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Okay, this post is more of a proud poppa moment and has little to do with marketing and self promotion.
No, wait. It does.
My son’s band, Resurrected, played their first “official” gig on May 22, 2010 at the Lake Fine Arts Festival in Hartville / Uniontown, Ohio. Simply put, they rocked the house down.
My son, the lead guitarist, was appropriately decked out in black with chain accents. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The guys covered Rock You Like A Hurricane and Sweet Child of Mine. Both were great, but, in my humble opinion, they really shined on Sweet Child.
Band promotion has come a long way since the glory days of the Fillmore East and West and posters by Wes Wilson. Today it’s Websites, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, mp3s, bandspace and such.
That said, for all intent and purpose, a band is a small business and the same rules apply for branding, marketing and promotion. Also like most small businesses, the music world is competitive, albeit competitive on steroids. A peruse on YouTube quickly shows that there’s no shortage of talent out there. Like graphic design, writing or any other service businesses, talent is pretty much a given. So, getting gigs is often largely dependent on how well a band can separate themselves from the pack with something unique, become visible and build a following.
It starts with a name. Coming up with one, that all band members agree upon can be a tough act. Like any other brand, 
after the name comes a logo. I whipped up this typographic ditty for Resurrected. Great? No. But it’ll do the job for the short term. Odds are, the name will change along the way. Speaking of band logos, my friend, Steve Douglas, wrote a great series of blog posts about them. Check it out. It’s enlightening and entertaining.
To be successful, a band needs a few things – Talent, great management and effective promotion. Where would Elvis had been without Col. Tom Parker or the Beatles without Brian Epstein?
KISS comes to mind with regard to branding and promoting a band. They created something utterly unique for the time. As the band members will admit, they aren’t the best musicians on the planet. They don’t need to be. Their stage act and branding set them apart. They used smart, careful planning and strategy to create an phenomenon. Their efforts paid off by selling over 75 million albums and loads of merchandise. Not too shabby.
Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust is another example of rising above the clutter. But, he didn’t stop with Ziggy and the Spiders From Mars. He reinvented his persona time and time again, resulting in superstar status.
When all’s said and done, whether you’re a garage band looking for a gig or a recording deal or an independent professional looking for clients, finding your unique position is critical to success. It takes some time and careful thought to find what you can authentically bring to the table that your competition either won’t or can’t.
