Filed under Media …

Sep 02 2009
4 Comments
Education, Media, Things to know

The Broken Record series

Broken Record

Goldsmith University MA students Nicolle Smith and Stefan Peters have just finished work on a short web-documentary series called Broken Record.

They interviewed me for the series, and there’s a lot of stuff in here that is pertains to my Music As Culture interests and the Deleting Music book as much as it does to the general tone of what I research and discuss as part of the Interactive Cultures team at BCU, and what I usually write about on New Music Strategies.

The series is definitely worth watching, and features some good insight from some interesting people from different parts of the British digital music world – and it’s presented for your entertainment below.

Share and enjoy.

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Jun 05 2009
43 Comments
Media, Production

Lies Like These

I’m in Manchester at a music industry conference called Un-Convention. It’s one of those events where you know quite a few of the people involved, and the ones you don’t, you get to know quite quickly.

After the last band played last night, a bunch of us went across to the pizzeria / chip shop across the road for a bite to eat. My Belfast cousin Tracy, and Brad from Bolton band Merchandise were talking about Brad’s album and how that was coming along.

‘Nearly done – just have some mastering to do. Finished a video for the first single, but we’re not going to do any more. Don’t have the budget for it.’

‘Let’s make one right now,’ I said.

So, armed with my digital camera (a still camera, actually, but with a video setting) and with the song on Brad’s ipod, we just did a one-take shot. No rehearsal. Not even any discussion about what the two of them would do.

The only real shame was that it’s hard to see what Tracy wrote on the base of the pizza box at the end of the video. It reads ‘You suck.’

An hour later, I went to bed while this was uploading to Vimeo.

Music video budget? We don’t need no music video budget…

Find Merchandise on iTunes.

Mar 02 2009
19 Comments
Distribution, Media, Promotion, Question

Sola Rosa

<a href="http://solarosa.bandcamp.com/album/get-it-together">The Ace Of Space by Sola Rosa</a>

I thought I’d try the Bandcamp ‘share’ widget right here on my New Music Strategies page for a few reasons.

First, I’m doing some advisory work for Bandcamp (Disclaimer!), and I feel like I need to push this thing to its limits – and tell you all how insanely great it really is (and I’d genuinely say that even if I wasn’t helping them out).

Second, I really love the new Sola Rosa record and thought you might like to hear it.

And third, I wanted to actually get a bit of music onto New Music Strategies for a change. Hope that’s not too competitive or too much of a change of gear for you. I figured you probably like music just as much as I do.

Enjoy. And go get your own music up on Bandcamp too.

By the way – let me know how you get on listening to a whole album from within a blog page. Does it work for you?

Nov 27 2008
27 Comments
Media, Performance

When should I put my music online?

There are so many musicians putting their music on the internet these days. Some of them are consummate professionals who have high production values and years of experience and practice behind them. Some are posting YouTube Videos entitled Me, Learning to Play the Guitar – Day 2.

Prior to the internet, the finished recording was the minimum standard for releasing material to the general public via media platforms. You could always take your guitar into the street and play it at passers-by, but if you wanted people to hear your music in their living rooms, there was an automatic selection process and fairly stringent entry criteria.

Punk taught us that you don’t need to be a virtuoso to play music to other people. But with no real barriers to access to a lot of musicians getting their stuff out there (and, let’s be honest, some truly awful stuff out there) – how do you know when to start letting people hear what you’re working on?

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