Venice's new album "Spin Art" will be released in America on August 24. It's time for the rest of the world to find out what we already know -- that Venice is better than most of the bands who dominate radio stations and sell out arenas, and it's about time they joined the ranks.
So here's the revised plan. Many of these are steps that have been posted for months, but several are new. If anyone has any other ideas, please e-mail them to me at egoman@pacificnet.net.
This is probably the most important step. I need you guys to continue to spread the word about this page. It is my firm belief that to hear Venice is to love them, so it's just a matter of getting more people to hear them. I've designed the webpage chock full of audio and video files, guaranteed to turn any music fan into a Venice fan. So we just have to get people here.
So send the URL (http://www.pacificnet.net/~egoman/venice/) to everyone you know. And ask them to spread the word to everyone they know. (Like chain letters, only this time there's a point to it.) Post the URL on every webboard and every music-related newsgroup. E-mail the sites of other music groups, asking them to put up a link to the Venice page. ("If fans like ____, then they're sure to love Venice!") Make fliers with the URL and post them all over your schools, offices and towns. (Just keep it legal. I don't want anyone getting into trouble.) If everybody works together on this, we really could get a staggering number of new Venice fans, ready to support the band as much as we are.
And I know for a fact that this works, because I've gotten a large amount of e-mail over the last year from people all over the world who tell me that they've discovered the band through this page. And they find this page by following links from other pages. So let's keep creating more and more links. You guys are doing a great job here. Keep it up!
Very soon, I'll post a full sized, high dpi (dots per inch), photo quality printable image of an ad for the album, with the release date and the webpage URL in big letters. Anyone with a color printer will be able to print up many copies and post them everywhere. You can hang them up around record stores and around your schools and offices, and create some hype.
Right away, everybody should start calling up every record store in your town to ask if they'll be getting copies of the album. This will convey a sense of demand, and stores will feel pressure to stock up, and maybe even set up displays that will attract casual customers. If we don't do this, the stores might not carry any copies, and it's very hard for people to discover a band when stores don't stock their album.
We want the first week's sales to be huge. If sales pass 3000 copies in a single week, Billboard Magazine will list the album with a bullet. And with so many fans anticipating this release, the album has the highest likelihood of achieving this goal in its first week. We just have to give it a little extra push.
If the album debuts high on the charts and has a bullet, it would cause industry people to take notice. Radio stations, tv shows, music magazines, they all look to charts to see who they should feature as the new hot thing. So if the album makes a huge initial splash, all these media outlets would take notice, and that would start a snowball rolling. They would then give the band a lot of exposure, creating a situation where more people would hear the music, and then the following weeks' sales would take care of themselves.
So this means purchasing your copy of the album the week of August 24. (And again, prior to that, make sure there's a store in your area that's carrying it. Pre-ordering might not be a bad idea.) But more than that, convince as many friends and co-workers as possible to do the same. Buy the album its first day and play it for everyone you know, suggesting that they run out and pick it up too. Take them to see Venice live. Play them "Born and Raised." Now is the time to really push.
Also, "Spin Art" will make a great gift, so you might want to purchase multiple copies that first week, so you'll have them on hand for upcoming birthdays, anniversaries, or just-because gifts.
I realize that we're starting to talk big money out of your pocket here, so why not try this instead: Go to your CD collection and look at each disc, asking yourself, "Will I honestly ever listen to this again?" If the answer is yes, then by all means, leave it there. But if the answer is no, take it down. We all have CDs that we bought on a whim, because of some phase we were going through at the time, that now exist in our collections only as a nostalgic reminder of that phase. Or we heard a song on the radio that we liked so much we ran out and bought the album, only to find out that all the other songs were awful. I'm not asking you to part with any albums that you really want to keep, only to take a look and pull out anything that's just taking up space. Once you've done that, take the pile to a used CD shop in your area, and trade them in for credit. Use that credit to pre-order as many copies of "Spin Art" as you can afford, and remind the store that the album comes out on August 24, and you'll need your copies that week.
The first single from the album is "The Man You Think I Am." You'll find a list of radio stations that the single has been serviced to over here. Call the numbers that are local to you and request the song, at least once per day. And if you have friends that could get involved, that would be extremely helpful. Because if DJs just hear one voice calling them all the time asking for a song to be played, eventually, that starts to do more harm than good.
And here's a little trick in this department. If you call up and sound like you're already a Venice fan, your request carries less weight, because the DJs can tell that you're just lobbying for your favorite band. They're not in business to please Venice fans, they're out to cater to the general public. So you need to sound like you're part of that larger group. Don't say, "Could you please play Venice's 'The Man You Think I Am?'" Instead, say, "I just heard this song for the first time, and I loved it right away! I think the group's name was Venice. Oh, what was the name of that song? Um, 'The Man You Think I Am?'" This way, you're representing yourself not as a lobbyist, but as a general radio listener who liked the song. And they're much more likely to reach the conclusion that if you, the average listener, liked it with your very first listen, then of course others in your demographic will as well, so they should start playing it.
Even better, prey upon radio stations' sense of competition. Nobody wants to be the last station on the block to be playing the new hot thing. So you'll want to make it sound like everybody's playing it but them, and they'd better get on the ball and do the same. This is a tricky one, because they do look at charts so you won't be able to lie to them about the numbers. But I do have a plan. Say you have two radio stations in your area that play the same kind of music, Station A and Station B. Call Station A and say, "Hey, this morning I was listening to the radio. I don't remember if it was your station or Station B, but I heard this amazing new song, 'The Man You Think I Am' from Venice. I loved it! Could you play it again?" Of course, they'll know that it wasn't them that played the song, but you'll have "accidentally" tipped them to the fact that their competitor has scooped them and is playing something new and hot. And if they believe their competitor is playing it, they'll rush to start playing it too!
Then call Station B and do the same thing.
Of course, if you use this trick more than once, the stations will catch wind of what you're doing. So just do it one time.
Once you hear the single on the radio, call up the radio station immediately. Even if you're the one who requested it, it doesn't matter, do this anyway (just pretend you're somebody else). Again, don't sound like a fan who is trying to offer the station positive reinforcement. Instead, take the attitude of, "Hey, who was that band you just played? 'The Man You Think I Am.' Wow, what a great song! Is the album out yet? What can you tell me about this amazing band?" As always, act like you're an average radio listener who was just blown away by a great song.
If you're in your car or in a situation where you can't call the station right away, do it when you can. A few hours of time passing won't hurt your impact. "You guys played a song around 1:00 this afternoon called 'The Man You Think I Am.' Could you tell me who sang that?"
Call up your local newspapers and all the music magazines, and ask if they plan to run features on the band Venice. If they hear the name dropped often enough, they might cave to the pressure.
It might not be a bad idea to do the same with television programs.
E!, "Access Hollywood," CNN's "Showbiz Today"
and "Live With Regis and Cathy Lee" all featured Venice
when "Born and Raised" came out, so they already know
about the band, and might be willing to do it again, if we put
on a little pressure. "Donnie and Marie" is another
good one to try for. As for the bigger shows: Leno, Letterman,
MTV, etc., they're not going to touch the band until they start
getting radio airplay, so calling them before that happens won't
do much good. Once Venice start getting the airplay, we'll target
the big guys then.
If all goes well, with everybody working together, I don't see why we won't be able to get the band the international attention they deserve. And again, if anyone has any additional ideas, please e-mail me with them at matt@venicecentral.com.