Since 1994 fierce panda records has been keeping its ear to the ground and its head in the clouds in a selfless attempt to help young musicians onto the rickety rock'n'roll ladder. We love new bands, we love new music and we especially love new pies. All new tunes should be sent to demos@fiercepanda.co.uk and to help you on your way here is a list of things you really should and shouldn't do.

DON'T send us a link with a one-line email saying simply 'have a listen to this!'. Why should we? Who are you? Who are we? What is us? Where are you from? What do you think you sound like? You are one of twenty completely unknown acts contacting us every eight minutes. Engage with us. Make us smile.

DON'T send us four different emails with four different mp3s. This clogs up the system like a hamster in a Hoover. One song is absolutely fine.

DO send us a link to soundcloud or bandcamp or facebook.

DON'T keep remailing us saying 'Have you played it yet? What did you think of our music? Have you played it yet? Have you played it yet??' It gets really annoying and clogs up the system as well. Dysons. Guinea pigs. Etcetera

DO keep remailing us with updates, ie if you have gigs coming up or if you've made a new video or if you're having a particularly fertile time with your vegetable patch.

DON'T copy us in with another 55 record companies. That won't make us feel special.

DO sit down and think about precisely why you're sending us your music. Seven out of ten musicians are getting in touch with us waaaaaaay too early. In the olden days musicians had to record their music, make a cassette, design some artwork, write a letter, buy a jiffy bag, find an address, buy a stamp and go to the post box. Very often this process would take six months, by which point the act had had time to rehearse and gig and get themselves up to a certain standard. Nowadays people bash out some tunes in their bedroom and email it to us a day later and it is all too soon. Too much, too young you might say. This is rock'n'roll, not a race. Take your time. We've been here since 1994. We're not going anywhere.

DON'T send us music if you haven't got at least the germ of a live plot in place. We're not saying we expect everyone to have a support slot with The Vaccines in the next week or so, we're just fed up with hearing good songs and getting in touch with the artist to be told there are no gigs on the horizon. We might not come and see you play in the back room of your local pub in Preston but we can build a good picture of you just from a list of live dates.

DON'T send us a song and say 'It's a bit rough, but have a listen.' If you think your own music sounds 'rough' we will probably think it sounds 'completely bloody atrocious'. Make it easy on yourself. Do the very best you can. Test the tunes out on friends. When you're happy with your music then send it to us saying 'It's a bit brilliant, so have a listen?'.

DO rest assured that your email will be read and your tunes will be played eventually. The huge volume of demo-related traffic precludes us from responding to each and every email but if we think your music is fantastic or even just shows the odd thunderflash of potential we will drop you a line. Pinky promise.

Team Panda