Perform live at Las Vegas !

Once upon a time...
An unknown band got in contact with a venue manager and asked to be contracted to perform. The manager listened to the bands' demo, thought that the music was good and agreed that the band could play on a determined day.
The manager, wisely, offered the band two options:
In the first option, 300 tickets will be made and sold to the band by the venue. The band would resell these tickets to its' public and would promote the show so that even more public would know and appear to appreciate the show. It was in the bands' own interest to sell to recuperate the initial investment of the purchase of the tickets, if not, the band would end up with a loss.
The second option offered was a contract which would be signed between the two parts where the band would be obliged to bring a minimum number of paying customers to the show venue. If the public was below the stipulated number in the contract, the band would need to pay the venue the cost of the non purchased tickets.
For example, if the minimum number was 200 people and only 150 people appeared to watch, the band would have to pay the venue the value of the 50 tickets that were not sold.
Now, you may be thinking: "Whaaaat? Pay to play? Never!"
But, hold on! Any band wants a cachê to present their show. But an unknown band still hasn't got its' share in the market. The venue manager is measuring the bands' share in the market by the number of tickets the band is capable of selling for its' show.
If the venue manager in our story was to hire U2, he would be sure of a full house, and so could invest in a cache for the band. He knows that U2 has a lot of loyal fans and that these fans would turn out to see the show, which for the manager would mean elevated ticket sales and in house consumption.

A new band doesn't offer this same guarantee for the manager. So, the band needs to take the risk involved for the event. A lot of the time, bands end up being hit (in the pocket) in their first presentations, simply because they can't draw the attention of the public and the investment ends up more than the return.
It's simply this. Music is a business and should be treated as such. A product (music and band) needs to be proven before anyone will want to invest in it.
So, it's important to understand: You need to start "small". You need to work to expand your fan base. Once you have this fan base, you will be able to close better deals with our friend the venue manager in our story.
To start your fan base, begin with a fan base within your neighbourhood, and gradually widen your space to your town and neighbouring towns. Only begin with the next stage after consolidating the previous. Your path will be long, but, done in the right way, with patience, you will arrive at your destination.

Once you have your share in the music market, the venue managers will look for you, who knows, even to perform at Las Vegas !
Success.
Steve Allen
Steve Allen is consultant and music producer. Author of "Marketing Your Music – Success Strategies", "Personal Management in the Music Industry" and "Street Teams – Expand your Fan Base" http://www.marketingyourmusic.net

Les Liaisons Dangereuses Tickets - A Show That You Do Not Want To Miss

Les Liaisons Dangereuses tickets will guarantee an experience that you simply will not forget for a very long time. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is all about seduction, passion, betrayal, and revenge. It is a thrilling dark comedy that will keep you right on the edge of your seat. The play is also a revealing portrait of pre war French aristocracy.
The Book
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a French novel written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The title translates into Dangerous Liaisons. The book was published in 1782 and the story revolves around two rivals- Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont. They both use sex as a weapon to dishonor and disgrace others and for this purpose, they plan elaborate games and plots. Both of them enjoy their cruel games. The play also shows the destruction of French aristocracy after the French Revolution.
The Story
The intriguing story line and the cruel games that the two main characters play is what makes Les Liaisons Dangereuses tickets so hot and popular. The story begins with Vicomte de Valmont trying to seduce Madame de Tourvel, who is a married and virtuous lady. Marquise de Merteuil, on the other hand, is trying to convince Valmont to seduce Cecile de Volanges, a young girl brought out of the convent by her mother to get her married. However, Cecile falls in love with Chevalier Danceny. Valmont refuses to seduce Cecile, as he is too busy planning to seduce Madame de Tourvel. During the course of events, Valmont finds out that Cecile’s mother has warned Madame de Tourvel about Valmont’s bad reputation. He gets angry and to take revenge, he seduces Cecile.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses tickets become more worthwhile when the story takes yet another twist when Marquise de Merteuil falls in love with Danceny. Finally, Valmont is successful in seducing Madame de Tourvel and also he too falls in love with her. Merteuil finds out about this and tries to create a barrier between Tourvel and Valmont. She has earlier promised him that if he is able to seduce Madame de Tourvel and gets the proof in writing, she will spend the night with him. So she forces him to spend the night with her. As a result of this, they become enemies. Valmont tries to persuade Danceny to reconcile with Cecile and to leave Merteuil. Merteuil tells Danceny that Valmont has seduced Cecile. The story ends with a duel between Danceny and Valmont, who dies in the duel. Upon hearing the news of his death, Madame de Tourvel also dies. And Cecile goes back to the convent.
The story is impressive and watching it on Broadway is even more so, and that is why Les Liaisons Dangereuses tickets are always sold out even before the show is on. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is written by the Tony Award and Academy Award Winner Christopher Hampton. The show is directed by Rufus Norris, winner of Olivier Award.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses tickets can be bought online through an authorized ticket broker. With their wide selection of tickets and sold at very reasonable prices, buying tickets from authorized online ticket broker is worth the while. Authorized online ticket brokers provide a safe and easy transaction and you will have the tickets delivered at your billing address within twenty four hours. Al enjoys to write articles about Broadway shows and New York entertainment such as how to get Les Liaisons Dangereuses Tickets for any show time. His content is mainly focused on keeping up to date with entertainment in the city and writes helpful articles such as tips for fans to find Les Liaisons Dangereuses tickets at the best prices.

Music and Messaging for Your Business

Have you ever been at your place of business with not enough help on hand and become overwhelmed when the customers in your business combined with the customers calling on the phone at the same time spreads you so thin you fell like screaming? Screaming and scaring away all your customers because there is not enough of you to go around will not be the answer. What you need is a way for your phone calls to be answered for a few moments until you can make yourself or an employee available to take the calls that are coming in.Many business owners today from those who own one or two stores or offices to those that might own hundreds of stores or offices are turning to automated answering for their telephone calls. This is an easy and not too costly solution to make sure that all your incoming calls get answered promptly and give each customer a proper greeting. As a business owner you know that every call to your company is an important call and the one you miss could be the most important you ever had. Why even risk it when the answer is so simple?Searching the internet is a great way to find a service that can provide all the messaging needs for your business. You can have automated answering and messaging with music set up for your phone lines and many also provide in store messages as well. In store messaging can be a great to make your customers aware of sales, specials, or new products or services that you have available while they are there. It is hard sometimes to always have a sales associate available to direct and inform each and every customer. This way they can hear all the stuff that is currently going on in your place of business.Why wait any longer to have your business set up with the latest in automated customer service. It can save you valuable personal time and can also help bring in customers and money you might have missed just from a few phone calls or a customer not being informed about some great deals they can take advantage of. There is nothing better for any kind of business than keeping up with the times, so if you find that you could use help with your phone lines and customer service, it just might be time to catch up with the rest of the world.

Does hip hop music alienate?

I red few years ago an article that hip hop music alienate the youth from the society. I think this can not be true, because hip hop community is a society. It can be true that people can lose the sense of reality, when they are in touch with an art and they are living for that art and willing to do anything to keep that art authentic and preserve it from the vultures who are willing to destroy it and abuse it for their own wealth.So far as the alienation consider, when it comes to the hip hop music no one can alienate me from this culture. I am an one man movement and although my budget is not large I still can contribute to the hip hop culture in other ways than buying albums daily. I think my mother thinks that hip hop is another name for having sex. She wonder why I call my blog hiphopfanatic.com. I feel quite alienated from the society there are no people who I can relate to. Only I can relate to are the rappers, because they are born into the dirt just like me. If you know hunger you will feel the struggle. And born into a racist society people judge you by the background and racial ethnicity can cost you lots of hair and health. I have been chasing a dream having a job and live like the working class people. This is not even possible, when the cocky white kids at your work call me a Ni**er in my face and gossip about me behind my back, gossiping is a habit that every society got to deal with, but throwing racial terms at your dome can hurt my soul. The bosses are looking for someone to do the dirty job. I am really a humble kid, that is my nature. I can not seems to take all the racial terms all the way long from the cocky Caucasians.I feel like I'd rather be alienated than being a modern house slave for this society who thinks that I only deserve the minimum wage. In my case I know some people who gets alienated in the hip hop culture, since they have no friends. These kinds of people always needs someone around them to show them the way. I never had that kind of cousin or brothers to show me the way. That way I feel that I failed comparing the mediocre standers the majority set. I made lots of mistakes like skipping classes and even passing my math exams drunk. I never knew how to choose the right friends, if they were hip hop fans I was willing to hang out with them. Some kids I knew they only were after the money and their older cousin or brother were cooking for them and they ran studios from houses. I feel like these studio rappers were the alienated ones, they never come out hanging and getting drunk in public with the regular kids like us. They truly got the house slave mentality and they never felt how much stressful it gets and how it feels one of your friends throw him self front of the train. These studio gangstas only know happy times. They do not know what it is like to grow up with no family around you.And then you have these upper class brothers talking black supremacy, while their label owner is white. They never talked to a kid from the ghetto and they do not have the spine to set up their own labels to make a start of their career. Once this reminds me of the song of Gravediggaz song '12 Jewels'. It said the "old man from Sudan didn't knew the basic principles of the economy". Being your own boss that is the major economical achievement is about. Working for the white man and calling your self black activists and pumping your fist is just lack of awareness and political consciousness. In this modern society rappers are almost doomed to sell their soul to the labels, when a rappers is hungry he will be easily convinced by the A&R's and other record label people. I think the true potential of a socially, economically and politically aware artists does not where the money is running, but where the hearts of the hip hop fans are running. That is preserving of the hip hop culture as an authentic culture and reminding the fans what the true purpose of the hip hop culture is about, which is peace, love and unity. With these three keywords there is no alienation possible for the hip hop fans not even the majority alienates them.

Subscribing to Satellite Radio

Who does not love to listen to music? It is heard almost everywhere we go in one way or another. We have it in our homes, in our cars, we take it walking with us, we listen while we ride a bike, and it can usually be found when we enter into so many different kinds of business places. It would be a more silent world if we did not have music to keep us company a lot of times. It is just something that we have become accustomed to, unlike a hundred or more years ago when the only ways to hear music was to play or sing it your self or go hear someone else while they were playing or singing.We have also gotten to be very picky and quite snobbish about the music we prefer to listen to as the years have gone by. An individual taste in music is as important to some people as their particular taste in the clothes that they wear. We want to be able to hear what we want to hear and can get agitated when we have to listen to sounds we do not really like. That is why Ipods, compact disc players, and MP3 players are so popular today because they allow us to hear what we want to. There are a lot of different types of radio stations available still today on AM and FM that we can listen to that will play particular music styles that we like, but there is usually as many or more commercials played as there is music and this can be really annoying after a while because who really wants to listen to endless commercials? This is one of the good reasons that satellite radio subscriptions have become so popular lately. Commercial free listening is the only way to go.Subscribing to satellite radio is not as complicated as it sounds. There are different packages to choose from much like the way you do with your cable or satellite television packages. Once you have your equipment necessary for satellite radio reception installed in your car or home, you will be ready to buy your subscription. You choose which package best suits you for your listening pleasure. Many places that sell satellite radio subscriptions have a prorated refund for the remainder of your subscription if you choose to cancel before it ends. This can vary, so you need understand the terms when you subscribe.The cost of satellite radio per month is really quite reasonable and many places have family plans similar to those you might get for your cellular phones. It can be great when you have other listeners at home. Satellite radio is growing more in demand all the time and for good reason. The quality of sound and commercial free listening makes it well worth the cost.

Austin Area Festivals: Music and More

What do music, chili peppers, bamboo, wine, watermelon, ice cream and Eeyore the donkey from Winnie the Pooh have in common?They all have festivals devoted to them in Austin or nearby towns. In fact, there are so many festivals of all kinds in the Austin area that it is difficult to keep track of them. The Austin American-Statesman apparently gave up trying to keep count back in 2004, judging by a recent visit to the festivals page on their current website a quick count there reveals there were more than 50 festivals in existence then, and the compilers of the list noted that those were just some of the festivals. Other festivals have appeared since then. The first-ever Pachanga Latino Music Festival, for instance, was held on May 31st of this year. The second annual Ice Cream Festival will take place on August 9. Of course, everyone knows about the Austin City Limits Music Festival and the South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals. Those events feature what Austin has become known for around the world; great live music. Tens of thousands of music lovers flock to these events to see the international, national and regional acts that they showcase. These events bring in huge amounts of money to the Austin economy. In fact, SXSW is Austin's highest money-making public event, as reported by Wikipedia.There are many more music festivals in the Austin area as well. The Old Settler's Reunion in nearby Driftwood, Texas attracts some of the premier national bluegrass and Americana acts, as well as many of the best regional Texas music groups and songwriters. This festival happens every April and attracts thousands of music fans to the beautiful grounds at the Salt Lick Pavilion and Camp Ben McCulloch.The Reggae Festival, also in April, and the Austin Celtic Festival in November are just two more of the events held in Austin that feature music as their main raison d'etre. Of course, many other festivals include music in their programs as well. Some of these include Viva Cinco de Mayo in late April/early May, the Austin Fine Arts Festival, at the beginning of April, and the Old Pecan Street Fall Arts Festival in late September. This latter event began more than 30 years ago to provide family friendly, free admission venue to collect arts and crafts from local and national artists and artisans, experience live music, theater plays, comedy, magic, poetry, film, parades, and take part of a long standing Austin tradition. More than 300,000 people attend this event every year, and festival promoters estimate it generates more than $43 million for the local economy.Another long-standing, grass-roots festival is Eeyore's Birthday Party which occurs every year in late April at Pease Park. According to Austin American-Statesman writer Anita Powell. The party has grown considerably since its inception in 1963 by a group of University of Texas students. The free-spirited celebration usually features Maypole dancing, costume contests, a hippie queen pageant, food, birthday cake and entertainment by local bands. This festival, perhaps more than any other, reflects the spirit that Austin is famous (or infamous) for and that inspired the unofficial slogan for the city: "keep Austin weird".What about bamboo, wine, watermelon and chili peppers? The Bamboo Festival is presented at Zilker Botanical Gardens in late August every year and features "all things bamboo". There are at least two important wine festivals in the area: the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival in early April and the Austin Wine Festival in late May. The Chili Pepper Fiesta is held in the town of Elgin, just east of Austin, on the second Saturday in September. The Luling Watermelon Thump in June garners national attention every year with its watermelon seed spitting contest.All these festivals reflect what the city of Austin has been about through most of its history. It fosters and encourages creativity, diversity, freedom of expression and the celebration of the hard work and enterprise of its citizens.

The Beatles Seven Most Experimental Songs

Sadly I've found that many people think of The Beatles only as the band that sang songs such as "She Loves You" & "Can't Buy Me Love." While these simple early tunes are great and have lasted the test of time. It's The Beatles more artistic, experimental songs that I feel are their real legacy. They are the songs that are still inspiring thinking musical artists nearly 40 years after they last recorded together.
These seven songs were The Beatles at their most experimental. Not all of these songs are among their best (although some certainly are) but they are all a cherished part of The Beatles back catalog to me.
#1 "What's The New Mary Jane"
This song which features only John Lennon, George Harrison and Lennon's soon to be wife Yoko Ono. It was not actually released until The Beatles Anthology 3. It was intended for The Beatles incredible 1968 double album known as The White Album (it was actually self titled.) It was not included due to time constraints.
The song features a simple piano part, bizarre lyrics, and insane sound effects. The last 4 minutes of the song is basically just spacey sound effects. It's definitely one of those songs that's quite hard to describe with words. It's definitely a real trip.
#2 "Revolution #9"
This 8 minute track was included on The White Album and has probably become The Beatles most infamous track. Many hate it. Some love it. Count me among those that loves it. Don't get me wrong, I don't listen to it every time I put the album on, it's not that kind of track. But when I do listen to it, I still find it fascinating.
#3 "Tomorrow Never Knows"
Incredibly the last track on Revolver, "Tomorrow Never Knows" was actually the first song recorded for the album. I think that's incredible as the song, even 42 years later, still sounds like the future. With lyrics from the book The Psychedelic Experience (which was based upon the Tibetan Book of the Dead), backwards guitars, insane sounding tape loops, this was a song that sounded thousands of years removed from the mop top hits of just 2 years previous.
#4 "Wild Honey Pie"
This is a strange little song which was completely sung and performed by Paul McCartney. It just consists of the refrain "Honey Pie" and some bizarre sounding guitars.
#5 "I Am The Walrus"
Possibly The Beatles most perfect weird psychedelic song. It's endlessly listenable as there are so many layers to it that one can literally hear something they've never heard before even on their 1000th listen.
This was The Beatles at the peak of their "studio as an instrument" phase and it's still inspiring countless experimental rock musicians to this day. Forget "I Want To Hold Your Hand," it's all about "I Am The Walrus."
#6 "Strawberry Fields Forever"
If "Strawberry Fields Forever" isn't quite as weird as "I Am The Walrus," it's probably even more perfect. It's a truly brilliant song and much like "I Am The Walrus" it's the an amazing example of the "studio as an instrument" aesthetic that The Beatles perfected in 1967.
#7 "Within You Without You"
I feel this song often gets short shrift. And yes, it's very experimental. A "pop" song with an all Indian instrumental? Sure there was "Love You To" & "The Inner Light" before, but this one took it to the next level. I think it's a brilliant song that fits on Sgt. Pepper perfectly. It's a trip through some bizarre carnival and you have to make a stop in India while you are there, of course.