cuz i get annoyed of the wordy email.
all they ever need to do is succinct description of the genre, influences, then a couple links to the mp3s. it's not that hard. just keep it neat and simple. kudos, meredith!
"So-so" is being kind. In truth most of the bands I've seen playing L.A. suck...DD.
The better bands based here don't play here.
Boy, with all due respect guys, I've got to disagree about the quality of bands in Los Angeles. How often are ya'll going to see bands and where are you going? 'Cause I tend to see at least one above average show a week.
Bands have it hard everywhere.