Today I had another opportunity to have an article featured on Mashable.com. It’s always an honor to write for them. The post is all about releasing music in this New Music Economy. You can read it here. I featured some really fresh artists like:

• Panacea
• Mike Posner
• Rob and Kal
• Glasses Malone
• Kottonmouth Kings
• Get Busy Committee

If you are coming from Mashable and this is your first time visiting Gen-Y Rock Stars, welcome. I wanted to point out some of our more popular content for you to check out:

• Music Marketing in 2010
• Musician Outsourcing
• Using Threadless To Source Merch Ideas
• Don’t Turn Twitter Into Myspace
• Is Your Music Career A Launch Pad For Something Bigger?
• Direct Response Is The Future Of The Music Business

We also have 2 really cool products for musicians and those in the music industry

The New Music Economy

The New Music Economy is a 5 video, 4 workbook course that goes through a musician’s marketing mindset, how to create products for today’s music fan, how to use engaging and compelling content to attract a fan base and how to set up a system to sell stuff to these fans.

Learn more or join the New Music Economy.

Label 2.0

Label 2.0 is an interactive music marketing training portal. Looking at everything from email marketing to social media to content creation, as well as live calls with A&R’s, booking agents, music services, merch companies, adding private forums and the creation of musician focused tools, there really is no better education for today’s DIY musician.

Learn more or join Label 2.0.

Music Marketing Services

If you are an artist that would like to reach out about our services, please send an email to marketing @ genyrockstars.com. Please be as specific as possible in your email so that we can have an engaging conversation and see if we can work with you.

Currently we are looking to bring in artists that are looking to build a long-term business through building a fan base build on user data and an integrated sales platform. We do this through a heavily involved email marketing, internet marketing and social media tactics. We have been using them to increase the fan base and revenue of artists on Cash Money Records, Warner Bros, PolyPlat, SoundOps and a handful of indie musicians and artists.

If you would like to connect further, please

• follow and engage on Twitter
• join the Label 2.0 Facebook group
• Grab the RSS Feed
• signup for the mailing list and get a bunch of goodies like the 100 Resources For DIY Musicians.

And let’s close this out with what is currently in my iPod:

• New Freeway and Jake One
• Smash City Gauntlet
• Kid Cudi

Stay fresh!

-Greg

My buddy Danny Dee (@dannydee on Twitter) just put out a great slidedeck on music marketing in the urban space. Danny has an amazing resume for a young guy in this business and I echo nearly everything he has to say.

Check it out below and be sure to follow this guy.

Danny and I, along with some other familiar faces in the hip-hop marketing space are putting together an awesome package for urban and hip-hop artists, management companies and labels. I hope to have some previews and leaked content in the next few weeks. With SXSW coming up, the music industry basically freezes over the next few weeks as the focus turns to Austin.

Unfortunately for SXSW goers I will be kicking it in Florida, chillin on the beach. However, if you are going to be at either the Harvest Of Hope Festival in St. Augustine or the Winter Music Conference, hit me up as I will be lurking around them, connecting with artists and shooting a ton of video footage.

Till next time!

-Greg

Below is a 5 minute excerpt from an interview that I did with Chris Ducker of Virtual Business Lifestyle on outsourcing your music business and the ways that you can use virtual assistants and overcome your fears of having others do some of your repetitive tasks for you.

In the full version of the audio (which you can find as a bonus to the New Music Economy Course), we go over how Chris outsources his entire Facebook marketing and still keeps it personal and polished without ever having to check it. We also talk about first steps and how to get started with outsourcing as well as the difference between tasks and ongoing projects.

If you want to learn more about Chris visit him at:

• Virtual Business Lifestyle
• Twitter
• Facebook

Join the New Music Economy and get your music business on track. Learn all about it here (+ get all the music outsourcing bonuses).

Last week I talked about some of the ways to use Twitter and some of the ways not to (like Turning Twitter Into Myspace). The post got a strong reaction on, none other than, Twitter.

Last week I also stumbled upon a really sweet plugin to showcase the things your fans are saying about you on Twitter. It is very simple and can really boost the social proof of your music. By showing that other people are talking positively about your music, you will attract and gain the trust of others that are coming to check out your music.

The plugin is called Tweet-stimonials (#twtmnls) and was developed by Jeff Sarris. It works right in your Wordpress sidebar and I’ll show you how it works right here in a few easy steps.

Step 1

First, the plugin works with an extremely underused feature of Twitter - favorites. So, step one is to favorite Tweets you want to display on your site.

So, go and favorite a few Tweets. You can look in your @ replies, or do some custom searches for your songs, albums or artist names if different from your Twitter handle.

Step 2

Next is to go ahead and install the plug-in. Pretty standard stuff here for those using Wordpress.

Step 3

Configure it to work with your site.

Step 4

Check out your site and all the cool stuff that people are saying about you.

More About Tweet-stimonials

From the Tweet-stimonials Website:

Be sure to watch Laura’s original video presentation regarding this concept, but the idea is as follows.

Twitter has a built-in function for flagging your favorite tweets; something that, from what I can tell, isn’t used by too many people. Well Laura Roeder presents the idea of using that same function to “favorite” all of those good things that your customers are already saying about you.

By marking these tweets as favorites, you are then able to automatically publish them to your site, making for one of the easiest and fastest ways to publish testimonials. As soon as you mark a new tweet as a favorite, it show up on your site. It’s that easy.

Laura provides excellent step-by-step instruction in her video for connecting this feed to your website, however I wanted a bit more flexibility in styling so I developed this CSS friendly plugin (with Twitter avatars) and called it Tweet-stimonials.

How Musicians Can Use It

As an artist it is really important to use social proof elements surrounding your music and your culture. Your goal in showcasing Tweet-stimonials is generally the same when soliciting testimonials from other bands, venues, producers, fans and other pivitol players in your music business.

Marketing in general becomes much easier when others are saying good things about you. Think about restaurants. When people want to discover a new restaurant, they typically ask their friends, family or co-workers and go based on their recommendations.

Same for new music. We disover new music in a very social way. Talking with friends, listening to music at a party, club, venue or radion. Getting a 3rd party to say that you are awesome helps to validate your own claims.

With this plug-in you have the capability to take someone’s comments about your art and showcase that in a very clean and not so “in your face” way.

Go Install And Report Back

I want to encourage you to go out and take advantage of this plugin. If you are using Wordpress, install the plugin, go favorite some Tweets that say your music rocks, or is dope or whatever and report the link in the comments below. I will feature you in an upcoming post and/or report on Wordpress For Musicians (I might have a new something, something coming out for musicians and Wordpress, wink, wink).

It wil be some cool exposure for your music and more importantly will deliver some social proof to your existing site which will result in increased mailing list signups, more social engagement and hopefully more music sales.

-Greg

Below is a 4-minute audio sample from an interview I did with Robert Granholm from IT Arsenal on outsourcing in the music industry. We had a great 25 minute or so chat and this preview has some sweet info as well.

Check it out and be sure to get more from Rob with these resources:

• Guest post here on Process Designed Outsourcing + Automtion For Musicians
• IT Arsenal
• The Life Design Project
• Twitter

New Music Economy

If you want full access to this audio, along with more outsourcing tips for musicians, you can get it all right now, instanly with the New Music Economy Course.

The New Music Economy is a full music marketing and business course with 5 videos and 4 workbooks touching on everything from your mindset, to creating products, developing a sales funnel, automation and creating content to keep bloggers and media talking about you constantly so that your new fan funnel stays active at all times.

Learn more and pick it up here.

-Greg

We first profiled We Are Hunted a few weeks back and they have continued to be one of my favorite music discovery sites along with Grooveshark and The Sixty One.

This week they released 2 major features that are really exciting for their company and also for us music marketers and musicians out there.

The first feature is a new music discovery application built on the Myspace API called Hunted Radio. Essentially the app monitors what Myspace users are listening to and plays you songs based on the most popular song in the last 60 seconds! They state that the music is a mix of

emerging hip-hop, indie and a strange splash of country.

You can listen to Hunted Radio through their Myspace player, or on your iPhone or Android mobile device.

We Are Hunted Research

The second release is the one I am all excited about, We Are Hunted Research. They have amassed a ton of data from looking into social networks and what people are listening to on the social web over the last few months. And they want to share it!

Right now on their research page they have listed the most popular artists and the one I decided to look into was Grizzly Bear. When you download the PDF report, here is what they have the ability to show you:

This report reviews the popularity of Grizzly Bear on the music charts and in the music news for the period 2009. It benchmarks Grizzly Bear against the 1,935 artists that appeared on the We Are Hunted charts during this period. The results are based on an analysis of 216,617 music articles and 11,728,789 music related tweets. News is sourced from a range of publishers including all the major music news sites and an army of passionate bloggers worldwide. Charts are compiled from samples of hundreds of charts in a range of music genres. This report was written by the We Are Hunted team and generated using the semantic analysis system that powers the wearehunted.com website.

From there you can see charts and graphs (over 30 pages worth) that include:

The Mainstream Chart

This section presents the mainstream chart performance for Grizzly Bear compared to similar artists. Grizzly Bear was ranked 62nd overall of the 1,935 artists analyzed. During this period the average chart position on the We Are Hunted mainstream chart for Grizzly Bear was 7th.

Mainstream Comparison

This section compares the mainstream chart performance of Grizzly Bear against similar artists. These charts illustrate relative popularity over time. Popularity is computed from the normalised chart position for each day. 1.0 means Grizzly Bear was ranked 1st overall of our charts for that day. 0.0 denotes Grizzly Bear did not chart at all.

Emerging Chart

This section presents the emerging chart performance for Grizzly Bear compared to similar artists. Grizzly Bear was ranked 9th overall of the 1,935 artists analyzed. During this period the average chart position on the We Are Hunted emerging chart for Grizzly Bear was 4th.

Emerging Comparison

This section compares the emerging chart performance of Grizzly Bear against similar artists. These charts illustrate relative popularity over time. Popularity is computed from the normalised chart position for each day. 1.0 means Grizzly Bear was ranked 1st overall of our charts for that day. 0.0 denotes Grizzly Bear did not chart at all.

Mainstream Singles

This section presents the best charting singles for Grizzly Bear on the Mainstream We Are Hunted charts

Emerging Singles

This section presents the best charting singles for Grizzly Bear on the Emerging We Are Hunted charts

New Popularity

This section shows the total number of music articles mentioning Grizzly Bear during this time period and the overall rank of Grizzly Bear when compared to similar artists.

News Comparison

This section compares the number of music articles mentioning Grizzly Bear during this time period to similar artists.

Top Publishers

Twitter Popularity

This section shows the number of tweets indicating that someone was listening to Grizzly Bear during this time period. Included is the overall ranking of Grizzly Bear when compared to similar artists.

ReTweet Coverage

This section shows the total clicks generated by retweets of articles mentioning Grizzly Bear during this time period.

Twitter News Activity

This section lists the articles mentioning Grizzly Bear that were shared the most on Twitter during this period.

News Highlights

This section includes the most repeated statements in the music press about Grizzly Bear month by month during this period.

And then comes the Appendixes…

THIS IS PURE MARKETING GOLD!!!!

First comes a list of all the top publishers that wrote something about Grizzly Bear. It even tells you how many times they published something with their band name in it. They list the top 100 sources!

This is like my new gold mine. If I had an artist that sounded like Grizzly Bear, I know how over 100 sources that wrote articles about them. Time to get to work, but that’s not all.

There is also a list of the top 200 overall publishers that We Are Hunted Indexes. From the New York Times to Hype Machine all the way down to The Vinyl District, Jazz Times and White Folks Get Crunk.

If your music was charted on We Are Hunted (there were over 1,900 artists featured) you can shoot them a quick email and they can run a similar report for you. This is amazing work and something that is priceless to the artists, marketing companies, management teams and smart asses that can actually do something powerful with this amount of data!

What do you think about this kind of data availability? What else can you do with these numbers and figures? What is missing? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments below.

-Greg

(live Twitter Stream of @iamjayali)

We all know what happened to Myspace. Friend Bots, comment SPAM and really just a lot of  noise.

The problem is that it seems musicians are not learning from the past. Especially in the hip-hop genre (sorry to call you out, but it seems like you keep coming back like, well, use your freaky on the weekend imaginations).

Last night, as I put the iPhone on the charger I get a buzz. It’s a Twitter DM (I still get them to my phone because I have a lot of clients and close associates that like to get in touch quickly that way). The Tweet below for everyone to see:

(DM from PROMOMAN to check out his brand new free download)

Here is the issue I have with this one Tweet and I’ll get into more specifics in a minute.

Yes, @PROTOMANIA I am following you so that opens up the communications channel to send DM’s. But before you send me some track from you and a producer I never heard of, maybe you should have started a conversation with me. Maybe you could have noticed that I just got off an hour and a half call with 200+ musicians on music marketing and merchandising.

You could have asked how it was. Sorry you missed it. Then slipped in the, “Hey man, I know you are busy but I’d love your feedback on this track because…“

You should also know that I don’t review artists here. I plug some Label 2.0 members every once in a while, but that’s the extent of it.

Lastly - don’t send me bullshit links from spammy sharing sites. Use something professional like BandCamp or SoundCloud. Or, look at hosting the tracks on your own domain (here’s a great price on hosting!) or use Amazon S3.

Here Is the Overall Problem With Artists And Twitter

Twitter is a two-way communication platform. That means a discussion, talking back and forth. Yes, it is a platform for you to communicate with fans. To share messages. I certainly do. I use it to announce calls, new products, new posts. But I also use it to talk to musicians, bloggers, friends and others. I use it to share helpful information, fun blog posts, videos or cool stuff that I think my followers will like.

Chris Brogan wrote a homerun post called “Stop Talking About Yourself.” This is certainly a tough concept for the ego-centric music business to take in, but here is some knowledge for you to take in:

“Check your last 10 blog posts, your last 10 tweets. Are they all about you. Are they all about your products, your services, whatever it is you’re pushing? How many are about you versus those that are about others (either directly about them or empowering them)?”

• Are you empowering your fans?
• Are you involving them in some way - maybe the creative process, a contest, soliciting feedback, etc?
• Are you building and strengthening relationships with music industry professionals (I know more than I can count that love to chat, respond and help on Twitter - are you spamming them with listen to my music requests or looking for build long term relationships)?

Get back to basics in your music marketing approach. How are you going to make people care about you? Then they can care about your music.

Stop using Twitter like Myspace. Learn from the past and build real relationships. Build a real career, a real business.

Who’s down with that?

-Greg

]]> http://www.genyrockstars.com/2010/03/dont-turn-twitter-into-myspace.html/feed http://www.genyrockstars.com/2010/03/dont-turn-twitter-into-myspace.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Gen-yRockStars/~3/MW7V2gH3lH8/spring-training-music-marketing.html http://www.genyrockstars.com/2010/03/spring-training-music-marketing.html#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:24:52 +0000 gregrollett http://www.genyrockstars.com/?p=592

I wanted to share a quick video with you today on getting back to the fundamentals of your music career and music marketing in general. I’ve been hearing from a lot of musicians about how to take their career to where they want to go and many times they are not even ready to present themselves to the world.

Check out the video and I’ll have some more insight after the jump:

Spring Training Music Marketing

So in the video, I compared your music marketing to baseball’s spring training. Every March major league baseball players descend upon Florida and Arizona for spring practice and spring training. They use the month to get back to fundamentals, work on their strengths and get into playing shape. They go through brutal workouts, blazing heat and play games at 1pm everyday for a month to get up for a 162 game season.

And these guys are getting paid top dollar.

Imagine if you took the same approach to your music career?

Get into spring practice for your own music business. Work on the fundamentals that will prepare you to have a great year. In the video I mention the 4 key areas to focus on right now, before you go off and work on any marketing tactics - get these down:

• Your Music
• Your Website
• Play Shows
• Start Building Your List

Your Music

First thing is first. If your music aint good, no one cares about anything else. And if your music isn’t in the formats that your fans need to listen to it in, it’s the same as not existing at all. So, go record. Then get your MP3’s, WAV’s, losless and other formats for all the places you are going to need to send them. Get feedback and get your music into your fans hands as quick as possible.

Your Website

This is the broken-record portion of this post. Get at least one domain from GoDaddy and get hosting from HostGator. Quit relying on 3rd parties to hold the most important thing about your business - your data. Go install Wordpress, look for a theme and have your site up today. Not next week or next month - today.

Play Shows

If you really want to be a player you need to play shows and in order to get top dollar at your shows you need to have a great show and draw a crowd. Common sense right? Well then, stop waiting for the big payout and go play out. Open-mics, jam sessions, MC battles, beat showcases - anything to start developing a crowd and getting in your practice.

Start Building Your List

To me, this is the most essential business move in the game right now. Go sign up to Aweber, FanBridge or ReverbNation and start getting every person who says they like your stuff to signup to your list. No excuses, no waiting. If you don’t collect the data now, they will be gone.

What Else?

What else can you add to the musician’s spring training? What are some fundamentals that you need to be working on to execute in your music business? Let’s chat in the comments.

(Common in Wanted)

Even if you aren’t thinking about it, others are. The biggest names in the game have. Does 50 Cent make more money on his albums or on his Vitamin Water deal? I’ve even stated before that Jay-Z has said his music earnings are the lowest of all his major investments. But he uses it as a marketing tool to open up other ventures (like clubs, restaurants, clothing, sports teams and more).

Even some of hip-hop’s underground faithful have made a name for themselves by branching outside of their core product. Check out Mos Def and Common in some big time movies (Common was a bad ass in Wanted).

I ran across a story this week that stated UK pop sensation Lilly Allen is launching a new fashion line and bowing out of the music business. The latter is easier said than done, but in the story Allen stated something rather eye-opening for this conversation:

“To me, the idea of music and fashion being separate is just not possible – one can’t exist without the other. If you can’t find something here you are passionate about I’d be very surprised!”

Justin Timberlake said something similar in his latest fashion show for his William Rast line, comparing fashion to rock stars and the way you feel when making music.

Even this guy (yup me) has used my music career to get me someplace else, and at least for me, something bigger. I always wanted to be the biggest and baddest rock star in the land. Playing arenas, sleeping in my tour van bunk and trashing hotel rooms. I am a pretty materialistic dude, so the Lambo’s and bling-bling were right up my ally too.

Now that I am almost 3 years removed from being a full-time musician, the time I spent hustlin, playing shows and scrapin by to make a living has really payed off. My music career was a launch pad for something bigger and it’s cool to say that. I get to work with world class musicians, really passionate indies and some of the coolest companies around. Not bad for a late 20-something former white rapper.

But what about you?

Is this something you can see yourself doing for 20-30-40 years. There is no retirement plan being an indie musician (not technically at least). That’s some sad down the road thinking, but it’s the truth. For every Rolling Stones or KISS, there is a Kris Kross that has to make a career change at some point (jump, jump).

I was on a call this week with Than Merrill from A&E’s Flip This House. Only a few years ago I remember Than making tackles for the Buccs over in Tampa. Looking at his story, he took his accomplishments and made them into something bigger. In his case a lot bigger. Than now tackles the real estate investing industry and has become one of the top wholesalers in the country flipping properties.

But this isn’t a real estate post G!

It’s supposed to be a motivational music marketing site, right? This game, we’ll call the music business a game, is about a lot more than shiny tools. Whether the tools are new MPC’s or Fender’s, or they are technology driven like Bandcamp or Aweber - they are not the driving factors of what makes a success.

In this business there are really only two things that determine your success.

1. Your music
2. Your attitude, drive and desire

Yea, the last one has 3 things in it, but they all come from the mental aspect of this business. The tools compliment both. Without a strong mental foundation and great music you cannot create a long term career in this business.

Music As A Marketing Tool

Music is a very powerful force in the world. From tribal music, dancing and praying to the Gods all the way to rocking out with Bono and a hundred thousand of his friends to the high school student, their iPod and their homework. It is a vehicle we all use and remember.

Think of the math lesson you learned in high school. Just pick one, anyone. Doesn’t matter which, because you probably don’t remember any of it.

Now think of the top 3 songs from that same year. You can probably play them and within a few seconds remember not only every word, but the thoughts and emotions from which the songs provoked.

Music is at the very essence of every culture in the world. Musicians are held in the highest regard. We love seeing their struggles, their success and their rise to stardom. Thus why American Idol (despite it helping the indie music industry degrade itself to a karaoke contest - another day, another rant) is so ridiculously popular.

Using this power to help you do something bigger is a big step for a lot of people. For some moving into acting is the right career move - that bigger break (and an easy paycheck). It could even be tv.

Look at the success of LL Cool J on NCIS Los Angeles. Or Kid Cudi taking on that first small role on How To Make It In America (my new 2nd favorite show - come on Entourage is still the shizzle)?

How Big Are You Dreaming?

When you are creating goals and looking at your career, how big do you want to go? Yes, we need the realistic goals and looking at numbers to get the train rolling, but many artists have the inate ability to dream big. Like skyscraper big.

In today’s music economy, the music can only take you so far financially. Selling 100,000 or the crazy to think in this market million are not paying out what they once were.

In the mew music economy webinar we went over some numbers that really numbed a lot of artists. If you are in a group with 4 people, how many $10 albums do you need to net $100,000.

10,000.

And how much does each band member take home for all that hard work?

Well, take out the expense of recording the album. Then the cost of pressing up 10,000 copies. Then marketing. For busting your ass, playing all over the country and selling 10,000 albums, you are looking at a minimum wage job.

You need to be dreaming big, just to get the opportunities to make an average living in this business. That is why you see the acting. That is why you see Drake in Sprite commercials before he puts out his first album.

So, I ask you as I close out my end of the discussion - is your music career a launch pad for something bigger? What are you hoping to get out of this business?

Let’s chalk it up in the comments and see if you can’t figure out how you are going to be the exception, rather than the expected.

-Greg

P.S. Have you signed up for our live call with Steve Gerstman of CutMerch? It’s happening on Tuesday, March 2nd at 7pm EST. Even if you can’t make it, signup and get a copy of the MP3. Signup here.

This week we are helping out a great cause here in the state of Florida as well as a huge festival for indie bands - the Harvest Of Hope Festival in St. Augustine, FL. Earlier this week Zach brought you some great information with Phil Kellerman, the President of the Harvest of Hope Foundation. Today I am happy to share a cool interview with Ryan Murphy from No Idea Records. Ryan is in charge of booking the wide range of artists at HoH including Dead Prez, Kid Sister, Broken Social Scene, Senses Fail, Anti-Flag and a ton more. We got to talking about the bands, the venue and mobile technologies. If you are in Florida and want to see 3-days of kick ass music while helping a great cause, come hang out with us at HoH.

(photo taken at HoH last year by nolongerhostage)

Greg: This is a big festival in the middle of a big field - what are you guys working on marketing wise, to attract a crowd that will both fill the field and contribute to your mission with the foundation?

Ryan: This of course is a huge challenge…we’re offered this huge awesome space at the St. Johns County Fairgrounds that literally could hold hundreds of thousands of people and we try to creatively fill it and make it fun, interesting and informative for all the attendees of the weekend. Having the option to offer camping to people is nice, because we are able to have them there all weekend…but also, we aim to divide the grounds up in a way that each day you can walk around and find something new or interesting.

Greg: At the event, what are some things you are looking at to get the crowd involved with the foundation - from an education and interest standpoint?

Ryan: One of the things we all agreed on that we wanted to improve this year was the overall visibility and access to all things that the Harvest of Hope Foundation stands for and all the great work that they do. We will have a large non-profit area as you walk into the festival that will be hosted by the HOH foundation and host a large group of non-profits that we work with and are involved with migrant issues. We are planning on making this area informative and interactive to help festival attendees learn about all the issues that HOH Fest stands for and is involved with.

Greg: Let’s switch gears over to the bands - what do you expect from them at the event, as far as helping to spread the message an in their promotion of the event to their fan base?

Ryan: This is definitely something we try to stress to bands to emphasize on campaigning and advocating for this event. Since we are a non-profit, benefit event we rely on all the grass-roots and street team aspects of promotion that we can use. We try to express to the bands what a unique event that they are helping to be part of, and how we rely on all the help we can promoting the event.

Greg: What can the bands that are playing look forward to at the festival?

Ryan: Even though the HOH Fest is a benefit, we make sure to let bands know that we will take care of them in every way we possibly can. We have amazing catering from local businesses that are able to work with donated food from local farms that we support, donated beer, camping, etc. Also, since we have friends who are in bands that play festivals around the world all the time, we made a point to ask them for things that they like and dislike about the festivals they go to and how they are treated at these events. We rely so heavily on the generosity of these great bands and want to make sure everyone feels taken care of and has a great time.

Greg: With the recent disaster in Haiti, there was one thing that helped the awareness and donations for the cause and that was the use of mobile technology (both SMS and Twitter) to make donations. Playing off the demographic of your audience - what are your thoughts on mobile marketing and how it can be used to get kids excited about donating and making a difference while listening to music?

Ryan: This is a good question…we’ve been approached by several people about this idea. We are constantly running fund raising campaigns and hopefully will be able to incorporate more mobile technology into what we do as it comes. Some bands (most recently, a band from Orlando called HOW DARE YOU) did a twitter campaign to raise money for the foundation and it went over amazingly. We also work with tons of media outlets and websites that are constantly running contests and fundraisers to help raise money and awareness for the foundation and festival.

Greg: You guys recently released a 2-disc compilation album - this is something that is a bit of a staple in the indie festival scene. Can you talk about its importance and why these things are still a big part of festival culture?

Ryan: The cd comp that Fail-Safe Records put out recently was a nice surprise off shoot from the festival and is actually working out great as a fund raiser for the foundation. Our friends at National Underground, had already planned on recording a bunch of the audio from the fest, and we knew at some point it would be used in a cool way. Shaun from Fail-Safe came up with the idea and reached out to the bands that seemed into it. The main reason I got behind it was not so much the fact that it helped spread the HOH Fest out there, but the fact that for every cd sold several dollars would instantly be going to the foundation and help Migrant Families. It’s really cool to get people to involved in ways beyond the festival itself. But, also, any kind of documentation (audio, video or otherwise) is always great to help a festival make it’s mark and capture the vibe and what was happening at that specific time.

Greg: Anything else exciting you want to share?

Ryan: Just the fact that I am really excited and inspired by the amount of people that come out to support the HOH festival and foundation. It’s really great to see that something that is extremely grassroots and does immediate and much needed aid for a population that is overlooked gets the support and attention that it truly deserves from the underground music community. In all the fund raising activities that HOH has been involved in, working with punk-indie-folk and other underground artists, we have received the most appreciation and support and that is really great!

Greg: Thanks Ryan for your time and we’ll see you in March!

Disclosure: HoH Fest is sending some members of GYRS to the event in March.