Australian Rock Press

[Blitzkrieg]

This is more a question for Mr Gore, but anyone else feel free to throw in your 2cents!

I am wondering what Australian mags, street press or websites you would recommend to send a new rock release to for review? Most of us are aware of a good handful of metal ones, and some (such as street presses) are relevant to rock music as well, but many of the websites I am familiar with aren't so much rock orientated.
I ask as my band is (hopefully) only a few weeks away from releasing our debut EP, and I was looking to get the word out there with a bit of a buzz about it.
This leeds to my next question, when sending the EP to people for review, is it acceptable to send simple burnt copies, as we are spending a lot of money on getting them pressed and I dont particularly want to be sending off all our nice digipack copies! Or is it expected that reviewers will want the real thing, and may just chuck a burn in the bin?

Any help or info on the matter will be muchly appreciated! We are pretty new to this game that is the Oz music scene, and we have put a lot into this EP and are very proud of it, and are looking to get it out there!

 

[phlogiston]

SAMPLES!

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I'll post links to downloads when they are available, don't worry about that! This is one of the first places I will be spamming.

 

[Mark]

Find some aussie rock podcasts and offer mp3's of your tracks to them for inclusion (royalty free) - hell, do it for every relevant podcast you can find. That will get you more attention than a couple of reviews IMO...

 

[Goreripper]

First of all, don't just sent burns to pro mags. For zines and community radio shows and fan-run websites it's acceptable, but mags want to see the complete package: artwork, booklet, the whole box and dice. There are tons of rock mags you can approach but just be aware that almost none of them will actually review a new CD from an unknown band unless what you send them has the aura of being worth reviewing. So yeah, send the final copies (Sony only sent out second-rate copies of the new BFMV album in a featureless slipcase, but Sony can pretty much do whatever they like). Also, make sure your press kit is awesome. I can put together a list of press to send it to if you like. Give me a day or so and I can PM it. Also, PM/email me your press kit so I can check it out for you before you send it off to every rock media in the country.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Podcasts is another great idea, thanks for that Mark. Something else to research heh.

That would be great Gore! We haven't put together a press kit yet, pretty much waiting for the mastering to be finished before we make anymore moves (we already had to pull the pin on the local cd launch because of delays etc), so we are taking it one step at a time at the moment. But yeah, when the masters have been done and the artwork approved for pressing etc, we will be on it.

One question though...how does one arrange an electronic presskit? Is there a standard we should be going for? An example would be superb!

 

[Mark]

Contact Deron here at UM - he's done some flash-based EPK's for bands (I think he even did some for Inside Out). deron@ultimatemetal.com -- it won't be free, but it will be good

Do you have a website? Do you have a blog? Will you allow people to purchase MP3s from your site? (For an unknown band whose tunes I dig, I'd buy their MP3s off their site before I pay for a CD)

When I did promo (for a brief time) for a label here in the UK, I didn't send press packs to mags (Kerrang etc), but I got each CD reviewed; however, if they were unsigned bands, then it would have been much more difficult. Like Gore says, get that media kit into shape And have an EPK done, even for podcasters! Their shows last longer than magazines do, especially if they continually acquire new listeners (who may listen to old episodes).

Good luck!