Indie Bands Get a Shot At Becoming Rock Band Famous

The Rock Band Network music store is officially live. Will it be the greatest thing to happen to indie music since iTunes? Let’s have a look.

For all you kids not in the know, the Rock Band Network is the newest incarnation of the Xbox Rock Brand, er Band franchise. Network allows bands to put their songs on Rock Band 2. And not just big name artists. Using development tools provided by Rock Band, all indie bands can now, theoretically, have their songs available for sale, download, and play at the Network music store. Here’s how it works:

The Investment

Over 100 songs have been uploaded by music labels to the Rock Band Network, and unknown indie bands have the opportunity to expose their projects. So far, established bands have taken the spotlight, but this is a great outlet for unsigned bands to gain funding and get more fans.

Rock Band Network has allowed independent and unsigned bands to submit their own songs for users to download since mid-January. The offer is  for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game with the intention of providing the most downloadable tracks to Nintendo’s Wii moving forward.

Indie bands can price their songs between 50 cents and $3, netting 30% of track sales. Users of the game will be able to preview songs before they purchase on the Rock Band Network store.

Featured Blog:

Writer C.W. Ross’s Blog
http://writercwross.wordpress.com/

This blog combines C.W. Ross’ three previous blogs (see below) into a one stop shop for information, commentary, interviews and reviews for a wide variety of Indie and Christian music.
Indie Music Stop- IndieMusicStop.com
The CD Reviewer- TheCDReviewer.com
Christian Rockers Online- ChristianRockersOnline.com

Featured Podcast:

Name: RootMusic

Quick Pitch: RootMusic is all about making musicians’ professional lives better, be it through building software or building community.

Genius Idea: RootMusic’s debut product is called BandPage, and it makes MySpace-like band page features possible inside a Facebook fan page.

At present, Facebook fan pages are laid out in such a way that you can’t share your music with your fans while letting them continue to browse for information. You can deploy a music player tab, but as soon as your fans click on the Photos tab to see pictures of your band, the music stops.

Never believe in overnight successes. They’re like the tooth fairy. They’re make-believe. How many times have you heard about the struggling actress who moves to Hollywood and bumps into the guy at the coffee shop who happens to know a producer at Miramax? Then bam! The next week, she’s on the set of the next Quentin Tarantino flick.

Or how about the starry-eyed rapper who’s desperate to be the next MTV sensation? So he starts free-styling on the street one day at just the moment that the head A&R rep at Jive happens to be walking by. Next thing, he’s working on his own major label album.

You’ve probably noticed already that in the real world, things don’t usually happen that way. The overnight success is and always will be a myth. The big reason is that there’s too many layers of complexity between an idea and a real world end result.

BandCentral will be showcasing at two of spring’s highest profile Music-tech events – Music 4.5 in London on March 4^th, and the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator event at SXSW Interactive 15-16^th March, 2010.

Following on from their recent success in the MidemNet lab, BandCentral are one of 8 companies who will battle it out in the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator program to be crowned “Most Innovative” company in the entertainment sector. Having been pipped to the post by Holland’s Sellaband at the recent Eurosonic Interactive Company of the year awards, BandCentral have their sights firmly set on first prize. Fellow nominees include: Amulet Devices, AnyClip, Are You Watching This, Gendai Games, Khush, Pocket Tales and ShopSavvy.

Featured Blog:
Bring Me Up
http://scrink.com/

Christy runs a periodic blog features stories from her life and about music. She welcomes all promotions and bands wanting reviews written.  She also review books.

Featured Podcast:
Family Movie Night Podcast
http://fmnpodcast.com/

Intermixed in our review of family friendly current releases will include some old classics from childhood like BMX Bandits, Flight of the Navigator, Godzilla the Final Wars and Gremlins to see how they hold up for the next generation.

Are you too lazy to blog? Are you sick of everyone telling you that without an updated blog you are not a band? Does blogging feel like a huge, annoying, and daunting task that is evocative of being a kid again being assigned homework?

Well, fear not. I’ve got a great and easy blogging solution! at Flickr

They say a picture says a thousand words, and it’s true.

This issue of Sound Advice will walk you through yet another handy dandy Web 2.0 site that is on my top 10 list of sites to join. I am In Love with Flickr! It’s one of the most user-friendly Web 2.0 sites and it’s owned by Yahoo so millions of potential new fans are waiting for you to discover them and make friends. Flickr works in many ways just like MySpace or Facebook. You create a profile, upload your main image, join groups, and make friends, and you can also direct message people and leave comments on any photo you like.

Photos Tell A Complete Story of YOU!

When I first meet with artists I often ask this simple question: What did you do for your career today? Because I’m well aware that by the time they talk to me, many feel overwhelmed and have already retreated into a mindset of excuses–I only have so much time so it’s not worth it or it’s already late or I’m burnt out. But excuses don’t help you at all.

That’s not to say feeling overwhelmed is unreasonable. The music business is intimidating once you begin to look at the business aspects and everything that you need to do to become self sufficient as well as effective and productive, but there’s a little secret people don’t know: the little stuff can be just as important as the big stuff. It’s about forward motion, and forward motion can take place in the smallest snatches of free time. Whether you’re waiting for someone else to do vocals on a recording before you mix or you’re waiting on a tech guy or girl to set up your website, there’s always stuff that can be done.

A simple checklist can include:

Updating a networking site.

Adding friends to a networking site.

Researching new venues or contacting a new venue.

Researching new review sites or magazines and/or sending to them.

Researching booking agents and/or contacting them.

Researching new management companies and/or contacting them.

Researching hotels or places to stay for tours and adding them to your database.

Supernova.com is a community that grew out of the largest Battle of the Bands operator in Canada, and into the ‘web 2.0’ world by building the most active Canadian social community dedicated to music. They currently have over 21,000 independent bands and artists, and over 200,000 total community members including fans and industry.

The site’s mantra is to provide new / undiscovered musicians with the same caliber of experience as a rockstar would get.

The Battle of the Bands shows put these young acts up on big stages, provide professional sound and staffing, and DO NOT take any payment from the bands. Instead, they front all the costs and provide bands with the tickets to sell (or return, if unsold). They also coordinate industry and media attendance at the events, and have seen some really impressive acts play on our stage: Billy Talent, Sum 41, Three Days Grace and many others have played the Supernova stage.

Featured Blog:

Baxojayz-Centricity

http://www.baxojayz.com/

Find out about anything in the universe worth mentioning in this weblog. The infinite knowledge of the BAXOJAYZ will guide you to happiness previously known only by those of my inner circle. Feel free to comment. Sit back, read, let go of your stresses and enjoy.

Featured Podcast:

One rule people:

The Size Of Your E-mail List = The Size Of Your Income

So, how big is yours?

Myth: I don’t have any shows to promote. Therefore, I’m not going to do a newsletter.

Reality: 50% or more of the artists that I work with don’t have any shows to promote. Zero, zilch, none…and they still want to be artists in the world getting their music out and heard and liked and listened to (why in the heck would you hire me if you did not want your music out there?).

1. The Definition of Publicity - First, we are going to start out with the very basics–some definitions of what publicity is exactly. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Publicity – “An act or device designed to attract public interest; specifically: information with news value issued as a means of gaining public attention or support. Also: The dissemination of information or promotional material.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Publicity is EXACTLY these things.

A music publicist is hired as a member of your team to represent you to the media. Media is defined traditionally as editors and writers at newspapers, magazines, dailies, weeklies, monthlies, college newspapers, and television. Some publicists may also cover radio for interviews on tour stops, but if you want to get on the radio charts (like CMJ), you will need a radio promoter. Some publicists also cover Internet PR, like my company, but not all traditional publicists do! A publicist’s job is to liaise with the press. They are not hired to get you a booking agent or gig, a label deal, a distribution deal, or any other type of marketing deal. That is what a manager is for. They will not get you played on radio, either. This is what a radio promoter is for. A well-connected publicist, however, may be able to hook you up with all of the abovementioned things, but it is not in her job description.