The Blogging Side Of Music – Part 2 of 5 – Dave Tamkin

Tuesday, 8 June 2010, 1 Comments

Today, we once again open the floor to Chicago-based (and now Colorado located) national touring musician, Dave Tamkin. We spoke with Dave about the promotional strategies that he finds to be most effective on his own blog, Head Above Music. Dave created Head Above Music as a free resource for musicians to find tips about gear, touring, travel, health and other important interests related to the working musician:

Describe yourself as an artist.

I’ve been a full time national touring musician for the last 8 years, maybe more but I don’t want to admit it. I try to write honest, upbeat, percussive songs that tell stories from a few different perspectives.

How important is social media marketing to your overall goals as an artist. Do you use it often? What is the level of engagement between you and your fans through various social networking channels?

It’s important to stay in contact with your friends and fans at a few different levels. It’s a creative outlet like anything else and the more you can give your audience new material to keep them updated and entertained the better. I use Facebook daily. I have a good time posting crazy ass videos and try to find something either personal or external that provokes some comments. Its fun to see people I’ve met from across the country interact on a topic.

I’m not a huge twitter fan but keep it updated through other platforms. Myspace is still great to tool to connect with other musicians but I’m not sure how many people still use it.

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MicControl: Open Mic Podcast -

Episode 2 – Dave Tamkin Talks Life, Music and Social Media

MicControl: Open Mic Podcast – Episode 2 – Dave Tamkin by Jonathan Ostrow

In late 2007, Chicago-based Dave Tamkin released a live album, entitled Let Me Hear You Scream. Billed as Dave Tamkin & Co., the album documents Dave’s 7-piece band as they performed two shows in Chicago. A testament to the accessibility and versatility of Dave’s band as a live performing act, the release of Let Me Hear You Scream marks Dave’s 4th live album, yet has only released one studio album to date.

Musically, Dave’s rhythmic style of acoustic-driven rock n’ roll most closely resembles The Dave Matthews Band, while his bright, pop driven songwriting is closer to that of Jason Mraz. Dave Tamkin & Co. are a collection of high caliber musicians and though Dave’s smooth voice lends itself nicely to the pop aspects of the music, there is no doubting the high energy rock n’ roll that this band is capable of. Dave stands as a fantastic frontman, driving the band with his powerful vocals while conducting the bands every move though his rhythm guitar playing. But as Dave said in this weeks podcast, he feels like he is in their band and not the other way around. The musicians that surround dave are simply stellar and the result of their chemistry on stage is music that is exciting and vibrant. One thing that Dave’s band does so well in the live setting is their use of dynamics- instead of maintaining a flat level of high energy and volume throughout, the band is very conscious of their presence and uses it to achieve greater clarity, harder hitting solos and bigger, more climactic song forms. It is their dynamics as an overall group that puts Dave Tamkin & Co. in an entirely different level of professionalism than most live touring acts.

Dave Tamkin & Co.’s 2007 release of Let Me Hear You Scream is a true rarity. Creating a live album with so much to offer that it becomes its own piece of work is not something that every artist is capable of producing, but this album feels so organic from start to finish that it seems it was only a matter of time before Dave Tamkin & Co. released an album of this magnitude

3) Fell by Dave Tamkin & Co.

I’m honored to share the stage with BUCKSTEIN, KORY BRUNSON BAND,  and JULIA BRYAN BAND, $6, 21+ 7:30 PM