FolkBlog

I am amazed by the number of artists who contact me who have no idea that they are sabotaging their own chances to get airplay on my station, or on folk radio in general. Here are some mistakes I see artists making all the time.

1. Failure to do research or read submission guidelines. Every station has a different submission policy. Mine is very clearly stated on my website at http://www.onlinefolkfestival.com/submissions.html. If you follow the guidelines, I will follow through by listening to your CD. If not, I won’t, and to be honest, I’ve stopped feeling bad about that.
2. Failure to provide professional level product. The folk radio world is very competitive because it is a relatively limited format. Most radio hosts have only two or three hours a week to fill, and unless you give them reason to include you, they will fill those slots with professionally produced, high-quality records they get from labels such as Rounder, Compass, Appleseed, and Signature Sounds. You may be able to connect with a local DJ in your area, but DJs in other areas won’t give you the time of day unless your record sounds professional. You might be able to send a demo you cut in your basement to your local DJ whom you know from hanging out at the local folk club, but the vast majority of DJs with which you have not established a relationship are going to use it as a coaster. The wide availability of home recording equipment has led to the rise of people recording who are, frankly, getting a lot of bad advice regarding their talent level.
3. Believing that an e-mail referring a DJ to a website where they can download a track will entice the DJ to play your music. Since most folk DJs do it as a side gig (in other words, they have a day job), many barely have time to keep up with the actual CDs they get in the mail from established labels who have good quality control standards and sign excellent, talented acts. I wish I had the time to visit every artist website and preview their tracks online. I don’t. Some DJs do, and more power to them. If Christine Lavin or Tom Paxton puts a topical mp3 on their website, I might download that, if I read about it on the Folk DJ list. But, chances are, you’re not Christine Lavin or Tom Paxton, and don’t merit the same consideration. I know that sending out CDs can be expensive, but hey, if you don’t believe in yourself that much, then I won’t either.
4. Failure to remember that you need us more than we need you. I recently sent an address change to the Indie Bible people, who have graciously listed my radio station, and then was overwhelmed by emails from artists asking me to check out their website. I replied, graciously, I thought, to each one pointing out my submissions guidelines page and asking them to send me a CD for consideration. One artist responded to me, quite rudely, I thought, that if I didn’t go to his website and listen to his samples, then I wasn’t going to get a CD. You know what? That’s fine with me. I don’t need his CD. I have plenty of quality programming that I can put on it its place. I’ll be happy to add another Woody Guthrie tune to the playlist if you don’t want to play by my rules. If you can’t be polite to me, I’m not going to give your CD the time of day.
5. Failure to provide a quality one-sheet. Tell me something about yourself that will make me want to really listen to your music. Where do you come from? Who have you opened for? Who produced your album? Send your CD to every name artist you every opened for and solicit their comments and then add their quote prominently to your one-sheet. You may think it crass, but it separates you from the artists recording bad demos in their basement. If you don’t “hitch your wagon to the stars,” nobody else will.
6. Failure to remove the shrink wrap. All the major folk labels do. It’s a courtesy, really. Just one more hassle that must be overcome to get to your disk.
7. Failure to submit the CD to freedb. Internet radio stations use ripping software to generate the files for airplay. I use CDex, which uses the freedb lookup to generate track information. If you’ve not submitted your CD to freedb, then I need to type in the information myself. It’s another hassle. If your CD is good enough, I’m happy to do it, but sometimes, I’ll let a CD sit in the ripping pile for a week or two because I don’t have enough time to input the tracks. It’s in your best interest to submit to freedb and cddb (Gracenote) as soon as you have a physical copy of your CD so you can control what it looks like when people put that CD in their computer to play or rip, and then you can add all the pertinent track and label information. Otherwise, someone else will do it for you and the information may be incomplete or inaccurate.

To summarize - Play by the rules and provide professional-level product on CD, be polite, and promote yourself and most folk DJs will give your CD consideration. If you are rude, amateurish, and unable to follow the rules, even if your talent is massive then your CD will likely end up as somebody’s coaster and your mp3s will go undownloaded and unplayed on the radio.