Making 'It.' (Or the Seven Tiers of Music)

What separates the second tier from top shelf? How does one transition between the two?
Is it always luck and never a conscious effort?

Thirty thousand discrete, independent hits on a bands MySpace page will garner the attention of a labeled Artist & Repertoire person. So it can be done consciously.
Even at that, there are a certain number of variables that one can never control - what is popular at the moment is driven by so many factors to be a dark art.

Distribution is also very touchy, nowadays.People tend to expect to get music for free. So that must be made up at the gate. This is one factor that divides the house. People will pay a hundred or more to see powerhouse bands from the 1970s when they tour. But an act that is second or third tier plays venues that charge twenty dollars or less. Huge gap.

The town in which I grew up was forty five minutes from Manhattan. In it, there were so many talented people. One of the Four Seasons, who wrote one of their biggest hits.
Conans band leader was in the grade ahead of me throughout school. We were musical competitors as kids. Most people couldn't name him if they tried.
That is firmly second tier.

The bands I play with are third, fourth tier or worse. We play for free or for food. Or we collect between twenty and a hundred dollars per person - all for the same couple of hours work. Not being able to demand a gate is third tier.
Kids learning the craft in high school bands can occupy the fourth tier. Perpetual garage bands the fifth.
The sixth would be those that buy the equipment and dream the dream but never take another step.
The seventh is those who try but can't. For whom music is not their talent even though it is their passion.
(I met a drummer who could not keep any semblance of a beat)

Enough tongue in cheek.
How does one move up the ladder?
Utilizing technology such as MySpace or YouTube or FaceBook is a first step. The networking potential is huge.
You must comb through myriad contacts before finding someone that may be able to help you along. And for every helpful contact there are eight useless ones. At least as far as furthering your progress towards your goal.
And there is always the one or two scammers that bombard your email or send you private messages ad nauseum.
You also have the ability to contact genuine legends and pick their brains. I have many named celebrities on my friends list. I strive to not friend those pages that are manned by a public relations employee speaking of the musician in the third person.
This access was undreamed of when most of these artists were moving between tiers.

How many free shows had the Jefferson Airplane done for Bill Graham before becoming a paid, a well paid act?
Or the Grateful Dead?
Santana? The list just goes on. At some point, we discovered and elevated these local bands and made them national and then international stars.

Whereas it used to be the territory of Colonel Tom Parker, it has fallen to the bands themselves to promote and move themselves up the ladder.

I have also noticed a tendency among talent and management people to do less and expect more from the band.
I would expect a manager to act as the paid publicist and not the band members themselves.
To be accessible, yes, to have to put up the posters, no.

The little quartet I play with has a nice following that is growing, slowly. It has taken time and the work involved with new set lists - part and parcel of the game we have chosen.

Problems:
We publicize very little - everything has been word of mouth. The driving force is Jerry seems to know everybody. If we play at a fair, every one comes to say 'Hi" to Jerry. He can literally pack a house by himself.

We are not pushing through open channels. It took weeks before I got Jerry to give me a CD from which I made copies to hand out as a calling card. We don't have a MySpace page, et cetera.

Positives:
Crowd grows.
More gigs come.
The last few gigs have been paying - a good trend
We are changing the set list weekly
We are gelling as a foursome. It sounds better every time we play.

We have decided to aim for higher venues - breakout shows. As a means of moving up.
We applied for a slot at the L.A.County Fair. Opening for the Eagles is quite a feather. Even though there are six opening acts.

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