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I've been saying it for sometime now, but playing shows is everything in the future. Looking to get a deal? Play shows. Want more exposure? Play shows. Wanna gain experience? Play shows. Do you want to be successful? Play...you guessed it. Small shows, big shows, street shows (I found one of my favorite bands at a street performance), house shows, showwws perieod. And now we have the merger of live nation and ticket-master finally getting judge approval. Recorded music revenue is dropping, and i haven't really bought a cd for awhile, but what i have a growing feining for is some live shows. Where are all the live shows at?

Wanna start playing more shows, gather an email list and once it's full swap your email lists with artists that are similar in musical style. That way you can increase the chances of getting some new faces out to your shows. Venues want to know that you can gather a crowd, so an extensive email list is a very good start.

Here's a couple of resources that i've gathered on who to get shows booked for you or your band.

Capture the crowd while they're in the moment. Mike Doughty the "creative force" behind Soul Coughing (signed to warner bros in the 90's) had some surprise marketing tactics for his music during his live shows that w

You've performed many-a-times, rocked shows with 10 people in the crowed, rocked shows with thousands in attendance, but tonight for some odd reason you are experiencing an unexpected attack of stage fright. Professional Vocalist Judy Rodman touches on the two prime causes for uncharacteristic stage fright, and what you can do to prevent or defuse a sudden attack of nerves.

These two thoughts are key. Ever thought of display your live show schedule with Google Calendar. Help fans find your gig venues with Google Maps.

using ear plugs at shows really allows the nuance to shine through

1. The best approach is slow and cautious. Right now, we are in the jungle. In the jungle, you don't rush blindly ahead. You dip a toe in the sand, and see if you sink. We have no hope of predicting which of these services might catch on. We need to move slowly, with very short-term agreements and see what works and what fails. And we need to be sure not to undermine our other business partners while we do that. Which leads to… 2. We should support our allies and punish our enemies. Rob McDaniels for InGrooves estimates that it takes 150-200 streams of one song to equal the royalty income on a single download. Right now, our industry still relies on the sale of physical product (believe it or not, it's still the primary source of revenue) and on digital downloads. Perhaps streaming is the future. Perhaps not. But we would be very unwise to cut ridiculously low-cost rates to a business model that obviously threatens both physical retailers and iTunes. Let's take care of the people paying our bills. At the same time, we should continue to press ahead with legal efforts against things like Pirate Bay- efforts that are finally starting to show some results. 3. We need to recognize that "bundling" and ad-revenue sharing is a marriage, and it works both ways. If we bundle the cost of music access into the cost of a mobile phone or the sale of a computer, we're now not only in the music business, we're in the electronics business. Any economic factors that hurt the sales of phones and computers will now hurt us as well. 4. Most of all, we need transparency in the negotiations and setting of rates, so that everyone in the music community understands what they're being paid and how it's being calculated.

All that studio equipment that you're plunking all of your hard earned cash into deserves to be protected. Nothing shows just how much you don't use all of your fancy equipment like a congregation of dust. CompuCover is a company that makes custom-fit covers for your gear. They've been in business since 1979 so you don't have to worry about them vanishing in thin air when you need a replacement and they're cheaper than the dirt gathered between your Tritons Keys. One custom CompuCover sleeve will set you back a cool $16.95 in comparison to the $50-70 price tag of the competition.

If the name Ian Rogers doesn't ring a bell it will soon. Ina Rogers is the CEO of Topsin media, a music client that analysis how your brand is doing online. The data that his company collects suggests that the campaigns that take the shape of a snowball have a much better chance of showing a return on investment. Which as someone cadidly pointed out in the comments is the traditional definition of artist development. Ians 3 points that success seeking musicians should follow are 1. Goal: Have more fans tomorrow that you had yesterday 2. Grow fan connections as well as dollars. Everyday should mean more email addresses, twitter followers, Facebook fans, and MySpace friends and of course dollars. 3. Action: Do something small weekly, something big monthly

Malcolm Gladwell ,author of the book Outliers, is pretty adamant about his 10,000 hour rule. The rule states that in order to master any craft 10,000 + hours of practice must be accumulated. And getting in that many hours of practice can take 10 years or more. Basically, you gotta put in your work. The music promotion blog has a piece on Steve Martin that really attests to the decade journey that one must take to reach celebrity over night. By the time Steve was propelled into great public awareness he was a well oiled machine, ready to deliver the goods. Television (tell a lie to your vision, particularly shows like american idol and other media sources are very good at trivializing the years of work that some of our greatest icons put in to achieve icon status. Record Labels have even been fooled forgoing development for the young inexperienced (We've seen how well that works). Thats actually the equivalent of getting hired for an entry position and then getting promoted to CEO of the company a few weeks later, needless to say, that company's going to fail. I guess the point of this is if you want to increase your chances of success, not being signed but actually be icon status (being remembered for the many things you've done, not just the first thing), then you have to sleep in that car, perform in front of an audience of empty chairs, bounce from label to label because when god finally taps you on the shoulder and says its go time your going to outshine all of the others not even half way through their 10,000 hour mark. Put in the time and you will be rewarded.

The Greatful Dead knew a thing or two about business. "A group of stoners who somehow got more things right than the suits running the record industry, radio and even some high powered new media businesses." Some great business lessons that could be learned from this group are sprinkled through an article on indisdemusicmedia comparing their biz model to that of the Radio Industry's. Some of these points should be laser sketched into your brain (if you simply can't remember). According to the Atlantic Magazine article your fans are key to your ultimate success. But not all your fans. As with every musician you have different levels of fans, cater to only your most loyalist fans because their the ones that are going to purchase your music. Get a team together consisting of the band the road crew and and other organization members and periodically rotate the final decision makers. Your not the only one with good ideas on how to run things. Give it away until they buy it. Some things in life are uncontrollable (death, natural disasters and file sharing fall into this category) Don't try to fight against it. Rather embrace it and exploit it for your own benefit. The greatful dead exemplified this by not having an hernia upon the realization that their fans were taping their shows. Instead they used it to increase demand and drive the sales of other revenue streams. The same way that humanity doesn't fight against death but instead uses it to make the quality of life better the same way a musician should approach the death of the CD. Just because the CD has to die, doesn't mean that your career has to go to.

Theres been a lot of talk about how to survive the music industry, what social networks you should be on and online distributors you should be with but the simple truth is that the music you create is much more important than your current method of distribution. So i challenge you for 2010 to step your game up partner with that one drummer and create amazing music, be relentless and most importantly get out of the house and book some shows. Paying or non-paying, it doesn't matter if your the right person for this, the money will come.

Fact #1 - Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine next to Google. Fact #2 - Many people search for music on Youtube and other online video websites. Now that you know these two facts. The renegade producer suggests there is no better reason for you to develop a business strategy which includes online music video distribution. Now what type of videos are we talking about here, not everyone has the money to shoot a MTV style music video let alone a couple. Well the renegadeproducer suggests uploading not just clips of your band but clips of your brand. You can create clips from the audio, backstage, with members of your tribe at shows or even while having breakfast. Having content that can visually engage your fans while your not on the stage can help strengthen the overall brand. Time is obviously a factor, so for this you should check out TubeMogul that group distributes your videos to many video sharing sites at once, but first you gotta create the content.

Ways for musicians to make money in their sleep. Place your songs with other recording artists. Let them do the touring and the twittering, while you earn money. Place your songs in films and television shows. Not only does it publicize you as an artist-it generates sync fees and performance income. Place your songs in video games or other products. The licensing rates are pretty low, but the exposure is ridiculously high. And you don't have to travel in a van, tear-down or set-up. Place your songs in advertisements. It's not only about grabbing that Apple iPod spot. There are national, local and international advertising opportunities that could fund your band's next road-trip. Create new music for film/TV libraries, which license "needle-drop" music to a wide variety of media. The sync fees are virtually non-existent, but because these are non-exclusive licenses, the same piece can be used again and again, generating significant performance money....

As someone dies, someone else is born. I'm sure by now you've heard the big news. Aerosmith is now looking for a new lead singer. 50 years later, Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith has decided to pursue a solo career. The announcement follows an interview that the band's frontman, Steven Tyler, gave to a British music magazine in which he said he was interested in "working on the brand of myself - Brand Tyler." If you've always wanted to be a part of the legendary rock group now might be your chance. I have no clue on how the band is preparing to fill the lead singer gap, but in todays media centric world, i'm betting either world wide auditions or a reality show. All i'm saying is be prepared, thats all.

Applying the Record Label Model to the Indie Artist You may already be familiar with the online world of myspace music and facebook pages, and the offiline world of shows and radio play, but as George Howard puts it "Err too far online, you fail. Too far offline, you fail". In order to be successful today you need to achieve the perfect balance between online and offline marketing. Eleetmusic's Kevin English outlines how to use the four R's (Radio, Road, Reviews and Retail) of the "Not so new record label model" to capture the audience statistically proven to be more receptive to trying to new things. College students.

Touring tips

Get Famous enough and Fans could actually be on tour to see you. Matin Contempree is driving this innovative concept with the Rock and Pop tours. The very first tour, 'Good Vibrations Tour of Los Angeles' is kicking off in April (2010). Offered is "the chance to delve behind the music industry: to hear the music live, taste the excitement and experience the iconic locations and famous venues where rock and pop history was created and still lives on". READ MORE

Performing on ABC? Better not get too artsy!