Ahh that grabbed your attention didn’t it? This is an article, of un-biased material and information on the described topic above. I’ve written this article for many of my friends who are musicians, and for whoever is interested in REAL information, and not just heresy, or Uncle Bob’s experience from the 70’s.

First let’s begin with why you are a musician.

Do you have the passion? Or is it for personal growth? Maybe to receive more attention? You don’t have to explain to me why you are doing it, just as I don’t have to explain why I do what I do. I wouldn’t consider any of those options right or wrong, they are more or less motivation for your career.

A Career? Yes, career. As much as you want to believe you can make music, hang out with your friends all day, and not have to deal with the stresses of an average job, you can’t. Being a musician in this day and age is much different than what you’ve grown to know. Most “could-have-been” musicians have a normal 9-5 workday, and then come home to work on music. This can be confusing for artists, as they usually don’t understand the characteristics of running a small business.

(NOTE: If you are a hobbyist musician most of this does not apply to you.)

Wait, did you say small business? I’m just a Musician; I’m not running a company.
Oh but indeed you are.
Look at some of the “be my own boss” style careers, Entrepreneur, Real tor, Investor, or anything freelance and you will see being a professional musician is a FULL TIME job. That is, if you want to make money from it. And when I say money, I’m not attempting to crush your artistic integrity, or dream that you are so unique you won’t have to worry about money. I’m talking about putting food on the table, money for strings and other instruments, advertising, traveling expenses, etc.

Now, if you are still under the delusion that you’re just going to be “found”, you might as well quit reading this. Those cases come in EXTREME rarity, and even then there is someone behind the “talent” creating an avenue for discovery.

Back to small business, how does it tie in? Well for starters, you are marketing YOURSELF or YOUR BAND. So now you are promoting a skill YOU possess. Think of a plumber, who is offering his skills in his desired area. Whoa, nuts huh?

Alright, so I have to take this seriously? Of course, I’m sure you already are, but what you don’t realize is that there are literally THOUSANDS of people doing quite close to what you are doing. What you need to do is take a step ahead of them.

Contact someone experienced with promoting your skills, you may find that many people in your immediate family have great ideas on how to bring you or your band to light. Do you have avenues to promote you or your band? A few songs on Myspace is good, but let’s face it you’re no Rihanna.

Social Media is nice because most up and coming musicians are already experienced using it, whether it’s you or your band’s status updates, twitter feeds, or upcoming gigs, you can easily promote yourself to your friends or existing fan base. Did I mention it’s FREE?

Networking is KEY in becoming a successful musician, as with almost every professional career. Ever heard the expression “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”? How very true that is. How are you going to get fans in Seattle when you’re only promoting your music in Florida? Sure you have a Myspace, but chances are unless they are specifically looking for you, they have no idea you exist.

Freebies are a nice way of promoting yourself. Offering free lessons in whatever field you are skilled in, possibly doing pro-bono gigs for local charities, or maybe your friends little brother’s birthday party will give you more exposure locally, and can then provide you with more avenues of income, or visibility, so you may be able to reach those fans in Seattle.

Becoming a professional musician takes commitment, we all know that. But the type of commitment it takes rivals the amount needed to become a CEO, or even the President at times. The real question is, do you want it for the right reasons? Do you want to make it your life? Are you ready to sacrifice and work harder at it than anything you’ve ever done?

If you answered yes to those questions above, then I believe in you, and want to help you succeed. I am no musician, but as many know I am well skilled in branding, and promoting myself. I am more than willing to provide my experience to your “Career”, as long as you are interested in it being that. A career.

Good luck to you and your future endeavors.

Check out some of the local artists in my area.
Iggnilla – DonkeyMoose
The Divided Mind
Southern Suburbia

Like this article? Leave me a comment below, it only takes a minute!

Is Nerdcore Rising? Wait, what is nerdcore?

First off, let’s talk about what inspired this, and my interest in Nerdcore. I was using Pandora, listening to a “Kid Cudi” station, when along came a catchy jingle, with an almost ska-like sound. The song? Nerdcore Rising by MC Frontalot.

I proceeded to do what everyone else does when they want solid information, I Google’d it. Turns out, there is a small, yet rising group of “nerdcore” MC’s or hip-hop artists. With names such as MC Lars, mc chris, Schäffer the Darklord, Optimus Rhyme, and the established creator of nerdcore, MC Frontalot, these artists have created quite a stir.

Nerdcore in the News:

Dungeons, Dragons and Dope Beats – The NY Times
Refrain of the Nerds – Boston.com
Me So Nerdy – Wired

Film

Nerdcore Rising premiered at the SXSW Film Conference and Festival on 9 March 2008
Nerdcore For Life at the tenth annual Wisconsin Film Festival on 5 April 2008

Nerdcore History

The term “nerdcore hip hop” was coined in 2000 by MC Frontalot. However, prior to that time artists as varied as Kool Keith, Deltron 3030, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, and MF Doom began exploring topics far outside of the traditional hip hop culture, including stereotypically “nerdy” topics like space and science fiction.

Though these underground artists were generally outside of geek culture and are not considered nerdcore, they can be said to have set the stage for artists like Frontalot, who has listed several of them as influences. Nerdcore had clear influences from geek culture as well, including geek rockers like They Might Be Giants, parodists like “Weird Al” Yankovic (who released a rap called “I Can’t Watch This” in 1992, as well as “It’s All About The Pentiums” in 1999 and “White & Nerdy” in 2006), and others. Despite these influences, Nerdcore has separated itself from other types of nerdy music thanks to an unofficial list of criteria that has evolved among fans and artists.

Aside from making hip-hop hop about geeky things, Nerdcore is considered to be an “Opt-in” genre. Only artists who consider themselves to be “Nerdcore” should have the label attached to their music. – From Wikipedia

Buy the documentary here

I can get down with this..

For the most part, I enjoy all of the artist mentioned in this article. It appeals to me, and my lifestyle. The clever rhymes, video game and programming refrences make many of these albums worth listening to, so be sure to check them out.

What do you think of Nerdcore?

Welcome back, hope your weekend was exciting and productive. Today I’d like to introduce a showdown between two web based streaming audio giants, Pandora & Last.fm.

I have been using both of these services, alternating weekly through the month of January.

Let’s start with Last.fm

Last.fm is a popular Internet radio site for music, founded in 2002. It claims over 30 million active users based in more than 200 countries.[1] On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for £140m ($280m USD).[2]
Using a music recommender system called “Audioscrobbler”, Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user’s musical taste by recording details of the songs the user listens to, either from Internet radio stations, or the user’s computer or many portable music devices. This information is transferred to Last.fm’s database (“scrobbled”) via a plugin installed into the user’s music player. The profile data is then displayed on the user’s profile page. The site offers numerous social networking features and can recommend and play artists similar to the user’s favourites.
Users can create custom radio stations and playlists from any of the audio tracks in Last.fm’s music library, and are able to listen to some individual tracks on demand, or download tracks if the rights holder has previously authorised it. – From Wikipedia

Last.fm is a great service, it provides users a more intimate experience, from artist bios, to fading images of user-uploaded photos of the artist, and of course the ability to skip to the next song or visit the artist’s website.

There aren’t too many things I didn’t like about Last.fm, the page at times bombards you with ads, and most of it is designed in Flash, which hurts when playing and working on the same PC.

Now on to Pandora

Pandora is an automated music recommendation and Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. Users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Users provide feedback on approval or disapproval of individual songs, which Pandora takes into account for future selections.
While listening, users are offered the ability to buy the songs or albums at various online retailers. Over 400 different musical attributes are considered when selecting the next song. These 400 attributes are combined into larger groups called focus traits. There are 2,000 focus traits. Examples of these are rhythm syncopation, key tonality, vocal harmonies and displayed instrumental proficiency.
- From Wikipedia

Pandora is what I am using currently while writing this post, and chances are, it’s going to be my go-to streaming web music service. Why you ask? Well, first thing comes to mind is song selection. I was able to find music that isn’t on the radar right now, which is very important to me as much of the music I listen to is; something to be concerned about.

Although great, Pandora isn’t perfect. It also seems to have resolution issues when displaying banner ads, and it limits you to the amount of songs you may skip per hour / day. Of course, it’s a Flash based website, but it seems to load a bit quicker than Last.fm.

Conclusion: I will keep my Last.fm account as I have it connected to Xbox 360 Gamertag, and use it every now and then, but my main service will be Pandora. It’s overall feel, song selection, and resource friendly design will keep it’s hooks into me for a while.

More information on Pandora & Last.FM:
Mashable – Web Music Faceoff
CNET – Pandora Review
Associated Content – Last.FM Review

Hello again, happy holidays, and welcome back.

This article will be a quick summarization of hip-hop albums / mixtapes you need before the end of the year. Some underrated, these albums have resonated with me for the past month or so, and I feel they need added recognition. Or whatever I provide.

Many of them underrated, are starting to gain popularity. Each artist has a link for Wiki, album purchase & twitter.

Show some love.

(Not in order)

Shwayze - @Shwayze – Let it Beat – A great young artist I am excited about, and hope to see his presence in the future.

Clipse – @Pusha_T - Till the Casket Drops – One powerful album, with production by the Neptunes? A two for one deal.

Chip tha Ripper – @chip216 – The Cleveland Show – I have been watching Chip ever since I heard him on Kid CuDi’s Plain Pat Mixtape. One word here, quality.

Charles Hamilton – @charleshamilton – The Best of The Hamiltonization Process – Clever lines, catchy beats, see you soon Charles.

Wale - @wale – Attention Deficit – As if you didn’t know Wale’s album has been released. Keep your eye on this guy.

Most of these are free to download, other cheap. Go ahead an spread this around, be a Cool Kid.

A band I’ve followed for some time now, really one of my favorites,  Flight of the Conchords, are releasing their latest album titled “I told you I was freaky.”

If you don’t know who the Flight of the Conchords are, well, I will not embarrass you, just read this excerpt from Wikipedia, if you do, skip ahead you amazing person you.

Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Billing themselves as “Formerly New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo”,[1] the group uses a combination of witty observation, characterisation and acoustic folk guitars. The duo’s comedy and music became the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007, also called Flight of the Conchords.

They were named Best Alternative Comedy Act at the 2005 US Comedy Arts Festival and Best Newcomer at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and they received a nomination for the Perrier Comedy Award at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe after performing at a venue called The Caves. The duo’s live performances have gained them a worldwide cult following.

Composing of many songs you’ve heard watching the HBO series, and a few new ones, this album is a different look at music, a more comical sense, a nice change from the pains of modern music.

Track Listing:

01 – Hurt Feelings
02 – Sugalumps
03 – We’re Both In Love With A Sexy Lady
04 – I Told You I Was Freaky
05 – Demon Woman.mp3
06 – Rambling Through The Avenues Of Time
07 – Fashion Is Danger
08 – Petrov, Yelyena And Me
09 – Too Many Dicks (On The Dance Floor)
10 – You Don’t Have To Be A Prostitute
11 – Friends
12 – Carol Brown
13 – Angels

The album debut’s tomorrow, as you already know if you’ve logged on to Myspace today. Grab it up!

Finding early popularity via Myspace, Owl City is lead by Adam Young, a self-described insomniac, with a mix of new age Disco & European trance, Owl City is on step to become another addition to already growing population on aspiring young musicians.

Hailing from Minnesota, Owl City has already collaborated with the likes of Relient K, and is now currently signed to Universal Republic.

Take time to explore this new artist.

I have 3 more achievements to attain today. And fit some Football in there as well.
I love this time of year.

Coming this October, Microsoft’s Major Nelson wrote in a previous update

There are no new features or changes in this update. This update is preparation for additional system enhancements (Facebook/Twitter/Last.FM) that will arrive later this year.

This was on the 23rd of September. Now, the beta which is scheduled for the middle to end of October, has been highly anticipated. But why?

First of all, having the ability to show off each achievement I attain the instant I receive it, is another great way to boost my egotism to an all new level. I already use twitter daily to portray what I am doing, and at most times I am tweeting about using my Xbox 360.

Adding Facebook and Last.FM allows you to expand your gaming experience,  by allowing you to network with other gamers, and share your personal music favorites. I do hope that they create a Windows Media Center connection with Last.FM.

Personally, I’d rather use one electronic device, especially if I am on it at that moment, rather than putting down the controller to tweet on my phone or PC.

Not that I’m lazy, no, I am merely taking advantage of all the hard work our forfathers put in so long ago.

Lucky for UK users, Xbox has launched these applications today.

Microsoft have announced, via their website, that Xbox Live users in the United Kingdom will soon be able to use Facebook and Twitter through their Xbox Live accounts.

Damn Brit’s get everything first. Lady Gaga, Pierce Brosnan, Muse.

Wale
Is another formidable upcoming artist that I am following closely.

I first found about him via a BBC blog. He immediately grabbed my attention with his clever lyricism, and pursuit to rap for, well, to rap. And his constant quality performance on the MTV VMA’s 2009 was bananas. Check him out. (Note: To sweeten the deal even more, he hosts his latest Mixtapes to download.)

Props to Wale, I love you’re music.
I cannot wait for Attention Deficit to drop in November.

If you do not know about Kid CuDi, well, now you do.

With his new album out, it’s only time before he rises to the the top.

Thanks Cudi, for your fresh new approach to hip hop.

Grab his CD The Man on the Moon