The gig. It’s the holy grail of musicianship. It’s the reason why you spend hours practising and writing songs. It’s your chance to show your family, friends and fans exactly what you’ve been doing in the basement for the past two months with your three best buddies. So how do you get your first live show?

First, make sure that you’re ready to play a gig. Aim to have a 30-minute set. Your performance – whether you’re an acoustic solo artist or a six-piece rock band – needs to be tight as well. How will you speak to your audience and what will you do onstage when guitars need tuning, strings break or sticks fly into the audience?

There are two main ways to get a gig:
1. Approach a venue
2. Ask a band if you can support them

If you approach a venue, make sure it’s suitable. A bar or music club is perfect. A pub with a back room can also work. If you’re just starting out, don’t waste time trying to contact big venues. They often have promoters to arrange their gigs.

Find an email address for the bar manager (check out the venue’s website) and say that you’re looking to play a gig. Don’t expect to get paid. It’s only when bands pull a decent crowd that venues pay them. Some music venues operate a ‘Pay To Play’ policy where you have to sell a number of tickets to friends and fans in advance. This is OK if you’ve got lots of people that want to come to your gig, but it can be stressful in the lead up to the gig if you can’t sell the tickets and lose the money. For example, the venue wants you to sell 50 tickets at £5 each. You have to give the venue £250 upfront, and then take the money back as you sell the tickets. If you only sell twenty tickets, then you’ve only made back £100, and therefore lost £150. Always check before you agree to play a gig.
If you know a good local band, then ask them if you can support them. Often, they communicate with the venue and you just turn up and play. You will also get to play in front of their fans as well as your own.

However you get your gig, make sure you promote it. Use Facebook, MySpace etc. Make flyers and posters and distribute them in appropriate places.

Finally, make sure you play well! The venue will want you back and you’ll pick up some fans!

How To Get Your First Gig
Key tips:
1. Don’t expect to get paid unless you bring a LOT of people.
2. Include lots of information and links to your songs online when emailing venues or bands.
3. Always be polite and friendly to venues, bands and promoters. You never know their connections.
4. Email first. Follow up with a phone call a week or so later if you haven’t heard anything.…

After spending months writing and recording your record, creating artwork and getting CDs pressed, you send your prized album to music journalists and editors, ready for fans to devour. You can’t help but imagine the promising quotes of greatness and guarantees of future accolades, destined to head up your latest press release. You pick up KerPlunk! magazine, full of excited anticipation: “Naff vocals, poor song writing, and the lyrical eloquence of a chav brawl.”

Your heart sinks a little, and then the anger kicks in. Who is this music journalist anyway? What do they know about your genre-defying blend of hip hop and Baroquian fugue? But before you buy every issue in your local shop and write a strongly worded letter to the editor, bear the following in mind…

1. If it’s a big, well-known publication, then the journalist must know at least a little of what they’re talking about…
2. And if it’s a tiny, unimportant publication, who’s gonna be reading it anyway?
3. A bad review is more memorable than an average review. Some readers will actively seek out the stuff that gets bad press. You’ll at least get some decent hits on YouTube and MySpace.
4. And a bad review is better than no review at all.
5. Sending a ranting email/letter to the editor or journalist will only result in you losing all credibility. Especially if they publish your tirade.
6. If you’ve sent out a CD for review, then expect a review. If you want 100% guaranteed praise, send it to your mum’s house.
7. Maybe your album really is terrible?

So, what can you do about it? No one likes their work being criticised, but if you thrust yourself into the ears of others, opinions will come flying back. Take note of their comments; can you improve?

Make sure you approach journalists and editors with the correct information in the preferred formats. Realise that there are some people out there who don’t like The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson or Guns ‘n Roses – yet still these artists are massively popular. You’ll never win everyone’s vote. But then you only need a majority.…

Sbobet as the main internet betting organization and business in Indonesia is back before you so you can keep on fulfilling every one of your wants. As you most likely are aware gratitude to the difficult work of Sbobet, it turns out they have quite recently been compensated with such a large number of various honors.

First there is an honor from the Indonesian record gallery that says Sbobet has the most clients ever in our country where our dearest beta was conceived. At that point the following honor was impartial over straightforwardly by the Indonesian betting dad.

The honor was given on the grounds that SBOBET as the main web based betting organization and business in Indonesia had the option to give developments and pioneers in the betting field which was slowly getting languid. Be that as it may, this isn’t the situation with Sbobet as the main web based betting organization and business in Indonesia.

Seeing Sbobet which has stood so huge as it is currently absolutely intriguing to know how the historical backdrop of the development of Sbobet to be fruitful as it is presently. For the accompanying we examine just for you.

History of the establishing of Sbobet

Beginning from 5 youngsters who truly need to progress and prevail later on however they are hard to play betting together. There are numerous snags that make it hard for them to meet with the goal that their preferred exercises, for example, betting gets hard for them to do.

The most riotous distraction with their consideration is the persistent work of difficult work that is being completed for a long time. At that point them five likewise considered every option how to in any case partake in coexistence by playing betting.

Since it was hard to meet, they at that point consented to make Sbobet to have the option to keep playing betting together without meeting. Until at last they gradually started to set aside cash and figure out how to build up an internet betting business which around then was not very blasting.

With persistence and collaboration and difficult work without weariness, they at long last at last figured out how to manufacture a web based betting business called Sbobet. Who might have imagined that after that Sbobet started to step up to get one of the pioneers in the realm of internet betting that was so incredibly created in Indonesia.

One mystery why them five figured out how to fabricate Sbobet with sweat and blood beads because of a similar vision, crucial objectives that are rhyming and in amicability. At that point the vision, strategic objectives like what they worked until at last Sbobet can grow quickly as it is presently.…