Austin Music Foundation presents PARTY:SMART featuring Martin Atkins with special guests Ariel Hyatt of Ariel Publicity and Charlie Cheney of Indie Band Manager.

These three indie music luminaries will share tips, secrets, and strategies to help bands more creatively and effectively promote themselves in today’s DIY music business climate.

Local musicians and industry pros as well as SXSW attendees from far and wide will meet for a pre-conference party and educational event with our special guests designed to facilitate relationships and “get the party started” on the eve of SXSW.

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!

Proof that Indie Collaboration is Worth More Than Label Support.

Leave it to Amanda Palmer to be up to something interesting. Starting in 2007, rumors began to fly about a pair of conjoined twins – former circus act(s) – whose musical talent had been ‘discovered’ by Palmer and accordion-wielding-street-performer extraordinaire, Jason Webley.

The twins – known as Evelyn Evelyn – released the EP Elephant Elephant in 2007, and are now prepping for the liberation of their first full-length album and world tour, supported by Webley’s true-blue indie label, Eleven Records.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Are the world’s first Parapagus Tripus Dibrachius indie superstars about to break down barriers for conjoined twins everywhere, or are the twins, in fact, Palmer and Webley themselves? And either way, what is this world tour gonna look like?

Photo by Lenka Sindelarova

The only thing that can be said for certain is that Evelyn Evelyn is yet more proof, by way of Amanda Fucking Palmer, that hard creative work, not major label support, is the key to a great career in music.

Palmer got her start as part of the Dresden Dolls – a duo of experimental, cabaret-style punk rockers – and has since moved on to a successful solo career, which – rather than being a solitary pursuit – has involved constant collaboration with other musicians, artists, and stage performers of all kinds.

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?).

“There’s never been a better time to be a musician,” say Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan of indie band Beatnik Turtle. Oh, and the guys also just happen to be the masterminds behind IndieGuide.com – an amazingly detailed resource for indie artists looking for information on how to build their own career.

Chertkow and Feehan got their start authoring The Indie Band Survival Guide: The Complete Manual For The Do-It-Yourself Musician and The DIY Music Manual: How To Record, Promote, And Distribute Your Music Without A Record Deal. In short, these guys know a thing or two about DIY.

We spoke to Chertkow and Feehan about what it takes for musicians to do it all themselves, and why, as Jim Morrison put it, “the time to hesitate is through.” Here’s what they had to say:

GH: Should the process of becoming a successful band be all about getting the attention of a label, or are we at a point where thriving indies should be saying no to label attention?

RC/JF: “The choice as to whether to go with a label or not is up to each band. But that’s the important thing: it’s a choice, not a necessity. In the past musicians had to go for the record deal. Today, it’s just a business decision.

Tired of traveling to and from the music studio every time someone calls for a band practice? Fret no more. Why not build your own home music studio instead? Having a home recording studio has numerous advantages, most especially for musicians and audiophiles.

Here are the top 10 reasons why you should start your own home music studio now:

1. Convenience – Gone are the days when artists and band members need to pack their electric guitars and other musical instruments to rent a professional recording studio and rehearse. Nowadays, music enthusiasts can simply practice anytime, right in the comforts of home.

Indie music can now be submitted to the Rock Band Network store.

Rock Band Network will now permit independent and unsigned bands to submit their own songs for users to download. This 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.

A set of professional tools, which will allow musicians on the front line of writing and recording songs to completely control their destiny. It will take 20-40 hours for first-time users to apply their music on the full-featured editing suite. Bands will also have admission to interactive products and then giving them direct access to the download store.

I travel a lot to speak at music conferences and I see this all of the time: Musicians squirming in their seats as I present ideas on how to improve their marketing. The idea of having to do one more thing is just unbearable to them, and they literally begin to melt down in front of me.

One of my best friends is an artist – a dancer – and she literally takes to bed after she has to write a press release; it literally makes her sick.

You will NEVER achieve the success you want it if you try to do it all alone and take on things that stop you dead in your tracks!

I can not stress this enough: You MUST learn to delegate, and get the stuff that makes you completely stressed out off of your plate.

5 Questions: Answers from Charles McEnerney, Host + Producer for Well-Rounded Radio and Founder of Musicians for Music 2.0

Q) Tell us a little bit about your IR station. What initially inspired you to start it?

A) I started Well-Rounded Radio (really a podcast, but I named it before podcasting started!) because I grew up in Queens, New York City listening to a lot of really great disc jockeys like Vin Scelsa on commercial and college radio who used to do fantastic interviews. But as the years went by and radio changed all over the country, I felt like the only place I was hearing music interviews was on NPR and some syndicated shows. And as much as I love NPR, I felt their in-depth music interviews were with people that were somewhat predictable. I like to be surprised by music and I wanted to do a series where what was coming at you would be a little more unexpected.

I have met a lot of musicians along my journey and some of those I have gotten to know pretty well. All of them have a similar story as to how they started in the music industry and it goes a bit like this.

“I don’t know how I started really, I just sort of fell into it and before I knew it I was in a band.”

Sound familiar? It does to me. That’s how I got started.

I didn’t have a plan, didn’t have a clue and didn’t have any idea of what I was getting myself in for let alone what I wanted to get out of it.

I wanted to be a “rock star” so I could “meet girls”.