Sandman Viper Command 7″ Release Party @ The Horseshoe Tavern!

SCION Presents The Balconies @ The Rivoli next month w/ Hands & Teeth!

Check out the Event here!

Edgefest 2011!

We had a great time at Edgefest 2011 on Saturday! Thank you to everyone who put so much hard work into making it a successful and fun day! And check out all these new Sandman Viper Command fans!

#ABDOESNXNE! Two great posters for two great shows!

Handshake Drugs #6: Audio Blood Hits the Streets, Welcoming our GMAs!

Hey friends,
I have been travelling (was in NYC last week) and slacking on updating the blog! But fear not, I’m back in action!

This blog post is about the importance of making promotional outreach personal. Here in Toronto, Audio Blood has made great efforts to get to know the people we work with on a day to day basis. The bloggers, the writers, the videographers,  the people we’re sending emails to and constantly bugging about our bands, we like to know what they look like and what kind of beer they drink!

We’ve created events to get all these people together in one room, drinking, and enjoying music so that we can meet them face to face and enjoy their company! Do any of you recall the Hollerado Nacho House at NXNE last year? The NXNE Gala at the CN Tower last year? The CMW Rock n Roll Matinee? These events have allowed us to get to know the tastemakers in the Toronto community and build a network around our artists and brand! But more than that, we’ve been able to meet new great people who have wonderful tastes in music. That’s what we all are anyways; music fans, so to say this works would be an understatement. This approach works incredibly well.

We started bringing our philosophy to other cities. The Halifax Pop Explosion VIP Party was a great success and the Hollerado Nacho House in Montreal was a night to remember! After I toured this country and got to meet some great people along the way, these little Audio Blood communities had began. But as time went on I realized our Toronto based team was having a hard time making these personal connections with local media, industry, and artists outside of Toronto.

Audio Blood Publicity & Marketing Assistant Chelsea Dunstall and I put our heads together and decided it’s time we start bringing the love to other Canadian markets. We created the GMA position -it ststands for Great Music Ambassador! We set out on a hunt for the best candidates to represent us remotely in their home towns. We looked for the most eager and knowledgeable cats in town, with a passion for sharing good music strategically and an understanding of how we like to do things.

After a series of phone interviews we found the team! We now have GMAs across the  board in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Halifax, Kingston, Ottawa, and more! We couldn’t be more thrilled with our team and selections! I wanted to use this blog to officially welcome them to the family and say we’re excited to begin work together! Audio Blood staff are known to have a lot of fun, but boy oh boy do we work hard!

We are still looking for some GMA’s in a few select markets. If you’re interested in hearing which markets and more about the position please reach out to chelsea@audioblood.com.

The GMAs jobs will be to share music in their communities, keep their eye out for up and coming local talent, engage the community, organize events, and form personal relationships with the local, media, and artists. They will bring the warm and loving Audio Blood arms and wrap them around their local communities, one night big cuddly hug really.

As more and more of the marketing world moves towards digital solutions, we still believe a lot can be said for putting a face to a name. Being able to have someone tangibly represent a brand and a philosophy will engage and promote reactions to our music. Integrating street level campaigns with digital ones can result in some pretty strong marketing efforts and thus favourable results.

Audio Blood is expanding every day and are always excited to come up with creative ideas to help our clients achieve their goals. My favourite thing is when a client comes to us with a marketing budget and basically says “what do you think we should do?” From there I take it to the team and we get to come up with ideas that incorporate a number of marketing initiatives! Ohhh such fun! If you’re a marketing geek like me, you’d understand the excitement! We also lucky to have a very versatile team that can execute these campaigns from beginning to end – taking care of press, social media, media partnerships, sponsorships, event coordination, and more!

Whether you run your own label, company, band etc. it’s important to never forget the value of a personal relationship with your consumers! It’s easily forgotten in these digitally heavy times and lifestyle marketing budgets are constantly being slashed. It’s a fun time to be doing what we do because sky’s the limit really.

What are your thoughts on lifestyle/street level marketing? is it still important? Comments below!

Thank you for reading!
xo Sari
**read previous blog posts here!

The Balconies on the cover of Ottawa Xpress!

Check out the article in Ottawa Xpress here

Shared Office Space in Audio Blood/New Rose Headquarters!

We have desk space available May 1st in an open office environment!
The office is 700 square feet in total.

Price: 1 desk spot = $350/month incl. tax

INCLUDES: – roof top patio – receptionist – shared phone line (if you’d like) – wifi – printer/scanner – beautiful hardwood floors throughout unit – area by door to put signage on King Street- full bathroom – property insurance

PERFECT FOR: Any independent workers or small companies other than music publicists, as it would be a conflict of interest with our company.

To set up a viewing please be in touch!

1.416.703.9703
hey@audioblood.com

View photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55831723@N06/

Handshake Drugs #5: HMV no more.

Hey friends! It’s about time for another handshake drugs update!

When I moved to Toronto 3 years ago my first part time job was at an HMV record store (the Eaton’s Centre location). To say HMV played a role in my musically inclined youth before I worked there would be an understatement. Growing up in Barrie, Ontario it was one of the only CD stores I could order my favourite pop punk, emo, and indie rock records in to. When I heard word through my former HMV co-workers that there was talk of HMV closing their stores in Canada (and possibly internationally as well) I had mixed feelings.

According to this Toronto Life article the final decision hasn’t been announced yet, but due to increasingly devastating sales figures HMV might very well be no more.

We all knew it was coming, the demise of the record store. In major markets like Toronto and Vancouver this is great news. Ideally music lovers will be forced to bring their business to struggling indie retailers. In small markets (most Canadian markets) this will mean there is nowhere to buy music and experience what it is to shop for physical music in their cities. This is concerning.

Music stores used to be a hang out spot for music fans of all ages and all types when I grew up (not that long ago). Local music store employees in some cases were mentors for the cities’ youth just based on their selections they played in the stores and suggestions. Walking in to a record store was an experience, something you looked forward to doing, and talking about the new Wu-Tang record with the stranger at the counter is among many of my fond memories. Some of my favourite bands like Death From Above 1979 and Bloc Party were suggestions given to me by HMV employees in Barrie.

Music fans in small towns are now left to buy their music online. It has become a private thing you do at home, like reading or playing video games. Your music purchases may be influenced by your friends’ Facebook status more so than an employee of iTunes. We are losing that personal connection with someone over music at a store, it just isn’t the same. But I guess we’ve already lost it, hence why HMV’s are thinking of closing down in the first place.

Small town music fans will have to turn to globalized online retailers – where the one size fits all music store can feature and pump out national hits. What does this mean for the artists that do well in certain regions? The best selling local bands? Where will they get represented? Nowhere I assume.

Over the last 3 years HMV went to great lengths to update their stores to attract and engage shoppers while they were visiting. Computer screens, in-store performances, on-site social media integration and their hip new branding was a clear sign they were about to prosper in these devastating times. Turns out even those efforts couldn’t combat the sinking number of people who even step foot in the store. They tried transferring their focus to video games, movies, books, and electronics but that didn’t seem to put them in the market to compete with leaders in those industries (Indigo, EB Games, Best Buy, Future Shop, etc.). They even built up their online store to offer downloads, but still no one seems to care. Consumers are completely uninterested in their ever-changing music retail experience. Is the music store vibe I grew up with in Barrie completely dead?

As a former HMV employee, working at the store was an experience all of its own. HMV provided me with a network of friends I could easily connect with over music. In fact, my roommate of 3 years, Matt, and I met when we worked together at HMV. We both haven’t been employed by HMV in 3 years but our longstanding friendship was built there.

Now that I work in the industry, working in retail was a crucial part of helping me to understand the power of marketing and how the general public reacts to it. It allowed me to witness first hand people’s music purchasing habits and understand how they find new music. Many observations I made behind the HMV counter 3 years ago, I think back to in my day to day operations here at Audio Blood. Will fewer teens in small Canadian markets be inspired to work in the industry if there is no option to grow up working at a record store?

In some ways we have come full circle, leaving youngsters to find out about new music this time not from their older siblings’ record collections, but from stealing their ipods and playlists. Finding out about new music has become harder for youngsters but easier in other ways. These kids aged 10 to 14 in their formative music years, have to work hard to seek out new music if they are intrigued by the glimpse they’ve seen from TV/radio/online. For many growing up in small Canadian cities though, I fear they dont even see the big picture of what’s out there.

So here is the double edged sword, too much free music so records stores close. Record stores close and the new generation of potential music fans don’t know music exists (extreme, I know, but I’m thinking long term here). Even though people weren’t buying music at record stores, in small towns record stores physically represented music and there isn’t much else representing that in these sheltered communities.

So this drastic change might not be a bad thing, but it could be, we’ll have to wait and see. Instead of our childhood music discovery stories sounding something like this “my buddy gave me a cassette mix tape that had NOFX on it, so the Music World clerk helped me pick out their best record and told me what Warped Tour was…”

It might sound more like “Johnny’s older brother posted a sick Gaslight Anthem video on his Facebook wall and I went and downloaded the whole record on Lisimewire…”

Something about that just feels different, but I guess it’s all kids growing up these days will know.

xo Sari

New Rose Store!

Hey check out the new store for New Rose here!

Handshake Drugs #4: Canada Doesn’t Care About Live Music

Oh hey there!

I’ve got two days between festivals so I figured I would get a blog post in. Canadian Music Week was a blast, hope you all enjoyed yourselves! I’m off to South by Southwest on Wednesday. If you’re not going to make it out to Austin this year fear not, I’ll have a hefty blog update for you on my trip once I return early next week! I will be blogging for Canadian Musician Magazine, so keep your eyes peeled on their site!

Now don’t be startled by this posts’ headline. Let me explain… In a recent blog post and on-air CBC Radio 3′s Grant Lawrence informed us that the average Canadian attends just 2.3 concerts a year. This is startling! Yes?

It’s weird to think that my whole career and lifestyle operates in this niche margin. I guess that statistic would take in to account children and our elders, both of which demos have little to do with live music it is assumed but maybe I was naive to think that most people between the age of 15 and 50 frequented concerts.

It’s easy to think this living in a city like Toronto and seeing the streets busy bustling at night with concert goers and the weeklies listing shows upon shows to tickle your hearts fancy. From metal to hip hop to experimental trance, there is no letting up. It’s surprising we city dwellers ever have time to do anything BUT go to concerts.

After touring Canada coast to coast a good 3 times it’s become apparent that no city other than Toronto has this issue. Smaller secondary markets might have the odd New Years Eve city hall celebration with a band but music is not regularly coming through. If it does, it’s unbeknownst to the majority of locals. The indie rock bands are saved strictly for the cities’ indie rock subculture scene that’s struggling at best where indie kids get to enjoy Canadian bands in small dingy bars with shitty sound standing beside 10 other people. Sure these are some of the best shows I’ve seen, having grown up in Barrie, Ontario, but I feel there is a greater issue here…

Am I right to that the state majority of Canada doesn’t care about live music? I know this is a big statement and I feel like I just pulled a Kanye a bit and said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” but is it true (about the live music)? What do they care about? Does anyone know how many hockey games a year the average Canadian attends? Keep in mind this statistic doesn’t just talk about indie rock or rock shows, we’re talking classical music, jazz concerts, children’s music performances etc. etc.

So the problem isn’t that generally most people live a life void of live music… it’s that in most places in Canada music isn’t even available to them. Commercial radio pumps many car rides full with top 40 in small Canadian markets, only allowing these small town civilians to sing along to anthems from bands that will never tour in Chilliwack, BC (example city, replace with any small town). The media doesn’t report on music in Parry Sound, ON, and even in larger communities like Barrie and Orillia the media support for live music is scarce. We are up against it every day as publicists, constantly trying to explain to reporters in Sydney, Nova Scotia why an exciting young band deserves coverage over the local pottery fair.

So there’s a big black hole. The music that the majority of people love and are exposed to in these smaller markets (mainstream commercial radio supported artists) never comes to life for them, and the bands that no one’s ever heard of in those cities do. There’s no common ground is there? Or maybe there is… local bands.

Local bands sprout up and friends and family (aka. Frans) support their concerts in these small markets. Who knows what they’ve been inspired by though in these suffocated cities.

Don’t get me wrong, a small town music community is a special thing. And the small underground nature of it all is what makes it appealing to the few that find themselves surrounded by it, but the general public has no interest in live music, something I’ve always deemed accessible to all and open armed. Live music is for everyone! The small town communities pull together the ambitious and creative youth and give them a community to grow in, but alas, don’t be too ambitious or you’ll start to realize to make a career in music you have to leave your humble hometown and set your sights on the big city. And off you go, leaving your hometown with all the same inadequacies and problems it always had. No live music that the general public cares about, only live music that the public could care less about.

And then these hometown heroes (be it musicians or industry folk) become small fish in Toronto, and in Toronto there is no lack of live music, as we all know… making their small town role even less needed.

It’s funny that I would make such a big statement like this right after an amazing Canadian Music Week, where undoubtedly many Canadians were appreciating and enjoying Canadian music, but that was only in Toronto. Millions of other Canadians were building igloos and drinking Timmy Horton’s coffee, or whatever else it is they love to do. I am a very proud Canadian. I love Canadian music and its supporters, but it’s enlightening to know I am not the majority.

How do we fill this gap in smaller markets (most Canadian cities)??? I am not sure where the root of this problem resides and will take some time to think about it longer. People say my blog posts are too long anyhow so we’ll have to continue this another time after I let this rant sink in for a few more weeks. In the meantime, add your thoughts below.

Much love!
Sari

**Read Sari’s past blog posts here!