The absolute best way to get involved is to come down to a show and introduce yourself. Those who participate in the local music community and support the wider scene will always take precedence over bands/artists who merely see the DIY scene as a stepping stone to “better” things or to further their “career”. That’s not to say that we’re anti-career, many good friends of ours have gone onto great things in the music industry, but that has been as a result of years of hard work, not in spite of it. We are always keen to hear from more local bands and to grow our community. This is best achieved in person at shows.
This FAQ will be augmented, added to and expanded upon as required and is by no means exhaustive, although may be a little boring for some. As stated, this isn’t something that we’ve been desperate to put together but given their sheer volume of correspondence of late, it’s something that we feel is necessary. Apologies and thanks in advance for understanding.
For all enquries relating to Conroy’s Basement and the third party use thereof, please email kenny@makethatatakerecords.com
Please send all enquiries by email only.
Please DO NOT send messages to our Facebook page as these are very easy to miss and a response is by no means guaranteed.
Also, please DO NOT message or add our personal FB profiles looking for shows. This is something that has become unmanageable recently and any breach of this request will be counter-productive. We realise this may seem harsh but you are far more likely to receive a reply in you contact us via email..
Some general points; we get many gig enquiries and while we do our best to respond to each one, we cannot guarantee getting back to all bands at all times.
We DO NOT put on “showcase” gigs and are not particularly interested in “growing the audience” or “conquering new markets”. We have very little interest in demographics or creating rock stars and/or mainstream “successes”. There are plenty of avenues for this type of thing, we are not one of them.
If you are a small UK band, it’s highly unlikely that you actually need a booking agent. While some bands may feel that they do (to “lighten the load” or whatever), we much prefer to deal with bands directly. Your booking agent may want what’s best for your band but he/she also wants their 10/15%. Some of the “biggest” bands you know still book their own shows, you should too.
International touring bands are different; we prefer to work with bookers/agents that we know and trust. However, we also like to keep an open mind so if you’re looking for a potential tour date, please do get in touch. We will do what we can but can make no promises.
Bands who support and contribute to the local music community will always be offered support slots with touring bands first. Don’t expect to be offered shows with “bigger” bands if you never come out to the “small” shows.
We also accept LINKS to demos via email. We don’t need a thousand word biography of your band, just a short and simple introduction and a link to some recordings is fine.
Please DO NOT send mp3 or WAV files, videos, large attachments or promo photos as these take up huge amounts of space and will be discarded.
We love hearing new music of all kinds but are fundamentally a DIY punk rock label, so please take a moment to consider whether your band and our label are complimentary. Recently we’ve had enquries from everything from an American Christian pop-rock band to a Chilean right-wing black metal band. Safe to say that we’ll be working with neither so please be mindful of this before emailing so as not to waste your time or ours.
While we are not restricted geographically, the artists from further afield with whom we work are those with whom we have already developed relationships in one form or another. While we do love hearing from new bands, the likelihood of us putting out a 7” EP for a French punk band we’ve never met or heard of before is very, very slim.
While not being overly harsh taskmasters, if we do put your record out, we’d expect you to do some touring and help spread the word. Putting a record together can be an expensive and time-consuming enterprise so if we were interested in vanity projects, we’d probably start with one of our own.
We’ve spent almost 20 years playing in bands and toured before the internet was as key a tool for tour booking as it is today; do some of the groundwork yourself and it’ll be far more rewarding. That said, if you’re a hard working and dedicated band, word gets around and people in the punk scene will know about you. We are happy to help where we can, especially for local bands, but there are limits to what we can do.
Your own hard graft will bring its own rewards!
Anyone who would like added to our mailing list, please just email.
