We finally completed the album and now onto promoting but I am kinda at a loss having been out the loop so long.
We just had a great review in Sound On Sound which was great but its not for the music market.

Back in the day (1996) we could just press up some white labels and send them to select DJ's and radio stations.
I am trying to apply the same idea now via soundcloud but I figure the DJ's get bombarded...
Any advice?


Shameless self promotion follows...

http://www.beatport.com/release/bitchbikers-ride-to-the-galaxy/996302

Its a tough world out there, in 2011 there were between 7000-15,000 releases per week on Beatport alone

http://www.musicindie.com/news/1175

Quote Devin:

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Back in the day (1996) we could just press up some white labels and send them to select DJ's and radio stations.
I am trying to apply the same idea now via soundcloud but I figure the DJ's get bombarded...
Any advice?

---

You would have been ignored then and you will be ignored now.

How many times do I have to tell the bedroom glitterati that you have to get out there and gig?

Learn to engage with an audience. That and only that is what the music business will pay you for.

Album is great, well done. Not an easy achievement. I reckon on pushing your 3 best tracks, get your own and other peoples views and work, work, work and don't stop at all. If you get 1 going the rest can follow even if every other album track is static. Hard and and smart work is the, focus and put the work in where most effect is likely. I guarantee to you, you will have set backs and feel like giving up, don't... get back up adapt, learn and go, thats called life.

cheers and all the best with it !

oh an NEVER give up.

SafeandSound Mastering
Mastering dance music tracks

Oh and don't forget each genre has a slightly different way to get heard.

Here is a track that was a white label it was not ignored...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rShOzMN3G-w

http://www.discogs.com/Lennie-De-Ice-We-Are-IE/release/93141...

Lennie De Ice gigs.

We are I.E. came out in 1991, things are somewhat different now....... As can be seen by the Beatport stats in the Emmet post above.
I didn't have Mr Bladder down as a Junglist either. But he seems to know Lenworth Green's DJ itinerary.

Thanks for the responses...

I definitely will not give up, if this album fails it is my fault.

I am thinking of putting a lot of the tracks up on SoundCloud for free. I do not know if its possible to have the complete album for streaming but only allow certain people to download the mp3.

To Red Bladder: we did the white label thing and it worked for us, the amount of music received now is way higher than it was back in the 90's.
I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

Quote Devin:

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Thanks for the responses...

I definitely will not give up, if this album fails it is my fault.

I am thinking of putting a lot of the tracks up on SoundCloud for free. I do not know if its possible to have the complete album for streaming but only allow certain people to download the mp3.

To Red Bladder: we did the white label thing and it worked for us, the amount of music received now is way higher than it was back in the 90's.
I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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I'm not a huge fan of putting music up for free, I think it devalues it. I would personally rather someone steal my music than think of its intrinsic value being nothing.

I'm not sure what you want to get out of this whole thing, but I assume you want to either make very high quality music and/or make a living out of it. I haven't had time for an in depth listen but it seems to have one or two similarities to a guy called Com Truise (terrible name I know), but he went from being just another guy on soundcloud a couple of years ago to having a very respectable (and profitable) gig list in 2013.

I would look for a manager and a label. Someone who understands your music well and will give you straight, honest advice about what to do.

The non-gigging stuff you need to just forget about. Gigging is how you make money. It will allow you to make music as your day job and give you the time to become a better musician. Also its great fun! Everybody wants to be your friend or your lover and you get to see the world in the best way possible. Its like being on holiday all the time, except all the hard work (finding the best hotels, restaurants, booking flights, airport travel etc) is done for you.

Quote The Red Bladder:

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Learn to engage with an audience. That and only that is what the music business will pay you for.

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Not always, they will sometimes pay you to do the opposite

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__CST49ps4

Quote johnny h:

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I'm not a huge fan of putting music up for free, I think it devalues it. I would personally rather someone steal my music than think of its intrinsic value being nothing.

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I definitely second this. It always amazes how the keen record labels and artists seem to be to steam often entire albums in full before release date only then to dump it all on Spotify when all it does is effectively remove the incentive for most people to bother buying it at all.

Quote johnny h:

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I would look for a manager and a label. Someone who understands your music well and will give you straight, honest advice about what to do.

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This is easier said than done but it's true. I would hazard that most artists who break through without any form of live show to back them up did so because they networked effectively and linked up with people who could open doors.

Quote johnny h:

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The non-gigging stuff you need to just forget about. Gigging is how you make money. It will allow you to make music as your day job and give you the time to become a better musician. Also its great fun! Everybody wants to be your friend or your lover and you get to see the world in the best way possible. Its like being on holiday all the time, except all the hard work (finding the best hotels, restaurants, booking flights, airport travel etc) is done for you.

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Having listened to the album clips, I can understand why the OP is reluctant to attempt a live presentation of this but it doesn't alter the fact that people who break through without any form of live performance aspect to their offering are in a big minority. The OP says he finds most live electronic music boring and if you're just talking about a guy in headphones prodding a MacBook Pro and nothing else then I can see that. What you need to do is find a way to overcome that. A live drummer would be a start and I can see that working with the sort of music you do. Visuals is another important aspect (I can understand why the readership turned its nose up at it but I happen to think SOS were bang on the money when they started intropducing video content a year or so ago. It is fast becoming an essential tool in a modern musician's toolbox if they want to get noticed).

I don't have any any easy answers for you but I wish you well.

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http://www.partyfearsthree.co.uk

Great responses again.

I am thinking of putting the entire album for listen on Soundcloud but without a download option.

This is essentially the same as being on Rdio or Spotify streaming.
I would also like it to be used in TV & Film but not sure what the path is.

We are working on 2 videos, both of which should be interesting enough to keep peoples attention for the vital first 10 seconds!

>I definitely will not give up, if this album fails it is my fault.

That sounds like you're being too tough on yourself.

Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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This is a classical example of someone who is only prepared to listen to the advice that he/she wants to hear. Gigging sounds like work, we don't like the sound of that, so we rule it out!

Think about this logically - you are not going to get very far in this game without an agent. The agent will want 20% of a beginner.

20% of what exactly? CD sales? I doubt it, as you won't get any. Downloads? Hardly!

No, he wants 20% of your gigs. He will get you gigs. A good agent with a hard-working and popular act that is starting out in this game should be able to get you at least three or four small gigs a week and be able to build you up to the point where you can be booked into festivals and open for major acts. He will do this, so that he gets 20% of real money.

If an act is not gigging, then it just isn't an act - it's just a noise.

You can be making the nicest sound on Plant Earth, but that doesn't help anybody. This is show business, not 'hear' business!

Quote The Red Bladder:

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Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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This is a classical example of someone who is only prepared to listen to the advice that he/she wants to hear. Gigging sounds like work, we don't like the sound of that, so we rule it out!

Think about this logically - you are not going to get very far in this game without an agent. The agent will want 20% of a beginner.

20% of what exactly? CD sales? I doubt it, as you won't get any. Downloads? Hardly!

No, he wants 20% of your gigs. He will get you gigs. A good agent with a hard-working and popular act that is starting out in this game should be able to get you at least three or four small gigs a week and be able to build you up to the point where you can be booked into festivals and open for major acts. He will do this, so that he gets 20% of real money.

If an act is not gigging, then it just isn't an act - it's just a noise.

You can be making the nicest sound on Plant Earth, but that doesn't help anybody. This is show business, not 'hear' business!

---

Its easy to ignore advice like this, but I would emphasise VERY strongly not to. Professional musicians work a lot. Talent is important, but not anywhere near as important as work ethic. Without talent its difficult, without work ethic its impossible.

If you think live shows are boring its up to you to make it interesting. You have to make it work, or you need to accept that you will only ever be an amateur musician.

Quote The Red Bladder:

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This is a classical example of someone who is only prepared to listen to the advice that he/she wants to hear. Gigging sounds like work, we don't like the sound of that, so we rule it out!

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What a ridiculous response. 99% of electronic/dance music isn't performed live. Look at the DMC charts and tell me how many of those musicians play live yet still sell music.

Edited by Devin (27/02/13 07:48 PM)

Quote Devin:

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Look at the DMC charts and tell me how many of those musicians play live yet still sell music.

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I must be looking at the 'wrong' charts, because I just looked at the top ten dance-electronica and as far as I can see, they all gig. As I have only some 40 years experience in this business and spent 10-12 years promoting hip-hop, I bow to your wisdom!

Please point me at these charts of high earners that don't leave the house and conquer the World from their bedrooms!

Quote Devin:

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Quote The Red Bladder:

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This is a classical example of someone who is only prepared to listen to the advice that he/she wants to hear. Gigging sounds like work, we don't like the sound of that, so we rule it out!

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What a ridiculous response. 99% of electronic/dance music isn't performed live. Look at the DMC charts and tell me how many of those musicians play live yet still sell music.

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All of them, basically.

DJ gigs are still gigs, just so you know.

Seems to be some misunderstanding about what constitutes 'playing live' it seems? perhaps 'live appearances' is the best way to put it.

Doing things over backing tracks as a live performance is still classed as performing live these days, even though not all of the music heard is being played live by musicians on stage.

What is being emphasised is that to get anywhere you need to be doing liver appearances on a regular basis, make it happen, make it work, by whatever means.

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Quote GlynB:

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you need to be doing liver appearances

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If my liver made an appearance, I am sure people would be horrified!

But yes, in agreement and as you say, Glyn, a 'gig' can be just a 'live appearance' - a few bods on stage playing to a backing track. It never did Depeche Mode any harm turning up with three mono synths and an 8-track ... it's common these days, right down to full-on miming but even that is better and more memorable than just playing a record.

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote hollowsun:

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Quote GlynB:

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you need to be doing liver appearances

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If my liver made an appearance, I am sure people would be horrified!

But yes, in agreement and as you say, Glyn, a 'gig' can be just a 'live appearance' - a few bods on stage playing to a backing track. It never did Depeche Mode any harm turning up with three mono synths and an 8-track ... it's common these days, right down to full-on miming but even that is better and more memorable than just playing a record.

---

This is the tech rider from the KLF (allegedly):

1 CD player

Their hospitality rider was 7 pages long

Ha!

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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when we first got into writing electronic dance music my friend and me decided to play live so we turned our tunes into eight or sixteen bar loops and used the desk to bring/drop tracks in/out. most people's feedback was that it really good fun watching two guys working the desk and all the other equipment together. i supposed it helped that we didn't quite understand midi enough to change all the settings for the next tune so one of us did it manually in a mad chaotic manner! apparently we were certainly not boring!

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Music is my madness that keeps me sane.

Quote trevorscott33:

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Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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when we first got into writing electronic dance music my friend and me decided to play live so we turned our tunes into eight or sixteen bar loops and used the desk to bring/drop tracks in/out. most people's feedback was that it really good fun watching two guys working the desk and all the other equipment together. i supposed it helped that we didn't quite understand midi enough to change all the settings for the next tune so one of us did it manually in a mad chaotic manner! apparently we were certainly not boring!

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This could indeed be more entertaining that watching three guys with guitars shoe gazing. 'aint what ya do, it's the way that ya do it.

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I do not know if its possible to have the complete album for streaming but only allow certain people to download the mp3

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you can do this on www.reverbnation.com

Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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The problem with this is that many of the "gatekeepers" in printed and online press/blogs, broadcast media like to see things coming at them from a variety of angles... so a promo which just arrives on its own wont have much impact versus one that can cite press interest, blog write ups, a UK tour, radio play... it validates their choices, and chances are that many won't even listen unless other interest is present.

+ Just releasing the album (or any singles/remixies) is a mistake - it shouldn't go out till you have all the pieces in place, and that might mean six months from the completion of the album. And even that on its own is not enough - you need content to build and sustain interest: a continuous drip feed of news, photos, videos, remixes, gigs... if you've managed to engage with the right people, they will use and feature this material which will help you enormously .

It helps to have some perspective too .... the album may be your pride and joy, a work of art, your greatest achievement .....but all the people you will rely on to promote it will have their own content agenda to promote. Whether thats a blog, club, gig, radio show, magazine, they want to know that what you are offering is in line with their audiences expectations and will contribute to what they are trying to sell. If you start by ruling out one of the key routes to those audiences you are probably doomed from the word go.

Quote Soundseed:

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Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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The problem with this is that many of the "gatekeepers" in printed and online press/blogs, broadcast media like to see things coming at them from a variety of angles... so a promo which just arrives on its own wont have much impact versus one that can cite press interest, blog write ups, a UK tour, radio play... it validates their choices, and chances are that many won't even listen unless other interest is present.

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It can seem like Catch-22. A new artist can't get the better gigs without showing the promoter some level of press interest and fan base, can't get press interest without showing a level of fan base & can't get a fan base without regularly gigging at the right venues... puzzle innit!

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Quote GlynB:

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Quote Soundseed:

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Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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The problem with this is that many of the "gatekeepers" in printed and online press/blogs, broadcast media like to see things coming at them from a variety of angles... so a promo which just arrives on its own wont have much impact versus one that can cite press interest, blog write ups, a UK tour, radio play... it validates their choices, and chances are that many won't even listen unless other interest is present.

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It can seem like Catch-22. A new artist can't get the better gigs without showing the promoter some level of press interest and fan base, can't get press interest without showing a level of fan base & can't get a fan base without regularly gigging at the right venues... puzzle innit!

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Yup, it is a swine of a Catch 22. You can get promoter interest if you can persuade them that your campaign will be sufficiently intensive to generate press / radio / blog coverage, but it is hard work, and wont generate the best of gigs, and the further form home the worse they're likely to be.

The worst thing to do is pile in cold with an album release: interest will fade somewhere at the fringes of your social media circle. Its a cliche, but the music bit is easy compared to the hard graft, cold calling, chasing people up on the promotional leg of the process. If I was the OP, and the material was that strong, I'd put the effort into finding a label.

Quote GlynB:

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Quote Soundseed:

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Quote Devin:

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I am also not particularly interested in gigging, I find most electronic music boring to see live.

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The problem with this is that many of the "gatekeepers" in printed and online press/blogs, broadcast media like to see things coming at them from a variety of angles... so a promo which just arrives on its own wont have much impact versus one that can cite press interest, blog write ups, a UK tour, radio play... it validates their choices, and chances are that many won't even listen unless other interest is present.

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It can seem like Catch-22. A new artist can't get the better gigs without showing the promoter some level of press interest and fan base, can't get press interest without showing a level of fan base & can't get a fan base without regularly gigging at the right venues... puzzle innit!

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If the music is good enough and you get out there fans will come, a&r will come and when you get signed you'll have the promotion and organisation in place to make you more popular. But it all hinges on the quality of the music and the amount of effort you put in to make the right contacts and do enough shows.

The 'gatekeepers' are always very sociable people, but they also tend to be busy. If you are good they will be very happy to talk to you, but they haven't got time if your music isn't worth it.

Quote johnny h:

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If the music is good enough and you get out there fans will come, a&r will come and when you get signed you'll have the promotion and organisation in place to make you more popular. But it all hinges on the quality of the music and the amount of effort you put in to make the right contacts and do enough shows.

The 'gatekeepers' are always very sociable people, but they also tend to be busy. If you are good they will be very happy to talk to you, but they haven't got time if your music isn't worth it.

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One thing worth adding - we're into the festival unsigned stage competition season. Get a slot on one of these stages and there's usually a fair amount of good PR done on the successful acts' behalf, and spin off interest from radio, press, labels, promoters etc. If you have a strong album / single ready to go it makes you more news and interest worthy, so even if you don't get signed you can still do a lot for your profile - and sales on the back of it.

I largely disagree with TheRedBladder. Most dance music isn't gigged - dance music has a completely different commercial infrastructure and there just isn't a useful performance circuit for unsigned acts. Playing DJ sets can be a very useful promotional tool for an artist (and conversely, releasing music can be a very good promotional tool for a DJ) but they're fundamentally different activities. A large proportion of successful DJs don't produce music and a large proportion of successful dance music producers never perform live.

While there are huge numbers of releases, that's not the whole story. Firstly, dance music is highly fragmented by genre, so most DJs will only see a tiny fraction of those releases. Secondly, technology has undermined but not destroyed the difference between "commercial release" and "demo". The large bulk of those "releases" aren't really releases at all, but crude demos that have been dumped onto Beatport with no real promotional effort. If you know how the game works and are willing to put the money and effort in, very little has changed in 20 years - there's a slush pile of stuff that nobody influential will end up listening to, and there are ways of bypassing that slush pile.

As I see it, OP's biggest problem is that his music just isn't very commercial. The "electronica" tag is something of a black mark, because it implicitly suggests that it's not going to fit into a club set. I can't think of any contemporary DJ who would play out music like that. If you took it to a reputable plugger, he'd tell you not to waste your money, because there's nothing on the record with real commercial appeal. It might be a great record, but it just doesn't fit in to any current genre's aesthetic and I can't imagine who'd take the risk of playing it.

If OP's link took me to an EP of three or four really polished dubstep or house tunes with good hooks and clear dancefloor appeal, I might be able to help him. Something more leftfield might stand a chance if the first few seconds of the first track sounded a bit like James Blake, Burial or Flying Lotus, with an obviously zeitgeisty feel. As it is, I just can't see the market for it.

Sorry if I've just shattered all your dreams or something, but that's the reality of it - a record is highly unlikely to get played on the radio if it doesn't sound at least a bit like what's currently being played on the radio.

Quote uphillbothways:

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I largely disagree with TheRedBladder. Most dance music isn't gigged - dance music has a completely different commercial infrastructure and there just isn't a useful performance circuit for unsigned acts.

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So how do people get to dance to dance music, if it is not being played anywhere?

If I go to any disco on Planet Earth, I will hear floor-pulls from a rather small range of artists, all of whom gig pretty much all the time.

OK, there must be some 30 different styles of dance music and I suppose someone somewhere has to be producing dance music that nobody wants to dance to - in which case it is not dance music, but something else. But the biggest floor-pull of 2012 in the UK was 'Mama do the Hump' from the Rizzle Kicks, who never seemed to be off the road for a second.

I said it above and I have to say it again - you will get nowhere fast without an agent. You can get maybe one or two gigs a month all on your own, but if you want to build up a meaningful following, you need to be doing several gigs a week and that requires an agent.

Agents are not interested in record sales and downloads, what they need is money coming in. They want 20% from a beginner, so they need to sell an act and sell it hard. They work for their money and they need a stable full of hard working acts that they can put into clubs and halls.

Yes, you can sit at home and produce music that may fall into one of the myriad categories of dance music, but that does not make it dance music. It becomes dance music when people dance to it! And that will only happen, when you get off your duff and get out there and play it.

If you are a DJ, you start by slipping your music into a set and you can sell CDs off the stage. You can also work with a DJ, rapping and mixing and generally performing so that you create that emotional proximity to an audience. It is that relationship with your audience that is the measure of success.

As for the rest of what you (uphillbothways) say, I do agree, re the slush pile and your take on the OPs chances.

But dance music is all about identifying and targeting specific tastes and producing music that satisfies those tastes. To do that, you have to spend some time (years possibly) in discos watching what types of music (and more importantly, what flavour of hook and type of beat) gets girls to pull their guys onto the dance floor.

It's only a Catch 22 situation if you don't gig and are not aware of what Joanna Public really wants. As a dance music producer, your job is produce music that gets them onto the dance floor. That means putting your tastes on the back burner and putting the tastes of the audience right up-front.

Quote The Red Bladder:

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Quote uphillbothways:

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I largely disagree with TheRedBladder. Most dance music isn't gigged - dance music has a completely different commercial infrastructure and there just isn't a useful performance circuit for unsigned acts.

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So how do people get to dance to dance music, if it is not being played anywhere?

If I go to any disco on Planet Earth, I will hear floor-pulls from a rather small range of artists, all of whom gig pretty much all the time.

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Rizzle Kicks are not a dance act, they're a pop act. They operate within the pop infrastructure, which is effectively inaccessible to unsigned artists and frankly not worth the effort in trying to break. The fact that a record is played in bars nightclubs and danced to does not make it dance music, perverse as that might seem. As an unsigned artist you don't have a cat in hell's chance of getting played out in your local sticky-floored meat market, but you have remarkably easy access to the DJs at your local dubstep or D&B night.

DJing is not the same as live performance. Many dance music producers do DJ, but those activities are separate but mutually supportive. The skillset of a DJ is only weakly related to those of a producer, which is why a lot of major DJs release music in their own name that they paid someone to produce, and why a lot of producers play out prerecorded DJ sets. Playing out your own music is a completely ineffective means of promotion if you are not already an established DJ.

Dance music has a well-established infrastructure for the promotion of new music. As a producer, you network directly with DJs, forming relationships within your own genre community. You gain access to live performance and radio play by providing exclusives and VIP mixes, which are mutually beneficial arrangements for artist and DJ - the artist gets someone evangelically plugging their music, the DJ gets the kudos of being one of the first with a hot new tune. This of course requires a great deal of hard work and a tune that is worth the effort.

My Traktor playlists are full of tunes by people who have never played a DJ set in their lives. A large proportion of the people propping up the Beatport charts are getting bookings as a DJ because of the success of their record releases, not vice-versa.

Some dance music producers benefit a great deal from the experience of DJing, others are perfectly in tune with the zeitgeist from just following the scene. Hell, I know people who've hit the 1xtra A-list without ever having set foot in a nightclub. OP's main problem is that he's clearly badly out of touch and has put together a record that sounds two decades old. He may benefit from the experience of DJing at some point down the line, but first he needs to turn on the bloody radio.

I wholeheartedly agree with the following:

Quote The Red Bladder:

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It is not really a catch 22 situation: as a dance music producer, your job is produce music that gets them onto the dance floor. That means putting your tastes on the back burner and putting the tastes of the audience right up-front.

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Quote uphillbothways:

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OP's main problem is that he's clearly badly out of touch and has put together a record that sounds two decades old. He may benefit from the experience of DJing at some point down the line, but first he needs to turn on the bloody radio.

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Two decades old? Sounds harsh, but after listening again I'd have to agree. It sounds like it should be in some low budget 90s sci fi film.

The Red Bladder Quote:

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I wholeheartedly agree with the following:

Quote The Red Bladder:

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It is not really a catch 22 situation: as a dance music producer, your job is produce music that gets them onto the dance floor. That means putting your tastes on the back burner and putting the tastes of the audience right up-front.

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I would suggest that you need to be in tune with the audience. You may think your tastes are pretty set in stone, but often they aren't. If you really internalise modern music it makes it a lot easier to make it.

The OP is definitely lacking a lot of knowledge of the modern music scene, and the dismissive attitude to performing live suggests an unwillingness to learn. If you are going to carry regardless then whatever 'success' of your previous album which you mention in your beatport blurb (which I'm sure doesn't include being able to pay your bills) is all you can realistically hope for.

Also, and I don't want to upset the team here by saying this, but a good review in sound on sound is really nothing to shout about. Its one step away from saying your mum likes it.

There are some gems in your use of language, that I must compliment you on!

"Sticky-floored meat market." I loved that one!

"He needs to turn on the bloody radio!" Good stuff. Pithy and to the point! It also implies the point we agree upon, that a dance music producer needs to be 100% in tune with his or her audience. I fear that the OP has made something that he can make, rather than something he should make.

But he has not produced anything that would have passed muster 20 years ago. That was roughly when I quite the hip-hop/rap/disco scene and we had nothing so bland. Dance music has to grab you by the balls and smack you upside the head, if it is to get anywhere. And it has to open with a hook to die for!

"The fact that a record is played in bars nightclubs and danced to does not make it dance music, perverse as that might seem." I know what you mean, but clubs everywhere in the UK play pop music and people dance to it. 'Mama' may not be within a specific genre, but it was for a short while THE floor-pull.

You are obviously speaking from a position of knowledge of a specific genre, about which I know nothing! All that Radio One Xtra stuff. The OP should read your words carefully, they make sense. I doubt that just listening to the radio is going to cut it though. He needs to get into the clubs and make a note of what works and what does not work.

"As a producer, you network directly with DJs, forming relationships within your own genre community. You gain access to live performance and radio play by providing exclusives and VIP mixes, which are mutually beneficial arrangements for artist and DJ - the artist gets someone evangelically plugging their music, the DJ gets the kudos of being one of the first with a hot new tune. This of course requires a great deal of hard work and a tune that is worth the effort."

Not much has changed then, since my day! We still had to play live, but it was vital that you got out there and met the DJs as they came to their gigs and pushed your record into his or her sweaty paw. It had to tie in with what was happening at the time and it had to beat-mix well with current floor-pulls. You also had to get your record into the shops selling dance music. VIP mixes were on cassette and featured the DJ's name in the text. All so much easier today, well, except getting stuff into the shops! In the country I was living in at the time, there were only a handful of shops that were at the cutting edge of rap/hip-hop.

Those were exciting days!

I am in a similar position, but very keen to play live! My problem is that most of this advice seems to lean towards making music of a single genre. I agree that Djing will raise your profile, but it will also take time from making music and working on your craft.

Some kind of electronic `open-mic` night would be good...an `open patchbay` night perhaps!

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soundcloud.com/midi-error

Quote The Red Bladder:

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Those were exciting days!

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But nothing has changed. Being there at the birth of a new technology is one of the great priveleges of being a human being. And yes, it is indeed exciting. I remember the birth of CD. Fantastic times as new doors were opened, into what seemed like some mystical Orwellian labyrinth of other worldliness.

My dad tells me of those heady times as video burst onto the scenes and being able to watch reruns of Not The Nine O'Clock News was like the breaking of a new dawn. I can only try and imagine what it must have been like for you RB, to witness the foundation of the fundamental essence of music recording and everything that developed out of it.

Being there at the brith of Vinyl, now that is a story worth telling. And we thank you, not just for being there, but for so elegantly reminiscing and making us a part of that memory.