Meet Zachary Cepin, a booking agent for Bay Area agency High Road Touring. For the past ten years, High Road has helped many high-profile artists develop or maintain their live-music careers, including Lucinda Williams, OK Go, Robyn Hitchcock, Wilco, and dozens of others. Cepin puts together tours for his bands like puzzle pieces, making sure that the routes make sense and will help artists build their fan bases while hopefully turning a profit in the process. He negotiates dates, terms, and guarantees with club bookers all over the map. Here, Cepin offers advice to bands that want to play great shows on the road and gain more exposure without breaking the bank.
Read the whole article @ emusician
As much as the major record labels (and quite a few big indies) would love to see it happen, digital file-sharing isn’t going away any time soon. It’s the genie that Napster let out of the bottle more than a decade ago, and since then, labels and artists have been locked in a struggle—some might even call it a dance—to monetize the technology to their advantage. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of boutique start-ups have been jockeying for a piece of the pie.
Gigging with a laptop is now a viable, fun and creative option. There are still a few things you need to consider before you hit the road, though, and MusicRadar is here to tell you exactly what they are…
It’s easier than ever to release your music to the world. And there is now a wealth of online services that will help you promote, distribute, and share your music. But even though musicians can release material whenever they want—and many fans are happy with the idea that they can download singles—the press, fans, radio stations, podcasts, and even digital distribution stores still ask the same question: “When’s your next album coming out?”
The net gives most independent musicians something that they otherwise really would not have had – the opportunity to have their music heard by a large number of strangers (this was previously largely the preserve of signed acts). But it does something else too: it allows musicians to communicate directly with these strangers in rather sophisticated ways, through all manner of powerful tools: social networks, live video streaming services, email, the good old-fashioned website…the list goes on. This means that not only can strangers judge your music, they can judge you and form an opinion on how hip / sexy / annoying you are (delete as appropriate). And sadly, with the music industry being what it is, it’s often (perhaps usually!) the latter judgment that is of most importance to your career prospects. So getting your online reputation right is really important. Besides which, your online reputation is probably the only reputation you have. 
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a hot topic for any business; appearing in the top 3 results for a particular search query can mean the difference between loads of clients and none. But is it any use to bands and musicians?
It’s no secret that the last decade has been tough for the music industry. Hit by piracy, recession and falling sales, record labels have shed artists and staff in an effort to stay afloat.
All inbound marketers will agree: more ‘Likes’ for your 
Producing and recording music is one thing. Promoting it successfully is another. And if you think using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, and ReverbNation is all you need to get your music out there, you’re in for a surprise!
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