What are some common mistakes that bands tend to make over and over?
You know what is phenomenal that it still happens? It’s people sending in their demo with just a note saying, “Hey it’s Tom. Here is the CD I promised you.” This could be someone I met at a conference, or someone who called me, or an email. I don’t remember any of these things. That’s all they send. People send disks with no labels, with no titles, and with no contact information to Columbia Records. Come on! You know what happens? We take all of these CDs out to our cars. I listen to one and throw it on the floor. Grab another one, throw it on the seat. Sometimes you just don’t know where it came from. People that send cassettes still kind of bug me. I do a lot of A&R in the car. I drive around and constantly listen to demos. I don’t have a cassette player in my car. People also send DATs and stuff. Just send CDs. I even had someone send me their multi-track tapes once, which was so silly. What, am I going to go rent studio time somewhere to go mix their stuff? I don’t get it! Another