Philly-area bands try lots of tactics to get ahead

The Free Energy model for making a career in the music business combines old-school and new-school techniques: Write good songs that get you signed by a cool indie label (DFA Records) that acts as a farm team for a global label (EMI). Take a time-honored approach to constant touring, but spread the word by giving away free MP3 files (and, in a nuevo-retro ploy, cassettes) and placing songs in movies and on TV.

But the Free Energy strategy is just one of scores of ways that young and not-so-young acts use to try to get or stay ahead. Here's a sampling of what other Philadelphia-connected artists are doing.

West Philadelphia pop-rockers Dr. Dog made their name with the self-released Easy Beat in 2005. Since then they've toured nonstop, building up a fan base big enough to pack midsize venues around the country. The band's last album, Shame, Shame, sold 60,000 copies for tiny Park the Van Records, allowing the group to move up to the larger indie label Anti-.

"I was startled when we talked to other labels at how impressed they were with that number," says Dr. Dog's Scott McMicken.

Ever since Moby's 1999 album Play sold more than 10 million copies after every song was licensed for use in film and on TV, negative associations with selling music for use in ads largely went out the window. Mount Airy-raised Santi White - who records as Santigold - has become the poster woman for music synchronizations since her 2008 album Santogold (then her recording name) broke big as a result of Gossip Girl syncs and ubiquitous Bud Light Lime ads.

With music blogs stepping into radio's shoes as the place to hear new music, blogs such as the influential "Aquarium Drunkard" are taking the next step and becoming labels themselves.

Fishtown rock band Blood Feathers put out its 2010 album Goodness Gracious on Philebrity Label, started by the blog of the same name. "They have their hands on a lot of people's desktops," says guitarist Ben Dickey.

Philadelphia hip-pop act Chiddy Bang - the duo of Chidera "Chiddy" Anamege and Noah "Xaphoon Jones" Beresin - scored a hit with their MGMT-sampling single "The Opposite of Adults" in Britain, where they're currently on tour. They built an audience by giving away The Swelly Express mix tape on their MySpace page. Says Beresin: "It's good to have the philosophy that it's better to have 100,000 people download your music for free than not download it at all."

Jon Barthmus of the Philadelphia bliss-pop band Sun Airway was taken by surprise when his song "Infinity" was highlighted in April by Pitchfork, the Chicago online music magazine. The song had first been picked up by the Philadelphia music blog "Yvynyl." In an instant, Sun Airway had an international reputation. The band's debut, Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier, comes out on the Dead Oceans label in October.

Long before the economy crashed, Philadelphia hip-hop collective The Roots were touring incessantly to make up for inconsistent record sales. Now they've pulled back from the road and have a home base on TV every night as the house band on NBC's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. That gives the band a platform to hype its recordings, such as this year's How I Got Over and a new collaboration with John Legend, Wake Up! "The timing was perfect," says Roots rapper Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter.