Download and Listen to the Entire New Music Seminar

Did you miss the New Music Seminar in New York this week? For only $99, you can stream or downloaded the entire conference (every keynote, panel discussion and presentation).

Note: This is not a re-usable flash drive but an activation key that allows access to this content, and the audio can be transferred to your iPod or other digital music player.

Three Videos Worth Watching

If you haven't seen these videos, you may want to find 20 minutes to watch them - you'll be glad you did.

CNN interview with Tim Westergren of Pandora:

Derek Sivers' Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy:


Nate Harrison's history of the the Amen Break:

Band Metrics on NPR

If you were listening to NPR this weekend, you may have caught a fantastic segment of On the Media called "Charting the Charts" by Mark Phillips, airing on over 100 U.S. radio stations yesterday and Saturday. It's a must listen for anyone interested in music charts like Billboard's Hot 100, as Mark eloquently explores how the art of ranking artists has evolved, and where the evolution is headed from industry leaders like Robert Levine of Billboard, Chicago Tribune music critic and author Greg Kot, Chris Molanphy of Idolator, Eric Garland and myself. If you missed the show, you can listen to it here or below if you have Flash enabled, and many thanks to Mark for his excellent research and production - it was an honor to be a part of it.

Jelli Interview

Below is an email interview with Jelli, a new social music service that provides listeners with real-time control over what gets played online and on terrestrial radio via real-time voting, and they just released their public beta last night. I've also embedded a short video about Jelli below as well.

How does it work (technically and practically)?
Jelli users control what plays via Jelli’s website, where they can choose from a list of stations, view all the songs available for that station, and collaborate with the rest of the listening community to decide what is played. Listeners can tune in to Jelli online, or on whatever radio station is currently broadcasting Jelli programming.

On the Jelli website, each station’s playlist is 100% community-controlled and dynamically generated based on real-time voting. The station’s catalog is exposed to users, so they can search for songs they want to hear. Each song has a score, determined by votes, and the highest-scoring songs will make it on the air. What plays next is always up for grabs and determined completely by the community’s votes - the next song isn’t selected until seconds before it goes on the air.

Additional gaming elements allow users to earn even more power over the playlist, with items such as Rockets (which boost a song to the top of the list) and Bombs (which destroy a song’s score), and features such as group chat and messaging enable listeners to band together to decide what plays, create a themed playlist, or even lobby for help to get a particular song on the air. The community can also vote on whether they like what’s currently playing, and if enough of the online audience doesn’t like a song, they can pull it off the air.

The Jelli service is powered by Jelli’s automated platform, which handles the Jelli gaming system, content and catalog management, audio playstream system, real-time audio mixing, dynamic audio content, and announcement of game activity via text-to-speech technology. Jelli’s Station Server integrates with stations’ existing broadcast infrastructure to deliver a DMCA and FCC-compliant playlist – generated by the online community for that station – directly to the station for broadcast. Stations that broadcast Jelli programming have their own co-branded destination sites on the Jelli website.

Who are Jelli's competitors and how is Jelli different from them?
As an online radio service, Jelli competes with services such as Pandora. As syndicated programming, Jelli’s competition includes other shows that stations could select to broadcast over the air. What makes Jelli different from others in these categories is the social nature of the service and the control it gives to listeners over what plays. Rather than a personalized music service, such as Pandora, or even an iPod, Jelli is a social stream where the music is selected by the entire listening community for a particular station – leading to new music discovery and always impromptu, community-driven playlists. As programming, Jelli brings a fresh approach to traditional radio, using the web to give the listening community control over what broadcasts on the air.

What are some reasons why someone would want to use Jelli?
Jelli is a fun social jukebox and great way to interact with other members of a station’s listening community. On Jelli, users do more than just listen – they participate, play, and discover new music.

When/why did Jelli form, and who is behind Jelli?
Jelli was founded in 2008 by internet veterans Michael Dougherty (Microsoft) and Jateen Parekh (Amazon), with the belief that a huge opportunity exists to bring something fresh to the radio industry. Jelli’s experienced team consists of ten members from Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Aggregate Knowledge, etc., with proven experience launching award winning consumer services such as the Amazon Kindle, Tellme and ReplayTV. Jelli is seeking to completely transform traditional broadcasting, which still has massive reach and usage but is becoming less relevant to a new generation of web users. Jelli is reinventing what is possible with traditional broadcasting empowering listeners to interact in a dynamic web experience.

How does Jelli make money?
Jelli’s business model reflects the standard economics for radio syndication: advertising barter and/or licensing fees. Cost structure and copyright frameworks in traditional broadcasting are very attractive/established. Jelli’s partners license Jelli’s innovative programming and pay copyright royalties (onair / online) and delivery expenses (FM / streaming).

Artists on Twitter

Below is a follow-up to an interview earlier this year with Gabriel Nijmeh, the creator of Artists on Twitter. He provides some fantastic responses, and tips his hat on the future development of the spreadsheet - segmented, real-time music circles - very cool Gabe!

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IMT: What are the current stats? How many artists, labels, promoters, etc. are now listed on the Artists on Twitter spreadsheet? What's the breakdown?
GN: As of September 22nd, there are just over 2800 entries across 29 different categories. The majority are band/artists entries (at 2170) with labels, music bloggers, radio stations and web/artist services making up a large chunk of the remaining entries.

IMT: This past spring you mentioned you were considering building a web app for the list as opposed to a spreadsheet, do you still have plans to do this? If so, when?
GN: Yes, that is still the plan, as I try to squeeze it in between my day job and other personal obligations. The idea is to make the list easier to search, add and manage entries. Plus there is a long list of other ideas that I have been tracking that might be worth developing. I have also been approached by a couple of different parties interested in accessing the list which has led to discussions about developing an API. And, lastly, I'm also in discussions with a start-up that is building a service that might be able provide the features/functionality to power a directory service. Regardless of what happens on the development front, I'm managing AOT because I love music and know so many other people are just as passionate.

IMT: Besides listing twitter users in other areas of the music industry, what features would you like to add to your list (e.g. top artists on twitter based on followers)
GN: Ultimately it depends on the direction I take in developing a full fledged web app. Being able to tap into the many real-time search engines like Topsy or OneRiot and other services to put together details about not just top artists but Twitter tastemakers/influencers is one thing. No doubt the list is large and overwhelming so if you are trying to use it to discover new music, it's not so easy. And let's face it, we are more apt to heartily accept music recommendations from people we know or whose taste and opinion we trust. So one of the things I have been thinking about and talking to a few people about developing ways to weave into the list ways to create segments/niches, or what we are calling "music circles", with real-time functionality that will help people zero in on music and people that interest them most.

IMT: What other sources are attempting to do something similar, like Musebin's Musicians on Twitter? How is your list different?
GN: I've seen a few sites like Musebin and others who have done a great job putting together really nice sites. Artists on Twitter ( AOT) was first, or one of the first music directories so the list is fairly comprehensive and growing. It has naturally evolved to featuring indie and emerging artists. AOT is grass roots and authentic, driven completely by each person who has either contributed or used it to look up an artist or music blogger. There is no commercial agenda or ads, and it's not being used as a conduit to something else. The emails and tweets I receive are always complimentary and people really appreciate the authenticity of the list.

IMT: What problems have you encountered using a Google Docs' spreadsheet?
GN: Embedding the list into a web site can be finicky from a layout/aesthetic perspective. One other thing is that when someone enters a new entry, there is no way for them to direct that entry to a specific worksheet. All new entries drop into the first worksheet (Artists) but if it was meant for Labels, I manually have to review and move the entry to the correct category. And lastly, I have recently read this is changing soon but, currently Google Docs do not get indexed, so you lose the SEO that you would get with your own well-designed site. But let's be honest, sometimes you expect a tool to do something that it's not really suited for so I really shouldn't complain. And I'm sure if I spent more time hacking around with Google Docs, there might be cool tricks I could use to improve or add some custom tweaks to the list.

IMT: Do you manually review each artist's twitter account that is suggested to the list prior to adding it? If not, how are you maintaining quality control?
GN: Thankfully, I haven't had any problems. To help with the QC process, I had a developer friend help write a script that I use to verify links and other information. I also manually review all the new entries and keep an eye out for anything that may look out of place.. And, the other great thing is that people (i.e. music fans, bands, band management) also keep an eye out and report back issues (fake accounts, changed Twitter names, deleted accounts etc). There is a lot of self-policing of the list because a lot people do truly feel connected. I should also add, a great side benefit to the QC process is that I am able to discover new bands/music I might otherwise not come across. That's a nice bonus for managing the list!

IMT: How do you feel that the Artist on Twitter list has helped artists/bands promote their music and/or connect the users of the list with each other?
GN: One great thing about the list is that it has helped people connect like bands and artists, technologists and music entrepreneurs. It generates discussion and gives people a chance to reach out to each other. I have helped connect people using the list and personally, I have been approached by a number of people who are working on some very interesting and exciting music projects and have been asked to provide feedback and advice on what they are building. An unintended and surprising consequence of starting and managing the list are the new opportunities that have presented themselves to me and a number of others thanks to the list. It has always been about a community of passionate music lovers and technology buffs.

A Brief Look at the Development of Bandize

Below is a short email interview with my friend Andy Miles of Bandize. He provides some interesting insight on the evolution of Bandize, it's a must read for anyone involved with or interested in music tech startups.

Q: If I recall correctly, it took about a year and half before you guys launched your initial product, why did it take so long?
In the beginning, we knew there was a definite lack in the marketplace for something like Bandize simply based on our own experience in attempting to organize our own bands and also by talking with several musician friends. We also do 100% of our development in-house, which at the time afforded us some major flexibility that we definitely needed when first getting Bandize off the ground. To really answer your question though, it took approximately one year to get the feature set we deemed necessary based on a few focus groups, user questionnaires, and general user feedback. We really take user feedback very seriously and sometimes it would even dictate which direction we'd head next.

Q: What challenges did you guys encounter building your application? What did you learn?
I would definitely say the biggest challenge for us was simply the size of Bandize. We had several early meetings where we tried to decide what features we definitely needed and which we could do without, but we always knew Bandize was going to be a very large system. Our current feature set deals almost entirely with the behind-the-scenes of band's career and that's exactly what we were going for. When we started Bandize there simply was no web-based DIY band management software out there, so we looked to the people we knew we could count on for direction: musicians. Band management is a complex and ongoing activity, but it doesn't have to be a stressful and unorganized one and that's exactly what Bandize is proving time and time again.

Q: Now that your initial product is live, what are your present challenges?
We knew Bandize was popular, but I don't think we were ready for the influx of user activity we experienced when we moved out of beta. After a few days of experiencing some growing pains, we added proxy servers and started to really tighten up the entire system a little more once we were able to see what our new users were benefiting from the most.

Q: How do you differentiate Bandize from your competitors?
For one thing, every single person involved with the creation of Bandize was, has, or continues to be in a band. In addition to being musicians some of us are also promoters, band managers, Moog collectors, record label owners, patent holders etc., and I believe this definitely sets us apart because we are our own users.

Q: Do you have plans to release a mobile version of bandize?
We have definite plans to release a mobile version of Bandize. Development has already begun and we hope to have it out very soon. We also have some other mobile treats coming down the pipeline as well, which should make it even easier for our users to access their accounts from the road.

Interview with Creator of the Artists on Twitter Spreadsheet

I'm sure most of the IMT community is familiar with the crowdsourced spreadsheet that Gabriel Nijmeh created listing artists on Twitter. But, it's evolved a great deal since I first read about it. He now includes music bloggers, radio stations, music promoters, and much more. So, I thought I'd interview Gabriel via email and see what his plans are for this free and useful music industry list.

1) Why did you start the spreadsheet?

GN: I love music and the deeper I got into Twitter the more I realized there were many other passionate music fans.  People would post tweets saying so and so bands were on Twitter and so I thought I should quickly whip something up that helps keep track of bands using Twitter. This was at the end of January 2009 and within the last couple of months, there has been explosive growth on Twitter which has translated into a lot of new bands using Twitter.

2) What has surprised you about the spreadsheet?

GN:  Maybe it was naive of me but I never expected that people would embrace it and find it extremely valuable. I did Tweet about it a few times and not having that many followers at the time, I didn't think I had that much reach. Really it was only meant for a handful of my closet followers to use.

But if you have something that people believe is valuable and you are willing to open up and share, Twitter is an amazing communication and relationship building platform. So when various high profile blogs (Pitchfork, Stereogum, Guardian music UK) and high profile Twitterers (Mashable) picked up on it, the list took off, and it was obvious at that point that I was onto something.

3) You should turn the spreadsheet into a free web based directory where people can search, view, add, edit, etc. - thoughts?

GN: Absolutely! It's painfully obvious a spreadsheet will just not cut it! I'm working with a small team and are turning the spreadsheet into a web based directory. We have a few great ideas that once developed will make using the Artists on Twitter directory very easy to use and interactive. The plan is to keep it a crowdsourced/wiki-style directory. I have found that quite a few people have become protective of the directory.  I get many emails telling me about fake/questionable accounts or just general information that helps ensure that the list stays clean, timely and accurate.

4) What's the official name of the spreadsheet?

GN: Well, I started off calling it the Artists on Twitter list and that is what so many people know it by. So we will most probably keep referring to it that way.

5) Can you track how many times it's been viewed, if so, what are the numbers?

GN:  Yes, we have had close to 8,000 visits.

6) I see you've added several new tabs to capture other music properties, like music blogs, labels, music services and more. Those are all great additions, why did you decide to do that? What other sections are you going to add? I'd like to see venues added to the list.

GN: Well, we first started with the most obvious, artists and as people started submitting new entries, I started creating new sections like music bloggers, music labels. I've had people contacting me asking if we could add new sections and we are always open to new ideas and suggestions.  For example, I just got an email yesterday (Friday, April 3rd) from a guitar amp maker (@gabstero) and he asked if I could add a section for musical instrument manufacturers.   I also was recently asked to add a section for sheet music/guitar tabs. Both ideas I thought were brilliant. I know there are a lot of Twitter people who play instruments.

For the average music fan, the artists section will be more important than say the music promoters section.  But if you are a band and you are seeking specific band services (for example a band manager), you would focus on the music services section. A really good example is when an indie band out of Chicago posted a tweet saying they were looking for a new band manager. After seeing the tweet, I was able to help them get in touch with a couple of contacts that added themselves to the Artists on Twitter list.

7) It seems to have it's own life from an organic community effort. How are you trying to grow input?

GN: People just love music! From the casual to the most passionate music fan, music elicits a certain passion and response. You can't go anywhere without hearing music and just like food, music brings people together and is a great way to celebrate life! In the online world, Twitter is perfectly suited to bring together a lot of people from around the world together to discuss just about any topic or subject. We are seeing that with Stocktwits.com, which has become its own Twitter powered community for people interested in stocks, finance, business and economics.

So for us, we engage other music fans by sharing informative links and new music, and by having a vibrant discussion about anything related music. Anyone interested in music will naturally gravitate to the discussion and to the Artists on Twitter list. The key point is that we are an open community, and we take a bottom-up approach to building the list.

8) How many artists do you think you're missing from your list?

GN: I am continually amazed at how deep the list is. Whenever I come across a band and check the list to see if they are on it, I see that someone has already added it. So I would say we have pretty much all the big names covered because these were the first entries that people contributed. Now, I'm starting to see a lot of indie/emerging artists being added.

9) What are the present numbers (e.g. total number of bands, labels, etc.)?

GN: As of April 4th, we have 1557.  Arists make up 1200 of them. Record labels, music bloggers, music services, etc. make up the rest.

Good stuff Gabriel! I look forward to watching the list grow.

Beastie Boys, Ian Rogers and Paul's Boutique

Ian Rogers' Skype interview with the Beastie Boys on their reissue of Paul's Boutique:

Ian's reflections are worth reading as well.

Introducing Audiolife: A Conversation with Brandon Hance

Are you looking for a single location to create, sell and manage custom swag, physical CDs, digital music, and even ringtones across multiple websites, blogs and social networks? If yes, than Audiolife may be what you need. They're still in beta, but this music tech startup has potential with a minimalistic, fast and easy-to-use UI.

For additional information about AudioLife, check out their video, or you can read my interview with Co-Founder Brandon Hance below:

Was curious, why did you start Audiolife?

Brandon: We started Audiolife because we wanted to help create a "middle class" in the industry. We wanted to empower musicians to build a sustainable career doing what they love doing most- music. Putting together a comprehensive e-commerce solution takes lots of time, money and expertise- most of which artists have very little of. We wanted to create a solution that was easy, free, and powerful that would let them sell all of their digital and physical products from one central location.

Good stuff, how does AL make money, and what % do do you guys take from DD sales, physical sales, merch, etc.?

Brandon: We like to think of it as having a partnership with artists- we make money when they make money. For each product (downloads, Cds, etc.) there is a minimum price that has our cost included, and we give artists the ability to set their own retail prices on top of it. For example, we'll manufacture and ship the CD directly to a fan for $5, so if the artists sells a CD for $15, they'd make $10 profit/CD. The beauty here is that artists have no up front costs for the CD's, no membership costs, and no hassle of making, shipping, etc. They simply upload their designs, set their prices and begin selling immediately. They have the flexibility to change their music, artwork and prices as often as they'd like...for example, artists can have a live CD for every show.

Very cool! One thing I like about AL are the step-by-step wizards you created for an artist to add merch, DD, ringtones, etc. What features do you see adding in the future?

Brandon: We are in the process of adding a comprehensive record label solution, warehousing and fulfillment services, and a re-sizable and re-skinnable storefront. There are a handful of other really exciting things in the pipeline, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag yet.

Gotcha; no worries, so how long have you guys been building AL and can you provide some details about the team and your background?

Brandon: We founded Inhance Media in June of 2005 and Audiolife about one year ago. There are 3 founders: Brandon Hance, Aaron Wiener and Nishit Rathod. Aaron is the musician that we essentially built the business around. Nishit is a PhD computer scientist/musician and I was a music business major at USC and worked in the industry as a music manager prior to starting Audiolife.

Nice! Are you guys working full time on AL? If so, how are you all funded? Self, Angel, Venture, etc.?

Brandon: We're working double time :-) and we’re Angel Funded.

LOL! I definitely understand, can you provide any details about the angel round?

Brandon: We did a seed round, Series A, and Series A-1

Congrats! One last question, do you have any other info you would like to provide/share that we didn’t discuss?

Brandon: just that companies like Audiolife and Band Metrics give artists the power of a record label- they can literally run their entire business through us, but they still have to have the skill, discipline and drive to DO IT! I've found that artists get very excited about services (not just ours) but don’t get around to it. And this is the most exciting time in the history of the music industry for up-and-coming bands if they take advantage of all of the opportunities that are out there.

No doubt - well said Brandon! :-)

5 Posts on Indie Music Tech from 2008 for Independent Artists

Below are 5 posts I picked from Indie Music Tech during the past year that offer some helpful insight and information for independent artists, and they're worth reading if you missed them (listed chronologically):

• Musician Introductions: Bringing Back the MC (January 30, 2008)
• Music Videos as Viral Marketing: Lessons Learned (April 10, 2008)
• Calling Attention to your Music by Derek Sivers (May 22, 2008)
• The Advance Guard's take on DIY, Social Media, Marketing, Podcasts and more (July 21, 2008)
• 100 Social Media Resources for Musicians (December 12, 2008)

Interview with Fairtilizer

Curious about Fairtilizer and how musicians could benefit from using the service? My email interview below with co-founder, Oliver Rosset should answer some of your questions:

1) Describe Fairtilizer in three sentences or less?

"It's a track centric application where artists and labels and media can share, distribute and get stats around their tracks in a private or public way."

2) Why should an artist use Fairtilizer (i.e. what are the benefits to an artist)?

"Fairtilizer is an easy and simple way to service music in a private way by IM, emails etc ...one upload only for all needs and one single page for monitoring data from the web strong communities of music, a-list bloggers, artists and labels already using it."

3) How many artists are using Fairtilizer? How many songs are in the Fairtilizer catalog? On average, how many transactions (downloads and plays) of music occur each day within the Fairtilizer network?

• 1000 artists (100 new artists each day)
• 300 plus songs
• 300 plus labels
• 60k 30 sec streams a day, and around 8-10k downloads each day 

4) Does Fairtilizer charge artists for use of its service? If not, how does Fairtilizer make money? Is Fairtilizer planning to charge for its services? If so, please describe.

"It's free now. When we open the websites and have more services we will charge premiums accounts, note that the promotion part will stay free."

5) Are there any artist limitations when using Fairtilizer? Meaning, for example, is an artist limited to how many songs can be uploaded,played, distributed, shared or downloaded?

"No limitations for now."

6) What new tools is Fairtilizer developing for artists?

"We are currently working with labels on the choice of the upcoming features. We should have multi format files up this week with all conversations tools etc ...new player also beta testing now."

MixMatchMusic Post DEMO

About three months ago, I interviewed MixMatchMusic when they were still in private beta, and I was impressed with the direction of the online music collaboration app they were building. In Today's podcast, I reconnect with the founders, Charles Feinn and Alan Khalflin to hear about their launch at DEMO and their progress since July. During this 10 minute interview, Charles and Alan provide insight about their business model, product offering and community. And I think you will find that MixMatchMusic is one of the more promising music tech startups; its just a matter of time before they receive significant adoption from both musicians/bands and music enthusiasts.

Click here to download the interview with MixMatchMusic

Also, here's the video from their presentation at DEMO - they did a fantastic job:

The Advance Guard's take on DIY, Social Media, Marketing, Podcasts and more

Recently, The Advance Guard worked with scores of key music bloggers to promote the New American Music Union, a music festival sponsored by  American Eagle Outfitters (our ticket give away was here). I thought this was a clever way of promoting an event, so I reached out to C.C. Chapman, Co-Founder of The Advance Guard and founder of Accident Hash, a Boston based music podshow to get his thoughts on DIY marketing for indie musicians and bands.

Here's what C.C. had to say:

Question: 1) With all of the free DIY marketing/promotional content, and music being generated by indie artists, what are some examples of online tactics an artist and/or band can deploy to rise above the noise?

While the phrase "word of mouth" gets thrown around constantly these days, when it comes to music I still think it is the #1 way people discover new music. The key thing is to leverage your fan base whenever possible. Give them tools to help spread the word. Constantly contact them and talk WITH them and never AT them. Encourage them to share and reward the really passionate ones.

Podcasts and other online media are other great ways as well. Work with content producers so that they know they can use your music. If your song gets played in a video that becomes popular that can help you out in amazing ways. Always ask for links and attribution so that people can find you and get more.

And insure you have a solid website with contact information and lots of links on it. You want it to be as easy as possible for people to learn more about you and instantly listen to the music. Don't make it hard or required to purchase a track in order for someone to check out your music.

Question: 2) Are paid music promotions via Facebook or Izea for example, an effective way at marketing music? If so, why? If not, why? What are the pros and cons? What are the challenges?

It depends on if the promotion is a good one or not. I recently saw an ad pop up on Facebook for an indie artist. I'm assuming it showed up based on my self identified favorite artists. I clicked on it and ended up listening to a couple of tracks. It wasn't right for me, but I bet it will be for some others.

Music is a tough thing because while everyone loves it, you never know who is going to love what you are promoting. So you have to cast a very wide net and a focused one at the same time. What I mean is that you obviously want to focus on the people or groups that you think would be most interested in what you are promoting. But, then you've also got to cast it out to a more general audience as well because you don't know what might click with someone.

The thing to keep in mind is that you can have the biggest budget in the world and if the program isn't solid and appropriate it will fail. People have to realize that throwing money at something doesn't automatically make it a success. Take the time up front to really plan it out and realistically think about the goals and outcomes.

Every day more people are competing for all of our attention online and you've got to figure out a way to rise above the rest to get noticed.

Question: 3) Most indie artists will connect with anyone on MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. to promote their music, regardless of who is requesting the connection. Is the quantity of connections proving to be a more effective marketing strategy than the quality of connections?

Quality is always better then quantity. But, with that being said I also think that anyone that friends a band on any social network site they should gladly accept. You never know who might be a connection to someone else or how that individual may be able to help them. Connect with them and then get to know them if possible. If they are just a bot or a spammer then get rid of them and move on, but perhaps they have a skill, know someone at a club or can provide the artist with something else. Why in the world would you want to miss that?

Question: 4) In your opinion, what are the top 5 social media and technology tools a band must not only have in its marketing toolkit, but master as well?

1. Ego Searches - Learn how to put yourself into Technorati, Summize (now owned by Twitter) and Google Alerts and how to get those every day so you can stay on top of who is talking about you, what they are saying and how you can connect with them.

2. Video - People love to consume video. Even if it is rough footage of your practice sessions or grainy footage from the crowd at a show. It doesn't matter. Figure out how to get video footage up on the web and on multiple systems so people can find it and consume it.

3. Podcasting - Become familiar with the music podcasting community and how you can get your music out there for people to play. Become friends with podcasters or engage with a digital PR firm that specializes in music and work with them to get your music out there and played on the variety of shows that exist.

4. Marketing - YOU are your biggest fan and thus have to be your marketing department as well. Set up an e-mail newsletter and encourage fans to sign up at shows. Put your URL on everything you do from t-shirts, to posters, to every e-mail you send out. Embrace the web fully and when you are curious if a new service is right for you ask your fans or someone you trust.

5. Communications - Don't let fan letters go unanswered. Take some time every day to engage with your fan base wherever they roam. Reply to e-mails, comment on their walls and answer their questions. This will build a deeper connection with them.

Many thanks C.C. for your time and great feedback! The Advance Guard is focused on smartly and strategically creating radical marketing through branded entertainment, social media and emerging technology. It's led by award-winning Podcaster C.C. Chapman, and digital advertising veteran, Steve Coulson. Clients include Verizon FiOS, Coca-Cola, HBO, mDialog and American Eagle Outfitters. For more information, please visit their web site at: http://theadvanceguard.com/

Second Life, More than a Promotional Tool for Artists: Interview with Grace Buford (A.K.A. Cylindrian)

For several months I've wanted to interview an artist or band successfully using Second Life. A couple of weeks ago, Timothy Moenk sent me a link about a podcast that Rusty Tanton and Amber Rhea recently created on the Georgia Podcast Network with Grace Buford, an Atlanta based singer/songwriter. During this artist interview, Grace, A.K.A. Cylindrian, talks about her experience as a musician using Second Life to market her music. Her insight on how Second Life is helping her connect with new fans and promote her music is helpful, and so, I edited the original podcast and distilled it down to 10 minutes of her comments about Second Life, which you can  listen to here.

Not only is Second Life providing a global, real-time platform for showcasing her music, but Grace is also building a world-wide virtual following. This virtual audience interaction is also convenient and profitable, as Grace can perform on-line as much or as little as she wants, and when she wants, without travel expenses like food, lodging and gas.

Grace is primarily using Second Life as a way to build her brand, get new gigs and for broadcasting, like her IRL live shows and rehearsals. When Grace mentioned this, it occurred to me that Second Life is a great way to publish content to a potential fan community, as well as engage in one-to-one relationships with your existing fans, deepening your fans' loyalty to you. It's also a great way to get feedback on your new songs before you even release them. Who knows, one of your fans may just give you some feedback that's the difference between your song being average, and becoming a hit.

Second Life could also be a good avenue for artists to connect with one another in different parts of the country, helping each other with gigs in geographic areas where they have not yet played. You could also use Second Life to tap into fans that have never heard of your band by visiting the existing virtual communities in Second Life where people gather to listen, see and chat about other artists in your genre.

Towards the end of  this interview, Grace raises a great question... If Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Second Life, etc. are not increasing an artist's fan base or revenue, is it worth it to spend the time managing these promotional tactics? My response is that good music always finds a way to rise to the top, and if one is spending a ton of time marketing their music with little return, than it might be time to pursue another career, because if people don't like your music than marketing it is not going to help you sell it.

If you're an artist and have Second Life successes you would like to share on this blog, please contact me as I would like to post your experiences.

Georgia Music Hall of Fame Interview

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Lisa Love, Executive Director of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and editor of Georgia Music Magazine. Her rich understanding of the Georgia music industry is impressive! Not to mention, Lisa has an uncanny ability to recall obscure artists and their relationship to Georgia. Unfortunately, my digital recorder ran out of memory during our conversation, but I was able to capture some of her great insight in this podcast. If you are an indie musician/band based in Georgia, be sure in listen to the middle part of this interview as it pertains to you. These are a couple of the highlights:

• The Georgia music Industry is over $1billion and growing
• This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards
• The museum receives about 50K visitors per year

While our conversation did not focus much on the museum itself, it's spectacular, and a must see! So the next time you're heading down to Savannah or Florida, or just looking for a day trip from Atlanta, take the time to visit - you will not be disappointed!

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I was listening to one of Georgia's music legends and 1998 Music Hall of Fame inductee, The Allman Brothers (of course) as I wrote this post.

Rodney Mills Interview: An Audio Podcast on the Art of Mastering

Atlanta based audio engineer and friend, Clay Smith recently interviewed the legendary sound engineer Rodney Mills who has produced, recorded, mixed and mastered over 40 gold and platinum albums for influential artists such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pearl Jam, Curtis Mayfield, R.E.M., and many other global acts.  The interview is focused on the art of mastering, but it's a must listen for any artist considering DIY mastering versus outsourcing to a professional mastering engineer. Click here to listen to the entire interview.
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I was listening to Hank Crawford & Jimmy McGriff - Peanuts via FoxyTunes when I wrote this post.

AjiSignal Interview: What can AjiSignal do for your band?

I've been following upstart AjiSignal, a blog network of music journalists for several months now, and I'm really liking what they are doing and the direction they are heading in: to "organize the world of music blogging." Essentially, AjiSignal brings together indie music blog writers from around the world to contribute to city specific music feeds. Recently, I had a chance to ping co-founder and editor Patrick Woodward with a few questions about AjiSignal, and here is what he had to say. His responses are really helpful, and if you're a musician or in a band, read 3 & 4.

Many thanks to Patrick Woodward for taking the time to respond and talk about AjiSignal!

1) Why did you start AjiSignal?
We're coming to it with the goal of trying to organize the world of music blogging.   There are so many music blogs out there but it can be difficult to connect with anything amongst the endless supply of music being served up by writers all over the world.  As a reader, if you find music you like, its nice to be able to associate the music with something.  We decided one way to do this would be to break it down by city.  We think a city is something that can be attached to an artist as part of their defining characteristics.  If a listener thinks in terms of an artist being *from* a specific city it can give the listener something else to relate that artist to.   Hopefully it helps implant that artist into the listener's mind a little bit deeper.  Organizing music by city to show what kind of music a city produces has been really interesting.  A lot of the stylistic differences have been really unexpected.  Its cool to see the differences from city to city with respect to musical styles and sounds.

2) What does the name mean?
Aji means "taste" in Japanese.  AjiSignal is a "Taste Signal"   I spent time in Japan last year-it's a little carry over from my experiences there.

3) So what can AjiSignal do for a musician or band?
AjiSignal highlights artists in cities around the world.   So, for artists in those cities what we do is give them a feature article at AjiSignal.com.  In addition to an article we provide relevant links to other places on the web where the artist has a presence whether its Last.fm, MySpace, Amazon, FoxyTunes or YouTube.  We want to give the reader a robust representation of who the highlighted artist is and what they're all about.  If the artist has any upcoming shows we'll include that information as well.  Since we're city specific, AjiSignal is a great way for a artist to be highlighted amongst peers from their home base city.

4) Can a band submit their own information or article about themselves?
We have writers reporting on the music in their city.  That being said, an artist can certainly submit information about themselves but what we'll do is forward that information to a writer we know in the artist's home base city.  If we don't know of a blogger in the artist's city, we'll find one.

5) How many readers do you all have?
Well, we've been up and running since Aug 15 and we average about 3,800 page views a month right now.

6) What kind of music stories are you looking for? That is, are you only looking for articles about new music?
Thats a good question and one we've had to contend with over the course of the past few months.  We are in fact most interested in new music that is emerging.  On the rare occasion we've highlighted established artists but new music is what we're most interested in. 

7) Are articles edited in any way?
With the exception of necessary tweeks here and there articles are not edited.  We try to make it really clear to contributing writers as to what AjiSignal is all about and what we look for in the articles so that editing isn't a necessity.

8) What are your top 5 cities that you would like to have music journalists in?
If we had five *more* cities on board they would be Stockholm, Tokyo, Austin, Philadelphia, Paris.
          (editorial question: What about Atlanta?)

9) How is AjiSignal different than the Indie Music Project?
What AjiSignal does is really very simple.  We're music in cites.  A music reporter/blogger in a city uses AjiSignal to talk about an artist they are into at that moment and that they feel is an important part of the musical fabric of their city.  Dan and I take that material and add to it any other web presence the artist may have so the reader has a rich representation of the artist being highlighted.  We want the artist, the writer and the city to be super visible for the reader.  The Indie Music Project brings together different types of city specific content.

As you can see, AjiSignal not only helps music enthusiasts discover new music through its network of music bloggers, but it can also help emerging artists attract a larger audience outside of their local sphere of influence. I think AjiSignal will be highly successful in college markets with strong music scenes like Athens, GA or Charlottesville, VA. If you would like to become a contributing music writer for your city/area, please contact AjiSignal.

Advice for Indie Musicians, Part 2:

Below are some brief video interviews from part 2 of my two part series on advice for musicians by musicians. All four videos come from Artists House Music. In the first video, Guy Erez compares working in the music business to running a marathon, because focus, stamina and determination based on a deep desire to be in the music industry are all required just to survive, and even then you may not ever make it.

According to Kirk Whalum only musicians that "are called" with a God given talent should be in the business. And the only way they will make it is if 1) they are serious about their music and 2) they are "doing their thing very, very well."

Here, Brad Wavra, maintains that passion, discipline, patience and persistent are all critical to making it in the music industry. He suggests that if you don't possess those qualities than you should do something else.

Lastly, Alan Ett suggests that you have to believe in yourself and keep an open mind about your role in the industry, as there are so many things one can do in the music business. So, if you don't make it as a musician, maybe you could still work in the industry you love doing doing something different.

I hope you found these videos helpful. At the very least, they should have been inspiring. As always, I welcome your comments. Peace.

Advice for Indie Musicians, Part 1:

I've pulled together three brief videos from Fett, Technology Editor for Performing Songwriter magazine and Co-Founder of the Azalea Music Group in Nashville, Tn. that offer some quick practical advice for indie musicians. The first one talks about how to submit your demo to the press:

Derek Sivers of CD Baby Gives Advice to Indie Musicians

As most of you know, Derek Sivers is the Founder and President of CD Baby, one of the largest sellers of independent music on the web, a company that barely existed 10 years ago.  He has always been a champion for Indie artists, and because of that, not to mention his ability to build one of the most successful music companies today, I was curious as to what kind of marketing advice someone like Derek might give to Indie musicians and bands... so a few days ago I asked him, and here are his responses:

Question: What is the number one piece of advice you would give Indie musicians and bands trying to market and promote their music?

Response: Don't do what others are doing.  Flaunt your creativity.  Do something stupid and fun.  Your potential new fans will notice and appreciate it. This is an advantage you have over the corporate marketing people that will lose their jobs for taking too many risks. Do something different every week. Forcing yourself to take some promotional action every week will change your focus from, "What's the one thing I should be doing?" to "Let's see what happens if I.... (something crazy)." Also, it will keep you in the forefront of people's minds.  Since you never know what's going to get people's attention, the more things  you try, the better your chances. Look at the top sellers on CD Baby (http://cdbaby.com/topnow).  Visit their sites.  See what they're doing.  Learn from it, but do something different.

Question: What are your thoughts about giving away your music to promote your band?

Response: Don't forget that people like to pay! They're not paying for Rihanna or Fergie because they know all the money goes to the labels, but they love supporting independent musicians, doing it themselves. It makes them feel good to give you 15 bucks for an album, and tell their friends they were one of the first to buy it, long before you got famous. Don't deny them that pleasure. Give some freebies to make them love you, then make it easy for them to buy. We pay over $2 million a month to CD Baby artists for their CD and MP3 sales, and sales are up 35% over last year.  People are definitely buying independent music. Don't think that the decline in Eminem sales applies to you.

Great practical advice from a visionary and a leader in the music industry.  Thanks Derek!  You may also want to check out this recent CD Baby post by Derek, as it sheds light on some interesting sales trends from the almost 200,000 artists that sell their music on CD Baby.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Peace.