In addition to being a Product Manager here at Sonicbids I also play drums in a few bands. One of them is a power pop group called Oranjuly. We recently played a showcase at Millennium Music Conference (MMC) in Harrisburg, PA. I thought it might be helpful to outline a few of the things we did to make our showcase a success. There’s a lot to read to here so why don’t you listen to a few Oranjuly songs while you get through the rest of this post ; )
Awhile ago I posted a video here on the Lounge advising artists to make a “Band Information Pamphlet” for their next show. A few artists contacted me via Twitter about the idea and what their results using it were. Sonicbids artist Chris Hodges even mailed me a copy of the one he put together using an MS Word template which he printed at Office Max for $0.38 apiece. Chris also improved on the concept by including a slip of paper for fans to fill in their email address with instructions to drop it in the tip jar. Check out the video for a closer look:
Sonicbids members Selkow had the great idea to build a pamphlet with info about their band to pass out at shows. Check the video below for a look at what they did:
Since we launched our new plugin features that show song plays from Last.fm it reminded me of a program they launched to pay royalties to unsigned artists. This got me thinking about what bands could do to get more airplay from Last.fm, Pandora, Yahoo Launchcast and other algorithm driven internet radio stations. Basically SEO for internet radio.
I decided to look into Last.fm and how they pick “similar artists.” If you can get your band to show up as a “similar artist” for a more popular band, the recommendation engine should push their listeners over to you. To test this theory I took a look at Last.fm’s artist charts. The number #1 band at the time was Coldplay. If I’m correct, the bands that are similar to Coldplay should end up with more listeners than the similar artists for a lower ranked band.
Last month I started reading a book on the history of Stax called Soulsville USA: The Story of Stax Records. It’s ridiculously detailed (the author interviewed nearly everyone that had anything to do with Stax) and provides a fascinating look back to a very different music industry.
One of the most interesting parts so far is reading about how Stax songwriters analyzed Motown songs and then used the formulas they discovered to churn out their own hits.
“David Porter figured out the lyric structure for ‘Don’t Look Back‘ and it applied to a number of Motown hits. He deduced that they all had an opening that laid out the scenario, followed that with a bit of action, and then some sort of denouncement. All were in first person, and none of them ended with complete resolution.” (page 91)
The first song that David Porter wrote using that formula (with Isaac Hayes as a writing partner) was ‘Hold on I’m Coming‘.
Whats your take on the Motown formula?
A couple months ago I wrote an article announcing my foray into Twitter. I’ve been tweeting about once a day since then with some intriguing results. By itself Twitter isn’t all that exciting, but it’s simplicity makes it easy for other services to plug themselves into it. For example you can link your Facebook account to Twitter and set it to update your Facebook status whenever you post a tweet. (more…)
In Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point he describes mavens as the kind of people that are first to try new things (also sometimes called early adopters). If you’re an up and coming band, mavens will be the most willing to check out your music even if they haveno idea who you are. If you win them over they can be influential in spreading the word about your music. So where can you find music mavens online? Here are my best guesses: (more…)
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