Week 7 Review — bansheebeat

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

This week in our bansheebeat Spring project coverage, we’re entering week two of the post-release season, and I’m not getting any less busy. Following the release of my new EP, "Techo Deluxe," last week, I’ve been hard at work doing my best to promote it. While promotion is a concept that still very much eludes me, I’m doing my best to make the release as visible as possible. On top of doing everything I can to get the release in as many ears as I possibly can, I have a multitude of new things I’m working on to prepare for the summer. On top of things like new merchandise, I’m beginning work on a music video to support the album, as well as trying to work out performing opportunities over the summer.

As of right now, my main focuses can be split into these categories:

Promotion
Release Show
New Merchandise
Summer Plans

While things like new material and current musical projects (be it commissions, remixes, or what else have you) are still in progress and on the brain, for the purposes of this project I’m mainly focusing on non-musical endeavors, as those are predominantly the things I have little or no experience with. So, with that, let’s get started.

Promotion

This has been an incredibly taxing week between work, classes, bansheebeat stuff, and everything else, so I’ve been doing my best to find time and energy to push the new EP more and more into the public eye as I can. While I’ve been exploring social media outreach and a little in paid advertising via Facebook and Instagram, the main other avenue I’ve been looking into is publication coverage. Currently, I feel that the world of music journalism is primarily made up of a series of tastemakers left over from the independent music blog bubble of the early 2010’s. Many independent music publications folded over the last several years, and those that are left have gained larger reputations in staying afloat by gaining larger audiences and are financially stabilized through advertising. As such, the remaining music journalists of this era remain struggling to navigate an over-saturated musical landscape, and as such rely on the coverage of already established musical acts. Due to this, it’s somewhat difficult for a lesser-known artist such as myself to appeal to these larger publications. That said, I’m currently doing my best to get in touch with as many publications as I can, even if it results in “cold-emailing” and a shot in the dark. So far, I’ve managed to successfully contact a handful of smaller publications, such as Japan’s “MakeBelieveMelodies” and “NEST HQ” for potential interest in coverage. In addition, the student publication “The Daily Wildcat” of the University of Arizona (where I am currently a student) has expressed interest in conducting a possible interview to discuss the release. Aside from these, I’m working to acquire as much coverage as possible, but we’ll have to wait and see how successful this course of action ends up being.

Release Show

In addition to the Internet radio stream event I discussed last week, I organized a local show here in Tucson to really celebrate the release in a physical space. Joined by local Tucson act bbgar and Phoenix electronic chameleon C Clark, we ushered in a fun concert at Tucson’s local Pomoro venue. While I’ve mostly had poor luck with hosting shows in Tucson, whether it be unfortunate experiences regarding shady venues, detestable “pay-to-play” policies, or any other number of uncomfortable scenarios, our show was hosted in an incredibly relaxed environment, with everyone in attendance having had a worthwhile time. Because of this wildly different experience, I’m becoming more interested in performing locally on a much more regular basis.

New Merchandise

Ah yes, I’m finally planning out new bansheebeat merchandise for the summer of 2017! However, this comes with its own set of challenges and obstacles, especially in my personal experience. One of the largest requirements for creating merchandise is, well, the capital to cover the initial investment. As a full-time music student, I currently don’t have the ability to work more than I currently do, and I unfortunately only make enough income to cover personal necessities, so things like producing merchandise are very seldom a priority or even a feasible undertaking. To overcome this, I began a Patreon campaign in the beginning of 2016 to help in covering various artist expenses. While my Patreon is unbelievably helpful, it unfortunately only covers a handful of my personal artist expenses at the moment, so using those additional resources for something like merchandise isn’t possible at the moment. So, because of this obstacle, it’s incredibly pertinent that the budgeting and financially organization work I put into it ahead of time is absolutely rock-solid. I plan on collaborating with close personal friend Michael Gee, who on top of accounting experience has worked with several companies on tax and budgetary matters. Please look forward to more information on merchandise plans next week!

Some of the things I have planned are "Techo Deluxe" CDs, tapes, new stickers, as well as possibly USB drives. I’d like to also have a shirt design ready in the next several months, but alas, shirts are one of the priciest pieces of merchandise to produce, so we’ll have to see how likely that is down the line.

Summer Plans and Other News

I’m currently working on summer plans for a new release series. Whether it’s remixes or new singles, I want to have a stream of new content over the summer to continue the PR boost that’s started from the album release. In addition, I’m looking to organize a small tour! Unlike most of my independent musician friends, I’ve never toured, and thus have absolutely no experience in coordinating that sort of thing. Also, I was just asked to perform in Kansas City over the summer, but I have to see whether or not it conflicts with a work commitment.

That’s about all of the news I have for this week. I still have so much work to do, on top of musical theater work and the end of the academic year weighing down on me, but I’m going to do my best to accomplish as much as I can from here on out! Please look forward to joining me in wrapping the project up for the next few weeks, and I want to thank you for accompanying me on this adventure! See you next week!!

Cheers!

Dylan