Since it’s Thanksgiving Day today here in the United States, I wanted to express thanks to all my faithful subscribers. Once again, I do appreciate everyone remaining subscribed even though my posting has been pretty much non-existent. Keep hangin in there, because things will pick back up again soon!

Also in recognition of Thanksgiving, I want to express thanks to all my twitter followers, Myspace friends and facebook friends. I’m also thankful for the fans of Wes Sp8, the fans of Mother/Father and the fans of Radical Notion. And of course I’m thankful for my friends and family offline as well…

One last thing: for those who are into getting deals on Black Friday, you might be interested to know that at Radical Notion Digital we do Black Friday deals every day. If you would you rather shop somewhere you’re more familiar with, then our Wes Sp8 CD Baby page and our Wes Sp8 iTunes page have some pretty good deals too. Mother/Father music is not available to purchase yet, but will be soon.

Hope today feels like a holiday no matter where you live…

Turkey photo by xybermatthew and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

You can now buy Wes Sp8’s Please EP on CD Baby and iTunes. Check it out at the links below.

On CD Baby:

On iTunes:

So yesterday was April 1st. Duh… Oh well what can I say, I was caught at a vulnerable moment.

[http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/lefsetz-apple-b.html]

But at least it’s a reality in my world because The Radical Notion Digital Store is all set to go live tomorrow. And that is not a joke. March was a very long month, and April started hard, but we’re very excited to be releasing Street Corner Champs debut Self Titled EP, and doing it as a download only. It is the second release ever for Radical Notion (independent media).

Due to certain circumstances we didn’t have a chance to promote Street Corner Champs’ EP Download Party very much at all, but here are some details:

• The party is tomorrow nite at The 5 Spot in East Nashville
• We are launching Street Corner Champs’ website, as well as The Radical Notion Digital Store
• The lineup includes Wes Sp8
• Vovo may not be able to make it
• Cost is $5

Hope to see you tomorrow nite…

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…

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.

It has been a couple of months since I have given an update on what’s going on. Radical Notion has been ticking along quite nicely. Both bands we represent have been playing plenty of rockin’ shows, and stirring up some local attention.

Wes Sp8
Back in November Wes Sp8 (pronounced Speight) and I did a radio interview on Vanderbilt’s station 91.1 WRVU. I told you that the recording would be up in the near future, but it took me a bit longer to post it than I hoped it would. Either way it is finally up, and you can find it at www.radicalnotion.net/media.

Another bit of Wes Sp8 news is that he is now a SESAC affiliated performing/recording artist. In January we began having a series of meetings with SESAC to seek affiliation, and in early February Wes signed the appropriate papers to make it official. If you live in Nashville, look for the upcoming show to celebrate.

Last bit of Wes Sp8 news-we were all excited when Wes got a little bit of commercial radio attention a couple of weeks ago. Mid February, Wes played a show at Christopher Pizza. One of the sponsors happened to be a local radio station, Lightning 100. They aired a promo of the show, which featured a clip of Wes’s single Please.

Street Corner Champs
Things are going strong in Street Corner Champs’ camp as well. Last Thursday they played to a packed house at Windows On The Cumberland in a battle of the bands. There was a great energy in the room; I could tell the fans were very excited. I was pleasantly surprised at the fan support that Street Corner Champs have. The competition went on all weekend, so I don’t know where we stand. In the end, it was a success because Street Corner Champs poured their soul into the performance, which formed a stronger bond with their already loyal fans.

stinson
In personal news, I got a call over the weekend to go record some overdubs for the local country/pop group, Shedaisy [www.myspace.com/shedaisy]. My friend Andy has been recording with them, but has to take a break to get another project started. He called me to fill in, so Tuesday and Wednesday I will be in the studio recording various overdubs, and generally having fun. I look forward to working with Shedaisy, as they seem like a great group of people.

That finalizes the news…
I don’t feel like this blog is the right place to talk about Radical Notion news. News regarding my freelance production is relevant, but it’s difficult to differentiate sometimes since the two are cross-relevant. I am working on building a blog for Radical Notion, so in the future look there for RN news.

I am going to experiment with more efficient ways to give news updates, because I feel that this time I waited too long. It’s hard to find the right timing for news since I only post once a week. Other bloggers that post daily, or multiple times a day don’t have any problem staying current with news updates, because they can still post their normal content too. Since I only blog part time it’s a trickier balance. My goal is to find a way to give news updates without breaking away from the usual content of the site. I don’t want there to be entire week gaps in the main content because of a news update. Today I’m going to experiment with a “double post.” I’ll try this for a bit, and depending on how it works, I may or may not try something different. So for now, on weeks that there is news to talk about, you will find two posts.

I’ll Take Your Suggestions
If you have an idea for a better way to handle news updates, I would love to hear it. Please leave me a comment with suggestions on how you would like to see news posts on this site.

My experience working through Getting Things Done has been a success. I’m more organized, feel more in control, feel less stressed out about keeping up with all my commitments, and feel more productive. David Allen’s method of GTD is exactly what I need to help me develop good organizational skills. I recommend the book to anyone and everyone in the music business. A good method of organization is key to freeing your mind, allowing you to become more creative and productive. As someone in the music business, I know that it is very hard to stay organized in this field. GTD will simplify this problem, freeing you up to be more creative (and the music business is all about being creative, isn’t it?).

I am not going to go into full detail of my experience with GTD just yet. I plan on doing that in a future post. I will also offer some of my own advice on what I found to be helpful when getting set up. At the moment I have my hands full promoting a couple of shows in Nashville. Two bands I represent are putting on shows this week. The Street Corner Champs are playing tonight at The 5 Spot, and Wes Sp8 is playing Wednesday at The End. In the meantime I’m going to link to a couple of articles that are inspiring to me. I hope they inspire you…

www.onmoneymaking.com/about-jon
Read the whole page, but when you get to the bottom pay particular attention to the paragraph under the heading A Currency for Financing Your Dreams

www.behance.com/Featured/Articles/Hero-Design-Studio-Smaller-is-Better/5666
This article spoke to me both because it’s about someone who left a more secure job to build their own company, and because it’s about a company that is a part of the creative industry. Those two elements describe what my life is like right now with Radical Notion (independent media).

*Note* GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co. Although I have spent quite a bit of time lately talking about GTD®, I am in no way affiliated with that company. I am simply inspired by what they do.

This week I’m posting early (on Friday) because I will not have time over the weekend to prepare a post for Monday. I have scheduled time to totally organize my office and life using the method David Allen developed in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I briefly described the book in my previous post that I published on Monday, and plan to talk about my experience once I complete the whole system. So again I will not be posting this coming Monday, but in the meantime I am posting some links to resources about GTD.

www.davidco.com/blogs/kelly/archives/2008/01/david_allen_giv.html
www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php
www.davidco.com/tips_tools.php
www.davidco.com/store/catalog/Free-Articles-p-1-c-254.php
www.davidco.com/podcast.php

I encourage you to spend a decent amount of time researching this method of organization. If you are like most people you feel that there are areas of your life that could have better organization. You feel like you are always struggling to keep up with the pace of life and business. Multiply this times ten if you are in the music business. It’s the perfect time to incorporate a new strategy into your life; to practice a new method of organization. So please check out Getting Things Done, maybe even try it out, and tell me about your experience.

I will be back on 1.21.08

It has been a little over three months since the last time I posted to this blog. The main reason for the pause in posts is because I wanted to migrate to my own domain/host. During the course of educating myself on the proper ways to blog, I came across some advice that you should take the time to set up your blog on it’s own domain/host before you build a significant reader base. Any time you migrate a blog to another place on the internet, you run the risk of defeating all the hard work you have put into gaining new subscribers. You should decide what you want to call your blog, and register the proper domain name at the outset of creating a blog, not after you have made a significant start. Learning from the mistakes of others, and since my blog was pretty much brand new at the time (and still is), I thought it would be the perfect time to do the migration. But before I could transition, I needed to do a lot more learning. To minimize the risk of gaining exposure under an identity I didn’t want to keep, I stopped posting. I have finally completed my change-over, and am proud to present my blog under the new title of producer notes: the scribbling of an indie record producer. I’m also excited about the fact that I’m hosting the site on a dedicated installation of Wordpress within Media Temple’s (gs) hosting service, using the domain name producernotes.com instead of jonstinson.wordpress.com.

In addition to the changes made to the setup of my blog, I have made a whole lot of exciting new progress in my music/production career.

Studio Construction
The studio is still on the radar screen, but the date for breaking ground has been pushed back to the spring. There have been so many projects happening all at once this fall, and I needed more time to draw the plans. I was advised by a friend to wait until the ground warmed back up to break ground. The studio is very much a part of my plans to progress in my career, and I am still very excited about the project. I will report on the progress of the construction regularly.

Radical Notion
At the end of September, I officially teamed up with a business partner, Jonathan Harms, to form a company called Radical Notion (independent media). This is a venture that I have been dreaming about getting involved in for a long time, and the solution I was looking for to help Wes Sp8 gain some recognition. We are ramping up for 2008, and it looks to be a bright year for us. Jonathan and I plan to work very hard to devise new opportunities for both creators of music, and fans of music. We can’t wait to move ahead with all the ideas we have already put into action.

The Street Corner Champs
In October, I recorded an EP at my studio for a band called The Street Corner Champs. As Jonathan and I began to form ideas for RN, I got a phone call to produce for the band. During the pre-production phase of the project, the songs came together so well that Jonathan and I decided to take them on as a Second act on the RN roster, meaning that we now represent two performing artists/bands.

Wes Sp8
The Wes Sp8 project has also made some significant progress. Wes has built a band to play at his live shows, and the ensemble could not be more perfect. The band spent about six weeks practicing, and now performs a live show that has a magnitude I can’t do justice in description. Once you see the show, you won’t be able to live without it. In November, Wes and I did an on air interview/performance on Vanderbuilt’s radio station, 91.1 WRVU. We enjoyed some very positive feedback from the Nashville community that was inspiring to us all. I look forward to posting a recording of the interview in the near future.

We all have high hopes for 2008. I know that Wes Sp8, The Street Corner Champs, and Radical Notion are going to have some wonderful successes. In the very short time that we have been around so far, we have experienced some incredible victories. It is perfect timing to set out to do something new. However, we cannot continue to grow and have success if you are not there with us. It is important for me to stress that Wes Sp8, The Street Corner Champs and Radical Notion need your support and inspiration so that we can build on what we have started. Please join us this next year, help us develop this new venture into something remarkable.

Become involved right now by getting plugged in at these places:
www.radicalnotion.net
www.myspace.com/radicalnotion
www.wessp8.com
www.myspace.com/wessp8
www.streetcornerchamps.com
www.myspace.com/thestreetcornerchamps

Bookmark those sites and visit them often. They are being updated with new content regularly.

It’s good to be back, and I look forward to seeing you in 2008!

finally got to mastering with the wes sp8 project. should be done by tuesday. im so excited to hear the finished product. it has taken a lot of time and patience to get this far with wes’s project. now that we are here we can focus on what to do next, which is to get his music heard. i am in the process of building a team of people to help me with this task. im very confident that wes, myself, and our team have a bright future ahead of us.

there are so many other developments with jon stinson productions (jsp) on the horizon that i want to tell you about. but you know how i feel towards talking about things before they happen. its foolish to talk about things you are going to do, less foolish to talk about things you are doing. besides, now i have you hooked. you have to keep checking for updates to see what happens. regardless of the amount of success or failure jsp experiences, there is going to be plenty of dramatic events for you to keep track of. stay tuned as the staff of jsp gets taken on a wild ride…