[Dixielandjazz] Band Publicity Photos

[Steve barbone]

"LARRY  <sign.guy at charter.net>, wrote (polite snip)

> The only problem that I ran into is photos.  People expect to see the same
> guys as in the publicity photos.  To fix this I only use my photo now.  If
> your band has been together for "years".  (Musician years are kind of like
> dog years in reverse and resemble others minutes.  10 minutes = 10 years).
> If your band has been together for "Real" years then Maybe you don't have a
> problem.

And Dave Richoux added

> Even worse for publicity and photos - when a band has been around for
> many years with just a few personnel changes and we send out an
> entirely new "press packet" which gets totally ignored by the festival
> program book maker (I won't call them a graphic designer ;-) and they
> instead  dig up a 15 year old photo and band bio  to print...>

> GRRRRR!

Yep, a definite problem. What Barbone Street did about 10 years ago is stop
sending publicity photos of the band. Instead, my graphic artist daughter
designed a band logo, like the Toulouse Lautrec poster of Aristide Bruant.
She then painted an acrylic poster for me which we displayed at gigs.

Later she computer designed the logo, and I had a poster of it printed and
framed. We still use it at gigs. Picture shows a street sign with our name,
and "Bruant" holding a clarinet. Other than that it is pretty close to
Lautrec's poster. Her "original" painting now hangs in my office.

Since we work so many gigs, (we work with about 40 different jazz musicians
here in the area from Washington DC to NYC) it would be a chore to get an
accurate personnel photo. Thus the reproduction of the band logo serves a
dual purpose. One, it eliminates old band pictures with the "wrong"
personnel and much more importantly, it establishes a visual presence, or
recognition of the band logo. (which is also repeated on our business cards,
flyers, letterhead, invoices, gig quotations, contracts etc., etc.)

The logo/poster also eliminates some idiot coming up from the audience and
complaining "Hey, this isn't who I expected to see." I also make sure to
point out in the press kit that the band personnel vary because of our very
busy schedule and booking of overlapping jobs. (In that vein, we have
already firmly booked 29 gigs for 2005 and 6 bands on Mardi Gras) And like
Lester Lanin, if a client insists that I be there (many do but that's
another story) I find I can charge more.

The goal we set for the logo was "Band/Brand Identification". Very different
from just a photo of the band.

To see the logo poster visit;  http://www.barbonestreet.com

Cheers,
Steve Barbone