In the past, I've tried writing letters to magazines such as People, I've tried writing to radio and tv stations. I think this is the type of exposure that she needs to either get her music heard or her story told in this country. One of the biggest roadblocks I've run into especially with magazines like People is finding an address to e-mail them. I think they have so many people who want to e-mail them, that they don't want to make that info readily available. I had to finally resort to face book for one of the people who work there. Then you also have the fact that your e-mail might be blocked by a spam blocker and you have no way of knowing that.
But as far as getting her music played here, one thing that really hurts is the fact that her best music is over 10 years old and even though these song sound great, we also face the obstacle the songs didn't make much sense. They were just poorly written by MF from French into English. So those are 2 big obstacles right off the bat. Then you have the fact that most radio stations want current music.
I think what we really needed a couple of English songs on this last album to give us something current to work with, but we didn't get it because they had to focus on getting her French fans back and though the jury is still out, that's not looking good at this point.
As far as passing out flyers or sample cds, I think this will only pick up a fan here or there. One of the biggest obstacles I've faced with trying to give away sample dvds I've made is when you try and "give" it away, so many people are reluctant to take it because they think there is some catch to it.
I liked the idea that was mentioned of going to a radio stations and hopefully finding someone to talk to, but I think that might be a little more difficult with larger stations in the city as opposed to more rural stations. Still it's something I'll have to give some thought to.
Now as I said, I was disappointed this last album didn't have any English songs. I would have had new stuff to work with, but because I was so busy, it took me a while to realize at least I have new French music to work with so now I'm rushing to try and find French music stations in this country and Canada to send her music to. Now I've tried looking in the New Orleans area, but they seem to mostly cater to Cajon or Creole music. So I'm now concentrating on the Montreal/ Quebec area. I e-mailed about a half dozen stations the other day, offering to send them a copy of 5 and one of MCE which I recently purchased. Hopefully I'll hear something this week.
One roadblock I just thought yesterday might pop up is a customs declaration has to be filled out when you ship something to Canada and if they have to pay some type of fee for a package I send them, they might not be willing to do this. But if I get a response from them, I will try to negoatiate a way around that.
The thing we need most in this country to effectively promote her is like I said, recent English songs and/or her to make an appearence here. If she would come to New York or L.A., I'm sure there would be a number of shows that would love to have her on as a guest. We with out her and with out recent English songs I think have an almost impossible task of promoting her here. But what I'm hoping might happen is to get her music played by one station in a section of this country or Canada that has a French speaking population, then the possible upside to that is huge. If the French speaking populace hears her music, then the Enlish speaking populace will hear her music too and word will spread, so that's what I'm actively working on. I have about 8 copies of 5 (unautographed) and MCE which I recently purchased that I will ship out as soon as I hear something. Will I hear back? To tell you the truth I'm not optimistic. I think these stations will think I'm crazy, but I will keep trying.
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