WELL, NOW WHAT?

BAND SUBMISSIONS ARE OVER, BUT THERE IS STILL A LOT OF WORK TO DO IN PREPARATION FOR THE SPRING TOUR

Thank you to the 150+ local bands who took the time to fill out the band nomination form and suggest your fellow local bands for the EIY Spring (Into Action) Tour! And thank you to all the local music fans who sent tweets, Facebook comments, and tumblr submissions for your favorite local bands! This was a great way to see which scenes are super active and which ones need some help getting things going. It was so much fun listening to all the different kinds of music people are making, and now I’m super excited to drive around and meet all of you in person!

I (Sarah) sent the final lists of submitted bands to each promoter last night. They will go through the lists, listen to the submitted bands, do some research, and pick out four or five bands that best represent your scene, to play in the showcase for a chance to perform on this summer’s Warped Tour. I had my favorites in each city, but it was really hard to narrow it down! If your band gets picked for the showcase, the promoter for your local EIY Tour date will contact you soon to confirm your band and give you details about load-in, sound check, etc. We will start posting confirmed bands on each tour date’s RSVP page, so make sure you RSVP for your local show on the left, there.

Booking the bands for the showcases is actually the easy part, if you can believe it. My personal reason for doing this tour is so I can drive around in person and meet with as many members of each local music community as possible. I want to learn about what you’re all up to, and help however I can, in the hopes that we can work together to start rebuilding our underground network of local music scenes — and be able to pass the torch to future generations of like-minded people. I think everyone should be working together to cultivate a strong underground community — and I just so happen to have the resources to be able to tour and volunteer in each community. That’s basically why I started EIY: to help like-minded people achieve their goals and to give honest art a chance at breaking through the muck and mediocrity. The music industry is crumbling all around us, but those of us that are doing this for the right reason still want to have places to play and share music and ideas, meet new friends, and to be part of something meaningful that will last us the rest of our lives. We don’t need mainstream media and major record labels to do that — we can do it on our own!

Let’s also not forget that each city the EIY Spring Tour is visiting in May will also be visited by the Vans Warped Tour this summer, which is why the Warped Tour teamed up with EIY in the first place. If you don’t know about my long history with the Warped Tour, and the special place it holds in my heart, then where the heck have you been? I owe so much of the past 7 years of my life to Kevin Lyman. He has supported me and my crazy ideas from the day I met him when I was playing bass for a band from LA with some time off before tour and begged him to let me intern in his office for a few days, in 2003. Earn It Yourself is no exception: Kevin let me go out on the Warped Tour last summer, not only to perform with my solo project, but also to run daily “scene meet-ups” with attendees at each tour date, bringing them backstage to meet Kevin and other industry veterans from the tour, for free, sometimes for two hours, just to talk about music and the local scene and to answer questions, offer advice, and share stories. It was amazing — and the good news is, Warped Tour is bringing the Meet-Ups back this summer! (More on that later…)

When Kevin approached me about the idea of doing a spring tour with EIY that would help promote this summer’s Warped Tour, and the Meet-Ups, and give kids a chance to get more involved with the Warped Tour by joining their street team, I was blown away. Unendingly generous, Kevin has allowed me to have total creative control over this tour idea, and has been excited and supportive the whole time. He is investing in this tour in the hopes that YOU will invest in the Warped Tour, by joining the street team, spreading the word about the Warped Tour date you’ll be attending, and helping keep the Warped Tour going for another 15+ years. I see it as a chance for anyone who has ever dreamed of working for bands or tours to get their foot in the door. We are only taking 25 sign-ups for the street team in each city, and we’ll be working closely with those people to get the word out about Warped. Anyone who stands out will definitely end up on our radar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being someone’s Big Break in the industry — just like I got my big break from Kevin after volunteering in his office way back when. The EIY Meet-Ups on last summer’s Warped Tour helped get at least three people internships and/or jobs in the industry! If you are looking for a way to get your foot in the door, this tour is for you.

But for now, we just need to make sure everyone knows about the EIY Spring (Into Action) Tour!

Next steps: we need help flyering for the EIY Spring (Into Action) Tour. And we don’t mean posting things online. We mean printing off posters and handbills, writing the information for your local EIY Tour date on them, then making copies and passing them out at shows, record stores, skate shops, coffee shops, school, campus, dorms, and anywhere else you can post them or pass them out!

Will you help us?

If the answer is YES, click HERE to download the zip file of posters and flyers, and get to work! Email us if you have questions: promotion @ earnityourself.com.

If the answer is NO, click HERE.

My next update will be about the NEW EARN IT YOURSELF WEBSITE & MOBILE PHONE APP that are launching in April/May. Yes, you heard me! And I hope you just got so excited that you peed your pants, because that is the only appropriate reaction to my next update.

Love,
Sarah

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