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Pulling It All Together 

It's less than a month to release day! And about that ...
 

Linden Tree near the Water CD Release
Saturday, November 4, 7:00 p.m.
Chapel, Trinity-St. Paul's Centre
427 Bloor St. W., Toronto, ON
Free Admission & Snacks—All Ages Welcome


I'll be playing a ton of music for you on guitar, dulcimer, mandolin and harmonica. If you can make it out, it'd be a pleasure to meet you.

Now to the topic at hand: releasing an independent CD is a huge undertaking and finally, the legwork I've done over the last year is paying off. Yes, it's been a full year since I started researching blogs, magazines, podcasts and college radio stations that might be receptive to my music. The submission process is, to put it charitably, a one-size-fits-none affair. Some want physical CDs; some want downloads or streams; some insist that you submit through their online interface. A few come at you with such exacting, convoluted demands that it makes you wonder if they want to hear your music at all (answer: probably not).

Tip #1: Address Your Packages in Advance

This means well before you have anything to put in them. I blew out a long weekend in August doing just that, but because I did so I picked up my CDs Thursday and completed my mailout Monday, 165 discs in all. I'd have endured at least a week-long delay had I not addressed the envelopes beforehand.

Tip #2: Make Your Music Downloadable and Streamable

Industry people will go ballistic if you e-mail your songs as attachments. More to the point, they won't listen to them. Instead, use Dropbox (it's free) for all your downloadable assets (bios, one-sheets, music, artwork, photos) and SoundCloud (also free) to stream your album. Make it easy and painless for interested parties to hear and download your music.

Tip #3: Send Your Music to the Right Stations

Fair enough, but how do you decide which college stations are "right"? I used a few criteria:

  • Does the station play my genre of music? Take a deep dive into their program schedules. Yes, this will take bloody forever—that's why you do it a year in advance. For me, keywords in show descriptions were acoustic, singer-songwriter, folk—and on the fringes, Americana/roots and power pop. But don't stop there. Read the blurb carefully and ask yourself: is my material really a fit? In my case, some folk shows feature exclusively Celtic, traditional or old-time hillbilly music. Pass. And Americana/roots may mean one thing to me, but if (as was often the case) in the DJ's mind it meant country, rockabilly or bluegrass, I passed.

  • Lean toward the home team. Of course, the stellar quality of your music ought to trump everything, but I suspect that for unknown indie artists, your best chance of getting airplay is via the "I'm local" angle. I'm lucky. I live in a major city with tons of college towns within a 100-kilometre radius. I made sure every last one of them got a CD, even the tiny, low-profile ones. I also live in Canada, where stations must play a percentage of Canadian content, usually 35%. Your home country should obviously be perched atop your target list, but this is especially true if your country has something similar to our CanCon mandate. (Special note for Canadians: make sure your MAPL logo is filled out correctly and placed on your back cover and the disc itself.)

  • Has the station made any "best-of" lists? These higher-profile, well-run stations, if they're a good fit for your music, ought to be on your priority list. I can't emphasize the "good fit" aspect enough. If a top-ranked station plays mostly urban/hip-hop/EDM or punk/metal/noise, no matter how great they are or how vast their audience, why would you send them your folk CD? As for which lists to draw on, the Princeton Review is a good source and is current. I also scoured the Pigeons and Planes Top 25, even though it's a bit out of date. There are others as well. I've yet to see a list that includes non-US stations.

  • What's the station's reach? Ideally, you want to target stations with reasonably strong signals in major markets. As a longtime radio geek, I was all over this one. Radio Locator features coverage maps, frequency info and more; it's also a good resource if you can't find the station's mailing address any other way. You can make 20 inquiries a day, I think, for free. After that, you either splurge for a paid subscription or wait till tomorrow. (Guess which is my preferred method?) Finding US stations is easy; the search engine is more cumbersome when it comes to Canadian radio.

Now in a way, the title of my post is misleading. What I've outlined here is but a small slice of all I'm having to coordinate in order to put my CD out. I'm a tad obsessive, I know, but the fact is I have 10 to-do lists going. Hey, it was either that or have one list with 437 items on it.

As always, comments or feedback welcome, and I wish you all the best in your quest to get your music heard.