Indie on Air! & Music in Action w/ host “Classic”

The Voice of Independent Music featuring industry professionals & great indie music.
Indie on Air! broadcasts live every Friday 12:30pm CST from Chicago via the BlogTalkRadio platform
Music in Action broadcasts live every other Wednesday 2:00pm CST from Chicago via the BlogTalkRadio platform
Both shows are available 24/7 as an archive immediately following the live broadcasts.

Q) Tell us a little bit about your Internet radio show. What inspired you to start it?

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. It’s all done with love and in the name of independent music.

Q) What can artists do to make money on the internet?

A) 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. Everyday we meet 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 with 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.

Happy holidays, everybody!

Click on the album cover to download or stream Hark to the Buzz! this year’s BEST indie holiday album!

It’s a big month for Gighive. We launched our indie music directory on the 7th, and we’ve also been working on putting together our first playlist, Hark to the Buzz! Indie artists from around the world have submitted their holiday songs for this festive compilation showcase, and the entries have been AMAZING!

The Century of Self Up For Best Pop/Rock Album & Best Album Packaging Design (which is courtesy of Trail’s very own Conrad Keely!)

The Century of Self was released in February 2009 on the band’s Richter Scale Records imprint via Justice Records and earned them raves from the media. Spin gave the album 4 stars and wrote “…these Texans gracefully balance the dynamic alt rock of 2002’s Source Tags & Codes with their more recent multimovement epics” while USA Today said “…Self’s shambolic guitars, punishing beats, nervous energy and striking choral arrangements add up to an intriguing aural experience” and New York’s Vulture Blog called the album “…epic….”

Q: Tell us a little bit about your blog. What inspired you to start it?

I have been toying with the idea behind Hummingbyrd Sings for a while: namely, creating a place where the independent artistic community can come together, engage with one another and share ideas that will improve their experiences as artists.

The very nature of ‘independent’ means being on the cutting edge of an ever-changing arena. That means bands need to create a story – a brand – in order to build a following. It’s no longer enough to say, “I’m Indie” and think that’s it. Indie is breaking the mold. If the industry is changing, Indie artists should be at the forefront blazing the trail to take the industry to the next level.

Third Eye Blind is giving fans a sneak peak of their full-length album, Ursa Major, on their Myspace profile  due out Aug. 18 on Mega Collider Records.

Taking advantage of online marketing techniques while entering the independent music world, Third Eye Blind has encompassed the self-marketing operations for their first indie album.

After 3 best-selling CD releases, Third Eye Blind has decided to utilize the independent music movement for their fourth release, Ursa Major.

Already taking advantage of online marketing techniques while entering the independent music world, Third Eye Blind, has set a date for their first indie album, which is Tuesday, August 18th. The album is titled Ursa Major and will be released under the Mega Collider Records label.

After 3 best-selling CD releases, Third Eye Blind has decided to utilize the independent music movement for their fourth release, Ursa Major.

“What happened is that Third Eye Blind became a playlist,” lead singer Stephen Jenkins states on the band’s Web site. “Not the albums, and not as the result of a major-label marketing department.”

Howard Archer is the founder of EmpoweredFanClub™ a site dedicated to the support and promotion of Independent Music Artists and Fans. Currently in pre-launch, they are inviting indie music artists to have a sneak peak during the month of April. On May 1st, 2009 the paradigm shift begins.

Few people understand just how difficult it is for young emerging music artists to sustain their craft, let alone make a living at it.  The world is full of talented musicians, singers and rappers who struggle every day to get their music heard and who have no real economical distribution channel for reaching the masses.  The internet should have made it easier, but in fact it’s become harder than ever to rise above the noise of the millions of artists trying so desperately to be heard.

The independent music realm has struggled to share music tracks via the internet due to file size and outlets. Soundcloud.com is a Web site where all of the obstacles for an independent artist to transfer, share and collaborate their music files have been hurdled.

With Soundcloud, an artist can send files directly to an email address, or to anyone within their network. Each track, or set of tracks gets its own Web address and a home page. An artist has full control of what people can do with the music. The site furnishes an easy to use dashboard that acts like a “music inbox.”

The person who receives the file(s) also is provided with an easy to use page to conduct the streaming, or download of the music.

Soundcloud bestows a customizable music player widget that can be placed anywhere on the Web.

Furthermore, the site offers an embedded drop box that a music professional can also place anywhere they want on the Internet, such as Myspace, or Facebook. Meaning, they can accept tracks through the posted drop boxes.

Soundcloud also offers analytics, so an artist can view who has been accessing, downloading and listening to certain tracks.

Currently, the most popular ways for music professionals to send tracks are through ftp sites, instant messengers and Yousendit.com due to the size of the files. But with Soundcloud, file size and formats will never be an issue.

“Oh, by the way, there are no limits to file sizes,” according to the Web site’s video tour.

Songwriters can have a difficult time showcasing their talent and getting feedback about their work. With ClownBasket.com, they now have the forum to expose their projects worldwide.

“ClownBasket is the place for original songwriters and musicians to share their own music with the world,” the founders state on the Web site. “It is the place for music lovers who appreciate original music.”

The Web site differentiates itself from other sites, because it allows artists to enhance their music.

“Some bands will use ClownBasket to push their music in order to drive traffic to their live music performances,” they add on the site. “Some songwriters will use ClownBasket to test and enhance their music.”

” And some of us members are washed up musicians who are no longer “living the dream” and yet still have music that we want to share.”

The Web site makes it simple for users to start uploading their music right way.  An artist just needs to create a band profile and will then have the option to upload their original music.

The creators also made the site guest friendly. A person does not have to be a member of Clown Basket in order for them to listen to music. Furthermore, you would need to login in order to upload, download, and leave comments for artists.

They emphasis on the site, “Upload your original songs and let the rest of us get exposed to what you have created!”

After 3 best-selling CD releases, Third Eye Blind has decided to utilize the independent music movement for their fourth release, Ursa Major.

“What happened is that Third Eye Blind became a playlist,” lead singer Stephen Jenkins states on the band’s Web site. “Not the albums, and not as the result of a major-label marketing department.”

“We became a playlist, this completely democratic thing where there are no lead singles, no payola, Jenkins added. It’s just songs.”

The California based band is taking part of a new movement that has major label bands such as, the Counting Crows, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, leaving their record companies, and utilizing the power of the internet to market their projects. These top of the charts artists are showing the music industry that major labels can be obsolete at some point by making such a move.

The band is using its Web site to stay in contact with its fans by running contests, providing a blog and a forum.

Drummer Brad Hargreaves admits the realization that there are networks of people on the internet who provide one another with new music.

“People now encounter these songs from each other, not from major-label labeling, or the association made to a kind of all-American rock movement — which we had nothing to do with,” Hargreaves explains on the site.

The band will be playing a midnight show debuting the new songs at SXSW on Saturday, March 21st, at Stubbs.

Visit www.thirdeyeblind.com for more information about the SXSW show and the band’s new movement.