The Blogging Side Of Music – Part 2 of 5 – Dave Tamkin

Today, we once again open the floor to Chicago-based (and now Colorado located) national touring musician, Dave Tamkin. We spoke with Dave about the promotional strategies that he finds to be most effective on his own blog, Head Above Music. Dave created Head Above Music as a free resource for musicians to find tips about gear, touring, travel, health and other important interests related to the working musician:

Describe yourself as an artist.

I’ve been a full time national touring musician for the last 8 years, maybe more but I don’t want to admit it. I try to write honest, upbeat, percussive songs that tell stories from a few different perspectives.

How important is social media marketing to your overall goals as an artist. Do you use it often? What is the level of engagement between you and your fans through various social networking channels?

It’s important to stay in contact with your friends and fans at a few different levels. It’s a creative outlet like anything else and the more you can give your audience new material to keep them updated and entertained the better. I use Facebook daily. I have a good time posting crazy ass videos and try to find something either personal or external that provokes some comments. Its fun to see people I’ve met from across the country interact on a topic.

I’m not a huge twitter fan but keep it updated through other platforms. Myspace is still great to tool to connect with other musicians but I’m not sure how many people still use it.

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