Picking Songs For Your Band

Mat from librerock.com wants to know what I feel about giving away digital downloads away for free.Giving Away Your Music For FreeFor me, should they and "is this fair" are two different topics. I don't think its fair that you spend money to produce your recordings, you work hard, and are expected to give it away for free. HOWEVER, the customer EXPECTS a downloadable file to be either free of .99 cents. Maybe the best solution is to give the opportunity for people to get it for free (maybe in exchange for an email address). That would be the best of both worlds. Here is my music, if you'd like to buy it, it's .99. If you don't have .99 then give me your email address.When you DO NOT give it away for free is when you package it with a CD, book, t-shirt. Then you lose the expectation that it should be free.This is why tickets, t-shirts, and other merchandise is so expensive. You have to feed your kids with something.What are your thoughts?B.B. King ReflectionsThis is a guy who has passion for playing. If you get a chance to see him, he's pretty amazing and you could see how he makes each concert an event. He is 87 years old.Picking Your SongsThis segment is geared towards cover bands, but there is still some information here for people doing original music as well.Don't play songs that suck.Don't play sounds that your band can't pull off.Make it democratic (if this is a band).