This was set up to promote tourdates as a business but tourdates was founded on some creative truths:
Found this while trawling through some recent files:
Tiz a semi professional rant on the state of the music business in the 21st century and the plight of great bands trying to get noticed by the A&R machine:
The Mind Dump: Negative/Positive/Reality Please Read On…
Music is a passion, it’s also a business but making money from music is easier said than done, to say the least. Harder than in most industries.
It seems to be an all or nothing equation in which even the finest of talent may find friends on the inside but reputations and egos prevent any of these individuals from going out on a limb until their opinions are validated by somebody else of equal stature going out on that proverbial limb, at which point industry friends A-Y leap back in stating that they discovered them first.
It seems to be just the same with A&R: interest will build on the best bands out there one the scene, the few who should be bothering, with none of them making any kind of commitment. Send me the new Disc once it’s done and keep me in the loop seem to be common vocabulary here and whether given as a fob or a genuine foothold of interest it’s frustrating.
Having been successful in other industries, trying to make headway in one where the parties concerned speak with forked tongue and strange intentions, it is difficult to adjust. In all walks of life and business Maybe usually means NO but in music YES can mean any of the following:
Yes we’re genuinely interested but we’ll spend three months playing cat and mouse, during which you will spend half your life chasing us for a definitive answerer, only for us to get fed up of being chased or forget that we were interested in the first place, primarily because we are playing cat and mouse with a new favourite.
We might be interested but more importantly somebody else might be interested and if they are and they sign you and you are a success then we will have missed out on a big thing so we best keep you dangling on our hook for a while until all interest passes at which point it’s safe to forget about you and throw you back into the talent pool.
No we’re interested at all but you are good enough to go on the top of the maybe stack in our office and justify our existence if the A&R Director pokes his head around the door and asks us what new development acts we are considering for signing this year.
Our answer to this is www.TOURDATES.CO.UK Go There Now!
Positive:
Welcome to Tourdates.Co.UK
Many years in the creation and many months in the making
This site exists to create connections between talented artists and those who seek great music.
This is what it does:
• Free gig-listings
• Band information
• MP3 downloads
Everything is interconnected and fully searchable so that you can find what you are looking for.
Collect gig dates and information of interest in you’re My Tourdates area to return to regularly.
Artists have special band/act profile areas for music lovers and music industry types to view.
Here they can provide free MP3 tracks as samples but also sell their music online profitably.
To access a band’s/act’s profile directly simply visit http://www.tourdates.co.uk/bandname.
A complete list of all the good stuff available on Tourdates is listed in the matrix available to download at the bottom of this page.
There will be many more features added over the coming months, especially as we introduce more connectivity directly with our music industry contacts, including the ability for venues to book bands directly, or work much more effectively with promoters and A&R will have direct access to new acts.
This is what we aim to provide:
• Artists - a place to promote their music to the masses on an equal basis
• Punters - one location for information on new and favourite artists, their music and where to catch them live
• Venues - another location to advertise upcoming dates and promote their venues
• Promoters - one location to list your events and tours and forward details to your main promotional contacts
• A&R - a source of real statistics on artists breaking on the live scene now
All this and we haven't even mentioned the Tourdates AMP
Dive into Tourdates, create your own playlists, share them and review them
At last it's all about the music again LIVE
Reality:
Nobody knows if this will work, however we do know these things:
The project is backed by significant personal investments by Directors and Executives at three of the biggest investment banks in the world, including Mark Beilby, the MD at JP Morgan Securities responsible for the financial analysis of the global media sector, including music, proclaiming Tourdates as a “Market Leading Concept”.
Our initial business outline was examined by Sir John Harvey-Jones and found to be eminently sensible in “going for bulk” high volume, attractive low membership fees.
The crucial pivotal moment for the project is NOW.
Get your act together and make it work.
Just feckin’ do it Dean and Quick.
Find the right direction today.
Make it all happen ASAP.