BTTV BLOG

The people over at NoiseTrade offer up an extremely simple, yet remarkably successful way for artists to exchange music for information about their fans. What separates them from most other e-mail collecting sites is that it’s completely free on both ends.

When an artist signs up for NoiseTrade, they have the option of posting a single, a live show or a full album. Fans can then download the music in exchange for their e-mail address and zip code. That information can then be imported into any mailing list application (FanBridge, Emma, Constant Contact and MailChimp).

This allows artists to ” send local e-mail blasts to promote specific shows and/or manage mass mailings to promote upcoming albums, song placements, festivals or national tours. The site widget can be embedded on artists’ sites, either on a splash page in front, on the home page or even within an online store.”

The site has 4,000 artists, and handles well over 100,000 downloads per month. “Ultimately, it’s providing the fans with what they want, which is free music, and the artists what they want, which is fans that have never heard of them through recommendations and information about where those fans live and how to contact them.”

Read the entire interview with Brannon McCallister, the designer/co-founder, here.

via Musician Coaching

There are plenty of music apps out there, but none (that I know of) that connect an artist to a fan quite like Songpier. It’s an effective way for artists to promote and share music, photos, news, tour dates, merchandise and other content with fans on their mobile devices. It’s goal is to help musicians interact with fans in order to convert casual music fans into loyal fans, and loyal fans into paying customers.

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Music should be heard and not seen, a friend once said.

But what happens when music players have large color screens, sophisticated controls, processors, and connections to the internet? Music becomes an app — or at least it can, where such an approach makes sense.

Songpier targets musicians, labels, music promoters, and even music reviewers — anyone who would have cause to wrap a song in an app and distribute it to any smartphone that supports HTML5.

via Epicenter

So you’re a musician with some spare time or maybe looking for something to keep you occupied on tour. Why not start a blog? You don’t have to write about yourself or your band. There’s plenty of ways to network, connect, communicate, and share without being self-promotional. Use these 10 blogging tips and you may unintentionally gain more fans.

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1. Review Albums of Other Musicians. Not only does reviewing the music of others put you in the position to be networking at a heightened level, but it gives people a sense of your own musical preferences.

2. Interview Other Musicians. It can deliver an incredible wealth of insight for others to use to their own benefit. Even though the insight is coming from someone else, it is your blog that is hosting the info! Win-Win!

3. Write About a Local Music Scene. Given that you live somewhere and not 100% on the road, you must have a local scene. There is no better way to target your audience and learn about who THEY are then getting out there and attending local performances.

4. Analyze the Music Industry. People are always on the lookout for a good analysis of the inter-workings of the music industry, including both the business and marketing sides.

5. Give Music Lessons. Share the wealth! A clean, concise and easy to understand blog that offers up music lessons is incredibly valuable. By offering this information out to the community, you are opening the doors to great networking opportunities and shows your value without the need for shameless self-promotion.

Read the next 5 over @ MicControl

Turns out the whole site makeover and logo change couldn’t keep the MySpace ship from sinking. The once-powerful social network used to be the place for artists to showcase their music, interact with their audience, and ultimately build a fan base. That’s no longer the case, so where to now?

Hypebot discusses possible options in an excerpt from an article below. Facebook is clearly the front-runner for reaching a huge audience, and YouTube is the leader in music consumption, but I want to hear from actual musicians. What sites do you use to reach your audience and/or market yourself?

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The obvious answer is Facebook, but despite some popular apps like RootMusic, it has not caught on with musicians in quite the way that the early MySpace did.  And, again despite some interesting apps, new music discovery is not easy on Facebook.

paidContent points to an eclectic group of alternatives including The Sixty One, Sellaband, Bandcamp, Pledge Music, Tunecore and last.fm. But that list is populated primarily with sites created to serve a specific function like fan funding, direct to fan sales or distribution; and none offer the mix of both popular and niche music that MySpace did (does?).

A new Nielson study shows that YouTube leads the current crop of sites for music consumption. But again, YouTube was created for another purpose – to air videos – and not music discovery.

via hypebot

SoundCloud, one of the leaders in online audio distribution, is rolling out a new feature: Podcasts. Regularly updating your fans with new music just got a whole lot easier. You’ll be able to add RSS feed capability to your tracks, giving fans the chance to subscribe to that feed and be alerted when a new track is uploaded. The new feature is still in it’s beta stages, but SoundCloud is giving you the chance to test drive it. Go here for more information.

How do I see this being beneficial? Let’s say you’re recording demos and want to give certain fans an inside look at your new music. Throw ‘em in a podcast and send the link out to your e-mail list. It can also save your fans time. Instead of checking all of your sites for new music on a regular basis, they’ll be alerted the second you post something new.

It’s hard to say if podcasts will catch on to the average musician, but if used the right way, I can see them being an effective tool for getting your music out quickly and efficiently.

Alright, Listening Room, I get it. A “virtual” record player that you listen to in a “virtual” room with your “virtual” friends. It’s a cool concept, I suppose, but is this really where the social music scene is headed? What happened to sitting around an actual room with actual friends listening to an actual record player? I don’t want to knock Listening Room too much. It is a decent way to show off new music or talk about old favorites with multiple people, but it seems like just another innovation that’s going to separate us from the real world even more. You can have your digital; I’ll keep my vinyl.

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Blame it on headphones, computers, or the solo commute, but it’s undeniable that music listening has become a more solitary experience. Technology may have caused this problem — to be fair, as a side effect of other advances — but perhaps it offers the antidote, too.

Listening Room lets anyone create, well, a listening room that friends can join, and anyone in the chatroom can add an MP3 to the virtual room’s virtual record player for all to hear.

All you need to know in order to join a room is its name,  and if no room exists by the name you enter, a new room with that name gets automatically created — a smart solution that avoids the need for passwords and complicated invitation processes. Once you’re in, the virtual needle moves on the virtual record as songs play, while the player displays song information derived from the MP3s’ ID3 tags (something almost no record player can do). And if the song has album art, it displays on the surface of the record automatically.

via Evolver.fm

We had a quick chat with Justin from VEOBA the other day. VEOBA plays middle man for bands who need merch, distro, download cards, posters, publicity….just about everything a label would provide. It’s a pretty grand idea. So here you go…

Give us the backstory on Veoba (and you possibly). How’d it come about? Who all works with you on this?

Jay Parkin (my partner in VEOBA) and I met in May of 2009 through a mutual friend.  Jay has a 10 year career in the music industry with Fiddler Records, IHeartcomix, Sony Red Distribution, and Southern Records, as well as tour managing experience with everyone from Green Day, Blink 182, and Ben Folds.  I, on the other hand, have been a musician for the last 10 years and took my old band from 10 shows a year in Chicago to 50 shows a year in the Midwest. While our experiences are both incredibly different, after a few conversations, we both realized that we were just sick of all the nonsense companies out there making promises to bands that they can’t keep, or even worse, the companies that blatantly take advantage of artists.  So we decided to build a company that is just a no bullshit, no frills, provider of services that musicians, managers, and record labels need.  We spent a year forging partnerships with vendors on both coasts that believe in what we’re doing and therefore, are able to offer us prices and price breaks that we can pass onto our customers.

It looks like you’ve got your hands in a lot of places i.e. Distro, Merch, Download Cards…what are the most popular?

Yeah, we’ve definitely got a ton of services going on, and we’re actually getting ready to roll out a few more as well.  The way we look at though, you don’t necessarily need a record label anymore, but you need stuff…and we want to provide you with that stuff!  Right now, Merch is a huge seller for us, but we also have a killer Digital Distribution offering as well. As for everything else we currently offer (Download Cards, CD&Vinyl, Guerrilla Marketing, etc), our quality and prices are unmatched and we are talking with and helping out more bands, labels, and managers everyday.

You all have been sponsoring a lot of stuff this summer. How’s the response been?

The response has been pretty amazing actually which was the hope and the goal for us when we took on our summer programming. We’re a new company that plays in the music/entertainment/consumer space, so for us it was a no-brainer to get behind these events.  Also, we really can’t say enough about the people behind JellyNYC, and all the opportunities we’ve had to work with them.  From last year’s Carniville in Austin, to the Pool Parties in Brooklyn, as well as the MadDecent Block Parties and the Brooklyn RockYard series, it’s just been one successful event after another.

Where does VEOBA fit in today’s landscape? Bands can do so much for themselves, why should they use you?

The goal of VEOBA has always been to either be a one-stop-shop for artists, labels, and managers, or to simply fit in where you need us.  If you’ve got a great merch connection, that’s cool, who’s doing your CD’s and Vinyl?  Have you thought about Download Cards? what about your Marketing?  Again, our M.O. is let’s be practical.  If we think you’re sticker or poster design is whack, or is lacking essential information like a url to your bands website, we’ll tell you first, before we take your money.  I’m not interested in just getting paid.  I’m interested in getting paid for quality work that progresses the goals of our customers as well as establishing relationships with artists, labels, and managers and watching them grow.

In short, we’re a company made up of musicians and music industry veterans, not a bunch of dudes in shirts and ties trying to sell shit to a crowd we don’t really have anything in common with, ya know?  Bands can do a ton for themselves these days and we’re here to help them do just that.

Future plans? What’s next for VEOBA and will I be able to buy a sword with my band’s name on it?

Oooooooooh, the future! Well, we’re rolling out some new services in September and also gearing up for an action packed 2011, filled with more parties, new partnerships, and some new features…stay tuned!  And yes….if your band has a strong Tolkien/Dungeons&Dragons/MagicTheGathering crowd, we can probably find you a sword. But probably not with a straight face.  If you’re band is ‘The Sword’ however, please contact us immediately, we’re ready to take care of all your novelty sword needs.  Thanks for the interview dudes!

Hey…a big thanks out to Launch787 for covering BTTV and mentioning the pledge drive today! Oh happy day. If you live in Austin, stay inside today…103 degrees…crazy-time.