I found myself recently lecturing a non-metal fan, who harboured a preconception that metal is a narrow and one-dimensional genre, on what a diverse bunch we metalheads are. And boy does this show on this, the first ever Inevitable Nose Metal Mixtape. We have Classic Metal, d-beat punk, brutal thrash, doom, grunge, industrial, and even Nu-Metal.

Despite the overall washed out homogeneity of mainstream metal, the underground once again proves itself diverse and challenging. There’s something for most tastes here and perhaps a little something to broaden your horizons.

All tracks can be streamed in their entirety and most can be downloaded via the Soundcloud media player. Please post comments on what you thought of the tracks as I’m sure all the bands would value your (constrictive) criticism. Also, the Soundcloud player has a commenting function that allows you to comment on particular parts of the song that you liked (or hated).

Anyway, enough of this pointless chatter. Go forth and consume of the mixtape and feel your life infinitely enrichened.

The Inevitable Nose Metal Mixtape Volume 1

Even more technomologically advanced than this!

While I seem to have found myself in the position of giving advice to aspiring bands on how best to use and abuse these new-fangled interwebs, I’ve yet to be particularly active in these pursuits myself. So in an attempt to ‘put my money where my mouth is’, so to speak, I’ve devised The Inevitable Nose Metal Mixtape. There’s nothing particularly new about the concept – a compilation of music from new bands – and the only ‘cutting edge’ thing involved is the use of Soundcloud (more on this in a later article). I merely intend to practise what I preach, and attempt to draw some attention to unsigned metal bands that are worthy of it.

So, demand permitting, I’m going to put together a regular mixtape of (mostly) downloadable tracks, which will also stream from this site, with ‘cover notes’ including a review of the band by your’s truly and links off to the bands’ sites/Myspaces. I’ll then employ all my best CRM, SEO and PPC strategies (and whatever other corporate marketing acronyms I can find) to drive some traffic to the mixtape.

Bands wishing to appear on the mixtape just need to commit to the inclusion of a single track, read the T&C’s and follow instructions here. The selection of tracks for the mixtape assumes a level of quality (both technically and artistically) so not everyone band submitted will make it on. There will be a broad range of styles and sub-genres but it will all be at the heavier end of the rock/metal/*core scale. Reviews will represent any tracks up on Myspace as well as the track submitted.

The first mixtape will be delivered as soon as I have 10 or so tracks of sufficient quality to release. Subscribers to my newsletter will receive notification when it’s available.

Sign up to our mailing list

However, for this to work, I need bands to submit themselves, so please pass this on to any bands that you think may be interested.

Your #1 sales reps

You’re heading out to a gig. On go the AC/DC socks and pants set (in case you pull, you’ll shake them all night long), Iron Maiden trainers with Eddie’s face on them, that cool Baroness t-shirt, denim jacket with Municipal Waste and Motorhead patches, and your beloved Megadeth cap – do you ever get the feeling like you’re one of those multi band fliers that get handed out at gigs?

All these bands are exceptional at branding (or perhaps their record label is) and although that Slayer air freshener may have represented a step too far for you, it’s big business – in fact, it’s fast becoming bigger business than the sale of the music itself. The music industry, traditionally centred around selling only music, are clambering to get into the merchandising game offering bands 360 record deals that include selling merch (and live shows, plus distribution, publishing etc.) in an attempt to bolster their languishing profits. Traditionally the bastion of mega b[r]ands like Kiss and Iron Maiden, it’s now becoming normal for even the most marginal of bands to view themselves as a brand – the era of bands as brands is upon us.

It’s worth clarifying what I mean by ‘branding’. The retail world decades ago cottoned on to the fact that a consistent approach to advertising their products led to more sales. It’s a simple psychological reality that, when someone who is given a choice of similar items, they will choose one that they are more familiar with or is more recognisable. It didn’t take advertisers long to work out that, with the right product image, you could build up feelings affinity, identification, even devotion to otherwise completely mundane or functional products. This then expands out to product ranges, then to merchandising related to product ranges. In this day and age, it’s got abstracted to the point where, in some cases, the brand is as important (if not more so) than the product (take Apple as an example of this).

The music industry was slow to get to grips with this, but fast to capitalise – and it’s getting better all the time. The heavy metal world is spectacular at this. Most metal bands have an identifiable logo, a sub-genre, an identifiable band image, and fans that will wear their t-shirts, hoodies, caps etc. This stuff all pulls together to form a band’s brand. It’s what makes you instantly recognisable to folks who know your music, but your brand image is a viral mechanism in itself – a badge of honour, sign of allegiance, a deriver of coolness (or uncoolness) – and when wielded correctly can be the single most important factor in the success of a band.

Bands like Black Sabbath or more recently Mastodon and icons like Kurt Cobain this exude coolness and create culture and identity effortlessly that people immediately attach to. Other bands have record companies pay millions of quid on creating this identity (eg. Linkin Park). But either way, it’s a powerful mechanism for spreading affinity with a band.

Now, on to the economics. Traditional musical marketing, broadly speaking, considers 4 elements (and seemingly in this order of importance):

1. The format containing the music (record, tape, CD, MP3) – the Cornflakes box if you will
2. The music itself – the Cornflakes
3. The band and their image – the Kellogg’s brand
4. Sales of other related stuff like merchandise – like, umm, those branded Kellogg’s bowls you used to get I guess

The purpose here is clear – sell more music, just as it is for Kellogg’s to sell more packs of Cronflakes. Given the dwindling sales of music (you know the reasons, I’ll not patronise you by repeating them) it’s starting to become necessary for this paradigm to shift. To maximise revenue generated by a band, all potential product lines must be considered, and their relative commercial merits should be judged within the context of that particular band – to give a facile example, metal fans are more likely to buy t-shirts and CD’s whereas Dance music fans are more likely to buy records and record bags. So if your core motivator with regards to generating cash is no longer the music, but a diverse and malleable collection of product lines, where is your focus? The band of course! The band, their music, their image and that of the label are vehicles to shift more stuff, be it CD’s, bandanas or bog roll. In fact, it’s conceivable for a band to exist and be very successful without ever officially releasing any music at all (more thoughts on this at a later date)

And let’s be perfectly clear here – a fan that buys a t-shirt is potentially more important to you than one that buys the music. Why? Well, they like you enough to wear your band’s name on their body, and walk around like a big advert. They hang around with their buddies who want to know who the hell that wondrous looking band on that t-shirt is. People are now talking about your band – the importance of this should not be underestimated. And because kids tend to like to fit in with the crowd, they’ll probably all go off and buy one for themselves, thus propagating the same mechanism. Did all these kids ‘steal’ your album from the interwebs? Probably, yeah, but what have you really lost? You’ve shifted some t-shirts that you probably wouldn’t have, which are generally more profitable anyway, and whether they bought the music or not, they’re still fans.

File sharing aside, squeezing profit, or even return on investment on physical and even digital music sales is nigh on impossible for most bands. The overheads are big, distribution and promotion hard and costly. Merchandise tends to be more profitable as the margins on each item are higher and the overheads lower. Also, when you concentrate on selling the music, you can really only sell a couple of items to any 1 individual (CD’s, collector’s packs, record), but clever branding and merchandising opens the door to sell a whole range of other items to peddle to all the adoring fanatics.

Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that unsigned bands stop releasing albums/EPs. The artistic merits of the album format aside, they provide a vital marketing mechanism, and a way to manage your marketing over time in discrete chunks (analogous to campaigns in marketing speak). Spending out on decent recording and some nice artwork is essential, but when looking to recoup that cost, you should place your emphasis on selling merchandise rather than CDs, and even consider giving the music away in digital form, either in part or in its entirety, to help shift more merchandise and spread awareness of your band. This depends on the band, but you should generally only consider a physical release if there is CLEAR demand for it, and always consider getting up on iTunes as the priority.

The best approach to branding and merchandising will be different for every band, and the key to success is agility – the ability to roll with what the fans are demanding – something which the bigger record companies are terrible at.

If you’re in a band, you’re agile and creative, so this stuff should come naturally to you, so get on with it!

This billboard speaks the truth

Here’s a thought for unsigned bands who a) are feeling a little squeamish about giving away tracks for free or b) still think filesharing is bad for them.

So when you go to your shitty day job every day, and you’re sitting in the same traffic or on the same train (running late for the 3rd day in a row) do you notice the billboards gliding past you? It’s the same ad every day for weeks on end. You probably forgot about it, but still it’s there day after day, same place. Whether you like it or not, the name of that washing powder if tattooed on you memory despite the fact that you’ll never use the stuff (beer is the ultimate substance for cleaning clothes right?)

Companies pay hundreds, if not thousands of quid for that sort of ad placement. Whether you’re paying attention or not, that advert is making an impression on you. This is an age old and well understood advertising technique, and is used widely in web advertising.

Now let’s imagine another scenario. You’re an unsigned band struggling to get noticed. You give away a free MP3 of one of your tracks and advertise it on your Myspace. People like free stuff, and 50 people download it. Think about what you have there now, before going off half cocked about how those freeloaders should be paying you for that track that cost you 200 quid to record. Your band name is Metatron (Industrial Acoustic Grindcore since you’re asking), and because you were diligent enough to get your ID3 tags set properly on that file it now sits comfortably under Metallica in the “Artists” menu on most people’s iPod. Think about that for a second. You gave up 1 track, and now, every time those 50 people go to listen to Master of Puppets they will see your band’s name (the same logic applies to iTunes, Media Player etc.).

The brain is wired to attribute value to this sort of connection. This is why companies will pay so much money to sponsor music venues. From now on, those folks are going to remember your band’s name, even if they never listen to that track again. It’s like you’ve got a mini billboard sitting in a bunch of folks’ pockets. Now, I’m not going to start banging on about your band as a brand (although I fully intend to very soon), but the more folk’s iPod you can get that track on, the less time, money and effort you’re going to need to spend on raising awareness of your band later on.

Knowing that, if I were an unsigned band, I’d be actively encouraging people to share my tracks.

Another couple of UKMU unsigned reviews for your delectation.

The frenetic Tharcia:

The legacy of what once was punk has been blurred by an array of mutations and countless stream of frequently turgid *cores. Punk, as an attitude of DIY, cheap and rough as hell anti-music, has been eclipsed by polished, platinum money spinning behemoths and countless cookie cutter copyists.

This is why it’s refreshing to find a band that (for the most part) is keeping the old punk flame burning – albeit in a modern kinda way. Tharcia’s sound is resolutely rooted in England at the beginning of the 80’s. Shades of Oi! and bands like The Exploited saturate these songs, but more modern influences blend effortlessly with the old school.

Read more…

The needing to try harder Numblocq

Just because you record your music, no matter how good the songs may be, that doesn’t mean that it’s ready for general consumption. Your songs are your art – a projection of your soul, and deserve the best start in life possible. Providing you’re reasonably good players and you put on a good show, then playing your songs live is likely to do them some justice (worse case scenario your crowd are wearing their ‘beer headphones’ and think anything you play is good). But recording these beloved songs is an entirely different discipline, that, if you’re a young band, you’re probably not that good at. Your songs deserve more than a swiftly thrown together demo constructed using Cubase in your mate’s bedroom. It’s really worth spending a moderate amount of cash to make the best job of it before unleashing them on the general public.

Numlocq didn’t do this. The sound quality is terrible. Some music lends itself to more lo-fi recording (Black Metal purists swear by this) but not this type of music.

Read more…

The vast majority of unsigned bands out there are either shit, superfluous, disposable or just copies of another band. Unfortunately, the race for a record deal is usually won by those bands sprouting in the better watered plots, and the rest of the seedlings will wither and die – such are the strains of being in band. So when I come across a band that’s really decent but is lurking in the shady, untended parts of the musical garden I immediately get a bit nervous – if someone doesn’t sign them soon, they may stop what their doing and get a proper job, which would be very bad.

New Zealand’s Photonic are one such band. Photonic is really one guy called Craig. His music has nothing to do with much of the other music out there today. Somehow he has crafted a set of tracks that is both forward leaning and backward looking. It’s also totally unclassifiable.

So where do we start with this brilliant, self-published, motley collection of vignette’s and vast-scapes he’s dubbed Recorded Contact? First and foremost, this is not metal, at least for the most part. There’s no predominant style here other than perhaps sparse, indignant hardcore reminiscent of Fugazi with post-rock tendencies drifting into Mogwai territory. However, the spirit of this collection is as much rooted into the petulant lo-fi of 90’s alt icons like Pavement and Guided by Voices, and the psych-pop-metal of Pixies.

Photonic’s songs veer between half-complete ADHD experiments and fully formed post-rock mini-epics. Vocals sprinkle this album almost at random, and styles change mid-song. On the first couple of listens (and I’d listened to most of these tracks on the band’s Myspace, like, 5 times, before buying the album) you really don’t know what’s coming next.

The production is stripped back to the point of being resolutely lo-fi, which constitutes a sizeable chunk of this album’s charm. It’s difficult to tell whether this sound is intentional or the result of having too little wonga to afford a decent recording. However, let’s keep our man Craig away from Pro-tools lest he be tempted – the production here is just perfect as it is.

Photonic are another one of those bands that mix a bunch of my favourite styles in magical ways, but what an unexpected mix this is. It’s impossible to know where to place this within the modern skewed-spectrum of *cores. Craig describes Photonic as “a rock metal power-chord psychedelic beats party” and appears unable or unwilling to classify the band himself – indeed there is no-one else out there is recording music like this, at least to my knowledge. Given this, anyone who signs Photonic will be gambling on a band that damn near impossible to market. This is the travesty of the music industry, where conformity is rewarded and individuality is ignored.

Shit, someone better sign Photonic, otherwise I’ll start a record label and I’ll do it myself!

In the meantime, I implore you, give Photonic some of your money and time (check out most of the album on their myspace here). This seedling needs watering, as the world will be a duller place without it.

Another couple of UKMU unsigned reviews for your existential enrichment.

The brutal Skull of a Mammoth:

First impressions are deceptive. Skull of a Mammoth’s name lead me to expect lumbering doom laden metal. The bell chimes followed by eerie keyboards and owl toots of the first track here did nothing to dispel this and even conjured and air of Spinal Tap, or worse Bad News (“Bells don’t go dung, cows go dung!”). Oh dear, I thought, and braced myself for some cheese, only to be swiftly bludgeoned from my lazy reverie by a cannon ball sized chunk of Lamb of God style ferocity.

London’s Skull of a Mammoth are a curious mix. The vocals, and overall approach to stripped down, to the point brutality is resolutely Lamb of God, but these tracks effortlessly skip between Metalcore, Black Metal and Melodic Death.

Read more…

The burgeoning 15 Times Dead:

With a name like 15 Times Dead, I expected these guys would be another cookie cutter metal/death-core bands, so I was pleasantly surprised when a neatly packaged retro-thrash band tore its way out of the Myspace player.

What seems apparent from the recent revival of this revered sub-genre is that the hardcore elements that helped form the rudiments of this style are well represented (DRI, COC, Anthrax, Nuclear Assault), but the classic metal influence is less well represented (unless you count the endless power metal bands). This is perhaps because the big names on that edge are still going strong – namely Metallica and Megadeth. It’s certainly cool to be punking it up, but could it ever be cool to sound like Metallica when the beast lumbers on through varying levels of purist disrepute? This is perhaps why the labels aren’t clambering to sign up bands like 15 Times Dead.

That’s not to say that 15 Times Dead are a one trick pony. This music is deceptively diverse. The thrash masters are all here (Metallica, Anthrax and Testament seep through in varying levels) but there’s a grounding here in classic rock which is tempered by grunge and alternative flavours.

Read more…

Since the hot topic of the moment is unsigned bands giving their music away free, I thought I’d mention one of my favourite bands at the moment, Cloudkicker, who are doing exactly that.

Cloudkicker from Columbus, Ohio are a instrumental post/prog-metal act that thus far, to my knowledge, have given their entire back catalogue away free as downloads (all available here for your enjoyment).

This is significant to me. When I first heard their tracks on Myspace, I thought it was decent enough, but nothing to get excited about, and buggered off to hunt down some more fresh tunes. Later, I came by the link to their download page, and being the habitual horder that I am, I downloaded their back catalogue as it was enjoyable enough and would pass some time. These tracks spent a few weeks turning up randomly on shuffle, and slowly started to infect me. Soon I found myself consciously choosing to listen to Cloudkicker.

Cloudkicker use percussive, pulsing guitars and lightly industrial flavours of bands like Meshuggah and Strapping Young Lad and blend with subtle swathes of ambient melody. Cloudkicker grows. This is precisely why giving their music away free is a good idea.

Folks are unlikely to keep going back to Myspace to listen to tracks, and much metal music, especially stuff like this, needs more than a cursory listen to really grok. Cloudkicker are unsigned. It seems unlikely that they would have gained the notoriety that they have purely on Myspace or by charging for CD’s or MP3’s. To my knowledge they don’t promote themselves (certainly not this side of the Atlantic) and the magazines give them no love. So they found their way to me by reputation and onto my playlist through regular listens. I have already told several people about them, and now I’m telling you.

Download these tracks. The worst that can happen is that you don’t like them, at which point just delete them.

It’s not coincidence that the vast majority of the bands and musicians we see most frequently are also pretty well off financially. This privileged clique has billion pound corporations behind them, huge record deals, they get money for just turning up places. They are conspicuous because they have a load of money to promote themselves (and experienced professionals to help them do it) and from this they make more money. They also represent a tiny fraction of all recording artists, the vast majority of whom make little or no money from their art.

Perhaps it’s the lure of big bucks that leads unsigned bands to assume that they should make money from their efforts from day one. It’s just as likely that they’ve shelled a bunch of money for demo recordings and they need to cover costs. This is fair enough, but it’s also a very short sighted view. Let me explain.

Ever since serial smug twat Trent Reznor had his say on the matter of unsigned bands giving their stuff away for free I’ve been pondering the problem of new bands being able to support their art. This week journalist and industry observer Cosmo Lee had his say on his blog Invisible Oranges. Both these guys make very compelling points, but still I see dissent among unsigned bands who see it as only fair that they can recoup their investment.

Now, I’m not in a band, I don’t even work in the music industry. I do however work in the business arena, and from that perspective this attitude seems absurd. I’ll start out by saying that bands are NOT businessmen (for the most part) and should not be expected to be. Their job is to make music. To be able to continue doing this, and not end up in crippling debt, they need to have some income to support this. Having a job on the side is not usually enough – a lot of these kids want to make a career out of making music. This is a noble cause, and they should be commended for it, but it’s not easy to do so.

So, despite the fact that the primary motivator is, and should be, music, some consideration should, in most cases, be given to making money.

Now, for the sake of comparison let’s look at small businesses. I’ll use an (imaginary) example – Jenny is a hobby jewellery maker (really evil looking gothic stuff with pentagrams and shit). She’s been making stuff in her spare time and selling it on at cost to her mates, mainly for the love of it. One day she realises that she’s selling so much that she could make a career out of this. So she decides to quit her job and start her jewellery making business. Now, with her kit in the garage, she’ll never be able to pump out enough merchandise to support her doing this full time. So she’ll need to invest in some new kit and probably rent some a bigger space to house it. Also, although she’s selling a good amount of stuff now, she’ll need to sell a lot more to make the venture even break even. So she’ll need to promote herself – to advertise in trade and music magazines costs more money. So she borrows some cash from her parents and the rest from the bank. The understanding is that she’ll pay back the bank in monthly instalments immediately, and will start paying her parents back when she starts making a profit – her projections say in 3 years time (taking into account overheads, tax etc.), although depending on sales this could be more or less. In the meantime, she will take a salary of a bit above minimum wage to cover her living expenses.

This is a very common scenario. MUCH more common than instances of bands starting out. Jenny does not expect to recoup her initial investment as soon as she makes it, it will take time.

Now, back to the bands. Music is NOT a commodity any more for the most part – it’s freely available and easily exchanged. Jewellery is tangible and, assuming that the materials are worth something and workmanship is good, is a commodity. Jenny will more than likely receive money for her wares, but her business will not make money (ie. Profit), for a long time. The business will remain in negative equity and she personally will be living on the breadline.

Unsigned bands may expect (and be able) to sell CD’s or even MP3’s, but is this a sensible idea? Without a significant fan base, and their music being easy to exchange, it’s unlikely that they’ll recoup any investment at all. All that they are doing is making it harder for folks to hear their music.

Jenny had to shell out cash to promote herself. For bands, this is traditionally a role that record labels perform. For record labels this is a difficult task, for unsigned bands it’s nigh on impossible. One way of promoting yourself is to make your music freely available and encourage folks to share it. Get people to record your shows, and put them on Youtube. Take any opportunity you can to get your music heard, it is, after all, your wares, not the CD on which it’s recorded.

Once you’ve got a few people at your shows you can start really capitalising on this by selling merchandise, and maybe you can afford to make a really nice digipack version of your demo – something that people will really want to own (they probably already own the music contained therein).

Will you get return on your investment at this point? Hell no! You won’t even get it if/when a record label signs you. You may not even see it after scoring your first Gold record. This stuff takes time, effort, talent (sometimes) and a lot of luck (always).

If you don’t like to think of this outlay as an initial investment, call it a loss leader, a well understood retail tactic of offloading stuff at a loss, under the understanding that this will get poeple hooked in and coming back for more.

I’m not saying that bands should run themselves like a business, but business is in the business of making money, and you would be wise to pay heed of this. Unless you’re the next Artic Monkeys, it’s unlikely that you’ll see that cash rolling in from just being a band, so if you want to survive, be smart and forward thinking.

Join the debate over at UKMU.

A cheeky double scoop of unsigned acts on UKMU for you consumption.

The delectable Dycian Maze:

History repeats. This is particularly apparent in popular music. In 25 to 30 year cycles, music styles re-emerge, reboot and evolve. Some returning genres are more welcome than others. The current 80’s synth-pop revival is nauseating for example, but I’m quite looking forward to grunge coming back round again. One welcome reboot was thrash metal. Bands like Municipal Waste and SSS are farming the routes of this revered genre (DRI, Slayer, SOD) to amusing effect. It’s fun and they sing about beer a lot. However, somewhere in that latter half of the 80’s thrash evolved. Albums like Ride the Lightening, Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying, History of a Time to Come, Arise took this mishmash of punk and metal and sculpted into a progressive artform. So thrash re-emerged a couple of years ago, but where’s the progression?

Dycian Maze would seem to represent a reprisal of this transitional phase. They aren’t necessarily pushing boundaries but they do make this vital period sound fresh again. The music they play is not new, but this is no shallow revisionism, the spirit of those masterworks is here in spades.

Read more…

The humdrum Hammersalt:

I don’t know if any of you are ancient enough to remember Baddiel and Skinner’s sketch show The Mary Whitehouse experience. They had this great skit lampooning The Cure – the implication was that they could make any song sound depressing, so every week they dressed up like the Cure and preformed songs like the Laughing Policeman in depressing goth style.
I have a similar problem with Hammersalt, except (in similarly depressing style) they seem to be able to make any song sound like Load-era Metallica – the singer sounds spookily like James Hetfield from those albums. Given that this band are British, and the singer’s surname is Booyse it seems unlikely that he’s Hetfield’s long lost brother. What’s slightly more confusing is that they cite every corporate heavy rock band from the last 20 years (from Pumpkins to Foos to Shinedown) as an influence on their MySpace except Metallica. Are we to believe that he stumbled on this distinctive vocal style by chance?

This makes it hard to divine what they really about – it’s kind of like that trick: say milk milk milk milk milk milk….what do cows drink?

Read more…