RE: semi-OT:Claude review/ted's repsonse...etc

["Will Brake" <wbrake@comcast.net>]

If you want to get radio airplay, send a few discs to WDET in Detroit.
They are probably the most progressive and open minded radio station in
the country. I've heard every style of music you can imagine there. I
make my shopping list for music based on their playlists. They even post
them!

http://www.wdet.org

I wish there were more stations like this one!

Respect
 
Will Brake
Soul Fruit Electronics
 

-----Original Message-----
From: ArsOcarina@aol.com [mailto:ArsOcarina@aol.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 1:27 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: semi-OT:Claude review/ted's repsonse...etc

Mark, et al,

In a message dated 7/23/03 7:41:12 AM, sine@zerocrossing.net writes:

>If you want feedback, why not just post a few mp3s and save yourself 
>the heartache of mailing so many CDs?  I get good feedback this way 
>and I don't have to spend a dime on postage.

Because not many (if any) actual print publications will consider
reviewing 
an MP3 posted on the internet. Sure, an online e-zine might just
possibly. 
But,
I think it'd be rare even then. I don't want mere feedback. I want
actual 
REVIEWS
by people who might have the credibility and visibility to influence
listeners
(and hopefully buyers) and/or other future reviewers of my projects. I
want
to keep doing this (making music). And, I want to make it at least a
semi-
self-propagating activity eventually. Don't worry. I won't quit my "day
job." 
I can assure you I am smarter than that. Heheh. But, I want to keep it
going 
and growing.

The kind words of colleagues and/or friends are ALWAYS truly
appreciated!
Nothing can take the place of the good feeling of having a sense that
you are
even "somewhat" esteemed by your peers. However, a semi-positive
quotable 
line or two by a professional critic from even a minor print publication
or a
notable e-zine is ten times more useful in the long run -- in getting
gigs,
generating interest and a modicum of local, regional, national
"visibility," 
and in being taken (at least a little bit, heheh) semiseriously.

I am hoping that the next time I send out CDs I will be sending them out

to people who remember my last project (even positively, one would hope)
and have a certain expectation and/or prior knowledge of what I do.
Therefore,
I hope I will not have to send out quite as many since the "Flux" CD was
my 
debut solo product and I was entirely an unknown entity to all of the 
recipients 
this time around. The only thing they had to "go on" was the pfMENTUM
label. 
Those 750 CDs went out to the label's regularly "purged" list of
reviewers 
and programmers who have already previously responded positively to
their 
other offerings.

Additionally, I want actual radio airplay. Internet radio is great too.
But, 
not 
everyone is listening to that just yet. I do not know of any FM radio 
broadcast 
that mixes in music obtained from online in their playlists. It may
occur, 
but I am not aware of it. Programmers (just like reviewers) get 100s of 
discs a day from people saying "Please, please play/review my new
record." 
It is hard for them to open up and weed through all the stuff as it is.
If
you simply send them an e-mail and say "Please, check out my website and

my MP3s. Click here to go to www.mymusic.com" you make that "weeding" 
process all the more difficult for THEM actually. 

So far, I know that cuts from "Flux Aeterna" were at least played by
these 
radio 
outlets (because they publish their playlists online and not all
stations do):

WNCW 88.7 FM Spindale,Spindale NC USA
WSIA 88.9 FM Staten Island, NY USA
WSUM 91.7 FM Madison, WI USA
KUCI.88.9 FM Irvine,CA USA
WOMR 92.1 FM Provincetown, MA USA
KDSU 91.9 FM Fargo, ND USA
KCSB 91.9 FM Santa Barbara, CA USA 
WXYC 89.3 FM Chapel Hill, NC USA
KLCC 89.7 FM Eugene OR USA
WORT-FM 89.9 Madison WI USA
KZSU 90.1 FM Stanford, CA USA
KDVS 90.3 FM Davis, CA USA
KSDS 88.7 FM San Diego, CA USA
WPKN 89.5 FM Bridgeport, CT USA
KBCS 91.3 FM Bellevue, WA USA
KFJC 89.7 FM Los Altos Hills, CA USA
WHUS 91.7 Storrs, CT USA
CKUT 90.3 FM Montreal, Quebec Canada
CFLX 95.5 FM Sherbrooke, Québec Canada
CJAM 91.5 FM Windsor, Ontario Canada
CIUT 89.5 FM Toronto, Ontario Canada
3D Radio 93.7FM Adelaide, Australia
RTR 92.1 FM Perth, Western Australia
FRK 105.8 FM Kassel, Germany
RCV 99 FM Lille, France
90.1 FM Sens, France
RCV 100.4 FM Barcelona Spain
RF 91.5 FM Barcelona Spain
KAPSAI FM 100.2 Marijampole, Lithuania
Radio Indonesia 102.1 FM Mekarsari - Cimanggis, Indonesia

Not too shabby for a 50-year-old half-wit "nobody" with minimal talent
and 
an ugly guitar to boot, huh? At least I think so. The idea that
somebody,
somewhere, who doesn't speak my language and may not even share 
any of my cultural references or values hears and enjoys my music sends 
chills up and down my spine. Not THAT'S cool!

When you send a physical CD you are making a statement of commitment
and professionalism (for the lack of a better word). If you are on a
label
that they might already be familiar with, this helps. If you package it
right
and make your CD visibly stand out (in a positive way somehow) from the 
others in the pile on their desk, this helps too. You are giving them
clues 
as to who you are (or might be) to help them weed. If you're an unknown 
artist, it may peak their curiosity just enough to get them to give it a
try 
and listen to it for a minute or two. The rest is up to the music itself
to 
reward/fulfill that curiosity and earn you the review or the airplay you
seek.

This is not to say that the paradigm is not changing even as we speak.
The
internet is becoming musically more important all the time. It's likely
that
someday it WILL be standard practice to simply send an fancy HTML
e-mail with direct links for reviewers and radio programmers to follow
to 
your online audio files -- to some degree or another. This could include
all 
of the photos and PR stuff that is expected and mandatory (in physical 
form) now and still accomplish all of the same goals as before. 

However, with this will come abuses. This whole scheme smells an awful 
lot like SPAM. And I, for one, am not sure I want to become a
professional 
music spammer. Just how are those reviewers and programmers supposed 
to weed through all of this e-mail? A subject line can say only just so
much.
Will we have to titillate, bribe, or outright lie? 

As I said before, a lot of good will and good feeling is generated when 
we offer positive feedback on each other's musical efforts on Loopers'
Delight. Several kind people on this list have said some truly,
amazingly
nice things to me about my music. So nice, in fact, as to be rather hard
to believe. Yet, on a personal level, this still means a heck of a lot
-- to 
be
"well thought of" by a community of peers -- that even the occasional 
hyperbole is regarded with a good deal of warmth. It buoys up the
spirits.
But, a good review is important too . . . to me at least . . . and it
has 
it's own
unique usefulness in regards to keeping the whole process going along,
project after project.

Best,

tEd ® kiLLiAn

http://www.mp3s.com/tedkillian
http://www.pfmentum.com/flux.html
http://www.CDbaby.com/cd/tedkillian
http://www.guitar9.com/fluxaeterna.html