Guest Aserinsky Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 So I'm submitting a track of mine to be reviewed by a few industry professionals within the next few weeks. Unfortunately I have to have to submit with it a promotional pic and a biography, which is pretty much impossible to write. I'm sure many people here have had to endure the same thing, so how do you go about writing about yourself? No matter what I try the writings come off as either incredibly fragile and egotistical, or pretentiously flippant and too self-aware. Maybe self-promotion just isn't for me, but in times where everyone is a creative in some capacity I guess it's unavoidable that you have to sell yourself somehow. Anyone got any previous experiences / advice on this? Please help a poor sap who isn't interesting enough to justify a biography bullshit his way through this dilemma. Love you WATMM. Aserinsky EDIT: Removed unfunny promo pic. You don't want to see it. Seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimpyLoo Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 That's a crappy picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aserinsky Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 ZING! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3849 Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Don't oversell yourself, if you just tell them what you're good at and what you've done to come this far [in things] then that's good. Also: "I have to have to submit with it". You might wanna work on your English. XD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dese manz hatin Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 I even struggle with writing short resumees about myself when asked, something like this would probably be impossible for me. I'm currently emailing tons of people in search of a new flat (shared) and they all want these "summaries" on my personality etc, it's hell on earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aserinsky Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Also: "I have to have to submit with it". You might wanna work on your English. XD Can't believe I didn't notice that, point taken @dese manz hatin: Yeah resumes and personal resumes are just as bad. I mean how can you accurately judge someone through a couple of sentences where all you're doing is trying in one way or another to tell them what they want to hear? Just seems in this case for me that the biography seems completely depersonalised from the music which is to me far more personal. It's kinda why I get so immature and flippant about having to do this type of thing (see publicity pic as an example). I'd rather just have no summary at all, as to me they both mean the exact same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chim Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Keep it simple. Why are you submitting that picture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jimmy McMessageboard Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Do you want to come across as a guardian reader? why not shop sound on sound falling out from behind it. Don't try and be clever. or witty. just state who you are, where you from and what you trying to achieve/ John aka Aserinsky from Bristol, Alabama. Bringing the brain to the dance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aserinsky Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Keep it simple. Why are you submitting that picture? On a serious note guess it's a way of preventing feelings of failure if I don't get anywhere. If I present myself as an immature bedroom musician that pretends to not care about any form of criticism and instantly applies a perception of hostility towards anyone successful within the music business under a flimsy argument regarding authenticity, then I have an excuse for not succeeding rather than actually taking on board constructive criticism. So yeah, even though rationally it appears a pretty fucking stupid idea, putting out my music makes me feel extremely vulnerable personally. So I end up resorting to doing stuff like this in order to compensate and mask that vulnerability though a false sense of nihilistic elitism against the successful, whilst rationalising it through some trivial argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Keep it simple. Why are you submitting that picture? On a serious note guess it's a way of preventing feelings of failure if I don't get anywhere. If I present myself as an immature bedroom musician that pretends to not care about any form of criticism and instantly applies a perception of hostility towards anyone successful within the music business under a flimsy argument regarding authenticity, then I have an excuse for not succeeding rather than actually taking on board constructive criticism. So yeah, even though rationally it appears a pretty fucking stupid idea, putting out my music makes me feel extremely vulnerable personally. So I end up resorting to doing stuff like this in order to compensate and mask that vulnerability though a false sense of nihilistic elitism against the successful, whilst rationalising it through some trivial argument. this sounds like exactly the kind of biography that would get me to buy an album no joke but i'm a sucker for insecurity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candiru Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 I was raised by wildebeests, taught by panhandlers, became an aerospace engineer by 17, and travelled the world with a gang of smokin' Austrian chick supermodels fighting terrorists and bad taste for several years. Eventually, I settled down and created the first distillery/winery/brewery/potfarm and made millions before writing a novel of unprecedented, breathtaking genius. It will be made into a feature film featuring much of the content of this post, plus much, much more. Stay tuned, gumshoes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friendly Foil Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 You could always pull a Rephlex. Like that steinvord guy. "hello, im 18/m/es and make music with a fuckin computer. thanks" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squee Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Your music has to be REALLY fucking good if you plan on adding that photo to your resume. Like REALLY good. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but come on... A fucking photo of you on the toilet? I don't know if by "industry professionals" you mean online labels or established and well-known labels, but in either case you should consider how many demos they probably receive each week and what that photo could do to your chances. If you want to make some money off of your music then you should probably consider working on this as if it was an actual job application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 unless you're a black guy, a muslim donned in robes, a hassidic jew with curls or a better than average looking female to me it doesn't make any sense to put a photo of yourself at all on a promotional one sheet. So my advice is black yourself up, you know with blackface take a pic . If it's hip hop music you make, don't bother doing this. If you make white-boy electronic music this approach will be hugely successful, keep up the facade for as long as possible, a few decades or possibly more.this pic will get you the goods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spratters Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Who took the picture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pierlu Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Keep it simple. Why are you submitting that picture? Yeah that picture is nonsense. It's not even iconic. To the least, it will click that your output is shit. As for bio, be simple and stick it to music things and/or creative activities only, imho. If from your bio I can see you're really into music, it's more easy I'll be curious about it. If from your bio, lots of non musical things come out, I'd think you're just another person who just enjoys meaking music and want to impose it on myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 all kidding aside it would help a lot if you got someone else to write it for you. Trying to write something like this yourself I think is just a bad idea. Maybe write an outline with some basic points Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kinski Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 as someone dealing with lots of press releases i'd say keep it brief and to the point, unless you have something really interesting to say. and even then be brief. just don't write a novel. and don't brag (if you had something really worth bragging about you wouldn't be in your posisiton now wouldn't you). you'll be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aserinsky Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 K, just woken up and yeah, that picture was a fucking stupid idea. Thanks for talking me out of it, I don't really know why I thought I'd use it tbh. It's not that much of an acceptable excuse but anxiety makes you do stupid, thoughtless shit sometimes just to end a situation regardless of whether or not it puts you in a positive position. Anyways, I'm taking it down, thanks again for pointing out it was a stupid idea. As for the bio there's some real good points here. It's difficult to put effort into something that like Awepittance said really isn't worthwhile, but at the same time it's kinda necessary for anyone in the industry. Everything's been real useful, thanks for the help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triachus Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 I like David Lynch's self-written biography: Eagle Scout, Missoula Montana. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 depending on what exactly this is for, writing in the first person is a good idea or it's a bad one. If you're trying to get reviewed or played on the radio it's generally not recommended to write it in the person person, unless you are targeting reviewers or radio who specifically want 'un-signed' artists . It's good to write something notable about yourself (but in the third person), what makes you as a person unique? Not necessarily what makes the actual final product of your music unique, but is there something about your process or your non-musical history that you'd find interesting if you read it about an artist you like? The same thing would apply to you trying to get signed to a label, aka shopping a demo. This time though you would want to write it in the first person. A person running a label doesn't want to hear about how many different labels you've been on before or what festivals or live gigs you've had. Trying to build yourself up with experience points even peripherally isn't useful either. Like "So and so has been a piano player since age 5" or "He's been making music on laptops before Live existed". Of course the point of sending a demo to a label is to captivate them with the actual music. Chances are most big labels won't even listen to the demo, you have to give them a good reason in the one sheet or even on the disc packaging. the situation is you are submitting your track for industry professionals to hear. Can you give more details? Is this part of some sort of panel where you get critiqued and judged along with others, the point being to get feedback from pros? IF the picture is any indication I can't imagine you want to get a paid gig through these industry pros..right? So you could use your resourceful and imaginative sense of humor for something better than a picture of you on the toilet (come on! this is from the guy who whipped up a fake Actress AE remix that fooled me in mere hours). Maybe your one sheet could be written humorously, or you could subversively hoax them out by creating a bunch of fake Pitchfork reviews or other popular review sites using photoshop describing imaginary works by you. <-- please do this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aserinsky Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 The industry professionals will be a panel made up primarily from people that work / used to work high up within major record labels. As you already guessed I'm not exactly fussed with getting a paid gig out of them, but at the same time you do want to leave some sort of lasting impression. The hoax idea was something I really wanted to work on, but as you can see my initial ideas weren't exactly executed well, instead resorting to something crass and pointlessly hostile in a desperate attempt to get some sort of reaction, even if it had no real thought to it. I DID for a while toy with the idea of fleshing out a Drop The Lime-esque character, creating a fake back history of major success and using my music to pretend this is a guy who's crap at music finally 'discovering' more experimental music and presenting it as such to give himself more underground credibility. Creating the fake reviews might just actually give me a vice to pull this off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Iain C Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 How about you create good music and impress them that way? LOL J/K. I'm a copywriter and I've written bios, CVs etc. for people before. The best advice I can give you is this: when you think you've got a pretty decent bio, cut about 50% of it or more. The shorter the better. These people do NOT want to read even 300 words about you. Do it in 100 or even fewer. Don't try to be clever or funny. These things are so subjective you're almost bound to fail. Make it short, make it honest, focus on your music. Because these are music industry types, and therefore have incredibly small brains, it'd probably be a good idea to compare yourself to artists they might have actually heard of - just to give them a kind of shorthand idea of what box to fit you in. I know it might be galling for you, as a super-individual artist, to say "inspired by Aphex Twin and BT" or whatever, but I reckon that's what these guys want to hear. On pictures: one of you playing live would be good, unless it's a laughably empty crowd. Otherwise, for the love of god at least make sure you're smiling and wearing clean clothes, preferably outside. If you want me to take a look at it after you've written it, PM me and I'll give you a critique. Or just post it here for everybody. Final PS: you're WAY overthinking this. You really don't need to create a character or invent a backstory or anything like that. It might appeal to your creative mind but there is no way it'll actually help you get listened to or make a positive impression. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keltoi Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 just write a/s/l Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aserinsky Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 How about you create good music and impress them that way? LOL J/K. I'm a copywriter and I've written bios, CVs etc. for people before. The best advice I can give you is this: when you think you've got a pretty decent bio, cut about 50% of it or more. The shorter the better. These people do NOT want to read even 300 words about you. Do it in 100 or even fewer. Don't try to be clever or funny. These things are so subjective you're almost bound to fail. Make it short, make it honest, focus on your music. Because these are music industry types, and therefore have incredibly small brains, it'd probably be a good idea to compare yourself to artists they might have actually heard of - just to give them a kind of shorthand idea of what box to fit you in. I know it might be galling for you, as a super-individual artist, to say "inspired by Aphex Twin and BT" or whatever, but I reckon that's what these guys want to hear. On pictures: one of you playing live would be good, unless it's a laughably empty crowd. Otherwise, for the love of god at least make sure you're smiling and wearing clean clothes, preferably outside. If you want me to take a look at it after you've written it, PM me and I'll give you a critique. Or just post it here for everybody. Final PS: you're WAY overthinking this. You really don't need to create a character or invent a backstory or anything like that. It might appeal to your creative mind but there is no way it'll actually help you get listened to or make a positive impression. Haha, the first point would actually be the best advice, actually. You're right in that I'm definitely overthinking this, a large part of the problem has been that I'm doing a dissertation about the creation of musician's identities and how they portray authenticity in different ways. As it's been pretty much the main focus of my time right now, it's incredibly difficult to get out of that mindset. Let alone suffering numerous identity crises due to dealing with PTSD and anxiety IRL, it's pretty much no wonder that I instantly run towards creating identities and negative presentations of myself rather than risk just being normal about it. Of course like you say, trying to be clever or funny with this sort of thing hardly ever works, so that pretty much takes away the whole point of the character thing. That also kinda affects the whole picture thing too, the only pictures I've ever taken of myself are just bad shops or pics where I'm trying to portray myself in a negative light for fun. I actually have NO pictures of me otherwise; I'm insanely camera shy if I'm not allowed to 'act' or depersonalise my presence in one way or another. Anyways writing all that down probably didn't help the other-thinking aspect at all. Probably best just to get on with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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