This is a guest post from a fellow student and good friend of mine Kevin Jones. Kevin is currently studying journalism at the University of Lincoln.

Alvarez Kings are an upcoming unsigned band from Sheffield who I highly recommend, see the links below for more details.

The indie-band scene of late seems to be what can only be described as a mass musical game of Snap: pairing similar sounding bands off on each other, culminating to one heap of same old-same old. The continuing influx of band-upon-band is forming a copy-cat-culture, which to get to the point, is not what Alvarez Kings should be categorised into. See Alvarez Kings more as the Joker of the pack – taken out from the mass-mob of similar suits, and placed on a pile of their own. With a host of new songs to boot, Alvarez’s indie-disco flood of refreshing beats are stepping stones of brilliance, floating on a pool of bland-bands around them.

Their recent transformation to a four-piece – Simon Thompson now frontman – has tightened up on what was already a majestic outfit. Simon’s vocals, full of character, portray a voice of truth, meaning and grit; they now have an aura of finished-article about them. With a hot buzz around London at the minute – having played Club NME at Koko to a packed crowd on two occasions earlier in the year – it’s only a matter of time before these underachievers receive the accreditation they are so long overdue.

Kevin Jones

Make sure you check out other posts in the series, they include:

How To Find Your New Favourite Band – Part I – Online
How To Find Your New Favourite Band – Part II – Locally
Guest Post: How To Find Your New Favourite Band – Part III – Facebook

This is the third and final part in Indiescreet’s guide to finding your new favourite band.

This is a guest post by Andrew McMillen, a music writer based in Brisbane, Australia. Andrew is coordinating blog content for an Australian music event, One Movement For Music, which debuts in October 2009. The blog at OneMovementWord.com contains interviews with artists and speakers appearing at the event, Australian music news, as well as guest posts exchanged with the likes of Creative Deconstruction‘s Refe Tuma.

This post takes a more in depth look at one of the most upcoming ways to find your new favourite band which I highlighted in part one of the series, Facebook.

Accept, Decline, Maybe?: How Facebook events have changed music promotion

In this guest post, I’ll analyse the trends I’ve noticed with regard to event promotion: from the taping of flyers to power poles and print advertising tactics of old, to the adoption of online networking sites to target web-savvy fans.

I first started seeing bands play live in Brisbane, Australia in February 2006, as soon as I was legally able to enter licensed venues at the age of 18. A little over a year later, in June 2007, I applied to begin reviewing live bands for a couple of local publications, as I was confident enough in my critical writing ability and gauged that I’d attended a sufficient amount of shows to warrant credibility. Lately, I’ve been thinking about changes to the ways in which my friends and I become aware of music shows – otherwise known as gigs – happening in our city each week.

In 2006, the majority of my knowledge of upcoming gigs was informed by local street press; free, advertising-supported newspapers distributed to record stores and live music venues across the city each week. Armed with street press knowledge and near-daily MySpace bulletin checking to see which of my band ‘friends’ had announced national tours, I was among the most socially-aware of my musically-inclined friends.

In 2007, I made two significant changes to my web habits: I began adding shows that I planned to attend to my Last.FM events calendar, rather than just using the site for scrobbling my listening habits. In addition, I joined Facebook, which was reaching critical mass among my peer group; clearly, the Facebook trend in Brisbane, Australia was a few years behind the US adoption rate.

Two years on, and I’m still a heavy user of both sites. Surprisingly, Last.FM uptake among the music fans within my city has increased at a glacial pace; add and attend enough events on the site, and you’ll see the same couple of dozen usernames attached to each show. I’ve attended shows alongside thousands of fellow music fans, while the event page shows a mere dozen attendees, and often wondered how many people would use the Last.FM service were they aware of its existence. It could go either way: my primary purpose of using the site’s event calendar is to keep track of my social (and semi-professional, as a music critic) life, and I feel that this kind of usage could easily be seen as useful by my fellow gig attendees. At the same time, I can see how the spontaneous could attach little value to planning gig attendance months in advance.

Turning to Facebook; I’ve noticed a significant change in how musicians and promoters use the service to spread awareness of their events. Owing to the friendships and connections I’ve made in the last two years while writing about bands on local, national and international levels, I now receive invites to music-related Facebook events on a daily basis.

Meditate on that for a moment. Where two years ago I gleaned the majority of my gig-awareness from street press and haphazard MySpace bulletin-checking – that is, by voluntarily seeking out the information – I now have targeted invitations appearing in my primary social hub, Facebook. While the medium has changed, the method has barely; the main difference is that event invitations are flagged for my attention within Facebook’s user interface. Compare this to MySpace’s antiquated system of ‘if you missed the bulletin, you missed out’, which was a reality if you were following a couple of hundred bands who were all regularly posting bulletins in an attempt to be heard above the noise.

While it’s unlikely that the decades-old promotion tactic of taping gig flyers to noticeboards and power poles will ever die out, consider that event promoters in 2009 have it easier than ever before. In my experience, taping flyers and paying to advertise in street press have both been usurped by the Facebook invitation. This tactic allows event promoters to build awareness of their events by directly targeting toward those who’re ostensibly interested – since, in many cases, the Facebook user has chosen to join a group or fan page that’s relevant to their interests.

Compare this method to the old models of power pole-taping and street press-advertising, which were comparatively indirect: instead of inviting an explicitly interested group, you were broadcasting to the masses. Where the old model was difficult to measure your return on, as promoters were usually unsure of a gig’s attendance rate until the night of the show (besides sold tickets, of course), Facebook guest lists now act as a (mostly) reliable indicator of exactly which fans plan to attend which show. Although, savvy users and promoters have probably since realised that responding to an invitation with a ‘maybe’ is a near-certain, but polite ‘no’.

At the same time, the ease with which event promoters have access to an audience has lent a quality of disposability to Facebook invitations. If you’re connected to several hundred people and a couple of dozen interest groups, you’re bound to be receiving invites on a daily basis, as I mentioned earlier. From within the Facebook interface, it’s easier than ever to instantly assess each social invitation on face value – that is, without clicking into each event for further details – and make a snap decision as to whether you’re interested or not.

While the ease with which you can dismiss invitations may be somewhat frightening to those who’ve invested countless hours in venue booking and event preparation, I maintain that the Facebook-enabled method of promotion is still superior to the old model of power pole and street press advertising, at least for shows on a local level. Rather than sitting, waiting and hoping that people will show up to your band’s gig on the night, it’s advantageous to engage with a highly-mediated audience and leverage the opportunities offered by social networking sites like Facebook and Last.FM.

Discussion points: how do you become aware of gigs in your city? Have your habits been influenced by social networking sites?

Written by Andrew McMillen.

You can contact Andrew via email or Twitter.

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After Indiescreet’s extensive previews of the first ever Tramlines Festival in Sheffield I enlisted the help of Jenn McCambridge to post her review of events.

You’ll have probably read about it, if not I’m pretty sure you’ll have heard Jon McClure shout about it… Tramlines.

Last weekend saw Sheffield Steel City turn into Sheffield Sound City. Big named curators McClure, Toddla T and the Arctic Monkeys’ Matt Helders showcased the best the Sheffield music scene had to offer.

Friday kicked the weekend off with a Mixed in Sheffield extravaganza, the best of local DJ’s, Skint and Demoralised and Orange 38 rocked a packed Frog and Parrot while queues galore awaited Toddla T and his crew who held DQ in a Skanky Skanky trance while DJ Zinc kept the night going with an epic drum and bass set.

Saturday saw a poptastic sunshine stage, along the lines of T4 on the beach. It was sunny, there was no beach but there was plenty of miming and timing issues galore, though the teenagers didn’t seem to mind. With the Noisettes pulling out last minute it was up to Pixie Lott to headline.

Off the beaten track there were plenty of bands to be seen. The Green Room, known for being an acoustic venue, slap bang across from the main stage rocked it up entirely.

The Unfortunate Incident caused a stir as lead singer Russell Palmer ended up rocking out so much he dropped his glasses twice and ended up sprawled out on the floor, they were followed by the more punkified Stangs who like TUI managed to rock but not shatter the windows. Alongside the avant-garde Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, newly lined up Bromheads Jacket and Joe Carnall and his new band The Book Club DQ was taken by storm and the night was rounded off with top DJ sets from Helders and the Threads guys n gals.

Sunday, isn’t Sunday supposed to be a day of rest? Not here… it was the Sheffield stage and of course being the North ‘n’ all down came the rain. Neil McSweeney and Nat Johnson braving the city hall steps to a few and far between yet appreciative audience. Pistola Kicks played their first set of the day, a wonderful acoustic set at The Grapes. Again to the Frog and Parrot to see more of the unpicked for main stage talent including Lenders in the Temple, Piskie Sits, The Spills, La Folie and Alvarez Kings.

While folk were keeping dry here others were braving the mud and the rain to see the likes of Lords of the Flatbush, Backhanded Compliments, The Violet May, Detroit Social Club and of course Reverend and the Makers. With top sets by all I hasten to add.

This was followed by a closing party at The Bowery, with a scope of DJ’s including McClure and Helders amongst others spinning away till the early hours making Sheffield realise what it had…. a good time… an extremely good time.

Call me slightly biased, being a Sheffield girl, but this is what the city needed. A break from the usual routine uniting all walks of life and getting bands other than the Arctic’s and Reverend noticed. As always there were highlights and low points to the weekend.

Timetable wise… did you see it? Read it…? It wasn’t the easiest. If I had been a visitor to the City I’d have been lost. Given the fact that most venues timings were out it made it hard to catch folk. There were some last minute additions to line ups and new venues added which made it kind of complicated and difficult even with planning to work out where to be at what time.

The free festival became ticketed and people queued to see some minor acts mime or to stand in what is usually the Green turn into mud. We can’t change the weather, it is the North and hell yeah it was a festival, so the rain was expected!

The Saturday vibe was cool, chilled and everyone seemed to be enjoying himself or herself. A change to the Sunday, which was wet, heavy and almost egotistical. This could have been something to do with the line ups, floaty pop acts one day then hard hitting indie types following tend to bring out the laddish nature in people, it didn’t stop the fun or the music though.

Knowing the local music scene, Tramlines did bring a well-deserved focus on Sheffield. It gave both the bands and gig goers a chance to see what the city has to offer in venues they may not usually play or go. Personally I’d have like to see less pop and more local acts on the main stage. There are several bands in the area who are hitching their way up the ladder to being noticed nationally and are working hard in the process.

For a brand new venture it will go down in history, the Sheffielders who are still reeling a week later as hangovers finally fade are missing the fun that was had. Hats off to the curators and the organisers to a job well done, there could have been a few minor changes in events, planning and the like, but it’s always the case in events like this… can we do it same time, same place next year? Please?!

Teething problems aside the festival was a success and will hopefully run for many years to come.

Here are a selection of MP3′s from some of the bands which played this years festival.

MP3: Toddla T – ‘Shake It’

Official Website | Amazon

MP3: The Cartels – ‘Heart Of Gold’

MySpace | Facebook

MP3: Johnny Foreigner – ‘Wow, Just Wow’

MySpace | Amazon

MP3: Errors – ‘Salut! France’

MySpace | Amazon

MP3: Banjo Or Freakout – ‘Upside Down’

MySpace | Amazon

Did you attend Tramlines? Agree or disagree with Jenn’s review? Either way get in touch and let Indiescreet know what you thought.

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