Make Your Life A Little Easier
Friday, January 30, 2009 at 08:09PM Wednesday and Thursday, I tried to figure out how to get an Adobe file into this website, and nothing I could do would let it show up on the screen. I am going to have to have the one sheet printed out in color and then I will scan it into the computer and put it up here so you can see what a professional one sheet looks like; and how it should be ideally laid out to give it the most impact.
The job of the one sheet is to allow the most access to all that demonstrates why the person looking at it should hire you for the gig. It intrigues and entices and it does it all in one glance. In any event, it’s coming, but not until I get back from the road next week.
I am on flight to Florida to perform in the Ft Lauderdale area, then over to Tampa for a Super Bowl party and then I perform for Randy Wynne on WMNF Wednesday morning and do a house concert Wednesday evening. Another house concert Friday night in Auburn, Alabama and wind up at Eddie’s Attic in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur and finally home Sunday.
Because this is four gigs over a nine day period, I packed light and I chose only two CD’s to bring along to sell to my patrons. I brought the two latest solo CD’s, The Eternal Contradiction and New Traces of the Old Road. I know that I’ve said this before, but I really want to drive this home. If you follow this simple plan, you will sell CD’s to the audience, which, in turn, guarantees that there will be people at your show the next time you come back to the area. Your CD in their hands will keep the memory of you alive in their lives.
All of the songs done in the show will be from those two CD’s and ideally, I will do all the songs from one CD in the first show and all the songs in the second set will be from the other album. I do this for the simple reason that when I bring one or two different CD’s, and someone comes up to me to ask which CD they should buy, I say, “All the songs that you heard this evening are on this CD” That usually clinches the sale.
You do songs from all over the place and bring five or ten different things that you’ve done through the years and the audience gets confused; they don’t know which one to buy and they usually just buy nothing, saying that they will go on line and buy it later. They never do; the never will.
I have been on this circuit for years and I can tell you that I almost always sell half the house. If I play for a hundred people, I will sell at least fifty CD’s, and so on. Trust me. Do it this way and both you and your audience will be happy.
And if you make recordings that have all kinds of back up musicians and singers and you feel that you really can’t do CD justice when you perform live, then do a CD that you can perform live. Even a recording of your live show with all your best songs on it is a great way to reach your audience and leave them with something that will keep you alive in their lives.
No matter how great your show, if they go home without anything of yours, then the Great American Media Overload takes place and they forget you. Really, they can’t wait to forget you. They’re standing in line to forget you.
And if you are going to do a live recording, then go over all the songs that you ever wrote or ever sang and pick the very best ones for the album. Make it a Greatest Hits package. You can’t go wrong. The audience that is there for the live recording is going to hear the best songs that you do. They are probably already your nurturing patrons and friends and will respond in a warm and vibrant fashion. All that will also be on the recording, which reminds me, make certain that there are some room mics to pick up the audience response.
Many live recordings suffer because you can’t really hear the audience reaction, so if you say something really funny and the laughter of the audience cannot be heard on the recording, it’s going to sound like the joke bombed. Get that audience reaction on the recording. Make certain that it is obvious that these people love you and what you are doing. That makes a successful live recording.
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