I don't know about you guys but myself and many of my friends in various bands have all agreed that Myspace has become a big pile of steaming shit. It seems to have become to fancy for its own good with too many sliding pop ups and clever things that slow your computer down and make it awkward to get to the information you actually want. Maybe I'm over reacting, maybe my computer is too slow, but that’s what I think.
Since I am in a band and trying to get my shit out there as effectively and efficiently as possible, I have spent the last month and a half trying new things online as I think we have all become too reliant on MySpace, and now that its gone shit, we've sort of left our eggs in a rotting basket ready to break.
I read this article at metalsucks.net which confirmed many thoughts of mine of MySpace:
http://www.metalsucks.net/2011/02/10/dear-record-labels-and-bands-please-start-using-bandcamp-stop-using-myspace/
To quote: "No one uses MySpace for social networking anymore. If people actually used the site’s social networking features to interact with bands and discover new music that would be one thing. People visit MySpace pages directly, and they do so solely to stream a band’s music. "
Why am I writing this obscenely long post? It is to impart what I have learned to the other bands here, and learn what everyone thinks, and to see if anyone else has found something which I have missed. I am only an armature in this, but most of us are, and cannot afford a team to whisk up a fancy website and keep the social networks shiny.

Blogger.com
Blogs, Aside from a vehicle for losers to write about their stupid lives this has become real useful. Having been following site like http://grindandpunishment.blogspot.com/ to keep up to date with obscure grind, I found out that there are bands using this function as a website. I signed up to blogger.com and within a couple of afternoon experiments I came up with this
http://www.deadexistence.net which is now the official band website. The fact that with a little bit of html coding knowledge, most of which you can find on the net, you can load in for free all the info you need for gig dates, flyers, links to your web store ect. You can even pull in the MySpace player, and or soundcloud files so people can listen to your music. All this with just basic online html code generators. Yes it isn't beautiful and still a work in progress but check out these to see what can be possible with a bit more time and knowledge:
http://killforsaviours.blogspot.com/
http://www.crowbarmusic.com/

The service was free and came with the domain name "http://www.deadexistencemusic.blogspot.com". But for £10 a year I've bought deadexistence.net Which is nothing in my opinion considering the amounts you can spend on websites, and worth the luxury of a simple and easy to remember domain name.

Soundcloud
The main use MySpace has always had is the fact that you can upload and stream songs online. I don't need to stress how important that is now a days. In comes Soundcloud. You can now basically upload your songs in any format including full quality .wav and stream them for free. These get displayed on your page like this:http://soundcloud.com/dead-existence Better yet you can share on wedstites using html the codes provided. You can also load these into your Facebook band page, it's a little tricky but once you've done it people can use you Facebook to listen to songs.

Facebook.com
Unless you’re a retarded frog tripping on the toadstool you’re sitting on then you know what Facebook is. And many of you already have band pages and/or are fans of some. This is probably the best way to promote gigs and shit to already existing fans. The downfall is the music player ability. You can stream songs there, and I saw the band Collapse (http://www.facebook.com/pages/collapse/113990371979808) do this, but it isn't great and last time I checked you needed to jump through a load of hoops to prove it's your music. The only other problem is linking your page. As oppose to just myspace.com/youcrapnamehere it becomes facebook.com/page/shit/08===0--(__,__)66613215 ect.
You can fix this with rootmusic.com, but if anyone knows how to do this proper way then please let me know.

Rootmusic.com
Just discovered this. It's essentially helps turn your Facebook to what MySpace use to be. It loads up a MySpace style player which links with any songs you uploaded on soundcould, lets you link videos from YouTube, list gigs with links to buy tickets, and links to buy your songs. The only catch when you go to your Facebook page it does not go straight to the section. You have to click the tab saying "band page". The good thing is it gives you a simple link to go to it. In my case this is http://listn.to/deadexistence/.
Much better than facebook.com/page/shit/08===0--(__,__)66613215

Band Camp
This is new to me and I'll send some of my weekend trying this out.
It's suppose to be similar to MySpace but without the fancy crap. The main idea is that people can buy a download of your music. You can choose to sell it a nothing, any price you want, sexual favours, or leave it up to the buyer. I found this out through http://www.grindcorekaraoke.com/
A new record label run by the singer of Agoraphobic Nosebleed with the sole purpose of spreading music from underground music of bands he thinks need more recognition.
Still haven't tried it, but definitely worth checking out.


Spotify and Tunecore.com
You can get your shit on Spotify for aboot £35 a year using sites like tunecore.com. It also distributes them to iTunes and amazon.com download and other pay for download sites. It still means you have to promote it through other avenues but it’s a great way to make some money from people from around the world.

Reverbnation.com
I'm still trying this one out. It's essentially a band networking site which lets you upload songs videos and sell crap, get a nice profile, [url]reverbnation.com/deadexistence[/url], and helps bands talk to each other. I still haven't found out much use for this, and while it's all well and good bands licking each others collective anus it don't see how it lets you get out to punters. And to be honest the most common thing I get from it is offers to enter buys our pop punk gigs in some middle of nowhere state in the U.S.A.
Maybe I haven't explored enough yet so tell me if you found out something I don't know.

Big Cartel
If you have merch and haven't started one of these you’re wasting your time. You get a max of 5 different items you can sell, more than that you have to pay.
Here's a cheap example: http://www.deadexistence.bigcartel.com

Last.FM
Essentially an automated online radio station. Load up a few songs, say what bands you sound like, and when people listen to those other bands radio station, it will hopefully play your song as well. It really depends on how many time people listen to you and what they listen to as well. It may not be the best thing in the world, but if some one hears my song because they've been listening to Eyehategod and Iron Monkey a lot, then that’s definitely a bonus.

Covermount CDs
This isn't online but it's definitely a promo tool. Getting the your song on the cover CD for Terrorizer, Zero Tolerance, Metal Hammer is a sure fire way a few thousand people will hear your song. It's expensive though. The MCPS note on the back saying all writer of these songs have been paid for the use of the song is BS. Every time I've been on one of these we've had to sign a form saying they don't have to pay us. And we have to pay them. £400 for Metal Hammer I once paid, £200 for Terrorizer, and I got a free one from Zero Tolerance once for helping them out on one of their Christmas fests but in short, it's expensive.


I've probably now wasted a load of your time and my employers’ time. But I'm really interested to see what other bands and punters have been doing. Are you still relying only of Myspace? Have you bothered checking any of these sites that I mentioned? Or do you just stick with what’s on the Terrorizer cover mount CD?

Fucking fantastic post!

This should be stickied for certain.

Online promotion is a weird one, but I've deffo discovered a lot of new bands through at least 3 of the sources listed here (LastFM being the most common)

Thanks for the interesting and helpful post dude!

I agree completely. Myspace is a piece of shit. It was bad before but when it last got 'revamped' it became pretty useless. I have heard people speak about the merits of band camp and lastfm but I can't add to your impressive list.

Just to add: This was kind of my point with suggesting an updated band list. Before, I found it quite easy going round myspace and checking out bands. Definitely not the case anymore.

And it's ridiculous really. There are so many ways for bands to promote themselves, and to do so effectively, over the net. This site could be a prime example of that. It would probably be great, if someone had the time and inclination, to do a 'Metal scene' site that would allow bands to promote gigs, create links, upload their band's music etc etc. In fact, maybe that could be part of the Metal Brew site if it ever gets its ridiculously lazy and inept arse into gear.

I didn't really mention online forums like this one. But it is an excelent way to infiltrate target audiences. I have been on several forums like foreverdoomed.com, doommantiaforum.com, and ukthrash.co.uk pushing gigs releases and finding new bands.
Blogs as well are great I regularly check ones like grindandpunishment.blogspot.com, http://cephalochromoscope.blogspot.com/, doommantia.com and various others. Its a great way to keep an eye out for underground releases of bands you would never hear of. Many of them will accept demos and put a download link and/or review it. Once again this is an excellent way to get the word out to a target audience.
My only problem with this is it doesn't push to the wider world of punters.

I haven't read the whole thing but I agree that Myspace utterly sucks balls. I have always hated it, it's so badly designed, spammed up, and ugly, and I agree with the person you quoted, I only use it to stream mp3s. And the music player hasn't even been working for me lately. And when you click on another track in the player it loads a completely fresh screen! Not only that, but the new 'beta' layout has made the site even more confusing and anti-productive. It's fucking shit!

Nearly all new bands I find are from Amazon reccomendations or Last FM. The widget that connects with itunes that reccomends similar artists is a godsend.

James wrote:And when you click on another track in the player it loads a completely fresh screen! Not only that, but the new 'beta' layout has made the site even more confusing and anti-productive. It's fucking shit!

These things are ultimate truths. It's fucking useless. I hate that reload when you click on tracks!

H.O.D. Feemo wrote:Nearly all new bands I find are from Amazon reccomendations or Last FM. The widget that connects with itunes that reccomends similar artists is a godsend.

The only problem with amazon, with mine at least, is the recommendations are generally quite high profile so may not be so good in terms of new or local bands. It's also really arbitrary and can be ridiculously rigid.

The best recommendations will always be word of mouth!

Dian Wei wrote:Fucking fantastic post!

This should be stickied for certain.

Online promotion is a weird one, but I've deffo discovered a lot of new bands through at least 3 of the sources listed here (LastFM being the most common)

Thanks for the interesting and helpful post dude!

I'm not allowed to agree with this due to a court order, even though this is exactly what I wanted to say.

Fuck MySpace.

i know what you mean Fred. not being in a band/on facebook, i usually go on all my fave bands myspaces to check for news and upcoming gigs.
when the revamp happened it just became sooooo slow and shit. the layout was less user friendly and so awkward to navigate without a ton of pop-up shit appearing. i also noticed that half of the bands themselves have less content on there than before and i guess,due to the revamp that its probably too much hassle to update the myspace than before.
i never had an account for myspace and i bet the social side of it is pretty poor anyway. i thought of myspace really as more of a gig/band info/band tunes page with the opportunity to occasionally discover more bands/buy the odd ep every so often,but yeah,just recently it has been rendered pretty useless even for someone who just wants to browse.

I've said it before, if Facebook had the equivilant of MySpace's (old) music/band profiles then it'd be perfect. That's really the only problem with it - that, plus the spam messages you get; "Come to our gig tomorrow"- Yeah, I would if it wasn't in Illinois you pillowbiting fucknut.

I actually went over the whole social networking thing on my music business course like, today. So this is definitely useful stuff - someone sticky this shit!

Yes, amazing post Fred!

I would also like to add that for finding new bands, Youtube has been quite handy for me, there's quite a lot of obscure stuff on there and the recommendations from video to video can be really good!

Myspace - there is no doubt that it's been going downhill, and is now at the point where many people just can't be bothered to use it. I do still use it quite often to look through bands to try and find new ones, just through other bands' top friends. Having a band Myspace page now is only really useful for people to listen to your music and see what gigs you have coming up. No one bothers with the events on there really, bulletins are pretty much pointless, I only read them if I happen to see something that looks interesting. But on the whole, it is now just too slow and annoying to use. Oh and just as a side note, if you want to change songs on Myspace just click the little next track button (you obviously all know this anyway), it's annoying that you can't just click the track anymore!!

I think I've heard of bandcamp before but never checked it out, just had a little look and it seems pretty cool. However, the music player is very minimal, no volume which is annoying. Browsing for bands doesn't appear to be very useful and the search takes you to a google search for pages within the website, but that's minor really. I'm sure it will improve over time but like all things it will need plenty of visitors for it to catch on.

I would say the current state of things, as I see it is that a Myspace page acts mainly as the band website but the majority of promotion work goes through Facebook. I guess there's always Twitter but I have never bothered with it.

Unfortunately, I think it's always going to be an ever-changing thing, websites will come and go over the years as newer and better ones pop up. Facebook is going strong at the moment but the content sharing, data sharing and all the intricate privacy settings are starting to piss people off and I wouldn't be suprised if a new alternative social networking site emerges before too long, which will change the way bands get their music and info to people again.