Tip No. 4: Coordinate your tours around the Un-Convention

Having just returned from the 2009 Un-Convention in Salford (Greater Manchester) the birthplace of this little music conference that won’t stay little forever, I would be remiss if I didn’t say: try to time your tours around the Un-Convention. It is the voice for independents largely ignored in this part of the world outside of London.

For a start, you’ll get sage advice like this from people like Martin Atkins who wrote the book to have on touring: Tour Smart. It’s not for the faint of heart, if rough language scares you, but the author is sassy and straight on the mark in his first reminder to take care when planning a tour. Check out this video of Atkins, shot by Andrew Dubber, author and expert of New Music Strategies:

The man knows. Look up his credits. Now, back to the subject at hand…

Money for value, the Un-Convention – as a music conference and gathering point for working artists and independent labels – is the best thing going in the UK. Early bird prices were less than £30 this year. Get your tickets and get on site early enough to introduce yourself to the others who come from all over. It is vital to make friendships, not just hand out flyers or business cards. And on that note, a lot of people don’t do business cards over here. I don’t know why. Lack of money or professionalism might be two reasons. Certainly a sickening amount of flyers paper the streets, as ‘fly-posting’ or postering in many places is ILLEGAL, so it’s not about saving trees. You’ll stand out having a business card at the Un-Convention. Have a pen and a book to capture people’s contact details for those who don’t have a card. But get there early enough to spend time asking questions and, yep, listening. You’ll learn a lot as you figure out who might have something valuable to share with you by way of tips, resources, great venues to check out, distribution channels in this part of the world.

A side note: one promoter said something interesting yesterday that perked up my ears. “I don’t know what it is about Canadians. They have great websites, beautiful websites. But you can’t find their music!” He was speaking about the necessity of having a MySpace page. It’s essential in the UK. It is industry standard, and often it is the only webpage that artists have and promoters will look at.

Another thing to note: if you have a record label in the UK, and you’re going to be going at it hard here, there is a LOT of controversy around joining the PPL, an organization created for the purposes of collecting label royalties for performances – and I am no expert in this. But it was made clear to me upon further questioning that in the UK, if you run a record label, you can (without giving up your relationship to your own performing rights society ASCAP/BMI/SOCAN/etc.), collect further income that both the US and Canada don’t collect for and don’t talk about. Canada apparently collects one portion of the moneys I’m vaguely alluding to here, and that’s good enough for me to look further into this; the US organizations are not established to collect two-thirds of the pie. Therefore, there may be merit if you’re over here to look at what arrangements with the PPL can benefit you as a foreign artist living or touring regularly in the UK. However, tread with caution, as here’s where the debate raged deeply with the indies here who have said that they don’t receive what’s owed to them, due to faulty tracking systems, which is a raging debate worldwide with these societies; yet a number of the artists confessed they haven’t been organized enough to go after what is their ‘due’, I noticed. If I had not come to Un-Convention this year, I would never have had at least the vaguest notion of this aspect of the music industry infrastructure, and if you’re serious about gigging and touring at the international level, then it’s worth getting informed. In getting informed about PPL and another organization up for debate, the PRS (which seems to be a substitute for your own performing rights organization, so I won’t be changing over unless I immigrate here), there will be much fine print to sort through and, again, the point was driven home: being independent is no excuse for being ignorant. Certainly, this session within the Un-Convention really attempted to shed some light on confusing matters that matter to independent artists.

Now, I won’t pretend that the Un-Convention caters to the roots-folk market (which seems to drive more of the popular North American ’sound’ than in Europe). But it’s not that it doesn’t. It will expand more in this direction, I am certain, as attenders continue to give more input and as the volunteer base grows to get the word out to the more folk-based artists/labels in the UK not yet in attendance here. It is still a conference run by a small group of people with limited energy and resources to reach out to broader audiences, so if you’re folk-roots based, you might feel like you’re not quite in the right place. Look past the hair-do’s and first impressions, and listen to the music between panel sessions, and you’ll discover that even if an act is promoted in certain edgy alternative emo indie contexts, what you’ll hear when you shove past all the written hype…is the singer-songwriter. As one American friend I know has said about the raging Americana that is popular over here, in the end, it’s often just…yep…folk music.

Indeed, there were a few singer-songwriters mixed in with the bands at Un-Convention, and this year the artists were invited to play a central role in the conference by actually speaking on the first panel. An observation I made was that some of the artists, particularly those with management and working hard to fast-track their own careers forward, might appear to have  little time to talk to you – as everybody is jostling, whether they admit it or not, for that one connection that can help them further expose their music and get them to the next working level. But they might be willing if you catch them in quiet moments somewhere between a brew (tea!) or a beer. You have to be bold and up-front, and like anywhere, read the signals of the people you meet. Consider it an opportunity to find out how singer-songwriters in the UK go about marketing themselves to various audiences: the festivals, the urban venues, the college crowds. It’s an interesting study. I haven’t met one person yet who targets the traditional folk clubs that aren’t actually all ‘trad’. So, again, this is a good place to explore the alternative to that.

Finally, attend the after parties, of course, and most especially the convention wrap-up, which is a celebration of artists and labels. Running around with only a business card and a one-line no-time-waster of a request, “I’m just introducing my label and my music to people tonight” met with a favorable response from literally everyone in the room, even though the bands on stage were true blue British punk rock bands and a fascinating study in the level of output visually that may be required in England to reach stardom. I was amazed to come across a Manchester Evening News music writer who, it turned out, had attended my band’s gig at In the City music conference that happens in this city every October (read: major label driven and, uh, can I be candid? – bordering on boring as hell and full of super snotty people, unlike Liverpool’s new music conference Sound City or the nearby, massive, terrific and overwhelming Midem held in Cannes, France, the conference to go to if you’ve got serious money and want to connect with some internationally focused ‘tradesters’, big and small, in the UK industry from outside of the UK industry). Attending the closing night party and meeting up with this journalist who had nothing but good to say about the set, and notably she commented on how tired she was of ‘indie’ rock bands that all sound the same (and now you know what mainstream UK media is largely focused on), for me, it was yet another highlight from participating in the entire experience of Un-Convention. Be yourself and be there. You never, ever know who you might meet. Several promoters and the media are all in attendance, dressed as civilians!

So, Tip No. 4 is: Coordinate your tours around the Un-Convention.

You’ll meet people from all facets of the UK music industry, and most importantly you’ll hear from independents on the ground what their working experiences are like.It’s an outstanding opportunity to get ideas for getting “400 bums in seats” as one young music manager said to me, working the university crowd like I’ve not seen yet in this country. Good for him. You’ll be able to see the degree of shyness and swagger that co-exist in this world, and it’ll take some of the mystique quickly out of being a foreign artist here. Dive in. And bear one last thing in mind: if there was one universal message repeated time and again here at Un-Convention, it is to play, play, play and build your audience one fan at a time.

Tip No. 3: Know your niche and adapt like a true professional

Are you ‘acoustic’ or ‘folk’? Because it matters. Let me explain. 

When I first arrived in the UK and started to perform, I started off with a Google search of the open mic nights for Manchester. What turned up was a listing by Tom Kerswill who happens to know just about everybody in this city. Very nice guy. Super connected. Does sound for just about everybody in the folk-roots scene, too. Or, I should say, the acoustic scene. Now you might be wondering: folk…acoustic…what’s the difference? 

It took several months to hook up with an American songwriter who has become a close friend and compadre of mine, also a band member when I play with a band. Zoe Mulford informed me of a magazine called Folk Northwest which lists, for three months in advance, the folk clubs in the Northwest region of the UK. It wasn’t until we met and then attended a few of these ’singers nights’ that I discovered that folk clubs and singers’ nights within the context of folk clubs are not created equally. 

(This is scratching the surface, so bear in mind: I may add to this post, or just keep adding new posts that further elaborate on this.)

There are established folk clubs that have been running for, oh, just 45 years or so. I’m serious. 30 or 40 years. The last one I had the occasion to do a ‘floor spot’ for, or essentially three songs before the showcasing guest artist, was in the Southwest and it had been in operation for 45 years under different leadership. These kinds of folk clubs differ based upon history and culture of the organizers and communities themselves, but by and large are more geared to old timey music or traditional English music, truly, or something that will please an older audience: the last audience was comprised of individuals averaging somewhere between 55 and 70 in age. There were younger folks, but not too many. Ani Difranco would not fare well in such a folk club, though I chose my songs carefully and geared them towards the audience, and things went fine. That’s the key, in all situations: play to your audience, of course. 

Then there are clubs like the Chorlton Folk Club based right in the heart of Manchester’s southern community Chorlton. That’s a folk club that meets weekly on a Thursday night, for a pound entrance fee, and it’s just two songs a night all night long for everyone who shows up to sing, read or recite a poem, bash on a guitar, sing Johnny Cash from way back, hang hair down and squeal in the most strange but intriguing way (like Martin Sexsmith, only not as good). Bookings are sporadic there, and unannounced to the eclectic crowd that come to hear themselves sing. (Apparently, the turnout is lower for guest artists. So, this promoter’s strategy is simply not to tell his regulars, but to surprise them! How’s that for marketing?) It’s a wonderful crowd of regulars and some-timers that come in through the doors of the local cricket club, come up the stairs, find a table, go back down to the pub where the regulars simply shoot the breeze all night long, never mind the music. Once the music starts at 9 PM, this is a listening audience that will applaud anything and anyone brave enough to get up. This is community support at its best. Really full of heart. It can be a good way to gain exposure, and for sure you’ll find some people are professionally working at this. You have to come regularly to get the true essence of what this kind of folk club can do for you. 

There’ll be an intermission between each performer for a few moments, so the audience can gab, but once the artist is introduced, you’re to shut your mouth and listen. Sometimes a local promoter from elsewhere will come scouting. Sometimes there’ll be an anniversary potluck to celebrate the club’s existence. Sometimes it’ll be the same ol’ same ol’, but you’ll love it because these people become friends and outside of the context of the folk club, some of these friends are actively working the market in the area and beyond. Seem familiar? 

Many, if not most, folk clubs have regular ’staffers’ who man the doors, sell raffle tickets for that bottle of wine or box of chocolates. Gifting a CD can be a good publicity stunt, and it’s always appreciated.

Some folk clubs won’t book you if you’re not on the A-circuit, and I have yet to find out what that means, except you need to have a long and proven track record of playing venues that pay in the UK. Sometimes having experience elsewhere means diddley squat. Sometimes, as one promoter said to me, it’s a boon to the promoter because it appears the event/club is capable of drawing ‘international acts’. Indeed. 

Nevertheless, most folk clubs make you feel so at home, you just feel like you’ve known the organizers for years. Or you want to. The Sale Folk Club is especially run according to these ‘rules’, by the nicest people who pride themselves on their hospitality. Sale specifically prints off the ‘minutes’ of each Tuesday night singaround (literally, ten or fifteen artists/acts in the room take a turn at a song, though I was granted a bit of extra floor space as a ‘guest artist’ the night I went). So, those on the mailing list will learn of you. Nice touch. 

In Stalybridge, on the edge of the Pennines, Acoustic Eclectic is another one of these run by the nicest people – Jon Orpheus, his wife and friends – booked six months in advance also, and always a great time. What strikes me about this venue/event and these promoters is that they put on a weekly show, include floor spots for those who want to play and truly love what they’re doing. They pay a small fee to the booked performer, and you LOVE playing for them, because they love you. It can’t get any better than that. Oh, but it does. Sometimes, they throw up all weekend long showcases in outdoor tents! Lovely. Always well publicized, too. Venues like this are a good place to hang out because you’re likely to meet every professional and up-and-coming artist in the area, if you stick around long enough; it’s a good way to build new alliances.

Some folk clubs like Dukinfield’s Acoustic Collective run by longstanding regular performers like Ann English are booked up to six or nine months in advance, and the folks running it are involved in radio, print magazines, folk festivals. You never know who you’ll meet, so treat all folk club management with the greatest of respect, and win them over. Then thank them afterwards!!! It’s a small touch that surely goes a long way. 

Folk and Roots is another good source for folk clubs. 

Then you have the pubs that promote acoustic open mic nights like The Trof in Manchester. These are good to cut your teeth on, and you’ll typically get three songs and a chance to perform often in front of a university audience, if in a large city, or the locals. Promoters might ask you to play for free to do an opening act performance for a touring act. You’ll have to work to get an entire night where you can actually charge a door charge. Try frequenting hot little music collectives, like the Undergrowth Collective or Hobopop Collective in Manchester, which essentially are groups of bands and artists who have figured out that it’s easier to go farther together. In fact, create your own collective and consider doing something a colleague and I never got around to: “Womenfolk Invasions”, as an example. 

Liverpool has its own very ‘happening’ scene, and Liverpool Acoustic Live has one of the hottest things going, run by the wonderful Graham Holland of It’s a Frog’s Life Acoustic Podcast and his cohort Stuart Todd. It was in Liverpool that I felt I had come across an edge and professionalism in music that presented more diversity than I’d been accustomed to hearing in the Manchester (thus far). Maybe it has to do with the fact that the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) is pumping out some stellar talent. I don’t know. Something is in the frog’s waters over there. Liverpool could be a very good place to start. It’s smaller than London and Manchester, but seems to have a big heart and some very exciting things going on underneath the skin. 

London’s Green Note Cafe in the heart of Camden Town (a twist on the famed ‘Blue Note’) has to be one of the coolest places to play, offering all kinds of delectables on a Sunday afternoon while you’re waiting your turn to play at the open mic, a pre-requisite for getting a band spot on a Sunday mid-session (which is paid for by the tip jar, walked around by staff after the set). If you impress them enough, you’ll be entitled one day, one dayyyyyyyy to a proper showcase evening. And then what will you do? Bring an opening act, or something. The Green Note doesn’t open until 1 PM sharp. The long-timers show up late but waltz up to the front of the line the minute the door opens, and they’re put on the list early, if not first. But you accept that. You accept that because it’s the coolest place to play in London, or it seems to be. The pillows on the benches and the packed in crowd which forces turnaways and the nachos and yummy drinks and views of the soundwoman knitting and yawning between sets, but loving the music, add up to the best fun ever. This is what you’re aiming for. Hang out, if you’re in London. Be aware of the very big flyer with musicians booked months in advance. Great keepsake. Great reading.

Finally, you can try to apply to the festivals, but as always, you need to be on this by applying the month after they’ve wrapped up the last festival. fRoots Magazine online has a good folk fest listing as does SpiralEarth Magazine online. There are over 300 festivals in the UK, and I have had luck approaching many with a pitch to the effect of “I’m here for the next short while…any chance of a last minute booking?” Even with a proper press kit, it’s not the best way to go about it, but such an approach with a friendly, professional attitude will get you into some fests. I was booked into one of the UK’s best world music festivals, Musicport, last year but consider it a stroke of luck. Plan in advance.

Phew. So, chew on that. 

Tip No. 3 is this: Know your niche when pitching yourself to promoters, and adapt like a true professional.  

Now, get out there and play. JFDI.

Tip No. 2: Know why are you coming over here

There are many reasons for wanting to come to the UK and perform. Here were some of mine for wanting to come to this glorious land:

1. I had a British friend who extended the invitation to come over. It seemed like a good idea at the time. 
2. I thought it would be easier than trying to plan cross-Canadian or North American tours which, from what I could tell, seemed to involve way too much driving and high costs – gas, hotels, meals, and fees for players hard to convince to get in a wagon and go long distances without good pay. I figured I could tour at least half of the UK more easily  and for less money than it would take me to cover the entire province of Alberta, which is about the same size as mainland UK. I also thought I’d stir up more of a buzz in the process because I’d touch more communities, me and my guitar.  
3. I translated in my head: more gigs = more sales = a more lucrative career in the UK than in Canada. 
4. The festival market in Canada was tough to break into but is one of the best ways to develop your fan base fast without having to tour up and down the country several times and gig nightly for several months. My ‘day job’, teaching, kept me pretty close to home, and I wasn’t in the position to tour far and wide except during the summer months, which really posed a dilemma. I thought it would be easier to get into at least a few of the hundreds of festivals in the UK, which might pique the interest of festival organizers in Canada. A bitchy confession: I thought I’d get more ‘respect’ as a foreign artist in the UK – and more gigs.
5. I thought, of all the foreign countries, England would be a good place to go, because people speak the same language here. I didn’t anticipate any difficulties adjusting, culturally. 

That’s probably a good place to stop right there.

I had many reasons for wanting to come to the UK to gig and perform. Hindsight is golden. I was naive as to how a music career is built, for I was just getting started. Yet there are some truths nestled away in my illusions.

I learned, when I went to Boston’s Berklee College of Music in 1998, two summers after I left Canada, that it helps to go where the action is. I’d never come across such a variety of artists and found it so easy to find someone who could understand my musical ‘language’ as I did at Berklee. There, the plethora of talent could steal your breath away. Certainly, it opened my eyes. So, I learned then – and the winter before while studying Indian ragas on the banks of the Ganges river under the tutelage of the most amazing teachers – that location can be key. What convinced me to follow this hunch and specifically come to the UK to live and play was the suggestion of a music manager I’d met years before in Canada at a conference. Twenty years after we first swapped business cards, I contacted him for advice at a key point in my decision making process. He said that one of his artists was, indeed, thriving in the UK. “Go to England,” he said. “There’s a lot happening there.” It turned out to be true.

However, it’s not true that you’ll get into a UK festival without a seriously brilliant story and a career path behind you with real accomplishments. The competition is fierce. I can humbly say, even with some distinct competitive advantages, I’ve had to pave my way here by attending several acoustic open mic nights. It’s taken time to meet musical friends who are more in the ‘know’ than me to help steer me towards the paying gigs. Read: folk clubs. Getting into festivals here requires the same degree of professional accomplishment required at home. So, don’t delude yourself into thinking that without a truly ‘unique selling point’ as a performer you’re going to come onto the folk fest scene here and get gigs just because you’re a foreigner. It doesn’t work that way. There are plenty of foreign artists working in the UK. It still requires musical talent, accomplishment, and a laying of the groundwork through networking. 

The good news is that there are as many crappy artists hacking about the open mic nights as there are good players and singers. The beauty of the acoustic scene here is that anything goes. If you’re good, you can actually make a bit of money selling product, and everyone is welcome, as the spirit should be with such nights. The good news, too, is that it is easier and less of a hassle to go smaller distances to play. If you have the right visa, you can hold a job in the UK, gig and get home to bed every night because most events stop at 11 PM, and most open mics run from Sunday night to Thursday night, with a few also running Fridays, too. It’s a little harder if you’re only here as a visitor and have to take the trains, but the country is well linked and I do have an American friend who has gotten around nicely (with stories to tell) via bumming rides and riding the rails. 

It isn’t true that automatically you’ll find someone in your town or area who can play what you need them to play. You have to look for your musical comrades like anywhere, and that can be tough as you simply try to orient your way around to find the venues.

It is helpful to have a friend of the land to stay with while you’re here. It cuts costs, and things cost a lot in the UK. 

It also helps that this is an English-speaking territory. But bear in mind, even here in Manchester with its ten boroughs and gazillions of ‘villages’ that simply equate to ‘neighborhoods’ where I come from in Canada, the dialects change from village to village, and I have been to parts of Scotland and to Dublin city centre (hopping the waters a bit) to find that I couldn’t understand hide nor hair of what was being said to me. It doesn’t happen often, but it depends on where you go. England is not Canada. England is not America. England is England, Scotland is Scotland, Wales is Wales and Northern Ireland is Northern Ireland. The UK has its own distinct collection of identities. That’s half the fun. Expect to undergo a degree of culture shock. 

Finally, it is true that if you’re good and have a good story to tell and songs to sing, you will be treated on occasion with more respect than you would perhaps get at home. I’ve been signed to a few festivals with that as a consideration. At least three people this year have commented on the fact that having a foreign artist on the roster looks good, gives the village festival some stature and sells tickets. The rub is that you’re not going to be able to command a higher performance fee because of it.

This is just to whet your appetite. I will elaborate on these points in more detail another time. 

So, Tip No. 2 is this: Know why you are coming over here.

In other words, do an inventory of your reasons for wanting to come to the UK. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that you’re going to have instant success here. Examine your expectations carefully.

This topic will come up again, I’m sure, as I interview other artists and ask them what they expected and how their experiences matched their expectations – or didn’t. Cheers.

Tip No. 1: Expect the unexpected

Welcome to Gig in the UK, the tip site for songwriters wanting to gig and tour in the British Isles and the countries of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and, if the winds take us to the Republic of Ireland, there, too.

My name is Lorelei Loveridge.  I am a performing songwriter, recording artist, record label proprietor of Orderly Bazaar Records & Publishing, and world traveller. After eighteen years of teaching internationally, I am currently at work on my master of arts and cultural management with an Australian university while I tour the UK. You can read my bio here, visit my home page here, and have a listen to (and purchase, if you like) the songs from my new album Bakhoor here. Enough about me.

I started this blog because, since moving to the great music city Manchester in 2007, I have been asked by artists from Canada, Australia, and the USA, “How do I go about planning a tour in the UK?” I had the same question twelve years ago when I left Canada for Saudi Arabia to teach and bank cash before a planned move to England. How naive of me. The road of a traveller is rarely as you expect it. It took me a decade to get here, and it’s taken me longer than I thought it would to understand this culture and its musical terrain. 

Even the world’s greatest independent songwriter Ani Difranco has been known to lose money repeatedly while on tour in Europe. Author Daylle Deanna Schwarz suggests having a booking agent or someone to stay with while here. A scan of the most popular music business literature online reveals very little about the practicalities of how to promote music as a visiting/touring artist in the UK.

I’ll start by saying this: despite knowing a lot about the music business in Canada and the US, I immediately hit the professional wall when I moved to England. I knew no one, knew very little about the music industry infrastructure which I had researched for a business plan but which turned out to be not as expected. The support that I was used to in Canada did not and does not exist here in the same way. There are no ‘music associations’ to represent and draw together all facets of the music industry: songwriters, studios, promoters, etc. Rather, it’s a hodge-podge of small groups and regional offices and organizations representing niches. That should be good news, but try to find a media list when you need one!

So, Tip No. 1 is this: Expect the unexpected and plan for it. 

How? Check back regularly to find out. 

I’ll be adding to this weekly and more, as I work upon a goal of 200 performance dates here this year. Other artists here in the UK will be interviewed and are welcome to offer their tips, too, by posting comments or contacting me directly via my homepage. If you, dear reader, have a question, throw it (instead of a sheep) at me, and I’ll do my level best to answer ye.