WE LOVE YOUR SONGS BLOG
Wednesday
16th May
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Try A New Instrument
Learning how to play a new instrument could really broaden your range, and help you becoming a better musician. For example, if you sing and play guitar, you might try learning percussion. You don’t have to become a great percussionist, just take a few lessons or workshops. You’ll notice how you begin to feel rhythm differently, and how it helps you groove a little better.
But the biggest advantage is being able to articulate what you want from the other musicians more clearly. If you know what it’s like to play percussion, and you know some of the techniques, you can tell your drummer or percussionist what to do a little more clearly.
By Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
Sunday
13th May
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How can I record music on my computer for free?
Home recording studio (Photo credit: wstryder)
To record music on your computer you don’t necessarily need an expensive music software program to do it.
There are a number of music software programs available on the Internet for Mac, PC and Linux, which allow you to record and edit your music tracks for free.
1. Audacity
Audacity runs on Mac, PC and Linux and has many of the features of the higher end audio programs, including effects, multi tracks and VST support.
If you have never used an audio editing program before, it can serve as a great introduction to the potential possible when recording your music on a computer.
Audacity is generally favoured by podcasters and DJs due to its ease of editing. It is also a fairly stable program, and is viewed as being one of the best free audio editing programs on the Internet.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
2. Ardour
Ardour is available for Mac and Linux. It is fully-fledged multi track recorder. The program is free, but has certain limitations - if you decide not to donate.
http://ardour.org/
3. Rosegarden
A Linux only DAW, that has full multi-track capabilities with audio and midi recording.
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
4. Traverso
Traverso is a simple and straightforward multi-track recorder available on Mac, PC & Linux. It is well equipped for recording bands or multi tracking vocals.
http://traverso-daw.org/
By Chris Haines
Thursday
10th May
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New Interview: The Milkmen
Three-piece acoustic groove rock never sounded better as 'The Milkmen' deliver powerful melodies and captivating lyrics, along with the occasional electric guitar.
They have been called a musical fusion of different styles, with influences ranging from 'Dave Matthews' to 'Kings of Leon'. They have Conor Mcloughlin fronting the band with his highly original style of guitar playing and amazing unique voice, 'The Milkmen' have something special going on that you would have never heard before.
They won 'Battle of the Bands' at Rockingham Hotel in 2009 and walked away with $15 000 in cash and prizes funding their latest album 'The Man with the Plan' which is now available for download on iTunes worldwide.
1. The Milkmen are returning to the UK in June, after spending the past 16 years in Australia, tell us what have you been up to there musically and why you decided to move there.
Frontman Conor Mcloughlin and bassist Elliot Careswell emigrated to Australia in 1998 and 1996 with their families. Drummer Jonathan Riviere traveled to Australia on a 5 year working visa in 2006. We formed the band as a project at music college in 2006. Since then we have recorded 2 albums, 2 Ep's and have been featured on 3 compilation albums. We have also placed first in 2 'Battle of the Bands' competitions.
2. In 2009 The Milkmen won the The Rockingham Hotel's Battle of the Bands and walked away with $15,000 in cash and prizes, did winning this competition and the money help you with your music career?
Winning the 'Rockingham Hotel Battle of the Bands' competition funded our latest album 'The Man with the Plan'. As well as the media exposure we received, the title of 'Battle of the Bands' winners helped raise our profile.
3. You are doing quite well in Australia so far why have The Milkmen decided to come to the UK instead of pursuing your fan base in A...
Tuesday
8th May
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Learn Something New Every Day
If your objective is to play high quality music, make sure you’re learning something new every day that will help you in that direction. If your objective is to sell 5,000 copies of your CD, make sure you’re learning something new every day about how to do that. Knowledge is the tool that will get you where you want to be, and having more of it in better quality will only help you get there faster.
If you need suggestions for things to learn, try looking on the websites of any major music school and see what kinds of courses interest you. You might try learning a thing or two about sequencing or recording. That kind of knowledge could really come in handy when it comes to producing an demo track or even an album.
The other advantage of continuous learning, at least for me, is that it keeps me down to earth. I may think I know a lot about music, but there are so many things I don’t know that might really help me if I did. I need to keep an open, receptive mind to all that is out there, and always being on the lookout for new knowledge is a great way for me to do that.
By Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
...Wednesday
2nd May
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Music on the Web a force for Good?
The creator of the internet Sir Tim Berners-Lee has criticised the music industry for stiffening musical creativity, and preventing openness. Berners-Lee who created the World Wide Web in 1989 was quoted in Wired Magazine saying that people stealing music from the internet is not a as big a deal as record label’s have implied claiming ‘laws have been created which makes out as if the only problem on the internet is teenagers stealing music’ he continued ‘the internet is bigger than the music industry ’.
Berners-Lee’s comments are a reaction to three recent pieces of legislation designed to protect privacy on the web. The US Government has recently passed three bills, the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), Protect IP Act (PIPA) and Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), all of which protect individual rights and creativity on the Internet. Berners-Lee has called for the music industry to keep up with the changing times by coming up with a better system to generate revenue from music.
The internet has transformed the music industry which has been battling illegal downloads for over a decade. The introduction of file sharing site Napster in 1999 allowed people to obtain music for free. Downloads have became a vital part of life with the rise of MP3 Players epitomised with the launch of Apple’s iTunes in 2005. Internet downloads have been given further credibility with their incorporation into official music charts from 2004.
With its potentially infinite audience the web could be the perfect marketing tool for budding artists, and getting on to established sites like We Love Your Songs can be a perfect marketing tool. Berners-Lee’s comments are a reflection of the changing time of the music industry with social networking becoming vital in the rise of new stars. It seems that the debate over file sharing and illegal downloads for those trying to break ...
Monday
30th Apr
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The 3-4-3 Principle
The 3-4-3 Principle states that out of 100 workers, 30 will perform well, 40 around average, and 30 below average. Let’s say you have 3 teams of 100 workers each, and you take the top members of each team to create a “dream team” of 100 workers. Theoretically, you should get a great team that performs impeccably. But the 3-4-3 principle states that you will still end up with the same ratio of top, average, and poor performers regardless.
There are various applications to this principle. First, it means that you really don’t know how a person will perform until actually put the person in the situation. Someone could be a great musician, but if it’s not the right band or the right kind of music, the result could be very bad.
It also tells you something about your audience. If you are going to play for a room of 100 people, the 3-4-3 Principle tells you that 30 will like you, 40 will be undecided, and 30 will not like you. It’s up to you to decide whom you want to play for. Is it the 30 who like you, the 40 who are undecided, or the 30 who don’t like you?
By Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
...Saturday
28th Apr
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New Interview: Jonathan Fastborg
I had the pleasure of speaking to Jonathan Fastborg recently. Mr. Fastborg is a 23 year old musician, from Umea, Sweden. He is a one man band and self-produced musician. From guitar to piano spreads an ongoing search for musical balance. For his own creative process Jonathan makes music that can´t be written or played out of thin air.
1. Mr. Jonathan Fastborg; interesting music; interesting name, tell us about both.
My birth name is Jonathan Fastborg so it was easy to put a name on something that I made from scratch. When you’re a part of the music and the music is a part of you then to labeling it something else would only create a distance between the two.
2. How long has your one man band been going on for now and how did you start out?
The process of creating songs has been going on for some five years. Initially I started with drums at age 17 and short after the interest for writing and composing songs grew.
3. There are millions of unsigned bands and artists trying to make it in the music business every day, how do you think you differ from these other artists?
I´ve questioned myself if I wanted to “run” my music like a company (with a lot of focus on making product that differ from others, in this case musicians). And I´d like to think that if the main focus lies on making the music you want the demand for it comes naturally. I think the best way of being different now days is to don´t give a shit about being different.
4. Name some musicians or people that have influenced you musically.
One person comes to mind. I have tremendous amount of respect for Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails. Both musically and the way he gets the changes in the music industry. And then the list goes on for every musician making his or her own music (band or artist).
5. How did you find out about weloveyoursongs.com?
I´ve been a member for a couple of w...
Thursday
26th Apr
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Creating Chords
Chords are a fundamental element of music. Without them, music would be very boring. Chords often set the mood or feeling of the music, while the melody of the music is the bit you will often end up whistling on your way back home.
There are four basic triads that you should really be aware of: Major, minor, augmented and diminished. These are written above in traditional notation. Don’t worry if you can’t read music notation. All you need to understand is the basic principles.
Even if you know nothing about chords or music notation you can still create them easily. For this you will need a computer with a music program that has a MIDI Piano Roll section.
The Piano Roll allows you to draw in notes one by one. If you are not a virtuoso MIDI keyboard player – and let’s face it, not many of us are these days! This is going to be your “go to” section of your music software program (DAW) for creating chords and melodies.
If you scribble in a few notes in this section and then play them back with a MIDI instrument assigned to the channel, you will find that some sections sound good, but most of it will probably sound pretty bad. This is because when you scribble the notes in there will be harmonically clashing notes.
If you now try and copy the chord below, which is a C Major chord in root position held for one bar, you will find that this should produce a cheery sounding C Chord. If you wanted to make this a minor chord all you have to do is move the middle red bar down one space. Now that same chord is C Minor. For an augmented chord, all you have to do is move the middle bar back to where it was originally, and move the top bar, (G), up one space. Now the chord is augmented.
After you understand the basic principles of creating chords, the next stage is to start making chord patterns and chord inversions.
By Chris Haines
...Saturday
21st Apr
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Know Who You Are And What You Sound Like
Building a brand is important because it’s what separates you from the rest of the musicians out there. People don’t want to just hear any guitarist, we want to hear a specific musician, such as Eric Clapton, Santana, Joe Satriani, John Scofield. The ultimate brand building goal for musicians is to have people hear you playing in their head when they hear your name.
You can do this, even if you’re not world famous, by describing your sound in context. Start by asking yourself the following questions:
- What genre of music do you play?
- What other bands do you sound like?
- What makes you so special?
Incorporate your answers into 1-2 sentences that will intrigue people, start a conversation, and get them to listen to your music.
And finally, don’t forget a call to action. What do you want people to do once they are interested? Do you want them to visit your website? Check out your album on iTunes? Come to your show?
Working out all this is not easy. Approach it like writing a new song, and take your time, try different things out, and see what works best.
By Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
...Wednesday
18th Apr
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Never Run Out Of Merchandise
I made the stupidest mistake the other day, when I was at a huge show and I ran out of merchandise to sell. Who knows how many CDs I might have sold? When you’re on tour, merchandise sales can be the difference between making a profit and falling into the red. And over time, this can really add up.
How do you decide how much stuff to bring? If you end up hauling a lot of stuff that you don’t sell, it can be a hassle, as well as a potential risk. If you’re travelling by plane, for example, too much merch can lead to baggage fees.
If you’re in a situation where you can bring as much merch as you can pack, my advise is to ask yourself the following question: How many sales would I be satisfied with? Try and think of a dollar amount, and pack accordingly. This way, you will only run out after a satisfactory sales figure has been achieved.
By Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
...Monday
16th Apr
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One Week Away From The Start Of The Spring Competitions
Hey guys we are here today to announce the come back of our contest with the Spring edition of the Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist competitions that will start next Monday 23rd of April. Also this time we have secured great prizes with new partnerships that are on their way and will be announced in the coming weeks!
The biggest prize will be offered this time by the Berlin based guys of Tracks & Fields (www.tracksandfields.com)!
For those of you that don't know them yet, Tracks & Fields is an international platform where musicians can pitch their music to projects in advertising, film and games. They strive to make the synch licensing process as easy as possible. As a musician, label or publisher you just need to screen the project briefings and decide if and which of your tracks to submit. Some of the projects they found music for include Final Destination 5, eBay, Porsche and Google.
For our Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist competitions they offer us two annual Advanced and one PRO subscription, worth approximately $760 (€600) in total, with which you will get full of premium features. You can find all details here: http://www.tracksandfields.com/page/premium_features .
Thanks to our collaboration with JMD Music Distribution, we are able to offer the free distribution of 10 songs to the winners of both competitions, as well as 1 song distributed again for free for the 2nd and 3rd ranked of the Best New Unsigned Artist contest.
JMD Distribution supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50 retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees, JMD Distribution reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100 world regions “without” any monthly or yearly fees. JMD Distribution has the ...
Friday
13th Apr
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New Interview: Stone Cold Fox
New York based indie rockers, Stone Cold Fox, talk about their nostalgia inspired tracks from their debut release ‘The Young EP’.
1. I heard you play a take-away shows. Can you explain me what is this?
Take away shows are just little spontaneous shows in odd spaces. Usually they are filmed. It's a once in a while thing.
2. Your music has got a hint of nostalgia. Is it because you live in New York? Is New York nostalgic city?
Our music has a lot of nostalgia in it. I don't think it's because of New York. I am actually from Maine, so if anything it's more about leaving home in Maine, and less about being in New York.
3. Aren't you personally too young to be nostalgic and to play nostalgic music?
Haha. No I really don't thing anyone is too young to be nostalgic. There are always times to look back on your life. This album deals with that specific time for young adult when they have left home and are gearing up to find a new place to call home. It's about being in limbo between home and home. As a man in my early 20's I am in this limbo and I have nostalgia for what once was my home. So I write about it.
4. You try to incorporate pop music and rock music. But I think incorporating pop and rock music is one of the hardest thing in the music world. Do you agree?
Honestly I feel like "Pop" is a constant revolving door. One decade it's Classic Rock, the next it's Disco. Where we stand now we have a whole melting pot of genres that we call pop. And I feel it has actually become easier to combine genres and place it under a "Rock Pop" category because there is now so much to draw from and be inspired by. Because we have become saturated with all these genres I've found it easier to write with them in mind because these combination are everywhere. At the end of the day we try and create honest, catchy, accessible music.
5. Of co...
Tuesday
10th Apr
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Stereo Microphone Techniques
The phrase: “Stereo microphone techniques”, refers to the use of two or more microphones to create a stereo image.
Recording stereo sound is generally favoured because it sounds more natural to the human ears than a mono recording.
There are several common stereo microphone techniques:
1. Spaced Pair
Source: http://www.deltamedia.com/resource/stereo_microphone_techniques.html
This technique generally uses two matched microphones placed a few feet apart in front of the performer(s). It is one of the most popular stereo microphone techniques.
If positioned right, the spaced pair, or “AB” technique, can create a beautiful natural sounding stereo image. However, if the position of the microphones is not quite right, then you may risk getting a “hole” in the stereo image.
2. X/Y
Source: Wikipedia
The XY technique uses two identical microphones pointing at an angle (90° to 135°) against each other in front of the sound source.
The XY technique is generally considered to give a narrower, but more focussed stereo image
3. M/S
Source: http://www.uaudio.com/blog/mid-side-mic-recording/
The M/S (Mid-Side) technique uses two closely spaced matched pickups. In the classic M/S stereo microphone technique, one of the microphones is designated to be the M (mid) and faces the sound source. The other is chosen to be the S (Side). The S, or side, is generally a figure of eight microphone and picks up the ambient and reverberant sound.
The outputs of these microphones are then combined through a decoder. (There are many computer plugins that can do this automatically these days). One of the big advantages of the M/S technique is that it allows you to alter the stereo width and depth at a later time.
4. Decca Tree
This is a less popular and more classical microphone technique, which was attribute...
Friday
6th Apr
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Why It's Still Better To Get CDs Manufactured
If you’re an independent artist, expenses are a big concern, and getting CDs manufactured is definitely a significant expense. If you just sold downloads, you could cut that expense out of your budget and save yourself some money.
A lot of artists choose this route, but I’m going to argue that in the long run, you would be better off investing the money to manufacture hard copy CDs.
1 - Raise your profile – A physical CD is evidence that you take your work seriously. There are a lot of artists out there who don’t have CDs out, and having one is a great way to separate yourself from the pack.
2 - Learn about music business – Producing a CD is a great way to learn about copyright, rights management, and distribution. Not only do you gain essential knowledge from first hand experience, it will be a great way to build a foundation for branching out into producing or owning a record label if you choose.
3 - Sell them at shows – You can’t sell downloads at your show, but you can sell physical CDs. It may take a while, but eventually you’ll be able to cover all your expenses and make a profit.
Speaking from my own experience, I invested about $3000 in recording equipment, studio time, hired an engineer, and manufactured hard copy CDs. I can use the recording equipment not only for myself, but to produce albums for other artists as well. If I sell 300 CDs at $10 each, I’ve essentially gained all that for free. I say hard copy CDs are still a worthy investment.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
...Tuesday
3rd Apr
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The Power Of Radio
With a minefield of new artists appearing everyday it is hard to know how to get yourself discovered by the general public, a great way to be heard is to get onto the radio. Getting on the airwaves may just be one of the best things that you could do to publicize yourself, with 85% of the population of the UK listening to the radio every day. Not only will you people get to hear your work, hopefully if you are played on the right show people will get to know something about you, and often if listeners like your music they will take the time to search for you.
There is no dispute that being played on the radio is great for publicity, but with so much radio out there getting featured is a potential minefield. You will need to research where the best place to send samples of your music, target places that are either promoting new artists, or play your style of music. Radio stations have a limited number spots, and there is a lot of competition you are not only up against other emerging acts, but songs from established artists and old favorites for airtime.
A good place to start is with a university radio, they are non-commercial so they have a greater opportunity to experiment with new artists. Once you have decided which radio stations to approach, you need to know the best way to get them to notice you. It’s no good just sending a sample to the station in general. You should find out who the music programmer is, it is their job to pick the content of the station. Send any samples either directly to the music programmers or to the head of music.
When sending samples it is important to be professional. Make sure that anything you want played is clearly labelled and includes some brief information about yourself in a press kit. Success in the music industry works like a snowball effect, so keep you press kit updated with all of the plac...
Sunday
1st Apr
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What Is Dither? Why do I need to use it in my recordings?
Dither is a small amount of low level noise added to a recording. The purpose of dither is to improve the accuracy with which the system can deal with amplitude. In other words, it deals with digital distortion when converting from 24 bit to 16 bit.
Most music software these days will encourage you to record in 24bit. This is higher quality than the 16bit (CD quality). So if you are planning to put your music on to a CD, you will need to apply dither.
Some music software packages will have a special dither plug-in which will you insert on the track. Other packages will allow you apply dither when you bounce down your recording.
Article written by Chris Haines.
...Tuesday
27th Mar
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Make A Gig Day List
How many times have you found yourself scrambling around before a gig or rehearsal, packing your car, trying to find things, only to arrive at the gig and find that you’ve forgotten something.
If that sounds like an all too familiar episode, you might want to remedy it by making a Gig Day List. Your List consists of all the equipment you usually bring with you on gig days. If you’re a guitar player, you might include ¼-inch cables, picks, strings, sheet music, pencils, and an extension cable for your pedals. Drummers like myself bring dampening gels, tuning keys, an extra hi-hat clutch, and shakers or other small percussion.
When you go overseas, you’ll definitely need your passport and some cash. I also bring vitamins with me so I don’t get sick on the road.
The better prepared you are, the better chance you have of playing well, and thus the better chance you have of getting called again.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
Monday
26th Mar
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Ticket Giveaway for Future Music Forum Barcelona's Social Music Jam
This is your chance to win a €130 worth ticket to attend for free to the Future Music Forum Barcelona’s Social Music Jam: April 27th 2012 @ Estrella Damm Factory !
Here a description of the event from their official press release:
The Future Music Forum Barcelona will be hosting a one day Social Music Jam focusing entirely on the Spanish Digital Music Scene. This One Day Event will be taking place the 27th April. We will be inviting special guests who are at the forefront of the Spanish Music Industry. We are delighted to announce special guest speakers from Spotify, Jamendo, Neilsen Online, Mixcloud, The Orchard and many more. The Social Music Jam will focus on The State Of The Digital Music Industry in Spain, Music On Demand, Digital Distribution in Spain, Music & Synchronization, The Live Music Scene in Barcelona, New Social Media Platforms
The Social Music Jam provides a professional yet relaxed platform to explore, engage and discuss these topics with a carefully selected group of music futurists, label owners, managers, music and technology entrepreneurs and digital music consumption analysts.
If you are already involved in the industry and would like to extend your knowledge of current trends & network with your peers then the Social Music Jam is the event for you.
The Future Is Already Here: The Social Music Jam, please visit our website for more information & ?book your seat @ http://www.futuremusicforum.com/social-music-jam-2
The Social Music Jam follows the successful launch of The Future Music Forum in 2010 which is becoming one of Europe’s leading Music & Social Media events. Over the last 2 years has seen an impressive array of music technology companies, entrepreneurs, musicians & music industry related executives descend on Barcelona.
If you want a free ticket to attend this great event, you have just to chose one of the meth...
Thursday
22nd Mar
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Write your way into the music Industry
Sometimes the indirect route is the best way to achieve a goal. If music is your passion and you have a talent for writing why not utilize your skills and write songs for others. This approach is one that has been incredibly successful for up and coming soul and R&B artist Emeli Sandé who recently won the Critics Choice Award at this year’s Brits.
Sandé, who released her debut album Our Version of Events in February, first appeared on the music scene when she featured on Chipmunks top ten hit Diamond Rings. Sandé though has been working behind the scenes as a songwriter creating songs for many artists including UK X Factor contestants Leona Lewis and Cher Lloyd. So the unconventional route that Sandé took to get into the music industry may be an ideal way to get into the business. Not only will you get credit for being a songwriter, you will also get the opportunity to get a sense of what the current trends in music are, which could influence your choices about how to style yourself as a performing artist.
To get into writing music the most important thing that you will need is to find a publisher whose job it is to promote and collect the revenue from your songs, which could support your own aspirations to perform. Songs can earn money in a number of ways so it is important that if you want to generate revenue from your work then it is vital you know what entitles you to get paid. First up is mechanical, this is when you earn money because somebody records your song. Once your song has been recorded you can then collect money from performance rights, when your music has been played or sung in public. Finally if your work has been used as a backing track in a film or on TV then you are entitled to performance rights.
Before signing a contract it is important to do some research so that you have found the deal that suits you. You can choose to sell a single song, ...
Tuesday
20th Mar
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The Excellion Won!
As previously announced through our social networks pages, the cool Mexican guys of the Excellion band won the Winter edition of the Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist contests!
The amazing prizes they will be awarded with are: a $1,200 package, kindly offered by Mobile Roadie, to build their own Android or iPhone App, an annual PRO membership worth $380 offered by Tracks and Fields, up to 20 of their songs distributed for free all over the world by JMD Distribution and one of their songs professionally mixed and mastered by Tweak Music Mixing.
For those interested to listen to a bit of their music you can check out their WeLoveYourSongs band page. Some great tracks there!
When asked if there was something they would like to say to comment their victory this is what they told us:
"It's been a blast and an honor for us to be able to participate and win over the winter competition from weloveyoursongs.com. We really appreciate your support for unsigned acts all over the world and the opportunity to take our music a step further; you're a great team!
We'd like to thank all of the sponsors as well for their contribution to the contest and for believing in all the WLYS community talent. Thank you guys!.
And at last but not least, we want to thank all the people out there for believing in us, our music and always be there supporting us; there are really no words to express our gratitude to all you guys. As we already said, you are simply the best! and we're in debt for all the 'love' (pun intended) you gave us to win this competition; we hope we can compensate that soon, THANKS!"
In the second place of the Best New Unsigned Artist contest we find Milos Vukomanovic, with his acoustic rock music from Belgrade, Serbia. After him we have T.Byrd / RoxxHoffner, from Shingletown, California, followed by two Canadians artists - the hard rock of Cal Jon from...
Thursday
15th Mar
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What Is MIDI?
MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It is the standard communication language for musical equipment, that enables two or more MIDI equipped devices to communicate with each other.
In times gone by, MIDI compatible equipment was easy to identify as it had a MIDI DIN socket on the back panel. These days MIDI compatible equipment will often have a USB port instead of a traditional DIN socket. This is due to the fact that the computer is now the main focus of the recording studio.
The difference between MIDI and audio is best explained by looking at a screenshot from some music software. There are two types of track that you can create on music software: An audio track, or a MIDI track. An audio track will record the actual sounds visually as a waveform, whereas the MIDI track will only record the data from a compatible MIDI device. The data it receives is usually recorded visually as a series of dashes.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Protools9screen.png
These dashes will occur when a key is pressed on a MIDI instrument, such as a MIDI enabled keyboard. When the key is released, a note off message is then sent, which determines the length of the dash. Other messages can also be sent to and from MIDI equipment.
On a computer sequencer such as Pro Tools, (as shown above), you can then assign a particular sound to the MIDI data, for example, a Harp or a Grand Piano. If you are not fortunate enough to own a Steinway Grand Piano or a Harp, MIDI will allow you to assign your data to an instrument from a sound bank on your music software. Even if you are lucky enough to own a Steinway Grand Piano, the chances are you wont be able to record it at the airport or on the train. Whereas with a laptop computer and a MIDI keyboard you can access and sequence those sounds.
Article written by Chris Haines.
Monday
12th Mar
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New Interview: Xelomen
Known for her captivatingly swirling atmospheric tones, French ambient artist, Xelomen, speaks about her experiences and inspirations for composing music.
1. You describe your music as downtempo ambient. But you tend to mix downtempo with uptempo - that in my opinion is very interesting. How do you create music?
To be honest, I don’t really think about the style of music I compose. To me, downtempo music is not a specific style but a “grouping” or genre, like trip-hop, chillout or electronica. However, it’s true, I use tend to use slower tempos in much of my music. Maybe it comes from the fact that I’ve listened to breakbeat or drum and bass in the past.
How do I create music? First of all, my guideline is to try to mix my melancholic ambient side with the energy of my beats… My point of departure is always my background atmospheric musical lines. However, as I never formally learned music theory, I’m working on instinct and by ear. For instance for melody lines I have to embroider them note-by-note. I also often make different versions of the same track and choose the closest to my personality.
2. You recorded a cover version of Mylène Farmer "Light It Up". But it sounds like your own song. And I really like that tune. It’s very uptempo. Why did you decide to do this remix?
Of course this remix sounds like my own, I made it how I heard the song in my genre, btw I kept the melody of the original track. In my opinion this is the most interesting part of making a remix, and one of the reasons why I decided to make this remix? However, I originally got the idea because there are a group of fans called “ReMyxes” that wanted to release a compilation by choosing the best remixes of titles from the new album of Mylene Farmer. So I thought why not. I took “Light me Up” because I felt closer to this song than the others. What was interesting for me was working wi...
Sunday
11th Mar
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Midsummer Festival Dream (part 2)
And just as few weeks ago we were looking at summer festivals in the warmest lands of the old Europe now we are moving up, to northern countries, but not necessarily colder, as we are sure these festivals will rise up the temperatures wherever they are held!
First of all lets go to Scandinavian territories to discover one of the oldest and biggest European festivals, created by to students in 1971, Roskilde Festival has been directed since 1972 by a non profit foundation for the development of humanism, culture and MUSIC! So a part of enjoying good music you can also feel good about yourself paying this ticket festival! This year Roskilde will be held between the 5th and the 8th of July and the line up includes musicians like Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Bjork, Bon Iver, Friendly Fires, tUnE-yArDs, The Roots, Jonathan Johansson, Wiz Khalifa, Refused, Cerebral Ballzy, Warbringer, Devildriver, Nasum, AraabMuzik, Yelawolf, Terakaft, Boubacar Traore, Causa Sui, Cold Specks, Royce Da 5'9", El Paraiso Ensemble, I Got You On Tape, Larsen & Furious Jane, and Papir. This year weekend ticket will be around £210.
http://roskilde-festival.dk
Moving down from Vikings territory we arrive to Sziget Festival in Hungary, which could be called a “total” festival as we can find all type of activities a part from music, from Sports, to Films, cabaret performances and special programmes for kids are among the activities this festival has to offer. Sziget is held in an island on the Danube which I’m sure can be as warm as any in the Mediterranean! This year the festival will run from the 8th of August till the 13th and will include people like The Stone Roses (it seems those guys are really gonna enjoy a summer full of festival…) Placebo, The Horrors, Hurts, Noah and the Whale, Crystal Fighters, Mando Diao, The Subways, or the Friendly Fires.. Although those are just a few na...
Saturday
10th Mar
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New Review: Jennifer Lee Nickerson
Singer, songwriter and pianist, Jennifer Lee Nickerson’s music may only consist of just her voice and her keys, but that is enough for her to produce simply stunning music.
The singer was born and raised in Central Arkansas, right outside of Little Rock. It was here that she discovered her love for music at an early age. Her mother plays the piano and Jennifer took interest in it the moment she could reach the keys.
In 2010 her track, “I Can’t Fix You” featured on the album, "Between the Deep", a compilation of unsigned artists released by Deep South Digital. The track showcases her talents as a songwriter as the lyrics are deeply moving which is enhanced by the melodic playing that accompanies it.
The singer sites her influences as The Beatles, Van Morrison, Foreigner and Led Zeppelin, although her music differs greatly from them. Her other tracks, such as “Don't Be Ashamed” and “Love Me” are a million miles away from her rock influences with their soulful and soothing sounds.
Jennifer Lee Nickerson’s music is the perfect example of how when it’s done right a single instrument can be as powerful as an entire orchestra. The mixture of her soulful voice and the elegantly simplistic nature of the tracks create truly beautiful songs that are likely to lead her to success.
Review made by Kate Laura Teasdale. You can follow her on Twitter at @Kate_Laura .
Wednesday
7th Mar
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Staying Creative
What is creativity and how can we stay creative at any age? In an interview, Jonah Lehrer cites the work of Dean Simonton of UC Davis, who studied creativity in a variety of fields and found that a decline in creativity over time can be attributed to acculturation.
“If you’re a painter you fall into a style, you develop your clichés – your shtick. If you’re a scientist, you know how to apply for certain grants from the NIH, and if you’re an entrepreneur, you know how certain ideas work and you stick with them,” says Lehrer.
As musicians, it’s really easy to fall into this trap because we have a live audience right in front of us that expects us to play certain songs. How many times have you found yourself writing a song for similar instrumentation, using a similar chord progression, or similar lyrics, as your other songs?
Trying something new is definitely taking a chance, but it’s an essential part of staying vital professionally. You don’t have to go overboard, just try a few new things and see how people react. It will go a long way towards maintaining your creativity.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
Monday
5th Mar
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Last 10 Days To The End Of Our Contests
We are now just 10 days away from the Winter edition of our Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song contests!
The top prize is an annual package offered by Mobile Roadie to the winners of both competitions to build an Android or iPhone App for your band (worth $1200 each). Other great stuff offered by Tracks and Fields, JMD Distribution and Tweak Music Mixing. Check out the full list of prizes here.
How to Win:
- Visit WeLoveYourSongs and create an artist profile (if you don't already have one).
- Submit some of your best songs
- Encourage fans to vote for you
Right now Milos Vukomanovic is leading both rankings, with Cal Jon and Kane right on his heels.
It’s not too late to get your fans to Love your songs. The deadline is Thursday 15th of March.
Best of luck from everyone here at WLYS!
Sunday
4th Mar
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New Interview: Milos Vukomanovic
After spending much of his life in Athens, Greece; Milos Vukomanovic is back in his native country, Serbia. The multi lingual singer-songwriter opens up about his family life, musical inspiration and much more.
1. You were born in Serbia, you live in Greece, but you were so close to becoming Italian. I read a story about it. Do you regret not being in Italy now?
First of all I would like to thank you for the interview.
It really means a lot for me. On your site www.weloveyoursong.com, I heard very good songs and I met some good artists. I am really glad that I belong in that group and I thank you again.
Yes I was born in Serbia, Belgrade in 1987.
In 1994 my parents decided to go to Italy via Greece, but when we arrived to Corfu we had financial and other problems so we didn’t manage to get on board for Italy. After that we decided to go to Athens. I don't regret anything that I have done in my life, and I am really happy for all. I am very proud that I spent 19 years in Athens. I miss Athens and my friends very much.
2. You live in Serbia now, place where you were born. Is it your home?
Yes, I live in Belgrade right now and that is pretty good question 'is this my home'. I am Serbian and I will always be, the point is, I never lived here and I do not know the lifestyle. Many people ask me 'do you love Greece or Serbia’?
I believe that this kind of question should not be asked to a person who cannot answer it. I love Serbia because I was born there and I love Greece because I was raised there. This time it is true that I really miss Athens, but this doesn’t mean that I don’t love Belgrade; I love both the same.
3. But you sing in Italian. Why?
I don’t sing only in Italian hahahaha.
I try to sing in many languages and to learn many as I can. I love Italian language because it’s very beautiful and I love Italian music too. I am a huge fan of ...
Friday
2nd Mar
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Diversify Your Portfolio
Diversify – you hear this a lot when talking about investing, and simply put, it’s the same as saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” For independent musicians, this means to work in a wide variety of fields so that you’re not relying on a single income source.
In order to work in different fields, you need a wide variety of skills, and you can only obtain these by putting your mind to it and working hard. It’s a lot of work, but I can tell you from experience that this will pay off, and it’s one of the few ways musicians can begin to have a stable income.
For example, if you’re primarily a performer, try working on composition or production so that you can work as a songwriter or producer. If you’re doing a lot of wedding gigs, you might start teaching on the side.
Even if it’s not a lot of money in the beginning, when you combine several trickles, it becomes a stream, and that’s what you’re trying to build. Try setting aside some time to analyze where you’re income is coming from, and if there are any untapped opportunities. This will really go a long way.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama .
Wednesday
29th Feb
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Microphone Polar Patterns
If you have ever bought a new microphone, you may have noticed some strange looking circular diagrams on the side of the box or in the instructions. These diagrams are known as polar graphs.
The polar pattern of a microphone indicates how sensitive a microphone is to sounds coming from different directions. This is sometimes referred to as its directionality. The polar pattern of a microphone is represented in a polar graph, as shown below.
An Omnidirectional polar pattern, as the name suggests, is great at picking up sound from all directions.
A Cardioid polar pattern has a heart shaped pickup pattern. Sound from these mics is mainly picked up from the front and to a lesser extent the sides.
A Bidirectional polar pattern looks like a figure of eight. It is good at picking up sound from the front and back. Many ribbon mics have a figure of eight polar graph.
Some microphones will also allow you to change the directionality of a microphone through a simple switch.
It is worth taking some time to experiment with different mics to get a feel for what will suit your particular recording situation.
Article written by Chris Haines.
Saturday
25th Feb
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New Review: The Dirty Words
The Dirty Words are a fresh British group offering a contemporary take on the Indie Rock genre – mixed with a distinct punk influence and not afraid to slow it all down at times.
This punk influence is most discernible in the track entitled Ride. This is initiated first by the drums (Brendan Walsh) and joined by a power-chord based riff, utilising the simple yet effective technique of the genre. A brief halt from the instruments filled by the line “there's always someone better” delivered Pete Doherty-style by James Manning adequately kicks off the song. Some backing vocals from Andy Clayton help establish the catchy chorus; I envisage this would sound great at festival (or the downstairs of a manky pub!)
Beat is much more of an indie track. Some trendy licks from the rhythm guitar generate a rough texture here, especially in the chorus, which again stands out as a real sing-along. Think The Fratellis or The Kooks on this one, though without disingenuous emulating. A breakdown between the second and final chorus, carried by Tom Nightingale's stylish bass, adds another dimension to the song, taking the tone right down and seizing listeners. Some tasteful lead guitar here also. If it came to releasing a single, this would be my recommendation for the Northampton lads.
Another indie number is Nine Months, though more intimate than Beat. The continuous riff becomes slightly hypnotic underneath Manning's vocals, which embody more feeling than previously mentioned tracks. This riff, with a little distortion is also the chorus, with nothing more than some “uh-uh-uh-oh's” for lyrics. This simplicity and repetition works well and is interrupted only at the end by a melodic guitar solo followed by a heavier outro. Not a sad song, but one for a solo, late night train journey.
The Dirty Words understanding of their genre is clearly conveyed in their well-crafted songs,...
Friday
24th Feb
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Get Business Cards Printed
Do you have business cards that you can readily pass out to new contacts? If not, I definitely recommend getting some printed. Business cards not only make it easier for people to contact you when they want you to come and perform, they also boost your credibility.
The minimum information you need on your business card is your name, your website, phone number, and e-mail address. I also recommend printing a postal address, mobile phone number, and fax number if you have one.
Don’t just pass out business cards to people you meet. Leave them out when you’re busking or post them on notice boards. Business cards don’t cost a lot, and you can really get a lot of mileage out of them!
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama
Wednesday
22nd Feb
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SF MusicTech Highlights
WeLoveYourSongs attended the 10th SF MusicTech Summit (www.sfmusictech.com) held in San Francisco. There could not have been a better time for music innovators to get together. These innovators came from all over world, including musicians, developers, entrepreneurs and some major music labels. (Yes, Google, Yahoo, and Pandora were there as well.) Very similar to ours, their mission is to help musicians connect better with fans, empower people’s discovery of new music, and change the ways musicians and innovators grow their fanbase and bottom-line.
What are some highlights that musicians can do to grow their fanbase? Let’s check some of them out:
OneSheet -- allows musicians to set up a web presence in minutes by bringing in content they already have on other websites. Think of this as a one-stop website full of content already posted across the web: music, videos, photos, concert dates, blogs, social streams, mailing list signups, online stores and more.
Bounce Mobile -- creates interactive music-focussed applications accessed via mobile devices. They offer a more fun way to interact with music as the user listens.
The Social Radio -- allows users to listen to their tweets while playing music. (In private beta)
Mobbase -- allows artists to create, manage, and update their custom mobile app (Android, iPhone) and desktop app.
CrowdStream -- helps connect artists with their fans at events, with social media sharing functions.
Is there one best technology or platform for artists to maximize their fan-base?
Even the biggest labels, like EMI, and marketing/media experts say “NO”. They all try out new strategies, tools, and techniques depending on who the targeted fans for an artist may be.
Writer: Hoa Tran
Email: ht@weloveyoursongs.com
Monday
20th Feb
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New Interview: Christa Vi
Christa Vi is a talented Australian / German singer/songwriter, based in East London. Her debut EP is produced by George Shilling (Coldcut, Yazz, Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream etc), and is due for release on March 26. Visit her page on WLYS and her website for previews and remixes.
1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your musical background?
I grew up in Australia but have also spent a fair bit of my childhood in Germany as my mum comes from there. I am bilingual and definitely was brought up with a lot of German culture as most of my family live there. Music - especially classical music - is simply part of German life and everyone seems to learn to play an instrument growing up. All of my family play classical instruments. I learnt classical piano from the age of 7, went on to learn some jazz piano, jazz vocal training and learned acoustic guitar from about the age of 10.
I've always liked to write my own songs and have been in original bands since about 2000 including a live electronica group in Australia called Casper. My writing for this solo project is a bit more folky but also includes an electronic element as I love electronic music. I like to collaborate with electronic producers to see how the sound of my songs can be translated into something new. At the end of the day a good song is the most important element though. I try to write accessible pop/folk music that I hope will stick in people's minds a little bit!
2. Music is a big part of your life, when did you know this was your way to go?
Well since highschool and in church as a teenager I started singing in bands and just loved it. I guess being brought up in churches does encourage you to sing and perform music from a young age. But when you have the desire to sing, play or write music it's something you simply have to do so you just do it. I've always had other day jobs, s...
Sunday
19th Feb
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What Microphone Should I Use?
The choice of microphone is definitely a personal preference. There is no definitive answer to this question! Great records have been created with some of the cheapest microphones and also some of the most expensive microphones.
If you are looking to spend under a £100 on a microphone to record vocals then the most popular option is the Shure SM58. This microphone has been used in countless recordings and is seen as a good “all rounder”. The mid range of this microphone is emphasised, making it excellent choice for rock and rap vocals.
In order to understand which other microphones might suit your needs, it’s necessary to understand a little bit about the different types available.
1. Dynamic
A dynamic microphone has a moving coil and uses electromagnetic conduction to capture sound. Dynamic microphones are commonly used in live music because they are rugged and relatively cheap to replace or repair. Examples include: Shure SM58 / 57.
2. Ribbon
A ribbon mic is similar to a dynamic mic, but the diaphragm is a ribbon of conductive material, which is usually aluminium. Ribbon mics are often considered to be the most smooth and natural sounding mics, but they have gained a reputation for being quite fragile. Ribbon mics also don’t require a power supply or batteries in operation. Examples include: Beyer M130 & M160.
3. Condenser (capacitor)
Condenser microphones are often more fragile and expensive than dynamic microphones. They are generally more sensitive than other mics, which means they are good at picking up soft or distant sounds. Condenser mics require additional power to operate. Examples include: AKG C3000, Octava MK-219
4. Electret
Electret microphones are another type of capacitor microphone and require a pre amplifier. Examples include: AKG C1000.
Conclusion
Even if you are lucky enough to find a mic th...
Friday
17th Feb
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Midsummer Festival Dream (part 1)
What’s better to survive this cold (really really cold weather for us folks living in London) than to think about summer...long days…warm nights…cold beers…sandy beaches…and music festivals! Because yeah, summer is coming guys and its time to start preparing your agendas, planning your holidays, buying tickets!..so you don’t miss your favorite festivals this season. To help you decide here is a list of some of the best European festivals and what they have lined up for us this summer 2012!
And to start with lets go south to the beautiful, sunny, passionate, tasty and also my home country Spain! Every summer you can enjoy a lot of festivals, but I’ve chosen 3 to start.
Fiberfib - Benicassim 2012: One week to enjoy alternative rock and electronic music besides the beach in the Spanish Costa Azahar. It started being local but now FIB is getting bigger and bigger every year.The tickets cost around 155 pounds and include the camping in the site and many activities. According to the official website this year line up goes with The Stone Roses, New Order, Florence + The Machine, Noel Gallagher´s High Flying Birds, Dizzee Rascal, David Guetta, Bombay Bicycle Club, Cooper, Crystal Castles, De La Soul, Example, The Horrors, Joe Crepúsculo, Katy B, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Miles Kane, The Vaccines, Thee Brandy Hips, Department S, Disappears, Howler, Maverick Sabre, Spector, Los Tiki Phantoms, Todd Terje and many other groups.
http://www.fiberfib.com/
Sonar 2012 : one of the most important events for Electronic music lovers worldwide this festival will take place in the heart of the charismatic Barcelona on the 14, 15 and June 16. The tickets are around 155 euros and the line up for this year includes The Roots, deadmau5, Hot Chip, Modeselektor, James Blake dj, Fatboy Slim, Richie Hawtin, Amon Tobin’s ISAM, Squarepusher, Nicolas Jaar, Luciano, Azari...
Thursday
16th Feb
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Modern Composition Needed for Internet Video
Hey guys, we are currently looking for a fresh and modern composition to be used as soundtrack for the new video of Grow VC (http://www.growvc.com), the first global, transparent, community-based platform dedicated to entrepreneurs and their needs. Grow VC enables great ideas and great teams to get visibility with the right investing audience, funding and support earlier with less effort. Grow VC is more than crowd funding, it's a nurturing ecosystem where entrepreneurs can connect with experts, funders, team members, new customers and partners to realize their ideas.
With a community of over 12,000 users, the homepage of their website, where the video with your music will be placed, receives ten of thousands of visualizations every month. The selected artist will be also featured on our blog and track reviewed by someone of the WLYS team.
Here the video you have to submit your music for:
All what you have to do is to send us a stunning track of 1 minute and 23 seconds, by email to submit@weloveyoursongs.com .
The best track will be selected by a committee composed of members of both Grow VC and WeLoveYourSongs.
This is definitely a great opportunity for you to get great exposure through a truly international audience!
Here some more details:
- Music genre: All genres are welcome
- Duration of the track: 1:23 - One minute and twenty three seconds.
- Submission deadline: March 31, 2012
- Track format: MP3
- Media distribution: Internet
- Territory: World
How to participate:
1. Be an artist part of our community on WeLoveYourSongs.com
2. Compose a tailor made track for the Grow VC video
3. Send it to us by email at submit@weloveyoursongs.com
SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC NOW !
Tuesday
14th Feb
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The 80 - 20 Principle
The 80/20 principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. The 80/20 principle is often applied in business as a guideline to say for example, 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers, or that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your products.
For musicians, this means that you will be doing yourself a huge favor by taking care of the core 20% of fans that really support you. If you haven’t already, you might consider making a fan club, and offer these core fans special benefits like opportunities to meet the band or visit a recording session. Even if you don’t take it to that extent, you might create an additional mailing list of people who have bought your products, and give them special benefits.
In my own case, the 80/20 principle acts as a reminder for me to review how I’m using my time to make sure I haven’t fallen into a rabbit hole. Sometimes I find myself working on things that really aren’t worth the time and effort, and I have to decrease their priority or cut them out entirely so that I can be more efficient.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
...Sunday
12th Feb
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What Is Indie?
If we turn to books to define what the concept of Indie is, they tell us that Indie music or Indie rock is a genre of music that originated in the UK and USA in the 80’s. Even though Indie is traced back to the 80s the term Indie itself was used since the 1950’s to identify music produced by independent labels who looked for artists unsigned by major companies.
Most people, specially the younger ones, identify Indie rock as a style or genre of music, rather than as a way and philosophy of producing it. These two different ideas blur the concept of Indie music today.
If we go back to the 80’s inside the indie music etiquette we could include musicians from many genres like rock, pop, grunge, and punk that although diverse, had something in common --- the low budget with which they produced their music. Although This was a disadvantage for most musicians Indie musicians and the small labels that stood behind them took it as an opportunity to explore sounds, lyrics and aesthetics without the pressure of having to please the mainstream audiences.
Nonetheless the explosion of Indie music as a recognized genre happened in the 90’s paradoxically when it started to lose its essence. During this decade, groups like Nirvana started to have a huge backup by major labels. For example, although we can categorize their first album, Bleach as independent, their second album Nevermind doesn’t lie inside the strict meaning of this term. The so called “Indie” groups in this decade continued to produce the music style borne in the 80’s but now they had all the resources and money of the big music companies.
As mentioned before, the concept of Indie may be a little bit confusing, often related with alternative and non-commercial music. The truth is that the sales of the groups identified as “Indies” continued growing during the first decade of this century. Many detractors arg...
Friday
10th Feb
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New Review: WKB
The UK hip/hop scene has never been more illuminated by mainstream lights than it is today. Whether its the steady-paced poetry of hip-hop or the accelerated energy of grime, the UK charts will host singles from it's own artists every week; some of which have began to spread over the pond to the US.
Utilising both genres, is West-London rapper WKB. Listening to Paradox, which appears on Noel Clarke's feature film “4:3:2:1”, its clear that he can spit at a grime tempo and his voice matches the style. The same applies to Daily Medicine, although I think this track does more to emphasise WKB's voice with a darker beat behind it.
Perhaps more beguiling to a wider audience are tracks such as Trust Is A Gamble and Fallen Soldiers. These exhibit more hip-hop elements, although there is still a discernible grime tone. Trust Is A Gamble allows WKB to offer listeners some urban poetry: “F**k love, I put the cuffs on Cupid, 'cos out in these streets, man, trust is useless. I see a dark face, I'm in a dark place, I make dark movements so I leave a dark trace.” Lyrics are a strong part of WKB's material; I detect aspects of Taskforce and Orifice Vulgatron (Foreign Beggars) on this.
Moving even closer to the mainstream are Your World and Touch Me, which are both complete with a sung chorus from a female artist with interjections from our MC. In both tracks the theme seems to be love and heartache: “If a shank don't tear your heart then love will, so then I guess that means I'm in trouble. I been through it all, from street fights to bar brawls but I'm facing the toughest fight above all.” (Touch Me). These verses, again of a more hip-hop nature, work very well in setting a poignant, street-life scene which is ever relevant in WKB's music.
For new listeners I would recommend Trust Is A Gamble and Touch Me as I feel these are where WKB is at his best. Although the grime works ...
Wednesday
8th Feb
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New Gear Vs. Used Gear
Used gear is cheaper than buying brand new gear, but you also run the risk of it breaking or malfunctioning after using it only a few times. With new gear, you can usually get a replacement for free or just a fraction of the original price, but that’s not always the situation with used gear.
So what are some of the things that you can buy used?
- Hardware – If you’re a drummer, this means cymbal stands and drum thrones. For vocalists and guitar players, this means mic stands, guitar stands, and cases. You can usually tell if something is in good condition, and getting parts repaired is usually not that big of a deal.
- Software – Run a trial version on your computer to see if a piece of software works in your environment. Then go purchase it used. You don’t get support, but who calls support just to wait on hold for an hour anyway?
- Acoustic instruments – If you have a chance to play the instrument beforehand, this could be a good way to save some money.
I generally tend to shy away from electronic equipment such as mixing boards, mics, and amps but if you know what you’re doing, these could be good purchases too!
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
Monday
6th Feb
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Free Downloads For Your Fans
Allowing your fans to download your music for free may not seem like one of the smartest ideas if you are a struggling artist; but it’s certainly one of the best ways to promote yourself, or your band. The idea of giving your music away for free is one that Trent Reznor has talked rather candidly about on his blog:
“Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters”.
Source: NIN Forum
When putting the download on your website, make sure it is clearly visible on the front page. Don’t hide it away in another page. Imagine you are in the position of your fans: You came to the website to get the free download - it needs to be in front of you, otherwise you’ll just go back to what you were doing before.
If you are intending to give away multiple free downloads consider letting your fans know when they can download each new track. For example: Every Monday evening at 7PM. This will help to bring regular traffic to your website, and help build your fan base.
Of course you don't have to give all your music away for free, but as Mr Reznor rightly points out above, it is crucial to get as much exposure as you can.
Article written by Chris Haines, a new London based contributor to our blog.
Friday
3rd Feb
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New Interview: Heart-Sick Groans
I had the pleasure of speaking to Henric from Heart Sick Groans.
Heart Sick Groans are like the cheerful surf hums and the sandy bleak streak hair that beach boys have, with the playful electronic vibes of three gentlemen from the misty Swedish forests. Violins! Vocal harmonies! Killer melodies! FUN!
1. Tell us all about Heart Sick Groans and how you guys started out.
We've been friends since role playing days in our early teens, then our group of friends started making short films, then music. Then everyone left our hometown Sundsvall, and we're the only ones left. That's when we started boiling and frying up these little pop gems. That was back in 2007, we got a sound early on, Johan's enigmatic folk voice, Martin's epic drumming and Henric's philantropic productions made way for our indie pop folk surf tropic style. We're also often blissed with the guest work of bass player Gunnar Carlén and Marcus Brännström.
2. There is obviously some Beach Boys style in your songs what artists inspire yous?
We always read a lot so, on the writer side, Sture Dahlström, Ivar Lo Johansson, Simon Gärdenfors, Jan Fridegård and the likes. Musically, we as a group, basically only agree on the greatness of Edmundo Ros and Lou Christie. Christie used to open up for Rolling Stones in the mid 60's and had some kind of fling with Diana Ross. Martin's favorite band is the Swedish techno group Antiloop, Johan loves Roland Cedermark and Henric is a long time fan club member of the defunct Swedish space opera band Big Money.
3. You guys have a new single coming out soon, tell us about it
YES WE DO! We're back to our folk roots with a poignant electronic production, atmospheric, and brilliant pop, our best song so far! It's number 2 out of 6 in a new batch of singles we'll be releaseing about every fifth week during the spring. It has Johan on vocals, Marcus Brännström...
Wednesday
1st Feb
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More Doing, Less Thinking
The only way to move your career forward is to take action and make something happen. Unfortunately, when a lot of musicians decide they are going to take action, they end up overworking themselves for 2-3 days, before falling back to their normal routines.
In order to avoid falling into this trap, you need to first realize that success in music does not happen overnight, the same way you didn't learn how to sing or play overnight.
You practiced a little at a time for a long timeframe. Think of your marketing in the same way. Only do what you can handle on a long term basis.
In the end, this makes a lot more sense and will get you better results than pushing yourself to the max for a limited timeframe.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
Monday
30th Jan
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New Review: Dekota
Listening to Premedicated, the EP from English four-piece Dekota, I recall exactly how I became such an advocate of rock music. Here is a band that have seemingly resisted any urge to carelessly thrash out some distortion and scream throughout every song, but produced a raw, moody sound still exhibiting some hard-rock moments.
First track, Dirty Secret is the optimal way to introduce the band to new listeners. Within the first minute one can identify how tastefully the musicians play together and cannot fail to acknowledge how suitably Rob Leeks' voice rides the steady groove of the verse. From Dekota's list of influences, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden are, for me, the foremost discernible (I would also include Black Stone Cherry). The vocals undoubtedly reflect those of Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) and also Scott Stapp (Creed); their harsh finish fundamental to the band's torn-jeans grunge sound.
Much of the same can be said for the song Rain. From intro, to verse and into chorus, there is a fluid change from heavy riff to acoustic – again Leeks vocals inextricably appropriate. There is an effective play with structure in this track, as with others on the EP, emphasising the last chorus and instrumental finish, where Brian Gore offers some stylish lead guitar.
Dekota demonstrate some versatility with softer, more mellow tune Show You. This is a superb addition to the EP; in the guitar parts and overall tone I am reminded unmistakably of Incubus. A mature, acoustic-based track that succeeds in avoiding clichés. I must however highlight the enervating inclusion of out-of-tune backing vocals in the mid-section. Songs Save You and Shattered are more akin to the first two songs, although both host more sing-along, melodic choruses. Especially with Shattered, these are the kind of choruses that linger in one's head for days after hearing.
Premedicated is a great EP...
Thursday
26th Jan
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What lies beneath SOPA?
SOPA and PIPA were put to rest early this week after the fall of MEGAUPLOAD and the extreme opposition of sites like Google, Facebook and Wikipedia. Nonetheless, its shadow remains present, and likely to come back at any time to disturb internet’s main nature-, freedom of speech, a context in which today’s generation has been born and raised.
There were many videos circulating trying to explain what lies beyond this act and why it is a direct threat to our freedom. One of the best examples is this one: http://gu.com/p/34aqv.
But why are SOPA and PIPA so dangerous for us? Well, first of all because they change the liability rules around copyright infringement. Before, under 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act websites that allowed their users to upload content were protected of any charges regarding piracy as long as they kept their eyes open against infringing content, removing it from their site. But now, SOPA substantially alters this system, and the companies can be held responsible for whatever is in their domains. Somehow that measure will seem logical for many people, but if we think on how we deal with the Internet nowadays, this is plain and simple a back step for us. Users couldn’t be anymore the creators of websites like Wikipedia, or Youtube as those companies would have to return to a model of editing everything before publishing to protect themselves from any legal action. Webs like us, at weloveyoursongs.com may be obligated to change all the process that makes us who we are, since the worth of our site lies on the will of our users to share their work through us. With SOPA we would have to be the main character in a process in which we don’t want to have any protagonism, because as long as we can be proud of ourselves, YOU, and not us, are the artists who create this site.
Along with us, if SOPA revives, there is many small business, NGOS, and even e...
Wednesday
25th Jan
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From YouTube to the BRITs
From YouTube to the BRITs: how one self made singer/songwriter shot to fame
Ed Sheeran, at only 20, has become an example of how hard work and perseverance can lead to success in the music industry. With his debut album having sold 100,000 copies in its first week, it has recently been announced that Sheeran leads the board at this year’s Brits with nominations for best male solo act, best break through act, best British album, and best British single for The A-Team. Although having burst on to the music scene in 2011 Sheeran’s success is not a reflection of a quick ride but a reward of years of hard work. Ed Sheeran’s accomplishment is a uniquely Twenty-First Century story as it was his appearance on the YouTube channel SB.TV which showcases new talent that propelled him to fame and leading to him being signed by Atlantic Records.
With the release the number one album + last year Sheeran rocketed onto the music scene, but + was the result of years of hard work as he had previously released five E.Ps in 2010, each being inspired by a different genre, before being signed by Atlantic Records. The E.Ps caught the attention of the public and Sheeran was able sell 7,000 copies on iTunes of his No.5 collaboration without promotion or a record label.
One of the forthcoming singles on the new Album +, You Need Me, I Don’t Need You is a critique on the music industry itself and Sheeran’s journey to establish himself on the music scene. You Need Me, I Don’t Need You, is a turning point on the album as with its influences from rap music, the single seems to be a departure from the tone of the rest of the album. Sheeran describes himself in the lyrics as an individual going up against the vast might of the music industry, trying to become successful whilst retaining his own musical identity. With his first three singles all reaching the top five in the UK this approach may ha...
Tuesday
24th Jan
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Finding A Manager
The first step to finding a manager is to figure out what exactly you need help doing. Is it booking gigs, taking care of logistics, managing press and SNS, or something else?
The second step is to let people know you are looking for a manager. Start with your friends, and ask them if anyone would be willing to help.
But be careful when you delegate work. I feel a lot of musicians delegate tedious work they don’t want to do, and expect people to do it for them for free. Don’t make this mistake or you will end up losing both a friend and a fan.
Make sure the exchange is mutually beneficial. Let your friends take risks, try new things, and mess up every now and then. Let them gain experience they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get in a professional working environment.
And be sure to thank them. Give them free lessons or tickets to your shows and merchandise. Make them feel like part of the family.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama. You can follow him on Twitter at @isakukageyama.
Friday
20th Jan
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What A Remix Can Do For You
Remixing a famous artist is one of the most powerful ways to gain new fans. Even if you are not a producer or a studio whiz, you can still create your own unique interpretation of a track with a little bit of imagination.
There are lots of remix competitions on the Internet. Unfortunately, most of the contests require you to pay for the different tracks (stems) of the song. Entering a lot of these competitions has therefore become an expensive process.
Even if you aren’t completely keen on remixing or covering someone else’s work it is still worth entering local competitions or ones on the Internet. If you have some original tracks, a great way to start could be to enter our competitions!
More details here!
Article written by Chris Haines, a new London based contributor to our blog.
Tuesday
17th Jan
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The Tip Jar Effect
To be totally honest, when most of us give someone a tip, we want them to see us doing so, and we want to be acknowledged for making a contribution. As musicians that mean we can improve merchandise sales by placing merchandise booths near the stage, and stopping by after a show.
In most cases, the stage is the most visible place in the venue, so if you put the merchandise booth near the stage, people will see that you’re there after a show. They will be more inclined to stop by and purchase your products if they know you will be there to thank them in person and see that they made a contribution.
You can also try thanking people who pre-order your CDs on your blog or on Twitter. When people pre-order your CD, send them an e-mail with a link to the blog article or Twitter post with a short thank you message.
...
Friday
13th Jan
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Contests Are Coming Back With Prizes Bigger Than Ever!
Here we go, a new year, a new season, and new WLYS competitions are starting!
We are here today to announce new partnerships with three great music companies and the come back of our contests with the Winter Edition of the Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song that will start next Monday 16th of January.
First things first, Mobile Roadie is still with us, offering an annual package worth $1,200 (€950) to both the competitions winners. For the winning artists it will be possible to create and manage either an Android or an iPhone App with industry-leading quality, customization, and flexibility. Please note that if you choose the iPhone App you will be required to set up an Apple iOs Developer Account and make a $99 payment directly to Apple.
Mobile Roadie allows anyone to create and manage their own iPhone and Android apps. Founded by Brock Batten (Creative Director) and Michael Schneider (CEO) in 2009, they have created over 1500 apps for musicians, sports teams, athletes, venues and businesses. Mobile Roadie is headquartered in Los Angeles and has operations in the UK, Spain, Japan, Turkey, Australia and Brazil.
In addition of Mobile Roadie this time will have with us also the cool, Berlin based guys of the Tracks & Fields (www.tracksandfields.com)!
The Tracks & Fields is an international platform where musicians can pitch their music to projects in advertising, film and games. They strive to make the synch licensing process as easy as possible. As a musician, label or publisher you just need to screen the project briefings and decide if and which of your tracks to submit. Some of the projects they found music for include Final Destination 5, eBay, Porsche and Google.
For our Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist competitions they offer us two annual Advanced and one PRO subscription, worth approximately $760 (€600) in total, with which ...
Wednesday
11th Jan
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What A Podcast Can Do For You
To me, the greatest thing about a podcast is the networking opportunity it presents. Other people or bands that hear about your show will ask to be on it. That’s a great way to make a new connection, which might lead to you doing a show together.
In order to keep the show interesting, you might choose to have guests. This is also a great networking opportunity because...
Tuesday
10th Jan
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New Interview: Matthew Meyer
Matthew Meyer: ‘I promised myself that I would always play music for the pleasure of it regardless of whether I was the only one who was listening ‘
Cristina Torres. London
Born in North Carolina to a teacher and a university professor, raised in Connecticut and now an adopted Brooklinite, Matthew Meyer is a simple and easy approach guy. As many artist he has a secret life, one that allows him to make a living and another one dedicated to his major passion, music. Although simple for him the way he creates music remains, somehow, a mystery for us. Nevertheless, his songs have managed to reach the weloveyoursongs.com users. Here we present you an interview to Meyer so you can get to know better this synasthesic artist.
What was “the soundtrack” of your childhood, the music you remember when you think about your early years?
The soundtrack of my early childhood was, without question, ABBA and Neil Diamond, as they were the two cassette tapes my parents had in the car. We would go on these incredibly long car trips for vacations where we would drive 12 hours to get somewhere and those would be the tapes we listened to over and over again. When I hear “Forever in Blue Jeans” I can still feel the hot vinyl seat in our 1979 VW Bug sticking to my skin.
Later on, when I first started to buy music of my own, it tended to be bands like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs.
When did you start writing? Was your first song a heartbroken song or a love song?
When I was nine I began taking trumpet lessons and played in the school concert and jazz bands. Three years later, a friend and I wanted to start a band so I started to learn bass guitar by borrowing a neighbor’s ancient acoustic guitar and learning scales. That Christmas I got my first electric bass guitar and we started to play both in the jazz band and on our own. Our first so...
Thursday
5th Jan
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#WeLoveYourSongs Is Giving Away a FREE Ticket to attend #SFMusicTech
This is your chance to win a $799 worth ticket and attend for free to one of the most prestigious music and tech conference in the world. The SF MusicTech Summit will take place next Monday 13th of February in San Francisco, California.
Here a short blurb for you to learn about what this event is about in case you don't know it yet. "The Summit brings together over 1000 visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music/business/technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment.
Some of our fantastic speakers include Jack Conte & Nataly Dawn from Pomplamoose, Jeff Price from TuneCore, Bram Cohen from BitTorrent, Ian Rogers from Topspin Media, Kristin Thomson from Future of Music Coalition, Brian Zisk from SF MusicTech Summit, and many more! For more information, check out http://sfmusictech.com"
If you want a free ticket to attend this great event, all you have to do is follow the steps below:
1) Like our Facebook Page:
2) Then do one of the following:
- Retweet this post, including the #WeLoveYourSongs hashtag
- Or leave us a comment below here
The contest starts now and ends next Thursday 12th of February, at 1PM PST.
We will choose at random and contact the winner of the ticket next Thursday with more details.
Please kindly note that we are offering 1 ticket only, while accommodation and airfare are not included.
Good luck everyone!
...Wednesday
4th Jan
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Promoting Your Podcast
Use your blog, Twitter, Facebook, and website to promote your podcast. If you have an e-mail list, this would be a good time to send out an announcement about a “freebie” that your fans can enjoy. Don’t just limit your promotion to the online world – post flyers, print your podcast URL on the back of your business card, and tell your friends about it!
When you promote your podcast, don’t just focus on getting people to listen to your podcast. Think of how the podcast fits in with all the other stuff you have going on, primarily your other promotions.
Try to create a never-ending flow of traffic from one media to another. For example, fans come to a live show, where they find out about your website. On your website, direct them to your podcast, where one listener will win a free T-shirt. In order to win the free T-shirt, fans need to Retweet a Twitter post about your next show.
...Monday
2nd Jan
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New Interview: No Stars In The Perimeter
Meet No Stars in the Perimeter. The quirky indie/alt rock duo Tiffany and Chris are from Miami and ready to rock you into 2012.
1. No Stars in the Perimeter formed in 2010. Can you tell us how that happened and what made you choose to form a band with 2 members?
Well, I (Chris) have been trying to put a band together for many years, but there's always a bad egg in the group that spoils the rest. You might have the drummer hook up with a new girlfriend and don't show up for practice, the bass player refusing to learn the songs and show up to rehearsal unprepared or having to argue with the one person who doesn't like what the rest are doing.
With a two piece band you eliminate all the unnecessary stress and we've been able to churn out more songs this way than with the so called musicians I've dealt with in the past.
2. What inspires you to create your music?
Different things. One day we might be inspired by something we might have read about extraterrestrial life, another day it might be some asshole we ran across that pissed us off. Inspiration is everywhere you look.
3. I like your song Strangers from a Distant Land very much. How would you describe your music to say a stranger from a distant land who has never heard your music before?
We would describe our music as being hard hitting and stimulating. We make music that gets you moving without it being "happy". If people are not bobbing their heads, then we haven't done our job. At the same time we don't mind throwing in some songs with a psychedelic feel to them.
4. Name some of your favourite Artists?
I (Tiffany) have to say Mary J. Blige and The White Stripes. Chris is a huge fan of The Doors, The White Stripes, Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Tupac, to name a few.
5. What do you hope for No Stars in the Perimeter to achieve in 5 years time?
First, we really hope ...
Tuesday
27th Dec
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Publishing Your Podcast
Once you’ve edited your podcast, save it as an MP3 file and upload it to your blog. Most blogging platforms have a way to automatically embed an MP3 to your article. If your blog doesn’t have one, you need to upload the audio file and manually embed it to your blog. If that sounds too technical, you might consider signing up for a free Blogger account.
Another problem you may run into is the type of feed your blog generates. If your blog doesn’t have an RSS feed, you can use FeedBurner to create one. Again, if that sounds too technical, you may consider signing up for a free account on blogging platform.
The next step is to submit your podcast to the iTunes Music Store:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html#submitting
Generally speaking, your podcast will be available within a week, and people can start downloading and listening to your show from the iTunes Music Store. If your listeners subscribe, they can get new episodes downloaded automatically. How cool is that!
...Friday
23rd Dec
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A Merry Christmas To You All
Hey guys, all the crew of WeLoveYourSongs would like to wish you and your family a merry Christmas and a fantastic 2012!
As we have done last year, in the spirit of the season, we wanted to renew our invitation to join our lending team on Kiva, a micro-lending non-profit organisation with a simple but very smart idea to enable people to lend money to low-income entrepreneurs across the globe.
You choose who to lend to whether a baker in Lebanon, a farmer in Latin America, a restaurateur in Ghana, or a tailor in India - and as they repay their loan, you get your money back. It's a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone to lift themselves out of poverty. You choose who you lend to, see the progress they make and once the money's been repaid you can re-lend it to others.
At the link below you can find our lending team. We'd love if you decide to join us:
http://www.kiva.org/team/weloveyoursongs
In the meantime, we hope to see you soon, in 2012.
Our warmest regards,
The WLYS Team
...Tuesday
20th Dec
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Recording Your Podcast
Once you’ve planned out your show, go ahead and record yourself. If this is your first time doing a talk show, you’re probably going to sound uneasy or like you’re reading from a script. That’s OK – the only way to get better is to keep doing it. It might help if you imagine yourself addressing your audience at a live show. You can record as many times as you like, so take your time.
When your recording is ready, use an audio editing program to make sure the volume is stable, and to edit out any awkward pauses or “ums and ahs” that you want to get rid of. Many podcasters use Audacity because it’s free and easy to use.
The two main functions you will be using are “Normalize” which makes sure the volume is stable throughout the show, and “Edit” which will get rid of the pauses and unwanted segments. If you’re having trouble using Audacity, check on YouTube for a variety of tutorials on how to edit podcasts.
If you want to get real fancy, you can add tracks so that you can have music playing in the background as you speak, or jingles when you switch segments on the show.
...
Sunday
18th Dec
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Roller Genoa Are The Winners!
The Roller Genoa a cool unsigned indie rock band from Ukraine, with a song called Freak Show, won the Autumn edition of both Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist contests! As a prize they will be awarded with a $1,200 package, kindly offered by Mobile Roadie, to build their own Android or iPhone App.
For those interested to know more about them, is possible to read their interview on our blog and listen to some good music on their WeLoveYourSongs band page.
“We'd like to say thank you to every single person who voted for us, we couldn't win without your support. Thank you for appreciating our music, spreading a word about us, you all are an integral part of this win. You showed us that everything we do now is not in vain and that's the most exciting part of it” said Bohdan, the lead member of the Roller Genoa, when asked if there was something he would like to say to his fans. “Since this competition is opened for musicians and fans from all around the globe we'd like to say our special thank you to WeLoveYourSongs team for creating such a fantastic opportunity for undiscovered starting bands like ours to reach more fans worldwide. This win is extremely important for us as it's the very first contest we were participating in since we've started the band and it made us being confident now that we have a promising future. It's an amazing feeling, as we are very excited at the moment and striving to impress all you with more good music. Thank you!”
In the second place of the Best New Unsigned Artist contest, we have Matthew Meyer, an extremely talented songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. doing some great indie electro rock. After them, the Floor from Indonesia, the Otherness from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Alin from Italy, are arrived in the third, fourth and fifth positions respectively. What a joy to be a truly international community!
Thanks very much to all t...
Tuesday
13th Dec
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Producing A Podcast
The first thing you want to do before you start recording, is to create a rough plan of your show. Think of a good title for your show, as well as the kind of topics you will be talking about. You also definitely want to think about a co-host. If possible, I recommend co-hosting the show with at least one other person, so that your shows don’t start sounding like speeches.
The idea is similar to writing a blog - try to create content that other people will benefit from. That means you don’t want to limit the subject to you and your own career. But you definitely want to keep the focus on yourself. You can do this by thinking of the people around you and the music community that you are a part of. Who are these people, and what are they interested in? How do you fit into the picture?
My recommendation is to find something you are an expert at. For example, you might be really into new gear. Create a segment on the show that talks about new products. Another thing you can do is use the time you spend on YouTube to your advantage and create a segment about interesting videos your listeners might be interested in.
...
Saturday
10th Dec
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Last 5 Days to Win a $1,200 Package with Mobile Roadie
We are now just 5 days away from the end of the Autumn edition of our Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song contests where you could win a $1,200 package from Mobile Roadie to build your own Android or iPhone App.
The deadline to upload your songs and get voted is Thursday 15th of December 2011 (10PM GMT). Both competitions are free to enter but open only to unsigned artists. By registering on Weloveyoursongs.com you will automatically enter both contests.
Roller Genoa are leading both contests, with Matthew Meyer and the Floor respectively in second and third position, but there is still space for an outsider coming from the back.
How to Win:
- Visit WeLoveYourSongs.com and create an artist profile
- Submit some of your best music
- Encourage your fans to go vote for you
Best of luck from all the WeLoveYourSongs crew!
...Tuesday
6th Dec
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Create A Podcast To Promote Your Music
What’s a podcast? If you think of a blog as a self-produced newspaper, a podcast is a self-produced radio show. Radio and music make a great combination, which make podcasting an extremely effective way to promote your music.
Creating a podcast is quite easy. To get started, all you need is a computer, internet connection, and a mic. Since you’re reading this, you probably already have the first two – now all you need is a mic.
In order to create your very first podcast, you really don’t need a high quality mic. A lot of computers have built-in mics which you can use, and you can even use your mobile phone’s voice memo function if you like.
Once you have all your hardware in place, let’s move on to actually producing a show.
Friday
2nd Dec
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New Interview: Otherness
This time our interview is with Otherness, a young electro rock & pop collective from La Patagonia, Argentina, now on 4th position of our Best New Unsigned Artist contest.
1. Tell us about the story of Otherness; how and when did you get together and decided to start a band?
Martin (vocals and guitar), Gonzalo (vocals and bass) and Adrian (music synth) met each other at school, when they were in their early teens. They were born in Comodoro Rivadavia, La Patagonia (Argentina). OTHERNESS hometown is almost 13.000 km far away from London. After a brief project called “Bizarre”, Martin moved to Buenos Aires and 2 years later he was joined by Gonzalo and Adrian and the boys started to play music together again.
In 2009, Pablo (drums) entered the band and they finally become what OTHERNESS is now.
Music is the universal language. It means freedom of expression and doing what you are. OTHERNESS think GLOBAL CONCIOUSNESS is the main element of rock and pop culture, so being in a band it’s awesome ‘cause it gives you the chance to keep on learning and exchanging new experiences with people from all over the world. It improves your communication skills and it’s such a thrill itself.
2. What is your musical background?
Well, it’s really diverse. Each member of the band listens to different stuff but at the same time they share lots of music in common. The Clash, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Daniel Johnston, Nirvana, Indian Music, Motown, some electronic music and old pioneers such as Leadbelly, Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. All mixed up by 4 boys from La Patagonia and used to wake up every day with a gust of dry wind punching their faces.
3. How would you describe your music? Who or what are your inspirations?
“All the things you could be by now if your mother in law was pregnant by electro rock & pop young fans in the middle of a Patagonian wild ...
Tuesday
29th Nov
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How To NOT Broadcast
The other method of broadcasting is e-mail, which can be extremely effective and dangerous at the same time. It’s effective because you can make a compelling call to action, but dangerous because you could also be labeled a spammer. That’s why I only send out a mass e-mail when I have some kind of freebie like a free download to offer.
How often, and what you should put in a mass e-mail is going to depend on your mailing list. If you’re sending to a group of people who have agreed to receive updates from you, there’s no problem, but you risk dropping off of people’s radars and missing out on opportunities that might arise from simply being on someone’s mind.
My e-mail list consists of people I exchanged business cards with, so I will not send out a mass e-mail more than once a month, and I always try to enclose some kind of benefit such a discount or freebie.
...
Wednesday
23rd Nov
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How To Broadcast
By “broadcast” I’m referring to ways you can speak to multiple people at the same time. The most common way musicians do this is when they talk to the audience between songs. When you say to the audience, “We have a new CD out and it’s on sale along with T-shirts at the entrance,” that is a form of broadcasting. It’s the same thing if you appear on TV, radio, or get an article printed in a newspaper or magazine. You’re doing the talking while many people listen.
Social media has opened up a lot of ways we can broadcast. We now have websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a lot of musicians use audio sites like SoundCloud and WeLoveYourSongs. The first caveat I’d like to share is to use all these sites as one social media conglomerate, rather than trying to do everything on each individual site.
You can do this by designating certain tasks to each piece of social media. For example, rather than uploading videos to both YouTube and Facebook, upload only to YouTube and post the links on Facebook.
In my case, I use YouTube strictly for video, SoundCloud for audio, I post videos and music on my blog, and I use Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic there. Designating roles to your social media will make their purposes a lot clearer, save you time, and make you more effective.
...
Tuesday
15th Nov
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How Twitter Can Help You
One way you can generate interest in your music is by building a strong following on Twitter. A larger number of followers mean a larger audience, and hopefully more CD sales. Your Twitter following can also be used to generate ideas, facilitate contests, and drive traffic to your website and blog.
For example, run a contest where everyone who Retweets a post about your new CD gets a link to download a free track. Or, ask your followers which one of your songs they like most, and do a remix of it. Twitter is a great way to make the creative process more interactive and involve your fans.
The best way to generate a strong Twitter following is to follow people who have similar interests. If you sound like Bob Dylan, search for people who are tweeting about Bob Dylan and follow them. Check back every once in a while to see if these people followed you back, and if they didn’t unfollow them and follow new users.
You can automate this process by using services such as Followernow.
...
Sunday
13th Nov
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New Interview: Roller Genoa
The Roller Genoa are a polyhedric indie rock band from Ukraine, at the moment ranked in the first position of both Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song contests on Weloveyoursongs.com .
If you want to discover a little more about them here there is an interesting reading for you guys!
1. Tell us about yourself! How did you all get together and formed Roller Genoa?
There's nothing special in the way we get together, I'm afraid, it's just a story of three close friends who wanted to play music, that's it. The best thing in Roller Genoa is that from the very beginning we were different. I mean in our town they play heavy music, you know, metal-, hard-core, but we were definitely the first ones who started to play garage rock, post-punk stuff. Though everyone of us have played in various bands before, I consider those bands to be nothing more than a joke really. We all are very proud of what we're doing now and that's an amazing feeling, you know.
2. Which acts have shaped and inspired you?
These are definitely The Strokes, most of all, The Rascals and Twisted Wheel. I'd really like to say thank you to these bands as they formed our vision on the way how good music should be written.
3. How would you describe your music?
Well, I consider Roller Genoa to be a rock'n'roll band. I'm afraid people forgot what is rock'n'roll nowadays. I don't mean "sex, drugs & ...",I mean music that will make you dance even if it's the worse damned day of your live, your dog's dead, you've been fired, y'know what I mean. I don't wanna change the world with my music. I'm tired of all those idiots who say such things. I just wanna make people dance you know, and that's it. We are a rock'n'roll band, nothing more and nothing less.
4. What can you tell about your music making process?
Today we don't really have regular rehearsals, there's no need to h...
Monday
7th Nov
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Part 3 - Drive Traffic To Your Website
Submit articles to e-zines or online forums, and link back to your website. When you write an article, make sure it’s something the community you’re involved in will benefit from. For example, choose an artist you sound like and write an article about the artist. Add a short note saying, “If you enjoy the music of this artist, you may also enjoy my band.”
The following website describes the process in detail:
http://www.wikihow.com/Create-One-Way-Backlinks-to-Your-Website
...
Tuesday
1st Nov
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Part 2 - Make Your Website Work
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process that makes sure your website comes up as high as possible in search results. This is actually a very technical process, and you may consider hiring a company to handle this, but here are two basic things you can try.
1. Incorporate your blog into your website – Seach engines such as Google like pages that are updated frequently. Making your blog part of your website ensures your site is updated frequently.
2. Generate quality backlinks – When related pages link to your site, this improves your search results. You can search for sites to add your link on Webconfs (http://www.webconfs.com/backlink-builder.php)
Isaku Kageyama - @isakukageyama
Tuesday
25th Oct
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Build a Website
If you’re building a career in music, one of the things you’ll need is your own website. You can use your website to promote upcoming shows, sell CDs and merchandise, post videos and music, and tell your audience more about yourself.
If you don’t already have one, try services like Wix.com (http://www.wix.com) that offer free templates for building a website. If you like, you can also connect your website to a domain name such as yourname.com. It looks a lot more professional, and it’s also much easier for people to access your website.
...Friday
21st Oct
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Future Music Forum - A Social Business
One of the wonders of the modern world is that we’re all so connected, and yet also not. To illustrate the point: here I sit, typing this blog post on my Blackberry, in a cafe full of people. Go on. Judge me. But this is the world we live in.
However, I have wondered about John Mayor deleting his Twitter profile. I have wondered about how effective this whole thing really is.
Let’s face it: social networking and the Internet are great tools, but there’s something to be said for taking time out to think and speak with your contemporaries about what kind of business you’re actually doing.
Such is the great benefit of the second annual Future Music Forum, in which this year, around 70 delegates gathered to chat through models of the music industry, ideas going forward and where the future of successful music making, management and publishing lies.
The irony is that the FMF is a meeting of minds about social media to fulfill a function which, I would argue, social media cannot.
The keynote address by U.S. entrepreneur Angela Gambino addressed two key issues in business success: velocity and scale. In other words, the capacity of a business to grow quickly and grow large.
“How easy is your business to contemplate? How easy is your business to copy?” she asked delegates. Food for thought.
One of the highlights for me of the FMF was the collaboration of Marc Marot and Ian Neil on two different panels. The first panel was How To Get Your Music in TV and Film and the second was a broader focus on Music Synchronisation – which is the association of music with different brands (TV adverts, clothing, etc).
Both Marc and Ian have worked in the industry over the past three decades and their casual approach at the FMF and anecdotal reflections were a real treat. But beyond that, through the discussion with other panellists, they were able to give a perspective that i...
Tuesday
18th Oct
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5 Things Songwriters Can Do To Move Their Careers Forward
I recently stumbled upon an article on BMI.com about 5 things songwriters can do for their careers.
The five things are:
1. Do One Business Thing Every Day
2. Join or Start A Songwriting Group
3. Don’t Wait For A Publishing Deal To Act Like You Have One
4. Make One Song Pitch Every Week
5. Reply Promptly To Any Opportunity, No Matter How Small.
There are 5 separate bits of advice in the article, but they can really be summed up into “Take Small Steps Every Day”. Try to build a schedule for yourself where you have 1 hour every day aside from practice to work on your career as a musician. It’s better to do a little bit of consistent marketing every day, than to do a lot of marketing once every six months.
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...Friday
14th Oct
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Why Get An Attorney?
Many people think they need a manager before anything, but the truth is, you need an attorney before you need a manager. Why?
An attorney can and may open doors for you just like a manager, but will not be working with you day to day; scheduling sessions and helping you build records. An attorney will protect your interests, and try to get you the best deal, everytime.
A prominent entertainment attorney will also represent artists, songwriters and producers that you would not normally gain access to, or just may have not connected with yet. Some of the biggest deals have been created through attorneys. If you are able to gain their representation, you take a huge step in gaining access to people who seem unreachable.
If your goal is to get management AND you’ve been with an attorney for some time, your attorney will point you in the direction of managers that they trust and do business with.
To start this process I would suggest researching or asking other music creators who their attorney is. Even if you want to start feeling a couple people out, it is never too early to start. Hopefully you have a couple things in the works that may require his/her advice, if you’re a producer it is never too early to have an attorney draw up some independent production agreements!
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Nicholas Velo
...Tuesday
11th Oct
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Become Better Known
Why do certain bands sell more tickets than others? In what ways are they “better” than the bands that don’t sell as well – and most importantly what can you do to emulate their success? Well, one difference is that the bands that sell a lot of tickets tend to be well known.
When you stop by a club and see a myriad of flyers strewn on a table, you tend to pick up the one of a band you already know. It’s the same thing at a CD store.
What can you do to become better known? This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but start by eliminating people. Only go after the people who are going to be interested in your music. How do you know who is going to be interested in your music? Talk to the people who come to your shows. Find out who these people are and where they hang out. Go there and reach out to that community. Become well known in a niche market and that will begin to set you apart.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama, music professional at Berklee College of Music, traditional Japanese drummer and WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Friday
7th Oct
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Easier Said Than Done: Gain Attention of A&R's
I’ll make this simple, an A&R's main goal is to find a hit song that can (hopefully) change the landscape and direction of music for the next 6-8 months. If you want break into the Music Industry, you must create something that is unique and different. Do not attempt to copy Dr. Luke’s sound or whatever songs are currently on the radio. There are already enough established people attempting to emulate others. As a newcomer, you will not succeed in the long run. Every once in a while a producer/songwriter lands a Top 40 single out of nowhere and is never heard from again. Remember “Womanizer”?
With the decline of albums being released, the harder and harder it gets to have your song(s) officially released. The truth is, A-List & B-List producers are going to get a majority of the cuts. Not solely because of their name, relationships, and track record (although these things have a lot to do with it). But also because they are in working with the BEST songwriters, and typically have direct access to an artist, manager, A&R, etc. If you are new producer, you MUST create something that is unique and GREAT to get the attention of others.
If an A&R wants a record that sounds like Dr. Luke produced it, they will get a record from Dr. Luke. By creating something unique, you increase your chances of being heard. There is nothing better than creating a new "sound" Want an example? Look at what “Nothin’ On You” did for Bruno Mars. It opened the door for HIS sound. He then capitalized on it, and went from just being known as a talented songwriter to one of the most widely known artists in the world.
Article written by Nick Velo, experienced music industry professional from Los Angeles, California.
...Wednesday
5th Oct
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Voting Re-Started, WLYS Contests Are Back!
The Autumn edition of the Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song competitions have started and the voting is now open!
We are pleased to have such great prizes for you guys also this time, with 2 annual packages worth $1,200 each, offered by Mobile Roadie, with which we have strengthen up our partnership, to create and manage either an Android or an iPhone App for your band.
Look at the prize list on WeLoveYourSongs to have more info about that!
Here some more details about the Autumn edition of the Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist contests:
Starting Date: Today - October 5, 2011
Deadline: December 15, 2011
Cost: Free
Prize: 2 X $1,200 packages from Mobile Roadie to get your own Android or iPhone App (more prizes to be announced later on)
How to Win:
1. Visit WeLoveYourSongs.com and create an artist profile.
2. Upload some of your best music
3. Encourage your fans to go vote for you!
BEST OF LUCK!
...Tuesday
4th Oct
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Unpaid Gigs
What do you do when someone asks you to play for free? Try asking some of your friends – they don’t all have to be musicians – just people who do freelance work. Ask them why they choose to do or not do unpaid work. Be sure you ask people who actually do a lot of work because those are the people you want to emulate.
The most important thing is to develop your own policy about unpaid gigs. Should you do all work, paid or unpaid, simply because it’s better than sitting at home? Or do you protect your brand by doing only paid work? Still another option is to do unpaid work only in certain situations, such as a cause you believe in, or large amounts of exposure.
There is no correct answer to this question – just make sure you develop your own policy on how you want to handle it. If you’re a musician, you’re going to get asked to do free shows. Save yourself a headache and think it through beforehand.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama, music professional at Berklee College of Music, traditional Japanese drummer and WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Thursday
29th Sep
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A New Blog Contributor from LA
Hello music creators,
I’m Nick Velo - Every week I will be contributing to the blog section here at WeLoveYourSongs.com. I currently work in the music industry in A&R, Management, Publishing & Social Marketing. Since entering the music business in 2005 I have worked with a number of top labels, publishers, producers, artists, songwriters, etc etc.
There are a number of books out on the music business that aren’t relevant and/or realistic. Because they don’t answer the one question I’m asked most, which is “How do I get INTO the music business”. There is no right answer. The rules are broken daily. In this climate it is all about creating unique, hit songs & if you’re an artist, it’s about building a real fan base, one fan at a time. What I want to do is tell you what I believe to be the best ways to get into the music business as a creative person, give you advice based on my personal experiences in the daily grind of the music business, and help you take creating music from a hobby, to something real.
Respectfully,
Nick
-
Nicholas Velo
...Wednesday
28th Sep
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New Interview: Black Vendetta
Black Vendetta is Nathan Virica, a singer and songwriter originally from Harrogate, now living in London. He has so far released one EP ”Cigarettes, Alcohol, love and Injustice’
Firstly who is Black Vendetta?
Black Vendetta is my good self. It used to be the name of my band up north (which, incidentally I came up with!) and then when I went solo I just thought it would make a cracking alias and, to some extent an alter ego. Glad you haven’t asked me what it actually MEANS though because I haven’t got a fucking clue!
What’s your musical background? Are you self taught or academic trained?
Well I suppose for pigeonholing purposes you would say I’m self taught but I never really learned the guitar to a very high standard. I just wanted to get to the stage where I could write good songs and now I can. I regard myself much more a songwriter than a musician per say. I had a few guitar lessons when I was at school but that was mainly on classical guitar and the teacher wasn’t exactly up to much. Put it this way, after 7 months of weekly lessons all I could play was “Happy birthday to you”. Felt it might be an idea to teach myself after that!
What were your first musical memories?
My first musical memories were kinda based on trips we used to take to Italy every summer. My grandad has an olive farm there and an old house so we always used to go there during the school holidays and we used to drive down there. My first musical memories were basically of whatever cassettes my grandma put on during said journeys. There was a weird mix of all kinds of suff! Bowie, Queen, Lennon and even Cher! But yeah I used to love that cos I would just stare out of the window for hours on end with the music feeding into my imagination and it kept me really entertained. It’s bizarre too cos at that age I used to think “How the fuck do you write a song?” little knowing that ov...
Tuesday
27th Sep
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Recording Devices and Headphones
What kind of device are you using to record your rehearsals? And what kind of headphones do you use when you listen to music? A lot of musicians I know are comfortable recording rehearsals on their cell phones and listening to music on their iPod headphones – but somewhere down the line you’re going to want to invest in some kind of recording device and some headphones.
Why? Listening to yourself will make you a better player, and so will listening to music in finer detail. No need to go overboard – a lot of good recording devices are available in the $100-150 range, and good headphones are available for less than $100. You’ll be surprised to hear things you didn’t notice before, and that will be sure to change your playing as well.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama, music professional at Berklee College of Music, traditional Japanese drummer and WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Thursday
22nd Sep
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Start Now, No Funding Needed
Becoming a musician and starting a business have a lot in common. If you’re an independent musician, you’re in business for yourself, and the product you’re selling is your music. It’s a lot of work and responsibility, and sometimes the task can seem daunting – so daunting that it prevents musicians from taking the necessary steps to get work done.
In an article titled “Start Now. No funding needed,” CD Baby founder Derek Sivers, says starting small is the first step to creating something big. It’s important to turn your ideas into reality by actually doing something – even if it’s something small.
If you don’t have a record deal, produce a CD on your own. If you don’t have expensive equipment, find cheaper alternatives. Regardless of what your ultimate goal is – playing at a prestigious venue, or with musicians you idolize – it starts with you going out and doing something today.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama, music professional at Berklee College of Music, traditional Japanese drummer and WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Monday
19th Sep
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Balanov is the Winner!
For the second times in a row the winner of our competitions is coming from Africa! Balanov, with his “Take it Hard”, won the Summer edition of both Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist competitions! As prizes he will be awarded with a $1,200 package, kindly offered by Mobile Roadie, to build his own Android or iPhone App, and some cool merchandise offered by CMO.
For those interested to discover more about him, is possible to read his interview on our blog, listen to some good tracks on his WeLoveYourSongs artist page and check his Facebook fan page!
“I would like to thank every one votes for me, it’s an amazing feeling to know that i have some wonderful people behind me” said Balanov when asked if there was something he would love to say to his fans and followers. “I’m honored to have won the WeLoveYourSongs competitions, I pour my heart & soul into my music. "This award has provided me with a confidence boost in my career and has encouraged me to go releasing my next & first professional album. I want to expand my international fan base, so i believe winning this UK based contest is going to be a vital part of that growth.I encourage any and all artists to participate in the WeLoveYourSongs competitions next time around!”
In the second place of the Best New Unsigned Artist contest, we have a cool unsigned band called Perry Acker, with some fresh pop rock music from Gig Harbor, Washington. We have to going down few thousands kilometres, in the beautiful city of Bogotá in Colombia, to find Claudia Valencia, another very promising unsigned singer songwriter, who got the third the position in the competition!
Thanks very much to all the unsigned musicians, bands and fans that have participated directly or indirectly in the Summer edition of our contests on WeLoveYourSongs. More details about our new contests will be revealed shortly. Stay tuned!
...Wednesday
14th Sep
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Last 36 Hours: Who's Your Money On?
The last 36 hours before the winners will be announced for the Summer edition of our Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song competitions where you could get a $1,200 package from Mobile Roadie to get your own iPhone App and some great merchandise from CheckMineOut!
Once again the deadline to upload your songs and get voted is tomorrow, Thursday 15th of September 2011 (10PM GMT). Both contests are free to enter, but open only to unsigned musicians and bands. By registering on Weloveyoursongs.com you will automatically enter both contests.
Balanov is leading both competitions, with Perry Acker pushing hard in the second position, but there is still space for an outsider coming from the back.
Just another day and we will have the name of the winners!
...Monday
12th Sep
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How to Get Booked a Year in Advance
In the September 25, 2010 edition of “The Business Side of Music” podcast, hosts Tob Sabella and Traci Snowe talk about how to “Get Booked a Year in Advance.” While there’s no easy way to get booked a year in advance, it begins with planning. Take the number of shows you want to do in a year and divide that by 52 weeks. This will tell you how many bookings you need per week.
Making as many connections as possible is the most effective way to get booked – so if your schedule allows, take the time to visit some clubs the next time you’re making a trip out of town. It helps to develop a relationship with club owners so that you can book periodical shows. If you’re playing at a club every other Friday, you no longer have to worry about trying to book those dates. Make friends with musicians who will call you to play with them – another day you don’t have to book on your own!
Tuesday
6th Sep
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How to Make a Stage Plot
An accurate stage plot makes it easier for the venue managers, club owners, lighting and sound engineers, and other people you’re working with, because it makes it easy to see your how all the players and equipment need to be set up.
Your stage plot should include the following:
- Where each musician will be positioned
- What instruments will be used and where they will be positioned
- List of necessary equipment
- Positions of equipment such as mics and amps
- An ordered list of songs and their approximate length
- Transitions if any equipment is going to be moved during the performance
A lot of musicians use software like Adobe Illustrator or Stage Plot Pro to create their stage plots. You can also use FreeStagePlots.com. Once you get used to it, creating a stage plot only take 15-30 minutes and it saves a lot of time and energy. Make it easy for your staff and they’re going to want to work with you again.
Friday
2nd Sep
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2 Weeks To Win $1200 For Your Own iPhone App
We are now just 2 weeks away from the end of the Summer edition of our Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song contests where you could win a $1,200 package from Mobile Roadie to get your own iPhone App and some great merchandise offered by CheckMineOut worth few hundreds Dollars!
The deadline to upload your songs and get voted is Thursday 15th of September 2011 (10PM GMT). Both competitions are free to enter but open only to unsigned artists. By registering on Weloveyoursongs.com you will automatically enter both contests.
The winners of the last competitions were the cool South African guys of the Ryan Calder Band, to which goes once again our sincere congratulations! At the moment Balanov is leading the ranks, but the competitions are still completely open and because of so many great musicians on our community it’s really unpredictable to forecast who will be named as the Best New Unsigned Artist!
How to Win:
- Visit WeLoveYourSongs.com and create an artist profile
- Submit some of your best music
- Encourage your fans to go vote for you
Best of luck from all the WeLoveYourSongs crew!
Tuesday
30th Aug
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A Smarter Way To Network
Tuesday
23rd Aug
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Making a Music Video on a Budget
The following videos show you how to make a music video using free software such as iMovie
or Windows Movie Maker
When you’re done making your video, you can upload it to YouTube and promote your music. If you’re not good at shooting video, just use photos!
Thursday
18th Aug
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New Interview: Balanov
Ranked in the second position of the past edition of our competitions, Balanov, with his great electronica music, is now on top of both Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist contests on Weloveyoursongs.com .
Tuesday
16th Aug
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How Dieselboy Became A Household Name
Tuesday
9th Aug
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Using Twitter To Promote Your Music
Twitter search results will now return photos and video, which means more ways to improve your internet presence. When you share an image on Twitter, be sure to include related hashtags. For example, if you’re a rock band in Detroit, use the hashtag #detroitmusic and your photos will pop up in search results.
Another way to use Twitter more effectively is to Tweet when your followers will be near their computer and have time to read what you’re saying. The best time of the day to Tweet is 9:00 AM PST because you’re hitting three major break times. And according to Fast Company, the best time to get re-tweeted is at 4:00 PM EST on Friday.
But if you want to cover all the bases, use an application like TweetDeck to post tweets 8-12 hours apart. Do it sparingly so it doesn’t become spam. In most cases, since the volume of tweets is so high most people check in about the same time every day and won’t notice repeat tweets.
Article written by Isaku Kageyama, music professional at Berklee College of Music, traditional Japanese drummer and new WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Monday
1st Aug
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A New Contributor For The WLYS Blog!
Hello All,
Hi - I’m Isaku Kageyama and I will be writing a weekly column here on Weloveyoursongs.com focusing on ways to promote yourself as a musician. If you want to book better paying gigs, sell more CDs, and establish yourself as an artist, my column will help you do all that and more.
If you have any particular areas where you need help, feel free to shoot me an e-mail at isaku@isakukageyama.com and I’ll be sure to answer your questions.
Best regards,
Isaku Kageyama
...Monday
11th Jul
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Best New Unsigned Artist And Best New Song Contests Are Back!
The Summer edition of the Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song competitions have started and the voting is now open!
We are pleased to have such great prizes for you guys also this time, with 2 annual packages worth $1,200 each, offered by Mobile Roadie, to create and manage either an Android or an iPhone App for your band, as well as some great merchandise from the cool guys of CheckMineOut.co.uk (CMO), which have just confirmed they will be in for the next two editions of our competitions.
Here the prize list with all the details of what you can win!
In case you have missed our previous blog post please find below the details about the new contests:
Starting Date: Today - July 11, 2011
Deadline: September 15, 2011
Cost: Free
Prize: 2 X $1,200 packages from Mobile Roadie to get your own iPhone App and some great merch offered by CheckMineOut worth few hundreds Dollars! (additional prizes will be announced in the coming weeks)
How to Win:
1. Visit WeLoveYourSongs.com and create an artist profile.
2. Upload some of your best music
3. Encourage your fans to go vote for you!
...Tuesday
5th Jul
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Win Your Own Iphone App !
We are here today to announce the come back of our competitions with the Summer Edition of the Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song kicking off next Monday 11th of July!
We told you last week of some new exciting prizes and here we are!
This time we are partnering with Mobile Roadie, the most innovative startup in the development of mobile applications.
Mobile Roadie allows anyone to create and manage their own iPhone and Android apps. Founded by Brock Batten (Creative Director) and Michael Schneider (CEO) in 2009, they have created over 1500 apps for musicians, sports teams, athletes, venues and businesses. Mobile Roadie is headquartered in Los Angeles and has operations in the UK, Spain, Japan, Turkey, Australia and Brazil.
The winning artists will get a Mobile Roadie annual package worth $1,200, with which it will be possible to create and manage either an Android or an iPhone App with industry-leading quality, customization, and flexibility. Please note that if you choose the iPhone App you will be required to set up an Apple iOs Developer Account and make a $99 payment directly to Apple.
You can find out more about this such a fantastic prizes on the MoRo website!
Pretty amazing, isn’t it??
Here some more details about the new competitions:
Starting Date: July 11, 2011
Deadline: September 15, 2011
Cost: Free
Prize: 2 X $1,200 packages from Mobile Roadie to get your own iPhone App (additional prizes will be announced in the coming weeks)
How to Win:
1. Visit WeLoveYourSongs.com and create an artist profile.
2. Upload some of your best music
3. Encourage your fans to go vote for you!
GOOD LUCK!
Monday
27th Jun
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Tip # 2: Have Management.
Article written by Kaelan MacNeill, Audio Professional, Event Coordinator and WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Thursday
23rd Jun
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The Ryan Calder Band Won !
The nice guys of the Ryan Calder Band finally made it! The RCB is a 5 piece band playing a positive, upbeat South African acoustic rock. They have spent the last five years touring around South Africa, released the second album “On the Edge” in 2010 and have now won the Spring edition of our Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song competitions with a great song called Loving Every Day !
For those interested to know more about these cool guys is possible to listen to their songs on the band page they have on WeLoveYourSongs, read their interview on our blog and take a look to the RCB official website !
Contacted immediately after the end of the competitions to let them know they were the winners, here it is what they wanted to say: “We’re very pleased to have gained so much momentum in this competition. We like the concept behind the WLYS website and we are very thankful to everyone who voted for our songs, as well as anyone who just listened to our music! We hope that anyone reading this is inspired by the message in our music, and the RCB is looking forward to getting around to different continents in the near future.”
After them, in the second place of the Best New Unsigned Artist and the Best New Song, we have a very talented unsigned artist, again from Africa, Egypt to be specific, called Balanov, that with his Electro music has been in the first position for long time, duelling with the RCB until the very last day of the contests. The third place of the Best New Unsigned Artist contest has been taken by Chris Raw, from the Philadelphia Area in the US, with his underground indie hip hop music.
A big hug is for every unsigned artists and bands that have participated in the Spring edition of our contests on WeLoveYourSongs.com and to all the music fans that have voted for the tracks they loved more! A huge thanks goes as well to our partners, that have kin...
Friday
17th Jun
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First Tip: Create Buzz
As artists we all have a couple things in common: a passion for music and a dream of building a life long career doing what it is that we love. Even the most talented musician cannot stay above water without putting these 5 elements into practice. Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for each of these fantastic tips!
Let's start with our first tip - CREATE BUZZ
People have to be aware of y ou and your music. A great way to do this is to promote yourself both with online and offline promotions . Uploading your best music, making it easy and free to be listened by anyone on Weloveyoursongs.com and spreading the word through your favorite social networks is a great start no doubt, but it’s essential that you go out playing gigs as well! Play live gigs until your voice is hoarse and your frets are worn. By doing so, you let fans do the promoting for you. Word of mouth becomes your friend. Even if a few people see you play and enjoy it, they tell their friends who then check out your site and send a link to their friends, that will check you out on Weloveyoursongs.com, and all of a sudden you have a larger fan base to whom you can promote your future shows! Remember you can now list your upcoming gigs on Weloveyoursongs.com – to do so you have to login to your account, click on "My Events" on the top right corner of the page and insert from there your list of upcoming concerts. A box with your list of future events will then appear on your artist page.
Article written by Kaelan MacNeill, Audio Professional, Event Coordinator and WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Wednesday
15th Jun
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Designing Your Band's Website
A recent article on Hypebot.com by Michael Brandvold, a music industry marketing veteran, made it clear that the most important things to keep in mind when creating 
your band’s website is for it to be user friendly. FAN FRIENDLY. The use of Flash and great-looking-over-the-top graphics are good but should come secondary to ensuring your site is easy for fans to navigate. “The website makes it easy for me to find what I want,” was the answer given by 76% of consumers when asked what really matters when is comes to a website.
This holds true for an artist’s site; you want it to be easy for a fan to find your bio, stream and listen to a song off your newest album, be able to sign up for your email list, find out when your next show is, and the list goes on.
As well, it is key to make sure fans know of your site and can get to it equally as effortlessly. Put a link on your WeLoveYourSongs profile page could give you a bit of help for obtaining that. This way, for all the traffic of fans and industry people that comes through WeLoveYourSongs, they can be directed to your website if they would like to find out more.
Article written by Kaelan MacNeill, Audio Professional, Event Coordinator and WeLoveYourSongs collaborator.
...Monday
13th Jun
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1 Week to Know the Best New Unsigned Artist
We are just 1 week away from the end of the Spring edition of our Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song competitions where you could win a ticket worth €250 for the Future Music Forum in Barcelona, some great merchandise from CheckMineOut and a uPlaya promotion package !
The deadline to enter your songs and get voted is Tuesday 21th of June (10PM GMT). Both contests are free to enter but open only to unsigned artists. By registering on Weloveyoursongs.com you will be automatically part of both competitions.
The winners of the last competitions were the Roman Holiday, an alternative pop rock band from Seattle, followed at short distance by the Tyrannosaurus Grace with their exhuberant synth pop music! At the moment Balanov is leading the ranks, followed by the cool South African guys of the Ryan Calder Band and by Chris Raw with his underground hip hop music. Tons of other artists are just few votes away. It looks extremely difficult to make a bet on the winners, everything is still completely open!
How to Win:
- Visit WeLoveYourSongs.com and create an artist profile.
- Upload some of your best music
- Encourage your fans to go vote for you
Good luck buddies and keep rock on!
Monday
6th Jun
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Featured Artist: Chris Raw
Wednesday
1st Jun
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Updated Prize List for our Contests
A brief note for you guys with the updated prize list for our Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist competitons, which are now just 3 weeks from the end!
Best New Unsigned Artist competition:
1st Place
1. A ticket worth €250 to attend the Future Music Forum, taking place next September in Barcelona, Spain
2. A great merchandise package from CheckMineOut comprehensive of:
- 100 free T-shirts with your design to sell at your merch table. (3 colour screen print)
- Design help from their CMO T-shirt designer
- Insider tips and hints booklet on how to make the most of your T-shirt merch.
- CMO Premier account. (Some extra perks including your T-shirts promoted on their homepage, personal Url and QR code to make it easy for your fans to buy your merch)
3. A Suite of uPlaya Premium Services comprehensive of:
- Hit Song Science Analysis/Score for 17 uploads
- uPlaya’s global digital marketing widgets for those 17 songs uploads. Marketing tools can be efficiently distributed to nearly 300 sharing sites and contain lots of useful information about the artist’s music.
- uPlaya Press Kit, which is fully-customizable with biographies, photographs, album information, press clippings, music videos, show dates and more.
- Premium functionality of the uPlaya marketing tools. This includes the ability to feature four songs in a Featured Song Player on the uPlaya® Press Kit.
- Access to newsletter features that enable the artist to more easily build and maintain relationships with fans.
- 15 Contest tickets good for use in any uPlaya Contest or Talent Search.
- Ability to place music in uPlaya’s Hit Song Game, a music discovery application on Facebook.
- Because the artist is able to enter more music in uPlaya’s Music Universe, you will increase your chances of being considered for special promotions and of...
Friday
27th May
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Interview with Record Producer Legend Stuart Epps
Today we are honored to interview Stuart Epps, with no doubts one of the most influential producers of the last 50 years of the music industry. He started is musical career in 1967 as a 15-year old office junior at Dick James Music. He quickly moved up the industry ladder to become Chief Engineer at DJM Studios, and later toured the USA with Elton John as personal assistant.
Epps was involved from the start when Elton's producer, the late Gus Dudgeon, built The Mill Studios on the banks of the Thames, near Maidenhead. It was not long before Dudgeon asked Epps to become Chief Engineer, Studio Manager and Producer.
He worked on many projects with artists including Elton John and Chris Rea. Later, Jimmy Page bought the studio in the early 80’s and Stuart became the Studio Manager and began to work with Heavy Metal artists like Led Zeppelin.
After gathering enough experience, he took over Alvin Lee’s private studio “Wheeler End” in 1994 and turned it into a comfortable commercial studio. Among his customers were John Leckie (Beatles, Stone Roses, Muse) and Craig Leon (The Ramones, Blondie). Oasis, Robbie Williams and Paul Weller are just few other names on the list of artists he has worked with.
In the last few years Stuart is actively involved in the music business, working with big name artists as well as helping a host of promising new and up-and-coming artists to sound their best, both on demo recordings and in full studio productions. He is also doing lectures through Skype and instructs students at the SAE in Oxford, UK.
You have worked with some of the most influencing artists of the last century, what are the ones you have enjoyed more to work with ? Any funny stories you want to share with our community ?
I’ve been lucky to work with some of the greats. Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers, Bill Wyman, Robbie Williams, Oasis…
When Liam Galla...
Tuesday
24th May
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WeLoveYourSongs featured on KillerStartups.com
Hey folks just to let you know we have been featured on a cool website called KillerStartups.com - if you want to give us a bit of help please follow this link and vote for Weloveyoursongs.com ! It’s free and the registrations to the website is not required.
Below you can find the nice words they have used to describe us:
“WeLoveYourSongs is a new community site for young and unsigned musicians. It has the aim of letting them promote their art, and make fans much easier than they would by any other means.
The moment an artist signs up for a profile on the site, he is enabled to upload as many songs as he wants. He can also add notes, images and (once he has them) promo clips, and videos of live performances. Fans (who also have to sign up for their accounts, by the way) will be able to start commenting on all that media, and (hopefully) start spreading the word around.
And the site actually encourages bands and artists to do their best by hosting regular competitions where those who play the same kind of music can go against each other, and battle for supremacy on the provided charts. In any case, both the newest artists and fans are highlighted on the site, along with these songs that have been more popular as of late. Finding someone or something to listen to will be anything but difficult”.
“ It makes for discovering bands and songs in a way that is as exciting as it is easy.”
...Thursday
19th May
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New Prizes: Great Merchandise from CMO!
We're excited to announce a new collaboration with our friends of CheckMineOut.co.uk (CMO), which have agreed to offer some great prizes for the winners of the Best New Unsigned Artist competition on Weloveyoursongs.com !
The additional prizes offered by CMO are:
Below here you can find out more about what CMO is about!
"CheckMineOut.co.uk is here to offer help in a crucial area for bands, T-shirt merchandise, which is a vital thing to get right. Anyone can make money with their merchandise, without worrying about handling shirts, by creating a free virtual shop on checkmineout.co.uk. It costs nothing. You choose the price and share your t-shirt and song or story behind it, to all of your fans easily through your social network and even download your own merch store widget for your website or blogspot. When an order is placed, we handle all production and delivery. And as soon as your designs sell like hotcakes, you can move...
Thursday
12th May
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New Interview: Ryan Calder Band
Ryan Calder Band is a five piece acoustic rock band based in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The band has spent the last five years touring around the country, has released the second album "On the Edge" in 2010 and is now leading both competitions on Weloveyoursongs.com !
What's the story of Ryan Calder Band? How did you all find each other?
We started performing together at a local music festival about five years ago. Since then I haven't been able to get rid of them.
What's your musical background? And how did you get involved with create/playing music?
Most of the band self-started into music... for me, it began in school where I started as a drummer, and then moved to singing and playing guitar in theatre productions and cabaret shows during my varsity years and paid my way through university by gigging in pubs.
Your latest album "On the Edge" was released last year. What can you tell us about it?
The album is the first we've delivered as a band. It was recorded it over a month, and I had it mastered professionally. There are some very big ideas in the lyrics, and there are a range of different styles and influences on the album. I think this album is just the start of a career of different sounds and genres. I like the diversity of rhythm - it's the starting point of my songwriting.
You've spent the past five years touring and playing around in South Africa; what's the best thing about performing live? Any good stories you'd like to share?
It's where the magic happens - where we get to witness first-hand people's response. We've worked hard on our live shows and have had a really good reponse to every show we've played... so good in fact, you would confuse us with mainstream artists. You know - screaming grannies, fainting women, wild crowds... it must count for something, even if they are just our immediate families.
Your music has been described as po...
Tuesday
10th May
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The Best New Unsigned Artist to attend FMF Barcelona for free
We are happy to announce a new great prize for our Best New Unsigned Artist competition, made possible by a new collaboration with the cool guys of the Future Music Forum (FMF). In addition to the 2 Marketing Suites of uPlaya Premium Services, the winner of the contest will now get also a €250 ticket to attend this fantastic international music conference!
Below here a piece of their press release that will let you better understand how great this event could be for you to attend to!
"The 2nd Annual Future Music Forum Barcelona will be taking place this September 22nd & 23rd in Barcelona. This year the FMF are inviting Dave Kusek from Berklee College of Music Boston as our Keynote & Angel Gambino, WIRED top 100 executive & serial entrepreneurs as a special guest speaker. The 2nd FMF will focus on Entrepreneurs in Music, The Music Cloud, Music Synchronization, Brands & Music, How to get your music in TV & Film, Music & Social Gaming and Music & Mobile.
This year speakers include: Rootmusic, Sony Music, Domino Records and Compost Records amongst many others.
FMF provides a professional yet relaxed platform to explore, engage and discuss these topics with a carefully selected group of music futurists, label owners, managers, music and technology entrepreneurs and digital music consumption analysts".
"The 2nd Edition follows the successful launch in 2010 which saw an impressive array of music technology companies, entrepreneurs, musicians & music industry related executives descend on Barcelona for 2 days of lively discussion on where the music industry is heading. Participants included Shazam, Mixcloud, LastFM, Forrester Research, Soundcloud".
Such exciting times for the WeLoveYourSongs community, we really hope you are enjoying it! Good luck for the competitions and stay tuned for new announcements and articles as well as intereviews to our talented unsigned artists!
...Friday
29th Apr
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#WeLoveYourSongs Is Giving Away a Free Ticket for #SFMusicTech Summit
We are here again with another chance to win a ticket worth $600 for the SF MusicTech Summit that will take place next Monday 9th of May in San Francisco.
The SF MusicTech Summit brings together 800+ visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music/business/technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment.
Topics being covered at the event include: The Future of Publishing, Artist Revenue Streams, Tools for your Band, Music in the Cloud, Digital Sheet Music, New Musical Instruments, What's Your Stack, and many more!
If you want a free ticket to attend this great event, all you have to do is follow the steps below:
1) Like our Facebook Page:
2) Then do one of the following:
- Retweet this post, including the #WeLoveYourSongs hashtag
- Or leave us a comment below here
The contest starts now and ends next Wednesday 4th of May, at 8PM GMT.
We will choose at random and contact the winner of the ticket next Thursday 5th of May with more details.
Please kindly that we are offering 1 ticket only, while accommodation and airfare are not included.
Good luck to all you folks!
Update: The winner has been chosen - congratulations to N.Sputnik !
...Thursday
28th Apr
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Interview with Alin !
Alin joined our community from the very beginning and is currently in the first position in both the Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist competitions. She’s an Italian Hungarian artist that creates inventive computer based electronic dance music!
What’s your story? How did you get into producing music?
Since my childhood I’ve loved music. When I was 8 years old I learned to play guitar, that let me know people with the same passion.
During high school, I had experiences in some band and years later those experiences moved on a stage.
After that, I decided to dive completely in music and try to compose what really felt without come into conflict with someone else. So, since 3 years, Katalin/Kati become Alin, and still now I continue believing in my feelings.
What’s your musical background?
I’ve grown up with every kind of music: thanks to my parents, I’ve known old hits of 60-70 years and classical music; thanks to my brothers, I’ve known memorable rock and grunge bands; thanks to Hungary, I’ve known the folk music and 80s hits; thanks to friends, I’ve known pop-rock-disco and electronic music.
What instruments do you play?
I play guitar, piano and…computer!
How would you describe your music in one or two sentences?
I consider my music as a soundtrack: in front of you there’s a landscape or a picture and automatically your mind makes you think to a melody.
If you could cover any song – which would it be, and why?
If I could…I’d like to play and cover “Little Eye” by Elisa. Why? Maybe because it’s a beautiful, unknown and misunderstood song.
What was the first song you learned to play?
“La canzone del sole” by Lucio Battisti: every italian who wants to be a guitarist learns this song for first, because it’s composed by simple chords: A – E – D – E.
What artist(s) has inspired you the most?
I can just say that a lot of artists inspire me...
Wednesday
20th Apr
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New Competitions and New Features!
After have gifted last week 5 tickets for the MusicConnex conference in London, worth £199 each, to Lauren Housley, WKB, Lorena Cueva, C.T.G. (Change The Game) and Neutral Nomad, winners of a contest hosted on our blog, we are now here to announce that the Spring edition of our Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist competitions have now started!
We have now also implemented some new features on the site for you, such as the possibility to add your next gigs/concerts in your page. To add an event you have just to login on your account and once logged go on "My Events", in the top right corner of the page.
For the happiness of most of you in this edition you will be able to listen and vote for the songs you love for free, just by clicking on the LOVE button!
The competitions will finish Monday 21 June 2011, when the winners will be announced. The Bew New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist contests are open only to unsigned artists, free to join, with great prizes such as 2 Marketing Suites of uPlaya Premium Services, online promotion and lot of exposures from WeLoveYourSongs.com through our media contacts and a community, that counting the people following us on our Twitter, Facebook and Myspace pages, is now composed by more than 50,000 persons. Other prizes will be announced later!
Now it's time to call your fans to action! Rock On!
...
Friday
1st Apr
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Free tickets to huge music industry networking event
WeLoveYourSongs has teamed up with an exciting new music industry conference for independent artists called Music Connex.
The event is a perfect opportunity for independent artists to network with over 100 different music industry executives on Tuesday 19th to Thursday 21st of April 2011 at Kings Place in London.
Music Connex will be attended by record label A&R's, music journalists, music managers, artists, social networking sites, stylists and many more.
Throughout the three days there will be a range of different seminars on a range of different topics related to the new music industry landscape and also listening sessions giving artists the chance to play their music to a panel of record label reps, journalists and radio producers.
Among the panel of over 100 distinguished speakers are: Keith Harris, manager to Stevie Wonder, Mark Wood manager to Imogen Heap, artist and producer Labrinth, Twin B from BBC 1Xtra and representatives of YouTube, Facebook and Spotify (to name a few).
We’re going to be giving away five free tickets to the event (worth £199.00 each), all you have to do to be there is simply get as many of your fans as possible to comment on this blog post, on our Facebook page with your name or band name and possibly the link to the artist page on Weloveyoursongs.com (to participate you have to be registered on weloveyoursongs.com). If you prefer in alternative you can send us an email at info@weloveyoursongs.com. The five artists, bands or music fans with most votes will win a ticket and get to attend this fantastic event!
You’ve only got two weeks, until Friday 15 April, so get voting!
Wednesday
23rd Feb
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New Music Industry section, new artist page and a refreshed homepage!
After have concluded our first competitions and discovered what was the best unsigned artist and the best new song last week, we have now also reached 10,000 fans on our Facebook page, another goal that make us feel very happy to have started this site a couple of months ago! But we are now writing this post to announce that a new section dedicated to the Music Industry is now live on the site. As explained before we aim to build the globally most comprehensive and complete Music Industry database, a sort of Bible for unsigned artists, full of resources, key contacts, and addresses. Tons of companies offering cool services for artists have already registered and are there just to be discovered.
In this section of weloveyoursongs.com we list Record Labels, Press / Magazines / Blogs, Radios, Venues, Music Distribution, Promoters, Instrument Shops / Repair, Lawyers / Legal Advice, Training / Tuition services, Recording Studios, Industry Conventions, Festivals etc. If you have a company and want to have that listed please fill the form - you can do that for FREE! Once submitted your entry will be reviewed by an administrator and once approved your services will appear on our Music Industry directory.
Other not less important changes have happened on the design of the artist pages and on the homepage of the site that we have tried to organize a bit better. We are really looking forward to hear if you like these changes!
More additional features and some news about the new competitions will be announced in the next days.
...Wednesday
16th Feb
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The Roman Holiday are the winners!
The first edition of our Best Unsigned Artist and Best New Song competitions is finally over, with the Roman Holiday, a cool new band from Seattle, Washington, composed by Shane Lance (lead vocals, guitar), Emerson Shotwell (drums, percussion), Daniel Collins (lead guitar, backing vocals), and Nick Howard (bass guitar, backing vocals), winning both contests with a great song called The Long Way Home. If you are interested to know a little bit more about the Roman Holiday you can take a read to their interview we have made a couple of weeks ago that you can find here.
We have been in contact with them in these last days asking what they were feeling to be the winners of the first edition of the WeLoveYourSongs awards and if they wanted to say something to their fans. Here a quote from their reply:
"We're honored to have won the WeLoveYourSongs competitions. We greatly appreciate all of our fans for voting so passionately in support of us. We pour our hearts and souls into the songs that we write, so your support means the world to us. We feel that having won this competition is a stride forward in our career, and we look forward to seeing what comes from it. One of our main goals this year is to expand our international fan base, so we believe winning this U.K. based contest is going to be a vital part of that growth.
We encourage any and all artists to participate in the WeLoveYourSongs competitions next time around!"
After the Roman Holiday, in the second position of the Best Unsigned Artist competition, and with 3 songs in the top 5 of Best New Song competition, we have another great band from Washington called the Tyrannosaurus Grace. In the first ten positions after them we have Alfia Yussupova, Mark Marshall, Kigity K, Saints of a New Age, Sertari, Dream Reaper, Alin and Rooster. All unsigned musicians of a very high artistic level!
A huge thanks go to t...
Wednesday
2nd Feb
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New Interview: Sertari
Sertari is a UK based singer and songwriter, known for her comprehensive musical style, which includes RnB, electronica, hip hop and pop.
She has already worked with some of the most talented and influenced people in the industry and had several nominations, including; best live act, best song and a nomination in the International Independent Artist Awards.
Who is Sertari?
I am a singer/songwriter and producer, I love writing and being in the studio and not forgetting performing on stage, I get a huge buzz when on stage and love to entertain people, I come from a very musical Greek Cypriot family, I guess this is where i developed my passion for music.
You’ve been involved with music since you were young, how did you know this was your way to go?
From a young age I was introduced to all kinds of music from, Classical, world music, jazz, pop, rock RnB. My Dad played the accordion and traveled on cruise ships playing and singing the Greek classics and the chart hits, My dad would always play the accordion at home and we would always grab the mic for a good ol sing song!
Mum on the other hand was very operatic, there was always some sort of music being played or someone singing so it was for me my natural path and a desire of what i wanted to do.
What’s a typical day like?
I wake up thinking of music, i go to work humming music and come home recording music : )
Do you write your own songs? What’s your inspiration?
I write all my own music, I also work with a great producer Benjaming K, when we get together we bounce ideas off each other, it is so great to be in the same room where you can be open and creative. I use to write about personal experience but now i’m am having a lot more fun and write about anything i want, my latest single ‘ Platform 22′ was written about catching a train – simple, but it was written with many metaphors and ref...
Monday
31st Jan
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10 days to discover the Best New Unsigned Artist and the Best New Song !
Three months after the launch of website, weloveyoursongs.com is now overflowing of great unsigned artists and sure hits right there to be listened and voted. We will discover now in 10 days which are the most loved artists of our community of the first edition of the Best New Unsigned Artist and the Best New Song competitions. The Tyrannosaurus Grace are actually leading both contests, with Roman Holiday, Alfia Yussupova, Sertari and Mark Marshall just few votes away from them. Just reminds that the voting, and the subscriptions, will be open until the 10th of February at midnight Pacific Standard Time - 8AM GMT of 11th of February, British Time.
It's now time to call your fans to support you in this final 10 days rush that is going to be extremely hot!
Monday
24th Jan
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New Interview: Roman Holiday
Roman Holiday is an alternative rock band from Seattle, Washington. Formed in September 2008, the band consists of Shane Lance (lead vocals, guitar), Emerson Shotwell (drums, percussion), Daniel Collins (lead guitar, backing vocals), and Nick Howard (bass guitar, backing vocals). They released debut album “Paint This Town” last year. The band is known for their outstanding live shows (see them if you can!) and their “next big thing” sound!
So, what’s the story of Roman Holiday? How did you come up with your band name?
When it came time to name the band, we knew we wanted a name that would be classic, timeless, and worldwide. We were brainstorming name ideas and somehow got on the topic of “Rome”. So late one night, our producer and hidden 5th member Mark was watching the movie “Roman Holiday”, and sent a text to Shane, our front-man and said “How about Roman Holiday?!”. At first we were hesitant; we wanted to make sure it represented our music well. But we’re all big Audrey Hepburn fans, so eventually we grew to love it. It feels like a perfect fit now.
You’ve been described as a mix of Kings of Leon, Muse and Coldplay – how does this make your feel? Is this how would you describe your sound?
We’re totally fine with those comparisons. Those are all great bands. We work hard to write good songs that people can feel and connect with, and as people get to know our music, they find that our sound is very unique. But, we feel that being compared to those bands is a compliment. We’ve been told our sound is as melodic as Coldplay and U2, and as rock’n'roll as The Strokes and Kings of Leon. We like to agree.
What’s the best piece of praise you’ve received so far?
We’re often complimented on our songwriting, and our ability to put so much emotion into our music. That’s the greatest compliment we could ever receive. It’s all about good songs. Any...
Thursday
20th Jan
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What's Included in our Prizes?
Since we have received a couple of emails from you guys asking what was exactly included in the prizes we are offering for the Best New Unsigned Artist and Best New Song competitions on WeLoveYourSongs, we have decided to put here all the details for everyone. In case of any doubts please feel free do drop us an email !
The total amount of the prize is £1000 (approx. $1600, €1200) to be divided between the 2 winners.
In addition, a Suite of uPlaya’s Premium Services will be awarded to the winners of both the competitions.
£ 500 will be awarded to the most voted artist and another £ 500 to the most voted songs during the period of the competitions. This prize, have to be claimed from the winner within 21 days by the end of the competition, and it will be then paid within seven days from the claiming date.
The Suite of uPlaya’s Premium Services, offered by Music Intelligent Solutions Inc (uPLaya.com), is comprehensive of:
• Hit Song Science Analysis/Score for 17 uploads
• uPlaya’s global digital marketing widgets for those 17 songs uploads. Marketing tools can be efficiently distributed to nearly 300 sharing sites and contain lots of useful information about the artist’s music.
• uPlaya Press Kit, which is fully-customizable with biographies, photographs, album information, press clippings, music videos, show dates and more.
• Premium functionality of the uPlaya marketing tools. This includes the ability to feature four songs in a Featured Song Player on the uPlaya® Press Kit.
• Access to newsletter features that enable the artist to more easily build and maintain relationships with fans.
• 15 Contest tickes good for use in any uPlaya Contest or Talent Search.
• Ability to place music in uPlaya’s Hit Song Game, a music discovery application on Facebook.
• Because artist is able to enter more music in uPlaya’s Music Universe, y...
Monday
10th Jan
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Who will be at the top of the table?
1st Tyrannosaurus Grace
2nd Roman Holiday
3rd Alin
4th Mark Marshall
5th Rooster
6th Paul Ferland
7th Adel
8th The Higharts
9th Biba Coritsa
10th Dream Reaper
Wednesday
5th Jan
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GET YOUR COMPANY LISTED!
We are going to build the globally most comprehensive and complete Music Industry database. Our aim is to create a sort of “Bible for Unsigned Artists”, full of resources, key contacts, and addresses. This will give a great exposure to your company and to the services you offer and will means a lot more opportunities for our artists as well!
In the Music Industry page on weloveyoursongs.com we will list Record Labels, Press/Magazines/Blogs, Radios, Venues, Music Distribution, Promoters, Instrument Shops/Repair, Lawyers/Legal Advice, Training/Tuition, Music/Media Students, Recording Studios, Industry Conventions etc.
Please fill the form at this link if you want to have your organisation and your services listed, you can do that for FREE. This will be reviewed by an administrator and once approved the entry will appear on the Music Industry listings.
Thursday
23rd Dec
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uPlaya is Partnering with WeLoveYourSongs to Bring Artists More Opportunities
uPlaya® and WeLoveYourSongs are partnering up to provide some great prizes to talented indie artists!
Let your music earn you great prizes! uPlaya is partnering with WeLoveYourSongs, which is offering two compelling competitions for rising artists, to help out with prizing packages for WeLoveYourSongs competitions using its award-winning technologies, Hit Song Science and the Music Universe, which offer unique digital promotion and discovery capabilities to music professionals and fans across the globe. WeLoveYourSongs, created to allow unsigned artists to share music and compete with other artists, offers two avenues for artists to make a name for themselves in the “Best New Song” and “Best New Artist” competitions.
The winner of each contest, which will be determined by fan voting, will receive £500 (US $800) as well as a package of Premium uPlaya services that includes scientific music analysis of the music’s commercial potential, globally-reaching marketing widgets to increase exposure on the Web, attractive and professional press kits to showcase important information, and also promotion through uPlaya’s other unique promotion applications such as interactive music discovery games for Facebook. The winners will also be marketed through uPlaya’s music community, including the uPlaya Blog as well as a week-long spot in uPlaya’s spotlight feature, the “Up and Coming Artist of the Week” on the uPlaya Facebook.
uPlaya is excited to partner with innovative music companies like WeLoveYourSongs to do what we can to help indie artists across the globe.
Enter the competitions today!
To read the full post please visit the uPlaya Blog .
Tuesday
21st Dec
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Help us make a difference
WeLoveYourSongs would like to wish you and your family a merry Christmas and our best wishes for 2011.
In the spirit of the season, we have decided to set a lending team on Kiva, a micro-lending non-profit organisation, the concept of which we love. The idea is simple - Kiva enable you to lend money to low-income entrepreneurs across the globe.
You choose who to lend to whether a baker in Lebanon, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Colombia, a restaurateur in Ghana, or a tailor in India - and as they repay their loan, you get your money back. It's a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone to lift themselves out of poverty. You choose who you lend to, see the progress they make and once the money's been repaid you can re-lend it to others.
At the link below you can find our lending team and we'd love if you decide to join us:
http://www.kiva.org/team/weloveyoursongs
In the meantime, we hope to see you soon, in 2011.
Our warmest regards,
The WeLoveYourSongs Team
...Friday
17th Dec
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Interview: The Eleven 37s
The Eleven 37s is a funk band! They’re named after the story of 11 groups of prisoners that were taken away to 37 separate prisoner of war camps in the 1950s due to all the men and women being dressed as half tiger, half elephant freaks of nature as part of a military celebration. (It was the time).
Front man and video blog maker of the band Jamie Topp was asked some questions:
How and when did The Eleven 37s form?
We formed way back when we were drinking milk from cows at a young age on a dairy farm. We’ve been raised by farm animals for 21 years, each by a different breed of swan or sheep, we decided to form a band when we kept getting laughed at for always having dip dabs for Christmas dinner instead of turkey, this was around 3 years ago. I hate to tell you this…. but most of that was a lie. We actually formed from the ashes of other bands in around early 2008, and decided we wanted to play something new and fresh, we all come from different backgrounds, which gives us a good hand for creating something new.
How would you describe your sound?
We are funk. We play funk rock music, and we’re a bit weird to say the least, it took about 2 years to settle into the solid sound that we wanted to follow, but we are happy with where we are heading. We play music that makes people want to dance, get up and enjoy it, smile, have a laugh and have fun basically. We mix it up between the fast paced fully funk powered songs such as ‘Here Comes The Storm’ and ‘Personality’ with slowly jazzier funk such as “Fires (Part ii).” We’re not all about the drive all of the time and getting people on their feet, its good to bring it back a bit sometimes and get deeper into people’s heads with what we’re trying to get across.
What does music mean to you?
I wouldn’t be doing much else besides this, its one of the rare ways in which we can express how we feel and th...
Thursday
16th Dec
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New Features and Prizes
As many of you have probably realized, some changes have been made on the site during this first period.
Here a brief summary of what's happened on the website maintenance side:
- It is now possible to the RSS feeds of the new We Love Your Songs blog.
- We have integrated Disqus on the site and you can now like, dislike and/or write your comments on every blog posts.
- The share buttons for which we have seen there were sometimes some litlle problems, are now working properly. So now you don't have excuses anymore, you can now share all your favorite tracks and artists with other people around the web!
- Some bugs here and there have been fixed and the site is generally working better.
Regarding the prizes for our "Best New Song" and "Best New Unsigned Artist" competitions, we have reached an agreement with uPlaya / Music Intelligence Solutions Inc., to offer a great Marketing suite of uPlaya's Premium Services to both the winners of these contests.
Just to give you an idea, uPlaya was called "the FICO credit score for music..." by the San Francisco Chronicle, and its unique technologies defined as something that "could profoundly change the way music is created..." by The Economist, a world renewed business information magazine.
More info and an official communication from both companies about this great news for all the members of our community will be released shortly.
Other exciting interviews from our artists and news about the future developments on the site will be revealed very soon as well!
Stay tuned!
...Monday
6th Dec
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Let Us Introduce The Escape Directors
Escape Directors is a band that formed in 2009, in Colin Rieser’s basement as a way for Steve Carter to perform his acoustic material with a band. They released their first album “Ladders” – as a free download in 2010!
Who is Escape Directors? And what’s your musical background?
Steve Carter- Vocals, Guitar, Piano
Nick Wilson- Piano, Guitar, Vocals
Colin Rieser- Drums, Vocals
SC: I’ve been playing music for about 4 years and my background is self-taught.
CR: I’ve been playing the drums since I was 7 when my dad gave me his 1960s Slingerland drumkit and I took drum lessons for 11 yrs.
NW: Started on my fisher price keyboard when I was 7… still prefer that keyboard over anything else.
How would you describe your sound?
I would say we’re an indie rock band with pop sensibilities.
What is the best piece of praise you have received so far?
We played what we feel was our best show at Mexicali Live in Teaneck a month back. The energy from the crowd after we finished was enough praise for us. We’re fortunate to have great people who support us and want to see us succeed. We also surround ourselves with lots of influential individuals who give us great critiques on how to improve. It’s important to us to have both sides.
Honest Man
You’re involved in ‘The Project Matters’, what can you tell us about it?
The Project Matters is a foundation run by a wonderful woman named Karen High. TPM supports local New Jersey bands under 21 by providing resources for musicians to keep doing what we love to do. Our involvement in the project has given us opportunities that we never could have gotten without TPM. We owe a great deal to Karen High in believing in our band.
How do you promote your music?
Shows, free downloads, newsletters, advertisements, word of mouth, licensing, radio airplay, podcasts, anything and everything...
Monday
29th Nov
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Lights on the Tyrannosaurus Grace !
Tyrannosaurus Grace is a new musical project based in Ellensburg, US. They have a unique mixture of upbeat pop, new wave-waves, electronic - and synth pop, and released the self-titled debut album in 2010.
What's The Story Of Tyrannosaurus Grace?
The group initially started in the fall of 2009 when founding members Tim Held and Justin Foss were living halfway across the country from each other, Justin in Oregon and Tim in Michigan. They had played music together growing up in various bands in their native state of Washington but had not worked together for years due to their distance apart. At the time each one was working on their own solo projects and showing each other what they had done by emailing their songs to each other. After a few months of this it dawned on the two that they could use the internet to collaborate on music together and for the next few months they traded files back and forth and soon had nearly and albums worth of material. The two felt so good about the collaboration that the decided to move back to their native state of Washington so they could collaborate in person and in the spring of 2010 they did just that. They continued diligently writing and recording. As word of the project spread they were soon able to bring on some of the areas most talented musicians. The first to join was drummer Dave Hoffman. Dave had briefly played in a band with Tim in 2007 and Tim knew he would be a perfect fit for the project. Shortly after Dave's joining, the group was recording a song which ideally would have a female voice on the track. Dave suggested his friend Lakyn Bury who was a talented singer/songwriter. Lakyn agreed and came in a few days later to lay the vocals down. The group was so impressed with her abilities that they immediately asked her to join the project permanently to which she agreed. The last member to join was bassist Jeff Gerre...
Monday
15th Nov
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Interview with Mark Marshall !
This interview with Mark Marshall is the first in a series of interviews featuring the artists in We Love Your Songs community.
He's interviewed by Acuvi, a music blog focusing on new and unsigned music, and the people behind.
Firstly, can you please introduce yourself?
Sure - my Name is Mark Marshall. I'm a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist from upstate New York.
Pleased to meet you. :)
Music is and has been a big part of your life, when did you know this was your way to go?
I couldn't say. But as long as I can remember, music has touched me in a way that nothing else does. So I suspect I've ALWAYS known that music would be an integral part of my life.
You are currently working on an online, multiple-album project “Four For 4” – what can you tell us about it?
Well, my last release, "New Eye" was a hodgepodge of genres - 19 tracks that ran the gamut from rock and roll to techno to ballad to 60's style pop. Some folks didn't know what to do with me! So I thought this time, I'd divide the work up into genres... a pop album, a rock album and an instrumental album. Plus a special "members-only" version of "New Eye" - called "The Other New Eye" - which makes Four albums.
For the first year of the project, it was closed to only paying members - who get all four albums when they're done, plus a DVD of video from throughout the project - and they get their names printed on the CD artwork. Now the project is open to all, but folks can still buy "The Other New Eye", DVD and name-print package.
What’s the best and worst thing about let people follow the process of your albums?
Worst part - I have to shave and figure out what to wear for the Video Blogs. HA!
Seriously - the worst part is when things aren't working out well. Sharing that is the hardest - because I feel like I'm letting folks down when writing i...
Thursday
11th Nov
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Interview with Kyle of Hypebot.com
A couple of days ago we spoke about We Love Yours Songs with Kyle, Editor and Community Manager of Hypebot, a great American website about Music, Technology and New Business.
In this interview we talk about the site, how we think to empower artists, and discussed about currect event likes the migration of users away from LimeWire.
Why did you create We Love Your Songs?
We created Weloveyoursongs.com to offer to unsigned artists a new place to share their music and compete with other artists, to help them to bring forward their passion for music and give them the space they can’t find on mainstream channels where major labels are ruling. We have created that also for the music lovers like us that are always looking for new interesting sounds to listen at and that are eager to discover new talented artists.
How will you empower artists and their fans?
First of all we are hoping to empower them by giving the visibility they deserve through our competitions. We are already in talk with other websites to give out additional prizes for the contests and services tailored only for our community. We are not able to reveal anything more than that at the moment but the plan is to gradually offer a full range of services mainly through partnerships/collaborations.
What separates you from other indie music sites?
We are trying to create a lovely community of music fans and unsigned artists where everyone can grow and interact with others in a constructive way, and not a place where people go to have “15 minutes of fame”. We don’t want to go in competition with sites like Myspace, we only look at the niche of unsigned musicians and people who love to discover new great music and songs.
How do competitions work and why should artists join?
We actually host 2 competitions, “Best New Song” and “Best New Artist”. Everyone that registers as an artist in Weloveyoursongs...
Monday
1st Nov
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Let The Music Play
After almost an year of working, planning and dreaming we are now all exited to welcome you all to weloveyoursongs.com !
Weloveyoursongs.com is an internet community for unsigned musicians and music fans, on which you will find some interesting articles, interviews, competitions and tons of cool new sounds to listen at!
Our principal aim is to empowers artists that are not yet signed by any music label, and we are committed to provide the best environment possible for the artists that are part of our community to be heard on internet, and for the music fans to discover new talented underground musicians, hear some exciting sounds and have the possibility to interact with other people with similar interests.
On Weloveyoursongs.com you will always be able to take part to new challenging free to join contests where you can increase your popularity, get voted and if you are good enough be awarded with some money and other prizes! Two competitions are already on - Best New Song and Best New Unsigned Artist - and we really hope to see all you there! These contests are open only to unsigned artists, free to join and with a final total prize of £ 1000.
The WeLoveYourSongs team is composed by a network of inspired collaborators located all over the world, with a strong passion in common for music and innovation.
A big hug to all the people that have pre-registred and supported us through our social networks pages and an enormous thank you to Chris and his great team, of Anthony, Adam and Tom at Buckle Consulting, that have worked hard on the site in these last months and made all the previous work become something we now love. We are very grateful also to Fernando, Hugo, Emese and Samantha for their ideas and efforts on our logos, Sophie and Frankie to spread the voice and Elena for her help on organizing and planning. Thanks very much to help us to make all this possible...