Opportunities for you - the artist!
PRESSPLAY MEDIA
Pressplay Media (a Music Marketing company – sync music licensing & print media) and Dreadlock Cowboy (an Australian Independent Artist) are doing something very special together. They have released “Sweet Days” for placement into an Australian Film, Australian Television program OR an Australian Commercial for FREE!
This offer is extended to Pressplay Media’s Australian registered Music Users and will be active until 31st May 2009.
To register log on to www.pressplay.com.au and fill out the free registration form. You must be a Music User to fill the form out. Once registered you can start searching for music or apply to license “Sweet Days” for FREE.
No, they are not crazy! Both Pressplay Media and Dreadlock Cowboy are of the same opinion about getting out and being noticed. This deal is win/win/win. Pressplay Media wins. Dreadlock Cowboy wins. Music User wins. Exposure and Promotion is the name of the game!
Dreadlock Cowboy is a singer/songwriter who also plays acoustic guitar and stomp box and has been described as folk/rock fairy/pop! She has been writing music for over six years, is proudly Australian and has a broad fan base. Her highlight this year (so far) was playing at the same gig as Deni Hines and Christine Anu. Oh, and she just happens to be the little sister of the Director at Pressplay Media!
If you are an Independent Artist or Band you can also register as a Music Owner. Log onto the web site and decide if you would like Pressplay Media representing you for placement of your music.
For all enquiries about this offer or licensing information please email music@pressplay.com.au
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‘Breakthrough’ grants offer Indigenous musicians exposure from (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/30/2530391.htm)
It seems it is extremely rare for an Indigenous musician to reach the top of the charts.
In recent years, very few have been able to reach the heights of artists like Yothu Yindi or Christine Anu.
But now the Federal Government is offering three grants of $25,000 to young Indigenous musicians, to try to find the next generation of stars.
Music, like other art forms, is often at its best when it tells a story or expresses an idea.
For contemporary Indigenous music, those stories are often about culture, past and present.
Wire MC has been rapping about Indigenous issues for years but has always struggled to get any commercial success with his music.
“Being a young Indigenous rapper, man, there’s already a couple of strikes against me; I’m black and I rap,” he said.
“This country really is white boy rock’n'roll, that’s another struggle that I come up across. You know me, I love rock’n'roll, so somehow I try to find a way around these obstacles.”
But that is not the only obstacle. He sees one of the biggest problems as mainstream audiences not being aware of contemporary Indigenous music.
“You have to be persistently driving yourself to work. You know what I mean?” he said.
“Like, when there’s no funding, there’s just you and your art, pretty much there’s no resources, other than community centre studios and things like that.”
And that is why the Federal Government is launching a new pilot program called ‘Breakthrough’ to give Indigenous artists those resources.
It is offering three grants of $25,000, to be used to break into the commercial music industry.
Arts Minister Peter Garrett says it would be used to record an album and promote it.
“Any new musician when they’re coming through in their early stages is competing with others,” he said.
“It means competing with people whose music gets played on radio here when they have recording budgets and marketing budgets, and production budgets that far exceed anything that any Australian musician could contemplate.”
The money will be available for artists who have been trying for years to crack the big time, or for younger singer/songwriters, who show potential.
“Whenever I’m travelling around the country, I’m really struck when I visit Indigenous communities at how much music is actually coming out of bedrooms and houses and from the back of sheds and other places,” said Mr Garrett.
“You know there’s that vitality and that productivity there which is just absolutely staggering. And anything that we can do to lift a little bit of that up and give it a bit more of a profile, is a good thing.”
At the Gadagil recording studios in the Sydney suburb of Redfern is a new set-up for Indigenous musicians to create their work.
The studios have only been there for a few months, but this weekend Gadagil will be releasing a hip hop album, created by young Indigenous artists.
The studio’s manager Brad Cooke says it is a popular genre.
“It is the emerging style. Whenever we go out with our young black and deadly performance projects into communities and teach kids how to sing, dance and write songs, most of the time it’s about hip hop music,” he said.
Any of the artists on the album would be able to use the money from the government’s ‘Breakthrough’ program.
Mr Cooke believes the most important part about it, if Indigenous music really is to make it into the mainstream charts in the future, is the money for promotion.
“The real need to highlight the money is for publicity and for the promotion - the marketing and push behind it so commercial networks do play it” he said.
“A lot of people out there listening now would know that some really bad artists have become successful on the back of good solid marketing promotion and because they might look good.
“We think our music’s got more substance than any of the music out there. We’d love for people to hear our stories and we now have a really good opportunity to do that and hopefully our artists will get to utilise the new breakthrough initiative to do that.”
Based on a report by Michael Turtle for PM
