Sometimes a good name is all you need... Take Turds of Misery, for example. Who needs a demo or press kit with a name like that?
Don't you just love it when you're watching something on the news and some idiot is behind the on-scene reporter making funny faces? Annoying, yes, but also hilarious...at least to a guy like me.
What would happen if you did something like that, but instead of making funny faces, you held up a sign telling people to go to your website? Annoying, yes, but also good exposure for you...maybe.
But take that idea and do it dozens of times, using a service like Google Maps, which photographs, or seems to have photographed, just about every street in North America, and you've got something that goes beyond just getting your face in front of a bunch of people...you've got a story the mass media will pick up on. And that gets your face and the name of your band in front of even more people...
That's what Saskatoon musician Nate Heagy did.
"When Google announced that Street View was coming to Saskatoon, a light bulb went on," he said. "I just thought Street View would allow anyone on any corner to be seen by any number of people anywhere."
So when he saw the fine folks from Google driving around, taking pictures, getting on a corner is exactly what he did.
But Nate is a guy who thinks big, so he didn't just stop with one corner...
Following in the footsteps of a fellow Canadian, hockey star Wayne Gretzky, who once said his success was his ability to "anticipate where the puck was going to be," Nate used the same skill on Google's car. He figured out its pattern, drove ahead, and waited...and then he did it again...and again.
Did Nate sell any records because of this? From what I can tell, no. Still though, it's something he can leverage to make something like that happen.
At the least, it's a foot in the door and a way to develop rapport when he calls a booking and asks, "Remember that guy all over the news for promoting his music via Google Maps?"
And at worst, I think it's a great story of getting music publicity in a way that wouldn't have been possible even just a few years ago.
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