Musicadium Blog

FROM STEPHEN BARTLETT PRODUCTIONS

No one can deny that the industry is changing. As a young artist, there are more opportunities available to you now than ever before– but more competition and obstacles as well! Getting time off work and paying for recording can be hard, and sometimes a new idea you have AFTER recording can be your best….. and its another year or more before you can save up to lay down the idea!

Some artists benefit from recording a track at a time and releasing it to their fans (including Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins!). Of course we still love EPs and Albums and think they are essential in an artist’s career, but maybe your fan base are demanding single tracks or you come up with that perfect radio song that just needs to be recorded. If that path sounds like you, Stephen Bartlett Productions has the perfect solution.

If you’re recording one track at a time with us in 2010, we give you the opportunity to save by recording your forth song absolutely free. That’s right, record three tracks with us at different times over the course of the year, and we’ll do the forth at no charge.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?
-Free studio time! Your forth track free represents a massive 25% discount on your studio booking. You don’t need to book a full album to work with one of Brisbane’s most respected producers.
-Not only do you save on recording costs, but recording your work spread out over the year gives you the opportunity to develop as a band. It allows you to create and innovate from song to song, giving you a better, fresher product as you release songs into the marketplace. It also gives you a greater chance at standing out from the pack, all the while building a catalogue that can be used for single sales, packaged together as collection or used as the perfect lead-in to an album or EP release.
-No more stress when you write your best song as soon as you finished recording!
-It spreads the cost and time out, making it easier for artists who still work or study, rather than demanding a few weeks straight focused on the recording.
-It also allows you to spend your entire time in the studio focused on the song at hand rather than diverting the energy between songs, ensuring the best outcome and least stress.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR US?

The Track 4 Free program allows us to work with you over a longer period of time. Your recordings will improve as your act is working longer and we have the opportunity to assist in that growth rather than simply working with you for a few weeks and waving goodbye. Our discount reflects the respect we have for working with quality artists over the long term.

So please feel free to contact us with any questions or to book in with your choice of producers, Stephen Bartlett or Michael Hardgrave.
Bookings- Stephen Green bookings@stephenbartlettproduction.com +61 (0) 412 321 368
www.stephenbartlettproduction.com

- Track 4 Free is only available on single track sessions booked after January 1, 2010
- You must register with SBP that you wish your session to be tallied for Track4Free when you book your session
- Your free track must be booked subject to studio availability
- Your free track session must not be longer than the average time taken on each of your first three track sessions
- Track 4 Free is only available on full priced sessions. Discounted sessions will not count towards your tally of sessions.
- Track 4 Free is only available on sessions produced by Stephen Bartlett or Michael Hardgrave

This week, we are featuring one of Brisbane’s newest and exciting acts - Felinedown.  They were one of the highlights of one of Musicadium’s live music showcases in 2009.

They are a fantastic, electro-and-rock outfit - check them out at http://www.myspace.com/felinedown.

To start with a typical question, what’s the story behind the name ‘Felinedown’?
In all honesty a computer offered this name suggestion during a temporary lapse in my ability to tackle the English language (thank you Spellcheck!;) – My lyrics are often inspired by turns of phrase so the play on words is relevant in many aspects. Also it hints I guess at the dark streak our songs tend to have while at the same time poking fun at those same assumptions…half our songs and half our personalities are definitely NOT depressed..more manic pop and sexy rock than shoegaze!

Your debut album mixes rock and electronica. What influenced you to tackle this intriguing sound?
Electronic music is I think for us the key to being endlessly creative; there are no limits to the sounds you can create and beats you can produce.  The Rock and Roll? – well that’s a given; it’s the reason we all found ourselves drawn to play music in the first place, Ashley has firm roots in punk rock but loves the challenge of blending that style with genres like drum & bass.  Glen, well he loves his industrial rock guitars but he also shares his B’day with Jimi Hendrix… need we say more?  Zac’s Indie Rock prowess allows him to fuse the rock and electronic pop elements of our music perfectly. Beau enjoys creating electronic soundscapes in real time which is helping with a more live jam type vibe. And I have been heavily influenced by artists from both Rock and Electronica; from Led Zeppelin to Bjork to the Sneakerpimps.

Is songwriting something that you have to sit down and work at or is it something that just spontaneously pops into your head?
Right now we are writing with our new line up and its changed the process a lot but its also made it much more exciting and reactive. We have more colours to paint with now. Sometimes a melody chases you around all day and at other times you have to really hunt for it with the other members of your band.

You guys are constantly credited for your live performances. What aspects of a gig make you guys pack up at the end of a night and think ‘yep, that was a great show’?
Live shows are such a funny beast. Nights your expecting to be amazing end up being hard work you have to push so hard the whole way through to pull the energy up and bring people in. But other nights when you least expect it the show becomes effortlessly electric and you find yourself beaming at each other like Cheshire Cats halfway through songs.. those are the nights that remind you why you wouldn’t want to do anything else with your life but create music together and connect with your audience. We love making people move so anytime we’ve had the crowd dancing is a great night by us and overrides any worries we might have had.  It makes for a sleepness night when you get home because your still buzzing from the show.

Your striking costumes, Brodie-Ann, definitely grab attention. Do you do any of the design or creation yourself?
Why thank you! As someone with a background in art, theatre and dance the visual aspect of our shows is really important to me. I want the ‘costumes’ to be an extension of the music and for the show to an experience not just another gig.  I do sketch a lot of the designs and concepts out myself and have made pieces for both myself and the guys. I have also been lucky enough to collaborate with local designers and artists such as Lindsay Rose Wilkins and Shilo Englebrecht on pieces for Felinedown. I hope the freedom we feel in the way we dress extends to our fans and that people will come to  know that anything goes at a Felinedown show…One can never have enough leather, feathers  or glitter can one?…

Finally what can we expect from the album coming up next year?
As I mentioned before we are now writing with the new line up and with a year of gigging really hard we have a better idea of what we want to bring to our shows and our sound. The songs are looking faster, more intense and well …fun! Our plan is to combine all the very best things about Felinedown with a stronger more driving beat; then add sexy Moog keys, new Slinky bass lines and hopefully we will be in the business of creating some of the most decadent lush rock electro tunes of 2010!

Felinedown’s Digital EP “FelineDOWNLOAD” (Geddit?) is available on and you can check out their tunes at MySpace.

Are you in the music industry? a music fan? or a music maker?

Dates: Wednesday 24 February – Friday 26 February 2010

FUSE Festival is the longest running music industry conference and showcase festival of its type in Australia, taking place in Adelaide from the 24th-26th of February 2010. It features 3 days of seminars, talks, round table discussions and songwriting and management masterclasses with the industry’s leading professionals alongside two nights of FUSE LIVE gigs (EXPLODE! and IGNITION) jam-packed with the best in new music from across the nation.

FUSE LIVE kicks off with EXPLODE! on Wednesday 24th of February in Rymill Park showcasing more than 14 export ready acts on two stages in one compact-festival site! In 2009, over 1,000 music fans experienced a truly special night under the stars with the nations finest acts.

IGNITION, the open access showcase on Thursday the 25th of February, allows any acts registering the opportunity to perform live. Last year over 60 bands performed in 20 venues across the Adelaide CBD. Artists confirmed to perform at the FUSE Festival in 2010 include The Touch, and Vorn Doolette and (Musicadium Artists!) The Shiny Brights. Past performers include Pete Murray, Hilltop Hoods, The Audreys, Dappled Cities, Cloud Control and City Riots.

IGNITION Registrations are still open, so for your chance to play in front of some of the music industry’s leading professionals, as well as attend the Conference and associated networking events visit our Festival Gig listing on Sonicbids (open Jan 11th) or go to the FUSE FESTIVAL REGISTRATION PAGE.

On the eve of a new year and a new decade, it seems that the big debate in 2010 will be music in the cloud vs ownership.

Music ownership and consumption over the years has changed dramatically (as we all know) but by the surge in numbers of streaming services and subscription services to access music “in the cloud” wherever you are, it is looking to change again. Let’s have a quick look at the evolution.

Sheet Music (and a Piano) was the only way of having popular music in the home in the early days, so it could be replicated by all those who could play in the home.  Phonograph Cylinders were the norm up until the 1920s and Vinyl Records dominated from then on until the 1980s, when Cassette Tapes had a short reign until Compact Discs made mass consumption history, out-selling every medium that came before it. The MP3 caught major labels with their pants down and before they knew it, a tech company owned the largest music store on the planet.

So, that brings us up to speed with formats, but let’s have a look at how music is/was consumed. Basically, the point of this blog is to take a quick look at “ease-of-access” methods of music consumption - streaming and music in the cloud and whether the general populace are ready for a complete shift in the way they think about how they pay for/grab/”own” music.

For all of the formats prior to digital (and even digital to an extent) the focus was on ownership. A consumer (up until online shopping took hold) had to go out of the house and hunt down a copy of the album/single/EP they wanted to take it home. That copy was THEIRS and no-one elses to be played ad nauseum.

Whether this behaviour was a result of the way that people were forced to consume music up until then or whether it was an ingrained quirk of personality, (i.e. people like to collect and own that music for whatever reason - bragging rights, obsession, eliteism) I am not sure.  I suspect it was a mixture of both.  I believe that there are a few interesting angles that come into the equation once digital music is considered. (Not counting illegal P2P file-sharing and illegal downloads - that’s a whole other debate).

The move away from consuming whole albums towards buying singles/EPs but from more artists came in with purchasing digital music.  My personal preference is still to buy whole albums digitally and in that sense, I am probably becoming outside the norm. I probably still have that “elite” thinking whereby if someone I know only owns or knows the singles of any particular artist, I don’t really consider them a “true fan.” But that is just my view.

I have been doing some DJ gigs lately at parties etc. At these parties, I have been taking a large collection of my music on an external hard drive for play on that evening.  If I get requests that I do not have, I purchase them on iTunes via my iPhone and play them once I have loaded them onto the computer. So, in that sense, I am KIND of accessing music in the cloud, but I get to own it afterwards.

The interesting point to this is… these DJ gigs were in a regional area, where I was downloading these songs in areas not even able to access 3G networks.  They were taking up to 15 minutes to be ready to play - therefore streaming is certainly not viable for someone in these areas.

The internet and mobile networks in Australia (even in areas in metropolitan areas) certainly are still not able to handle high-demand streaming (well) or accessing large libraries of music on the fly yet - so shouldn’t that be the real question? If this is the focus of new consumption of music - the ability to easily stream music or access music they own anywhere via handheld devices - then shouldn’t the focus of the music industry be on Government bodies and ISPs to make this a reality? Even once this is possible, will it ever be fully embraced by the people who want to “own” even their digital music, knowing that they have the MP3’s (albeit 1’s and 0’s) on their computer? Does this not make most things we know right now…. irrelevant? Music Stores (physical product that is) and AM/FM Radio Stations, anyone?

I know that I will probably always enjoy owning music, but I am happy to give music in the cloud a shot, if it is easily accessible and doesn’t buffer every 10 seconds like a youtube clip on a bad broadband connection, ruining the experience altogether.

Your thoughts, questions, pros/cons etc? Happy New Year Everybody! See you all in a new decade of amazing music and new developments!

We all know that the internet has had a massive impact on the ever-changing music industry. Online distribution has helped shift the power from major labels to artists and consumers themselves. CD sales are continuously declining with the rise of downloadable music (whether legally or illegally obtained). But despite all of this change and decline, one area that has thrived is live performance; an essential way to create a large and loyal fan base.

Performing live is a cheap, simple and effective way of creating genuine word-of-mouth. And, assuming you don’t have thousands of dollars at your disposal, performing live is just about the only promotional tool an upcoming artist can utilise.

If you take anything away from this post, let it be this: network! It’s your best bet to start getting those gigs booked. Get to know as many people in the music industry as you can. Attending local gigs is mandatory. Introduce yourself to other bands and have a chat to music industry folk who may be in the crowds of larger gigs. Personally meet with venue owners or bookers. Face-to-face communication is essential to establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships (and it gives you a chance to show people how friendly and charming you are!).

The next thing to remember is to start small. Don’t expect to be given a Friday or Saturday night gig first up. Initially asking to fill a Monday or Tuesday night position when you’re starting out will give you a chance to demonstrate your value to the venue owner and establish a mutually beneficial relationship. Don’t aim for huge crowds to begin with; playing in front of a smaller group is great practice and can give you a chance to flatten out any bumps that may arise.

So, you’ve got your first gig all booked and ready to go.  Now it’s time to actually perform. At first it can be pretty daunting and a lot different to practicing in the garage. It’s important to keep an open mind, expect the unexpected and be flexible. Arriving early gives you time to ensure all your gear (and the venue’s) is set up and ready to go on time. It will also give you a chance to have a chat to some people in the crowd and get to know ‘the feel’ of the venue.

Make sure every band member has a set list in front of them so that everyone knows what’s next and the audience isn’t left standing there listening to silence. Figure out what songs flow easily into the next, musically and in terms of ‘pump up’ levels. It may seem straightforward, but double check how long you are scheduled to play for and ensure that you have enough songs to fill that time - or go horrendously overtime and be asked to finish up.

When it’s your time to shine, do just that. If you are having a great time, your audience will feel that and reciprocate. Channel all of that adrenalin and be enthusiastic, energetic and interactive. Audience interaction is key to connecting with your fans. Fans that have a sense of involvement will be more likely to spread positive word-of-mouth.

Creating a fantastic stage presence is something that will come with practice, but here are some simple tips:

• Make sure the audience can see your face and make eye contact, simple yet effective way to interact with audience.
• We all know the importance of hydration so have a bottle of water handy
• Move around; if you stand like a statue, so will your audience.
• Don’t steal the limelight from your fellow band members, make sure you’re all involved and enjoying yourselves.
• You know you love your songs, but smile so that the audience knows that too.
• Don’t overdo it.  A natural stage presence will come with time.
• Don’t be afraid to speak to your audience now and again, however telling a ten minute story of how you came up with the band name is probably not the best idea.
• After your set, don’t pack up and hide in a corner by yourself. Mingle with the crowd, ask them what they thought (remember that all important word; network!).

So, now you know how to rock a crowd. Get out there and make some new fans!

Jules, Flawless and Arno collectively form the Gold Coast original reggae funksters known as Anarchist Duck, and have just released their EP Propaganda to the world through iTunes. Musicadium Intern Julia “Ju-ju Bean” Bridger caught up with Flawless between the band’s antics which include; rescuing baby ducks from train tracks, “funk”-ing the system and drinking herbal teas, to find out what being a “Duck” is all about.

The name Anarchist Duck is pretty attention-grabbing and describes your political slant pretty well - but why a duck?

Ducks are amazing creatures and we stared at two holes in the wall that we turned into a duck when we first started jamming. I guess there’s a double entendre for the literary minded also, in that if you question the laws in society, you better duck. Anarchy to us is about the absence of control, not about the absence of respect and probably isn’t intended with the typical connotations. We are all about harmony, community and psychic time travel.

Your style has been described as a mix of Rage Against The Machine, Bob Marley and The Red Hot Chili Peppers among others. That’s quite a mixture, how do you manage to come up with such an eclectic sound?

By listening to A LOT of music all the time and taking all our favourite parts and mixing them together. That mixture is kind of like the mixture of spices you might use for an amazing indian curry, you add the spices and when they blend a completely new flavour is created.

Your music definitely has a political activist sense about it, as people can probably guess from your name. What influences you to help create positive change?

People fighting for what they believe in and being open to what others believe, not being afraid to be different from the ‘norm’. People who can look beneath the facade of society and follow their intuition despite obstacles inspire me to do the same. The absolute beauty that lies within every person is the best inspiration along with nature in all its glory.

I’ve read that your style is like Parliament and you’re heavily influenced by George Clinton, which makes me think of the Mighty Boosh. Do you “got the funk”?

We got the funk, you gotta have the funk. We are perhaps more heavily influenced by the likes of Bjork, Ween, PJ Harvey, Ani diFranco, Rage Against the Machine and the Chili Peppers. The old funk stuff like the Meters, Tower of Power and there is also a strong Bob Marley and 10 ft Ganja plant influence, hence all our funky reggae.

On your MySpace, you say that one of your least favourite past-times is “being asked to play bad covers especially by drunk people who have never heard of burping and blowing it in the OTHER direction.” This quote leads me to two questions- What is the worst cover request you’ve had, and how many people have burped in your face when requesting one?

I guess it’s more that you’re playing your guts out to an audience and then someone asks you to play a cover and it’s like “Ok, I don’t really hear what you have to say, I want to hear something someone else has to say.” Usually we don’t even know the songs being requested and then we have to say no and feel bad. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve had a burp blown in my face and sometimes it’s by my own band members (or myself!)

You’re performing all the way down the East Coast of Australia in the coming months, what can people expect from your shows?

A worldly experience that blends beautiful harmonies with hard funk and reggae grooves, some rapping and a lot of laughs.

Check out “The Duck” on Facebook, Triple J’s Unearthed and their tour dates are all up on their MySpace

An event management professional said to me recently that she came across a band who believed that “Professionalism” has no place in the music industry and should not be taken into consideration when choosing bands for a lineup on a gig’s bill.

Sounds crazy, right?  I believe in professionalism in any industry (your band as a business and a brand depends on it), but I also believe in creativity and creative licence in a performance.

I understand to some extent what the musician is talking about - I am a musician myself (well, drummer anyway) and I understand that there is the whole credibility vs corporate “Don’t sell out to the man!” mantra amongst musicians.  Anyone who knows good music will know a band who has sold out to the “man” and are not being true to themselves. There is a big difference between being a professional and sacrificing credibility for dollars.

Let’s have a look at what professionalism actually means in the music industry.

From what I can tell about the statement made by the musician, he believed that a good-looking MySpace or website, facebook page etc, good quality recordings, a bio and playing to a timeframe given for the gig was all irrelevant and that his “good music” should be considered above all else and that he should be given gigs based on that. The event management professional had given him gigs previously and the band turned up late for soundcheck, complained when they could not have one because of lack of time, played a lot longer than the allocated timeslot and ignoring directions from stage management.  Sounds like a nightmare, right? But still, he insisted that Professionalism was periphery to the music industry.

Musicians are always busy people and often working 9-5ers as well as creating art, but is that any reason why professionalism should be dropped?

I do not believe that being a musician and being a professional are mutually exclusive, even after a musician has got to the point where they pick up a manager to take care of business affairs. So here’s a list I have come up with. Feel free to add to it or cut it to pieces.

Top tips for interacting with music industry

• Get yourself an appropriate e-mail address with which to do all written correspondence, even if it’s a free one. i.e. bandname@gmail.com.
  The email account you started for yourself at high school using your nickname or some such reference is not professional and does not indicate that you are taking the correspondence overly seriously.
• Check your spelling, be neat and fact-check!
  This goes for all written correspondence - MySpace page, facebook, bio, twitter, e-mail, applications to festivals.  Paste text into your text-editor of your choice and have it give you a cursory look at your paragraphs to quickly identify any major problems with your spelling.  Then go over it yourself and give it an idiot-check.  In my opinion, nothing shoots down your credibility quicker than (consistently or obviously) spelling words wrong. Worse is spelling names wrong or getting names/facts wrong altogether!!
• Be on time.
  Whether it’s a meeting with an industry person, a soundcheck or for a gig or a media call, don’t be late or lazy! Obviously, acts of God or massive traffic jams aside, being on time and having a great attitude counts a lot! The easier you are to deal with and the smoother the process of working with you to provide a great show/service, the less resistance you will encounter from that industry worker again. Remember the old rule of restaurants. If you get bad service from a restaurant, a customer will tell 8 people. If they get good service, they are likely to tell only 1 or 2.  You are the one providing the service in this case and you are the one who can leave a good impression!
• Sound great!
  Don’t go to industry people (labels, booking agents) with your music until you have something that you feel truely represents you.  Obviously, this will be a continuous battle to perfect this.  I am simply suggesting don’t go public with demo that will be detrimental to your chances of interacting with that industry worker again.  Additionally: choose wisely who you send your material to and do some research. If a label specialises in dance music releases, as a general rule, they won’t be interested in your alt-country release, so it’s probably safe to say it’s a waste of time committing your time to that.
• Look good!
  While not necessary, a great press shot will turn heads.  While what REALLY matters is the music, of course, often a promo photo or CD cover art will be the first contact a band will have industry, hopefully just prior to listening to your tunes. You have a chance to tell a story very quickly with these tools and the more concise you are with your message in these mediums, the more chance you have of someone giving it a spin.
• You don’t have to be Formal, but be respectful.
  While you don’t have to lay out any e-mails with Dear Sir/Madam or To Whom it may concern, professionalism in this case certainly takes on another guise. It means acknowledging that Music Industry professionals are busy people and your e-mail/call is going to be one of hundreds of things they do that day. So keep it simple and short, well-written and to the point. Ask what you want to ask and leave it with them. Don’t follow up every two hours with “Have you had a chance to have a look at my e-mail?” etc. Maybe a follow up after a week if you feel that there is some urgency.

The record industry is dying, according to…well, pretty much everyone.

The music industry, however, is most definitely not. If anything, the easy availability of music to the consumer has opened up the industry which was previously so dominated by the large (viewed by most as evil and tasteless) record companies who were filling the market with formulaic pop. Now, we as consumers have choices and our particular breed of music, whatever that may be, is much easier to access.

But yes- quite often this is accessed by illegal downloading.

While the record companies responded to this threat by suing everyone who dares to download- from high school students to families- research has shown that even with the threat of prosecution, the general public still don’t view music downloading as being ethically wrong. Aren’t we all such little rebels?

The industry is only now starting to come around to the fact online downloading is not going to disappear and are looking into new and inventive ways of capturing a audience and their cash. But how exactly do you go about getting people to willingly pay for something they can often get for free?

There have been many academic research papers looking into viable ways to encourage consumers to pay for their music. I have come up with 4 factors that determine a consumer’s willingness to pay for music legally. Take a gander at my lovely diagram below.

The first point I’d like to make is that the appeal of extra benefits offered with a legal purchase will increase a consumer’s willingness to pay. If bands offer a free extra, say, a free T-shirt with legal purchase of their CD, or legal download, this will increase the appeal of the legal purchase against the free option of an illegal download.

Take, for example, Radiohead’s offer of a limited edition “discbox” including a second disc from the recording sessions, vinyl and CD editions of the album and a hardcover book of artwork when consumers chose to pay over a certain amount to legally download “In Rainbows”. When I purchased tickets to see Daft Punk at the Riverstage in Brisbane, my tickets arrived with a lovely CD. More recently, if you pre-ordered Paul Dempsey’s album “Everything Is True” from iTunes you received an exclusive video of personal footage of Paul finishing the album. To put it simply, people love free stuff and are more willing to pay if they think they’re getting a bargain.

Point no. 2 on the pretty diagram: The higher the consumer considers themselves to be involved in music, the higher their willingness to purchase music products legally would be. This means if, for instance, you’re a musician, you have an understanding of the position of an artist and would not want to be depriving another of their livelihood. Nor do you want poor sound quality downloads if you are a massive fan of a band. Most music fans buy the music of their favourites as well as tickets and associated merchandise because the music forms part of their identity. Your identity is not something to take lightly, or cheaply.

The third, and perhaps most obvious point, is a consumer’s expendable income. If a music lover does not have a bank balance as great as their appetite for music, they are naturally going to lean towards the option of feeding this hunger for free and using their real money to buy 2-minute noodles. Research has shown that those on lower incomes are more likely to pirate rather than purchase to sample new music, but are more likely to purchase favourite songs legally, linking back to my previous point of a persons involvement with music.

Satisfaction with a sampled product is when a consumer trials an unknown artist/song by downloading it for free- be it legally or illegally. Depending on the level of satisfaction with the free, sampled music, this person will be more willing to pay for a related music product legally.

For instance, if you had a band recommended to you by a friend and then went and acquired the music by pirating an album. Through consuming and enjoying the music, you became a fan of the band, and you’d be more likely to pay to see them play if they came to your town and possibly buy their album at the show. If you had not sampled this music, you probably would not have paid for their album in the first place based purely on your friend’s recommendation.

One thing is for sure, there’s no going back. The industry must continue to move forward and embrace new business models, new ways of thinking, new ideas. It is by no means the end, but the beginning of a new kind of music industry where the consumer can help shape the change.

By Julia ‘Ju-ju Bean’ Bridger

If you have never heard of South by Southwest - (WikiPedia)

SXSW is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more than 1,400 performers playing dozens of venues around Austin over four days, in March. Though it is an industry-based event, SXSW Music links locally with events such as the annual Austin Music Awards show. SXSW is the highest revenue-producing special event for the Austin economy, with an estimated economic impact of at least $110 million in 2008.

The music event has grown from 700 registrants in 1987 to nearly 12,000 registrants. SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive events attract approximately 11,000 registrants to Austin every March.

SXSW has inspired similar festivals elsewhere, including North by Northeast (NXNE) in Toronto and West by Southwest (WXSW) in Tucson, AZ.

SXSW also offers a free musical samples of featured artists at each festival. The number of songs has grown from 775 MP3 tracks in 2005 to 1267 in 2009.

To get your submission in for consideration for a slot at South By SouthWest - go to the SxsW page at http://www.sxsw.com/music/shows/apply which explains the Sonicbids process.  Application fees are US$30 for early submissions, rising to US$40 September 26.

Let me ask you this; can you think of one famous female DJ? I put this to the test and asked my fellow co-workers to see if they could. Two out of Three said Bexta and she’s no longer on the club circuit. I’m talking about the big name DJ’s like Fatboy Slim, Diplo, (he’s big in my world, he produced M.I.A’s album, DJ’s and has a side project called Major Lazer with DJ/producer Switch. Can you tell I’m a fan?), John Digweed, Carl Cox etc. Not one colleague could come up with an answer – which highlights my point: the DJ world is dominated by men.

We all know it’s extremely hard for a DJ to break into the music industry. If they do, some people like to call it luck, dj-ing somewhere at the right time, having money, or even just knowing the right people. Have you ever considered how hard it is for a female DJ to break into the scene? As one myself, I’ve had the fortunate and often unfortunate experience behind me of trying to ‘crack’ the DJ side of the music industry. As a woman.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t call myself a raging feminist. I don’t use the fact that I’m a female DJ as an excuse, it actually drives me harder. I have been dj-ing for approximately 3 years now, starting in Sydney. I still haven’t completely broken into the scene but I’m getting there. For those that do know me, they know how hard I work to get where I am today. I play everywhere I can, I’ve been rejected, people and other DJ’s have shut me down, but I’m still booking gigs because it’s my passion.

A Case Study: I saw a bulletin on Myspace about 6 months ago and this one particular venue in Brisbane were asking for new DJ’s to get in touch with them. It basically said something along the lines of ‘If you’re a new DJ looking for a gig, then get in contact with us.’ So I sent them a message straight away saying that I was interested. I didn’t have a demo at the time, so I said I would send through a set list for the time being. I know the EXACT type of music played at this venue so I spent a lot of time on my set list. Eventually I sent it through and they were really impressed. They said they generally book about 5-6 weeks in advance. I said that was fine, I just wanted to play there. We corresponded for about 6 months and they still haven’t booked me in. I even sent them a link to my demo which they liked. Maybe I’m just being paranoid but I don’t know ANY female DJ’s that have played at this particular venue. Hopefully I’ll be the first.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. In an male-dominated arena, it’s been great to see so many other female DJ’s come out from practicing in their bedrooms to playing at venues in Brisbane. Not only has there been an explosion of local talent but also internationally; La Roux, Florence + the Machine, Ladyhawke, Santogold, M.I.A etc. If you read any of the biographies, I can guarantee that they have been playing/writing music for years. These talented women are practically forcing themselves out there for everyone to hear and the response has been astounding.

I’m constantly encouraging my DJ friends to play gigs and recommend them to other promoters that are suitable. Maybe one of those girls or even myself will be on the same level as Fatboy Slim and Diplo. One day. I have faith. It’s time for a change and that change has begun.