wire to the ear

You know about Discogs.com right? It’s a detailed online database of music releases. The best part of the site is the fact that it’s user driven. Anyone can join and add a release to the database. The input system is detailed so releases on the site are complete with information including artwork, liner notes and related links. All the data is moderated and voted upon keeping things tidy. There is also a comment system where you can review releases and add artist and record label blurbs. For example, Frankie Bones wrote the following about my label, “Things To Come does exactly what the name suggests, and that gives the future something to look forward for…..” (Thanks Frankie!).

If you visit the site you will see multiple pages for what seem like the same release. However, if you look closely they will be different somehow, either being on different labels, or having different remixes, artwork, something. This is great as I often check to see if there was a bootleg of one of my releases or another label somewhere in the world released something of mine without permission. Over the years I have found quite a few unauthorized 12 inches!

Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about music recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and certain bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are located in Portland, Oregon, USA. Discogs is one of the largest online databases of electronic music releases and is believed to be the largest online database of releases on vinyl media. Across all genres and formats, over 1,019,000 releases are catalogued. It also features listings for over 874,000 artists and over 87,500 labels. The site has around 200,000 visitors a day. - Wikipedia

Discogs is also the best place to buy and sell vinyl. They have a good working system called the “Marketplace“. Most of my friends tell me it’s better to sell records on Discogs than on eBay. Your user profile can have a a wish list, list of things your selling and even a list of records in your collection.

One thing I am looking for is the ability to embed the my own label’s Discogs page and releases into my own website. I see that Discogs has an API. Does anyone know how to do this? As of today I maintain my own database but it’s a pain to keep up especially considering there is already a great one auto updating on DIscogs. How about a Discogs widget? I would love to have one that displayed all my releases that I could put on my MySpace or Facebook page. Please let me know in the comments if these things exist.

Yesterday a box arrived from Neuton who distributes my record label, Things to Come Records. It was the new release from Ionic Vision called “Club Isolation”. Ionic Vision are a well known EBM (Electronic Body Music) band from Belgium. They contacted me about releasing remixes for two songs off their new album “Sweet Isolation”. When they told me they already had mixes from David Carretta and Millimetric I knew I had to do it.

So back to the box and the point of this post. I always love opening a box of new records and I knew Andy de Decker from Ionic Vision wouldn’t be getting his records for a few days so I decided to videotape myself opening the box to show him. Then I remembered all the Macbook Pro box opening videos there are on YouTube and the light went off in my head. So you see the creation above. Don’t forget to blast the music behind your show and put links to places you can buy the release!

Belgian EBM band Ionic Vision releases 12 inch single on Things to Come Records with remixes by David Carretta, The Horrorist, Millimetric and Stamba! This is Electronic Body Music! The Carretta & Millimetric remixes of Sleep & Die Macht are set to be giant hits in Darkwave clubs and Industrial Goth events. The Horrorist remix will scare the living daylights out of you. Stamba from Bordeaux shows off his studio skills in a slick production. As with all TTC releases: MUST HAVE! - Neuton.com

There are more things you can do than a simple unboxing as far as video promos go. Find one of the first stores selling the new baby and do a video walk in and show the record on the shelf. Get two nice looking ladies to play frisbie with the new 12 inch single (in slow motion of course). The skies the limit. I wonder how to make a video promo of a Digital Download unboxing?

Vimeo, Viddler or Blip.tv are all video hosting sites which look much better than YouTube. The video above which is hosted on Vimeo alows me to customize the color of the text overlay. But which ever site you choose to host your promo also add the video to YouTube because of the shear volume of viewers on that site. Don’t forget to add tags to your video so your promo shows up when someone searches “ebm” or “Things to Come Records” for example.

Be warned that like blog posts people can comment on your video. Some people will think the idea of a record box opening completely stupid. However, fans want to know the behind the scenes stuff and record collectors are a special bunch who will drool as they watch the shiny new vinyl appear!

More info about Ionic Vision “Club Isolation”: click here

Stickers and rock buttons are seriously important for any band to have. These are the classic promotional items because they are cheap to make and when displayed promote your name. What’s more important to you: The latest X-Box game or 250 4.25″ square stickers to give away? Both will run you about $60.

I like to keep my my stickers and rock buttons black with white printing. Besides keeping the cost low it stands out the most.

For rock buttons (or pins as I like to call them) I use the popular RockButtons.com. The size you want is 1 inch. At least thats the standard size you see on every punk rockers jacket. 250 pins will cost you $65 and you can have 2 designs in that bunch. For $115 you can have 500 pins and 3 designs. For the rock buttons color doesn’t cost more. You can also add your website URL or slogan printed along the edge of the pin at no extra charge.

You can also make your own rock buttons. You need to buy a button making machine and the button parts. Check out buttonmakers.net for everything you need to know.

When it comes to stickers your going to want to check out stickerguy.com. I discovered them when watching the video below by a guy named “Brian Botkiller“. You want stickers that are each on a separate cut. If you get them on a roll you will have to cut each sticker from the roll. This doesn’t really work in practice (I’ve tried it). You think to yourself I’ll just cut them in advance but stickers cut from a roll are bent and don’t hold their shape in a stack… it’s messy. Luckily stickerguy is so freakin inexpensive you can afford their cut stickers. Orders from stickerguy take up to 8 weeks so order well in advance of when you need them.

With both rockbuttons.com and stickerguy.com you upload your designs via a web interface. They offer templates for Photoshop and Illustrator you can download.

The best time to hand out your free gifts is during any low in your live set. In between songs or any long breakdown. If you have any technical problems hand stuff out to buy some love! Remember to keep a few extra giveaways for the promoter and any nice looking ladies that you meet after the show.

By the way both the places I mention in this post are in the USA. If anyone knows any rock bottom cheap places to manufacture this stuff in Berlin please let me know in the comments.

photo credit: phil dokas and brianjacobsen

Twitter is a service that fits somewhere between email, instant messengering and micro blogging. If your a musician or record label you can use Twitter as a promotion tool. Twitter has RSS feeds and badges so each of your posts can instantly be placed across the internet at several locations at once. Twitter is also a type of social network and you can follow friends or companies your interested in. You do so in a public time line made up of a everyone you are following. It’s a fun and addictive experience. Let’s take a closer look.

I created a Twitter profile for my music studio. I use this profile to promote whatever is going on in the studio, new releases and even important wire to the ear blog posts I made. Posts are limited to 140 characters of text which I think is brilliant because you are really forced into stating simple moments and facts. I input entries vie my Twitter page online but you can also post Twitter entries by using software on your Mac or PC, IM clients or mobile devices like cell phones, etc…You can see my Twitter page here:
http://twitter.com/thingstocome

But you do not have to go to my Twitter site to see the updates. Take a look at all the locations those posts travel to:

On this blog Wire to the Ear look on the far right column:
“Things to Come Records Studio Updates”.

At the Things to Come Records homepage in two locations…
First on the homepage under the “In The Studio” section:
www.thingstocome.com

And at the bottom of the studio page:
www.thingstocome.com/studio.htm

On my MySpace page on the left hand column there is a grey badge titled “What am I doing?”:
www.myspace.com/oliverchesler

At the official website for The Horrorist on the bottom of the studio page:
thehorrorist.thingstocome.com/studio.html

On my Facebook profile on a turqiouse box in the left hand column titled “Twitter”:
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=734037165

As you can see your Twitter posts can take on any look. You can use the official Twitter badges or style your own using CSS. You can also choose how many recent updates should be listed.

The video above is a really great way to grasp everything Twitter is about. Highly recommended.

There is a website called Animoto that lets you upload or import a set of photos and music and then it will churn out a slick music video for you. Usually when I get back from a live performance the promoter or fans will send me some photos of the show. Why not get these into music video form onto YouTube? Great promotion no?

Of course you can take the time to create a music video from still images in Final Cut Pro, iMovie or Adobe Premier but Animoto is super easy, fast and effective. Here’s how it works: Head over to Animoto.com and sign up for an account. Click “create video” on the top left of the window. Next, you choose “30 Second Video - Animated Short” or “Full Length Video”. The 30 second clips are free to make. If you want to make something longer it will cost you $3.00. There is also a yearly subscription fee for $30.00 which allows you to make as many full length videos as you like. Now you either upload your photos or import them from flickr. Remember my post “Why every musician should have a flickr pro account.“? Here’s another reason why! You can also import photos from Facebook, Picasa, Smugmug, and Photobucket. You can choose a few photos to be featured by adding a “Spotlight” tag on them. Then you add your music and hit “finalize” and Animoto does its magic. A great new feature they just added is the ability to send your creation directly to YouTube.

You end up with a pretty neat music video. Fancy transitions with zooms and pans make your static photos come to life. The thing I personally like is how fast the process goes. Take a look at this short clip I put together from still photos from my show in Espenhain, Germany at Praezisionswerk and my song Now Destructor:

There’s nothing stopping you from using promotional photos and a talking soundtrack or an interview. Why not create a video of your album covers or event flyer’s?

“Animoto is definitely a slick, fun, easy way to compile your photos into energetic videos.” - Harrison Hoffman, CNET

There is one thing I don’t like about the service and that’s the fact that they slap the Animoto logo at the end of the video. The logo appears even at the end of full length videos you pay for. I contacted them to see if there was a way around it and they told me no. Oh one more thing: use Firefox, Safari gave me trouble.

I’ve been impressed with how well Beatport has been doing. It really is a strong contender for electronic music downloads. The web interface, designed with help from Native Instruments is snazzy. The Beatportplayer is a great way for artists with music for sale on Beatport to spread there songs on multiple websites. The company also really knows how to market itself with an affiliate program and Beatportal.com. If your a full on shopper at Beatport the Beatport SYNC player with Traktor mixing abilities is also a worthy download.

Sales from my own record label have been strong on Beatport only second to iTunes. Beatport has a good financial reporting web interface for labels called Baseware. Inside Baseware you have some good analytics, charts and info to reach your own personal account manager at Beatport.

So today Beatsource has launched. It’s exactly like Beatport but for Hip Hop and Urban music. If your producing this kind of music I suggest getting in early on. There is one section of Beatsource that has me very excited: Genres -> Old School.

In the 1980s I spent a good amount of time recording Mr. Magic and DJ Red Alert’s radio shows off Kiss and WBLS. I used my giant Conion boombox (the photo is my actual Conion in my father’s office) to record to cassettes. I have about 1000 tapes in storage but since they are all mixes I am still looking for complete versions of many of the songs. Just Ice, Mantronix, TLA Rock are some of the artists that come to mind. I will be a regular visitor at Beatsource. What I find most interesting is as I type this the #1 song on Beatsource is Jam on It by Nucleaus!

Each month on the first I make a top 10 music chart. Songs I am really into at the moment. There are a few good reasons to do this. If your a band or an artist, some of your fans will be interested in what your current tastes are. The fact that I know I need a chart each month forces me to discover and seek out new music. As a musician it’s important to be always listening to what’s out there and not get stuck completely in the past.

There are places you can post your chart other than your own website. Your MySpace, Facebook and Last.fm pages can host your chart. Slow news week but it has been a while since you sent an email newsletter? Make it look a little more meaty with a chart. If all the songs in your chart are on iTunes then turn your chart into an iMix. Likewise, if your music is entirely available on Beatport you can publish the chart on Beatportal.com. Anytime your interviewed include your current top 10 chart. If your known enough many magazines print DJ charts each month. Groove Magazine often prints my chart.

Should you put your own songs in your chart? Hell yes! If your own new material isn’t in your favorite new songs of the month then you shouldn’t be releasing it to the world! If you want to get fancy make the song titles click able links to a place where someone can hear and buy the song right away. Also consider including a photo of yourself or the album cover of the number one song on your chart. If you like you can even include a little description of your chart’s style. I add a disclaimer to my chart because I put everything on from Country to Minimal! Don’t forget to put your website next to your name and a little message somewhere saying “feel free to reprint this chart anywhere”.

With the onslaught of a million net labels charts have become an important tool to find hot songs. I like to read them and make them.

The Horrorist - Top 10 - February 2008*
www.myspace.com/oliverchesler

01 Electric Feel - MGMT
02 Washmachine - Workidz
03 Nietzche - Abstrackt Keal Agram
04 Story of an Artist - Daniel Johnston
05 You Should Tell Me So - Orilla Opry
06 13 Dobermans - The Horrorist
07 Bubbleblitzen - Miro Pajic
08 Beneath You - Mark Mendes
09 U Turn - Mark Ramsey
10 Stereos and Such - Popof

*The Horrorist chart is not your normal DJ Chart. The music here is not normal. These are songs Oliver Chesler is listening to now. If your weird and like great music then listen to these songs. If you are normal I am sorry this chart is not for you.

photo credit: phil_h.psd

This past weekend I played a cool goth-freak club in London called Slimelight. I think it’s the de-facto place for darker music there. The opening band from Germany “Gerechtigkeitsliga” (photo above) reminded me of so many of the noise bands I saw in NYC during the 80’s. I’d like to thank Lenny from their crew for dousing me with his Beer during my set. I will update this post with a link to some photos once I collect and get them online.

The tip of the day as far as this blog’s focus and my trip to London is “the follow up”. It may seem obvious but keeping your focus and game on before and after a gig when meeting people is important. You should really consider your socializing important work. You never know who is there to see you. Never, ever judge a book by it’s cover! The youngest looking weirdo could be your biggest fan who through out his lifetime gets you more promotion then any magazine ad ever would. The old drunk guy missing a tooth could be an A&R scout.

Collect email addresses, websites and MySpace pages. Anyone who came out to see you and then also made point to come up to you to say hello deserves a thank you. Don’t you think so? It’s easy to forget when your in “Rock Star mode” that without fans your shows would be seriously lame!

I know more than anyone what’s it’s like to have some kid with bad ecstasy-alcohol breath try and yell over the music in my ear. More often than not besides the smell and screaming he only “thinks” he can speak English. But regardless how many times this happens to me I remain friendly. You can’t break the kid’s heart. You will feel bad about it later.

I remember fondly getting a ticket stub autographed from Jean Luc Demeyer from Front 242. It was after a live show they played at Irving Plaza in 1987. I was 17 and he was gracious and friendly. Because of that fact every time I look at the my Front by Front CD in which I keep the signed stub I smile. Imagine he told me to fuck off. What would I be writing on this blog today? Get my point?

There are other advantages to keeping your fans as friends. They probably know ten other people who were at the show and can gather together some show photos for you. If any slug tries to steal your equipment if your a liked person chances are people will stop the fool. The list goes on…

Update: Photos from the live show are now posted on flickr: click here 

photo credit: Nikki Entwistle

In the above interview Jason Lytle the lead singer of Granddaddy tells us what the secret of songwriting is. This video has been going around for a while but it’s definitely worth watching so I reposted it. I wish this band did not break up. I saw them live at Irving Plaza and they were superb. One of my all time favorite bands. Here are ten great Grandaddy songs:

1. The Crystal Lake
   
2. Jed’s Other Poem (beautiful ground)
3. So You’ll Aim Toward The Sky
4. Hewlett’s Daughter
5. Lost On Yer Merry Way
6. A.M. 180
7. Nonphenomenal Lineage
8. Underneath The Weeping Willow
9. The Final Push To The Sum
10. Rear View Mirror

Do you like Granddady? What’s your favorite from them?

As I ever rummage the internet for all things music electronic I often come across very interesting items. Not everything I find deserves a post but are cool tidbits nonetheless. To share these kinds of findings with you I joined del.icio.us.

del.icio.us which is owed by Yahoo is a social bookmarking “platform”. Basically you sign up and instead of keeping your bookmarks in your browser they appear on the del.icio.us website. Why do this? To share of course! So you can now see whatever cool findings I come across on a given day here:
http://del.icio.us/wiretotheear

But guess what? You don’t have to leave this website to see the latest 5 things I looked at. Just move your eyes to the right side column and scroll down to where it says “wiretotheear’s latest del.icio.us bookmarks”.

Still want to know more about social bookmarking? Check out this video great video at the de.icio.us blog: click here