I know what you're thinking. "Why isn't there more entertainment created with ME in mind? Me, me, ME?? Marsha, Marsha!" No? Maybe that's just me. In any case, if you haven't already, check out Jason Nocera's "Buddy and Hopkins" comic strip -- it's a funny take on the whole band/gigging/rehearsing scene we musicians all know and love. Apparently, he's written over 270 strips, and is in his 5th year of production. Congrats, Nocera!
You still have one week to submit your song for consideration in the American Idol Songwriter contest. (i.e. here's your chance to write for David Archuleta, the fan- and judge-favorite.)Last year's winning song, "This is My Now" (what does that even mean?) by Jeff Peabody and Scott Krippayne, was performed in the American Idol finale and released by the winner, Jordin Sparks. If you have a "great" (i.e. cheesy) song and $10 to burn, you too can have a chance to earn the honor of being 2008's American Idol Songwriter. The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2008, and the recommended length for songs is 2:30 to 4:00. Good luck.
In case you need help finding a great song title, here are a few I've brainstormed for your benefit:
You're welcome. Enjoy.
So apparently, since the Governor Spitzer episode, Ashley Alexandra Dupre has made over $200,000 in mp3 downloads of her two club tracks on Amie Street, and is getting radio play. (She was also offered $1,000,000 to be in the new Girls Gone Wild magazine, but that offer was rescinded once GGW realized they already had a week's worth of footage of her from 2003.)
It's a crazy, crazy world...I don't remember anything like this happening in Pretty Woman.
Screw American Idol and Making the Band cinderella stories. Wouldn't we all like to watch a show about the rich 'n' famous spawn of rockstars getting a chance to become...er...more rich and famous?
MTV's "Rock The Cradle" knows what we're talkin about. Nine children of 9 different musician-stars will compete in American Idol-like fashion for the Rock the Cradle crown. (While the concept annoys me, I suppose you can't blame any musician for jumping on a chance to launch a career. And at least it's better TV than MTV's That's Amore.) The show is being produced jointly by MTV and by Fremantle Media, which is responsible for American Idol...hence the deja vu you might be experiencing.
Introducing the Rock the Cradle Cast:
My next question is, will the cast only be allowed to sing songs by their moms and dads? Or disallowed? You'd think Lucy Walsh would be sick of Hotel California by now. "Oh dad, please, don't sing THAT song again..." Will there be a parent-child duet opportunity? Leave it to MTV to fully milk that celebrity nector... I've got dibs on Jesse Snider to be the Rock the Cradle winner, just 'cause he's related to Dee Snider.
Be sure to tune in to confirm what we all know -- it's a lot easier to get fame when you've already got some to work with. Rock The Cradle premieres on April 3rd on MTV. Pop some kettle corn, whip out your favorite 80s album from the star list, and enjoy. 2 Legit 2 Quit, baby.
Man. I'm rediculous. I've taken up once again my song "Avalanche" (previously named "Take a Stand") after several multiple-month hiatuses (is that a word?), during which I've actually moved, bought a new computer, turned 32, and upgraded my audio recording software. Rediculous.
The thing about working on the same song over such a long period of time is that it's easy to lose the vision you originally had when you wrote it. Evolution isn't a bad thing, but random meandering is. I'd rewritten the chorus melody about 3 times over the last few weeks alone, successfully ridding the song of any kind of hook-ishness it might've had. Rediculous.
To cure myself, I buried myself in my iPod for a solid 1-2 hours, and reminded myself of something...basic is good. A repeating melodic theme can be great. And a hook can be the ultimate. Sing every line differently, and you've got a show-offy mess.
I rerecorded the verse vocals again last night -- I may have over-sipmlified everything...(shoot, I wish I had an audio clip to ask what y'all think!)...but at least there's some commonality going on. I'm not sure if it's any good, but it's definitely better than it was, and that's something... I feel kinda re-energized for this song, which is absolutely awesome. Can't wait to dig in and crank it out.
Please forgive the self-centered, thinking-out-loud thing going on here...I just happened to be feeling good. It's too bad Making the Band was on, otherwise I may have worked on it more tonight... :)
Now, I'll be kicking it tomorrow at home, thanks to my company's Flex Friday policy. But I know a lot of y'all will be grinding it out in the corporate frontlines, workin fo da man. It seemed only right to share da luv that is "Business Time" by Flight of the Conchords -- enjoy:
Well, a recent post by Kevin Kelly (wow -- how did he get the domain "kk.org"?) entirled "1,000 True Fans" has caught quite a lot of attention via the interwebs lately. Building on the oft mentioned "Long Tail" concept, it argues economically that musicians can make a fine living by winning over 1,000 "True Fans", i.e. fans that love you so much, they're willing to pay a day's worth of wages to support you and enjoy your work in a given year.
If you haven't read it, you should, otherwise you risk looking about nervously when blogger beatniks in the know throw around the buzz term "True Fans". I promise to do so myself -- WATCH OUT. Really, though, be sure to give it a read.
The ever-so-lovely Girl Crusade recently finished a solid version of her new track, "The Rumor Song". It's available for listening in all its chick core rap goodness at GirlCrusade.com.
Check it out, and let us know what you think. The mp3 sounds pretty different on different speaker systems...it could certainly use some mastering help, but that will have to be left for another day, when we start talking about an actual Girl Crusade album. Enjoy!
Once again, I am SO glad I stuck with Windows XP with my new DAW rather than up upgrade to Windows Vista.
The NY Times has a great article that pieces together the events leading up to Vista's many woes using email content taken from a current court case. It's a little sad actually...basically, a ton of people at Microsoft protested what they knew would be a problem, and were ignored by certain higher-ups. (I love the fact that "Vista Capable" stickers slapped on new machines actually meant "Vista could possibly be used on this machine if you upgrade after buying it." Too funny.) An interesting and tragic read.
I was both saddened and heartened today by some news:
Gary Gygax, co-creator of the game Dungeons & Dragons (introduced in 1974!), died on Tuesday of this week. Pretty amazing imaginataion. Hey, he was the inventor of "Hit Points" for stamina, for gosh sakes! An interesting comment from him in the NY Times, relating to why he disapproved of electronic versions of his games:
“There is no intimacy; it’s not live,” he said of online games. “It’s being translated through a computer, and your imagination is not there the same way it is when you’re actually together with a group of people." [Totally true.]
On a lighter note, TRON is hitting the theaters in 2011, baby!!! And apparently, a couple writers from the TV series 'Lost' (Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz) will be involved. Hm. Without the MCP, who will be the bad guy? Some kind of super-widget? MySpace? Jonathan Coulton? Who knows... In any case, it'll be a 3D sequel using the same technology used in Chicken Little (thanks, Eric!).
Hey, here's a quick way to fill almost a GB of space on the old iPod. The annual music festival, South By Southwest (SXSW) 2008 put together another annual torrent download of songs to go along with this year's annual indie band show. Get your 700 SXSW DRM-free mp3s, baby. (thanks, Netflix Mike!)
I got an email alert from BzzAgent about TheTrackShack.com the other day. It's an interesting spin on the buying and selling of audio samples and loops. In a nutshell, TheTrackShack enables musicians to monetize their songs in a new way -- in pieces. Slice 'n' dice...mute 'n' unmute...and you have another track you can sell or license for use in other media.
While that sounds strange, it makes sense. CreativeCommons.com, SpliceMusic.com, JamGlue.com, and other sites like them already offering free ways to download, mix, and mashup audio loops. People are becoming accustomed to piecing together audio on their own. Creating a portal for premium loops is a natural next step. Here's the thing -- it's not a new idea from a buyer's perspective, since there are plenty of audio sample CDs and ecommerce sites...it's new from a sellers perspective, since musicians and bands are now being invited to pimp out existing song tracks. And therein lies the business model -- TheTrackShack charges musicians $24.99 to upload tracks and all "slices" of said tracks, or will do it for musicians for $44.99. I.e. charge for setup upfront, and leave the selling to the buyer. Sellers keep 80% of revenue generated by loops sales, which is good. (I can see sales performance being dominated by people who are already in the business of creating loops and sound samples...)
The site itself could use some work. Aesthetically, it's all over the place, and feels like one giant mozaic mashup of ad space, modules appealing to musicians, and modules appealing to fans. In my humble opinion, the site should determine upfront if you're a musician or a music fan, and adjust the site content accordingly.
There isn't really a critical mass of musicians using it yet, so some of the page modules are simply blank, or empty. We'll see how active the site is in a few months. All said, if you have songs which have been gathering dust, now may be a good time to jump on the site and make a name for yourself by becoming a "top seller" early in the game.
Oy vey, there are waaaaaay too many music marketing blogs out there these days... Which makes having found one that simultaneously inspires, confuses, and awes a rare event. If you have a chunk of time on your hands, definitely read Audible Hype's post on high concept, low cost, brilliant multi-level media campaigns. Here is one statement of absolute truth:
I will be providing examples of outstanding, low-cost, high-reward promotional concepts, but if you turn around and replicate them, you will fail. Why? These ideas all worked because they were innovative—brand new angles. This means they’re already taken, and you’ll look like an idiot imitating them.
It's long, but worth the read.
We recently launched a simple, 'beta' online portfolio for my dad's artwork, including acrylic, watercolor, and oil paintings of landscapes and still life. Recently retired, he's unleashed mad-crazy painting skillz that have caught us by surprise -- we always knew he was a good artist, but now some of the stuff he's been painting...well, let's just say various album artwork ideas have been selfishly floating through my head ever since.
We were looking for a simple way to get his artwork online, and ended up going with a Wordpress powered site, plus the plugin FAlbum to generate the online gallery from my dad's Flickr account. Our next step will be selecting an appropriate theme/template to make it look oh-so-sweet.
If you know any artists looking for a scalable, expandable website solution, consider Wordpress. Tons of themes, plugin support, etc. (And of course, Wordpress is also good for band sites -- I played around with DAY26 and Donnie J for kicks, which look pretty decent.) Fun stuff.
If you get a chance, check out my dad's artwork, and see what you think. Know any art buyers? :)
Apparently, the more an album is blogged about, the more it will sell. Yup, that's as obvious as, "if you promote harder, more people will buy." However, some NYU professor actually quantified the correlation between blog post volume and album sales performance. Here are the findings:
* When legitimate blog posts exceeded a threshold of 40 before an album's release, sales were 3X the average.
* If the albums blogged about were associated with a major record label, sales increased 5X.
* When blog activity reached more than 250 posts, sales were 6X the average regardless of an association with a major or independent label.
* The number of an artist's MySpace friends also contributed to higher future sales, but had a weaker correlation as compared to blog chatter.
Kinda interesting, in a random sort of way. (Spammers: Please note, the first bullet says, "legitimate" posts...no need for increased spam blogs, thanks.) Be sure to add me as a MySpace friend (see the link top right) so we can all benefit from the MySpace Friends effect. ;)
Practice Space is a (somewhat) new webisode series that visits a different band/musician at their regular practice haunt each websidoe. It's sort of a half-interview, half-feature, tracking various underground acts around the world. Certainly a nice change from the plethora of MTV and VH1 shows that go around kissing platinum artist as#.
Practice Space is produced by the online broadcast network VBS.tv, which actually has several interesting programs. (Like Toxic Brooklyn...yikes, all the scary toxic waste/sludge stories sure don't make me want to move to Williamsburg and Greepoint...) Good stuff.
Improv Everywhere is a comedy/improv group that creates scenes by laying out a series of actions in public spaces with numerous 'actors' -- their latest feat involved over 200 people freezing in poses throughout Grand Central Station, while onlookers and tourists scratched their heads.
In an earlier feat, ImprovEverywhere fabricated an audience for the band Ghost of Pasha. Imagine this -- your band has only been together 3 months, you have 6 recorded songs and no album, you're playing your 4th gig ever on a Sunday night at 10:00 PM, and expect noone to show up. Instead, a rowdy, enthusiastic crowd of 40+ people show up cheering, requesting songs, and singing all the lyrics...then disappear.
Understandably, the band was completely baffled. Is it cruel? Or an ultimate band fantasy? I'm undecided...I think the concept is friggin brilliant, but the band must have been sorely bummed after learning the audience was fake (they were, initially). NPR interviewed both sides of the story here...good story.
Riffworld.com is Somona Wire Works' entry into the music collaboration and social networking space. Rather than re-phrase, I'll quote from the press release:
Using the RiffWorks desktop recording application, up to four musicians can connect and collaborate on a song simultaneously. As a layer records, it instantly streams to other players' running RiffWorks. As the Riff loops, other players can add more. All contributions are saved on RiffWorld.com and can be opened later for further collaboration.
Kind of an interesting spin on the space touched on by music collaboration & social networking sites Kompoz, Light Speed Audio, eJamming Audio, SpliceMusic, and a bunch of others. They're all pretty different -- some focusing on loop-generated music, some focusing on pure songwriting ideas, and others focusing on live interaction. Riffworld is definitely worth checking out...I haven't tried it myself yet.
Pretty cool stuff...and just as I was getting so comfortable writing and recording in the bubble I'm in... Whatever happened to anti-social networking and brooding rockstars? :)
There seems to be a lot of band contests these days, and you'd think a company like Gibson Les Paul would be one whose terms you could trust. Apparently, Tonedeff won the Lalapolooza Last Band Standing contest in 2006, and has spent over 1 1/2 years trying to cash in on the $10,000 prize.
Tonedeff is a hip hop artist, and apparently Gibson was a little annoyed to be giving drums and guitars away to someone who wouldn't actually use them; they'd probably just be eBay fodder. Still, a contest prize is a contest prize, no? Check out the sad story at the Consumerist and QN5, Tonedeff's label blog. [thanks, EKA Hosting]
Pretty big news from Last.FM, the social music site. (If you haven't used it, try it, it's awesome.) First, they're enabling full song and full album plays for major artists for the first time -- EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner are all participating. (Unsigned artists' music has always been playable...and even major artists' music could often be found on the site to play in full, but anyway...) Listeners are limited to 3 full plays per title, after which, they'll be prompted to subscribe -- yup, they're entering the music subscription service game.
Second, Last.FM is launching the Artist Royalty Program where artists will be paid directly a share of ad revenue, based on the volume of plays their music gets. It'll be interesting to see what that actually works out to be. In any case, go ahead and upload your original music if you haven't already, and/or check out some of the new music available on the site.
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