for the google-failers out there, or just lazy stoners:

http://www.skepdic.com/amway.html

i got an email from afton booking before, as far as i went into it with setting up a profile and whatever it seems free, they probably sell you tickets to the show or somethign though.... so far in philly ive only seen one flyer for some dj i never heard of at a place i didnt know and some other people i know here said they got emailed by them, its prob no harm though

as far as cds like the topics based on, ive gotten emails like that in bands i was in, in the past and mostly its sadly bs, we even did one once that claimed they were passing out 5000 copies at ozzfest and we got some copies and sold them or gave them away, i mean 165 isnt THAT bad if you want to get 50 copies of a song you did on a real cd. the only thing is that like someone else said, they are sending that email to alot of people and what most of the time happens(and in my own experiance) is that theres like 20 artists/songs on the cd and more than half of them are awful and you may be hard pressed to find a song sonically relatable to your own, which makes it kind of hard for you to sell being you only got one track amidst all this junk. now if you can check out who else is on it thats something,,,just my 2 cents

Unless you manage to get the extra exposure on channels like Youtube and sometimes Myspace to get a label's attention, there's no way people of labels will contact you through PM or email.

It's usually the other way around, you need to send them your demos.

Hence why most of these kind of emails are either complete scams or people that want to take serious advantage of your music.

If a record label contacts you, they will want you to call or meet with them.

exactly

cosign i was gonna add that in about labels vs promotion companys.. you would always want to side with a label as being 'for real' unless its a promotion for like a major company ie scion mix cds

maybe someone should start a label for getting the sp forums mixtapes available on itunes and the like that would be cool.. i havent participated in those yet so i dontknow what promotion is done with them but theyve all been real good so im just throwing that idea out there,,, even sending the mixtape to some blogs or something

Two thumbs up.

pretty much a scam if anyone is being approached without having a significant buzz and by that I mean sorta blowing up locally/regionally, headlining local shows, doing regional tours with bigger artists, being in the papers/interviews on the blogs, etc...you gotta be relevant and have put in years of work before anyone is going to approach you with opportunities to make real money and even then you gotta be careful - so many of your fav artists are basically broke

pay for play as in you gotta cop tickets and re-sell them to perform is part of the game for up and comers in a local scene but you gotta really weigh your options...I say it's not really worth it unless you KNOW it's gonna be a really well promoted event where you can get new fans, and of course this is the case if you got a chance to open for a big name artist...so then yea I can see that, but really you better off rocking at open mics and building ties with artists etc so you can eventually prove your merit and get a chance to perform and have it matter...local shows are a bunch of BS a lot of the time, artists rapping to 10 of their homies that leave right after the set and doing that shit ain't helping you - you can get practice ciphering and at open mics...less is more

that post was from emcee perspective...obviously there are less opportunities to practice in a live setting for producers/DJs, can't really comment from that side