Do's and Don'ts of Demoing
Here is a loose guideline of what might be good practice when submitting your music to a radio station. Here it goes and hope it helps! Every week I am reminded of how vibrant and diverse the music scene is in Ireland. I am sent hundreds of demos across the year and have made it a personal mandate of the show to be able to support unsigned artists.
But the same issues keep coming up so I thought it might be a good idea to provide a "loose" guideline of what might be good practice when submitting your music to a radio station. Here it goes and hope it helps!
DO
Put your contact details on your CD.
Include email/webpage information.
Make your biog brief, very brief!
Imagery is good, be creative, think of what would catch my attention.
Send one or two emails a good while after you have sent your demo in to see what I think, I do get back to every mail, it might just take a while.
Get an angle… what’s your story, other passions, what makes you interesting.
Do research on the person you are sending your demo to. Familiarity and flattery work wonders!
Have an interesting and informative webpage, again use interesting images.
Send in a maximum of three songs on your demo, your best songs. Make sure it is of good quality. Listen to other CDs and compare how they sound to yours.
Put your best song forward… it may not be your favourite but it could be your best… ask for the opinions of people you trust.
DON’T
Email, text or get your friends to plague presenters. It totally puts us off even wanting to listen because of negative association. We are a smart bunch and we know when a “campaign” is in the works.
Include a photograph of the band on press release or CD. Other images work better, unless you have put in effort into your image.
Have a book for a press release, we don’t read it all!
Expect things to happen quickly, they don’t. Some DJs are playlisted and others have limited choice.
Spend a fortune on colour glossy, it isn’t necessary, think simple and the most important thing is that the relevant information is included.
Just send a link to a MySpace page, I don’t do my listening online, I still like CDs!