SHAREWARE MUSIC MACHINE: Shareware is one of the Internet's best-kept secrets that isn't really secret, just ignored by commercial music software companies. But most of the stuff you would like to do on your computer can be done for cheap (or sometimes even free) with shareware software available online. While Shareware.com and TuCows.com are great sites for general software, the Hit Squad hosts Shareware Music Machine (http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/) for musicians. Included on the site are over 2600 music software titles (including audio editors, CD burners, midi sequencers, music notation and more).
MUSES MUSE: The Muse's Muse website (www.musesmuse.com) is loaded with reviews and resources for indie musicians. They generate a monthly email newsletter that musicians can subscribe to, and post regular tips, links, reviews and industry info. They regularly review indie CDs - check the site for submission info.
SONGWRITING CONTEST: The Belham Valley Songwriting Contest continues on with prizes ranging from $500 to $50,000. Belham Valley Records was established in 1993 on the Island of Montserrat, West Indies, famous for Air Studios, where countless recording artists such as The Police, Elton John, and Paul McCartney made albums over the years. More recently, the Island became famous for its huge volcano which began erupting in the summer of 1995 and is continuing to empty the island of its inhabitants. The contest has an interesting deadline: none. After they have received 15,000 entries they close that round, judge amongst those entries, while starting up a new round (closed only when another 15,000 entries is received). That means it raises $300,000, while awarding only $150,000 in prizes. The contest host (http://www.thesupersites.com/artscontest/index.html) claims to donate a percentage of the profits to music foundations and music scholarship funds, but since relocating their studio to Hawaii perhaps it might be nice for Belham Valley Studios to give the rest to the volvcano-ravaged refugees of Montserrat.
KISS YOUR COMPUTER: Time Warner's Entertaindom.com has launched their "Be Immortal With KISS" sweepstakes, giving a winning fan the chance to become an animated guest star in the weekly KISS Immortals Webisodes (go to http://www.entertaindom.com/kiss.html). KISS Immortals is the first (and last?) 3-D animated Web series to star a major rock n' roll band. Through March 31st fans can enter the "Be Immortal With KISS" sweepstakes, but can only view the web-series if they use a PC (Macs not allowed!).
ARTISTENT.COM: Danny Goldberg's Artemis Records (Kittie, Kurupt, and Warren Zevon) has launched ArtistEnt.com, with content personally created by the artists themselves, including Sugar Ray, Rosanna Arquette (whose show, "Under the Rainbow," a weekly Internet radio/webcam interview program, will debut with an hour-long conversation between her and former beau Peter Gabriel), Peter Wolf and Todd Rundgren. Each of the core artists involved with ArtistEnt will be producing a minimum of a half hour of original content each week.
Rundgren's PatroNet sells subscriptions to fans, supporting artists directly and allowing them to create without big-label commercial expectations. Goldberg adds, "PatroNet is particularly useful to so-called 'cult' artists who have an impassioned fan base but for whom the traditional record business is uneconomical. With PatroNet, an artist who would make nothing selling 25,000 albums, can be well compensated by delivering music directly to their fans." ArtistEnt.com will also hold the U.S. digital downloading rights to Artemis Records whose current roster includes Kurupt, Steve Earle, Kittie, Warren Zevon, Cindy Bullens Bthe Spooks.
MUSICNOTES: Musicnotes.com is an Internet site that delivers sheet music to thousands of titles directly to your PC. The site utilizes proprietary technology to download pages of sheet music from top publishers, with free samples available for listening and viewing before online purchase and download. Search by composer, performer, title, keyword, style, or even snippets of lyrics. The viewer is free, the interactive player is free, and the transactions are secure. Downloads from Musicnotes.com are completed in as little as four seconds.
INDUSTRY NEWS WEBSITES: A group of affilliated sites are popping up, each offering pro music industry info on different genres. The Music Industry News Network (www.mi2n.com), the main site of the bunch, contains info on bands, labels, new releases and events. Sister sites include MusicDish (a music industry magazine), Black Hole (a street music magazine) and 'LA'Ritmo.com (a Latin music magazine).
MORE MUSIC LISTS:
MUSIC VIDEO SHOWS: Rock Candy Music Video Show is looking for videos from unsigned bands to air on their show. Based in Vacaville, California, they are currently cablecast in several Northern California cities. The monthly one-hour show features top name bands that perform Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, and Glam, but they also feature one unsigned band on their "Rising Stars" segment of the show. If you would like to get your video on Rock Candy, check out the Rock Candy's Unsigned Bands Page at http://members.aol.com/RockCandyz/index.html, email RockCandyz@aol.com (or snailmail: Rock Candy, 142 S. Orchard Ave, Vacaville, CA 95688).
SECONDCD: SecondCD.com is a new online CD e-commerce site. They seem to specialize in used CDs, buying and selling (at 50% of retail). They also offer indie music, and will distribute indie CDs from the site (in a consignment program). For $20 you can register your title, and get a free web page (go to the site for info). They use CCNow.com for online payments, a service that anyone can use on their sites (CCNow lets you use their secure Credit card system for online purchasing, and charges sellers only 9% per transaction).
WEBTIPS: Boxing GandhisI recently got an email from Eric Fowler, singer/songwriter/guitarist of the Boxing Gandhis. Regular readers of the LA Times Calendar section might remember the expose on the music industry published last year, including the tale of the Boxing Gandhis tour promoting their 2nd major-label album. Their label pulled the plug, without telling the band, mid-tour, and the band found themselves unsupported at music stores, radio stations and press promotion. Eric wrote to talk about labels attempts to take over all web rights of new and existing bands (something I also wrote about here recently). My theory, also mentioned recently in this space, bands that have had a record or two on a major are best positioned for the Internet and indie sales. After benefitting from "branding" by major labels and their promotion machine, and finding a small but loyal audience (too small for a major label, but large enough for a self-produced indie band), the band, now on its own, is poised to benefit from the world-wide reach of the Internet.Eric writes: "Long story short, Boxing Gandhis went ahead and registered our own domain (www.boxinggandhis.com), put together a site with MPs's, linked commerce to it, are in the process of self-producing our 3rd album and will undoubtedly release that on our own label. Why anyone would sign with a major label and give them anything but the priviledge of financing a video and providing worldwide distribution is beyond me. " "Lastly, getting a deal is not what it's about, especially in this day in age where the "mafia" record companies are staring their own demise in the face in the form of the internet, and Mp3 etc.... I have been waiting for this day for a long time as have many musicians. I've never payed to play, unless you coun't making records for a Major Label pay to play.........I know I do. Not too many people feel sorry for the labels and how Mp3 technology is going to impact their stranglehold on the business, but if artists allow them to add web presence into the equation this stranglehold might remain." Good rant and good advice. |
© 2000 Music Connection Magazine.