Bill Brewster - An Interview About the Industry

If you’re even remotely interested in DJing and dance music culture, sooner or later you will stumble across Bill Brewster. One of the most respected dance music commentators around, he has contributed to almost every major music rag, co-written the dance music bible Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, runs the brilliant website DJHistory.com, writes biographies and liner notes for anyone who is anyone in dance music, DJs globally (of course) and has confessed to amassing between ten and twelve thousand records along the way. He’s basically a walking Shazam, but with a central nervous system and opinions.  MEOKO grilled the living library about his years in the industry, how he feels about its progress, the beginnings of his seminal book and his undying support for Grimsby FC.

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'Meet and Jam' launches, helping musicians everywhere.

It helps musicians find and connect with each other. And, for the first time, they can also book studio time online. 

Musicians can put up profiles, list their influences and instruments, post video and audio, and then connect with each other. 

The video means you can have a good look at other musicians’ level and style before you contact them - saving time and embarrassment in the studio…

The site is for all genres and levels of ability. There are professional drummers on the site, looking for a new band, as well as enthusiastic amateurs looking to play more. There are singer-songwriters, violinists, trombonists, pianists, death metal lead guitarists, rappers… all wanting to meet and jam.

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The Complete Musician's Guide to Spotify

Spotify has unveiled one hell of a lot of features for independent artists these past few weeks. To be honest, I had a hard time sifting through what a lot of the new features were, namely; why getting an artist “verified” mattered at all, what the point of playlists were, and what Spotify analytics could do that other types of data couldn’t.

I’ve done my best to put the new Spotify features into laymans terms to help you understand what they do AND how you can get them up and running so your Spotify profile kicks just as much ass as a major label artist. I’ve also included 6 promotional tips at the bottom of the article to help you leverage Spotify’s new artist tools to gain new fans and more plays on the music-streaming service.

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How Artists Should Deal with Auto-Renewing Contracts

It’s easy to fall into the routine of scrolling past terms conditions agreements without thinking much about them. However, they can often affect the future of your music, where it can be released, who controls it, and how it can be distributed. For example, a licensing agreement can change how future revenues are received (or waive future royalties entirely); a contract with one distributor might limit future opportunities with another; some sponsorship agreements will bind you/your band members to one specific type of product. These are all instances when you are limited by the choices made without full consideration of long-term effects.

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What Are the Biggest Music Markets Today?

Article covers trends in music sales circa 2012 and beyond.

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Universal Music Publishing launches UMPG Songs

 Universal Music Publishing has announced the launch of a new, state-of-the-art online music platform providing unprecedented access to the company’s vast catalogue for sync licensing. 

UMPG Songs contains hundreds of thousands of tracks available to licence – from a writer’s full back catalogue to the latest releases, with new works added every week. What makes UMPG Songs unique however is the combination of expertly curated content and smart music discovery tools – empowering advertising, film, TV, and online creatives to quickly pinpoint exactly the right piece of music for their project.

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New Free Mobile App Makes Life Easier for Musicians

Red Dragon Records is a relatively new but rapidly growing record label based in the south of the UK. It was designed and built around a business model that involved working with very new artists and the main ethos of the company since its inception is to help artists where possible whether signed to the label or not. To this end, we created a free mobile app (the only app of its kind at the time of writing). This app contains over 1,000 links to radio stations and blogs that have been vetted to ensure that they take music from unsigned or indie label artists. Furthermore there are sections for design companies, sites that will allow artists to find new sources of revenue or even giving artists companies that manufacture CD’s, websites or merchandise. 

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Christmas Flight Into the Charts for German Digital Distributor recordJet: M.I.K.I with Malochersohn

The year 2014 had hardly started when the Berlin-based music distributor recordJet reported that another of its passengers had entered the charts. In charts week 2/2014 (survey period 20-26 December, 2013), the hip hop artist M.I.K.I entered the German charts at number 94 with his album “Malochersohn”, and is currently placed between international stars like Katie Melua and Kings of Leon.

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New Website to find live shows to play

Literally was just launched yesterday, working on gaining a user base, what are your thoughts?

www.zaffalu.com

How Bands Can Break Into New Markets

One way to grow your music’s reach is to break into new markets. This could be taken a number of ways: new geographical areas (cities, states, countries, etc.) or simply new audiences in general (by demographic, interest, psychographic, etc). Before you try and expand your reach through new markets, it’s important to take a few things into consideration:

• Return on Investment: What is the cost or effort required to break into this market? Is the return on investment worthwhile or would you be better off using those resources to grow an existing market?

• Goals: What kind of role will this market play in your S.M.A.R.T.E.R Goals?

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The Do’s and Dont’s of Merchandising and Why It’s So Important For Your Band

From the Audio Blood Intern Blog Archive - Published January 2013.

Band merchandise – many think it’s a dying addition to your band’s brand; people are downloading more, so there’s no need for CDs, people are wearing less band t-shirts, and when was the last time someone said they wanted to buy a pin? Well, if you think that you couldn’t be more wrong. Band merchandise serves two VERY important purposes, for one, it’s your band’s calling card – you want people who see you to be able to walk away with a CD, or a t-shirt or poster, so that you’re remembered. Secondly, it’s a financial life-line for the band; bands need money for tours, recordings, equipment, and so much more – a small investment in merchandise can yield high return if you know what you’re doing. So, here’s what you need to know to build up the merch aspect of your band.

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Indie Artists in a Business World

Being an indie artist is a wonderful life, or it sucks! Getting paid to play is a dream nearly all artists follow. The goal is to sell songs and merchandise, perhaps ending with a cushy deal playing a short tour of bars that circle round your town every month. (If you’re one of the few who make it big, there’s a mansion and airplane waiting, with a mob of fans.)

“My goal is to rewrite how music is distributed, giving artists a shot at being found and online radio stations a chance to (easily) find quality songs.”

All artists aim for the stars - as do folks in other careers. Just be prepared to enjoy the treetops because that’s where the vast majority of independent artists end up. Be in the right mindset and there’s nothing wrong with the view from there.

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Abeem Live Technologies releases Rack Performer 1.0

Abeem Live Technologies has released Rack Performer 1.0, pro-audio software for live performance, sound design and real-time audio processing. 

Rack Performer is a high-level modular environment hosting VST plugins and internal modules (over 100 and counting), with MIDI support, multi-channel audio I/O and internal processing, complete automatic patch-delay compensation, sample accurate sequencing, low jitter and latency.

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Don’t be a Victim of Your Work – 5 Tips to Help You Stay Ahead of Your To-Do List

So many of us live our day to day lives on a constant goose chase, always trying to catch up with our to-do list. The feeling of being perpetually behind on your work is draining. Living in that space doesn’t allow you to do your best work or be creative. It’s easy to get discouraged and find yourself distracted when trying to hang  out with your friends after work, preoccupied with all the little stresses waiting for you at your desk.

This is no new phenomenon, as we push ourselves harder and harder it’s only normal to want to take on the world. And those aspirations are totally admirable. You have hopefully found what you love and want to do for the rest of your life… but why is it so damn hard to keep up? What we don’t actually learn in school is that sometimes in order to get ahead you need to take a step back, check yourself, and find some good coping mechanisms that will allow you to handle the capacity of work you’d like to. You don’t have to live in that stressful and frustrated space, never feeling like you’ve made a dent. I can promise you, it’s more about a mental attitude than reality after all. And the good news about that is we can change our mental attitudes if we just fight through our old habits!

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