Electronic Music 411 - sponsorship in the usa

04/17/08 + astroboy

hey folks,

i have an american band on my label.
they recently got offers by two big promotion agencies (forcefield, fanatic), which is an awesome opportunity to make this band big in the usa.

the downside is: these promo agencies are e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e!

the people in the band can't afford to pay for the service, and the label (me) is rather skint too.

here in austria (and also in other european countries) there are several ways to get sponsored by the government.
like, you can ask the provincial government of your hometown if they financially support an album production or promotional activities (printing posters etc.).

is there anything like this in the USA?
any way that these poor musicians get some bucks for their carreer?
we're talking about a total of $1500-$5000 btw.

thanks.

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04/17/08 + INKEYstrng

good chunk of change right there.

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04/17/08 + jkn

Is it possible? Maybe - the government does give grants for 'the arts' - although I've never seen that happen to anyone I know and when I've read about it tends to be for museum installations, ballet, orchestra, etc... not really 'pop, rock, electronic, etc...' I'd say they'd have to be amazingly lucky to get the money and it'd take knowing the right people and getting through a lot of paperwork before it ever happened.

Then again - I really don't know. I've heard artistic type things are supported by governments in other countries a lot more than here.

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04/17/08 + pppeck

None that I am familiar with. Contrary to popular belief the good 'ol US doesn't really promote or support its artists.

04/17/08 + license

what exactly does a promotion agency do? besides print posters? sounds like a ripoff, I'm sure there's cheaper, cooler ways to do it.
don't most bands in the US these days just use MySpace? and put posters for their gigs up in coffee shops.

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04/17/08 + doofgoblin

what exactly does a promotion agency do?

they get you airplay and reviews. usually they've got relationships with folks at radio stations and various media, so the going is easier and the rate of return is better. you could do it yourself, which is far less expensive but takes a tremendous amount of time - or, you can hire a company to do it, which in this case is a tremendous amount of money but far less time.

astro - make sure the people at the agency *really* like that band's music. I mean, truly. and find out what other projects will be competing for their time. otherwise, you risk throwing your money down the drain.

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04/17/08 + astroboy

thanks for your replies.

a promotion agency as really important.
most of the "big" music blogs and magazines (e.g. pitchfork...) do not even accept submitted cds unless they were submitted by a promo agency.
and if the agency really likes the band/cd (they would never work with anyone they don't like) then they will make sure that a LOT of blogs/mags/radio stations will feature the cd.

and yes, doofgoblin, they (both) totally *love* the band. at least they say so.
so it would be a shame to miss this chance...

btw, the band we're talking about: link

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04/17/08 + license

ah okay, that's interesting. I was wondering what criteria magazines like that used to choose bands to review. thanks for the insight.
is there some happy middle ground between agency-bigbucks-easy and noagency-cheaper-hard?

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04/17/08 + yghartsyrt

from working at a magazine, which does reviews and gets lots of promos:
promos that come from people/agencies i don't know or labels i never heard of are really having a hard time getting reviewed or getting an interview.
chance are nobody would ever listen to their promo, just because of th huge amount of stuff coming in.

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edited: Apr 17 2008 + yghartsyrt

don't know about us-agencies astroboy, but if you need some infos on german-speaking ones. emmail me.

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04/17/08 + ignatius

i know people who have applied for grants w/the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) but don't know what came of it. they are very limited and i highly doubt they are something that they make people aware of. you have to do research just to know they exist. i'm not sure they even exist anymore. the NEA's budget was cut by half in the 90's and then half again etc. so they don't have too much cash. it's worth a shot though.

I know in canada there's all kinds of grants. my friend got one to record an EP.

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04/17/08 + zach

ignatius said: "I know in canada there's all kinds of grants. my friend got one to record an EP."

David Cronenberg talks about that in the commentaries of a lot of his movies, the fact that a lot were made with government assistance.

(I'm trying to imagine how many Americans' heads would explode if Scanners - or Videodrome or Rabid, for that matter - were done here and with funding from a federal agency.)

04/17/08 + jogn

I loved Shivers!

I got to say, that's a serious amount of change you're going to be parting with.

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04/17/08 + ignatius

zach said: "

ignatius said: "I know in canada there's all kinds of grants. my friend got one to record an EP."

David Cronenberg talks about that in the commentaries of a lot of his movies, the fact that a lot were made with government assistance.

(I'm trying to imagine how many Americans' heads would explode if Scanners - or Videodrome or Rabid, for that matter - were done here and with funding from a federal agency.)"

this is why the NEA's funding was cut. remember the 'piss christ'?

link

link

all the right wing religious wackos were super offended and then the wingers in congress used it as a justification to investigate all the art the NEA had funded w/grants and this of course led to major funding cuts.. not that the right wingers really needed an excuse.. they could care less about the arts. it was just a bandwagon to jump on for their conservative constituents.

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04/17/08 + zach

ignatius said: "it was just a bandwagon to jump on for their conservative constituents."

Oh totally.