Week 8 in Ariel’s Book- Networking tips

This is a very timely chapter with so many music festivals coming up. If you have followed this so far you will probably know that networking isn’t my strong suit. However , I really like the ideas presented here. I also, like not having to SELL but, being of service to others and building more of a community. Today there is an art event that I like to go to called First Fridays here in Arizona. It happens , well on the first friday of the month.  It involves all the galleries in Scottsdale and all sorts artisans presenting their work. It really is one of my favorite thing about this area. The  esteem in which this town holds art.

Back home in Arizona I have a lots of friends who are photographers, designers, artists. But, here I don’t know any. It has made creating the visual part of my album very difficult. Case in point is my video. Because, of funds (or lack of funds) I have attempted to shoot a video myself. It has been very tricky and I have not been able to make a video with the emotions that I want to convey. I consider fashion and lighting, videos, and art all apart of fleshing out these emotions.   The truth is I need more collaborators here in Arizona. Although, I may or may not be staying here I think it is always nice to meet other creative people. These tips will certainly prove helpful.

Fever Dreams and what happened to The Sixtyone.?.?.

I was walking through the airport today. The sun shining through the windows brought on a kind of waking fever dream. When I came to I wrote this down on a piece of scratch paper that I dug out of my purse:

Leopard spots over my eyes.

Stare at the sun so, long that I go blind.

Until I feel your hand…

and we swing until we’re dizzy.

Leftover easter candy…

We suck and we’re sugar sick.

We ache and we’re longing until perhaps it’s now another day.

All homesick in the sunshine.

Those leopard spots turn to friends and our friends all have freckles.

We’re swinging.

We’re Laughing.

We’re holding hands…

and we never let go.

Do you think it’s a song? More importantly, it has me thinking about my next album. I have had a vague idea in the back of my head. But, if you read my last post you know that I am contemplating collaboration and community. Strangely enough,  this is a running theme as of late. If you are a sixtyone user you know about all the turmoil on my (once) favorite music site.   People are upset about the community aspect being (mostly) removed from the site. Music itself has become more of a community based thing. We tend to gather around artists who are speaking to us. Not just through their music but, through their words (videos, blogs etc).  At least words that artists have written or spoken on a computer screen. The poem that I wrote is about a kind of community. But, it is a physical, tactile one. It’s all a bit jumbled at the moment but, I know that this is what my album is going to be about. An album about community wouldn’t be right without being collaborative. So, if you are reading this feel free to throw out suggestions. I have a couple of ideas but, would like to hear from you first! YOU FIRST! 🙂

PS if I do this I am kind of throwing out a bunch of songs have written already!

Week 6 and 7 The Fan Connection

The thing about being a DIY artist is that at some point you have to think about selling stuff. I really don’t like thinking of people who listen to my music as customers. Aren’t you all magical woodland creatures who meet in a giant Pez Dispenser shaped gazebo for a concert? The fact of the matter is that I do want to play music for the rest of my life. If I want to remain an artist I better teleport back to dome of man and become more of a business owner. Believe me, I am not suited to do very many other things besides music. Among my many jobs I have been a forgetful/distractable restaurant server, an incompetent office worker, and an inept salesperson.

Which brings me to weeks 6 and 7 in Ariel’s book. This chapter was all about connecting with fans from my emailing list. The main part of the chapter was exercise on coming up with a sort of composite fan, so I more clearly define what people who listen to my music want. How I might give it to them so that I can also make a living doing these things. When I made my album I wasn’t really thinking about any of this. I was just making songs that I might want to hear. I suppose it’s the way most artist work.  Is it selfish way of working? This chapter had me contemplating everything in a new way. I am really hoping that in the future that I get to hear from you and that maybe, this could in turn become more collaborative. It will be nice to branch out and be able to hear from a larger group of people.

Now, I am just starting out and my email list is small. That is why I am kind of cheating and combing the two weeks. I feel that I have to work on adding to my list before I can come up with of engaging my audience. Prior to releasing my album I was working on ways to grow my list (using some of Ariel’s techniques). But, it’s most certainly a work in progress! Unfortunately, a lot of the suggestions (in Ariel’s book ) about growing my list did not apply to me yet. I am not a gigging artist yet (but, I hope soon). Playing live is one of my favoritist things! ☺I guess it’s going to require some creative thinking on my part! Now that I do quite well!

The Lost Room

I admit I don’t have cable. If I get it, I will definitely watch it and then not get to do other things that I love to do! So, if I am going to watch a series it’s going to be on DVD or something. This means I am late in watching a lot of things. Which brings me to ” The Lost Room.  I hadn’t even heard of it. I got it on a whim while browsing for movies.  It has Peter Krause from  “Six Feet Under” (which I think was the best show EVER). It’s about a cop who finds a key that opens any door and all doors lead to this enchanted motel room. This room has ordinary items that have magical powers. And as you might guess a lot of people  want to get their hands on said items.  I was completely hooked and watched most of it in one evening! I was tired after a trip and it was the perfect thing to be lazy to. It’s kind like Twin Peaks meets Heroes (the first season). I was almost sorry when it ended! I wanted more! 🙂

Week 5 Blogs

When I first approached this chapter a couple of weeks back. I have to admit I was really overwhelmed by trying to do everything all at once. There is a reason Ariel calls it “Music Success in 9 weeks”. Now that my album is out I feel a little less pressure. So, I reproached this chapter. To my surprise this is the most entertaining and fun chapter so far. I was thinking  about how much work it was going to be for me to keep up with 50 blogs. But, I kind of forgot that these blogs are about things that I find interesting. New music, gadgets, synths, philosophies about music, what is not to love?

It was time-consuming to find the 5o blogs. I got most of them through Hypem. But, once I had a list it was a lot more enjoyable. So, I found a way of working on this task. I am going to read 10-20 blogs a day. However many it takes for me to find 5 that I find have an interesting topic for me to comment on. Then through track backs I will check back on whatever I had commented 2 days before.

Through this process I am finding some great music and interesting points of view. I actually look forward to doing this everyday!

The Deadliest Fairytales

I am so pleased to announce that my album is finally out! It has been a long, fun, sometimes arduous journey! So, I wanted  to talk today  about the universal mind. On my best days I can tap into it. I just recently posted a free download of a song called Friskies (for joining my mailing list). The song is essentially about being in the airport security line at the airport. When I wrote it I was just kind thinking about how much I hate going through security (TSA).  and I was trying to figure out what might make going through that ordeal more fun. Nothing more, nothing less. Or so I thought! Well, months after I wrote the song I rediscovered it after I was looking through all the outtakes from the album. For whatever reason thats the song I decided to finish. Well, as you probably know there was a furor a week back about TSA. Now I didn’t make any connections, I just posted the song on The Sixtyone. I got quite a few comments about how timely the song is. And even though it is a very silly song a second listen back reveals a slightly satirical tone (hmm..that’s like”She sells seashells…”). I was not  planning any comment on a current event. It just kind of happened.

I feel like this happened a lot while making my album. It wasn’t until I got halfway through that I realized there was a common theme among the songs that I wrote.  I found that I had written songs that were whimsical takes on events in my life. This is something that appeals to me, because anyone who knows me also knows that I have a strong inner fantasy world. These songs were like my inner world meeting my outer world for some twisted yet enchanted fairytales. I didn’t plan for that to happen it just did. I have begun to find that the less I fight the way that things are sometimes the better off I am. This is a tough one for me, because isn’t it hard letting go of something that you care about? But, the more that I do it the happier I am!

Well, I hope you can pick up my album and if you do that you enjoy it! Thanks so much!

xxx

Rain

Week 4 Social Media… Social phobia???

This blog is about Week 4 (Social Media)  in Ariel Hyatt’s book.  The whole social media thing is a bit overwhelming. I am not a band so, it’s only me doing everything!   There are soooo many sites and a lot of them do the same things. But, I know people use different ones, so I suppose theoretically it would make sense to be on most of the main ones. So, I set about joining some sites and  making the profiles wasn’t at all difficult. Keeping up with them …well, we’ll see.

I already had a personal Facebook profile. A few weeks a go I added a fan page. I decided to go ahead in the book a bit since I am releasing an album (COMING OUT NEXT TUESDAY..YAY).  I have mostly been keeping up with it using some of the advice in Ariel’s book. I am just starting out so, I in the beginning I had like 20 fans (ouch!). As of now I have around 237 🙂  Also, adding My band to my page boosted my standing on Reverbnation. Currently I am #6 in my area.  That’s a nice improvement!

Twitter on the other hand has been a bit harder. I do twitter fairly frequently. I only have like 12 followers. So, if you are reading this and are intersted in following me definitely follow away!  One thing is I haven’t been as active with following others as I have with facebook. I think it’s a whole time mangement thing! Meaning I have no time management at all …;)

I also set up a youtube account but, right now I don’t have any videos. I am currently working on  content for youtube, though . 2 videos for songs on my album and I did a video of me in my home studio working on a bonus track (not included in my album) called Friskies (I will post that video soon). You can get the track now, though on revernation http://tinyurl.com/Friskies

So here are links to the sites I did join:

My Website

You Tube

Twitter

Facebook

Flikr I haven’t put up pictures yet but, I will soon!

Music Alley

Ourstage If you have a minute and can go to the site and vote for me it would be awesome. They have a monthly competition!

Another site that was recommended was “ilike” but, I am having trouble registering my artist name. It keeps thinking that I am 07 Rain rain. Whoever they are! I have to sort that one out.

Well, that’s all for now! Happy New Year Everyone!

Week 3 continued… New Website

Well, after the bad experience with my site I am happy to say that I finally finished a site. I did it on Bandzoogle. If you are a musician and don’t know about it, I would suggest looking into it if you can’t afford a website designer.  Let’s just say I have a temporary cash flow problem. All sorts of unforseen expenses come up when you are putting out an album and promoting it .

The site is very simple but I think it looks pretty good considering I did it myself. I have no clue about designing a site and I found it really easy. Plus I can update it myself! This is a HUGE plus to not have to depend on someone else! Well here is the site link. http://rainrainmusic.com/ (I changed the domain name but, I am going to connect the two domain names).

My Twenty Best Albums of the Decade

I decided to only go with albums that I can listen to all the way through without skipping tracks. Albums I was  very obsessed with. Also,  I was thinking the 40 best tracks of the decade might be a more interesting list. Maybe I will do that! 🙂

So, these are in no particular order:

1) The Shins- Chutes to Narrow

This was a tough one because, I really liked ” Oh, Inverted world” Which maybe had higher highs but, I think this was an overall more solid album. “Saint Simon” is brilliant!

2) Jenny Lewis-  Rabbit Fur Coat

Sad and happy and funny all at once. Although an ex once asked me what it was once. He said he was asking because, he wanted to know what NEVER to buy! I must disagree!

3) La Roux- La Roux

It’s newer and it might fade for me. But, I love it and it is difficult to put together an electronic album you can listen to all the way through without getting bored.

4) The Faint- Wet from Birth

This was one of the funnest shows I went to!  A Sweaty blast!

5) Bjork-Vespertine

Goddess! Enough said..

6) Imogen Heap- Speak For Yourself

Certainly owes a lot to Bjork but, a goddess in her own right!

7) Jens Lekman- Night Falls Over Kortadela

His Lyrics and Deadpan delivery are delicious! I read a quote that he makes songs for forlorn women. Perfect description!

8) MEW-And the Glass Handed Kites

Epic and silly and emotional! Frengers was good too….

9) Outhud- Let us Never Speak of it Again

Brilliant!

10) Rilo Kiley- More adventurous

Am I cheating basically two Jenny Lewis albums…

11) Yoko Ono- Yes, I’m a Witch

This might also be cheating, because it is essentially a compilation. But, I feel justified, because they were really different versions of the songs. Wacky is attractive!

12) PJ harvey- Songs from the Sea

This one really still holds up. It’s been awhile!!!

13) Eminem- Marshal Mathers LP

This one too!

14) tv on the radio- Dear Science

15) MIA-Arular

She makes music I never thought I’d like sound amazing! There’s just something about her.

16) Daft Punk- Discovery

So ahead of it’s time.

17) Fischerspooner- Oddessy

Wore this one out! So many great tracks. It’s a shame this didn’t get bigger!

18) Silent Shout- The Knife

Pop weirdness! Love them!

19) Postal Service-Give up

Emotional electronic pop …Right up my alley.

20) Goldfrapp- Supernature

The opposite of emotional pop. More like android electronic pop. Black Cherry might have had better songs but, this one was good through out.

Week 3 Website Optimizing

This is my third week blogging about going through Ariel Hyatt’s “Music Success in 9 Weeks” book.

It really sucks that I am not able to do this chapter right now, because I was really looking forward to making my website better! Not to mention the fact that  I’ve come to realize that my website is kind of my home base for everything and it makes going further a little difficult.

The issue is with the person I hired (and that I have already paid) to do the website, won’t return my emails. That has definitely been my lesson in making and promoting this album. If you can get away with it see if the person you are hiring will let you pay as you go. I think when you pay ahead  it ends up from a psychological perspective like the other person is working to pay off a debt. Which is not very conducive to being creative. I had made an agreement with one person to do the artwork (which he did a tremendous job), album design, website and myspace. At the time it seemed like a good idea. But I probably should have hired separate people because, it has most definitely been very frustrating!

Now I am wondering if I have to try and do it on my own or if I need to pay again to have someone finish it! Either way I will have to come back to it.I am going to move on to the next chapter while I am deciding what to do.

I would much prefer to end on a happier topic, I am going to post my Top 20 albums of the decade here tomorrow! It was fun trying to come up with a list!