Glory Glory Man United and From Here To There Records are proud to announce the release of GGMU’s new EP Friends of the Seen. The album was recorded and produced by Jon Epworth.
You will have the chance to pick the EP up this weekend when the guys perform in Hell with label mate Dreamsploitation and Pamela Underwater and Park Effects.
Seesmic offers a Wordpress plugin that allows for users to post video comments. [After signing up? …..] - I am firing this post up now regardless and will edit accordingly later.
If you are a regular visitor and have a webcam I would love to see how this works out - so anyone please feel free to find a post you have something to add to and do so with a video comment.
Derek Sivers is the founder and CEO of CD BABY which is a popular choice for indie artists to get their music out to the masses. I was skeptical, as I always am of anything new, when I first learned of CDBABY but I have always tried to experiment with how I got my music to people and figured what the hell. Since launching my album with CDBABY a year ago I have actually gotten paid, a few times so my skeptisism was quickly replaced with excitement.
I have since grown to become a fan of Derek’s blog and his insight into the music business. He gives away a tonne of great info on www.cdbaby.net and I recommend all artists take some time to read the advice portion of the website.
I recently stumbled upon Derek’s blog and found this awesome post so I thought I’d share it. The reason this all rings so true to me right now is partly due to the fact that I have recently taken part in the Cape Breton International Drum Festival. It was really inspiring to see world class drummers (seriously famous drummers if you know about drummers) coaching younger people and driving the point home that to “make it” they have to perfect their skills. If bands focused on getting good first instead of getting gigs/recording/money they would get further in the business of music.
I spoke at a conference last weekend, where a woman in the audience was SO mad about piracy that she was physically shaking, red in the face, tears in her eyes, fuming spitting livid, asking how we can stop this rampant piracy.
I didn’t answer her concern well, but I said “More people are killed by pigs than sharks each year, but because shark attacks are more newsworthy, they seem more prevalent. Piracy gets all the attention, but I don’t think most of you in this room have lost more than $30 to piracy.” (I got a big “Booo” from the audience for this.) “Obscurity is your real enemy. Fight obscurity until you’re a household name, then piracy will be more of a problem than obscurity. Until then, worry about pigs, not sharks.”
The woman got so furious about this that she screamed at me with tears in her eyes, “I HATE YOUR POINT OF VIEW, BUDDY!” (and some other angry things I forget.) From her point of view, piracy was Enemy #1 and anybody ignoring this massive threat was hurting us all.
Driving away from the event, of course I figured out what I wish I would have said in that moment:
The thing separating us from where we are and where we need to be is not piracy.
It’s always something more internal, whether writing, communicating, producing, networking, promoting, or taking a wildly different approach to marketing.
Putting so much attention and energy into fighting piracy (as if, when solved, you’ll suddenly start selling 10 times more) - is misguided effort, distracting you from what you really need to be improving.
That’s the real reason I often tell musicians not to worry about piracy. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. But energy spent worrying about it is energy better spent working on what you know you really need to do.
If this doesn’t help you understand was RSS Feeds are try asking me and I will see what I can do to explain them, but this is pretty good…..need a RSS Reader, try Google’s
I’ve been hearing that May 1st was RSS Awareness Day for a few weeks, although I hadn’t really been able to pin down many details. However, since Dave Winer - the godfather of RSS himself - has posted about it, I figured it would be okay to spread the word here too. The effort appears to have been first organized by Daniel over at Daily Blog Tips, and includes a website (RSSDay.org), a video, and a page with buttons and banners you can use to help spread the word.
So, how do you explain RSS to a novice? Personally, I explain it by demonstrating how it allows you to read all of the sites you typically visit in one place, hence, saving you considerable time that would otherwise be spent navigating the Web. If this doesn’t resonate, I like to make the analogy to old-fashioned newspapers, which are often a round-up of stories from the wire services like AP and Reuters, blended in with content produced by the paper’s own reporters. It’s not a great analogy, but it at least conveys the idea of reading content from multiple sources in the same place.
“Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?” - Nigel
Just stumbled across the San Francisco based Ipickmynose (music from the left coast) pointing to Engadget pointing to an interesting reuters article about teens not caring about potential hearing loss.
Kids [and adults, and self] this is one of life’s lessons I put in the same pile as learning and appreciating the power of compound interest: the sooner you get it and the long term consequences, the better off you will be.
Adrian, the gentlemen behind ipmn, has some personal experiences with the issue too [I am somewhat concerned about getting my own hearing tested now and wonder what 3 years in a jam space will do to one’s hearing + too many shows sans ear plugs + my own jamming + constant headphone usage]:
This reminds me of the group Don’t Lose the Music that I’ve heard about lately. They have a pretty good point: you won’t be able to hear music well if you have hearing loss. Another point about hearing loss is that it won’t just make all music harder to hear; hearing loss affects some frequencies more than others so it’ll distort music as well.
Tanya Davis and Don Brownrigg are playing this Sunday, April 20th at Gus’ Pub in the afternoon! It is a matinee! Show is 2pm-4pm.
This will be Tanya and Don’s first show together in quite some time and will be quite some lovely. Also, there will be a few tunes by talented emerging artist Josh Dean, who’s been charming the room at Music Nova Scotia open mic as of late. Hope to see you there.
(PS - Gus’ has a new mural and it goes really well with the light of the afternoon…)
And while you are there be sure to say congrats to Don:
donbrownrigg & (weewerk)
(weewerk)www.weewerk.com has signed Halifax-based Newfoundlander DONBROWNRIGGwww.donbrownrigg.com and will officially release his beautiful debut record “WANDER SONGS” May 20th. “Wander Songs”(weewerk)021 is a non assuming folk-pop record filled with wonderful songs that will pull you into the world that is DonBrownrigg. “Equally as comforting as a cup of tea, Wander Song’s coats listless souls with love and warmth. DonBrownrigg’s soft vocals spill tales of love, longing and insightful introspection.” - THE COAST: Top 50 CDs of 2007; “Folk Recording of the Year”, “CBC Galaxie Rising Star Recording of the Year” - 2008 EAST COAST MUSIC AWARD NOMINATIONS.
(weewerk) is an independent record label, artist management, and promotions company based in Toronto, Canada.
(weewerk) was founded in November 2002 as a series of art-and-music salon events organized by indie-rock defender Phil Klygo (Skull Geek, teenage USA recordings, Canadian Music Week) and visual artist / curator Germaine Koh (www.germainekoh.com) in their Toronto apartment above uber-indie music store, Rotate This on influential/edgy Queen St. West.
The underground spirit of this endeavour quickly
drew a devoted and wide-ranging following. As an extension of their DIY ethos, (weewerk) helped the young alt-folk artist Great Lake Swimmers release their haunting self-titled debut album in March 2003, and were immediately heralded as a fresh new record label within the independent Canadian music world.
(weewerk) will release ‘Wander Songs’ nationwide through Outside Music Distribution and digitally through IODA and Zunior.com
(weewerk) is Home to (artists):
The Barmitzvah Brothers
Barzin
The Burning Hell
Elliott Brood
Great Lake Swimmers
Harmonica
Jenny Omnichord
Ox
Proof Of Ghosts
Two-Minute Miracles
The United Steel Workers of Montreal
Atomix Records in St. Catherines, ONT: 25% off with mention of Record Store Day or CBC Radio 3 DJ’s throughout the day.
Back Alley Records in Charlottetown, PEI: Used Vinyl: buy one (1) LP & Get another 1/2 off; New Vinyl: No Tax. Plus an all ages in-store @ 7pm featuring Ghost Bees, Fall Horsie and The Barnkats.
Blackbyrd Myoozik in Edmonton, ALB: 10 % off new product, 20% off used - the customer need only mention Record Store Day to receive a discount. We will also be having donuts and coffee and hopefully surprise live local djs.
Criminal Record in Toronto, ONT: storewide sale, with savings from 10%-50% off .
Grooves Records in London, ONT: Sale on everything in the store, trivia contest with lots of prizes & giveaways, and an in-store performance by a “Secret Band”
Listen Records in Edmonton, ALB: 20% off everything in the store, 2 for 1 used CDs as well as exclusive record store day singles available.
Meow Records in Prince George, BC: we’re having live bands play in the store all day, 10am til 7pm. We’re giving record shaped cookies out (i know i know, cookies are already shaped liked records). we’re having lots of sales. we’re giving away door prizes, including the first vinyl release on meow records - corey wintemute’s song “oh jughead (now you gots a tummy ache)” on blue vinyl.
Music Trader in Winnipeg, MAN: live in-store performance by john k. samson of the Weakerthans; contests to win buck 65 and wilco tickets; point of purchase rock trivia to win discounts/deals; special giveaways and an hourly raffle to win cds and gift certificates; a big f**king cake; insane karaoke hosted by bob sommers!
Red Cat Records in Vancouver, BC: Will be offering sale prices & free prizes with purchases. Also check out the new 7″ releases from R.E.M., Death Cab For Cutie, Vampire Weekend, The Teenagers, The Breeders and more that have be released in conjunction with this new holiday designed to celebrate your local indie retailer! We will also be hosting some special in-store acoustic performances by The Great Outdoors 1:00 PM The Awkward Stage 2: 00 PM Young and Sexy 3:00 PM Swank 4:00 PM
Sloth Records in Calgary, ALB: All clothing 15% off, huge used LP clearance, most titles at 75% off
Slinky Music in Toronto, ONT: 10% off all music and apparel on record store day and have local dj’s playing from 3 pm on.
Independent record stores across Canada are gearing up to celebrate the first Record Store Day on Saturday, with dozens of in-house performances and a national contest to find the best indie music vendor in Canada.
Record Store Day is the brainchild of a collective of media store owners in the U.S. that wanted to draw attention to the plight of independent record stores hit by a drop in CD sales and an industry supposedly wrecked by the Internet.
CBC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence, who hosts a popular podcast devoted to independent Canadian music, came up with the idea for a concurrent contest in this country – Searchlight.
“I wanted to celebrate the entrepreneurs and these small businesses, the moms and the pops, that against all odds are surviving. Some are hanging on by a thread, and some are thriving,” he says.
“Record stores as we know them are dying,” said Josh Madell of Other Music. “On the other hand, there is still a space in the culture for what a record store does, being a hub of the music community and a place to find out about new music.”
Some retailers are hoping that the effort is not too late. Jammyland and the Downtown Music Gallery, two East Village institutions — Jammyland, on Third Street, specializes in rare reggae, and Downtown, on the Bowery, in avant-garde jazz and new music — are facing untenable rent increases and are looking for new homes.
Jammyland is “the model of what a great record store can be,” said Vivien Goldman, the author of “The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Album of the Century” and other books. “D.J.’s congregate there from all over and exchange ideas. It’s a crucible of music knowledge.”
For a local music shopper with a memory of even just a few years, the East Village and the Lower East Side are quickly becoming a record-store graveyard. Across from Jammyland is the former home of Dance Tracks, a premier dance and electronic outlet, which closed late last year, as did Finyl Vinyl, on Sixth Street. Stooz on Seventh Street, Sonic Groove on Avenue B, Accidental on Avenue A, Wowsville on Second Avenue and Bate, an essential Latin store on Delancey Street — all gone, to say nothing of stores in other neighborhoods, like Midnight Records in Chelsea and NYCD on the Upper West Side.
“Rent is up, and sales are down,” Malcolm Allen of Jammyland said as he sold a few Jamaican-made 45s to a customer last weekend. “Not a good combination.”
In a brief filed in federal court yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs (”promo CDs”) that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is “an unauthorized distribution” that violates copyright law. Yes, you read that right — if you’ve ever received a promo CD from UMG, and you don’t still have it, UMG thinks you’re a pirate.
Jodie Borle of Manitoba Music has a great post on the rise of pre-sales and pre-pre-sales for events that often leave fans going for tickets the day they “go on sale” shit out of luck.
There’s really nothing “pre” about it. Someone said “let’s have people be able to purchase them today.” Yeah. That’s called on sale. Not presale. I wonder why they even bother telling people that tickets go on sale Saturday. Those poor schmucks that wait till Saturday will be sitting up in the rafters.
It sounds great and you can watch for that to be released by the summer. I will have more on that soon anyways. For now check out the remix he did of Radiohead’s Nude:
