Independent research

The Norwich/local Music Scene – researching unsigned British bands in Norwich, to include performance, venues, problems of getting signed, messages and values in music. How they represent aspects of contemporary Britain. Or researching the ups and downs of a local unsigned band.

What is an unsigned band?

‘’An unsigned band is a band that has not been signed to a record label. Bands that release their own material on self-published CDs can also be considered unsigned bands. Often unsigned bands primarily exist to perform at concerts.’’- Google web definitions.

Research into venues

The venues within Norwich that seem most popular for unsigned bands are places such as the B2 on Sprowston Road, and the Brickmakers pub. To get to play in the venues includes emailing and phoning the place and trying to get a session within that venue. I also found that sessions can be advertised on Facebook, for example...

How to get signed…To get signed the person must show themselves to be a good investment to the agency, as they are looking for talent, and a person that will be able to sell their music well. Some places may also need some extra favours, such as offering to do some graphic designs, or remixing other artists work free of charge, therefore making you sound willing, and also giving them a good bonus!

Most unsigned bands that are looking to become signed will search around agencies and send demo’s of their music to the company. However, this takes a lot of hard work, and the Artist would really have to impress and have experience in selling their stuff to become signed. Which is why there is still many bands that are unable to get signed.

Case study I got in touch with a local unsigned band from Norwich called Laps around the lake to ask them about ups and downs of being an unsigned band...

How do you find venues?

it's really hard to find shows I wont lie, like we have to email so many people about getting on shows and probably about 2 out of 20 of them replywhat we do is we literally look through all the local shows that are going on around Norwich and we email the people putting it onand we nine times out of ten they usually just say no we don’t have any room on the bill but if you get the right people they'll have space on the bill for you

Do you get any profit from shows?

we don't as a band because most of the shows we play are for free but we play for free so we can get ourselves out there

‘’WE GET TO CONTROL EVERYTHING’’

Are you trying to get signed?

we're sending in demo's to numerous different labels but nobodies getting back to us!It's really hard, but our guitarist Jack has got us on this compilation of local Norwich bands for this label called NR1 recordsand out of it hopefully will come a dealwe hope! What’s the ups to being unsigned?

I suppose we get to control what we do recording wiselike some contracts take away your copyright rights when you signso you wont get any money if they're played on the radio and stuffso I guess it's good that we get to control everythingI think that’s what we'd like if we were signed, like to be able to control what we like but yeah being signed wouldn’t really do much for us really all they do is sell your music and promote youwe do everything like that anyway

Laps around the lake

What kind of company would they be likely to sign to?

Because this band is mainly promoting themselves through social media, such as Facebook and YouTube I think that they would probably be best to either act as their own agent and sign to a independent record company that’s regional, or just act as the distributor and try to sell to shops so that their stuff will reach out further than just small gigs and online promotion. They could also try for Airtime of public radio stations, which then means more people would be likely to want to download their music.