Posters & Fliers and how you can play an active role in the tour!
I can't stress enough the fact that this tour is:1. non-profit 2. a collaborative effort among fans of Japanese indie music not just in Canada but around the world
This tour isn't about making money. I can absolutely guarantee that since I've lost well over $100,000 funding the past three tours. Even if I doubled the ticket price and every show sold out I wouldn't even come close to breaking evem. I do these tours knowing it is inevitable that I will lose tens of thousands of dollars. Why? Because it's probably the most fun thing I've ever done in my life. Supporting the bands who make the music I love which plays such a huge part in my life. Tokyo has such a massive and unbelievably great music scene that almost noone outside of Japan knows about and I'm trying my best to give the artists and bands the exposure they deserve.
The Next Music from Tokyo tour is an absolute blast! Well at least when I'm touring with the bands in Canada and hanging out with them in Japan. But preparing each tour is a pain in the ass that eats up almost all my free time. But luckily with each tour more and more fans have started to help.
Rob Perry is someone I knew from Keikaku.net but I had never met in person until he drove all the way from Baltimore to Toronto to watch the first NMFT show and take video footage for me. He's always tried to lend a hand with each tour and this time he created a fantastic promo video:
Geoff Spence started helping me with the 2nd tour and I can't begin to describe how valuable he has been in helping me generate media interest and promote the tour. He's the biggest reason the Rivoli show in Toronto sold out so easily last year.
Without even asking, Denise (who runs keikaku.net) created an NMFT twitter account, Facebook page, Myspace page etc to jumpstart the social media aspect of the NMFT tour.
More and more people have been chipping in to help out in various ways.
But I still need more help!!
The biggest way people can help is to spread word about this project: 1. If you have friends or relatives that live in Canada who might be interested in the tour, please let them know 2. If you enjoyed any of the shows or any of the bands from NMFT then please write something about the experience on twitter, facebook, youtube etc. It seems trivial but word of mouth through internet and social media is incredibly powerful and effective in attracting attention. People constantly mention that the NMFT shows are some of the best concerts they've ever been to. I appreciate when people tell me that but it would help so much more if those feelings were documented online. The tickets to these shows are absurdly cheap considering the quality of the shows and that I'm flying the bands in all the way from Japan. Taking less than 2 min to write a comment on facebook, twitter or youtube shouldn't be too much of a hassle and it would help me out a great deal. :)
3. Help me make or distribute posters. Last year Kenny Chan in Montreal designed a sweet poster for the tour.
This year my friend Larry (who went to Japan with me in March) cooked up the following: (click on poster images to enlarge)
I also made my own poster which my friend Jack Jamieson editted to make the text nicer:
Anyone can feel free to design their own poster!! Also if people could download and print these posters and ditribute them around Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, it would be great.
I modified Larry's Zazen Boys poster so that three of them could fit onto legal sized paper (8.5" x 14") to make three fliers (you'll need a straightedge or scissors to cut them apart though).
Sorry that the posters are Toronto-specific. Feel free to modify them to make them appropriate for Vancouver or Montreal. I'll try to get Larry and Jack to make MTL and VAN versions.
edit: here's the poster that our friends at VANMUSIC made:
