9 posts tagged “rca”
In response to suggestions from the community (namely Kang and others), a couple of new elements have been added.
There is now a Calendar which anyone can add their gig dates to. No registration/log in is required. Simply add your details and everyone will be able to see when and where you are playing. So please take a look, see what you think.
Also, there were suggestions of a 'listened to' flag to show when Columbia/RCA/A&R have listened to a track. It's near impossible to give detailed comments on every track. But a simple when it was listened to and by who message seems like a good idea. So as of today I'm trying out something new that will generate a time stamp and signature as something is listened to by one of us. It's simply text at the moment but I will see if I can get some kind of embed graphic.
More details to follow.
Hello,
As we approach the 3000 mark I thought it would be a good time to talk on the method of submitting your material.
Firstly, especially over the past two months, the quality of submissions has been excellent resulting in representatives from A&R listening to many tracks and seeing artists live as a result. We are currently looking at several artists who we feel have potential.
When creating your blog it is important to know how to best present your material. Many of you are using your blog as a promotional tool of your work and to help build your online presence. In doing this attracting the attention of the labels. When doing this, regular posts are essential with new content added all the time. Be this new tracks, rehearsal/live video or interviews etc. These create the most interesting style of blog and often build a solid subscribership quite easily which can create a 'buzz' around your work. Adding neighbours and contacting other Vox users is the easiest way to build your own community.
If you're main motivation is to access the ears of those within the labels the most important thing to consider is the quality of the material you're submitting. Don't send a message to the label asking for someone to listen, but also say "I'm still working on this" or "With real money this will sound great". Only submit what you feel is your best work that you're 100% proud of. This doesn't necessarily mean the production has to be flawless. Once you feel that your potential submission is representative of what you can achieve then upload as soon as you can.
Once uploaded, your tracks are available in the central A&R area where the new submissions are listened to. It's easy for us to listen to each track and visit the blog of those which catch our attention. This is when first impressions are important. Often we will visit a blog on the strength of a track and there is nothing there, except that track. The very minimum contents of your blog should be:
Audio - Some people don't upload before contacting us, do this first.
Info on yourself - This could be in the 'About Me' section or simply a post summing up. Give details of what you've achieved in the past. Maybe people you've worked with, radio, big gigs etc.
Pictures - It's nice to know what you look like :-)
Please don't simply register a blog and send a message along the lines of "Check out Myspace - www..." with nothing on your blog. The main reason for us using this platform is so we can quickly go through new submissions, review them internally and use the tools that are available to us. Directing to external sites wont allow us to do this. However, please do incorporate your myspace or any of your other sites into the 'My Links' section, in addition to your populated blog. That way we can access more information about you and use the platform internally.
Finally, regarding comments on material. We launched this for demo submissions through a community rather than a feedback/critique site. Take a look at the FAQ we released at the start of this project for further details which can also be accessed via RCA's and Columbia's landing pages. We can quickly access and listen to new submissions whilst having a simple way of contacting the artist. Plus we can easily forward material around internally. We do comment on where we can but currently it's impossible for us to comment on every track submission as we want to spend as much time going through the new material as we can.
Quick tip on embed's
It is now possible to add third party embeddable widgets in your sidebar aswell as your posts. So if you wish to add a hit counter to monitor traffic, slideshows, other media players etc you can do this here. This can help you monitor traffic and also encourage further interaction with your blogs.
New Additions:
A Grazr widget has been added to the sidebar so you can explore some of our other staff blogs. The additional links section also includes some of the artists we've been listening to recently.
thanks
RCAD
Hello,
So the festival season is in full swing, I'm sure many of you braved Glastonbury. Did you remember to take wellies? I've already been sent a lot of stories regarding the festival, none of which I can publish. Though keep sending them and I'll be sure to link to them or republish here if they're not too bad. Been sent a few horrific ones involving Potaloo pranks, ugh. There are a few posts from our lot regarding the festival, have a look at this one and this one. I'm sure there are other's floating about out there.
Ok, got an oddly named band here 'Absent Elk' and they're not even Candian.
Every track I've heard sounds really polished and has a great sense of contrast and texture in the production. But I'm not going to waffle too much this time. Have a listen to:
Let's start with the most obvious question (I'm not very imaginative), what influences are within your band?
"All 5 members have very different taste in music, but we still tend to agree when it comes to creating our own. Somehow the different styles just seem to slot together. We like to think we have a dynamic/varied style, and these differences in music taste are probably the main reason that we often end up heading such contrasting directions within a track. As a collective rule though, we are probably influenced by anything which moves us, physically or mentally."
What's been the best gig so far?
"Every new show feels better than the last, so long as the sound system/engineer is decent. We are quite particular about the big sound we aim for. A bad engineer can really destroy the vibe in the music, and remove a lot of impact."
I've seen a few badly engineered gigs recently, it can really destroy the gig. How do you write new material? Is it the work of one songwriter or do you work through ideas collectively for example?
"A track can appear from anywhere and anyone. Usually a member will bring one small part (eg. a riff, a bassline, a beat, a vocal etc), which the rest of us then build on layer-by-layer, until we have a song … by improvisation. Sometimes Kjetil (our frontman) will just arrive at a jam with an almost complete acoustic song, and we just work on band arrangement, writing additionaly instrument parts, filling gaps, making gaps, building dynamics, chopping and changing etc. We’ve also been known to write entire pieces of music instrumentally when Kjetil hasn’t been around, or before he joined the band, that he has then written a vocal to later. It all just happens naturally really, and almost subconciously"
How do you promote yourselves?
"Like everybody these days, we have a myspace. It’s a pretty handy tool. We also have a mailing list. The most powerful thing still though, is word of mouth …making music that appeals to people. That way it can promote itself, to a certain extent. That’s the theory anyway!"
Hopefully this post may aid the word of mouth theory. :-). What do you think a lot of bands should do, but don't?
*"Concentrate on writing a song. Lots of bands seem to focuse on the style, rather than the song that lays beneath all the current scratchy production fads and funny outfits. There seems to be a real ‘form over function’ thing going on right now. People usually master their wardrobe and ‘attitude’ a long time before they master their craft."
I'm seeing a lot of comments on the blogs along those lines actually. I'm thinking now people are more empowered than ever to distribute themselves, some people may loose sight of the artistic side to a degree.
(Many thanks to the band for contributing on here, I will be posting more interviews soon.)
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*What do you think out there on this? Are we experiencing one of the biggest artistic melting pots as regards expression in music and other media, or is the internet being swamped with wannabe's with funny hair?
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I don't know the names of all the band members but apparently the band found Kjetil (singer) at a local beer festival in Brighton.
Hopefully they'll read this and leave a comment telling us their names.
So lets hear what you think. Sounds like they're promoting themselves in the way most bands are these days, do you think they could do more?
Keep the good stuff coming in, this week has been a good week for submissions and I've been forwarding a lot on to A&R which is a relief after a dry spell last week.
Be sure to say hello to the band, chat about their music maybe ask them about yours?
RCAD
I'll be sure to celebrate this evening. :-)
It's great to see a steady stream of submissions coming in and the contributions made by the artists. There's still plenty more developments to be made here and from the feedback we're getting from the community I'm getting excited to see what this looks like by the 3000 mark.
Anyway, music. Rather than cramming 3 or 4 artists per blog it's been suggested to dedicate a blog per artist and simply blog more often. Fair enough, here's the blog on 51 Breaks.
On joining the community in May, their two submitted tracks quickly stood out from the rest of that weeks submissions.
Overall, 51 Break's sound consists of a richly layered style of production with tight vocal harmonies over synth beds with strong chrouses. Will be interesting to see how this is translated into their live performance as there is a great deal going on in the tracks. If any of you have seem them live recently be sure to mention it here as I'm curious to find out. Will try and make it to a gig soon.
51 breaks like to keep it in the family as the lineup consist of brothers Colin and Michael Turner, cousin Tom Harman with adopted random Sam Jones. On record, sound very tight overall and from the sound they're already paired up with a decent producer.
Marc tells me that they're trying to push through the rock stage of their writing into something with more of a dance influence citing the likes of Bloc Party and Klaxons as inspiration. Seeing where they're at now it would be interesting to see how this evolves. Whether productions become more sparse to accomdate a beat driven sound, or stick with their thick blanket of tracked guitar textures and compressed vocal harmonies.
Just the two tracks at the moment though I'm told there is more to come. Have a listen to Blueprints and Dirty Hands, and leave a few messages here on your thoughts of the tracks. I'd also be interested in hearing what you want to see included here, or what developments you'd like to see in the way music is handled/displayed/experienced within Vox.
The band:
Michael Turner - Vocals/Keys
Sam Jones - Guitar/Vocals/Percussion
Tom Harman - Bass
Marc Turner - Drums
Gigs:
27/06/2007 - Firebug, Leicester
28/06/2007 - Pendant Club, Loughborough
21/07/2007 - Bar Academy - Birmingham
Extra Stuff:
Escape - an earlier song performed in rehearsal
For your listening pleasure.
It's a wonderful sunny day here in London, really does feel like summer for once. I'm still searching for my personal 'summer anthem' so maybe you can help with that.
A lot has been going on as regards the online demos behind the scenes. Still getting various bits and pieces together to make sure this works in the best possible way. As developments happen I'll post them here.
So we've got nearly 1,700 artist blogs now and we're hearing more and more great music. The submissions process is established and sits alongside our other A&R activities. I'm getting feedback from the other A&R staff at the label and I see comments being left on tracks. Which is good to see.
It's also great to see some of the orignal artists who registered early on resurfacing with new material often, one of whome, Freddy I've mentioned below.
Have a listen to the below, I've really enjoyed the submissions I've been listening to this week and it's a shame I can't post them all.
Freddy has heaps of talent as a songwriter and a producer, I'd have a listen to all of his stuff, but start with Apart and Let it Go.
I don't know much about Broken Daylight except they're from the Westcountry. The World Spins stuck out for me, strong chrous and a good feel to the track. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on this one too.
For those of you into the Acoustic/Singer Songwriter side of the community should have a listen to the wonderfully mellow Morning Warning Chours from Rececca Mosley. She has a fair few reviews posted in her profile, which describe her music probably far better than I could. :-)
That's it for now, though I have a whole heap of other tracks that I'll direct you to over the coming weeks. Be sure to say hi and visit the artists' blogs I've mentioned. Maybe leave a comment or two.
Hope all is good with you.
RCA
We've got the media player I was talking about.
The design is very simple and I hope to get it improved over time but I couldn't wait to get something like this on here.
This will really help spread the music on here to a wider community and help you experience other people's music easily. This has aleady become my channel of choice as a minimised page whilst I'm working. If you hear something you like you can click the forwarding link on the track and get to the artist's blog via the A&R group.
HAVE A PLAY! Listen to what's on there. There is a randomised 100 track playlist on there which I will get updated from time to time.
More to come.
What's Happening In the Community?
Well, there's nearly 900 of you now which is great news. There are more and more of you who are becoming influential in your own right as a result of your activities, the amount of neighbours you have and the quality of the content you're adding.
I have been listening to hundreds of great tracks via my blog and post links to what I think are good tunes as I find them. Be sure to have a look if your tracks are appearing there too.
I would like to give Beverly Williams a mention as she was one of our first members and since then has made a huge effort to connect with others and share her thoughts and music. Be sure to drop by and say hello, leave comments and listen to her stuff.
I would also give Nathan J Thomas a listen. I came across his blog the other day and found his track Wishful Thinking a great summer track. A superb blend of R&B, Soul, Jazz and some great guitar skills. Be sure to comment on his songs and see if you can get him to put some more tracks up. :-)
Keep in touch here. I am trying to get through all the messages this blog receives but if you don't receive a reply quick enough, please bear with me, there's a lot of you now. :-)
Looking forward to the 1000 members mark.
PS - I found a posting on how to add a hit counter to your blog, click here.
Hello,
Well it's official, you're joining the community in big numbers. Infact it's quite overwhelming which is great. I've been listening to new music all day, answering messages and replying to comments.
If you've sent me a message and not got a reply yet, bear with me I'm trying to get to everyone. Send another if you get sick of waiting. :-)
We've had lots go on over the past few days. I've been really busy with helping spread the word and getting this going, have a look at my blog for details on that.
Ok, so now you're all registering, now what? Well we now have a whole heap of music and a large community, how much of it are you in touch with? It's great that you've got started up and got your music here but how many other artists have you listened to aswell? The next step is to form your own communities too. I notice there are a few Jazz musicans in here, well connect to one another! Share ideas and comments and start presenting yourself as a community.
This is what is happening within the labels, we're getting people online and getting them to connect to one another. You now outnumber us in number, the music community is way past the 400 mark now. I'll have a party at 1000 ;-)
Now, this is an A&R blog and I should be talking about new music, well I have only just dipped into what's out there and I've already hear a great mix of music. Sarah Williams White caught my ear initally and I would have a listen, leave some comments and say hi.
I will do a proper feature on the new music that's appearing hopefully later today, tomorrow morning so you can get a real taste for what's going on. At the same time, go out and have a listen, let us know what you're listening to. :-)
Keep the music coming.
Welcome to the first RCA public blog!
This is the central blog of RCA's unsigned community. If you search around you'll also find RCA's label staff here, including the A&R department each having their own page and community.
Have a look around and see who's here. As this is where the bands connect to first over time you will see more and more acts appearing. Check our their music and other content, leave comments and tell us more about them.
You'll also see a posts from us. These can range from valuable information on new projects to random pictures and strange comments.
The reason we're doing this is we don't want your CD's! CD's really aren't the best way for the unsigned community to communicate with us. Set up a blog and we're always there and can see what you're doing musically at anytime. We can see how you develop and get a feel for what's happening with your music.
Who am I talking about when I refer to 'us'. Well I mean pretty much everyone here at the label and that includes our A&R function:
Craig - Head of RCA
Goodguy - A&R
Samrca - A&R
Stormyduke - A&R
You can also connect to each other which is important. Your here because you're into music so go and have a listen to what's going on around you. Leave comments, introduce fans to each other.
Leave comments here and on our blogs too. Let us know what you think of how this is going, the music that's about and most importantly introduce us to your music.
J
