Grooveshark and Rocket Science Announce Artist Focused Partnership

Grooveshark, the fastest growing on-demand music service in the world, has partnered with Rocket Science, the premiere label services engine, to identify and provide support to artists who are having noteworthy success on the Grooveshark platform. Combining Grooveshark’s significant user base and promotional capabilities with Rocket Science’s storied history of music marketing, this collaboration is an attempt to provide a case study for artists who are looking for a non-traditional strategy to build their careers.

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Machine Man the Movie Songwriting Competition

Check out this great opportunity to submit for a great cause! http://machinemanthemovie.com/song_contest.php

Get $10 off by entering MMKLJ at checkout!

BBox: Brooklyn’s New Community Radio Station: Call for Entries!

Hi Music Think Tank, We are BBox Radio, a new community-powered platform and internet station broadcasting from NYC’s creative center: Brooklyn! Take a look at our Call for Entries — we’re asking everyone in and around the borough to help us reinvent radio! The idea is to create something new, expressive and decidedly LOCAL, yet global in reach. We hope you can help us spread the word! Visit BBoxRadio.com for more information and let us know if you have any questions. We’ll keep you tuned in. Love, BBox Radio

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Defining 'success' and 'failure'

A lot of people have a warped and narrow-minded perception of what success and failure are. These terms are far too difficult to quantify and should be used with care.

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THESTAGE.TV ANNOUNCES THE NEW SPOTLIGHT PLAYER

TheStage.tv, “the World’s OPEN MIC”, today announced the availability of its new Spotlight Player, the first video player that lets audience members donate money, buy music and share performances of their favorite TheStage.tv artists – all within a video player that artists can place anywhere on their website or social media fanpage.

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The New DIY Musician’s Manifesto (What Did I Miss?)

What would you add to this list?

I will not blindly chase a record deal

I will never send music to anyone who has not asked for it

I will work on new music for an hour everyday

I know there is no such thing as “genius” but just people who have put in 10,000 hours of effort

I will treat my fans like royalty

I will build my mailing list everyday

I will never undersell my art and let people take advantage of me

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Social Media Tools - Live Music Event Marketing

An overwhelming abundance of live show promotion tools, created a bit of a fatigue in the independent artist community. This is NOT one of those facebook apps which make your life difficult and clutter your profile. Thrillcall is the fastest growing live event database on the web. Their mission is to make sense of the live show data clutter on the web and provide live music fans with the best quality data out there. They have also accumulated a large knowledgebase of live event marketing Do’s and Dont’s. From this very knowledgebase comes their latest creation the Thrillcall Nucleus

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Little Known Tactics for Greater Touring Profits

For many independent artists organizing do-it-yourself tours, a common question  is, “How can we make more money on tour?” One of the simplest methods: by spending less. Here are some ways you can cut your expenses while on tour which leaves room for more profit.

Whether you’re planning a national, international, or regional tour the goals are the same: earn income while promoting yourself in a familiar or new territory. Reaching out to fans and connecting personally at your concerts are the keys to gaining a dedicated fan base and generating buzz around your band. Admittedly, while overall comfort plays a key role in combatting tour fatigue and  maintaining performance levels, sometimes comfort isn’t an option. If tour expenses are outweighing guarantees, try implementing some of these cost-cutting  travel techniques tailored for the DIY, self-booking independent artist. 

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Music Career Interviews: Matthew Ebel

Chris Rockett of the Music Marketing Website interviews d.i.y. hero Matthew Ebel. Make sure you visit Ebel’s website and subscribe to what he’s doing…not only will you get some great music but you’ll also witness a masterclass in how to pay your rent with your musical talent.

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Three Things All Independent Artists Should Do

The challenge of being an independent artist, especially when you’re starting off is that you have no one but yourself to answer to. This of course can be both a good and bad thing. For one, if you’re driven - you can do many things very fast because you don’t have to delegate. On the other hand, some days, nothing happens at all because no one but yourself is responsible for your career (and you decided to just stay at home and comment on all your friend’s Facebook pages.) A very real issue is that most of what we do as artists does not pay financially (at least not immediately). Most of it is groundwork, most of it is the business side of our careers. This of course makes us comes to terms…

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Mining a Niche and Sticking Together - What We Can All Learn from Post Rock

Given how difficult it is to ‘make it’ in music, it’s easy to see every other musician in your area or genre as a competitor. However, as has been pointed out by some commentators already (notably ?uestlove) it’s actually a much better idea to unite with like minded musicians rather than ignore them at best, or sabotage them at worst. Simply put, some of the greatest acts ever to emerge came from a ‘scene’, whether accidentally or deliberately created.

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How Do YOU Fit Into Culture? or... Content Marketing: Finding Your Niche

How Do You Fit Into Culture? Not your band. Not your music. YOU. The individual behind the music. You are unique. You have individual tastes, interests, passions, and hobbies. Now… think for a moment. If you were to talk about a diverse subject matter on your blog (rather than just your music), and in your videos, in your photos, and in your tweets… you can attract an entirely new audience, which you never thought you could have access to.

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Your Fans Aren’t Finding Your Website on Google

Well, they might, but not as often as they should. Odds are, the current version of your official website is not bringing in as much search traffic as it could. Your site is probably missing the content that your fans are looking for most. Luckily there is an easy fix. By adding a few pages to your site your dot com’s search traffic can increase dramatically. Here are the pages you need to add if you don’t already have them.

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Sharing, Streaming and P2P -- The Death of Our Internet's 'Hippie' Era

It was too good to be true. You always knew it. Millions of songs, movies, books, etc., all up for grabs, all of the time. We used to think, ‘Oh they won’t catch me— they may catch the sophomore college fool who seeds hundreds of torrents, but not me.’ Now they won’t have to.

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