Liina at Mystic Sons - part 2/2
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A full time report on my time working in Mystic Sons PR agency in London is
here! I am writing this on a beach in Thailand - a well deserved (I think!) holiday after some rather rainy months in the end of 2019. We all deserve a bit of sunshine and fresh coconuts! Not to complain but I do think there are better months for visiting England than November and December. Although, London in Christmas lights is very pretty. Skating at Somerset house, sipping on a hot chocolate – it was actually really nice! Considering all the possibilities London has to offer it is impossible to get bored.
here! I am writing this on a beach in Thailand - a well deserved (I think!) holiday after some rather rainy months in the end of 2019. We all deserve a bit of sunshine and fresh coconuts! Not to complain but I do think there are better months for visiting England than November and December. Although, London in Christmas lights is very pretty. Skating at Somerset house, sipping on a hot chocolate – it was actually really nice! Considering all the possibilities London has to offer it is impossible to get bored.
Starting with all the museums (a lot of them free of charge), parks, gigs.. At first I even felt guilty if I decided to stay in instead of going out some nights.
Some of the most memorable events were definitely the concerts I attended. I think my top 3 (in a random order) were Shura at Roundhouse, Elias at JaJaJa showcase and the Classical Spectacular at Royal Albert Hall. RAH is such an amazing venue, I definitely recommend to go and check it out if you get a
chance. Everything probably sounds wonderful there but classical music
especially. And also keep an eye on JaJaJa – a showcase event introducing great Nordic acts.
You can follow them here: https://www.facebook.com/JaJaJaMusic/
London Design Museum
I mentioned in my previous post that my goal was to get to know the British
music media a bit better. I find it amazing that there are so many different and genre-based channels to pitch your music to. As a listener it’s so easy to discover new music and find new favourites to listen to. I do get the reasons why it’s hard to maintain an actual music magazine in Estonia – not enough readers, writers, money, advertisers etc. However I still hope that someday we’ll have a proper outlet introducing new music, interviewing the local
legends, publishing reviews etc. Imagine that!
Coming back to the office life I’ll try to get a bit more specific about my tasks. As I mentioned previously I wrote a bunch of press releases, sent hundreds of emails to journalists (including those press releases) and then hundreds of followup e-mails. One of the bands I worked with was a great Russian indie pop band On-The-Go. It was actually an interesting coincidence – back in 2016 when I organised a showcase event at Tallinn Music Week with my good friend and colleague Karl (Liina & Karl present), we picked On-The-Go to play at our event as well. So I was familiar with the band and it was really cool to work with them again. The band released a couple of singles and is about to release a new album in the end of February. I have to say that having six months for an album promotion sounds like a dream to me as a PR person. Instead of “I’m releasing an album/single/music video next week, can we do some PR?” as it often happens.
Another cool band I got to work with was a Finnish duo called Lake Jons. It was such a great surprise to find a collaboration track “Square” with the fantastic Erki Pärnoja from their vinyl. Some more artists I got to work with included Sofia Härdig, Julia Jonas, Alexandria Maillot, boerd and others.
Another big part of the job was called research – that’s the part where good
online stalking skills come in handy. Let’s say you have a great indie rock track you would like to pitch to a certain magazine, you check out who has been writing about similar artists on that magazine and you find a journalist whose taste seems to match that profile but there is no e-mail provided. This is when you start the research on different platforms – Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.. Twitter is huge in UK and it’s actually the best tool for getting in touch with journalists. Some of the journalists have their e-mails publicly on their profile but sometimes you just send them a direct message, asking if it’s fine to send them some music they might like.
I can not finish this post without mentioning the Mystic Sons Christmas party
that started with bowling and ended with people singing Backstreet Boys hits in a tiny karaoke booth – it sure was entertaining! And the Harry Potter studio tour was absolutely fantastic, I highly recommend if you are in for a few hours of pure magic!
// Drinking butterbeer at Harry Potter Studio Tour
Thank you, Mystic Sons – James, Tom and Jim – for having me over and thank you, Music Estonia for this fantastic opportunity!Last Breakfast at Dishoom
Some of the most memorable events were definitely the concerts I attended. I think my top 3 (in a random order) were Shura at Roundhouse, Elias at JaJaJa showcase and the Classical Spectacular at Royal Albert Hall. RAH is such an amazing venue, I definitely recommend to go and check it out if you get a
chance. Everything probably sounds wonderful there but classical music
especially. And also keep an eye on JaJaJa – a showcase event introducing great Nordic acts.
You can follow them here: https://www.facebook.com/JaJaJaMusic/
London Design Museum
I mentioned in my previous post that my goal was to get to know the British
music media a bit better. I find it amazing that there are so many different and genre-based channels to pitch your music to. As a listener it’s so easy to discover new music and find new favourites to listen to. I do get the reasons why it’s hard to maintain an actual music magazine in Estonia – not enough readers, writers, money, advertisers etc. However I still hope that someday we’ll have a proper outlet introducing new music, interviewing the local
legends, publishing reviews etc. Imagine that!
Coming back to the office life I’ll try to get a bit more specific about my tasks. As I mentioned previously I wrote a bunch of press releases, sent hundreds of emails to journalists (including those press releases) and then hundreds of followup e-mails. One of the bands I worked with was a great Russian indie pop band On-The-Go. It was actually an interesting coincidence – back in 2016 when I organised a showcase event at Tallinn Music Week with my good friend and colleague Karl (Liina & Karl present), we picked On-The-Go to play at our event as well. So I was familiar with the band and it was really cool to work with them again. The band released a couple of singles and is about to release a new album in the end of February. I have to say that having six months for an album promotion sounds like a dream to me as a PR person. Instead of “I’m releasing an album/single/music video next week, can we do some PR?” as it often happens.
Another cool band I got to work with was a Finnish duo called Lake Jons. It was such a great surprise to find a collaboration track “Square” with the fantastic Erki Pärnoja from their vinyl. Some more artists I got to work with included Sofia Härdig, Julia Jonas, Alexandria Maillot, boerd and others.
Another big part of the job was called research – that’s the part where good
online stalking skills come in handy. Let’s say you have a great indie rock track you would like to pitch to a certain magazine, you check out who has been writing about similar artists on that magazine and you find a journalist whose taste seems to match that profile but there is no e-mail provided. This is when you start the research on different platforms – Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.. Twitter is huge in UK and it’s actually the best tool for getting in touch with journalists. Some of the journalists have their e-mails publicly on their profile but sometimes you just send them a direct message, asking if it’s fine to send them some music they might like.
I can not finish this post without mentioning the Mystic Sons Christmas party
that started with bowling and ended with people singing Backstreet Boys hits in a tiny karaoke booth – it sure was entertaining! And the Harry Potter studio tour was absolutely fantastic, I highly recommend if you are in for a few hours of pure magic!
// Drinking butterbeer at Harry Potter Studio Tour
Thank you, Mystic Sons – James, Tom and Jim – for having me over and thank you, Music Estonia for this fantastic opportunity!Last Breakfast at Dishoom
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