Musicadium Blog

This week we were very lucky to have Graham Ashton who is the head of Marketing and International Licensing of Aussie indie label Dew Process (The Grates, Sarah Blasko amongst others) come to chat with the Musicadium team for a music industry Q and A.

Asho gave us some wonderful insight into his experiences with the music industry and both the indie and major labels that he has worked with. He also told us some great Rock’n'Roll tales that included private jets, Prince, and a whole lot more. We’d like to hear from our Musicadium artists - What has been your most Rock’n'Roll moment? The most interesting response will be posted on our blog and in the newsletter next week.

“Your difficult boss, customer, prospect, voter, student… probably not stupid, probably just uninformed. There’s a huge difference.

Every person makes decisions based on their worldview and the data at hand.

The easiest way to grow is to sell to people who share a worldview that endorses your position. The most effective way to grow bigger than that is to inform those that disagree with your position–more data in a palatable form. And, unfortunately, it turns out that the best way to change the world is to open the closed-minded.”

- Seth Godin

Musicadium faves the Quills have experienced some great successes since their conception, but show no evidence of rock star arrogance or a complacent attitude toward their fans. Their humble approach to creating brilliantly crafted music belies their talent, as they could afford to put on rock star airs but thankfully choose not to.

Long time Musicadium friends, we believe the Quills have an exciting future ahead of them due to their talent and also to their intelligent use of online marketing tools. They played at the infamous Brisbane venue The Zoo this week to kick of their South East QLD tour. Check out their myspace here and their debut EP ‘Some New Place’ which debuted at the # 1 position on the 4ZZZ charts when it was released.

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Q Music is putting on a night at BarSoma featuring UK rock critic Everett True and Pig City author Andrew Stafford.

Everett True : Everett True is an internationally renowned music journalist, successful author, spontaneous live performer, inspirational editor, self-funded publisher, lecturer and nurturer of upcoming artistic talent, with over 25 years experience in the music industry. He’s a columnist, an insurrectionary and a tastemaker, the subject of numerous dissertations and newspaper/online articles. He is a TV and radio pundit, and performs on stage as The Legend!
Books include: Live Through This: American Rock Music In The Nineties (Redux) (Fantagraphics, 2009) Nirvana: The True Story (Omnibus, 2006) The White Stripes And The Detroit Sound (Omnibus, 2004) Hey Ho Let’s Go: The Story Of The Ramones (Omnibus, 2002) End Of Punk (Music Sales, 1998) and many more

Andrew Stafford : Andrew Stafford is an author and freelance journalist whose first book, Pig City, made history last year when it was turned into a key event as part of the Queensland Music Festival, headlined by the original line-up of seminal Brisbane band The Saints. He is the Brisbane-based AFL correspondent for Melbourne’s The Age and has written for a variety of other publications including The Courier-Mail, The Bulletin and The Monthly. He is currently researching a second book for University of Queensland Press.

Read all about it here.

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Big Sound 2008 was a resounding success on all fronts. Music industry folk travelled from all over the world to attend Queensland’s week of weeks in the music biz and to consume their fair share of business, bands and beer.

Highlights of the week included; Jonathon Poneman’s (CEO and co-founder of Sub Pop records) debonair yet passionate approach to the current musical landscape, a high-powered and highly entertaining Q and A session with John Watson (John Watson Management and Eleven Records), Michael Chugg (Chugg Entertainment) and Sebastien Chase (MGM) and the panel that Musicadium’s general manager Nick Crocker shared with the big wigs in the digital music world including Luke Bevans from Universal and Mark Bulgin from MySpace.

If it is at all possible to get along next year we would recommend Big Sound to anyone who is musically-minded and wishes to make some great contacts while being inspired by the world’s best musical minds.

Musicadium friends and family.  Watch this.

Really.

Thanks Tony.

“Many musicians have understood that all they need to make a (very good) living is to have 10,000 fans. 10,000 people who look forward to the next record, who are willing to trek out to the next concert. Add 7 fans a day and you’re done in 5 years. Set for life. A life making music for your fans, not finding fans for your music.

The opportunity of digital distribution is this:

When you can distribute something digitally, for free, it will spread (if it’s good). If it spreads, you can use it as a vehicle to allow people to come back to you and register, to sign up, to give you permission to interact and to keep them in the loop.”

- Seth Godin

Last Thursday night the Chiki Musicadium Party rocked Barsoma as music lovers came together to celebrate Spring and the beginning of the festival season.

The night kicked off with a special performance from Triple J’s Queensland Unearthed winner, Joe Barbaro, who hadn’t performed in front of a live audience in two years. Joe proved to be worth the wait as he kicked off the night in fine form.

Kissy Trouble was next to take to the stage, delivering a beautiful set with her combination of soothing acoustic guitar sounds and sweet vocals.

Benjamin Hooper and his band had the audience bopping away to the funky sounds of the saxophone, while Steve Grady impressed the audience with his song-writing skills.

The night finished up with a performance from the Hungry Kids of Hungary, who got the crowd dancing once again to their catchy tunes.

Overall the night was a great hit and fun was had by all.

Musicadium would like to thank all of their fantastic artists who made the night possible. We are already getting pumped for the next Musicadium party which we will be announcing soon and are looking forward to meeting more members of the growing Musicadium family.

Triple J Unearthed winner Joe B warms up the crowd at the Chiki/Musicadium party Sept 11.

For more pics check out the Musicadium Flickr page.