Yesterday I received an email from hip hop/folk artist Tim Fite. It made me laugh like most of his quirky and oddly entertaining newsletter updates do.
But this one was special and I’d like to share it with you because of how he creatively promotes his upcoming New York show.
Sure, it might be tough to copy Fite’s tone, delivery and very quirky sense of humor. But nonetheless the email is a mini-clinic on how to humorously use a missing pet iguana and an unashamed love for posters to promote an upcoming show.
It’s not very often that a press release inspires me to write a blog post like this one did.
So by sharing it here, I hope to pass along a little bit of handy PR intel on how to make concert promotion more fun and increase the chances of some one writing about your future show.
There’s lots of other creative ways to promote a concert and I wish I got more creative concert announcement emails like this one:
Hello Hello Hello,
If you don’t have any information regarding my missing iguana, perhaps I can provide you with information about an upcoming show. I will be playing on Feb. 26 at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, NY with Franz Nicolay (of the Hold Steady) and Zeus (of the Mountain of Olympus). I sincerely hope that anyone who is able to do so comes out to sing the old ones and learn the new ones.
The show is ALL AGES, cheap cheap cheap, and you can get your tickets here:
For those of you who are patiently waiting for me to hit the road and come visit, I promise that I am saving my allowance so I can do so. I get 85 cents a week, and tend to spend it all on posters for my iguana. BUT . . . anything left over goes into the tour fund. For real.
All the best,
Tim
If you’re new to Fite, he’s got a knack for mixing hip hop, folk and peculiar looping samples together to make music that’s silly, catchy and wickedly poignant.
He’s also got a gift for weaving and conjuring up crazy metaphorical stories in his songs, which makes me wonder how true this silly pet iguana story really is or what it really represents.
Either way, it was a frickin’ blast reading the email. And I hope he does save enough money to tour and that fans do have fun learning the new songs at the New York show at the Knitting Factory on February 26th.
That said, I’ve been waiting for Fite to release some new stuff since I last interviewed him during Hideout Block Party in 2008 while he toured for Fair Ain’t Fair.
In the meantime, read the email again and go ahead and fan Fite’s Facebook page and visit his website (lots of cool FREE downloads, like my personal favorite Over the Counter Culture.)
What’s the most creative way you’ve seen an artist promote a show? And the least?