http://cbcantor.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/cowboycantor
Cowboy Cantor is a podcast run by a Portuguese music teacher. Its the only podcast around the island of S. Miguel, in the Azores islands, Portugal. The show’s aim is to share the greatest free mp3s found on the Internet, in the artist’s own sites, their label sites, or in many other mp3 sites that offer free music. That way, besides providing their listeners with the best music. It’s all done with love and in the name of independent music.
Q: What has to be done in the technological sense to monetize music to a greater degree on the internet?
A lot of different things have been happening on the Internet with music. From stores with d.r.m. files, to free music. From the Creative Commons to pay what you want. From file sharing on chats to illegal peer to peer clients. We meet everyday new ways of promoting music and selling it. It is fact, legal or illegal, Internet is the most effective way of getting an artist to be known. Labels and artists should keep that in mind, and work on it. F.M. and A.M. radios, television, newspapers and magazines still have a word to say on this process, but Internet is vital these days for music promotion.
One can not tell what will happen next, but I believe artists, labels, agencies and all music companies will keep on working in how to get the most benefit of the Internet.
Q: Where do you see the next trend in social media? What else can be done in terms of having an online conversation? What is the next “What are you doing?” question?
While some artists only release their music in digital format, some artists still prefer having hard releases of their music. There even artists that are coming back to the vinyl L.P.’s. That is difficult to know exactly how will social media trend be in a near future. Some artists still ask for a postal address to send their music on physical formats, others ask for the e-mail address to send mp3. Instant messaging software is used in some cases. While some people start using new ways of trading music and files over the Internet, others still go for the traditional. There will always different ways of sharing music. Obviously e-mail and on-line file hosting is the most effective and fast. But if we want quality, get physical.
With on-line conversation getting easier and easier, getting each day more usual, and with the possibility of having no frontiers in what concerns distance, some day I will receive an e-mail from an Australian artist asking “what will you do tomorrow 6 p.m? Is it a good time for an interview?” The problem is that 6 p.m. in Australia is 6 a.m. in the Azores islands. “What are you doing?” is a question with lots of possibilities. The easiness of communication will lead us to have our regular schedules changed, so that we can follow a friend on the other side of the world.
Q: What inspired you to start broadcasting/blogging? Is that still your source of motivation?
First of all, the obvious love for radio and communication. Then, the wish of discovering and sharing new and independent sounds. Major label artists have their own way of promoting their music. They have contracts that involve money in promoting their music on mainstream radios and television. Local radio stations don’t promote new music, only major label artists. That is not wrong, as there are lots of major label artists that are my favourites. But independent music has greater artists to discover, then some artists that are played on local radios here. Promoting new music doesn’t mean only playing seven times a day, for tree of four months, songs from the new album of Bob Dylan, one of the greatest composers and poem writers of all time, but playing international new hits and also new artists.
Because most major label artists don’t write their own music, and when they write, they have to submit the music to be reviewed by the label, I look for artists that compose and sing in the way they want. I look for artists that don’t have to write 25 songs in two years. I look for artists that create music as they feel like creating it, and not imposed by editors, producers and managers.
Cowboy Cantor started as a podcast for independent artists, and still is a place to listen to good independent music. The quality of this podcast is not the way I produce each show, or set the playlist for each week. The quality of this show depends on independent music that I found. Each week I found new fantastic artists, and that gives me more and more motivation for recording each Sunday night a new show, to be launched during the evening, and giving my listeners every Monday the finest 7 track selection of independent music.
Watching the podcast’s statistics, and the subscriber’s lists, I am very proud of my little Internet place. Maybe small numbers, comparing to the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast on iTunes, but they are growing. My students also come to me from time to time and make some nice comments about the music I play. Also, the recent entry on the Association of Music Podcasting and on the iTunes podcast directory, gives me more motivation to keep on doing Cowboy Cantor as it is.
Q: What are some things bands can do to get your attention to be featured on your broadcast/blog? Do you ever cover a band that you are not particularly fond of musically?
I am listening to M.T.V. at the moment. I stopped because I was listening to the new song of Franz Ferdinand. I looked to the television and I saw a different band name. It is not Franz Ferdinand, is another band that sounds exactly like them. That is the problem of the majority of mainstream music today. Everything sounds like what listened before and will listen next.
For Cowboy Cantor I search for artists with new ideas, that don’t sound to similar to what we listen on mainstream radios and television. The music I play is the music I like to listen. I never play music that I don’t like, even if I know some of my listeners will.
I play mainly rock and indie rock. If we consider Cyber P.R. artists that I have been featuring these last months, we will see that I play different styles of music. Recently I played Dare Dukes, 46Bliss, Clara Bellino, Lisa Bianco, Officer Roseland, Puppetbox, Chrissy McChouglin, amongst others. I still have to play Omar Alexander, Doug Cash, Spy For Hire, and recently I have added to my playlist Jessie Murphy In The Woods.
Lyrics have an important part on the quality of the song to be played on my podcast. Take Sorry Simon, by Jonny Dongel, a pure rock n’ roll song. It goes “I won’t fall for your ploy, for your sick and twisted joy, I know I’ not your idol, Sorry Simon”. This is about Simon from American Idol, and the way he talks about the way people sing. Then there is this song Prime Numbers, by The Two Gentlemen Band, a mix of country and rag time music. Some girl has prime numbers on her body measurements, and the lyrics go “My baby’s got prime numbers. That means she’s only divisible be one, and that one is gonna be me”. A part from the lyrics, the music must have intensity, suspense, different parts, changes of sound intensity and rhythm, and if it holds me for the initial 60 seconds, and makes me want to listen to the song again, I will play it on my podcast. It doesn’t matter if the keyboard sounds like Coldplay, or the guitar like U2. As long as it has energy and the artist own touch, it is a potential song for Cowboy Cantor.
I record each show of my podcast sited on a chair, but most of the time I feel like recording it jumping and dancing on the room. The majority of the music I play, even slow music, makes me want to be travelling around the room, feeling the music on each movement of my body. That is one thing I look for on a song. It has to make me want to move.
I started my podcast back in January 2006. That time I played tracks with two or tree years old. Today I still listen to some songs I played on 2006 and it still feels like a recent song. That is because the artist was not looking for a song that sounded like the hits of that time, but was looking for a unique sound, not found on anywhere else.
Besides the musical requirements, there are the legal questions. I only play songs under the Creative Commons License or podsafe music. Even if I download a track from a podsafe site, like Ariel Publicity, I try to contact the artists to let them know that I intent to play their music. Before playing the tracks I refer to, I wait for an answer from the artist, manager or label. I do everything in the maximum security, just to ensure that I am playing legal music. Also, having a small answer, even if it is “yes, go for it”, shows some respect for podcasting and interest on having their music played on podcasts. I have so many great tracks on my waiting folder that I haven’t played yet, because I haven’t got any answer from the artist, label or manager. And of course, I don’t play major label artists. Only independent or artists with no label.
If I have enough songs of the artist, on c.d. or mp3, and I really like it, this artist is selected to be the artist of the month on my podcast. That means at least one, if enough tracks available, two tracks played on each show during the month.
My musical horizons are wide open. I listen to a lot of different style of music, I may play a song that doesn’t fit the usual style of music that I play, but I never play a song that I don’t find anything on it interesting. For example, because I did an interview to a local heavy-metal drummer, and we talked about Ahab, a doom metal band, I contacted the band to see if I could play the track The Hunt. That is not obviously the style of music I play on Cowboy Cantor, and not the kind of music I listen everyday, but that song was very intense and dramatic. It was a nice experience I did.
Q: Will major labels ever be the gatekeepers again, or have they lost all of their power to the internet forever? Can they somehow return to prominence?
As long as radio, television, music magazines keep on preferring major label artists, instead of promoting some great independent artists, major labels will always be in the top. Illegal sharing communities may not bring any money benefit to labels directly, but having some tracks on a peer-to-peer community will certainly help to promote the artists, and of course the label. As the most Internet users still log in to illegal sharing applications, instead of listening to independent podcasts and podsafe music, major labels will always be the top labels. I will be very surprised if I log in to a file sharing application, and after searching for Puppetbox, I get thousands of files, as if I was looking for the new Green Day album. Independent artists and labels still not have a place on the majority of music communities. However, Internet radios and podcasts have been helping independent artists and labels to get noticed. In Portugal, for example, this year will have some artists that we can find at IODA Promonet, or Podsafe Music Network, performing at some major music festivals.
I believe that independent podcasts have a word to say on promoting independent artists. Unfortunately some artists don’t recognise the effort we do. When I ask permission to play a track, I don’t expect a thank you message. I just expect a “yes”. Podcasting a track is good for the podcast, because it gives quality to the show, and good for the artist, because the show will add some more listeners to the artist.
Click to continue...
The Indie Maximum Exposure List is Ariel Hyatt’s manifesto on how indie musicians can realistically profit from Web 2.0 & social media.