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With six months having passed since my band's first (and so far, only) live show, and well over a year since recording our demo, we've been trying to get some sort of momentum going prior to recording a full-length. Lots of demo CDs sent to labels large and small, a fair number of good reviews, and a lot of material written and rehearsed at this point, but it feels like we're going nowhere fast. Our vocalist decided that the whole "going away to college" wasn't working for him, so he moved back and is attending Music Tech in the fall. That means fewer scheduling issues, but now we have no excuse for not making progress.
Recently, I've had a few different people mention compilations to me, as a good way to get our songs out there, sort of a half-step between a demo and an album. The only downside is that it either means 1) spending money to record something that we'll end up re-recording later on, or 2) using an existing song from the demo. Most comps seem to cost around $150 to get included, and without a decent recording setup of our own, we'd have to pay someone to record us. Of course, if the compilation has good promotion and distribution, the exposure will benefit us.
Beyond that, we still would *like* to get signed to a label, even a small one, if it meant more opportunities to get our future full-length out in front of people. Simply selling a CD off our band site or at shows is always an option, but we're hoping to do more than that. Most of the indie labels I've been in contact with (dealing in death metal bands) are very small-time operations that only sell CDs mail-order or from their website, which is not much of an improvement. There has to be something better, even for a virtually unknown band.
Anyone have any experiences with this sort of thing? Before we start spending money to get on compilations, or get halfway through recording an album that we end up sitting on, I'd like to get some input from people who have been down the same road. We're making a few good contacts for playing out, as long as we don't mind being the only death/thrash band playing alongside either Hatebreed-style hardcore bands or one of many local grindcore bands. [img]graemlins/brow.gif[/img]
Recently, I've had a few different people mention compilations to me, as a good way to get our songs out there, sort of a half-step between a demo and an album. The only downside is that it either means 1) spending money to record something that we'll end up re-recording later on, or 2) using an existing song from the demo. Most comps seem to cost around $150 to get included, and without a decent recording setup of our own, we'd have to pay someone to record us. Of course, if the compilation has good promotion and distribution, the exposure will benefit us.
Beyond that, we still would *like* to get signed to a label, even a small one, if it meant more opportunities to get our future full-length out in front of people. Simply selling a CD off our band site or at shows is always an option, but we're hoping to do more than that. Most of the indie labels I've been in contact with (dealing in death metal bands) are very small-time operations that only sell CDs mail-order or from their website, which is not much of an improvement. There has to be something better, even for a virtually unknown band.
Anyone have any experiences with this sort of thing? Before we start spending money to get on compilations, or get halfway through recording an album that we end up sitting on, I'd like to get some input from people who have been down the same road. We're making a few good contacts for playing out, as long as we don't mind being the only death/thrash band playing alongside either Hatebreed-style hardcore bands or one of many local grindcore bands. [img]graemlins/brow.gif[/img]
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