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The Bio That Got Us NoticedWhen I first set about the task of writing a bio for our band As U R, I did what a lot of us do these days: I jumped on the internet and googled 'how to write a bio'. Four days later, having read and printed just about everything I could find on the subject I was absolutely sure that following the advice I was getting would give me a fairly good standard result.And that is the problem right there... Standard. I don't know about you but I have decided something... Standard does not do it for me. Not in any walk of life. Especially music, after all, that is my passion. Sorry, but I have strived for years in the music business, on stage and in the studio to achieve quality, and as a result I have become extremely selective about what I accept. It would have to be something pretty special to get my attention, because I have seen and heard so much over the years. Bio D-grade(able)...So while I was reading all this well-meaning advice..."make sure your 1st paragraph contains..." "bios should be no more than one page..." "make sure you include at least 2 photos...." etc etc, I was thinking 'how come someone who is striving to be so creative, individual and entertaining has to resort to such dull, formulaic methods to get their names under the noses of the press?'I began to think about what it would be like for a journalist to receive these standardized bios over and over again. And then I realized that this is in fact a good thing. For me... Because as long as these sorts of average efforts are the norm, it stands to reason that with a bit of imagination you could make something stand out from the disappointingly boring crowd and really win a fan or two. So after coming to the decision that in order to stand out I must do the opposite of what the others are doing, I asked myself some questions:
Bio-Graphical...The TaskWe had a CD to promote and I wanted to get it reviewed on a TV show called 'Good Morning'. The show's reviewer always had plenty of CDs from all around the world to discuss, nearly all of them were big name artists. My Goal Make our CD/bio package something he could not ignore. The Concept The bio as a board game. I took the idea to Brett (the other 50% of As U R) and we came up with the following:
 Now where I come from there is a very simple child's board game called 'Snakes and Ladders'. In some parts of the world you may know it as 'Chutes and Ladders'. Just in case you are not familiar with it here is a link for you.  So Brett came up with a cunning board design with the CD area in the center (we attached the CD case with self-adhesive velcro strips), and a snazzy logo that Coca Cola would be proud of.  We made a dice wheel out of cardboard with our CD label image on it and numbered guitar picks at each edge. It is a hexagon shape and it is assembled by pushing half a toothpick through the center to give it a spindle. You spin it and when it comes to rest on one of the sides you read off the number on that side.Then you move your counters (different colored guitar picks - we were really ramming the message home!) according to that number along the board and either climb up the guitar necks, or drop down the broken guitar strings. Bio-Logical...If you landed on a red diamond you picked up the corresponding red color card, in this case a 'Know Your Wednesdays' card. (The name of our CD is 'A Year Of Wednesdays' and these cards contained questions you could only answer if you listened to the CD).Landing on a blue diamond meant you pick up a "A Year Of Dense Days ' card which contained short stories of the foul-ups, mistakes and blooper moments we had in the studio. Landing on green meant pick up a "Track' card where we described each song, it's theme, instrumentation and so on. You get the idea.  The board folded in two places to fit in a standard A4 (11" x 8") envelope and feeling suitably smug, we posted it off to the afore-mentioned esteemed reviewer. 
Afore-mentioned esteemed reviewer emailed me to say he was reviewing the CD the following week!On the show he made special mention of the board game and how that got his attention, and other bands take note. I think I was prouder of that than the review itself. A couple of weeks went by and I received an email from the show's producer inviting us to play on the show 'unplugged'. Which we did. And all because I broke the rules. So maybe you can brainstorm your own "outside of the box" solutions, and I would love to hear about your successes (or otherwise) here. Take care. View larger board game pictures here: » The Frets and Twangers Game Board » The Snazzy Logo » The Dice Wheel » The Lawsuit filed by The Snakes and Ladders Manufacturers View a recording of the TV performance: (The recording quality is not great, especially the audio, and it features a few wobbly notes in my singing!) » As U R Unplugged Privacy Statement Disclaimer Contact |