Plan Your Noise

Question:

“Deane, how do you know when the right or best time is to promote to people? It’s pretty noisy out there already and I don’t want to add to the noise.”

People ask me this stuff all the time. I’m not sure why. I don’t know how it happened. I really have no interest in being the guy people come to for answers. Because I really don’t have any answers. TO ANYTHING. None. I just have my own opinions… And believe me, they are wildly rampant and plentiful. But when you do podcasts and get people who are way smarter than you to collaborate on resources like what SCOREcast is, folks start to view you as something of an expert. They think you know shit. I don’t. Really. I honestly haven’t even done very much scoring work in the grand scheme of the industry, and certainly not by comparison with the big heavyweight folks who have. I’ve scored a handful of films, like twenty or so. That’s not a lot. Most of them you’ve never heard of before. I’m damn proud of every one of them, but my name is certainly not synonymous with “film composer”.

So, when I get these LinkedIN alerts that someone has endorsed me for “film scoring” I have to laugh; First, because the notion of a social network endorsement is just goofy, no matter how seriously you might take it (or need it), and secondly because it’s just a silly thing to receive an endorsement from someone you’ve never spoken a single word to. How do they know you are any good? What… because they listened to your music? Well, if you are a recording artist then… yeah… maybe. But a film composer? How can someone endorse you as a film composer without listening to your music within the context of the film it supports? Makes no sense.

Stars Are Noisy…

Endorsements. Ha! That’s the 2013 version of getting “endorsed”. Used to be an endorsement was frickin’ hard to come by.

But see how much more complicated social media and the Internet has made the art of promotion? Used to be you hired a publicist and she did it all for you. Like Shauna Roberts in “Entourage”. She handled Vinny’s publicity and he never had to initiate any promotion himself. And for good reason — because every time he did, he fumbled, and then Shauna had to come in and clean up the mess he’d made anyway. He should have let her handle it from the start.

So in the Big Leagues, that’s why it’s still done that way. Artists, by tradition, are shitty promoters. So are boxers. That’s why Don King got famous and it’s why we now have Dana White. Dana’s a promoter. If Johnny “Bones” Jones had to promote his own fights, there would be twenty dead reporters at every weigh-in!

Artists are the same way. For the most part, we should be quiet. We should do what we do best — make art. I’m not saying an artist cannot handle their own publicity. Many do a fine job of it. But I also think that most artists are horrible promoters. Most artists shouldn’t be in that game. The best ones are the ones who can separate promotable items from the stuff nobody cares about. The antithesis of that is the new rising generation of Twitter pop idols. The Beibers and the Swifts. Every little thing is out there. There’s no mystery, nothing left to be discovered. I loved Taylor’s first few tunes but I was over her after having to hear about each and every Tom, Dick and Harry she bulldozed through in her private life. That girl went through dudes like most of us change underwear. Too much revelation… And she *has* handlers!

… But Indie Artists Are Noisier

And yet I see smaller artists online and in communities (SCOREcast, included) who insist on letting us all know every little minor thing about every little minor project they undertake. As if we are blown away that they have work. Here are some actual updates I’ve seen lately:

“Here we go… Reel 3!!!”
Yep. That’s pretty much what happens once we finish… (wait for it!)… Reel 2.

“Feels good to be on a film writing some awesome music!”
Well, sure — Would you rather tell us of the film that is forcing you to write shit music? Thanks for the update.

“Working on a big project that I can’t talk about it right now, but more details soon….!”
Wow, good for you. NDA’s are so rare these days. You should feel lucky you’ve seen one with your bare eyes.

After awhile, it’s information overload. It all blends into a thick blanket of white noise. I have clicked the “unfollow” button on so many Facebook fan pages for this very reason. They want me to “like” their fan page, but then they want to disrespect that exchange by showing me pictures of their dinner from last night. What the hell? I came here for information on their next tour, not to watch their cat hump a foosball table! By the time they actually have something to promote, like… Uh, I don’t know… A MOVIE or a RECORD…. I’m unplugged and disengaged from their stream. They’ve cried wolf too many times and now I can’t be bothered. They pissed on the exchange.

Promotional Equity

Now, listen… I’m in the middle of a major campaign for the release of my new record. I’ve talked about it a lot and I’ll continue to do so over the next several months as it rolls out. You’ll get sick of hearing about it if you aren’t already. But what I’m not going to do is tell you every time I’m eating peanuts over my DAW, rediscovering the joys of time-shifting a drum part, or contemplating the intricacies of mastering while wearing my red-and-white striped Onesie. (And you KNOW you want to see me in my red-and-white striped Onesie!) All of those tasks are mundane tasks that you, me, and every student at USC have all done time and again, over and over and over. They are routine. They are boring. They are things that don’t matter to anyone but you, and maybe not even that so much. They really aren’t important in furthering the promotional consideration of your product. They are the things that go without saying. They ought to be left as such.

Instead, I’m going to save my equity and only roll out some shit when there’s some shit to roll out. Like recently when I convinced Steve Ouimette and Tina Guo to do a solo duel back and forth on the same track. That’s legitimate news on the life of the project. Or when I asked Nashville session ace Anthony Sallee to play bass on the lead track of the album… And he said “yes”. To me, that was a personal home-run that I didn’t know I was going to get lucky with, but I did. Good story about taking risks and “making the ask”. Or when I recorded three monks at Shedrub in Nepal with my iPhone and they didn’t give a shit about the project or singing for me — they just wanted to play with the iPhone! To me, that’s humor… And a glimpse into a world many will never get to hear about or experience.

I think moments like those are fascinating, and so do other people usually. What’s NOT fascinating is the time I discovered that my trackpad had leftover Laffy Taffy residue on it from a previous session (with pics!).

Plan Your Noise

You want an answer from me about promotion? Well like I said, I don’t have any answers… But here’s an opinion or three on the matter:

Pick your opportunities.

We consumers have limited time and emotional bandwidth of which to part with. We don’t give a crap about the play-by-play, but we DO give a crap about the behind-the-scenes THAT MATTER. And most of it doesn’t. A lot of it is irrelevant piss and wind we don’t care about. So give us the good stuff. Show us, don’t tell us. If you REALLY signed something that prohibits you from “talking about it right now”… Then don’t! Don’t even talk about not being able to talk about it!! Do you hear how silly that sounds? We’re not in the fourth grade. We are not impressed that you are under an NDA. We’ve all seen one and they all shred the same.

Know your target audience.

Think about how you are promoting yourself. Is it organic? It is even to the right people? Look at most composer’s pages and tell me they don’t have that all screwed up before they even start promoting! They are promoting their stuff to other composers. Wrong! I don’t care if another composer likes me… They want my gigs!! Why would I cater to that? No, I want the independent music fan for my recording work and I want the sure-footed and confident director or producer for my film work. THAT’S IT. Simple, clear, focused. And to get them involved and invested I’ll stay steady, but punctuate with interest.

Spend your promotional equity wisely.

Be careful out there. You don’t want to overstay your welcome by being a Foghorn Leghorn blowhard. It happens all the time. Hell, people don’t like me because they think I’m an empty bullhorn too much of the time. That’s fine. I can be an acquired taste. Who isn’t? But just the same, I’m careful to call in the markers when I need them and ONLY when I need them. I don’t pollute my stream with a bunch of worthless hullabaloo. On my *personal* Facebook page? You bet your ass! You are going to see some hilariously ridiculous stuff on there! Be warned — I got pics of my lunch all day long!

But if you are on my Facebook fan page or my website, those are my promotional venues. That’s where I connect with the people who have made a *choice* to connect with me and stay invested in what I’m doing. That takes some effort. They went out of their way to let me know they are in it with me for the longer story. They went out of their way to “like” what I’m doing — and we all know that “liking” a page these days is no easy feat. Facebook continually makes it harder and harder by the day to “like” artist fan pages by changing the rules and rearranging the GUI, so you really have to want to be there.

And I respect that. I won’t ever disrespect it.

I’ll make every post, every pic, every status count toward a future something.

If I don’t… I’m just adding to the noise you already don’t have time for.

EASTERN CHRONICLE is my new album that is available worldwide on T-ABC Records. You can download it here on the website in any uncompressed format you can think of. You can also get it in AAC format from iTunes, on MP3 from Amazon.com and in various formats on just about every digital carrier that is out there including Spotify and MOG. If a physical copy is more your speed, the CD is available at retailers throughout Asia and North America.