by: Eileen Nonoyama / Joanne Smale
Planet3 Communications

Performing at any music festival gives a band an opportunity to expose themselves to a new audience. However it also, paradoxically, makes a band easy to overlook. There are hundreds of bands playing every night and one of the few ways to make your band rise above the rest is media attention. Word of mouth is the best way to create a buzz for your band, and buzz can help you go from a half empty room to a venue packed to the reams and a line-up outside. A good recommendation from a newspaper, radio host, TV personality or online blogger goes a long way in helping ensure that when people look at the festival listing, your band name jumps out. A publicist's job is to know who, when and how to contact the media (and there are many companies out there that specialize in entertainment) but not everyone can afford a professional so the following is some basic tips on how to do it yourself. Keep in mind that, like any industry, the media is always changing.

Media Kit:

The first thing you'll need (both on your own and if you take on a publicist) is a media kit. The key basic components are a band biography, a band photo and promotional copies of your album.

Your bio should be relatively concise and easy to read. Be sure to include the names of your band members, what you sound like, the band's noteworthy press and tour history, your town/city of origin and a brief history of the band. You're not writing a novel, make it easy for a journalist to pick facts from. Be sure to include a link to your website (we hope we don't need to tell you that an updated website is essential).

In this electronic age, your band photo(s) don't need to be 8x10's on glossy paper. It's much more useful to have image files that can be sent instantly on request to media. The image must be hi-resolution (300 dpi is ideal) and of moderate dimensions (at least 4 inches on the smallest side). Remember you can always size an image down but there's no good way to increase the size of a small one. JPG/JPEG files are the most universal and easy to work with. Keep your band name in the file name. It would also be a good idea for these to be available off your site, but be sure to clearly mark them as hi-res so regular fans won't download them and kill your bandwidth.

A copy of your CD or a site where you can download tracks/stream audio is also very important. Don't try sending MP3s to media unsolicited, it takes up a lot of room in inboxes that are already overflowing and will just get dumped. If you can afford it, make a good recording with a good mix (and if at all possible, have it mastered) and start the CD with one of your best songs. Mark your best tracks so that the journalist can flip to them quickly. Music journalists have a mountain of music coming at them at all times, you need to make a good impression quickly and easily.

Prepare an introduction. A short personal message to a journalist telling them why they should check you out. Include the most interesting things from your bio and (very import) be sure to clearly state when (date and time) and where you are playing. Make things as easy for journalists as possible. The more work it takes for them to find/listen/read about you, the less likely they are to do so.

The Media:

PRINT

There are four daily newspapers in Toronto: Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Globe and Mail and National Post. They all have dedicated music writers/editors who can be easily identified by reading the papers. Thursday papers for the Star and Sun and Fridays for the Globe and Mail have bigger arts sections but articles will appear every day of the week. All four also have online editions where you can look at recent articles if you're unable to get the physical papers, but content online is not identical and we highly recommend looking at all the physcial papers daily for at least a month. Writers, like all people, have particular tastes and you will want to find the ones that are most likely to like your band.

There are three free Monday - Friday papers in Toronto: Metro, 24 Hours and Dose. The fact these are free, found all over the city and tend to have multiple readers (a Metro left on the subway is probably picked up and flipped through many times before ending up in the trash) makes them important. Like the four dailies, your best bet is to pick each one up and read through them.

There are two free highly circulated weekly papers: Eye Weekly and Now Magazine. Since these are going to be found in almost every club involved with CMW they'll be one of the most accessible to people out at night. Keep in mind because both the weeklies tend to decide their content much further in advance than the dailies. If you've waited until the Monday before CMW it's too late.

Toronto is a city with a LOT of specialized and community media. There are local papers such as the North York Post that is only available in a specific area. Local community media will always be interested in local content. If you're from North York, they'll be far more interested in your band than one from the Beaches. Look around in your area for the boxes (almost all of these types of papers are free). There are cultural publications such as Caribbean Camera, Share and Pride which focus on the black community (Carribean Camera obviously emphasizes those of Caribbean origin but not exclusively). Le Metropolitain focuses on the Toronto Francophone community, Xtra! and Fab focus on the gay community, etc. Chances are if you are of a specific community, you or your family will already be familiar with those publications. Even if they don't seem to cover music, it's worth trying.

There are three university campuses in Toronto: University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and York University. All three have campus papers, in some cases multiple ones. Like community papers, they do prefer to have content directly relevant to the school (are any of your member current students or graduates). There are also many colleges in the Toronto area, some of which will have their own papers.

If you are very enterprising and plan well ahead there are also monthly publications that are worth targeting such as Toronto Life, Word and Exclaim!. But these publications tend to decide their content very far in advance. In Toronto Life's case, you will have had to submit a simple club show listing three months in advance. Chances are, by the time you think of them it'll be too late. However Exclaim! does have concert reviews and it never hurts to let them know about your show.

There are genre specific publications as well, which vary in frequency of publication. If you play genre specific (metal, punk, folk, etc.) you should be aware of these already.

RADIO

There are many radio stations in Toronto but as anybody who's flipped through dial knows, few of them play indie artists. Your chances of getting on a station that only plays Top 40 is very, very slim. If you are a rock/punk/metal band you can target The Edge. That station has an Indie night and radio personalities who are more likely to be supportive of independent bands. Even if they won't play your music, an on air mention from a sympathetic DJ can go a long way. There are other genre specific stations, and again, if you're in a particular genre you'll already know them.

There is also talk radio, don't be quick to discount their power. Stations like 680 News and CFRB have huge amounts of listeners and getting them to cover you before they do the weather and traffic is no small thing. AM is not dead.

Campus radio will be the best bet for independent bands. All three universities have a radio station that broadcasts across Toronto. They all have segmented programming with a different host almost every hour. Check out the websites or listen to them over long periods of time and chances are you'll find shows/hosts that may support you. Some colleges also have radio stations but their range will be much smaller.

There is also the CBC. The morning and afternoon drive shows will have entertainment content and are much less rigid in their playlists than commercial radio. The two best shows for independent music are Brave New Waves and Radio3. Both are not Toronto based, and being national programs won't want to be Toronto-centric, but if they like your band they'll play you and may mention your shows.

TELEVISION

There are many different TV stations but only a handful will actually be of concern to an independent band: CBC, CTV, City, Global, OMNI, Sun TV and Rogers. If you want to end up on the local newscast that night, you'll want to send a very brief document stating Who, What, Where and When to camera assignment at each station the day before or of the event. If you want advance coverage you'll want the various show producers for those newscasts. Some of these channels will also have lifestyle programs (Breakfast Television, Rogers Daytime, Ishtyle, etc.) that you may be able to get your band on. Keep in mind, the more popular the program the harder it is to get on, and the further in advance guests are booked.

There are also four entertainment driven programs with Canadian mandates. eTalk, Star! Daily, Jam Showbiz, and ET Canada need Canadian entertainment stories every day. While they are also by their nature devoted to people with star power, that doesn't mean they'll ignore independent artists.

MuchMusic is the obvious channel to go to. Independent bands naturally tend to get overshadowed by the Top 40 ones and if you don't have a video (a high quality one on Beta tape, not a home video) they are less likely to cover you. However they are music oriented and have a Canadian mandate and you will never know unless you try. Much More Music and Bravo! both have more mature demographics that may also be worth trying if your music is appropriate.

WORLD WIDE WEB

The internet is now an indispensable part of many of our lives. There are countless ways to promote yourself online. It would take a book to talk about them all, and by the time you got that book published half the sites will be gone or abandoned. Things are constantly changing.

There are no shortage of E-zines out there, Chromewaves.net, Iheartmusic.net, Torontoist.com are but a few. There are also countless blogs out there some of which are associated to mainstream media, but have separate content. Eye Weekly, CBC Radio3, Carl Wilson (Globe & Mail)'s Zoilus, etc. Just about every band also has a MySpace now, and should know the potential that holds.

There are also message board communities to consider, from the various YahooGroups to the Wedge board at the Much Music.com site. However, these communities tend to be hostile to "spammers" who join and post about their band and nothing else. Take part in general discussion, even a little, before flogging your band.