So you want to be on Garagerocktopia?

It’s hard to say whether or not Garagerocktopia has “arrived”, but after three or so years of

putting out this humble little blog, there has been a development that we most certainly welcome: more and more bands and artists are reaching out to us and asking if we can help spread the word about their music.

A quick tangent: almost to a person, artists, from the 13 or so countries across the planet, have been the most down-to-earth and pleasant bunch with whom you could ever hope to communicate. We have talked to many legends of Garage Rock, Power Pop, Mod, Freakbeat, and Proto-Punk. We have also talked to artists and bands just getting started on their journey to what they hope will be rock and roll immortality. Regardless of which category they fall into, writing about all of the above has been an enormous hoot.

We've always tried to take a global and multi-generational view of the music we write about which is, of course, a global and multi-generational phenomenon, 50-plus years old and still going strong.

Most of the artists we have profiled have been from the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, though we have ventured beyond those confines on more than one occasion. But this is an open party, open to whomever wants to be a part of it. We don't care of you're from Timbuktu, or Barrow, Alaska, or a group of penguins from the South Pole who play rock and roll music. If your stuff is cool, we want to hear it -- and maybe feature you on this very blog.

But back to business. We are all about helping to get the world to know bands, and we love getting turned on to your music. Up to now, we were pretty much writing up anybody who took the effort to get in touch. But, alas, we can no longer do that. Due to the volume of music we are now getting, contacts on our Facebook page and email inquiries, plus the fact that we still have our day jobs and all the other parts of our lives to manage, we will have to set a few simple ground rules. We’re still all about the bands trying to get their piece of the pie, and here’s how you can help us out so that we can do our best to help you:

Have a media kit ready. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy -- a short bio, a list of all the names of the people in your band is almost all you need. Include any information you feel important for the world to know. Contact information is absolutely essential.

Also, please include photos of your band. Otherwise, we may have to go to your Facebook page and get that one pic that somebody was planning to use as blackmail material.

Also, please include mp3’s or other digital audio formats, or some way in which we can access your music for download. In the past, we were happy to follow video website links and streaming media playlists, but that just gets too time-consuming. Also, because we’re kinda poor, we don’t always have access to our internet, and a lot of the music we get has to be listened to during our commute times.

Also, if possible, put clear tags on the music files so this way, we know exactly who is making the song, and what the song is called.

We also have a Facebook page, where we announce our new postings, pass on bits of news about our styles of music, post links to the many broadcasters and podcasters featuring the same kinds of music we do, and other assorted stuff. We don’t live and die by social media, but we do like “likes.”

Stay tuned folks -- we’re planning on bringing you lots more cool music.