
Jan/Feb '17 Issue Of BRASH! Magazine Available Now!
Jan/Feb BRASH! Magazine Featuring Cover Artists The Last Living









































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Jan/Feb BRASH! Magazine Featuring Cover Artists The Last Living
Like many of you I occasionally like to watch reality talent shows to potentially discover the next “big thing” that once upon a time we may never have come across. Naturally the world of an unsigned / emerging artist was once a lonely one with a mountain to climb and a lot of hard work and sheer persistence to get yourself heard or in fact in front of the right people. It is a shame though that for the majority of singers / bands that something is definitely missing.
I released my first music video, “Rocket to the Moon” today. As a new artist with a low starting fanbase I understood I wouldn’t be able to get much press write up for my music video unless I presented something never seen before. So that’s what I did, I created “The World’s First Portrait Music Video”, and the press followed. It is our new job as the Music Industry to lead innovation.
Have you ever felt like you were no longer in the loop when it comes to new music? “Have you heard Beyonce’s new song?!” “Did you get tickets for that gig?” “It went to number 1!”. None of us like to feel left out when it comes to the hottest new songs, the latest summer smash, or that killer album everybody’s talking about.
Here are a number of methods to stay up to date with the best music and most anticipated releases.
1. Social media
Following your favourite artists and bands on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook will ensure that you are constantly in the know about what’s out and what’s coming next. Artists promote themselves and their music this way as it’s the easiest outlet to connect with their fans.
Purify Media announced the release of PurifyArt.com, an ad-free service directly connecting artists and fans. A first of its kind, PurifyArt.com enables artists and fans to find and promote music, images and video on one platform, maximizing the revenue artists and companies receive for sharing and selling content while providing viewers one affordable, complete, and interactive online service.
Happy Dog Music is one of a handful of marketing centered music start-ups that are a product of the seismic shift that has taken place in the music industry in the last ten years. Happy Dog Music crafts and implements custom marketing campaigns and provides any other ancillary support clients may need during the course of the agreement. Unlike the typical record label deal, Happy Dog Music clients retain 100% of all rights. Happy Dog Music provides major label support without all of the strings that come attached to a major record deal.
Do you have a post-show plan? Is there a set of procedures that you work on after each performance? Or, does your band simply work on the next upcoming event – the next show, the next rehearsal, time in the studio, etc.?
In almost every professional endeavor, there is some kind of routine or review period to measure performance or follow-up with customers:
In sports, the coach diligently sits down with the entire team to review footage of the previous game. Team member celebrate successes and most importantly, look for areas of improvement.
In corporate business, the board of directors and executive staff look over stock performance and make decisions to keep their shareholders satisfied.
In the arts, performers carefully review each element of the show to see what delighted audiences and what could use work.
A few days ago, the English songwriter Piers Faccini - with whom I work closely as a digital marketer - published a great post on his website about his new status as an ‘artist-running-a-label’. In this text, Piers makes a smart parallel between small farmers and musicians who have both had to adapt to a market that has taken a radical turn over the last few years.
His words have all the more resonance considering the current debate concerning streaming royalties and it also shows how important it is for independent artists to be able to develop their own eco-system thanks to the Internet.
You’re creating boatloads of amazing mixes - yippee! So, it’s only natural that for every piece of music you deliver people should automatically make people want to come to your gigs or buy your latest release …right?
Errrr..wrong.
One singular piece of music isn’t going to translate into an immediate purchase or attendance to your event.
But, I have good news.
Building trust and BFF-worthy relationships with people so that they do backflips of joy when you make an offer is something you can do.
Coffee House Sessions is a new music initiative, exposing the hottest in upcoming UK music talent to the student market via daytime performances in University coffee shops around the country: http://youtu.be/CZRp_MoTqhM.
With a carefully designed touring circuit taking place in 40 universities, Coffee House Sessions holds acoustic performances at two different campuses a day over a ten day period and provides promotion for the showcased artists through student media outlets such as student newspapers, student radio and student TV at each university.
As seen in the 2013 October issue of Guitar World Magazine, Ken D. Webber, CEO of Plague of Smiles TM, is running a Kickstarter campaign (that is currently LIVE and needs your support) that highlights a new method of music distribution. It is called PARANORMAL STRANGENESS.
When was the last time itunes put money back into your pocket? This new method of using dropcards solves that dilemma and when picked up by artists and fans will produce a new music scene by restructuring the industry. All anyone has to do is pull out a calculator and read the Guitar World Poster tiers to see how the dropcards come into play.
Soundcloud, fan growth, and music discovery? Let me count the ways! There are no shortage of sites competing to host your music from Reverbnation and Purevolume to Soundcloud and Myspace. What separates the good ones from the great ones is the facilitation of growth. Some sites you get 100 plays and it can spiral into thousands, other sites 100 plays is just 100 plays.
Soundrop is a social music app on Spotify that allows music fans to enter rooms that host different genres and themes of music. They recently unveiled a new feature for bands and artists on Spotify, which you could be using to engage with your fans.