wire to the ear

A good way to practice your music making skills and possibly get noticed is to enter a remix contest. It’s also a good way for label’s to procure a “free” track that sits above the average remix. My old friend John Selway sent me an email this morning:

hey man

how’s things? we started Serotonin records again and we’re doing a contest with FOEM.info for an upcoming release.

http://foem.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=255&Itemid=97

maybe you’d consider giving us a nod on your blog..?

best,
J

I met John in the early 90s at Suny Purchase. He lived down the hall from me and I heard the sound of a Roland TB-303 coming from his room. Only a few weeks earlier I was at club Mars in the Astro Turf room listening to a British DJ play Acid House for the first time. I remember that night being so blown away and wondering what the hell equipment made those sounds. John was more than happy to let me in on the secret and within a week I bought my own 303 from Rogue Music in NYC for $350. Back at school John and I started a band called Disintegrator. We had 303’s and 909’s synced to Atari’s and Amiga’s using a Roland SBX-80. We also hacked audio outputs onto a bunch of electronic toy guns and started playing live.

A DJ named Frankie Bones from Brooklyn returned from a gig in the UK. This wasn’t a normal DJ gig for him as he witnessed the birth of the Rave Scene and he was determined to show everyone in NYC what he experienced. He opened a store called Groove, a bunch of record labels and got the first techno events going in the USA called Storm Rave. This was the beginning of the Rave scene in New York. Everyone knew this was the beginning of something new and John and I had Disintegrator demo cassettes with us at all times. It wasn’t long before we met Frankie’s brother Adam X and a Jimmy Crash. They had a new label called Direct Drive and offered to release Disintegrator. At the time I had no idea I would still be doing this 16 years later!

So back to the remix contest. There are two tracks to be remixed this time: Schismism and/or Facts by Synapse. You can remix both tracks or only one. Two remixes per track is maximum. The contest ends on August 31, 2008. The prize is at least one original vinyl release on Serotonin, one remix in exchange from Synapse, Vinyl from the Serotonin backstock and some T-shirts.

For more info:
selwaymusic.net
myspace.com/serotoninrecords

A service I use often is TinyURL. It takes any long web address and makes a permanent short version of it. It’s very useful for a service like Twitter where each message you type is constrained to 140 characters. It’s also a nice thing to do when your emailing someone a URL from Expedia or Amazon where sometimes URLs can extend three or more lines long.

This morning I discovered tinySONG.com. You search for a song and then it gives you a small URL for it. When your friend clicks it the song opens at Grooveshark.com and plays. Here’s an example:

This one is dedicated to George Bush:
http://tinysong.com/CWm

Of course this is a way for Grooveshark to get people using their music service but as you see there is no sign in or anything happening before your song plays so it’s an enjoyable experience.

As I type this blog post Im looking at the Grooveshark website and you know what? It’s an interesting site and music model. It seems tinySONG has worked in getting my eyes focused over there. As a user you can get credits for free music by making recommendations and has a label you can earn royalties. Have you used Grooveshark? What you think of it?

So go ahead… post some TinySong urls in the comments.

Alex from SoundCloud noticed my recent post about their slick new music sharing site aimed at musicians. He read I was out of invites so he hit me up with another bunch to give out. So if you want one just click here: http://soundcloud.com/guestlist/wiretotheear

(That link will stop working after the 50 new invites are used.)

To view the SoundCloud review: click here
Once your on SoundCloud feel free to friend me: thingstocome

See you in the cloud!

MySpace.com has remained an important place for musicians. Sure there are thousands of places to discover new music but when I want to get a quick jist of what a band is like I head right to their MySpace page. The original MySpace design and platform has been around for a long time with barely any noticable changes. So what’s new?

If you ever used Facebook you understand the idea of Applications. These are small programs you can install into your own profile. They are designed by third party developers so there is a wide variety of apps available.

Games, photo slideshows, hooks into services like iLike.com, polls, anything you can imagine adding to your profile is probably available. For the most part I find 95% of these apps useless but there are a few gems. For example Happy Flickr allows you to have your latest flickr photos displayed on your profile.

The site has also been redesigned and looks cleaner. Menus have been reorganized so you can get to your profile’s option easier.

There’s a spanking-new interface, heightened security, availability on mobile and instant-messaging services — and the ability to create categories of friends at work, school and family, among dozens of other new features.

“It cleans up the user experience,” says Dave McClure, a start-up adviser and angel investor in Silicon Valley. “It is a streamlined, easier-to-use version of MySpace.” - www.usatoday.com

MySpace said it had drastically overhauled the look and feel of its searches, which it said currently ranked third in total number of searches by any site.

It said it was working with Lucene Open-Source engine and community, marking the first time MySpace has contributed to the open-source community.

MySpace, with about 110 million users worldwide, claims to be the most trafficked website in the United States, adding that about 300,000 people sign up each day. - uk.reuters.com

Are there any MySpace applications you find useful? Is there one you want that does not exist yet?

Do you remember my post titled “Give away free stickers and rock buttons at shows!“? I took my own advice and re-ordered some stickers and rockpins for my record label. Here’s two photos of how they look. This specific schwag comes from www.stickerguy.com and www.rockbuttons.com. I will be chucking this stuff out at the next bunch of live shows I do. I can report satisfaction with both orders.

Remember to save a few for the promoter who booked you, the sound guy and your driver. Also it doesn’t hurt to put a few pins on some nice looking ladies. If the club is ok with stickers plastered all over it like CBGBs be sure to go to town!

By the way, I will make some Wire to the Ear merchandise later this year!

No one likes a fat rock star. Because of that fact I hit the gym about five times a week. I do thirty minutes of weight training and thirty cardio. Sometimes I run on the treadmill and sometimes I do the dam elliptical trainer. So I do I keep from going mind numbingly bored? How do I keep myself motivated? I have an endless supply of new DJ sets.

Almost every day you can find a new mix posted at DJmixes.us. The obvious disclaimer here is that more likely than not this is not a legit site. I doubt any proper permission or licensing has been sorted out for these to be available. That said I am always happy when my own live sets show up on filesharing sites. In the end it just gets me more bookings. I personally have bought quite a few tracks on Beatport that I discovered while listening to DJ sets.

http://www.djmixes.us/

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.