Top Seven Free Tools for Bands

 Do we have it easy today or what? I can’t help to think about the countless musicians that got started twelve or so years ago and did not have the technological tools we have today. I wonder about the countless bands that played regular gigs that never got noticed based on lack of album distribution. Honestly. Twelve years ago where did you go to find music that YOU liked? The radio, yellow pages, random music conferences, or college campuses? Today if someone is interested in your music you simply have to type their name in a search engine and you can find way more information than you ever wanted to know. Hell. On my own site I have updates from twitter.com sent directly from my cell phone that tells anyone who is interested what I am currently doing. It has almost become a necessity for todays fans. Now of course for anyone to give a crap about what you are doing, how you are doing it, and where you are doing it (not sex you dirty minded people) you have to have music people want to listen to (another topic, another day). For today I am going to focus solely on what I think are the top seven free tools for bands.

** = Used primarily with your own web host

1. Twitter.com: I mentioned this site above and it serves one purpose. It allows your fans to know what you are doing. If you look at the top right of my page you can see this in action.
2. Broadtexter.com: What a great tool. This allows fans to sign up based on location and when you have a show you can either send it to everyone on the list or to only people located in that region or state. I also have a link to this below my newsletter bar.
3. Wordpress.org: Blog tool and publishing software. Wordpress might be the best application I have ever found. This entire site is run off of wordpress and I plan to write a tutorial on how bands can use it soon. Teaser: Wordpress can integrate with myspace and facebook! **
4. Listmessenger.com: If you are a new band and have less than 200 members signed up for your for newsletter this baby is free. There is an upgrade fee for more than 200 members but it is well worth having. You guessed it. I use this as well. **
5. Myspace.com Band sign up: This is a no brainer but worth a mention.  Here is mine. http://www.myspace.com/stancrawford
6. Facebook Pages: Also a no brainier but a lot of bands do not realize they can create a separate page for their band. Here is mine. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stan-Crawford/16237146077
7. Tunecore.com: Need online distribution? I have to admit this site is not free but it is damn close. They upload your music to Itunes, Napster, Music.com, Amazon.com, emusic.com, and the list goes on. The cost really is next to nothing so it gets a mention.

Well there you have it. My hope is that you can use these seven free tools in a way that reaches your fans in a positive way. Remember not to overextend how many sites you belong to. If you are not able to keep them all up to date it is probably not worth having.

Keep creating great music.