Cyber PR is Expanding: Authors & Filmmakers!

From: Ariel Publicity [bandletter_at_arielpublicity_dot_com]
Sent: 13 January 2010 16:01
Subject: Pre-Cleared & Podsafe: Welcome to 2010!

January 13, 2010

Newsletter #127

Hello from Ariel!

In This Week's Issue:

Where’s Ariel?
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED CLIENT - Chad Hollister
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED VIDEO - "Siberian Farmland" by Minster Hill
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED RESOURCES: A BLOG, A PODCAST, & A STATION
FEATURE INTERVIEW: Rodrigo De Sa of the Cowyboy Cantor Podcast

Where's Ariel?

http://narip.com/index.php?page_id=5&task=form&id=96

ARIEL - SPEAKING IN NYC

How To Create A Grand Slam Music Marketing Plan

Co-sponsored by NARIP & The Music & Media Entertainment Alliance

Thursday, January 21, 2010 6:00 p.m. at Fordham University (Lincoln Center) in New York, NY

$20 for members
$40 Non members

Speaking & Book Signing in Los Angeles at The NAMM Convention - Jan 14-17, 2010
(ADD NAMM LOGO HERE) Same logo as last week
Saturday January 16 - NAMM Convention
1:30- 3:30 PM - NAMM Hot Zone, Anaheim Convention Center, Room 204B
800 West Katella Avenue, Anaheim, CA 92802
Panel: Building a buzz and selling your music online:
How to make the most of today’s internet music landscape (and double your sales in the process).
With Bob Baker (The Buzz Factor), Michael Laskow (CEO of Taxi), moderated by Tony van Veen, CEO, Disc Makers / CD Baby

Book Signing: I will be signing books at the SPARS (Society of Professional Audio Recording Services) booth throughout NAMM - More details coming in the next newsletter!

THIS WEEK'S FEATURED CLIENT

Chad Hollister – Burlington, VT
Genre: Pop, Rock, Funk, Acoustic, Folk, Soft Rock, Indie-Pop
http://www.arielpublicity.net/clients/2680

Chad Hollister has opened for Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Tom Petty, and in the fall of 2009 he released Chad Hollister, his fourth CD. The self-titled disc was produced by Anthony J. Resta (Elton John, Collective Soul, Shawn Mullins).
Hollister’s musical style shines original with his percussive background. His personal lyrics are appreciative of a life on Mother Earth and his music is “pure sonic alchemy,�� according to Resta. Congrats to Chad who was just voted #1 in the Indie-Music Top 25 List of 2010!

http://www.indie-music.com/top25_1-2010.php

THIS WEEK'S FEATURED VIDEO

"Siberian Farmland" by Minster Hill
Genre: Powerpop, Rock, Rock-Pop
www.arielpublicity.net/clients/2597

Ten years is a long time to wait for anything. But that’s exactly how long fans of New Jersey based rock outfit Minster Hill have been clamoring for a follow up to their critically acclaimed self titled debut.

Capturing Clouds in a Bottle, Minster Hill's new released sophomore disc features a completely different sound than what fans are used to. The surreal imagery and insightfully sarcastic lyrics remain but the folk influenced sound that dominated their debut has been replaced by a decidedly more polished power pop/rock sound.

http://www.blip.tv/file/3056425

THIS WEEK'S FEATURED RESOURCES: A BLOG, A PODCAST, & A STATION

Featured Blog:
The Buzz
http://gighive.com/the-buzz/

The Buzz features: Artist Feature Articles, Music Video Features, Band Features, Event Listings, Interviews, Music News Articles, Reviews, Music Tech News for Artists to Stay Up on Technological things that will help their careers, Music Videos, How to Promote Yourself as an Indie Artist & how to create a successful indie music career, buzz artist features, indie websites, featured artist websites, classified listings, user forum This is a news and indie artist blog featuring artists from the independent music community across the board.

Featured Podcast:
Sundown Lounge Podcast
http://www.larrywinfield.com/sundownlounge.htm

Sundown Lounge is a laid back (and often explicit, you bet your ass...) weekly podzine of music, spoken word, progressive politics, weird science, and occasional vignettes from the west coast open mic scene, etc. Physically, I'm in rapidly gentrifying downtown Los Angeles, but metaphysically, my toes are in the sand and the sun is ablaze with deep hues, and a few poets and musicians and scientists have dropped by my beach house to hang out and jam, as the surf whispers nearby...

Featured Station:
Get Social Radio
http://getsocialradio.com

Get Social! Radio is a talk radio podcast that has grown into a 7x24x365 radio on Shoutcast and audio blogsite. Seeking high quality 128bit music to intertwine between their scheduled talk, sports and entertainment content. Looking for Alternative, Jazz and New Age music primarily however they are currently even programming feature blocks of Country and Rap/Hip-Hop, primarily from local artists (Ohio region) Their listenership is primarily in the upper Midwest, however they have a strong following in New York, Florida and Arizona.

New Media Pioneer
Rodrigo De Sa of the Cowyboy Cantor Podcast

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. 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.

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 is the next "What are you doing?" question?

A) While some artists only release their music in digital format, some artists still prefer having hard releases of their music. There are even artists that are coming back to the vinyl L.P.’s. It is difficult to know exactly how the social media trend will 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 be 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, and more common each day, 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 you podcast? Is that still your source of motivation?

A) 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 three 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 that bands can do to get your attention? Do you ever cover a band that you are not particularly fond of?

A) 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 to. 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 sitting on a chair, but most of the time I feel like recording it jumping and dancing in the room. The majority of the music I play, even slow music, makes me want to be traveling 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 in 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 CD 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 to 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? Can they somehow return to prominence?

A) 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 recognize 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.

ABOUT US

Ariel Hyatt is the founder of Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR, a digital public relations firm that connects clients to the new media including blogs, podcasts, Internet radio stations and social networking sites. Over the past 13 years she has represented over 1,435 musicians and bands.

Educating musicians is her passion and several times a year, she leads workshops teaching her strategy of combining social networking with Internet marketing to help clients grow larger fanbases and earn more money.

The Second Edition of Music Success in Nine Weeks is now available and has helped hundreds of musicians navigate the new music marketing landscape. "Sound Advice," her bi-weekly ezine and Internet TV series currently reaches an audience of over 20,000 music professionals. She is a contributing blogger for Music Think Tank, and Know The Music Biz.

CONTACT & INFO

Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR
389 12th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
http://www.arielpublicity.com
http://www.bandletter.com
http://www.myspace.com/ArielPublicityNY
http://www.twitter.com/cyberpr

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