After Forming The Band

Well, there are about 50 articles over here:

http://www.musiccareers.net/index.php

and some of these are useful:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/general.php

and this one too:

http://www.musiccareers.net/article.php?id=226

There will be a quiz...

-Laz

Hi Everyone ... Hey, I've got a band and we've been practicing for a
while and now I think we are ready to play in public, I wanna know
what the next step is? I mean how we can make our way to studios
and record our songs and ... where should we start from? and what
we should do? ..... thanx

Hi. Guessing from your post, I'm thinking you're young.
If so, take advantage of it. play parties. If there ain't any parties,
make your own.

I used to do work for Rappers. A lot of them, to get noticed,
would throw signing parties they would announce that they just signed on to a new label (of course it was new, they just started it themselves)
Throw a party to get people (they usually rented out a Bar or something)
and handed out CD's left and right. If they were good, they usually got calls

I think they spent at the most a thousand$ US for all of it-Cd's and all.
Maybe more as that was in 96.

Studios? used to be going to a studio was a big deal.
Now, I know more people with studios than I do muscians lol.
We're in some sort of recession, so you should be able to find
some one with a home studio that'll record you at a decent price.
Yeah, if there is a Hip Hop scene where you live, you could find studio
time pretty cheaply.

You can waste your time looking for mangers and all that, but
at your level, you don't need to.

LOL I was at a party once, there was this coke head manager there
that was running his mouth off about stuff he had,boats, cars...
he was full of it. Anyways he starts going on about how he screws over Metal bands Makes them think he's the only game in town and well gets them crappy low to no paying gigs. He got 20% on the low pays and on the no pays the band had to fork over cash - I think it was $50.

A few weeks go by... this friend of the band I'm in shows up. He
says he has this real important guy in the car with him and we should meet him. He supposed to be some hot shot manager....talk about a small world...

I dunno, there are quite a few people on this forum that are active in the music industry and at various levels too. They can help, just keep reading and bothering them :D

My friends have a local band and are getting ready to record. Basically what they did, was play every gig possible. For example, on the 18th they played an acoustic show at Wal-Mart. It was odd, but good publicity. They also found someone, a local tattoo artsist, to help support them. She advertises their shows and helped them to raise the money to record. Their next step, after recording, is to send the CD to everyone! I hope this helped somewhat, best of luck to you!

I'm gonna second Racer Y's opinion on managers. Young bands with managers are just giving away money - and you will NOT find a decent manager unless you're already pulling in $1000 a gig (their percentage isn't enough to make it a 'real' job until that level). Once you're there, a manager can make your $1000 band a $1500 band, because you've already proven potential, so that's the point where it pays to have one. From his side of the table, a manager with 5 $1000 bands can put full time into promoting them; he'd need 50 $100 bands for the same income, so how much of his time do you think your band will get, even if he is 'for real'?

Your first step is to get out and play. Eventually you'll need a demo (and promo package with head shots and bios), but in the beginning, you just need a gig... make a list of places you want to play, get booked at a party or other free gig, and invite the people on the list. I remember using the line "well, we're still finishing up our new demo, but you can catch us Thursday at...".