Launching my second podcast which will be interviews on creativity. Up first is Tim Landers of Off & On Misser Transit Get it on iTunes or here

If you haven’t been using LimitedRun to sell your merch, you’ve been missing out on one of the best direct to fan tools out there. They have now upped their game even more by increasing their library of themes that include responsive design. To learn more check out their blog here.

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Follow-up: 

• From Gimmickcore: 198.7 Tumblr users  vs 36 Myspace users.
• From A Ripoff Of A Taking Back Sunday Song: The anti-Molly video EDM festival attendees are required to watch.

Listener questions:

• Jesse could you talk about the qualities you look for in producers to work with (as an engineer)?
• I’m planning to go to uni for Tech Production, what’s you opinion of going to uni for that? And what sort of stuff should I be trying to do now/outside of school?
• At what point do you think a band should think about touring internationally? How do you think they should go about it? Can you guys talk a little about “going international?”

Being A Tortured Artist 

• Justin Pierre from Motion City Soundtrack.
• Max Bemis of Say Anything as an example.
• Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie as an example.
• Happiness and creativity.

The Music Industry Is Literally Brainwashing You to Like Bad Pop Songs

• Actually, they’re not.
• We have a lot of problems in the music industry.
• ^Brainwashing is not one of them.

A Mini App Section 

• Overcast: A podcast app by Marco Arment.
• atVenu Rakes In Over $100 Million From 4.2 Million Units Of Merch.
• Soundwave: The Instagram of music.

Recommendations: Get Hurt by The Gaslight Anthem, Hey Anna (again), Lovers by Patterns & Waves.

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*The Jett Brando record Jesse produced that started this idea.

Favorite Albums (in no order):

• Refused – Shape of Punk to Come (JC)
• Say Anything – Is A Real Boy (JC)
• Rancid – Let’s Go (JC)
• Jawbreaker – 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (JC)
• Texas Is The reason – Do You Know Who You are (JC)
• Jimmy Eat World – Bleed American (JC)
• Blood Brothers – Young Machetes (JC)
• Wavves – King of the Beach (JC)
• Acceptance – Phantoms (JC)
• Lifetime – NJs Best Dancers (JC)
• Screeching Weasel – Anthem for A New Tomorrow (JC)
• Fugazi – Red Medicine (JC)
• Taking Back Sunday – Tell All Your Friends (JC + ZZ)
• blink-182 – Untitled (ZZ)
• Brand New – The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me (ZZ)
• Thursday War All The Time (ZZ)
• Armor For Sleep – What To Do When You Are Dead (ZZ)
• Mansions – Dig Up The Dead (ZZ)
• Box Car Racer – Box Car Racer (ZZ)
• Balance & Composure – Separation (ZZ)
• The Dangerous Summer – Reach For The Sun (ZZ)
• Manchester Orchestra – I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child (ZZ)
• Man Overboard – Real Talk (ZZ)
• The Wonder Years – Suburbia (ZZ)
• Lydia – Assailants (ZZ)

Full stats can be found here

• Includes: Length, number of songs, intros, smooth/collection, concept/no concept, diversity in emotion, LP # of career, producer.

Quick stats

• Average length: 40.8
• Average amount of songs: 12
• Collection over smooth
• Less concepts
• Only one record was self-produced
• The sophomore slump is a real thing

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Have feedback? Feel free to get in touch with us or to rate the show on iTunes!

Producing, Engineering, Mixing, Mastering

• Jesse explains the differences.
• Zack comments about how Jesse is good at his job.

Why Some Records Get Reissued, But Obvious Ones Have Yet To Be

• Simple: Some labels don’t license out releases.
• Active labels tend to want to keep getting them checks.

How To Seek Management

• Know how to be a proactive band without a manager.
• Our different experiences.
• What a manager should do for you.
• What you should do for a manager.
• Be smart.

Gimmickcore: How To Increase Draw Without Dressing As BVB

• Marketing!
• Promotion!
• Relationships!
• Use Bandcamp to your advance.
• Hard flier.
• Expand your comfort zone.

Our Worst Music Industry Situations

• Zack explains how he leaked a Saves The Day exclusive and almost ruined a relationship.
• Jesse explains how he used to be bad with contracts and almost got sued by my mom (not really my mom).

Recommendations: ”I Am A Machine Gun” Morning Glory music video, Maybe This Place Is The Same… by Real Friends, COPE by Manchester Orchestra.

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Have feedback? Feel free to get in touch with us or to rate the show on iTunes!

Bands That Write The Same Album

• The Dangerous Summer and Rise Against versus Brand New.
• Personal experiences.
• Reinventing yourself, by The Gaslight Anthem.
• From the producer’s perspective.
• From the blogger’s perspective.
• From the fan’s perspective.

The Merch Gap

• What does merch actually cost?
• Merch cost versus vinyl cost.
• Price matching.
• Type of tour versus type of venue versus genre.

Earplugs 

• Do you wear earplugs to shows?
• Why you should be doing so.
• Jesse’s ears are pretty important.
• Zack has hearing loss.

Vinyl Habits

• Do you budget yourself?
• How do we decide what to buy?
• The collection.

Recommendations: Jacob The Rabbit by Park, The Talk Show with guest Ben Thompson, The Internet’s Own Boy.

Sponsored by: 

• Snapback Slim: An incredible minimalist wallet that can handle your cards, cash, and receipts. Snapback Slim 2.0 is now shipping, and Off The Record listeners can take advantage of the launch by using code “offtherecord” for free shipping in the US and $2.50 off on international orders.

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Follow-up: Vinyl reissues

• How to contact a major label for a reissue.
• If you need to be an S-Corp to get in touch with labels.

Viral Hoaxes -> Good vs Cheap Marketing

• Upon A Burning Body fake kidnapping ploy.
• Shone’s 2012 mystery campaign.
• The best and worst ways to market your band.
• Identity is what matters.
• Remember the neon years?
• Franchise mobile tour.

Conflict Of Interests: Jesse and Zack are doing some more stuff

• Jesse is writing a new book.
• Being creative in the right way.
• Jesse is also working on the Hi-Art App.
• Zack is now the label manager of Jade Tree. What does that mean?

Making Good Music

• It’s really hard. Jesse has a great hypothesis.
• From the perspective of the: Producer, manager, label.
• The Klaxons got sent back to the studio.
• Full circle with the identity of your band or image.

Recommendations: The Jade Tree catalog.

Sponsored by: 

• Get More Fans: A 700 page, extensive guide with the resources and methods to promote your band. Detailing everything you need to know to get people to listen to your music and the art around it. Now with 20 more pages including a bonus chapter on the daily habits you can do to get fans for your music.
• Bad Timing Records: Check out Bad Timing for new Park and Knuckle Puck releases in addition to Acceptance, Valencia, and Mansions reissues.

NJ band Franchise has launched what it has dubbed a “Mobile Tour” where they will do targeted advertising in a different city each day to try to have fans encounter a live set they filmed at a local studio. Below is a brief explanation of the idea behind the tour and in the above video you can check out what the band is doing.

“Sometimes, dropping everything in your life and going on tour is simply a bad business decision,”

drummer Corrado Rizzi said. “Is that what we’d love to do for the rest of our lives? Of course it is. But

we weren’t willing to sacrifice our ethos of always making good business decisions as a band to take

such a massive risk in an increasingly murky and unstable music industry. On the flip side, we know

our music deserves to be heard around the world. That is where The Mobile Tour came from.”

When a new band heads out on the road for the first time it’s really tough to grab the attention of

promoters in other states let alone getting people to come out and see a band they never heard of. There

are thousands of bands who share the same dream of being on the road and we wanted to find a way to

stand out, a way for people to give this band a chance. “Im not claiming myself a seasoned veteran in

any way or a road dog of sorts. I did a bunch of DIY tours along with some tours backed by labels and

larger booking agencies and had the time of my life but, from a business perspective it wasn’t exactly

ideal no matter the situation and no matter “who had our backs”. It was never about the money until

the student loans, rent, car payments and other responsibilities that come with getting older started

pouring in” Costa said. “I started to be observant with how many people came through the door when

we stopped in a new city (minus members of the other bands) and I noticed that on a good night maybe

10-15 people came to see their friend’s band and we just happened to be on the bill? That’s 10-15 new

potential fans. Now, why couldn’t we have the same effect reaching these 10-15 potential new fans by

successfully using social media and digital advertising in a smart/creative way?”

For 32 days Franchise is set to target 32 different cities bringing their live show to smartphones and

computers of potential fans. Through digital advertising the band is able to distribute their live set

to these potential fans, who share the same interest in style of music within a 25 mile radius of the

targeted city of that day. “Digital Advertising can be a very powerful tool for musicians, if it’s used

properly. It’s all about knowing which audience to target and how to target them. Through conversion

pixels we even see who is watching us and who likes what we’re doing. This confirms which audience

is delivering the most impressions deeming that individual ad a success or failure,” Costa said. With the

power of social media, Franchise is also getting interest from individuals in other markets across the

country. “Just by using hashtags on twitter and Instagram related to whatever city we are targeting that

day we are getting positive responses from new fans even promoters in these other markets which is

huge for this project,” Costa said. The band isn’t expecting a million views on their video either. “If we

get the 10-15 new potential fans to check it out each day, it’s a success in our book, it will just prove

that this works,” Rizzi said. The Mobile Tour was put in place to build a fan base in other markets

before the band physically gets there. The goal is to be able to prove to promoters that there are people

in their area who are interested in the band and that the draw could be promising.

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Have feedback? Feel free to get in touch with us or to rate the show on iTunes!

Net Neutrality

• The principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication (via Wikipedia).
• John Oliver destroys the FCC.
• Cable companies attempting to create unequal playing field for internet speeds.
• Netflix: It uses a massive amount of data, so an ISP might throttle it’s service, like if you have an unlimited data plan, and use it for gbs a month and then throttle you. Netflix might be incentivized to pay Comcast for better streaming to their customers to keep relations high, but what about if Netflix was just starting today and didn’t have capital. They wouldn’t be able to pay for the “fast lane”
• The FCC wants to hear from you.
• There should only be on internet. Not fast, not slow, not anything in the middle. Just, one.
• Cable providers spend millions of dollars per year in lobbying. Small companies cannot lobby
• Music Freedom: T-Mobile will not count streaming services in Spotify, iTunes Radio, etc against data gaps. Sounds great, but it’s a slippery slope. Everything is not the same with this. Arbitrary free and fast and normal lanes.
• Lawrence Lessig’s MayDay PAC.

on music, blogging, and the horrific intersection of the two

• Drew Millerd, Editor at Noisey.
• A man quits rapping because bloggers didn’t love him.
• What came first, the blogger or the egg?
• Bloggers don’t make people popular, people make people popular.

How royalties for small and big labels work. How royalties for reissues work.

• Reissues: in relation to Bad Timing Records and Acceptance.
• Royalties: 50/50 or PPD.
• Rise Records versus Run For Cover Records.

Recommendations: White Lung, Voice & Verse Podcast.

Sponsored by: 

• Get More Fans: A 700 page, extensive guide with the resources and methods to promote your band. Detailing everything you need to know to get people to listen to your music and the art around it. Now with 20 more pages including a bonus chapter on the daily habits you can do to get fans for your music.
• Bad Timing Records: Check out Bad Timing for new Park and Knuckle Puck releases in addition to Acceptance, Valencia, and Mansions reissues.