radio killed the radio star . . . .

I want to share with y'all an exchange I had with a radio person today. Radio has been the single biggest hurdle our band has had to deal with over the years. Radio is the most direct key to a mass audience and is all but non existent for bands not supported by a major label. I'm not playing a sympathy card here, it is just the way it is. So we as an independent band have to look for a way around that obstacle. be it, radio advertising, syndicated radio programs, college radio, other non commercial stations, online radio, podcasts etc. We have been lucky this record to have finally found a little bit of support. Star 102.5 in Des Moines has gone out on a limb and taken a risk by playing our song "listen through the static" in regular rotation. With the permission, but against the better judgment of the system and some higher ups. It is still being tested to see how there audience responds. If it does well in research and testing and it appears that their demographic likes the song then they will continue to play it. If they continue to play it and more people like it, then there is a chance that a few other stations may follow suit. If that happens then other regions may start to pay attention. That is all you can ask for in this biz. It is tempting in a situationlike this to engage or fans to skew the results. Call or write and make the station think everyone loves us. But we are very careful to not do that, we want our song to stand on its own merit. So we DON'T campaign for airplay. We do continue to send CDs to stations that we think we would fit and may consider playing. When appropriate we contact the station, tell them we are in the area and available for interviews or performance and would they consider playing the track. Sometimes we win sometimes we don't. But we don't organize fans to mob stations. That being said I want to share with you a correspondence I had with an unnamed radio station in the pacific northwest today. A fan emailed to show the response when they requested a song. . . .


On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 a fan wrote:

So my hope is that one of these mornings you play "The Nadas" for me. I thought you were going to do it last week, but it wasn't to be. This morning on my way to work I got a flat tire; let's just say it wasn't the greatest way to start the day. I think the only thing that can salvage my morning is to hear The Nadas.
Oh should also thank you for turning me on to a ton of awesome bands, too many for me to list here, but the more recent ones being Silversun Pickups, Okkerville River and The Hold Steady.

Love and blasting you in the cubical,

Fan

Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 07:33:49 -0700 (PDT) Radio DJ

Thank you very much...and while I'm sure you're just a fan of the band you
can imagine we aren't big fans of our having our email clogged with people
driven by this:

"Become a field agent DOWNLOAD The SURVEY and send to charidy@thenadas.com
The Nadas are looking for people interested in becoming NADA FIELD AGENTS.
These agents help promote the band by calling local radio stations,
distributing posters and flyers, etc. Basically, The Nadas are looking for
one or more people per town to do all they can to create a buzz."

Then I wrote . . . .

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Jason@thenadas.com wrote:

Thank you for your comments on this. We take great pride in not creating an "artificial buzz" as we know that can be annoying. We engage our field agents to forge a relationship in a professional manner and no more than one per market. The interesting thing here is that we have no field agents in the N.W. I think what you have here is an honest fan of your station and our band requesting music he wants to hear. If your email boxes are clogged I hope it may mean that more people want to hear our new record. (we had a person from somewhere in your hood call into a show we did in Carbondale, CO that she was listening to online asking if we had sent it to your station). I hope that this person's request doesn't turn you off from even listening to our record for consideration. Please check it out.

Thanks

Jason Walsmith

The Nadas

On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:35 AM, dj wrote:

Thanks Jason, appreciate the email, however we're one of the most popular online stations on line and most of these...if not all of them are from outside the NW and we've been in this long enough to know when its a campaign from fans/friends/the band and while we encourage requests, we also try to let the music speak for itself. We need not be convinced something is good by having our inboxes clogged with requests. We'll for sure give the band and the record a chance with an honest review and it'll be up to the DJ's if they want to play it or not, but first the emails need to stop or at least slow down.

Thanks

dj


On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:46 AM, Jason@thenadas.com wrote:

Thanks for the correspondence. I don't know what I can tell you to make you believe that we did not organize a campaign to your station or any other for that matter. Our street team list is completely stagnant and obsolete. We haven't even communicated with anyone since our last record 2 years ago. I also have been in this long enough (12 years and 7 records) to know that this kind of thing pisses off programmers and dj's. I guess I can just feel good about the fact people are requesting on their own accord whether you believe it or not. That is the best compliment you can ask for as an artist. Thanks for considering it and I hope our exchange doesn't give us black eye in your mind. Check out the song "listen through the static" track one. It is all about how homogenized commercial radio is and how hard you have to work to hear an independent voice on the radio these days. A tip of the hat to stations like yours.

Thanks again,

Jason

No response . . . . As much as you will want to respond to this station I intentionally left the address off. This would be a good forum discussion instead.