Taking over the world!! (Of Irish Music :P)

[GazEcc]

Hey Everyone,

I managed to get some studio time for christmas and am going to be releasing an album (bout 5-6 songs hopefully depending how all fares) and my girlfriend has managed to snag me some time on 'Raidió na Life' an Irish (Gaelic) radio station to promote it and do a track or two live (in English for all you non speakers ) and I was just wondering where to go from here.

I know that I can sell my album at my gigs but I was wondering about other sources, How would / should / could I go about getting my music to the masses? And also what advertising techniques should I use to try and get in touch with more people? I've never really had faith in the online method but a lot of people seem to be having success with it so should I throw them up on facespace or mybook or something similar? a Last.FM might not hurt either I'm guessing, and also what about selling on iTunes how do I go about it, do I need to reach any requirements etc.

Gaz, oh and merry christmas one and all

 

[GuitarSoloGuy]

Hey man! Congrats on the studio time. In terms of promoting I am a firm believer that the best way is to play live gigs, and just getting out there and meeting people. I don't belive in the internet either, but you should at least have a page (myspace, facebook, whatever is most popular around your area) because it's free and there's really no reason not too. To get on Itunes you just need to go to the website CDbaby.com, you will have to buy a barcode from them, and then they keep a cut of the sales (this will, I belive, get you on Napster, Rhaposdy, etc as well as Itunes). No requirements neccesary. I don't really know anything about Last.Fm so I can't offer any (valid) advice on it.

Once again nothing stands up to a live show and meeting people. Even if you're just playing open mics! If you go the CDbaby route you may want to check my facts on their website just to be safe. I haven't scoped it out for a while so they may have changed things.
Good luck man, and I hope this helped.

 

[GazEcc]

Heard about CDBaby in one of my recording books didn't really look it up cause I wasn't 100% on what they did but i suppose it wouldn't hurt to check. And I've a few bookings in the New Year I'll just throw a few in with my gigging rig and put them on display during the gig and say about them.

 

[jus_tin4]

what band is this dude??? as im from ireland, live in kildare so understood your irish talk(kinda )

 

[Jim Lad]

I'm not really ready to give up my grip on Irish music but I'll help you anyway.
Join CD Baby.
They will take care of everything with regards to online sales and will walk you through the whole process of getting your album online.
You can trust them.
Do not start spreading your tracks on other sites as this can really play havoc with the whole Pay Per Play scenario.
If you have more than one handler putting your tunes on I-Tunes for instance, I-Tunes doesn't know who to pay so they drop you.

 

[nialldoran]

Are you a member of IMRO? (its an irish performing rights organisation) definatly do that they do showcases for their acts do alot of promotion tours in europe etc, along with collecting and distributing your royalties to you when your music is broadcast or you play live, and with appearing in the radio show and broadcasting tracks then you meet a criteria to join, not sure how much it is to join but it usually isnt much with performing rights organisations, and its uaually one off too, yeah they help alot of musicains in both south and north man, and definatly get an online presence, in this day and age you'd be silly not too,

IMRO also collect royalities from other P.R.Os so if your track is played in europe or america they will collect and pay you, (on top of what you get to play live etc. and provide them with what songs you will be playing and where before a live gig takes place and they will contact the venue asking for confirmation that you showed up and played, if you play live and are being broadcast on a regualr basis you are losing money by not joining, your money will sit uncollected and never be given to you unless you are a member of one of the P.R.Os (performing rights organisations.)

EDIT it is actually free to join IMRO as long as you meet one of three criteria seen here under writers membership section
http://www.imro.ie/content/join-imro