The Internet is Poised to Become Music's Great Equalizer
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — When promoting a show, band manager Tim Brehmer of San Luis Obispo can reach 500 prospective fans without leaving his home, placing a phone call or licking a stamp.
Brehmer, who manages New Tomorrow and other acts, will simply log onto his computer, go to MySpace.com and spend the next few hours spreading the word to friends and strangers.
"Say we have a show in Orange County next week," he said. "I will get on there and do a people search for Orange County and look up our demographic — like ages 18 to 25 — and it will bring them all up. Then I'll click on them and send them a message, saying, 'Hey, we're coming to play next week — check out our music.' That's basically the same thing as handing out a flier while walking down the street, except you don't have to drive down there and use all the gas."
The music industry has always been a Darwinian model, where few bands (and not necessarily the best) are lucky enough to score a record deal that gets their music heard. With major labels so reluctant to try anything new (if one boy band sells, you can expect many more boy bands), most acts simply die without ever leaving the garage.
But now the Internet is vying to become the ultimate equalizer, with bands building large fan bases from their keyboards. A few acts have actually used their Internet prowess to score record deals.
Sites like MySpace, Pure Volume and CD Baby allow bands to post music, photos, tour dates and personal information where Internet heavy traffic is heavy (MySpace alone has 52 million members). As a result, performers who once struggled to get their songs played on local radio now can be heard worldwide.
"If you just throw a MySpace page up and make some friends, you've got 20 percent more fans than when you started," said Brandon Wood, singer of New Tomorrow, a punk band out of San Luis Obispo.
MySpace is primarily a free social networking site that allows members to create a personal Web page, invite "friends" to link to their site and communicate through an internal e-mail system. Internet surfers can use MySpace to find old classmates, new loves or fellow nudists (if you're into that sort of thing).
In its two years of existence, MySpace has also become the leading Internet site for musicians — both established and undiscovered — to promote their craft.
Black Eyed Peas, Madonna and Weezer have premiered music on the site, allowing fans to preview upcoming CDs. (In some cases, record labels and publicists create and maintain sites for well-known acts. Other sites are actually created by fans.)
For lesser-known groups, like Red Lights in San Luis Obispo, MySpace helps build a fan base from scratch.
The Red Lights page has garnered more than 3,000 page views, and more than 600 people have added themselves as friends — paltry compared to Blink 182's 170,000 friends, but still a good start.
Bass player Shawn Hafley said the band knows about a quarter of its friends. The rest are strangers who found out about the indie rock band through the Internet.
Though the site only allows bands to post four songs, those songs can be rotated. And because the site tracks the number of times people listen to the songs, bands can use that as a gauge as to which songs are best-received.
Red Lights has its own Web site independent of MySpace, Hafley said, but it's difficult to maintain.
"When you change information on it, you actually have to go in and do all this weird scripting," he said. "Whereas on MySpace, it's just click right, update — it's done."
Because of the site's simplicity and popularity, Wood said, a lot of bands promote their MySpace pages while onstage, helping to build their Internet presence.
"You can't talk to someone on the road without getting their MySpace information," said Wood, whose band has garnered more than 10,000 profile views. "If you don't get it, you're missing out on something."
While encouraging fans to visit a site helps boost traffic, the best way to build an audience is to link up with other bands — preferably popular ones. The logic is: If you're listed as a friend of a popular band, at least some of their many fans will check out your music as well.
Even with the new technology, though, not all bands are created equal. A bad band still stinks — Web site or not. And some bands are clearly more adept at using the Internet.
Labels still want to hear acts play and see firsthand how audiences react to them, said Tim Heslin, director of online marketing for Epic. And major labels still troll indie labels for acts. But they also scour Internet sites like MySpace.
History shows that bands with large Internet audiences sell lots of records, Heslin said.
"One of the major things you want as a record label is a band that has a fan base already," Heslin said.
Once a band is signed, Heslin said, the label will continue to use MySpace to promote the music. And since a MySpace spotlight pays off in album sales, labels lobby the site to get their acts on its coveted front page.
"MySpace has really become one of our first phone calls in those instances," Heslin said.
MySpace has its drawbacks, of course. The site provides yet another venue for sexual predators, and there are technical glitches due to heavy traffic. And because the demographic is younger (advertisers target 16- to 34-year-olds), bands hoping to score Internet success will find it difficult if they don't play hip-hop, pop-punk or emo. (MySpace representatives were unavailable for comment.)
Still, MySpace and other sites allow bands to reach out in ways they never could before. And if they don't get famous from it — well, at least they'll pick up a few fans.
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HOW TO BUILD AN AUDIENCE ON MYSPACE:
1. Record some songs. This can be done in a studio if you're willing to pay money, or you can record at home with software like Pro Tools.
2. Start up a MySpace account. It only takes a few minutes for you to post basic info about your band, photos and up to four songs. Make sure to update information, like upcoming gigs.
3. Make friends. Search for people that like your genre of music, then send them an e-mail or post a comment on their site. This is particularly important if you're playing in another town.
4. Ride the coattails of a more popular band. Seek bands that play similar music to yours, then ask if they will include you as a "friend." If you're added to their site, you can expect some of their many fans to check out your site.
5. Think outside the box. Aside from bands, look for other groups and interested parties you might want to link to.
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© 2006, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.
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