Sound Advice TV with Derek Sivers - youtube.com/ArielPublicity

Derek Sivers is a dear friend of mine and has long been a beacon of light for most of us in the music industry. To celebrate the launch of my new Sound Advice Video Series featuring Derek as my premiere guest, I wanted to share some of his marketing basics.  These are highlights from a talk he gave at Bob Baker’s Indie Buzz Bootcamp.

I constantly like to return to the lessons that Derek teaches. I have heard him speak many times and I always walk away feeling inspired. I am delighted that he is my first guest on Sound Advice TV.

To view a segment of Sound Advice TV featuring Derek Sivers click here

Derek Sivers 7 Critical Marketing Basics Every Musicians Should Know

Here are 7 wonderful lessons, which are great to revisit no matter how strong your marketing muscles are.

But before I dive in I want to start with how Derek got his own music career off of the ground. This speaks volumes about how he achieved his CD Baby success later in his career.  There is a huge marketing lesson in this story…

When he was a student at Berklee College of Music, Derek was attending a music business lecture.  Before the lecture started, he overheard his professor whispering to the guest speaker, Mark Fried from Warner Chappell Music, that there would be no time to eat before the lecture and it was a 3-hour talk. Mark was looking hungry and there had clearly been a miscommunication about eating before the class started. So, Derek slipped out of the room to a pay phone and ordered pizza for Mark and for the entire class.  Forty-five minutes into his lecture, Mark was eating pizza with the class and was extremely grateful to Derek (who was one of many students in the room) who went out of his way to help him.

After the lecture, Mark gave Derek his card and told him to keep in touch, which Derek did for the remaining 2 years he was at Berklee.  When he came to New York he would meet Mark for coffee and their friendship grew.  A week before his graduation, Derek called Mark to ask if there were any jobs at Warner Chappell opening up. Seven days later Derek had a job working at Warner Chappell in the tape room.

Lesson #1 A Marketing Golden Rule: It’s about THEM Not YOU

What struck me about this story is a simple marketing lesson that is also one of the golden rules. Always think about this question: How can I be helpful to other people?  That is what will make you memorable in the long run. It was Derek’s courteous consideration that opened all doors for him in the music business.

The pizza took Derek one phone call and $25 and it secured him a job in the music industry.  There were probably 45 students sitting in that lecture hall that day and he was the one who ended up with a relationship with Mark and in the end…a job.

Lesson #2: Unsolicited Actions Will Get You Nowhere

Derek then went on to explain what it was like in the tape room at Warner Chappell.  It was there he got to see first hand what it looks like from the inside when indie musicians send unsolicited music to a publishing company.  Warner Chappell is a large publishing company that was not looking to sign new artists and Derek saw the packages arrive by the dozen on a daily basis. From this he learned exactly what never to do.

Lesson #3: No One Is Coming To Save You In The Music Industry

Derek points out (and I have repeated this line in my own talks) that no one will come along and be your music business “fairy godfather”, it all has to start internally.  If you hire anyone to be on your team, no matter what they are doing for you, you must understand that that person is your hired partner.  You will both have to work to achieve your desired result. This is especially true in the realm of social media and online marketing.

Lesson #4: Marketing = Consideration

Reach People the Way You Want to Be Reached

Stop thinking of it as Marketing and start thinking of it as creative ways to be considerate. Think of things from the other person’s point of view: Imagine if you called your friend up and screamed into the phone: “THURSDAY COME SEE ME PLAY NEXT THURSDAY!” (HANG UP)

You probably would not show up if you were spoken to that rudely and then hung up on and it was funny to see Derek act this out but his point was: This is exactly the way most musicians speak to their newsletter lists.

If your friends spoke to you the way you speak to them on your newsletter list you wouldn’t be friends. Begin to pay attention to other artist’s messages and notice what works on you. The considerate thing is to be so novel and creative and innovative so that people say: you have GOT to see / hear this musician play!

Lesson #5:  Sharply Define What You Do

You cannot slice through the world’s attention if you are using a blunt knife and you will most definitely be blunt if you are trying to be all things to all people.  Your message must be sharp and pointed. It’s OK to exclude 99% and have 1% worship you! Be unapologetic in your bluntness.

3 CD Baby Artists Who Are Sharply Focused

Eileen Quinn - Create A Niche

One of CD Baby’s all time top-sellers is an artist named Eileen Hoyton. Eileen is from Nova Scotia and she owns a boat.  She recorded her music on the boat and the title of her album is called Songs For Sailors, and it’s a top seller at CD Baby. Why? Because it’s laser focused. It speaks directly to a niche audience. I bet you can find a copy of her album on every boat that you set foot on. Eileen also laser focused her PR and marketing efforts on her niche audience.  Since sailors read boating magazines, she went after reviews and features in boating mags, (she could have cared LESS about Spin and Rolling Stone) and she got publicized to a select group of people she knew would love her music and she sold tens of thousands of albums!

Regina Spektor - Don’t Be Afraid To Be “Out There”

Regina Spektor also understood laser focus but it took time. She did a Tori Amos style thing for years and with those albums, she did OK but when she added the hiccups and the “weird” themes and she started banging on her piano bench with a drumstick while she played people really started to notice her. This is what led her to her record deal and to her popularity.  She really stood out from the crowd.

David m. Bailey - Find A Small Hill To Dominate

David was a lawyer who was diagnosed with brain cancer. Out of that experience he became a top seller at CD Baby. David was given a few months to live and he immediately quit his job and decided to record an album.  He beat the odds and he survived brain cancer.  He is now the poster child of surviving brain cancer.  He has since recorded 7 albums and brain cancer patients often find him online through research, they then logon to CD Baby and buy all 7 of his albums at once.

Ariel Hyatt, Derek Sivers & Michael Laskow at Taxi Road Rally

Lesson #5: DIY Does Not Mean Do It All Yourself - Decide It Yourself

DIY does not have to mean do it all yourself.  Doing it all yourself will surely set you up for exhaustion and will leave you no time to be creative.

Instead Derek recommends that you think of DIY as: Decide It Yourself - you call the shots but you MUST learn how to delegate, put your fans to work and get things off of your plate. If you have a sense of STRESS and UPSET around every decision and everything becomes so important you really miss the point. Just try delegating things and don’t make it all so serious and significant. Start every decision with: Let’s see what happens if… and try it!

Lesson #6: Act AS IF….

“You are whatever you pretend to be.”

-          Kurt Vonnegut

This part of the talk really inspired me….  Most people do not know this: Derek Sivers is an introvert by nature.  His instinct when at a music conference is to retreat to his hotel room. To combat this he ACTS as if he is an extrovert. Pretend to be the biggest extrovert possible for an hour at a networking event or at a party.

Lesson #7: It’s Who You Know Mixed With How You Persevere

Everything major that happens in your career starts with someone you know.  Here’s Derek’s story of how he got the gig touring with world-renowned Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamato:  Derek’s roommate from school was working wrapping cables in a studio and he overheard the musicians saying that they needed a guitar player to go on an upcoming tour.

To prove that he was the perfect guitarist for the gig, Derek got a hold of some of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music that he was in the process of recording, wrote all of the guitar parts and mixed it and sent it back.

After a few days when he did not hear from Ryuichi he wrote a cello part out of another one of his songs and sent that to the studio.

After the third day he got the call and toured Japan for 2 months in front of 20,000 people each night.

But Derek proves that it’s not only who you know but also what you do once you get the connection.  He demonstrates how to fully take advantage of each situation.

Persevere With People

Get used to staying in touch with hundreds of people with blogs and with your newsletter - it’s a psychological shift in your head but once you can make it you can be very very effective staying in touch with many people.  This is the miracle of technology.

Make yourself meet 3 new people every single week: Do this by picking up the phone - people get hundreds of emails and dozens of phone calls.

TIP: AVOID saying the words “pick your brain” to anyone.  That says: I want something from you….  and when you do talk to people, prove that you have already done your research.  Derek says that people will ask him: So, what does CD Baby do?  And It’s totally disrespectful - you want to let them know that you care enough to have spent some time learning about them before you talk / meet.

To view a segment of Sound Advice TV featuring Derek Sivers click here

http://community.livejournal.com/mossip/

Mossip is a community made by people who love music. We are here to provide you with Concert/Album Reviews, happenings in the music world and last but not least music gossip.

Q: How long have you been blogging?

A: The mossip blog is fairly new. We’ve only been up and running since July.

Q: In your opinion, what does a good song need to consist of?

A: A good song has to have a great lyric, a melody that’s going to stick in your head and a good vocalist to sing it. The best song in the world will be ignored if the singer is terrible. Just as a great lyric can only take you so far if the music behind it is awful. Take The Beatles All You Need Is Love, which is a great example of a good song. Its got a simple yet great lyric with a message. The horn section in the chorus is what makes the song what it is. Then there’s John’s lead vocal. Combine all three of these and you have not just a great song, but pop perfection.

Q: What is your favorite band or favorite genre of music and why?

A: The favorite band question is a tricky one, I love so many. My top two artists right now are The Moody Blues and Elvis Costello. I love both of them because of their unique songwriting, even though the Moodies and Costello are about as different as night and day. You might guess that I’m a classic rock kinda girl. I always have been. It seems like the artists from 20 + years ago were the lucky ones. Technology and Mtv hadn’t taken hold, so music was made by people that really cared about music, more so than image. You don’t see many artists like Cass Elliot today. If you don’t look like you could be on the cover of a magazine your chances of making it big diminish greatly.

Q: What changes in content laws, broadcasting rights, etc. have affected you most?

A: Thankfully there haven’t been any that would touch us too much. Our site provides reviews of albums old and new, musical gossip and discussion of things going on in the music world.

Q: A recent study found blogs to be more effective than MySpace in generating album sales, do you feel blogs have that power?

A: Blogs are a bit more organized than MySpace, so I definitely can see that. Both have their pros and cons though. The main thing that can make a blog more attractive, is its not confined to being on just one server, like Myspace and that allows for better site design and the ability to add whatever content the webmaster allows. Let’s face it, attractiveness is what draws people in. With blogs you have more ways of showing off your product, with Myspace you’re limited to what Myspace will allow you to do.

Ariel: If you could just start by introducing yourself and I’d love it if you could maybe just give a very, very Cliff Note version of how in the hell you found Twitter and how you came to it, kind of what your life was like.  What happened and how did it happen?  Then, I love the way you talk about it and how it’s radically shifted your life.  Then we’re going to go in and I’d love to get your opinions and input on how a creative person can use it because I’ve been getting a lot of push-back from my community of musicians who are a little bit skeptical.  They feel like being musicians is very, very important but they don’t really understand the concept of the whole thing and why and how it could benefit them.  The goal here is to kind of get them…win them over and then towards the end of the call I’d love to talk about just some practical things that they can do that could help get them on the courts quickly, so that they feel like it’s making an impact.  The few that I have had sign up end up signing up and then saying things to me like, “well, this didn’t do anything.”  That’s when I look and they’re following no one and they didn’t really get it.  That’s a lot, but please introduce yourself and if you could just start with a little background on who you are in this community.

Laura: Absolutely.  The first thing you asked was how did I find Twitter in the first place.  I found it in a fairly typical way, which was just that as I started my serious blogging in March and April 2007, it was definitely the talk of the town.  The blog-erati or whatever you’d like to call the particularly well-known bloggers in the social media space were all saying, “oh my God, this thing is great.”  None of them could really articulate why in a way that was particularly convincing.  But they talked about it enough that I went and I signed up and looked at it and I thought it was dumb.  Just like everybody.  It looked stupid.  Twitter is the dumbest thing you will ever see.  But the truth is it…  Now I sound like an evangelical crazy woman.  It has incredible power and it takes time to learn that.

What happened was that those first couple months I thought it was dumb.  I even blogged it was dumb.  Yes, the post is still up.  You can go read it and laugh.  Around May, I noticed a guy and he mentioned it very incidentally in a blog post and I clicked into his Twitter stream and it was full of really productive things he’d been doing.  He’d been taking mentoring meetings.  He’d been going to networking events.  He’d been doing a bunch of really smart things.  This is a 19-year-old kid out in Silicone Valley who’d already founded two companies.  He was kind of an inspiring person to watch anyway and this idea that you could watch little snippets from his life as he felt inclined to unleash them made me realize that’s one of the oldest rules in the book of business success, is surround yourself with successful people.

So I started following him and because of the way Twitter is set up, you just kind of wander around and find people.  It’s very much accepted that you would be reading someone’s Twitter who you don’t know.  So I wandered around who he was following, who he thought was motivating, and I picked up maybe a dozen, maybe twenty people to read.  They say follow on Twitter, but follow’s a little freaky.  I call it read.  Who were just doing interesting things and saying smart, interesting things.  I really enjoyed watching that stream come by when I had time.  It’s a great work break.  It is easy to get drawn in and spend a little too much time there.  You do have to watch for that, because you’re going from being who you are your whole life to suddenly being surrounded by people who are really intellectually stimulating, who maybe have common interests with you that you didn’t know that many other people were into the thing you’re into before.  It’s a really refreshing, exciting experience.

So what happened, four days after that blog post, a group in Boston got together in public and just said, okay, you know, if you’re following me on Twitter, you’re invited to come out for a beer.  Okay, that struck me as really bizarre.  But I went.  Young mom, two kids under two.  I did not need big excuses to get out of the house.  We were all meeting at a public place so it wasn’t particularly worrisome.  These turned out to be some of the real rock stars of social media.  Scott Monty’s gone on to head up social media for all of Ford worldwide.  Steve Garfield, who’s one of the first video bloggers ever and has been in Time Magazine and all this stuff.  Brian Person, who’s just the heart and soul of Twitter for many of us.  We had a great time and that really cemented it.

Fast forward about four months.  People started to really start following me out of nowhere and I wasn’t sure why because I really wasn’t trying to build an audience or pursue an audience.  But from the New Media & Podcasting Expo…  Do you remember that last year, Ariel?

Ariel: Sure, absolutely.

Laura: I think I had somewhere between 300 and 600 followers then.  Now I’m starting to approach 7,000 already.  It’s really kind of crazy.  So one of the things I’m trying to show other people and especially musicians, my God, the opportunity for musicians is huge.  If an ordinary person like me can suddenly get an audience and a micro, micro, mini celebrity kind of thing going on, someone with a bona fide audience and something to constantly give their audience, like their music, and relationships to build and peaks into their lives, can really build something substantial using Twitter.  The other thing to remember is you’re not just sharing text and it’s not even just text and links.  Through those links you can share audio, you can share photographs, you can share video, you can share live video streaming off a cell phone that you carry with you.  Imagine that.  You’re backstage at a gig warming up and you suddenly give your fans a little sneak preview into what the sound check is like.  The type of content you can offer your fans for essentially free, because it’s just the time you take to put into it…  And from a mobile base, because I think if you’re on tour, musicians, actors, and executives all fit this profile of probably having some kind of mobile phone with them and being constantly in motion.  So it’s very hard for someone like that to sit down and blog or really spend a lot of time in front of a computer trying to share content.  Being able to do it through your mobile is really powerful and cool.

Ariel: Awesome.

Laura: You also asked me a little bit about how my life changed.  It’s been absolutely surreal.  I’m being followed now by somebody who’s known me since I was born.  It’s another kid I grew up with in an extended family vacation that we take every year.  There’s like 36 of us and we’ve been going for 36 years.  It’s pretty crazy.  So he just started following me on Twitter, because he just went to work for a company where a lot of my Twitter friends work.  It’s so funny because he knows me from real life.  We hung out in May.  Now he’s sort of stumbling through my work life.  Last time I told him about the Seth Godin thing.  He said, “oh, you really ought to write a book or something, ha, ha, ha.”  I said, “oh, yeah, no, actually I have an agent with ICM, I am writing a book.”  He’s like, “really?”.

So even my friends kind of don’t understand what’s happened and I’m really still coming to terms with it.  But I’ve been in a lot of newspapers.  I’ve been in some magazines.  I’ve had a lot of professional opportunities come my way.  Sorry, I just kind of alluded to, but we didn’t talk it recorded here on the call, I just found out this morning that marketing and business guru, Seth Godin, in his new book Tribes mentions the effect of what I’ve done with Twitter and what’s happened to me and the kind of business outcomes that have come from it.

It’s something to explore and I always encourage people to feel free to rip on it.  Feel free to say it looks stupid.  Feel free to say, “I don’t get it.”  But give it an honest try.  And I met you through Twitter.

Ariel: Yeah, this is the back story of how I met Laura.

That was a great story, that we were following each other somehow and so we had some vague awareness of each other.  You were, from the kindness of your heart, when I was coming to New York for Pod Camp and said, “anybody got a couch I can surf?” you opened up your home to me.  That meant so much.  I can’t even say.

Ariel: That’s the other thing I’ve found about Twitter.  It’s amazing how people show up.  I had someone I was following the other day and his dog got really, really sick and actually passed away.  It was someone I didn’t really know, but because I love animals I wrote him a really sweet note and just said, so sorry.  I actually ended up meeting him at a conference and he said, “you know, some of my best friends didn’t say anything to me and you did.”  It’s interesting.  You think it’s this weird impersonal thing, this giant IM in the sky which is how I like to explain it to people who don’t know what it is.  And then you can end up making these real, real connections through it.

Laura: I tried to blog about that this weekend because I got going on a few Tweets in a row about, look, it’s…  A lot of what makes Twitter so powerful is that it’s not in-your-face business communication.  It’s not that face-to-face, I want something from you, here’s my business card, trying to really make it transactional.  It’s this very authentic…  First of all, you’re only remarking on stuff that you would just remark on out of the power of your own heart.  For companies learning about how people feel about their products, it’s very powerful because it’s very, very authentic information.  That depth and authenticity also means that you could go to a total stranger’s Twitter page right now and read their last one to four pages of Tweets, just little, short, 140-character SMS links comments and remarks and jokes and complaints.  You read four pages of that, it’s maybe 80 little Tweets.  So from 80 little tiny remarks about somebody, you get an amazingly accurate sense of what they’re like.  It’s very hard to convince people that that is so, but the more I’ve interacted with people, the more I’ve discovered new personalities on Twitter that…

Incidentally, one big mistake that people who haven’t seen this before make, they think it all happens online.  The really major friendships and business relationships and opportunities that have come to me have been a lasagna, different layers.  Meeting online, meeting at a conference, hanging out online more, seeing each other at another event, building up a big kind of connected thing.  But when I do meet the people in person, it is true that I know them pretty well, just from those little offhand remarks.  And it always astonishes me.

Ariel: It always astonishes me, too.  People will see me and be like, “how was California?”  “How do you know I was in California?”  Then I realize, oh, yeah.

Laura: And it’s not just knowing you were in California.  It’s the remarks you made when you were on the Pacific Coast.  They feel the same way about the Pacific Coast and you’re that much more connected to them now.

Ariel: Exactly.  Let’s move on to Twitter specifically for musicians and some practical things.  We’ve kind of now given you an overview of who Laura is how she ended up doing it.  But I think that there is a plague that happens in the music and artistic community.  That plague is thinking that the only way to make a community is by exposing people to your music.  I see artists make this mistake consistently.  They’re so trained to talk about their music and just go up to someone and give them a flyer or whatever, that they forget there’s an entire other side to them.  This, as a traditional publicist, discovering Twitter and getting into it, I had to really lobotomize my old self as the person that was trained.  Okay, this is how you create a promotion.  You write a release and then you release it and it’s very one-way [unintelligible].  I think this is how a lot of us see promotion to this day.

Laura: Right.

Ariel: It’s all about I must tell everyone everything in one page and blast it.  What Twitter is about is it’s the antithesis of this.  It’s actually scorned upon to over-hype or over-market.  Can you talk a little bit about that and then I’d love to maybe try to set up a roadmap for musicians that might be interested in joining but are completely confused and they don’t know who to follow and they don’t know anyone.  That’s another big complaint I get.  No one I know is on it.

Laura: Yeah, you need that critical mass for it to make sense.  One of the first thing I would say to any musician listening to this, let’s face it, obviously, you only write music and you only perform music so you can sell it and make money.  You don’t do it for emotional connection.  You don’t do it for artistic expression.  You don’t do it because you want to change something in the world.  You don’t do it because you feel a certain way and you want other people to understand how you feel.  Right?

Ariel: I kind of beg to differ, but…

Laura: Come on.  All the basic motivating things that drive you to be a musician are the things that are going to make you really good at something like Twitter.  Because Twitter isn’t about push, push, push the music.  Obviously, you need the music to sell, to survive and to be able to pour more into your art, but all the things at the center of your art itself, the work you’ve put in, the talent you’ve acquired, the things you know about music, the things you’re trying to figure out in your lyrics or in your performances, all those really soulful things…  This sounds silly when I talk to executives, believe me.  But for musicians it’s great because all those soulful things are going to be what makes you successful on Twitter.  People want personality.  They want authenticity.  They want a genuine look at the person behind the music.  The beautiful thing, especially as you start to get famous as a musician, is that these tools give you the control over your privacy.  You’re not dealing with paparazzi coming in and invading.  You’re saying, “well, when I want to share something personal, I’m going to let it get out there in a way that is totally on my terms and in a way that benefits my business as a musician financially.”

As for pushing your music, the key is to get…  It’s pull.  It’s really pull.  The key is to get people involved with your life, get people involved with your artistic ideas and expressions, even share little snippets of your music.  You can share a photo, say “this is where I write most of my songs.”  You can share what you care to share and get people excited and involved.  Then, when you do have a new album, when you do have a signing party, when you do have a tour going on, you can let your fans know in a way that they’re going to be excited to tell other people and advocate for you.  Because you’ve spent most of your time just engaging with them as humans.  If you set up a Twitter account and every day, every Tweet just says, buy my album, buy my album, you’re not going to get any audience there.

Ariel: That’s totally right.  What would you do?  If you were a musician and you were coming to this site and you didn’t really have a lot of technological social networking know how?  What do you do?

Laura: Set up and account and use your brand name, your band, whatever name it is that you want people to be able to find and Google.  That’s very important.  Don’t just pick a name you like.  Whatever name you choose on Twitter it becomes very Google-able.  So the thing you want fans and prospective fans to find you as.  If you’re just starting out, you might use a generic like singer/songwriter or something.  But choose something you’re comfortable with, that you want to do well in search results and that’s the name you want to get out there.

Sign up.  Then go to the search page.  I think it’s search.twitter.com.  It’s that simple.  On the search page, start searching key words, words that are important to you, topics that you like to write about, words about the music you play, whether it be the genre or the instrument.  Even, gosh, if you want to really bond with other musicians just to start, you can even search the brand names of your band equipment.  Like your amplifiers are from so-and-so, you search that keyword, you’re going to find a bunch of other people who’ve made remarks about that word.  That gives you a jumping off point.  You can click in each of their profiles.  Remember how I said reading one to four pages of someone’s Tweets gives you a surprising accurate sense of their personality?  Just find random strangers that way and start following them and see if you have anything in common.  If you don’t, you just stop following.  That’s the way to find people with common interests.

As far as musicians themselves, I know if you ask Ariel or I’m sure you blogged this somewhere, there are a bunch of musicians who’ve done a great job on Twitter and they’re good to follow, just for their examples.  I think of Matthew [unintelligible].  I think of Samantha Murphy.  You may not know that Henry Rollins Twitters.  He doesn’t talk about music a lot, but man, that guy has a personality on him, as anyone knows.

Ariel: The other day I got the best.  I got a Twitter that someone had re-Tweeted, which you can do.  If you see something you like, you can post.  It said something like Henry Rollins just destroyed everything that was cool about him.  You went to the page and it was Henry Rollins who had Twittered folding laundry on my bed.  Just this image of this iconic man…

Laura: There you go.  Henry Rollins folds laundry, too.

Ariel: It was just hilarious.  I looked at it and cracked up.  If Henry Rollins can admit that he’s not promoting all the time…

Laura: Right, right.  So much in music is about generating a buzz, right?

Ariel: Yes.

Laura: The image that Henry Rollins admitted he was doing laundry made someone re-Tweet it, made you re-Tweet it, made you tell the story here.  It’s noteworthy, it’s interesting, it’s a funny story to tell.  So if you want people to talk about you, you need to give them things to talk about.

Ariel: That’s right.

Laura: That’s an example of one that’s memorable.  Certainly with somebody like Henry Rollins, he was huge.  But now pretty much just his devoted fan base remembers him and follows him and stuff like that.  So he’s able to kind of create new buzz and new information about him by just being him.  Which is pretty cool and that can still sell albums.

Ariel: It sure can.  They find a few people to follow using keywords.  Then what’s the protocol?  What should they say?  What should they do?  What’s the first step they should take?  What should they Tweet first?

Laura: Sure.  Here’s some jumping off points.  One, take some time and set up your profile properly.  Think about it this way.  You probably had a website made for your music and that either involved spending a bunch of money or hitting up a friend for a favor. You put a lot of thought into it and you really worked it out.  Well, here’s a chance to have a free website.  It’s not going to be as souped up as your own website, but put a little bit of time.  You can set up a static electronic image as your background, just single image, maybe an album cover, maybe a candid of you on the road.  Put up a good profile picture.  That’s the little, tiny square picture that goes next to all your messages.  If you’re in Twitter, you’ll see what I mean.  Write a couple things about yourself.  Make sure there’s a link to your web page.  Just get it all nicely set up so it looks cool when you get there.

As far as the first things to actually say and write, Twitter’s cue question, the jumping off point is, what are you doing.  That’s a fine thing to answer.  You can just say, “oh, I’m having lunch.  Oh, I’m meeting with a band.  Oh, we’re rehearsing.”  Especially because, as a musician, your life is thought of as very interesting by outsiders so just simply answering that will get you some cool stuff.  But I challenge you to maybe take a note here or write down a couple other questions you can think about answering.  One of the big things that I think we’re all doing on Twitter is that we’re answering and at the same time asking, “what do we have in common?”  I know I’ve gone into situations that I thought were fascinating and I’ve Tweeted, okay, I’m here and I’m doing this and I’m seeing this.  People are kind of like, “oh, that’s cool.”  But then I Tweet something really dumb like why do we all throw rocks into water.  Why is that so compelling?  And I get 40 replies because everybody knows that feeling of standing on the shore and just lobbing rocks into the water.  So it’s the things people can really identify with.

Here’s an anecdote that has good play into the music world.  This was specifically regarding promotion for a play in New York.  The person Twittering it was telling about the play and giving a link to buy tickets and saying, “yes, this is my client, but it’s a good play.”  I said, “look, I think a more effective approach would be to Tweet questions about the experience of going to a play.”  If you say, “what was the first play you ever went to?  Have you been to a Broadway show and which one?  What do you love about being in the theater? “, people are going to really engage with that and then you can still deliver the same content with the name of the play and the link to buy tickets.  But you’ve gotten people’s attention around it.  They have a reason to think about that experience and maybe even an urge to want to go see a play.  You can do the same thing with concerts, with albums, with whatever stuff you are talking about at the time.

Once you get to be a little more comfortable with the platform and a slightly more advanced user, or right away if you have good tech support, you can create something called a Widget.  A Widget is just a little box that can go on any website in the world that is going to contain all the Tweets you’re doing.  Because one point for a musician is you’re trying to use this to engage your audience and to share more with them.  They may not be on Twitter yet.  They probably aren’t on Twitter yet.  So rather than try and teach them about this new platform and make them go sign up and make them go log in, you can deliver all the stuff you’re sharing, the photos, the videos, the audio, the remarks, lyrics, whatever it is you’re producing on your own website using a Widget.

Ariel: And you can synch it with your status updates at FaceBook, which I think is an amazing little…

Laura: Exactly.  So Twitter almost becomes a little engine for generating content that can go anywhere else.  If you have one of those Widgets built, which they’re not expensive, there’s a ton of ways to do it for free, you just need a little tech know how, your fans can pick that up and put it on their own websites.  So, again, it becomes a way to help your fans help you and help them have a little piece of you to engage with, to have relationship with and spread the word about.

Ariel: Couple of questions.  First of all, how do we follow you?  Let us know.

Laura: I am Pistachio.  So all you have to remember is the nut and then you have to figure out how to spell it, which can be tricky.  But I’m Pistachio on Twitter and if you have any doubt about what I said about the search engine thing, pick a name that you want to be searchable, go to Google from anywhere in the world and search for the word Pistachio, which by the way, is a product, a nut, something people buy, lots of people selling them.  Nonetheless, I’m the third result.  Sometimes I’m number four or number seven.  But generally I’m behind Wikipedia and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  Just by interacting with people with that name, I’ve come to own that word in Google.  So, yes, please come follow me on Twitter.  I’ll warn you, I Tweet a lot, so follow a bunch of other people, too.

Ariel: Aside from Henry Rollins and Samantha Murphy and Matthew Ebolt(?), do you have any other creative people or people that stand out in your mind as people we could…

Laura: There are gobs and gobs of them and they’re going to be different from people’s specific genres.  So I can’t think of any other names offhand, but I would say use that search tool.  Sarah Burelis(?).

Ariel: That’s right.  I think she signed to Sony.

Laura: She’s kind of getting up to speed with it.  I wouldn’t say she’s an uber-user.  Henry Rollins is like he totally gets it.  Many people are on Twitter but don’t quite get how to use it to their advantage.  MTV did a promotion from the Music Awards almost over a year ago and it was cool, but it kind of fell flat because there wasn’t a lot of run-up to it and there was no follow-up after it.

Ariel: Yep, they used it.  That’s the incorrect use of Twitter.

Laura: Once you’ve built your network there, it is fantastic for organizing little flash mobs, getting extra people to come to your show.  It’s just such a great tool for that because people see the Tweet.  Oh, ten o’clock at the Orpheum?  Yeah, actually I’m around tonight.  Maybe I’ll run into town and see that.

Ariel: Thank you so much for your time.  I might be sending you a couple questions via e-mail.  If you don’t mind, I might want to include this in my new book that I’m doing.

Laura: That would be fantastic.  Quick little plug for most musicians starting out, just do this on your own.  If you have a lot of success and a lot of traction and you just don’t have time to go figure this out, this is exactly the kind of thing my business does now, is help people understand it, help set them up, help teach them how.  We don’t do it for you.  We will not outsource it and sort of write your blog for you.  But we can make it really easy and fun and show you ways to actually make money off doing it, not just do it for fun and general feel-good audience building.

Thank you so much.

A few weeks ago, I threw a book launch party for my friends, Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan to celebrate the launch of their new fabulous book, “The Indie Band Survival Guide,” published by St. Martin’s Griffin here in New York, and I was honored to be interviewed and prominently featured in the PR chapter. Weighing in at 329 pages, it is jam-packed full of incredible information.

“The Indie Band Survival Guide” is a book that all artists, independent or not, need to own.

Randy & Jason are founding members of the Chicago based independent band Beatnik Turtle, and this book started out as their blog where they chronicled their personal experience releasing a whopping 18 albums, touring, building a formidable following, and writing music for film and TV. This book was not motivated by money or a desire for fame. It came from the 12 years of experience as independent artists that they achieved directly by releasing albums, and as they learned along the way, they wrote it all down. As their lessons and experiences grew, so did their blog, and because of their blog a literary agent approached them, and they got a publishing deal.

It was very hard not to write a hundred page review of this book… Randy & Jason share exactly the same philosophies and opinions about the realities of the ‘new’ music business and their insights are striking and very important to understand to stay ahead during this wild west time of the music business.

When I started Ariel Publicity in 1996 there was ONE conversation that took place at all music festivals like SXSW and in my office and anywhere you went where there were musicians present. That conversation was: “How am I going to get signed?”

The first key point this book makes is: Back in the day when getting signed was the principal goal of all artists, the entire game was all about winning over just a few key record executives in the business. Today, the rules have completely changed and this is no longer true at all. It’s now the sole responsibility of the artist to take on what an entire staff used to do, and there is a lot to take on.

This book begins by reminding artists that you don’t have to do it all alone, and that technology is wonderful and helps empower artists, “but it’s not the technology that will get your music listened to, booked, distributed, played, seen, and publicized.” It’s people. People make things happen for musicians…

Here are some highlights that struck me:

- Randy & Jason take you through the myths and realities of old-school music business versus the new music business, including how commercial radio works and why independent artists will have to spend between $20,000 and $100,000 to get commercial radio airplay

- Why signing to a major label makes no sense in this day and age

- Why networking is key and how it doesn’t have to feel icky

- How to use your fans to help you network and get the word out about you

- People who have met you or seen you play live are likely to be in the minority of people who will listen to your music now that the Internet is the number one medium for music delivery

- The importance of a good website and why just having a MySpace page is a big mistake and how to plan it soup to nuts and how to make people return to your website over and over

- A complete guide to blogging and micro-blogging and the benefits

- The ins and outs of social networking

- How to create a CD, home studio versus pro studios, everything about CD manufacturing and merchandising with a complete bulleted list, which they provide so you don’t even have to think. You just have to follow the list and get your CD released

- Copyright laws and trademark your rights to the songs and recording in a handy flow chart that breaks down every aspect, from sampling to who pays you to trademark

- Why multi-tasking is totally necessary for artists in this day and age and why having multiple income streams is what will make you money in the long run.

- The death of the big splash - The new approach for releasing albums is slow and steady wins the race

- How to get booked at clubs and house concerts, charity events, festivals, college gigs and weddings

- How to get your fans to help you get the word out

This book is an indispensable goldmine and a must-have for every independent musician’s library. No matter what level you are at in your career, you need to own this fabulous book, The Indie Band Survival Guide.

Here is a free preview on their website: http://indiebandsurvivalguide.com

Don’t miss out on a chance to change your music career for $14.95 - buy this book today!

Amazon Link:
http://tinyurl.com/indieband

Check out photos from the release party on Flickr!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arielpublicitypr/

http://www.bounceradio.net

http://www.digivegas.com

Q: How long have you been broadcasting?

A: I’ve been broadcasting off and on for the past 20 years. I started at my college radio station in the late 80’s, then earning a BA in Radio, Television and Film. Since then I have worked in various capacities at radio stations, TV stations, recording studios, running live sound for musical theatre, corporate events and live music (my favorite of the three). I started podcasting in early 2006 with my show DigiVegas. (That’s where I got the name “Paulie Podcaster”) I started at bounce Radio in May of this year as a DJ, became Indie Music Director in July, and Program Director in late August.

Q: In your opinion, what does a good song need to consist of?

A: First, the instruments have to be in tune, and vocals have to be on key. I can’t tell you how many tracks I’ve rejected because the vocals are off key. It amazes me that people can’t, or refuse to, hear it, whether they are the vocalist, or involved in the musical project in some other way. You’re not doing the band any favors by telling the vocalist that he/she is on key when they are not. You’re wasting everyone’s valuable time and money.

Secondly, the song has to sound like it’s coming from the heart of the performer, not the head. I want to hear emotion, I want to hear the artist reaching out to me on that level. I don’t really want to hear calculated logic. If you simply must put your political or religious beliefs, or whatever, into song, give it to me on an emotional level. Tell me a little story about how it affects you emotionally.

Thirdly, no gratuitous language, sexism, violence, misogyny, etc. That’s my own personal opinion that does find it’s way into how I produce my show and program the station. I have a feeling I may not bee the only producer/programmer who feels this way.

Q: What is your favorite band or favorite genre of music and why?

A: I’ve always been a big fan of indie music, regardless of style or genre. I’ve always been a big fan of the underdog, the unsung hero. I get a kick out of finding some really cool band or song that no one else has heard of yet. I like to be the one to give it to people first, and even gloat a little bit when everyone else jumps on the bandwagon (”I was listening to these guys way back when…”. Either that, or I just don’t like being spoon-fed the music, being told by some corporation what I’m supposed to like simply because they say so.

Q: What changes in content laws, broadcasting rights, etc. have effected you most?

A: The biggest thing to affect me is reading in the news about how certain private citizens have been prosecuted for having a few “illegal” mp3’s on their hard drives. Remember that one where the mother was facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines and maybe even a prison sentence because her kids downloaded some “illegal” mp3’s? “It was her computer, she should have known and controlled what was going on with it” was the prosecutor’s argument. That’s complete B.S. IMHO. Lighten up people. Yes, piracy is wrong, and every artist should get paid for every copy of their work that’s made, but come on. Go after the right people.

I make sure I cover my behind… legally, that is. Bounce Radio is a fully licensed station and essentially, we can play anything we want. As far as the podcast is concerned, I have to be very careful to attain the artists’ permission before I play anything. I rely on services like Ariel, Podsafe Music Network, and even the direct, written permission of the artist before I play anything on my podcast. It’s one of the reasons I do an interview show. I highly doubt someone will turn on me and say they never consented to have their music on my show when they consented to an interview and sent me their tracks to play.

Q: A recent study found blogs to be more effective than MySpace in generating album sales, do you feel podcasts have the same power?

A: No. I might say that if this were 2005 or 2006. I feel as if podcasts run the risk of going the way of 8 track and cassette tapes if we’re not careful. I quickly discovered, after producing my own podcast for only a few months, that unless you were one of the fortunate ones who got in on it on the ground floor, like Adam Curry, Fr. Roderick, or C. C. Chapman, you were facing an uphill climb to get your podcast noticed. All too quickly, everybody and their brother was producing a podcast. There are now thousands and thousands of podcasts starting up, and fading, every day, offering a huge variety of content. It’s extremely difficult being a podcaster trying to stand out as a gem in a giant bin full of junk. It’s extremely difficult for the consumer these days to sort through all these podcasts to figure out what suits them. All too often they swing and miss, and get something of low quality, or content that doesn’t measure up to their tastes or standards.

Think about it, it takes time and effort to download a podcast. How likely is someone to take a chance on one they have never heard of before? After a few sessions of fruitless searches they give up on podcasting all together. That, I think, is causing podcasting to be passed over as a legitimate, viable, first tier medium. Sure, they will always be here, and they do serve their purpose, but I think they have quickly taken a back seat to more timely and immediate mediums such as streaming media, blogs, social networking sites, etc.

http://www.mevio.com
 

As the premier social media community, Mevio is the only network providing single-click access to the best in new media in audio, video, podcasts, and music to be delivered to your computer, iPod, mobile device, or television.
 

Q: What is the background story of how Mevio came along?
 

A: Mevio was originally Podshow. The company was founded by former MTV VJ Adam Curry and his business partner Ron Bloom.
 

In 2004 Adam had been messing around with audio blogging, before the term podcasting existed. He and Dave Winer were experimenting with adding enclosures to rss feeds and podcasting was born. Soon, podcasters were starting shows and shortly after, Podshow was started. They signed some of the early producers including my show (The Rock and Roll Geek Show), Dawn and Drew, Yeast Radio and some others.
 

Back then, people were playing whatever music they wanted on their shows. Then people started getting worried that the RIAA may not like that so Adam and some other creative minds started a place for bands who actually wanted to be heard on podcasts to post their music and The Podsafe Music Network was born. Shortly after, Adam and Ron asked me to quit my job as a house painter and work with artists on the network. 4 years later, it is THE place for bands, record labels and content creators to connect.
 

Q: What do you see the future of Mevio being?
 

A: I can’t speak for the entire company, since I only work on the music network but my goal is to have every record label, band and aritst on the network. I want independent content creators to have as much power in the music business as radio stations had in the good old days. It is my dream to have back catalog available to podcasters. I can’t speak for everyone but as a content creator, I want to play not only up and coming independent artists but also bands that were a part of the soundtrack of my life.
 

Q: What is your favorite band or favorite genre of music and why?
 

A: I am partial to 70’s rock and punk because that is what I grew up listening to. My favorite bands are still Cheap Trick, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Ramones and Joan Jett.
 

Q: What changes in content laws, broadcasting rights, etc. have affected you most?

A: When I reach out to some of the major labels to try to get their artists on the Podsafe Music Network, some of them still think that posting an mp3 on a website is piracy. The indies have been posting mp3s on their own websites for a few years not but the majors are a little harder to convince. That being said, the majors are now starting new media departments so there may still be hope for the dinosaurs.
 

The Podsafe Music Network now deals with some of the largest digital music distributors and independent labels in the world and I am really proud of that.
 

Q: A recent study found blogs to be more effective than MySpace in generating album sales, do you feel podcasts has the same power?
 

A: I think the labels are slowly realizing that by releasing a song from their artists to blogs and podcasts does more good than harm and can actually help break a band. For example, last year, there was a band from Australia called Airbourne. No one in the US or Europe had ever heard of them. I started playing them on The Rock and Roll Geek Show and listeners seemed to really like them. They emailed the band and let them know they discovered them from my show. Soon after that, got a CD from the band’s management and offered an interview with the band. I interviewed the band and continued to sing their praises. Now that band has taken the country by storm and has released one of the best selling independent hard rock records this year.

http://www.accidenthash.com
http://www.myspace.com/accidenthash
 

Boston based Accident Hash is the premiere independent music podcast to find the best mix in podsafe music. If you’ve never listened to a podcast it’s simple an MP3 file that you can listen to anytime you want. Accident Hash is usually a half hour of talk and music.
 

Q: Boston music listeners have been known to be a little finicky when it comes to their music – backtrack to the Run DMC remix of “Walk This Way” scandal which was originally by Aerosmith. What do you think Boston listeners want to hear and why?
 

A: I don’t see this as just a Boston thing. Music fans are passionate about what they listen to and love and are not afraid to tell anyone about it. Most music fans want to hear the latest track by the favorite band and to discover new tunes that fit into that which they love. A fan in one area of the country is not that different then another in my mind. It is all about the love of music.
 

Q: Why do you podcast? And do you think it’s a good idea for artists to invest energy in promoting their music via podcasting networks?
 

A: I always liked being the guy who found a new song and had to tell everyone about it. Podcasting gave me an outlet where I could do that on a global scale and that excited me. From the first one up to today, every time an artist or fan drops me an e-mail excited over a track I played I get a renewed energy to keep doing what I’ve been doing for almost 4 years.
 

Artists should certainly invest energy into promoting their music on any channel that allows them more exposure and podcasting is a great tool for this. By making a track(s) available on sites such as the PodSafe Music Network, IODA or others it opens up the possibility of being heard by people that might not find them in any other way. This doesn’t mean that they can just upload a track and then do nothing. They still have to actively promote themselves either on their own or through a company or individual working on their behalf. Sure, luck plays a little bit into it, but hard work is not replaceable.
 

Q: What, personally, is your favorite genre to play?
 

A: I LOVE it when a hard rocking band strips it down and plays a loud track acousticly. I always loved MTV Unplugged when it was on beause you could instantly tell the real artists from the people who only sounded good in a studio. I’m a sucker for a solid acoustic track. If not that, then anything that I can put the top down and crank as I fly down the high way gets me going.
 

Q: What other social media ventures do you have besides podcasting?
 

A: I co-founded a digital marketing agency called The Advance Guard in 2007 that focuses on building marketing programs using emerging technologies so it is crucial that I at least have a foot in whatever the cool new pool at the moment is so that I can understand it for my clients. I’ve also been blogger for just over 6 years now and I’m an avid photographer and lover of Flickr.
 

Q: Your pretty big on twittering. How do you feel Twitter has helped your podcast?
 

A: Twitter allows me to stay connected to fans, bands and to meet new people that I can introduce my podcasts to. Besides Accident Hash I also do a new media focused one called Managing the Gray and a lot of my target audience for that show uses Twitter as well.

http://weheartmusic.vox.com
http://www.myspace.com/weheartmusik
 

WeHeartMusic.com is a music blog composed of 30 music fans. They feature artists’ songs to stream to their readers, and include artists’ bios.
 

Q: How do you keep up with all the news in the music industry to put in your blog?
 

A: We actually get a ton of music-related news (mostly tour announcements), that I actually started a ‘news’ sister website - site.weheartmusic.com - that compiles press material. What’s interesting is that it’s indexed and searchable as soon as it appears on the front page.
 

If you’re a news junkie, you can usually find all the latest information about bands and touring information, directly from the source. This website is also the place to find out which bands we’re going to cover under “albums” and “assignments” page.
 

Q: How much work goes into producing and maintaining a successful blog?
 

A: I always tell people that you must produce content everyday, so you will need to at least spend 3-4 hours to write one long-form article. If you’re a music blog, I also recommend writing about music outside your normal genre, try not to pigeonhole yourself. Our most successful articles are usually not entirely about music (although it’s usually grounded in music).
 

Q: What are you looking forward to seeing/hearing at the Pitchfork Music Festival this year?
 

A: So, this came and went, and looks to be pretty successful. I did mention about Pitchfork’s Festival prior to the event, but not for the bands that were playing. I just really admire how all this came together by a company that’s not the traditional media. Yet somehow, they have enough readers and followers that they are able to pull in the crowd to create this event every year.
 

In an article last May, Rolling Stone editor Nathan Brackett dismissed Stereogum and Pitchfork… say what they do aren’t writing. Sure, Rolling Stone is still a media gorilla, but let me ask you, if you talk to any young person today, what is the chance that they read Rolling Stone? They are most likely to get their news from a music blog, such as Pitchfork. Plus, when was the last time you heard Rolling Stone putting together a music festival?
 

Q: What musical change are you hoping to see in the industry this year?
 

A: Right now, you still can’t ignore traditional media, but I think you’re starting to see influences heading more online. Personally, I would love to see MP3s used as marketing/promotional devices to help drive sales of concert tickets and merchandises. I still very much prefer to have a physical CD or vinyl.
 

Q: How many artists do you review weekly?
 

A: I personally write about an artist seven days a week, at the very least. Combined that with my other writers, we produce about 50 articles a month, usually spotlighting very different music genres since everyone brings in their music taste.

http://pool88.typepad.com/my_weblog
 

Pool 88 is a Vancouver-based blog, named after a tranquil river pool in North Vancouver where the author grew up.
 

Q: Besides music what are some of your favorite pastimes and hobbies?
 

A: In addition to music, my main pastime is running. I’m currently training for my fourth marathon. I also enjoy the outdoors: swimming in the river or the ocean, cycling, hiking and trail running, and cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. I enjoy TV, movies, reading, and hockey, and am currently trying to master Guitar Hero on my Wii — I’ve almost completed the ‘medium’ level!
 

Q: What made you want to become a critic of music?
 

A: I have been passionate about music since my high-school years and have seen so many great concerts: the first one was Queen! When I started my blog, I simply wanted to create a record of the shows that I saw with my impressions — so I can remember and so I can spread the word when I see something special. I comment occasionally on records, but it’s mostly live performances — and awards shows: I really enjoy critiquing awards shows!
 

Q: In your personal opinion, what do you think makes a good artist a great artist?
 

A: I’d say the biggest thing that makes a good artist a great artist is authenticity. Having a true commitment to your music and your message is something that shines through, no matter what the genre. In live settings, I think the artists who are most successful are the ones who can find a way to connect with their audience on any given night and avoid the trap of playing every gig exactly the same.
 

For example, last summer, I was so impressed when Stephen Stills talked about what he’d read in the local newspaper that day, and was able to connect some of those stories to his old protest songs from the 60s: it gave extraordinary relevance to a show by a veteran artist and reminded us that those struggles are far from over.
 

Q: From your site we can see that you are interested in various genres, from Country to Pop. But what is your favorite genre of music to listen to and review?
 

A: I really do like all genres of music: I am such a ‘consumer’ of music that I always like to hear things that are fresh, no matter what the style. I prefer live instruments over synths and samples, which is one reason that I’ve been listening to a lot of country lately. In the past, I have been more of a rocker — Bon Jovi is still a favorite — but I have lots of guilty pleasures in pop music, especially up-tempo songs that are powerful for running. When I’m relaxing, my taste runs towards folk, jazz, and classical.
 

Q: What do you absolutely hate to hear on an artist’s CD?
 

A: These days, Timbaland (booo, Madonna!) I’m not a fan of his production style, and to me all his material sounds essentially the same. I also have a hard time with the misogyny and glorification of violence in a lot of hip-hop…and some rock. Women tend to be treated very well in country songs, and I appreciate that!

http://www.radiodos84.com
http://www.eixordador.com
 

L’eixordador Internet Radio plays the best in new releases of pop, rock, indie and electro music.
 

Q: Do you have a bigger Spanish based audience or English?
 

A: L’eixordador has two different audiences. Audiences can listen through the Live365 network, these people come basically from the United States (about 35%) followed by Spain (about 20-22%) and the rest come to the music channel from UK and Germany equally (we can’t forget other countries with some listeners like Mexico, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands or Australia). On the other hand we can find the people that are subscribed to the podcast and radio listeners. Here you can find the difference. The feed subscribers are basically Spanish (70%) followed by American subscribers (about 14-15%), Austrian (2%) and British (2%). The rest (11-12%) comes basically from other countries of Europe).
 

Q. How long have you been playing music?
 

A. Since 1997. The radio show started as a local hard rock show but after some changes over the years the show has finished being a mixture of pop, indie and electronic.
 

Q: What type of music, genre, do you enjoy playing?
 

A: Lately, and the subscribers of the podcast can confirm that, I love to play artists and DJ’s defined in the latest edition of the Sonar festival as bastardism: all those bands that play indie mixed with electro under house or funky beats but you can’t put them on the genre of “indie” or “alt rock” or “electronica” or something else. Good, but different… The music channel in its rotation is a bit different, it’s open to general audience, playing better known artists for the general masses and well known genres.
 

Q: Why do you play music?
 

A: I’m playing music for the pleasure to discover new sounds, through unsigned artists to independent labels or netlabels. There are thousands of artists ready to being discovered, knowing one artist is the best way to know another one which can share his/her music with the rest of the world. Look at MySpace or Last.fm for example, this is a great way to discover a lot of amazing music. Feeling the vibe is the reason to play music.
 

Q: What is your goal for L’Eixordador.com?
 

A: The goal for L’eixordador.com is promoting new music, from the major label artists to unsigned artists, only with one condition: good quality work. We appreciate the compositions a lot that give us a good feeling, a well structured composition showing us something fresh and new. Trying to get a comfortable environment for the listeners who loves the music and the new tendencies.