by Andy Schichter

I was on my way to the studio the other day, listening to CD Baby’s DIY Musician podcast.

The host was interviewing Brian Mazzafferi, lead singer of I Fight Dragons. I had never heard of the band before, but the host made an intriguing introduction; so what the hell, I gave it whirl.

As I was listening, I had one of those ‘whoa, hold the phone’ type of moments. “This guy is in a band?” I thought. He sounded like a seasoned veteran, mentoring young artists on innovative forms of distribution, advising how to set up a proper newsletter and discussing the ins and outs of social media.

I Fight Dragons describe their music as NES Rock – pop rock with a layer of chip tunes. Chip tunes is original music made using the old soundcards from videogames systems like the original Nintendo and Gameboy.

Again, not only is this guy in a band, but he plays music by using video games?!?

The band has only been together for a year and change, and has now signed on with Atlantic Records. How they reached this level of success is pretty interesting and filled with noteworthy DIY tips.

Let’s start at the beginning with the band’s email campaign, because it is creative and professional.

“I have a friend who worked in New Media for Obama for America and I grilled him before we got started on what were some of their main sticking points. We had a lot of thoughts in that regard, but there was also some stuff that was not obvious and that really helps.“

Already, the band is networking, and not just within the music industry. Do you have a friend in marketing or new media? Buy them a beer and see if they can give you some advice.

“Don’t make the email a chore to read. Give them something. In Obama’s email there was inspiration, but a lot of times there was a video, or a story, or something you can do to help, and that invigorated people. It’s something they can interact with and not just something they just have to read. That was our sort of thing. We rarely, if ever gave an email two weeks in a row without something to be a part of. Usually it was ‘Look we did a cover of Weezer’s song for our compilation album. Have it. Pass it along. Download it for free. Giving people stuff.”

Just for the hell of it, I signed up for their newsletter. And, in the confirmation email, there was link for a free EP! Not only that, but at the bottom of the letter there’s an unsubscribe button. Interesting… so you can subscribe to the email, download some free tunes, and then unsubscribe, all within a few minutes. Oh, and that Weezer cover (which is ‘Why Bother’ btw) is in the free EP.

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Technorati Tags: advice, CD Baby, DIY, independent, indie, music advice, Music Business, Music Promotion, promotion, Social Media, Social Media & Marketing, USB Drives

by Duke

Before getting into a history of rap or Hip-Hop, I wanna distinguish between the two. As KRS-One put it at last year’s Rock the Bells, “Rap is what we do; Hip-Hop is what we live.” For those who don’t know: Rap is a collection of vocal styles; Hip-Hop is a culture.

It’s also worth pointing out that I know this history is incomplete. A real history of rap alone would take a big-ass book.

Nuff said.

Roots of Rap

Rap is said to have begun in New York – more specifically the South Bronx. I’ve heard stories from as far back as the 1930’s about guys in the Navy who rapped on their down-time. It began as a way for young people to pass the time by rhyming off each other. Eventually this became a kind of competitive sport. Rappers teamed up with DJs to get house parties amped up. The music that was popular at the time was called “Disco,” and the thing that would later be called “Hip-Hop Music” was rooted in running the fuck away from that. Funk and Jazz were the rule.

This new music gained traction and popularity over the course of the 1970s. Eventually, record labels began to show interest in mass-marketing rap. The rappers of the time thought that was crazy. To paraphrase one of them, “You can’t sell this shit. It’s just for parties. You’re crazy to try and put it on a record.” Whoever that guy was, there’s a reason we don’t remember him.
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Technorati Tags: hip hop, history, rap, studio 2.0, United in Flow

by Andy Schichter

The playing field is now leveled.

We all have access to the same online tools, the same websites, and preach the same message, ‘Hey! Come check out our band.’

So how is your band going to be effective on the web when everyone is given the same vantage point? How are you to know which online tools are valuable and which ones are inconsequential?

Well, first off, it’d probably be best to know how the music industry got leveled in the first place.

A couple of weeks ago, George Howard at Artists House Music wrote an article called Coin a Phrase: The Leveling. He explains the three technological barriers that have been broken to let indie artists thrive without the need for a record label.

The first moment of leveling occurred with the advent of Pro Tools. No longer did one need to collateralize their creativity in exchange for funds from a record label to create a competitive recording.

The second moment of leveling arose via firms like TuneCore. No longer did one have to be signed to a label to have distribution.

The third moment of leveling revolved around the emergence of social media. While not completely obviating the need for traditional promotion, the rise of social media certainly shifted the power away from people like publicists and into the hands of the creator.

I’m going to focus on the second and third moment by providing a list of websites your band should visit to stay ahead of the curve.

Some sites are organizational tools, some are means of communication, while there others that relieve the tasks a band manager usually performs. And the best part about the following sites? You don’t need to be the most tech savvy person in the world in order to use them. It just takes some diligence and of course, creativity.

Anyways, I hope you find a couple of the sites to be useful.

ArtistData: The more accounts you sign up for, the more places you need to update. ArtistData relieves this pain by giving you one central location to update all your social networking profiles! Enter a tour date, and watch it appear on your accounts at MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, SonicBids, etc… You can import rss feeds for your news and blogs too, and has a very user-friendly interface.

Band Metrics: Band Metrics is a web application for the music industry that collects, analyzes and displays dynamic popularity and trends about musicians and bands. Hey it could even help you plan your next tour!

Bandize: Bandize helps managers and band members collaborate on all the critical data related to their work, from merchandise sales to event schedules to important contact information.

You can schedule tour dates and track how much money you’ve made with merchandise sales. But one feature that sets Bandize apart is the ability to track how well each piece of merchandise is selling at each venue. You can see if one T-shirt tends to be more popular than another when your band plays in Austin so you can plan to bring more of that same merch the next time you have a date there.

You can also use Bandize to manage your contacts. If someone is associated with a particular venue, you can tag him or her with that venue, and when you print out day sheets at each venue, his or her contact info will be included. If you already have a lot of contacts, you can import them from various sources like Outlook, Google Contacts or a vcard. There are a bunch of other smaller features like poster printing, file storage, and more accounting and contact management tools.

The cost is $15/month but you can get a 30-day trial for free.

CDBaby: CD Bay is online distributor both in the physical and digital world. Not only is it the perfect company to give your CD too, but they’ll offer services such as CD duplication, web hosting, a UPC barcode, and digital download cards.

As a side note, there are plenty of other great music distributors to choose from. I like CD Baby because it is both digital and retail. RouteNote, a digital music distributor posted this comparison chart. It might be worthwhile to do a little price shopping before choosing a means of distribution.

OurStage: OurStage is an online avenue for indie artists to get exposure to a wider audience. Artists and fans alike can create profiles which serve as a homepage for their artistic work and a dashboard for their ratings, groups and everything else community related. Users judge artists in hopes of their favorites landing a spot in the “Best Of” community. Judging works by comparing two songs or videos side by side and simply choosing the one you like the most. The highest rated artists eventually go on to win prizes such as Cash, Media Exposure or a slot at a big show.

ReverbNation: Fan Relationship Management System, Social-Media Marketing, Widgets & Banners, EPK, Profile Syncing, Twitter and Status Updates, Street Teams, Web Site Builder, Direct to Fan Commerce, Digital Distribution, and Concert Booking and Promotion. Does this sound like something you might be interested in?

SonicBids: The big feature at SonicBids is the EPK. It allows you to quickly and easily compile all of the info a promoter wants to see — your music, bio, photos and more — so you can connect with the opportunities that are right for you. Their gig listing is also pretty great.

TubeMogul: Similarly to AristData, TubeMogul lets you import your video only once to upload to the top video sharing sites. It offers rich analysis on who, what and how the videos are being viewed.

Twitter: No need to explain what Twitter is, so I will simply link to one James Studio Manifesto posts from last summer. Musicians Guide to Twitter.

Youtube: How many times have you searched for a song on youtube, only to find a really great cover of that tune? Hailey Legg is a great example. She probably has 50+ videos of covers utilizing appealing video techniques. This is her cover of Colbie Caillat’s Bubbly. Pretty cool stuff. You’ll notice at the top of all her videos she has links to buy her CDs and website. That’s a great way to drive traffic to your own creations.

A couple months ago Keith Urban posted on his website covers from youtube of one of his singles. This was not a planned marketing gimmick. Someone on the Keith Urban media team just searched for covers and liked what he saw.

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Technorati Tags: advice, DIY, indie artists, music distribution, Music Promotion, Social Media, Social Media & Marketing, twitter, web 2.0, youtube

by Duke

As previously reported, we’re in high gear getting this event going. Heather has been in dialogue with a couple of sponsors who could really take this to the next level. It’s exciting and (speaking as a noob in the world of event planning and promotion) nerve-rattling. The experience of positive stress… and I think I like it.

Finding a venue is turning out to be easier than I thought. So far the Toronto Opera House and Berkeley Church have responded favorably, and there are others from whom I expect to hear soon. The former has a capacity of 850 heads & is fully staffed to meet our needs. That’s a lot more than the 300+ fans we’re aiming to draw, but it’s better to have the space & not need it than to need it & not have it.
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Technorati Tags: charity, hip hop, United in Flow

By James Pew

In case you missed it here is Open Your Mind To The Social Web Pt. 1

3. Who is the ME in Social Media?

At the end of January, media futurist Brian Solis published an insightful piece on his blog entitled Who is the ME in Social Media? Since Open Your Mind To The Social Web is a series aimed to orient the creative person and best enable them to deal with the emergent media of the social web, I thought Brian’s post is a valuable addition. The ideas presented delve into the contentious privacy issue, and I believe, thoroughly solve the overarching dilemma…

From Who Is Me In Social Media,

“As Erick Schonfeld observed in a public and online discussion with Andrew Keen on Twitter, “instead of making the private public, we will make the public private. When public is the default, you deliberately select what to keep private instead of the other way around.”

From Social Scientist Stowe Boyd,

“There is a countervailing trend away from privacy and secrecy and toward openness and transparency. . .And on the web, we have had several major steps forward in social tools that suggest at least the outlines of a complement, or opposite, to privacy and secrecy: publicy. The idea of publicy is no more than this: rather than concealing things, and limiting access to those explicitly invited, tools based on publicy default to things being open and with open access.”

From Laurent Haug’s post “Publicy”, the rebirth of privacy,

“Privacy is here and doing well. It is just different, and not something that is granted at birth anymore. You have to create it, using the tools that were supposedly taking it away from you. You used to have to build your public image, now you have to build the private one. It’s a small change if you know how to do it.”

4. Here are 5 Insightful TED Talks on Social Media

Here’s my favorite,

Technorati Tags: Brian Solis, Erick Schonfeld, Laurent Haug, Publicy, Social Media, Stowe Boyd, TED Talks