Rock My Monkey to feature bands on their cans!

We at Rock My Monkey are always trying to find new ways to help the bands that help us. Ara'Kus has pretty much dominated our band link trade chart on the left side of our website. They do this by making sure all their bandmates vote daily, sending the link out to friends, and just being good friends to us. So it's pay back time! Starting in June we will begin releasing limited edition cans with bands from our community featured on the cans! Every can printed in that month will have the band's logo as well as their main website for all to see. Only one band will be featured per month. So who will be next?

Ara'Kus combines dark, atmospheric, story-driven theater with their signature style of symphonic, operatic heavy metal.

No, seriously go check out their website at heavymetalopera.com

Their premiere production, Aeterno Elementum tells the story of a world not entirely unlike our own which has descended into darkness, and of it’s inevitable and violent purification. Featuring fire dancing, aerial performance, acrobatic martial artists, fully armed and armored knights in large scale combat, and a cast of highly talented actors and musicians of all types, this is a spectacle that must be witnessed in order to be fully understood. We at Rock My Monkey have seen what they do in person and the production values are higher than you can imagine.

Now that Ara'Kus has won, they will be removed from the contest until Jan 1st.

For more info on Ara'Kus:
heavymetalopera.com
facebook.com/AraKusProductions
twitter.com/arakusband
youtube.com/user/arakusband

This means that the contest to be featured on our July cans has begun. CLICK HERE to register your band. It is important however that you CLICK HERE to understand how it all works.

A few simple rules:

1. The top band at the end of the month gets the feature
2. Once a band wins, they are removed from the chart until Jan 1st
3. Only one vote, per IP address per day
4. If your band is not playing shows, recording, or have a full line up, you do not count.
5. Rock, Metal, Punk, and Industrial bands only please.
6. Rap, Dubstep, Techno, Country, and Pop will be removed at our discretion.

Bands: Promote Yourself on Rock My Monkey

So we at Rock My Monkey are always trying to find ways to make this more of a community thing. One way we do this is to open our cyber doors to the bands that fit our format. This goes double for bands from our local area. So how do you take advantage of this?

The first step is to register HERE

Once you are registered let us know you want to post stuff to the site (so we can clear your account for posting).

What kind of stuff do we want you to post on the site?

1. That show you have coming up
2. A rant about the things that get under your skin as a musician
3. Your (a few hundred words at least) review of a cd/show (from another band) you just listened to and love
4. Any music related top ten list
5. Post your band's music video, concert, video podcast

Seriously, there is tons of different types of content you can post. Start each article with the following script in italics so it promotes your band:

___ is a guest writer and plays ____ for the band ____. Please go to www.BandWebsite.com or Facebook.com/YourBand for more info.

Once you post something, send us a text at (360)519-ROCK to let us know and we will send it to the front of the site as soon as possible. This is a community and we want you to be more involved.

Looking For Three Bands Who Think Their Band Is Unstoppable!

So Rock My Monkey has a new wacky idea. What about taking 3 bands per week, posting a link to one free download (or stream if we get desperate) from each of the 3 bands, then letting just those three battle it out too see which one survives? The winner will go on to battle two new foe's the next week.

Bands with a direct MP3 download will get preferential treatment. In other words, if when picking the bands fo the week I have a band that links to a stream and a band with a direct MP3 link on their website, the band with the MP3 link will get the feature. Bands who insist on having you sign up to  mailing list, click an ad, share on your Facebook, or dance around the house in a pink tutu for the almighty privilege of downloading one single song will be asked to go fly a kite and please fall off a cliff while doing so. Bands that want to charge can do the same.

No mater if you want to stream it or give an MP3 download, we MUST have a direct link to a specific song! "But dude this goes right to our MySpace and people can find the song there." We will not ask anyone to find jack squat. It must be a direct link or you will get sent back to the minor leagues. We WILL NOT host the file for you. You are big boys and girls and can figure out how to do that for yourselves.

So it must be a direct link to a direct song. A YouTube video is fine if it is on your bands official YouTube (or other video hosting service) account.

So do ya feel lucky punk? Well do ya?
Post the link to our Facebook page HERE. I will pick from there. If your band is not chosen feel free to keep bugging us. Only 3 slots per week so your chance will come up quick.

If you have any questions PLEASE ASK!

Write 3 Paragraphs To Promote Your Band?

click to enlargeDo you feel passionate about a recent Metal or Hard Rock release? Did you just go to a show last night? Want to plug your band on RockMyMonkey? Well just make sure you are registered. Then shoot us an email at rockmymonkey@gmail.com and ask to be switched up to a writers account (we need to set your permissions). Then submit your cd or show review. No, you can't review your own band's cd. This is open for local (every band is local somewhere) and unsigned bands to write about national touring artists. I only ask for 3 respectable paragraphs. You can even make the headline something like "Fartknockers Review The New Samael Cd Lux Mundi" or something. For those new to the site, Fartknockers is my made up name I use as an example. No relation to any real band called Fartknockers. If you need help registering, posting the review, or anything else connected to this offer, please post your question here in the comments, send us an email, or post the question on our Facebook page HERE.

You can post about live shows, cd releases, or dvd releases. Notice how I didn't say music dvd releases? Yep, you can talk about recent movie or tv dvd releases as well. This is only open to actual band members of actual real bands. This is not open to guys who hide behind computers playing with Fruity Loops. If you are not a live BAND we don't care. This can be Rock bands, Metal bands, Punk bands, Industrial Bands (must have guitars), and all the ten billion sub-genres of these styles. What is not allowed however are  Rap, soft rock, rapcore, country, techno (no guitars means you probably suck), or gospel choirs. Of course nothing racist, but if I have to say that you are probably too stupid to figure this out anyways.

Why am I doing this? I need content (articles/reviews) from people who are passionate about heavy music. We get well over ten thousand visitors a month. You need FREE ways to promote your band. This costs your band nothing but time. Seems like a great deal for both. So let's get busy promoting your band already!

Can Metal Have A Sense Of Humor?

click to enlargeSo I was talking to this band a few days ago about ways to promote themselves. One method I brought up was the E-card. Put something funny on it and people can hit the share link on Facebook and spread the name of your band around on it. All it takes is a standard JPG made through Gimp or Photoshop, then you add one funny joke a day. They thought that would make people think they were not a serious band. So I brought up the Black Label Society video Overlord. They thought that Zak Wylde could get away with that because he was already established. Ok, so that means the The Damned Things video for We've Got A Situation Here is out too I guess? But what about all the home movies Pantera compiled for their dvd releases? What about Type O Negative doing a fake live cd in the studio with Origin Of Feces? Was Type O Negative not a serious band? Was Pantera not a serious band?

So here is my thoughts. As with most things, it's all about balance. No you don't want to go on stage with a clown hat. Don't do your press photo while picking your nose or showing your bare ass to the camera. I honestly wouldn't have a band that isn't established do a video that's comical either. Posting videos of the band off stage goofing around however would be great. Using an E-card with a joke on it to get people to check out your music is fine. Pretty much as far as I am concerned as long as the lighter side of the band is only shown off stage and away from the actual music I see no problem with it. In fact it let's people know the band is human when they get off stage.

So the message here is to not be so paranoid about your tough Metal image. Be yourself. People like bands they can hang with and showing you have a sense of humor might make people be more comfortable with the band overall. Everything in life is about balance and when to sh9ow the lighter side of band member personalities is no different.