Two words, to describe your music, can change your career.

David Feder and his band Salagua-Azul always wanted to get into big music festivals.  They had been performing for years, and doing OK, but the agents that book music festivals would never give them a chance.

At a show, a drunk fan said, inbetween songs, “You know what?  You guys are HILLBILLY FLAMENCO!”  The crowd laughed, and so did the band.  They joked about it again on stage that night, and again on the drive home.

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photo credit: justgrimes
photo credit: Sammis Co

The next day they started to notice that they all STILL remembered those two words, “hillbilly flamenco”.  It was funny, but described their music well.   The crowd liked it.  They decided to use it more often.

They started telling the audience, each time they played, “If you are wondering what kind of music this is, this is hillbilly flamenco!”  And the end of the show, they’d ask the audience, “And when you tell your friends what kind of music you heard tonight, what kind of music is it?”  The crowd would say, “HILLBILLY FLAMENCO!”

And believe it or not… it worked!  People started telling their friends about this band, because it was so easy (and fun) to describe.

And then, one day, they were talking to one of those booking agents who books festivals, and told him, “This music is perfect for your festivals.  This is hillbilly flamenco!”  The booking agent laughed and said, “Ok - I’ve GOT to hear this!”

Now David Feder and his band are playing the festivals they always dreamed of.  He told me his career took a definite turn the day they started using those two words to describe their music.
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Derek Sivers
CD Baby (cdbaby.com) - sales and distribution for musicians
HostBaby (hostbaby.com) - web hosting for musicians

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I told you that your marketing should be an extension of your art, so here’s a real-world example:

Back in 1997, when “The X Files” was still on the air, a friend of mine who called himself Captain T put out a record called US Aliens that was all about conspiracy theories, Area 51, alien cover-ups, and the Incredible Hulk. It was intentionally funny, but he would stay in character and play it straight : a guy who was trying to tell the world, through music, about the aliens and conspiracies.

He wanted to send his album to college radio stations, but couldn’t afford to hire a real radio promoter. When we decided to do it ourselves, I was about to do things in a very normal way, but I thought I should take my own advice, and make his marketing an extension of his art, his image, his message.

(Also, I was thinking about that kid in the college radio station that gets 20 CDs a day, all exactly the same, in boring envelopes. I wanted to make his week.)

So - we bought 500 black envelopes, 500 sheets of brown oatmeal paper, 500 alien head stickers, and the best part : 500 huge stickers that said “CONFIDENTIAL MAIL - DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON”.

We did a mail-merge to the 500 program directors at 500 college radio stations, so that each one got a personalized letter that said this:

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Dear __name__,

You don’t know me, but I live in the bushes behind your station.

I have been here for 12 years and your station has saved my life many times over.

The music that you play has kept me going through my darkest of days and for this I owe you everything.

In this spirit, I must tell you that a man named Captain T found me in the gutter yesterday, and he taught me about what is really going on with the government and what really happened down there in Area 51. This man has a message that you have to get out to the world, because people need to know the TRUTH!

Signed,
Man in the bushes, looking through your window right now

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We took each letter out to the backyard and literally rubbed it in dirt, crumpled it into a little tiny ball, then flattened it out a little bit, put the CD inside, sealed it into a black envelope, put the alien head sticker on it, covered it with the huge sticker that said “CONFIDENTIAL MAIL - DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON”, and mailed them out to each station.

We laughed for hours while doing it.

Now, imagine you’re that kid working at the radio station, getting 20 CDs a day with normal boring packages, saying “Please play my record!” Then you get this scary black mess of a package that says “DO NOT OPEN”, and when opened is covered in dirt and says, “You don’t know me, but I live in the bushes behind your station.”

375 of the radio stations played it.

Every now and then, my friend Captain T gets approached by someone that used to work at a college radio station back in 1997. They tell him they still remember it, because it was the coolest package they ever got.
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Derek Sivers
CD Baby (cdbaby.com) - sales and distribution for musicians
HostBaby (hostbaby.com) - web hosting for musicians