I do not have a post prepared today. This month has been pretty intense. I’m in a crunch to get a few projects completed in the next couple of days, and I’m a bit stressed as it comes down to the wire. On top of that some unexpected circumstances in the personal life of a friend came up that is requiring my attention. Please excuse my absence.

As always, thanks for reading my blog.

*The Wes Sp8 EP Release Party and CD is FREE*
This Friday, March 28th, will be Wes Sp8′s EP Release Party to celebrate the release of his debut, Please EP. The party will be at The 12 South Tap Room in Nashville, TN with O’ Don Piano playing first (Josh Hood, Wes Sp8′s drummer). There is no cost to get in, and the first 50 people who show up get a free copy of Please EP. You don’t want to miss this show (unless you hate free stuff). Come be a part of the community that Wes Sp8, myself, Jonathan Harms, Radical Notion and others are building in 2008. We put the value in the guest’s experience.

Get directions to The 12 South Tap Room here: [www.12southtaproom.com/contact.html]

One more thing…
Thanks for reading my blog, and taking an interest in what I do. If you live in Nashville I’m going to do a special promotion of Please EP for you. It’s going to end on Friday, or once the first 10 people act-whichever comes first. Come by the Radical Notion office (my apartment) any time between now and Friday to say hello and get your FREE, pre-party copy of Please EP.

Well I left out a point. In my haste to get my previous post published and then run out the door, I forgot to call your attention to something specific David Armano says in his video. I wanted to tell you to pay attention about 3/4 the way in when David says, “learn by doing.” This struck a chord with me because I am often preaching that sermon. You read about it all day long. You can have all the text book knowledge on any given topic in the world. But you don’t really have a clue what you are doing until you get your hands dirty. It gives you perspective…

Why do I spend so much time talking about marketing/promotional ideas when my blog is supposed to be about music production? Well possibly the main reason is because I’m really interested in the subject, especially internet marketing/promotion. I get really excited about the opportunities the internet creates every day.

The bigger picture is because I believe that if you are starting out as a producer or engineer, it is important to know how to market yourself in today’s music industry. Learning the trade of recording is the obvious stuff to know. Learning how to market and promote yourself is, on the other hand, kind of grey. If you want to become a great producer or engineer, of course you will want to develop the skill of capturing music perfectly. But do you think of yourself as a business? Do you know how to manage that business?

But what if you are in the music industry because you are employed by someone else? Perhaps you are the house engineer at a recording studio. Do you still need to think of yourself as a business when you already are employed by one? Absolutely. I have held staff positions at recording studios myself, and I have the inside perspective on what it means to be “employed” by someone in the music industry. The music industry requires you to be a self-starter. It takes a person who has an entrepreneurial mind set.

I believe that in 2008 this entrepreneurial mind set has actually leaked into pretty much every industry. In the 21st century, getting paid means being an entrepreneur and being on the internet.

This morning I came across a new (to me) marketing blog called Logic + Emotion run by a guy named David Armano [darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion]. The only reason I found it was because I recently signed up for Twitter. One of my longtime friends from high school found me on Twitter, and when I took a look at his list of people he follows, I found David. Not to get off topic, but this proves social media works (perhaps I should talk about that in future post). Anyway, the whole point of this post was to leave you with a video on David’s blog that inspired me.

Follow Up
Hope you enjoyed/got inspired by/learned from David’s video. I want to read your opinions. How do you see blogs and the internet playing a role in the future of the music industry? Leave your comments.

Hope you wore green. Drink responsibly tonite. Have fun…

Photo by colros. Protected by Creative Commons Attribution License

Seth Godin wrote a blog post today that is titled “Opportunity of a lifetime.” It sums up in a small paragraph exactly why I think it is the perfect time to get into the music industry. Read it here [sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/opportunity-of.html]

I’m not going to be here on Monday. We’re crunching to get everything ready for two big shows. The Wes Sp8 EP release show on 3.28.08; and Street Corner Champs EP Download Party/Website Launch on 4.3.08. Stay tuned for the details…

I have been posting a lot more than usual lately. This is party because there is more to talk about, and partly because I’m contemplating increasing the frequency of my posts. It’s kind of a hard decision to make. On one hand I feel that I would be stretching myself way too thin, as I have so much going on right now. On the other hand, I feel that if I stick to my current schedule, which is to post every Monday, that I miss out on talking about a lot of things because they are no longer current. I feel I would be doing my blog and my audience a disservice if I tried to post too often, and the quality of my blog suffered. In any case I wanted to talk about something now, and not wait another four days, as I feel it won’t be as relevant then.

Nine Inch Nails has been coming up with some awesome ideas to connect with their audience. They recently have released a collection titled Ghosts, with different options for downloading or buying physical copies. Now they are taking the Ghosts project and enhancing it by doing a collaboration with their fans through YouTube. It’s really inspiring to me, and I plan to copy some of their ideas. Check out Trent Reznor’s latest blog post [www.nin.com]

We received the Wes Sp8 Please EP from the manufacturing plant today. This represents a lot of hard work and patience for all of us who have been involved along the way (Wes Sp8, Josh Hood, Jordan Hester, Kristin Thomas, Nate Creekmore, Chad Erickson, Jonathan Harms and myself). It has been nearly a year since we hit the record button the first time to begin this project. In between then and now we have worked, and continue to work relentlessly, putting our heart and soul into this project. It is a milestone in all of our musical careers, and a great payoff for what we have been chipping away at for the last 11 months. I can’t explain to you how excited I am to have this CD in my hand, but I don’t have to. I write this blog for an audience of independent musicians, producers, engineers and marketers. Each one of you know what it feels like to finally have in your hand what has taken months, even years, to develop.

Please EP is the first recording to ever have the credits read “Produced, Recorded and Mixed by stinson.” And the first release ever by Radical Notion (independent media).

Only a couple more weeks until the release party. We will be celebrating this release in our home town of Nashville, TN at the 12 South Tap Room. If you live in town and are able to make it I hope to see you there.

I want to use this moment to connect with you. I would love for you to share your stories of your first product release, book, recording, etc. Even if you have never released a physical product, I would still like to hear from you. Any story of releasing a product applies, even the first time you posted a song on myspace, or released your first ebook-anything. So please, leave your comments. Tell your story.

photo credit: fiddi1
I was talking on the phone yesterday with a friend of mine, Jacquire King [www.jacquireking.com], and we began discussing the idea of community in the music industry. The whole conversation kind of coincides with my post from a month ago, The People Business. We concluded that most successful music happened when a group of people came together to form a community. The resulting sum was immensely more powerful than what the individual parts could have been on their own. There have been several of these key movements in the history of recorded music that are tied to a decade, a group of musicians/bands, a few key producers, a few key engineers, a few key record labels and/or publishing companies and a geographical location.

Examples include:

photo credit: tpholland

• The 50′s era American rock music in Memphis with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Sam Phillips, Sun Records, etc.
• The 60′s era British Invasion with the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Who, Norman Smith, Geoff Emerick, George Martin, Andrew Loog Oldham, Gus Skinas, EMI, Decca, etc.
• The 70′s Punk era with The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Sire Records, Seymour Stein, Richard Gottehrer, etc.
• The 80′s Hair Bands era in America with Motley Crue, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Poison, etc, and New Wave/Post Punk era in Manchester, England with Joy Division, The Church, Cocteau Twins, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Factory Records, 4AD, Rough Trade Records, Geoff Travis, Tony Wilson, Ivo Watts Russell, Peter Kent, etc.
• The 90′s Seattle grunge with Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Sub Pop Records, Butch Vig, Brendan O’Brien, Terry Date, etc.
• Recently in Nashville with the Muzik Mafia, Movement Nashville, The Music Society Nashville, Big and Rich, Gretchen Wilson, Chance, Cowboy Troy, Luna Halo, AutoVaughn, Kings of Leon, The Pink Spiders, etc.

photo credit: nichcollins

Jacquire also brought up Stax Records [www.soulsvilleusa.com], Muscle Shoals Sound Studio [www.muscleshoalssound.org], and Daptone Records [www.daptonerecords.com]. Each one of these companies is unique in that not only are they a part of a community as described above, but they also are companies that take an “all in house” approach. In the case of Stax and Muscle Shoals (both of which are no longer around), a house rhythm section was provided on recording sessions. These companies are also unique in that they have never tried to be all things to all people. Instead they have excelled in offering the best quality content to a niche who are interested in that content.

The point in all of this is that people want a community. People want to feel like they belong to something special. The people in these examples came together because they all had a common interest, and they wanted an outlet to express what they were passionate about. They began playing together, and as a natural occurrence attention was brought to what they were doing.

People as fans also want to feel like they belong to something special. They get attached to a story. They want to be able to retell the story of how a certain musical movement came into existence. People feel compelled to be the first on the scene. They want to be the authority in their social circle for this information.

Now with the internet and social media, this community has taken a whole new shape in the 21st century. As you continue to build your career as an artist or producer, think about your community and how you can actively become involved in it. There are infinitely new ways to propagate a community online built around your music. Pursue your dream purely for the sake of achieving your deepest desires. Focus on forming a social bond with fellow musicians, engineers, producers and other music industry people in your area. Focus on sharing a connection with fans. Create a story.

What do you think? What are some other musical communities/time periods that I didn’t mention here? What ways could you team up with other members of your community, or use social media to help each other gain exposure? Leave comments with your thoughts.

Note: All photos are Licensed Under Creative Commons

I am posting twice this week. Over the last ten days or so, I have come across some blogs/sites that got me excited. I have wanted to post them for a while now, so instead of putting it off until next week I’m posting them now. This is also part of an experiment I’m doing. I’m going to try posting twice on weeks that I give news updates, so that I don’t break the flow of normal content for an entire week.

www.startupnation.com
I was recently listening to a recording of a discussion panel of marketers. It featured Seth Godin, and somewhere in the middle he talked about this web site. It piqued my interest since I’m starting a new company. I suggest anyone who is trying to start a career as a freelance producer/engineer bookmark this site. It provides all kinds of information that is directly and indirectly relevant. By the way, you can find the recording of Seth and the others here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/02/citizens-1.html

www.meetup.com
Another Seth Godin mentioned site from the same recording. You ever wish there was a way to network with people in your city who are either in the music business, or are starting out in the music business? This site is great because it allows you to start or join a sort of interest group/club related to your hobby or career.

www.smashingmagazine.com
As we continue to Build Radical Notion, I find myself paying more attention to web design. This site covers more than just web design, but it is overall useful to the topic, and a great source of inspiration. Web design is always something I have wanted to learn, but now I have a real excuse to spend time researching the topic and looking for inspiration. I came across this site because I am a subscriber of Daily Blog Tips [www.dailyblogtips.com]. They run a very useful “Link Tips” post where they post links to cool sites/articles they find.

vandelaydesign.com/blog
Another web design site I came across in my search for information/inspiration. I really do want to give credit where credit is due, but I can’t remember how I linked to this site. I tried to retrace my steps, but I had no luck.

www.inc.com
Just like Startup Nation, this is another great place for information for entrepreneurs. I can’t remember how I got to it either.

www.makeuseof.com
Again, a site I came across being a reader of Daily Blog Tips. It is a great site that posts links to useful tools on a whole variety of applications.

Thanks…
Thanks to those who have subcribed to my blog, and take an interest in what I am doing. I appreciate your support early on while I’m building my blog. Over the last few months I have learned quite a bit about building/running a blog, as well as a few web sites. This is all new territory for me, and has proven to be a steep learning curve. Thanks for sticking around through the rough spots of experimentation. Hope you have a great and productive week…