Ever wonder how that cocky local band that can barely play an e chord, got to open up for one of the bigger bands around? It’s called pay-per-play and it has nothing to due with talent. What exactly is pay-per-play? Basically a band signs a contract promising to sell x amount of tickets for y amount of money, usually the band buys the tickets up front and at a discounted rate, the theory being the band sells them at face value and makes their gas and expense money. All ready the older players are getting in an uproar,” I’d never pay blah blah blah blah back in my day we got paid blah blah”, yes that was true years ago but the times they are a changing, and yes if you are playing 3 sets of cover tunes you should be getting paid and not paying, but shut up and listen for a little bit and you will realize that it doesn’t include that type of music, but can, and might help you fulfill a dream or two. That being said I’m going to try and explain all sides of this touchy subject so everyone can better understand what exactly what is going on.

First off bands CANNOT look at a ppp (pay-per-play) show as a quick trip to a record deal, because it isn’t going to happen. Do you know where the cd you give the lead singer ends up? It’s not into the hands of their label or manager or whoever you got them to say they’d pass it on to. Musicians (even in big bands) are people first, and will usually be nice and tell you what you want to hear, take your cd and then forget it back in the dressing room when they leave. Just because a well known band is playing doesn’t mean that there will be lots of record execs, a+r guys or other industry personal, in fact there won’t be any, remember it may be the highlight of your life, but to them it’s just another day at work. Also don’t expect to be able to kick it and hang out with the big band before and after the show, it’s not going to happen, all the band wants to do is relax for a bit before the show and not be bothered, and after the show its merch sales and autographs, then once again they just want to unwind for a little bit before they head out on the road. What they don’t want is someone hassling them for shows or a helping hand etc. etc. Just don’t confuse basic human kindness as an offer for friendship. The road to rock stardom is a long hard path that doesn’t begin by opening up for a band.

What ppp shows can be is a great way to get some new exposure and contacts while playing on a great stage and sound system, and if done right can be a great little money maker for the band. What make money? Yes make money, remember it is only ppp if you don’t sell your tickets, and in all honesty it’s not different than playing for the door. If you are lazy and don’t promote and spend money for a play for the door show it’s going to cost you money as well. How? First off is gas money, then figure in all the food you eat on the trip all the booze you drink, the cost of string, sticks, amp, skins and speaker wear and breakage etc etc. Don’t forget to include the costs of flyering and merch as well as the hassles of trying to talk everyone you know and see into coming down to just see you and a few other bands they haven’t heard of. Now offer those same people a ticket to see their favorite band in a smaller venue of 500 people or so, at a price of usually half of what it would cost to see them at a huge venue and you have an easy no hassle sale, it’s like selling a heater to an Eskimo. And you are making a few bucks per sale, enterprising bands can turn more cash doing this than playing for the door with the bar skimming, all you have to do is choose your shows right (see list below) and invest a little money. While the contacts you will make won’t be industry big whigs, they will be much more important and useful, a bunch of like minded and genred bands and their friends and fans, that will more than likely want to trade shows even if not worse case scenario is you get to hang out with a bunch of cool bands and listen to one of your idols play on a stage you just sweated on. This is also an audition of yours for the promoter, if you are as good as you think you are and conduct yourself in a professional manner more than likely you will be contacted to play again without having to sell the tickets.

While on paper it all sounds hunky-dory but many people have left ppp shows with a bad taste due to promoter “scams”. While I’m not jumping to conclusions most of the time the “scams” are due to the bands either lacks of understanding or knowledge in business.
Most of the time it is usually just a band getting sold what they want to believe (read above) and not seeing the whole picture and instead of seeing what happened, and how stupid they were its they got “scammed” I have heard some good ones by bands and from promoters, bands breaking up and wanting a refund, bands missing the show and wanting a refund, bands who don’t contact anyone for months then out of the blue want a refund, and the sad thing is the craziest and idiotic ones are from bands complaining, so far from being in the right but so clueless they will never know. One of the main real scams going is the promise of a huge band and then on show night that band doesn’t play for some unknown reason, and a few are probably legitimate I’m sure. However it is pretty simple to not get caught up in an out in out scam so I really can’t feel sorry for anyone on that. What follows is a little list to keep in mind before you commit to a ppp show.

1. Stay away from Emergenz type festivals, with multi cities and huge amounts of bands. While it’s not a scam in the legal sense, they are just selling you what you want to believe. What happens is you play in some small room or club way away from the main area for a bunch of other bands that got screwed the same as you. When was the last time you heard an interview go “well after we won emergenz, we went on to get signed, sell a ton of records and get famous” trust me if it has happened it would be in all the damned emails they are constantly bombarding you with. Once again
YOU WILL NOT GET SIGNED DUE TO A PPP SHOW OR BATTLE OF THE BANDS
no matter who they say will be there or what they promise can happen, in all honesty if you were that close to hitting it, you would be playing private auditions for industry reps.

2. If the band seems to big to be playing that venue, they probably are, the easiest way to find out is to email the bands label or management (usually found on their website) don’t however say you are in a band, in will get deleted once they get that far, under the assumption you are begging for a deal or to play, simple inquire as a fan that you had heard so and so was playing, and you wondered how you could get tickets.

3. Stay away from shows that have more than 10-12 bands playing or ones that have multiple stages, chances are you are just going to get disappointed.

4. Once again if they promise you anything more than a good time and a great show are wary because that is where the dance begins.

While this may still not make sense, look at it from the promoter’s eyes, the local promoter doing it not the big national types. Bands are notorious for lying about draws, their talent etc. etc. its part of the game. But the game is also the promoter/owner’s job, and how they pay the bills, you feed them a line of crap saying x amount of people come to see you and you send them your slickly produced cd that took 2000 takes and 3000 overdubs to complete. Then on show day, you bring nobody and your noise drives out their regulars and who is left holding the bag still having to pay the utilities and employee wages? Say you bring 30 people that’s a good draw, those people would each have to drink 10 drinks that the owner is making a dollar off of, to just cover the $300 guarantee They aren’t making a dollar per drink either, by the time you factor in loss, theft, giveaways, salary of whose pouring it, cost of glass its being poured in, cost to wash that glass etc etc. Just because the drink is 5 bucks doesn’t mean its 5 bucks in their pocket. A few bad nites can ruin a place a lot of times, or at least end any hopes of having bands there. This way no matter what the bills are getting covered, and they get to scout out the more self-motivated bands to play on other nites where the headliners aren’t national.

Once again its only pay per play if you don’t sell your tickets…

10 sure fire ways to tell the band playing is going to rock

1. The guy you just talked to you in bathroom and didn't brag about being in a band is now up on stage singing.

2. There are alot of out of town people who drove in to the show.

3. The chicken wire is there to protect the crowd.

4. The club is packed, and the singer says he wishes their friends could see this crowd.

5. The band is wearing nothing but socks, and not on their feet.

6. You see other musicians there anxious to see the show.

7. The police have a presence outside the show, 3 hours prior to doors opening.

8. There are almost as many people protesting the show as there is watching it.

9. The crowd knows the bass player by name.

10. You hear the club owner scurrying off to find a goblet of brown m-n-m's

10 sure fire ways to know the band playing is going to suck.

1. When asked what type of music they play, the genre has a pre or post before it, or includes the words avant-garde.

2. The band has the same haircuts and makeup as 80's pop synth bands, only instead of bright shiny clothing, they all wear black.

3. The band has more roadies than members.

4. The band members try and engage you in conversation that leads to them being able to say they are playing.

5. The band is emo or screamo.

6. Everyone in the band is sporting brand new "gig" clothes and haircuts.

7. The band takes forever to set up, and whines throughout soundcheck about monitor mixes.

8. A member is sitting in the middle of the stage stringing a guitar.

9. The band takes more time setting up stage props than their gear.

10. The band and "crew" all have their own homemade all-access laminates on in a bar with 1 room.

Top 10 lies told by local bands

In no particular order other than how i thought of them……

1. we have opened up for “insert big band here”
yes you did open up for this huge band, but most likely at a huge festival, and they played 2 days before on a completely different stage, or on the same stage but 6 hours before the headliner for all of 2 people.

2. we have a huge crowds at our shows
yes when you play on a Friday during 25 cent jaeger shot nite, however the Wednesday night show you headlined drew the drummers sister and her boyfriend, and that doubled your normal attendance.

3. we are signed to a label.
you and your friends burning cd’s in your bedrooms is not a real label, nor are any of the semi-famous indie labels, that just stick you with a big merch bill and the only support you get from them is the privilege of saying you are on that label

4. we have radio play all over the world.
the local music shows, that major stations play during off-peak advertising slots, is not airplay, nor is some college dj playing your song on their show with 3 listeners , same deal with internet radio, if you aren’t being played during normal rotation during the prime ad slots, then you aren’t getting radio play.

5. we have lots of fans
simply put friends aren’t fans, fans are people that have no idea who you are, but love your music enough to come out and see it. Friends come out because you are playing at a place where they can have fun regardless of the crap you are playing, and then tell you in a drunken slur how great you are, and how you should be on mtv.

6. we have tons of myspace friends, plays, purevolume charts etc etc.
ok I have yet to see the headline “top internet band gets signed to major label rock star deal” why? Same reason , mp3.com never produced a superstar, it’s the internet, and all those counting and tracking things can be faked with miminal skill, all that’s needed is time. Don’t believe me? Get a myspace account, make it a total joke, with a crappy song and everything, then browse thru users and invite them all to be your friend. See what the results are. Cheating plays and profile views is even easier.

7. yeah we trade shows.
this is probably the most told lie, and to clarify for everyone, trading shows is this:
A BAND GETS YOU A SHOW IN THEIR TOWN, IN RETURN YOU GET THEM A SHOW IN YOUR TOWN, pretty simple but you’d be surprised how many people can comprehend this.

8. yes we are all over 21
until they arrive at the club and all are 16. What kids don’t understand is the legal risks they are running for themselves and the club owners, in my town it’s a 200 fine plus probation for being in a place that sells booze if you aren’t 21, plus the owner gets fined as well. And honestly you can tell when someone is old enough by the way they act, so a fake id isn’t a good idea.

9. yeah we know how to do a soundcheck and set change.
ok a set change between bands takes 10 minutes, unless you are huge, and probably no one reading this is big enough to dictate this, as much as it sucks your guitar player is going to have to learn how to either set up his massive array of effects in that time, or deal with not having a bunch of unnecessary stuff to use on one bridge of one song. also you don’t need to have the perfect monitor mix either, nothing worse than sitting thru a 30 min soundcheck because the singer wants to have more reverb on the guitar in the monitor, usually after seeing a band pull that, you can pretty much guarantee they are going to suck, most often just too loud to stand.

10. we have toured all over our area.
playing 4 towns within 10 miles isn’t touring, neither is playing each weekend at the major colleges around you. If you don’t spend more than 3 nites in your van it is not a tour.

remember that club owners talk amongst themselves, so you may think you pulled one over on someone, but then everyone else in the area is now hip to your game.

Watts an Ohm?

a guide to buying amps and cabs

Probably the single hardest part of buying a new amp or cab, other than paying for it, has to be figuring out how many watts of an amp for how many ohms of speakers. There is a good reason for that, to fully understand exactly what it all means, one has to have a degree in engineering, it’s that complicated.

Taken from wikipedia.org

The watt (symbol: W) is the SI derived unit for power. It is equivalent to one joule per second (1 J/s), or in electrical units, one volt ampere (1 V•A).
It is the rate in joules per second at which energy is being converted, used, or dissipated.

Lol don’t worry everyone’s head hurts now, okay so now that you see what sort of complications we are working with,I won’t use anymore equations or forumlas, I’m going to attempt to put it all into simple terms that everyone can understand, so please don’t send me emails, giving detailed explantations on how I was wrong in oversimplifying and then attach a 4 page equation that will explain it better.

Ok lets get started with the amp or head. They are rated by watts like everyone knows, watts are basically how loud the amp is, a 100w amp is louder than a 50w, a 200w amp is louder than 100w and so on and so forth. This is just a generalaztion, so don’t send me stories of how much your 50w amp smokes.

Now keep in mine this is the peak amount of power they amp can produce when running wide open/turned up all the way, and only for millaseconds, a 100w amp doesn’t pump out a continous 100w of power, this is the part where amp makers get tricky. The actual numbers that mean something, which are usually hidden on the back or buried in the spec sheet, is RMS rating. Continuous or RMS power simply tells us how much power a given amp can deliver day-in/day-out on a steady basis. (RMS stands for root means square, an equation that specifies average power). So a 300w amp with a RMS of 150w, would run 150w, all the time and peak out to 300w for small amounts of time. (just an example each amp’s rating is different).

That leaves ohms, and keeping with my promise of no more math stuff, I’m going to skip explaining it, as long as you know how to use the number of ohms, you really don’t need to know what they are or what they do, a google search will provide more detailed info, but it is basically the resistance the power has to go thru, using a plumbing example I saw somewhere, if your amp was a water system, water is sound, the water pressure is the watts, and the ohms would be the size of the pipe; which restricts how much water can actually get thru at one time.

Confused yet? I’m going to explain how this all correlates with the cabinet and then give you some easy to understand examples with real products, and a cheat sheet to match up cabs and and amps. Now that you kind of have an understanding of all those numbers and words, you have I’m sure started to realize that the cabs have the same nonsense rating on them as well.
1200w 8 ohm cab 1000rms, I’m sure you have seen something like before, and using our knowledge gained can deduce that the cab takes an 8ohm single and can handle up to 1200watts of power for a small amount of time, and can handle taking 1000watts all the time. Do I see lightbulbs popping up yet?
All right lets break it down in a real world solution using a Behringer bx3000T amp and avatar speakers.

Behringer:300w RMS into 4 ohms.
Okay first we know our cabinet has to be able to handle 300w all the time.
By looking at the cheat sheet below we can run 2 - 8 ohm cabs, or one 4ohm cab.
I like using a 4x10 over 15’s, so I want to buy a 4x10 cab and a 1-15 cab.
So I have to get both cabs in an 8 ohm version, also both cabs must be able to handle 300watts of power at all times. Now off to http://avatarspeakers.com/ , to get what I need.
B410 Neodymium - 1200 watts RMS 4 or 8 ohm
B115H NEODYMIUM - 300 RMS Watts 4 or 8 ohm
Sweet, the 8 ohm version of both speakers match my amp’s guidelines so I’m set.

You should have the basics down enough to go out and buy an amp or cab without fear.
You always have the cheat sheet below to refer to, in case you get stuck.

Cheat sheet
for cabs wired in parallel
2ohm amp
2 - 4 ohm cabs
1 - 2 ohm cab

4 ohm amp
2 - 8 ohm cabs
1 - 4 ohm cab

8ohm head
2 - 16 ohm cabs
1 - 8 ohm cab

Pick Versus Fingers

This debate has probably raged on since the invention of the electric bass guitar, and to me it’s one of the most pointless arguments made in the bassist community. Each method is a techniques no different than a hammer on or trill or slide, so why would you want to limit yourself and your playing ? Would you refuse to to use a hammer on if a group of people, started to tell you that “real” bassists don’t use them? Or would you go tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine?

In my opinion, those who are so adamant about the finger-style are just looking for a quick ego boost, and a way to argue that bass is harder than guitar. Ego driven players like that really shouldn’t be playing the bass anyways, as the instrument isn’t about glory and fame. Ok now before everyone gets their panties in a bunch, let me explain myself a little more. You should approach each song individually, not your set as a whole, so when you are crafting your basslines you should take into account what is going to make the song sound best, no matter what technique you may need. Let’s say that your band’s newest song is really catchy, it just needs that tight solid sounding bass line that can only be had by using a pick and pumping 8ths, to give the song that last little hook to push it into hit single status. Now if you refuse to use a pick (don’t matter what you say you can’t duplicate a pick with your fingers) because of some credo you read or heard about and therefore keep the song from hitting it would pretty much classify you with what I said earlier.

Myself I follow the school of what’s best for the song I use, now if you are playing in a funk band or something that requires you to play fingerstyle, by all means don’t pick up a pick and try and funk it out, it all goes back to what does the song need, why you may never need to use a pick in your situation doesn’t mean it should be laughed off as inferior or completely ignored as a tool. I often switch back and forth between the two during songs, keeping the pick in my teeth while using my fingers. If the song needs something I don’t let what other people may think get into the process at all, I go ahead and use whatever is needed to make the song sound best.

While some think it takes more skill to play with your fingers than versus a pick they are sadly mistaken, for every great fingerstyle player there’s a picker out there that will make them go “wow”. I was guilty of this myself until our music started to require that I use a pick, and I found out it’s a lot harder than it looks, and that it takes a lot of work to get your wrist in shape to accomplish it. Of course there are people out there that try and claim they can get the same sound with their hands as with a pick; unfortunately simple common sense and physics prove this wrong. The picking sound is made by a solid plastic object striking the string in almost 90 degree angles up and down. Fingerstyle requires you hit the string with a softer flesh covered finger at probably a 45 degree angle, no way to produce the same sounds; you can get close but not the same thing. And really why settle for second rate, when the real deal cost’s a dime and sets in your pocket.

So instead of warring with each other over stupid piddly things that will never have a winner or loser, for every great reason to use a pick only there’s an equally great reason not to use one, let’s all agree both are valid and important techniques that everyone should be proficient with. That way we can start working out how to steal the groupies from the yellers and twangers.

The Death of P2P

I think you can finally say the p2p (peer to peer) file sharing systems like kazaa are dead in the water and with it the general free downloading of music on the internet. While some systems like bittorrent will continue to thrive in their small tech-geek niche, the days of joe surfer getting the new Jessica Simpson cd for free has gone the way of tight rolled guess jeans and hair sprayed poof balls. And before those at the RIAA start celebrating about how their tough cop antics of prosecuting teenage girls for theft actually worked, I’ll give you a more real world answer as to why it’s dead and it has nothing to do with legal ramifications.

What killed it was the peer itself, and more specifically greed of those peers. Which is surprising that the record company couldn’t see that coming and saved themselves millions in cash and who knows how much the bad pr cost. As in the real world whenever a group of people is grouped together in some sort of community, there will be a few who will take advantage of the others either thru theft, smooth talking etc. etc. So what happened was people realized that they could make money taking advantage of all the not so computer literate flocking to use this service. How you ask? When you install the actual sharing program, other software manufactures pay that company to include their program into the file sharing program, so in order to use the file sharing program you must have the other programs installed and running, mind you this all happens without you knowing, you already agreed to this when you installed the file sharing program, check the fine print…. What these programs do is track where and what you see on the web and usually will offer pop up banners for similar products, and since the ad is being opened by an installed program, it won’t get stopped by a pop up blocker. It’s like clicking on a link in a word doc, and connecting to the net. Now someone is paying a fraction of a cent for each time an ad is shown, now multiple that by everyone using a file share system usually in the millions, now multiple that by say 5 ads per person per web surfing session (the programs run 24/7 whether you are downloading or not) and you are talking some serious money. This doesn’t even account for the money made just selling your surfing habits which are a premium for internet marketers. What’s bad is that done carefully and without greed, you would never know what was going on, a couple of well made spyware programs can run on your computer forever without being noticed or affecting computer speed. But money talked so more and more software got added to the install, and the software got sneakier in efforts to bypass spyware detection programs. These programs can open up a backdoor and install even more of their programs onto your system, and it all appears normal to your computer. As more and more programs start running computer performance begins to get effected more and more, until your computer is a crawl and you don’t know why. Then everyone wanted in on the game, so people started to play the system, hiding their own spyware programs as mp3s, and these spyware are the really nasty ones too, they are the ones that just throw pop ups at you till your computer crashes. They also open the backdoor, and fill your computer with all sorts of crap programs. These are also the programs that hijack your homepage and default search engines. While genius programming is behind all the software, common sense is not, nowadays after getting infected a computer is almost immediately unusable online. If you aren’t online they aren’t getting paid, not very smart there as the revenue stream is disabled before it can provide any return. Pure greed and impatience, a constant stream over time makes a lot more than a one time payoff.

No matter how much you want to hear a song nothing is worse than having a computer crash, unless it’s taking that crashed computer to the local geek store and explain to them how it wasn’t porn you were looking at and paying a bunch of money to have it fixed. Usually after one repair bill comes the end of using p2p, as that is what the geek said caused it. As this scenario plays its way across the world, you have less and less real people offering up real files to share. This causes the available pool of downloads to fill more and more up with the bogus spyware programs. Making it easier and easier for this scenario to keep playing out until all is left is the bogus stuff.

But while the RIAA may think of this as a win, but really they got beat. For $10 a month I can listen to pretty much anything I would ever want to listen to as much as I want thru rhapsody, before all this downloading stuff started I would have had to go out and buy the cds to hear what I wanted at $15 bucks a pop. I don’t know what world the record execs live in but a $3 cord hooked into a normal stereo turns your home computer into your home stereo, or a $20 set of powered speakers and the computer is a good stereo on its own. So for $10 bucks my “cd” collection contains over a million songs, that are impossible to steal from parties. Do the math, that’s quite a bit of money they are losing.
So I can’t burn it to a cd?, big deal who needs to? I’d be playing the cd thru the computer anyway so you saved me a step thanks. And using an mp3 player, that most everyone has anymore, that same music can be loaded up and taken to cars, other houses, parties etc.
Anyone with half a brain and spare time can rig up a way to copy the songs you haven’t paid for, just think of the old days with a tape recorder and a radio. Oh but you say the production costs and what-not are so much lower selling digital music over real music. Ok everyone who has done the diy route knows how cheap it is to buy cdrs and go to kinkos for quality printing, now think of the bulk discount those record companies get from whoever they buy from, we are probably talking pennies per unit, with most of the cost in the plastic case. Right but they have a lot of R+D costs recording time etc they have to recoup. That is correct, but are they going to promote less for that digital copy? Does the studio give a break since it isn’t going to to be on a cd? No. So roughly they have as much tied into the mp3s as they do the cds . Only I can buy the mp3s for 39 cents, which let’s call $5.00 per “cd” instead of the $15.00 at a store. That is quite a price swing. Assume rhapsody gets the same cut as a normal music store so it all scales the same, and you then have to assume you are paying $10 for some pictures you will look at once and a plastic case that if doesn’t break when you try and open the theft proof seal just provides an easy carrying case and advertisement to a thief. So now for 5 bucks I can get the exact same thing 15 used to buy, only without the throwaway garbage (I mean who cares who the band thanks other than the peoples whose names are in it), plus this “cd” can’t be stolen, or wear out or get lost.? How many times have you had to re-purchase all your favorite cds for one reason or another? How many people do you know that have had to as well? That cash cow is now gone.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if the record companies wouldn’t have made such a fuss. Without their outcry there was no media story, no media story meant everyone’s grandma and grandpa wouldn’t know what napster and kazaa was. Without the mass influx of newly informed people of how to get free music, p2p would have either continued operating in a quiet little corner of the web or suffer its death due to greed like it is now. The result would have been no need for these downloading services like rhapsody and the new napster to exist, the record companies grudgingly accepted them with a “better than nothing” attitude. They want that $15 sale a lot more than the $5 one no matter what they say. This could also effectively kill the “filthy rich rock star” as well, since there is going to be an obvious cash shortage in the future, they can’t pay what they don’t have. So a way to look at it is the music biz (artists included) greed drove up the price of cds, when it takes 3-4 hours working at min. wage to make enough to buy a cd, a free alternative is enticing, add in the rise of the internet and it all fits together nicely. One thing about the internet is that numbers don’t mean quite the same, sites can operate with hundreds of thousands to millions of visitors/users and never be in the public eye at all. So peer to peer could have operated at the same level of participation it was at when the RIAA started to complain, and no one would have known and it wouldn’t have grown as big as fast just sorted existed kinda like bittorrent.(if you have to ask case in point). What I think happened was some pencil pusher saw a few hundred thousand people times $15 per cd being traded and went wow. What they didn’t realize was that one chances are that the music being traded was not going to be bought by the downloader if the download wasn’t there, “if it’s free I’ll take it but I’m not going to pay for it” type of deal. In the smaller setting like p2p was, it was more of a community with people actually buying cds and sharing with others that were buying different cds, it wasn’t until after it became widespread that you had the users that just downloaded and didn’t add new material.. How did it get widespread? Once they RIAA started grumbling about it and the media picked up on it. In an effort to try and stop a small amount of people from trading music they wouldn’t buy, they ended up having to offer their bread and butter consumers worldwide the same exact product for a 1/3 less money.
Oh well goodbye Kazaa thanks for the good times, as I turn up a Coltrane stream on rhapsody full of old records that the record companies played the scam game with royalties so they make the most not he, the same cds I could never find on p2p and a couple I would have bought if I could have ever found them and just giggle on what 10 bucks can buy.

ok, before everyone gets all in an uproar, let me clarify something real quick, there are select locations in areas, where posting a flyer is beneficial , and you are a fool not to put one up there, what im talking about is the practice of printing out a 1000 flyers for a show and posting it all over town in any place where there is room. you know, the tactic preached on every band resource book, website, newsletter etc. in the known universe. i will go out on a limb and say they are all full of crap, other than those few locations, general flyering is a waste of time and money.

years ago before the internet took hold, this was a good practice as it was the only way to get the word out about shows, but those days are long gone. when was the last time you actually looked at another band's flyer? when was the last time you went to a show on a whim cause you saw a random flyer? when was the last time you went to a show after seeing about it on a bands website? or from getting emailed about it? how many people not in bands pay attention to the street post plastered 10 layers deep with flyers?

before you go saying how its like billboard advertising, and getting your name out and seen, yes if you get rent a billboard you will get the benefits without a doubt, but to expect the same results from an 8x10 soaked and stained piece of paper is just naive. once again when was the last time you checked out a band from a flyer? how about your friends not into the local music scene?

to be honest flyering will cause more problems than good, for one alot of the bands have flyers that are questionable in taste, and shouldn't be in public, im not a prude, and can talk dirty enough to make a sailor blush, but there is a time and a place for all that and your local streets aren't the place. while you may think you will get alot of notice with shock value, and actually you will, it is just going to alienate you from everyone that matters, club owners and promoters. they control the venues, and no matter what they say, they are in it to make money. who's going to come out to see the band that has put the nasty flyer all over town? who is going to want to take the chance? hmmmm i can book a band that will make enough to pay the bills, or book the band that pissed everyone off, and actually offended me as well, easy choice.
just remember you don't go from your practice space to stadiums, you have to start on the local level.

plus flyers just make your town look trashy, have a little civic pride, a good reputation will help you more than any flyer, group together with some bands, and clean your town of the flyers everywhere (hint: you wouldn't be able to buy the publicity this would generate) while this is sort of hippie sounding it really drives me nuts, being in all these different cities, that are beautiful and pristine, then come across blocks where every flat surface is covered with old and torn flyers that no one ever read or cared to read. luckily many towns are adopting laws that prosecutes offenders.

okay i have pointed out a problem, now ill give a solution, or two solutions to be exact.
1. use websites - most local scenes have forums, message boards, gig calendars that allow you to list your shows for free, people actually interested in music and going to see music read these, and will actually pay attention to and attend shows advertised there, if your area doesn't have a site that offers these services, start one, its pretty easy to do...
2. newsletters- give visitors to your website the chance to sign up for email notifications of shows
3. take the time you would spend flyering, practice instead, if you get good enough people will find out about you, don't worry.