It turns out Phil Spector was an avid Twitterer. Another weird fact to add to his gravestone: He only followed Yoko Ono.

“If the average man is made in God’s image, then Mozart was plainly superior to God.”

“The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.”

“As if it wasn’t bad enough I got locked up for 19 years, the bastards even confiscated my wig.”

“It’s comforting to know that mental health doesn’t always mean being happy. If it did, nobody would qualify.”

“One positive thing about old age is that you can remember everything that happened, even if it didn’t happen.”

Read more here: Phil Spector: The fascinating tweets of a murderer. (CNet)

photo credit: cgkinla

I met Ritche Hawtin a few times. I played a bowling alley with him in the early 90’s. We were set up inside the area that gives out the rental shoes. More recently in Berlin he moved into the studio next to me. Beyond being a friendly guy he’s got some great marketing tool ideas. I really like his latest move which sends Tweets of whatever track he’s playing directly from Native Instruments Traktor to Twitter. Here’s the copy:

“Pioneering techno DJ Richie Hawtin has announced the development of a new Twitter application that enables him to broadcast his Traktor tracklists in real time over the network. The custom Twitter application was developed in-house by Richie Hawtin’s label Minus, and it works by uploading song metadata through Traktor Pro’s inbuilt broadcasting functionality. Track details are automatically posted to Richie Hawtin’s Twitter account every 30 seconds (you can already see Traktor tracklist updates on his Twitter), giving anyone access to the tracklist of his performance, and providing exposure to the artists and labels whose music is being played.” – beatportal.com

Follow Ritchie on Twitter: click here and follow me (Oliver Chesler) too: click here

photo credit: cena carioca

Related post: Use Twitter as a promotion tool for your music.

Here’s a great idea worth mentioning. I received an email this morning letting me know “AbletonTweets” was following me on Twitter. With a name like that I had to click over and see what they tweet about. Happily it’s “Unofficial Ableton Tips and Updates”. So like peanut butter and chocolate, Ableton and Twitter go great together so why not follow too: http://twitter.com/AbletonTweets

Don’t forget to follow me too: http://twitter.com/thingstocome

Related posts:
Use Twitter as a promotion tool for your music.
Follow amazonmp3 on Twitter for daily deals.

Do you remember my post about Twitter titled “Use Twitter as a promotion tool for your music.“? Here’s another reason to sign up. Amazon.com has created a user profile on the service and each day they they post a link to a few great MP3 deals.

6/18 Daily Deal #2: Daft Punk’s Musique Vol 1. Yesterday’s price $9.49, today’s price $2.99.

Another example of a music related service on Twitter is sidelinemag. There you can find mini updates to all things EBM and Goth. Don’t forget to follow me too: thingstocome

Are there any music/pro-audio companies or people you follow on Twitter?

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.

The dynamic between artist and fan has changed in recent years. It used to be if you were an artist you wanted to seem out of reach, high on a pedestal from your followers. However, today fans want a personal relationship with you. It’s not good enough to give them a monthly or even weekly update. They want to know what your doing right now! One of the best tools to give a window into your life is Twitter.

So what is Twitter? To start head to Twitter.com and sign up for an account (it’s free). Click on Profile and give yourself an avatar. Next under where it says “What are you doing?” type up to 140 text characters. In a way it’s like a mini-blog letting the world know what’s going on with you at that moment. These moments you enter are called Tweets.

If you have friends on Twitter you can follow them and vice-versa. Besides the archive of all your own Tweets you can also see a master timeline which shows your Tweet and your friends Tweets.

Now comes what I think it the best part. Click to www.twitter.com/badges and create a widget that displays your Twitter updates on any web page you place it. This is great because you only have to put your Tweets in one place but instantly wherever you have badges your updates will show.

I have Things to Come Records studio Twitter badges on my MySpace page (www.myspace.com/oliverchesler), Facebook page and artist website (thehorrorist.thingstocome.com). If you notice they all look different because you can customize the badges to fit any site. If you notice on my artist web site’s studio page my Tweets are not even in a widget but customized into the look of the page itself using CSS. You can also have your Tweets injected into a Wordpress blog as posts using Alex King’s Twitter Tools.

If you find going to a web page to input your Tweets cumbersome and your on a Mac try Icon Factory’s very nice program Twitterific. There is also a nifty Dashboard Widget called Twidget. I am sure there are Windows Twitter applications too. There are also methods of sending Tweets by email and Instant Messenger clients.

Lastly, I’d like to point out that Twitter has some competition. Google has a similar service called Jaiku and Kevin Rose and the Digg crew run Pownce. Unfortunately they are all incompatible. Come and follow my record label on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thingstocome