Trickle Down Music is a free, evolving resource intended to help independent musicians without a team of managers, agents, publicists or radio trackers get the most out of their upcoming album release. It’s a do-it-yourself (DIY) guide, whether that DIY approach is one of necessity or by choice.
Trickle Down isn’t selling you anything. It won’t tell you to change anything about your creative process, just ensure you’ve got the tools to maximize the fruits of it. It’ll help you to organize your pre-release assets, get your music distributed on streaming sites, pitched to media & radio, registered to ensure you are collecting royalties on it and much more. It is comprised of templates & real-word examples, tips, checklists, timelines, helpful links and represents a collection of “maybe-not-best” practices, but still pretty good ones. While it is aimed at Canadian musicians, and comes from an independent rock focus, much of it is broadly applicable to musicians of various genres around the world.
It is less so, and only as time allows, also a record label and music management company.
…a collection of “maybe-not-best” practices, but still pretty good ones.
Photo: Heather Saitz, Album art (clockwise starting top left): Jen Schier, Olivia Forsyth, Hamburger Hands, Geoffrey Hanson, The Little Friends of Printmaking, Merm.
Trickle Down Music is the realization of a long-percolating urge from musician and arts administrator, Shawn Petsche. As the former festival manager of Calgary’s Sled Island Music & Arts Festival, he was surrounded by great independent music that never quite seemed to get the attention it deserved beyond the city limits. As member and defacto manager of rock bands Napalmpom & Self-Cut Bangs for over 10 years, he slowly amassed a knowledge base that helped to propel his music to a level of notoriety sitting comfortably in the “not quite a career, but proudly finding an audience” pocket. Enough so that countless bands would approach him asking for help with their own release plans.
Too often, that very same knowledge base gets hoarded by those who have already found their footing in the industry, or has its spread limited within the four walls of conferences and panel discussions. Trickle Down is an attempt to instead share it openly, and have it accessible at all times; to raise the level of professionalism and reach of releases, giving everyone a bit of a leg up.
So take in the Trickle Down and punch up your release.