creating a PROFESSIONAL PRESS PACKET

["Rick Walker/Loop.pooL" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Hi fellow loopers,

A young looper just wrote me and asked me about how he could
possibly get in on some of the events that are happening
in the next couple of month in Europe and the British Isles.

Of course, it takes a lot of prep work to book gigs and a lot
of lead time (I've been planning this for six months and working hard the
whole time), but I told him that he would at least need to have a
professional packet to start approaching all the people
who have been producing looping events as well as the myriads of
people who book music festivals, museums, art galleries, clubs, bookstores,
private homes (house concerts) and anyone who has never considered doing an
event in their establishment (which has
been a huge source of my gigs in the past three and a half years
since I started trying to take this looping madness outside of my
own hometown).

It occurred to me that a lot of musicians have not learned how to promote
themselves and I think many have a hard time with the concept of 
'packaging'
and 'selling' themselves.  Luckily anyone
with a decent computer now has it within their grasp to make a professional
and effective press packet with a little help from
their knowledgeable friends.   Having a website made for me was the best
thing I've ever done and I can't believe that it took me so long to 
discover
how important it is to have one.   I couldn't possibly have booked this 
tour
without the use of people's ability to download MP3s, .jpeg photographs,
musical biographies and live music descriptions.............all essentially
free.   When
you don't have that ability,having a good press packet is a great thing to
have (and an adjunct to having a website).

Here's what I wrote to him and I put it out in case anyone's looping career
can be facilitated by it.

Oh, and also, there are a lot of valid approaches to such a packet. I have
just found this form to be pretty successful.
Good luck with creating yours if you don't already have it.

*********************************

Dear ________,

I don't know where you are at with your music (please forgive me this) but 
I
would suggest that you get yourself a demo CD together(I would highly
recommend this over a cassette or minidisc recording because those media 
are
not supported widely anymore) and a relatively professional looking packet.

I do a lot of festivals and most won't even
consider you without such a thing.
I'm going to assume (for sake of brevity only so please don't think that I
am being patronizing) that you don't have this.

If you're already way ahead of the game then, please, don't take umbrage at
my gratuitous suggestions.........LOL

FOR A PROFESSIONAL PRESS PACKET you will need:

an 8 X 10"  glossy black and white photo of yourself that
looks good enough to publish in a newspaper or brochure

a 75 word descritpion of who you are for inclusion in a brochure

a longer description of your live show for print journalists

a bio of your musical career up until now (if you have no experience, be
honest about it and make it funny..........make preposterous stuff
up..........this is only a hook for the journalist to nibble at........the
more entertaining (or overwhelming, hopefully) it is, the better the chance
you have

a plot of your stage set up (this can be neatly drawn, but is always nice 
if
it's layed out in a page making program)

a CD of some representative material (if you don't have one, gather some
snippets of your work on any media and find a friend with a computer and a
CD burner to help you assemble one and burn
a few copies to keep around.

a nice folder to put it all in

a business card, specifically related to your music (even though it's
frequently true for a lot of talented musicians, the cards
that say  Tim Stevens: accountant, loop guitarist  are a dead give away 
that
you are what they disgustingly call a 'weekend warrior' in the music
business.

a cheap way of making your own card on a computer that looks good
is to make the letters be reversed and put them onto a black background
andprint them on some nice bright paper (white, colors, I prefer 
flourescent
paper but then, I'm sick.......... ;-)

Best of luck and good luck with your looping music career,

Rick Walker
www.looppool.info