In a band and want to get the best start in life?

Tourdates.co.uk are very excited to announce a brand new initiative for 2009, the Musicians’ Clinic, allowing upcoming Artists access to music industry leaders.

The clinic will be held monthly at Proud galleries in Camden, North London and will allow upcoming artists a unique opportunity to discuss the challenges they are facing in areas such as label negotiations and legal issues, merchandise strategy, effective PR, working with the press and sales.

In addition they will have the opportunity to have their demos critiqued by Andy Ross, former boss of Food Records,120 consecutive top 100 singles and six UK number one albums with three different artists including Blur. Andy Currently manages Bleech.

Andy Ross is joined by Leonard Lowy a solicitor specialising in the music industry, Mel Brown the MD of Impressive PR, Andy Allen CEO of Backstreet Merchandise and Richard Hodkinson Editorial Director of LondonTourdates magazine.

Leonard Lowy commented "With so much doom and gloom out there at the moment, I can't think of a better time to launch a new initiative like this. For those of us who make our living from this industry, it's great to be able to give something back. Hopefully with our combined expertise we'll be able to help steer people in the right direction."

Jarrod Robinson, CEO of Tourdates, added “Tourdates is delighted to have been asked by Leonard to run the event which will provide our artist community with access to over 100 years of collective know-how.”

Andy Allen, CEO of Backstreet Merchandise, praised the event saying "This is an excellent opportunity for artists to receive some professional advice and possibly avoid costly mistakes."

Mel Brown feels there is a wealth of great bands that really don’t know where to start - they don’t know what PR is or when the best time is to start a PR push or campaign. Getting an experienced PR on board early could make a huge difference to the overall strategy of the bands career.

The first event is on Monday 26th January 2009 with bookings being accepted on a 'first come' - 'first served' basis.

Artists can book online at www.tourdates.co.uk/musicians-clinic

Jarrod Robinson, CEO, Tourdates Limited, 0844 561 0777