Musicadium Blog

I don’t know about you, but I think about all the big questions in life - why is belly button lint blue? Will lemon juice make you thinner? Where do babies come from?

You know who knows the answers to these questions? No, not your mummy, but everyone’s favourite science boffin and new Musicadium artist, Dr Karl!

Dr Karl, an artist? Yes people, Dr Karl has been working with his mate Jay from Triple J’s Jay and Doctor and a few of his muso friends to realise his dream of becoming a rock star. The result is his new punk track “Get Fact” which will be available shortly on iTunes.

In the meantime, you can pick up Dr Karl’s new book Never Mind the Bullocks: Here’s the Science at any reputable book store. He’s also coming to sign said book at a store near you sometime in the next month, so check out the dates for his book tour here. He’s also on Twitter, or you can catch him with Zan Rowe on Triple J mornings every Thursday at 11am.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the Valley Fiesta took over Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley just last weekend, providing Fiesta-goers with some amazing local, inter-state  and international acts via their four main stages and a myriad of satellite events. Add visual art, theater, markets and zombies into the mix, and you’ve got one exciting weekend.

As a member of The Honey Month, I had the amazing opportunity of playing on the Naked All Sorts Mall Stage (with the beautiful condom backdrops), a stage which held host to acts as diverse (and incredibly talented) as Kev Carmody and Bertie Blackman. This was by far our biggest gig to date, and as such it would have been rather difficult not to have learned anything. Below are just a few of the things we discovered, as well as some things that were reinforced.

1. Get there early. This sounds painfully obvious, but it has to be said, especially when playing at festivals. Due to their finely tuned timetables, organizers are far less forgiving of your battle with traffic or your nervous bladder , and you’ll end up either cutting in to your sound check or set time, neither of which is desirable.
2. Don’t pull your instrument lead out without first checking with the sound guy. He won’t like you, and neither will your bandmates.
3. On the topic of sound guys, learn their names! They are responsible for making you sound good, and are generally lovely people to boot, so do them the small courtesy of introducing yourself. You’ll find it goes a long way, especially if you happen to run into them at a future event.
4. Don’t let barriers kill your crowd interaction. As far as I can remember, we haven’t played at a venue with barriers, and it can be a bit disconcerting when you first realise you are seperated from the crowd. Just remember that crowd interaction goes above and beyond a mere hi-5, and to keep the energy and personal interaction going despite the distance.
5. Speaking of energy, it is important to keep your entire festival performance at 110%. Whether this means cutting a particularly slow, long song that works brilliantly in an intimate venue or dancing like a maniac, festivals are the perfect opportunity to catch the eye of a passerby. Remember, there are always other stages and artists to entertain them, so it is up to you to ensure they’re hooked.
6. Get off stage quickly. While signing autographs and getting your picture taken with your legion of adoring fans is no doubt attractive, your primary focus upon finishing your set should be to get out of the way of the next band. The band before us, the wonderful Little Scout (who are, coincidentally, Musicadium artists, check them out on iTunes here ) , virtually vanished into thin air, which meant we had more than enough time to set up and soundcheck.

While this list is by no means comprehensive, it has hopefully provided some things to think about before you jump up on stage for your next festival gig. If you’re yet to play in a festival, I encourage you to do everything in your power to get a slot. They are without a doubt one of the best ways of expanding your fan base, and are also ridiculous amounts of fun!

A fantastic find from “Who the Bloody Hell are they?“, Cameras have just signed up with Musicadium.  An absolutely beautiful song is accompanied with a magical film clip.

Check them out at MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/camerasband.  Their music is available on

With a name that has a cool story behind it, and a live performance that will knock your socks off, Melbourne lads Armen Firman are definitely earning their reputation of an Australian band-to-watch. Lead singer Tom caught up with Musicadium whiz-kid Jono to chat about the band’s recent shenanigans.

Photo by Mick Patrick

Armen Firman is a pretty unusual name, where does it originate?

Armen Firman was a guy who jumped out of a tower in 852AD with pieces of wood strapped to his arms and a giant cloak on. He basically wanted to fly, but obviously didn’t. Amazingly, his giant cloak acted as the first example of a parachute. I don’t know why, but we just felt this crazy story had some parallels with how we go about making music. We aim big, and generally don’t achieve exactly what we set out to, but the end result is still generally kind of cool. And we often come off stage with minor injuries too.

I see from your… interesting videos on Myspace that you guys are recording a new EP. How does it differ from your debut, Your Name In My Skin, and when can we expect the release?

Your Name In My Skin is a great little snapshot of a young band just going at it, you know? We had 5 songs we dug, and we just wanted to put them down and play them to our friends. The result was really cool. The new EP is maybe a bit more layered and ambitious. We’ve really taken our time choosing what sounds and textures really suit the songs, and we’ve also gone way beyond just guitars/drums/keys. Whether or not it’ll be any better is anyone’s guess. But is has been fun trying to do something a bit bigger in sound. As for when you’ll get to hear it, that really depends on when the right producer falls into our lap. We’re picky when it comes to that sort of thing.

How does the writing process work for you? Is there a primary song writer or is it more of a group effort?

Each song is different, but generally I’ll come in with an idea and Jimmy Saunders (Armen Firman’s bass player and sometimes lead vocalist) will flesh it out before we bring it to the band where the final touches will be placed on it. Jimmy is the song-writer’s wet dream. He’s just a brilliant arranger and has that rare ability to see what is cool in an early draft of a song and really bring that out and let a lot of the filler drop away. Lately though Armen Firman has been writing some material as a band which has been cool.

Your video for In The Water documents you having a pretty good time on your trip to Sydney, are there any other interesting stories from that trip?

Ha! That was an interesting trip. We drove up to Sydney to play a gig one weekend and decided to shoot some material on our phones which I ended up banging together into a filmclip simply because we didn’t have a filmclip for that track. I think that clip really shows off the personalities in the band, because we were able to relax, as we were just filming each other for a bit of fun. As far as any other interesting stories from that trip goes, I think Sammy has a few secrets after that trip. He disappeared straight after the gig and we only found him the next morning walking around the middle of Kings Cross as we were about to head back to Melbourne. I’m not entirely sure what he got up to, but I don’t think sleep was involved.

Finally, what does the future hold for Armen Firman? Any chance of seeing you guys in Brisbane sometime soon?

The immediate future for Armen Firman will be interesting. We’re trying to find the right producer for the tracks we’ve just recorded. Once we have the new EP in our hands, we’ll be keen to play anywhere people will take us, Brisbane included! Can we stay at the Musicadium offices?

You can check out Armen Firman on MySpace Twitter and buy their EP Your Name In My Skin on

At just about every conference or industry forum we attend, invariably someone will ask about “What’s the next big thing in music? What’s the future of music? How will bands be making money in 5 years, 10 years?”

Invariably, the answer is “horses for courses.” Which is kind of vague and annoying for conference-goers because that rhetoric then gets bandied around a lot.  But when you think about it, is very open. Which is nice. Because it means that you, as an artist or artist manager, have options.  Where previously, there was but one definition of success.  You were signed to a major label, big advances, massive tours, mass-media campaigns and stadium shows and platinum records, all the while being disconnected with your fans.

I don’t think that there will ever be a culture of the super-mega-massive-superstar ever again. Career artists, sure, big shows and festival headliners, sure, but certainly they and their labels will need to be thinking innovatively and being ahead of the game to survive.  They will need to be connecting with fans as well and certainly not being inaccessible as before.  There may be big success for a time, but being ignorant of connecting with fans through live performance and technology could so very easily push them away.

Luckily, in this new environment, it kind of comes down to something that Seth Godin was talking about on his blog a few weeks ago - making decisions. There are endless options in terms of distribution of your music, touring, marketing, publishing & licensing, the whole gamut of industry options.  By being a decision maker, you set yourself goals and you define who you will be and what you will and won’t do in your career.  There is no one path anymore, so making decisions about how you feel about certain paths/options will take you on your own choose-your-own-adventure music industry tale.

You can literally decide what levels of success you wish to achieve and how you can create your success, whatever that is for you. That’s not to say that an artist should not understand the current models within the industry, but decide to work within them, around them or invent new ones.

You can decide how to record your music, you can do it yourself at home or you can record at a studio, you can choose to give it away on a disc or sell it at whatever price point you want, you can choose to give it away online or sell it in whatever stores you choose or a webstore of your own, you can choose to have merchandise or make merchandise and sell it in webstores who can print-on-demand at no cost to you,  you can set up your own digital label and distribute not only yourself, but other bands you like as well, using a digital aggregator like Musicadium. You can decide how much you spend on marketing, if any budget at all.  You can choose how to access your fans and the level of interaction you have with them.

There are literally as many answers to the question of “What the future for musicians and artists?” as there are people in the world.  It is open to interpretation.

The next big thing in Music? Could be you. Make the decision to make decisions.

Interested in playing a showcase gig at South by Southwest Music Festival to be held in Austin, Texas from 17-21 March 2010?

SXSW Music Festival showcases nearly 2,000 musical acts over 5 days on more than 80 stages in downtown Austin and is attended by labels, agents, managers, manufacturers, publishers, writers, bloggers, media giants and fans from all over the world. This year more than 30 Australian artists performed at SXSW.

The deadline for artist submissions for SXSW 2010 is 6 November 2009 . Please visit the SXSW website for more information regarding the festival and the submission process http://www.sxsw.com. All submissions are done through Sonicbids.

NOTE: Queensland, Australia artists - if you are successful with your application, get in contact with Trade Queensland as they can help with getting you to the conference.

Fashionistas, indie kids, art appreciators, music fiends and even rumours of a Marylin Manson appearance ensured that glassghost at x and y bar on Saturday night was a resounding success. Musicadium favourites The Cityscape Riot kicked off the night in stellar form, with frontman Joseph even chipping a tooth during the energetic and at times confrontational set - proving they are, in fact, riotous. In a good way of course.

The Turpentine fashion parade showcased some of Brisbane’s local design talent, and some of our better looking residents, as they strutted and strolled onto the x and y stage looking uber cool.

DJ Jane Doe, as usual got the crowd moving afterwards with her electro-trash remixes and crazy beats reminiscent of MIA, Santogold and some lady La Roux, paving the way for a dance-fuelled night at x and y.

Put simply, glassghost = gem.

To check out a gallery of photos from the night head to www.thelastbeatniks.com.

To buy the Cityscape Riot’s music head to

Felinedown’s live show is fantastic.  We know so, because they played at our last showcase and blew the roof of the venue with their electro-rock fronted by a gorgeous frontwoman and fantastic songs.

Now, we see that their artwork is wicked as well, and we go thinking…”Wow. These guys have got their shit TOGETHER.”

Even the name of this digital re-release is genius. FELINEDOWNLOAD. See what they did there?

Anyway, check them out on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/felinedown.  Their Digital release will be live soon on iTunes.

I recently designed some flyers for the UnPlug Live concept I had devised several weeks back. Last week I got my designs printed @ StreetPrint in Birmingham, (posters to follow soon).

I’ll be distributing these everywhere I go; at local shows, venues, record shops, recording studios, ticket outlets, clothes stores, universities, colleges, fast food joints…everywhere!

Since displaying the flyers outside the venue the other day, a good number of bands are already showing interest in playing at UnPlug, finding the policy I have specified for each show most appealing. This of course benefits the exposure of Musicadium, potentially increasing the level of UK artists registering for digital distribution.

Digital copies of these flyers are circulating across Myspace, Facebook and other social networking sites, with various Birmingham bloggers also due to be contacted.

Here’s a clearer example (click to enlarge)

Front:

Back:

Advance tickets for each show look a little something like this:

I’ve been meeting up with artists scheduled to play at the venue, discussing the idea of UnPlug Live and the benefits of registering with Musicadium. The fact that bands retain 100% royalties and have no term based contracts hanging over their heads, proves to be the most appealing factor when informing exactly how the distribution deal works. The cool thing is that this policy I have devised at UnPlug will also remain on-going, even after my internship is complete and I have moved to Australia. Providing the nights are successful, the events will continue, therefore creating a solid connection with Musicadium and UnPlug in the UK.

I’m also mapping out ideas for the Musicadium podcast I mentioned in one of my previous posts. For every artist registered through the Unplug Live concept, I then wish to devise a podcast featuring tracks from bands who have performed at UnPlug. This will be a first and awesome feature for the company, another incentive for artists wishing to get their music heard.

I’m also going to represent Musicadium with my upcoming DJ bookings, by having the Musicadium logo alongside my name on all future flyer designs. Every little bit helps!

Ok I could really do with some tea and pudding right now…I’ll keep you all updated with more news soon!

Peace

Jimbooo

jamesb@musicadium.com

Artist Liaison and UK Correspondent

Is there a super cultural mainstream or is it merely the mosaic of subcultures and music scenes? Is mainstream our enemy or our saviour?

Are all creatives eccentrics or are the normal ones merely weirdos in normals’ clothing?

We take a look at the difference between “good mainstream” and “bad mainstream”, and how we can harness the benefits of mainstream to help emerging artists find a wide audience.

The discussion will be lead by QUT’s Professor Alan McKee, pop-culture extraordinaire who has written five books on the subject.

Special guests include Sean Sennett, Managing Editor of Time Off Media, and John Willsteed, QUT academic and former member of the Go-Betweens.

When? Tuesday, 20^th October, 2009

Time? 6pm – 8pm

Where? Brisbane Powerhouse (Turbine Platform), Lamington St, New Farm

THIS EVENT IS FREE TO ATTEND AND ALL ARE WELCOME