QMusic, Arts Queensland and Trade Queensland are giving two Qld acts the chance to play at UK festival The Great Escape in Brighton (May 14 to 16). It will feature 200 bands across 25 venues. You have to be an original band based in Qld, have a CD out and with management and/or label. Any enquiries email info@qmusic.com.au. Deadline is 5pm on Wed 26 Nov, submit to www.qmusic.com.au/thegreatescape. It’s free for QMusic members, $11 for non-members.
Musicadium will always applaud artists who think outside of the square and try something different when it comes to engaging music lovers. We found this article on Christie’s Music News and wanted to share it with you all for some possible inspiration.
Melbourne’s Brittle launched their “Technology is Your Friend” campaign at the Arthouse Hotel to 200+ tech saavy fans. They intergrated the release of a sample track from their forthcoming EP “Chinese Whispers” via bluetooth during the set, by asking fans to power up their bluetooth handsets to recieve a studio version of the track “Do It Again” while they played the song simultaneously on stage. Within seven minutes they got 247 downloads. “With a little brainstorming there are many ways that even a indie band can reach fans and convert potential fans by getting them a little involved in the show,” says Ben Whiting. Brittle moved from Ballina, NSW this year.
This week, I found a tool that could save artists hours and hours and hours of inputting information into MySpace, then VIRB, then ReverbNation, then Facebook, then…
You get the picture.
I know that my social network profiles suffer when I have multiple to update and manage. Often it’s MySpace that gets the update (because that’s where everyone goes, right? Well, about that…people use all sorts of social networking sites, most use more than one…), then the others if you get around to it, then maybe the official website, because you sure as hell don’t have time to muck around with writing that HTML stuff.
ArtistData.com is what I would describe as a portal. Basically, you sign up, you import all your gig data over from your MySpace (assuming it’s the one that has the most updated and full information), then shoots it off (syndicates) to your other social networking and event information sites, so that your online presence is unified and strong. The message is consistent, more people will see it and you benefit overall, in the sense that you are not tearing your hair out over spending hours logging in and out of various sites and copy-pasting information and re-typing it.
At Present, you begin by importing all of your MySpace Data. Then, if you already have VIRB, PureVolume and Eventful, it pushes all of your gig and tour dates out to these sites.
If you don’t already have an account on these sites, you can sign up through ArtistData.com and then import your data over through their easy process. Once you have all of these sites set up, it auotmatically pushes your gigs over to them. ONE POINT TO NOTE - Once you do this, you need to update artistdata.com to push the information to the other sites. If you simply update MySpace at the MySpace website, it will not automatically update the others.
Two sites that also are beneficial to be a part of are ReverbNation and SonicBids - ArtistData.com also can get your information to them, but not automatically yet. ArtistData.com DOES make it easier to get all of your info there though, by being able to export the data into a format that these sites recognise and upload easily to.
It also adds your information into Last.Fm, moJam, Showclix, Jambase and BandsInTown, all sites that you do not need an account for. These are like bonuses that you do not need to work for - they automatically get put in front of these audiences using these sites.
The new social networking behemoth, Facebook, is also being beta-tested at the moment, and will be in place by late this year. My guess is that ArtistData will push your data to Facebook and will add events through the events application on your behalf. I guess it will then be your job to invite your guests, as per usual.
Being unified in your approach to marketing online is something that is vitally important. When all of your profiles are synchronised and your fans see that you are organised across the board, you will find that they trust you more. The more trust a fan has of an artist, the more chance that they will purchase their music/merchandise/tickets to live shows. Hopefully, this will help push them down that track of becoming true fans.
Digital Love,
The Musicadium Team
Check it out! Musicadium is now showcasing the best Musicadium album covers.
This week’s is one of our favourites from awesome Adelaide boys, THE SHINY BRIGHTS!. This is the Album Cover Art for their release, “Let’s not but say we did.”
Melbourne’s stealthy hard rock act, Twelve Foot Ninja, is a band on the rise.
We asked Steve from the band about their awesome comic strip, their live show, upcoming shows at Pyramid Rock Festival and with Mammal and his non-existant guitar amp.
We in the Musicadium office were super-impressed at Steve and the bands’ outlook on their live show. They like to stay on top of how their listeners think and listen to music. They believe that people are firmly engrained in the IPod Shuffle mentality, listening to a single track and moving on to another band and perhaps another genre entirely with the click of the next button.
To combat this fan boredom, they write music that varies wildly in genre and mood, though it is all tied together through their multimedia approach which includes artwork, a comic strip, online content and literature available through TFN’s website.
Steve said that their music is basically ‘clever music for the iPod generation’ i.e. people who get bored very quickly with their music listening.
When asked about their upcoming performance at Pyramid Rock Festival, Steve said that they are going to bring something different to what the crowd has seen before. Steve said that they are very critical of their live set, they are always trying to perfect the show, but not choreograph it, so that the improvisation and creativity does not wither and die.
We at Musicadium loved talking to Steve and we really want Twelve Foot Ninja to come and play in Brisbane, Queensland!
Buy their music on 
We love finding out about the interesting things our artists get up to and were excited to discover that our very own artist Dion from New Zealand has a colourful past as a reality tv star! He appeared on the series ‘Make or Break’ and had a camera crew following him around as he got used to performing on stage.
We were so interested in this that we decided an interview was in order - read on to discover what it’s really like for the reality stars! Check out his website or head to
Everyone is by now aware of ‘Movember‘ the month when normally clean-shaven young lads grow a patchy section of bumfluff on their upper lip that resembles a chihuahua with alopecia rather than the porn star or cricket legend that they are trying to champion. However, because it supports a wonderful charity we love the participants, and the range of moustaches it produces - from bum fluff to handlebars, we salute you mo-men! (and women).
This November however, Musicadium favourites Mr Rascal have a different agenda. They are taking part in the fascinating project called ‘National Solo Album Month’ and are locking themselves in an Old Museum to create their next album as a result. They will be blogging the entire experience here and we think it will make for an insightful and pretty damn interesting read!
National Solo Album Month was inspired by NaNoWriMo which is a competition where writers attempt to write an entire novel in a month. It aims to silence one’s inner critic by forcing artists to simply go with their initial reactions rather than second-guessing their ideas. We think that this will make for some fascinating and brilliant songwriting so we encourage you all to check it out!
Mr Rascal - Always up for a challenge!
Photography by Mark Lobo.
We love the positive, Michael-Franti-esque attitude that these guys apply to their music, but we want to know what you think. Leave a comment below and don’t be shy! Check them out on MySpace here.
On Wednesday 19 November, Southbank Institute of Technology and the Contemporary Music Centre in Brisbane Australia will kick open the doors of their new state of the art “Rock School” to members of the public with an exclusive tour and concert featuring students of the 2008 performance course.
The Southbank Rock School has world class studios and facilities, running courses including Music Industry Business, Technical Production and Performance and has been home to Musicadium staff, Sarah and Marnie, and our fabulous interns Greg and Jess.
The free all ages show (due to start at 5PM) will feature graduating 2008 performance bands, and provides a great opportunity to scope out some of Brisbane’s up and coming talent.
When: Wednesday 19th November, 2008. 5PM-All Ages
Where: Level 4, E Block, Southbank Institute of Technology, Ernest Street, Brisbane.
Sarah and Tim made the trek down to the TripleJ broadcast out of the Powerhouse in New Farm today and who did we catch up with?? Josh Pyke!
We also said g’day to our friends in the John Steel Singers, Ross and Scott.
We are supporting JJJ’s Aus Music month!
Unfortunately we got there a little late, but it was nice to see a lot of people there supporting Australian music, as are we!!
