Musicadium Blog

This, to me, seems like a very interesting topic within the music community.  I have been meeting and playing music with a lot of bands lately.  All of whom I question endlessly about the way their band operates - how do they promote themselves, who does the work within the band, what services do they use to promote their band, how did they come up with the “image” of the band etc.

One thing that comes up in my mind is…what if the music doesn’t achieve the dizzying heights you imagined in the first band meeting you had?

What if sales aren’t rolling in?  What if the phone isn’t ringing? What if MySpace friend requests aren’t clogging up your email inbox? What if no-one is turning up to your shows, despite the amount of promotion you are doing?  You’ve tried everything.  You are becoming frustrated.  WHAT THEN?

What do you do? Do you gather the band, have a meeting, re-rally around the current band and try some new promotion methods and keep plugging away at the current band and trying to connect with people and turning them into fans?

OR…

Do you swallow your pride/”sell out”, have a band meeting, re-assess the influences in your bands, change the sound and image of your band (not necessarily to a more “pop” sound, just something different to what it was before)?

What can happen?  What are the pros and cons of such a move?

Here’s a few examples of the benefits and pitfalls of changing the band name/look/sound of your band….

Glasshouse/Drawn from Bees - A Brisbane band (of whom I am a big fan) who, after playing for numerousyears under the guise Glasshouse, decided that, as much as they loved their band and their music, it had gone as far as it could go - new releases did not gain any more momentum than the last and fan numbers were not increasing. The band decided to disappear for a little while, write, record and re-invent themselves as Drawn from Bees.  The original members remained, the ideologies remained, the sound shifted only slightly, if not a little more catchy and a touch les progg-y.  All promo released about the band and their releases did not mention Glasshouse or any of their previous efforts.  They were treated as an entirely new band and things have been rosy for the band ever since, attracting high rotation on Triple J for their song Long Tooth Setting Sun, they have been playing support for many touring bands, such as The Devoted Few, They played at VFestival earlier in 2009 and they attracted the attention of Brisbane Management/Publicity business Mucho Bravado. They are recording their next release - their goal, to write, record and release an EP every 6 months.

De Jah Dan Dah/Astralaliens - Originally from Brisbane, De Jah Dan Dah featured two brothers, Jake and Mablo Fehres.  They decided to export the band to Los Angeles, after attracting attention from Robie Porter. Once there, they found that the Martial arts and other parts of the band were not connecting with audiences in the way they hoped, reinventing themselves, with new band members as Astralaliens.  They stripped back their show to playing great rock and roll music and integrated a very choreographed stage show.  They embraced their webs presence, utilising their MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. Since then, they have been playing at various prestigious venues in the LA scene, such as the Viper Room and Whiskey-a-Go-Go. They have won many band competitions in the LA area and their fandom has risen across the board.

Evermore/New Look Evermore - One example of how changing the look of the band may work monetarily, but doesn’t feel right, is Evermore’s new look and shift (sonically and in their image).  Check the links to see just how much their new album has changed their look.  It screams of their Record Label or Management telling the band that they should implement these changes to increase sales, not necessarily for the good of the band or their further career in the music industry.  A drastic shift such as this for “instant hits” and “truckloads” of money may serve a band well in the interim, but destroys credibility in the long run and can scuttle a band’s career.

Are there any interesting shifts in bands’ sounds/images that you can think of that are worth discussing?  More to the point, is it “selling out” to change your band’s image or sound or name?  Let us know.  We don’t think that there is anything wrong with it, as long as it is handled well, with respect to fans and with a very specific point in mind of how the “new” band will be portrayed and how the credibility of the band will be handled.

It has been a fantastic couple of weeks for Musicadium artists in terms of the iTunes front page - we have had some of our favourite artists featured in a couple of different ways!

Melbourne boys, Foxx on Fire, who played at our last showcase at BarSoma in March, have been selected as the FREE single of the week all this week (27th April) until next Tuesday, May 5th! Check them out on MySpace @ http://www.myspace.com/foxxonfire.  Buy Foxx on Fire’s music on

Brianna Carpenter was featured last week in the What’s hot section.  For the month of April Brianna will be donating all money raised from “Hush” downloads to the Hear and Say Centre to coincide with their annual Butterfly Appeal. Brianna can be found on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/briannacarpenter and purchase her music on

This week, it’s one of the artists we found through the QMusic QSong Awards in 2008 - James Grehan, who is featured in the What’s hot section.  We love James Grehan and we constantly cheer when his music gets played on TripleJ, which is pretty regularly! Check him out at http://www.myspace.com/jamesgrehan. His music can be purchased at

If you would like to be put forward to the iTunes team to potentially be considered for these fantastic placements, contact us - info@musicadium.com.

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Musicadium is sponsoring this event - we are giving away a digital distribution package to the five bands who make the grand final!

Check out the RockSchool Challenge’s MySpace page - http://www.myspace.com/rockschoolchallenge

Using Facebook Advertising to Boost Digital Sales

Getting your music on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic or another online superstore is a big deal. When you first saw your tunes up in the Apple store you probably called your friends, your girlfriend, maybe even your mom. I swear, I hear musicians call their moms all the time. Anyway, the point is that once you get your music distributed and playing with the big boys, you need to market the shit (crap if you don’t want the cursing) out of your pages, your store and links in order to make any sales.

As with most products these days, building it will not cause people to buy it, so forget what Kevin Costner was saying in Field of Dreams. So how do you promote your digital tunes?

Obvious answers:
•    Myspace bulletins
•    Links on your profile pages
•    Blog posts
•    Get reviewed by music critics
•    Send an e-mail to your mailing list
•    Text everyone in your phone and begging and pleading with them to buy something
•    So on and so on.

There are other options to turn on new fans and create sales without being pushy and intrusive (spam messages, comments, unwanted texts, etc). You can do this by advertising!

I know, I know – advertising is like a blacklisted word for indie musicians. The reality is that with targeted messages, in places that people who like your style of music hang out, with a set budget and timeframe can increase your fan base, drive brand awareness and convert passersby into customers.

Today I am going to chat about the Facebook Advertising Platform and how you can target your ads to boost awareness and desire.

Facebook Advertising
The Facebook Advertising Platform is very simple and allows you to quickly target potential fans by a multitude of categories. The thing to note is that with online advertising, we are NOT trying to get in front of millions of people and get a tiny fraction to convert. We ARE trying to get in front of a small, but highly target audience and get a higher percentage to convert.

The first step to creating an ad is to design the ad. Facebook walks you through this process and shows you your ad as you build it.

Tips For Designing Your Ad

• The title needs to stand out and tell your audience who you are and what you are doing interrupting their Facebook time with friends. You are limited to 25 characters, so be creative and use strong keywords like your band’s name, location and something about your album being available. It’s tough to fit a whole sentence, so the key is to grab attention and state your purpose.
• The body has more room to play with. Be sure to include a call to action such as, “Click here to Buy our album now” or the more subtle “Click here to preview tracks.”
• The image needs to pop off the page. Be sure to use a strong graphic with colors that work well with Facebook’s plain Blue and White template. The image will be resized to 110×80 and it is a good idea to design something that is that size so you do not lose any resolution.
• The destination URL is where you will be sending the person when they click. My suggestion is to create a landing page on your own site where people can listen to and preview your tracks, learn more about your band, subscribe to your e-mail list and obviously have links to iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and other online stores.

The 2nd step is to target your ad.
Facebook gives you plenty of parameters I which to take a really large number of users (175 million +) to a small manageable number. Check out my quick example below:

Here is what I did broken down for you:

• In my example I broke down my ad to Orlando, FL – so I only show my ads to people in my hometown.
• Next I wanted to get into the lucrative Gen-Y and youth crowd so I am only showing my ad to people who are 16-24 years old.
• In the keyword box I suggest that you pick a band that you sound similar to. What happens next is everyone who listed this band a one of their favs will be included in your marketing efforts. The great thing is that you are NOT putting ads onto pages where people who dislike your genre of music hang out. It’s a great feature that can be explored well beyond just a band name. You can go as far as red trucks who read Tim Ferriss who listen to Metallica whose favor color is teal. Powerful stuff.
• I know that most of my customers are male hip-hop fans so I axe the ladies (so, so hard to do).
• I left education blank, not a big deal with this demo.
• Next I went for single guys as they have more expendable income than guys in a relationship.

The end result is that there are 320 guys between the ages of 16 and 24 who are single in Orlando who like Fall Out Boy. How’s that for breaking down 175 million to 300+.

The Last Phase is Campaigns and Pricing.
You will want to title your ad so you can find and identify it later on. Next you set your budget. The budget is broken down per day. So if you have $60 to spend for the month, your daily budget would be $2.00. You can always change this as money comes in (or goes out). For scheduling you can runs your ads at all times or you can set specific dates (works great for release promotions or days leading up to live shows, festivals, etc).

The last number is one that tricks many bands. You can choose whether you want to pay per impression (CPM), which means that you pay a set amount every time your ad is shown 1,000 times regardless if someone clicked on it or not.

I am a big fan of pay-per-click (PPC) where you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This number is usually a little higher but I am believer that your return will be greater. One suggestion is to note what your cost per click is and how that relates to how much a fan is worth to you vs. how many visitors convert on your site. This is a long topic in itself but breaks down to:

If 1 in 4 people subscribe to your email list and 1 in 4 of them buys your digital album that you profit 6 bucks on, it takes 8 fans to make that $6. Thus each fan can cost up to $1.33 and you won’t lose money (8 fans divided by $6). Hope that makes sense.

Lastly you will confirm, give your payment info and boom your account is online and new fans will be clicking away learning about your band, listening to tunes and making you some money from your digital distribution.

See, advertising isn’t that hard, and its not that expensive if you can break down your niche, your sound and your fans. I’d love to know how your experiments with Facebook Ads go and how you tweaked them to get your band more fans, plays and sales.

(This post was written by Greg Rollett from Gen-Y Rock Stars, a resource community for indie musicians. Check out their free Gen-Y Rock Star Tool Kit or email Greg for more information.)

I have been thinking more and more about just EXACTLY how far we have come in the past 13 years. Not just in Music, but everything.  But we are all about music, so seriously, just how far have we come? 

This served as a bookend reminder for me.

I see articles about The Presidents of the United States getting in on the iPhone market - people can now stream their 4 album discography on their iPhones for $3 USD unlimited access.

I have been around for the handover from Vinyl records to Cassette Tapes, to Compact Discs and now on to digital medium.  No other generation has seen that amount of change ever in terms of sound recordings.

My journey of listening to music began as a 13 year old in Rockhampton, Queensland - 1996. The Presidents of the United States’s self-titled album was one of the very first albums I ever purchased.  My experience with music began with the radio.  I started out listening to the local FM station, which failed to connect me to any music that I can remember.  One day, I decided to move the dial over to Triple J, Australia’s youth network.  Now, it just happened to be Aus Music Month at the time.  I was suddenly filled with the amazing sounds of bands like The Living End, Regurgitator, Custard, The Superjesus, Tumbleweed, Silverchair, Spiderbait and more.  This was my only method of finding out about new bands and music, as well as analogue methods - magazines and friends.  No computer connected to the internet to even think about that.  The Internet was invented, but nowhere within my reach.

Progress 2 years ahead.  I am still listening to Triple J.  I get my first modem - a 33.6kbps modem that pings and whistles and screams at me to connect, albeit slowly.  Fantastic times were had looking at pictures (no, not dirty ones) on the internet - ooooo! aaaaaaaaaahhh!  Multimedia!  The music industry was very much still in the major record label mode of find band, make hit, become rockstars!  MP3s were not an enemy yet - little did they know…

2 years later, 1999.  It’s official.  I have decided that Music is my life.  I am 16 and I have begun to learn the drums.  I am still listening to TripleJ, I am reading about my favourite bands on the internet, but there are still no real gatekeepers to filter good stuff down to punters!  Napster really has it’s claws into internet users.  Other P2P software such as Limewire, KaZaa, Audiogalaxy and Morpheus crop up after Lars Ulrich from Metallica whinges a lot about Napster and it gets shut down.

1999 through 2004 - The awkward years of music and internet - a lot of development going on, but the internet and the music industries really had not learnt how to work together yet/didn’t know how to exploit each other for mutual gain.  The Dark ages, really - the music industry really doesn’t know what to do with itself and was still smarting from the P2P fiasco.  Majors start merging as they can’t sustain themselves anymore due to P2P.  I am playing in bands, finding out about bands via TV shows and Movies, as labels start pushing their bands to get their music synced as another revenue stream.  Savvy independent bands and bands on Indie labels start to rise to the top as they take up on this internet thing as a promtional tool.  I start a localised Rockhampton internet forum, called Hoist Rocky Online.  Never thought it would be anything more than a few people in Rockhampton coming together to talk about a few bands.  P2P goes to next level and “Torrenting” of whole albums, TV shows, software and movies becomes more prevalent, it’s popularity running concurrently with the advent of affordable broadband internet access.

2004-Present - High speed broadband internet access, iTunes, MySpace, Facebook, Youtube, iPhones, Bluetooth, Twitter, Social Media Marketing.  Convergence and Web 2.0.  Social Media marketing is on the rise, Radio and TV advertising budgets on the decline. I began to put on shows in Rockhampton, using MySpace and the web forum - loads of success!  I move to Brisbane and get a job at Musicadium!  CD Sales are down, WAY down.  Traditional record label models dying rapidly.  Major marketing money still working, though no longer as effective.  Music consumers spoiled for choice.  P2P still a problem, though frowned upon. Bands are making massive amounts of sales in territories they have never played live in, via marketing themselves on social media sites and by being written about by blogs.  Niche markets are not so unreachable any more. Digital Distribution comes to the fore - allows artists to take control of their own royalties and earn money for themselves and market themselves!

I don’t think that we as a society realise what a revolution we are going through at the moment.  When artists can manage their own royalties and make a decent living from organising their own bands and make their own fans, sans record label.  The internet and convergence of technology has changed, within 15 years, the way that we interact with the world.  Environmentalism has meant that more people are turning to the internet for news instead of newspapers and magazines, so as to prevent unnecessary destruction of trees and larger carbon footprint.

Take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way as a band.  Be an early adopter - if you aren’t reading blogs, writing blogs, using MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and searching for new ways to benefit your band through the internet, you really need to catch up!!  We aren’t in flying cars just yet, but who wants to be that band left in the dark ages and who hasn’t embraced the new culture and models of the music industry?  Hell, this guy believes bloggers will become what ‘used to be’ called record labels.

Brisbane’s own Digital Music Distributor, Musicadium and Bar Soma are teaming up for another WITH DIGITAL LOVE industry showcase - on Thursday 19th March at 7:30PM 2009.

It’s all because Musicadium are turning one!  Musicadium has been operating for just over a year and they are want to celebrating their first year’s signups including Gotye, Kisschasy, Clare Bowditch, Ellington and more, as well as establishing a great market position as Australia’s leading digital distributor.

Headlining the night is Melbourne’s Foxx on Fire (http://www.myspace.com/foxxonfire), described by Inpress magazine as …the big label A&R’s wet dream.” They have supported acts such as John Foxx (UK), Midnight Juggernauts, Felix Cartal (France), Lost Valentinos, Mercy Arms, Grafton Primary, Damn Arms, Sweet Machine (Germany) and Dukes of Windsor. Their video clip for their new single, ‘Mission Abort’ was recently indie clip of the week on ABC TV’s Rage.

Supporting Foxx on Fire is brand-new Brisbane electro act Spider8 (http://www.spider8.com.au) and Gold Coast’s own dance duo The Cityscape Riot (http://www.myspace.com/thecityscaperiot).

The Cityscape Riot’s music has been described as being “Inside a computer game where you’re dressed in a fluoro suit, driving a fast car and fighting for your life”.  They were featured in the February 08 J-Mag as one of the most exciting up and coming electro bands in Australia. The Cityscape Riot released their debut E.P ‘Technodome Nights’ in July 2008.

Spider8 are a local Brisbane trio, Justyn O’Sullivan, Cam Mackay and Seal Chong Wa, along with their synthesisers and live drummer, Tim Price.  Spider8 are most easily described as a mix of The Presets and a ‘dirtier’ version of Sneaky Sound System.

Musicadium are a digital aggregator, the vital link between artists and digital outlets such as iTunes.
Musicadium sponsored the new/digital music category in the 2008 QMusic QSong awards, held at the iconic Tivoli Theatre.

The bands will kick off at BarSoma on Constance St, 8:00PM, with doors at 7:30PM. 19th March.  Entry is $8.00 and it is an 18+ Event.

Check out the FACEBOOK Event Invite and invite your mates!!

In my job here at Musicadium, I do a lot of reading.  I read blogs, news articles, forums and constantly troll through MySpace, Facebook and Twitter updates, examining what is going on in the Music Industry.  I am constantly looking at what is working and not working for artists, in terms of creating a buzz about themselves.

If you are thinking about your band as your brand and business, then obviously your goal is monetising what you do, so as to provide (some) income.

Traditionally, CD Sales (and the old school emphasis on “Units shifted”) have been the big revenue generator for bands.

As sales of physical products slow considerably and the industry is in turmoil about which way it will turn next (digital all you can eat plans for consumers, 360-degree record deals for artists etc), do you really want to be left behind?

Using your MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, ReverbNation, Sonicbids accounts are given, having digital distribution to add to your physical CD income, but it’s HOW you use them that is important.

Understanding that there are numerous ways to earn money in the music industry is key to your sustainability.

There are recent examples of Groove Armada, in their partnership with Bacardi, The John Steel Singers with their partnership with Levi Jeans’ Levity Label.

Groove Armada and Bacardi’s relationship was to release an EP.  Not so radical.  However, they were releasing some tracks initially, in exchange for an e-mail address, with the added incentive that if they were to recommend it to friends they would receive more tracks and if they then recommended to others, the first user would receive even more and so on and so forth down the line.  Read about the partnership here. This then positions both Groove Armada and Bacardi with a large fanbase and the opportunity to market to a targeted group of people, who will purchase other products, such as merchandise, concert tickets and drinks at said concert.

To quote Nick Crocker’s Way Cool Jnr blog, “The future of music lies in finding new ways to monetise the relationship between the band and the fan…In the digital realm, the relationship between the artist and the fan can be tracked, monitored, maintained and enhanced.”

Honesty in blogging by a band helps incredibly - answering fan emails and MySpace messages personally.  Blogging about other bands and things other than music helps to humanise the band and tear down the glaring impersonality of the internet.  Do this well and no doubt others will begin blogging about you.  Blogging and being blogged about raises interest and buzz about your band, as well as creating that vital link to your fans.  If they like your music, chances are they will like your suggestions for new music or what they are listening to as well.

Basically, more and more music will become free or near-to-free.  As this happens, it may become an addition to the live show, such as including a free CD in the ticket price to a gig or simply traded for an email address or other piece of information.

There is no time like the present to jump on board with new models of selling your music.

Two of our favourite artists (and previous featured artists on this very blog!) have had a major success today.

They have managed to secure themselves a spot on Australia’s premier summer festival, Big Day Out (BDO), through Australia’s youth radio network, Triple J and their Unearthed Competition.

Brisbane’s Hungry Kids of Hungary will play at the Gold Coast BDO and Adelaide’s The Shiny Brights will take the stage alongside international greats Neil Young, The Arctic Monkeys, My Morning Jacket, Serj Tankian, The Ting Tings and The Prodigy, as well as prominent Australian artists The Living End, Cog, Birds of Tokyo, Sparkadia and The Grates.

Both of these artists are bands who use their online presence well (The Shiny Brights are also in the Tooheys Extra Dry UncharTED competition, which also secures artists a spot on the Big Day Out).  They both make use of e-mail marketing, use their social media profiles well, utilise street teams and have fantastic live shows.

Hungry Kids of Hungary are currently on tour with The Boat People and The Shiny Brights are gearing up for their Southbound Festival appearance on January 3rd in South Australia.

We would like to congratulate these artists and wish them well on the day!  Hopefully we will be there at the Gold Coast Big Day Out to report back on how the Hungry Kids went!

Sarah, our Artist Relations Manager, found this great blog about business marketing.

We are a firm believer in your band as a business. The blog is called “In Customer Service, you are always on stage.” If you look at it in terms of your band, your fans can access information about you 24-7, 365.  Read the Article here at Customers Rock!

You can spend a lot of money building up your brand and creating a cool logo. You can market the latest coffee drinks and specials to all your local customers. You can build a fabulous customer loyalty program to reward your best customers.  However, if your employees are not doing their part to support the business, it is all a waste of money.

Sarah and I were thinking about this and how it relates to Musicadium artists. Look at it this way:

Replace “Customer Service” with “Your Band’s online presence” and “Employees” with “Online tools”.

If you aren’t using your online tools well, i.e. never replying to fan comments, not capitalising on friend adds on MySpace, your website contains poor spelling and grammar or generally having a poorly-designed site, people will not return to your site, nor buy your products or come to your shows.  It’s not conducive to a long-lived career in the music industry.

Your online presence is available to the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  When a potential fan goes to your site, your band (aka your business) is on display.  You are on stage.

In the same way that when you are ACTUALLY on stage, you have the chance to wow the audience with a great live show, when a potential fan is sitting in the audience (their computer desk/wherever they surf the net), looking at your website, you have the opportunity to wow them with your site.  Don’t give your MySpace/Facebook/Flickr/Twitter/Website the chance to let you down.

If you want to check out a few ways to make the most of your online presence, download our free e-book!