XalexarthurX's Blog

Websites the Pro’s and Con’s (in my opinion)

xalexarthurx — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:06:08 +0000

Twitter- Pretty basic website. You have 140 characters to state whats on your mind. Seems simple and also can be effective. Say you’re a band, you can put random little updates so that your fans feel like they know you on a more personal level. These posts could be anything from “Hey guys just finished up tracking guitars for our new album!” and not only can you do that but you can attach a picture so they can feel right there with you, or you can even put something so simple as ” Man I love eatting at 5 guys burger joint!” just so they feel closer to you then some distant no body. The biggest con of this site is you only have 140 characters to do so, which in some cases isnt a huge deal. I’d rather read a short and to the point update then a page long thing full of filler bull.

YouTube- This websites pretty straight forward also, its you’re way of putting videos up about yourself! As a band you can put up the best quality videos of your shows and even do video blogging about whats going on with your band. Like I said with twitter, its all about bringing the fan in, keeping their interest, and making them feel as though they are a part of it. The cool thing about youtube.com is that you can host a video on the website but it gives you different ways to link it to other pages wether that be just a link or actually embedding the video into your site. I think this is very helpful because fans want to see the artist and be a part of what they love, YOUR music. As far as I can tell the only con with you tube is their content protections and speed, so keep it PG-13 and you should be fine haha. Also the time limits for uploads kind of sucks.

Flickr- This website is for uploading pictures. I like the fact this website lets you upload high quality pictures. This might be nice to host your pictures from because I know when you post nice looking pictures in facebook or myspace the quality drops drastically. Its also nice because other people can also look at your pictures and comment them. I think this site is pretty one dimensional but if you are a photographer or designer this website is KEY for you to have.

Vimeo- This site is like the glorified youtube. You can put HD videos up with no time limit I mean for a band thats a big deal. You can put up a video of your WHOLE set in high quality, that would make it more enjoyable for your fans to watch! The biggest con I see is that if you take the free route you have limits on how much you can upload per week, and how many channels and albums you can have. But if you pay $59.95 you get a year of unlimited anything so the question to yourself is, is it really worth it? you tell me. Everyone will have a different opinion on that.

These websites all seem to be very good for what they are. Some of these websites are more directed at certain people then others but I think a musician could find a use for each of them.

What I have been doing lately PT 2

xalexarthurx — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:34:00 +0000

I have been working a lot on getting ready to record/ put out this album. I have taken lots of pictures for my album artwork lately, searching downtown to find some things that I think could potentially look cool for the fold out and back print of the cd. I have also done a lot of networking and through a friend found a graphic designer to put together all of my album art by editing and structuring all the pictures and laying it all out accordingly. Through meeting him I also now have him designing shirts in hopes to have them printed before the release date.

I have also been working on setting up the biggest possible CD release show I can get in my home town in Iowa on Friday March 26th. Through touring and playing in bands in that area for so long I have made friends with a lot of bands that will hopefully draw a big crowd to the show. I have dealt with getting ahold of the venue and figuring out, with them, the money situation and have come to terms on a plan that works for the both of us. On top of that I have been able to contact all the bands that I want to play and got them all situated and set up to play and in what order they will play. Also I have had to figure out load in times and pretty much just and overall schedule of the day and night of the show. I am now getting a team together of people who live in that area to start manually distributing fliers and local hang outs and also just other local shows in that area before time. I will also be making what I call a digital flier that I will start posting everywhere along with the other bands that are playing. I can then start a facebook/myspace event to help promote online and just to all the “fans” I have established via the internet.

I start recording drums in a week and then have about 3 weeks after that to finish recording everything else, mix, and master it. I just can’t wait to have it all done and out.

What I’ve Been Doing Lately

xalexarthurx — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:26:15 +0000

Lately I have been working on writing music for my full band “acoustic/folk” project along the lines of such artists as City and Colour, William Fitzsimmons, etc. I have been in a metal band my whole life and when the touring and such came to an end I was in search of playing something a bit different and honestly this is just what came out and felt right. All the music has passion behind it. I try not to write about things that I can’t personally connect with because I feel like no one else will connect if I don’t even truly know what I am talking about.

I write all of the music mostly just with an acoustic guitar laying vocal melodies over it, then I try to program a basic idea of drums and bass that I have in my head and let the people that play those instruments in the band elaborate on them with their skill. I have done a lot of pre production demo work along with a few purely acoustic demos just to host on Myspace for people to preview what I am doing, also to send to the rest of my band in order to “get the feel” for everything to prepare for recording. Putting my “demos” up also helps me gain some sort of hype and it really helps when I’m trying to book shows.

Right now I am just finishing up demoing all of the songs out so that I can do some sort of pre production to the songs. Some things I plan on doing is evaluating the structure of each song making sure its holding the listeners attention as a whole. Then I plan on re evaluating all of the melodies making sure that every note flows together well and portrays the overall feel I want in the song. The final part for me is searching through the songs and finding all the little “extra tid bits” I would like to add, such as volume swells, a piano at parts, and over dubbing, or anything really of that nature. In the next few weeks I will start recording our first demo which will contain 7 original songs. Drums will start in about 2 weeks then bass, guitar, and finally vocals. I am hoping to be done recording and mixing within a month for a tentative C.D. release show on March 27th.

The DotCom Boom

xalexarthurx — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:28:45 +0000

Ever heard of Ebay? maybe even Amazon or Paypal? These are some of the bigger, and lasting, sites that came from a time known as the “DotCom Boom”. In the late 1990′s and early 2000′s people were realizing the drastic pull towards everything being bought and sold via the internet so everyone tried to monopolize on those facts. Companies started popping up everywhere giving business plans using just the internet. These companies stocks sky rocketed because everyone could see that the market was quickly drifting to the internet and it had promise of making you rich over night. But, only one company could capitalize in their field which led to the failure of hundreds of companies but at that time it was all a race to the top.

The dotcom boom or “bubble” burst on March 10th, 2000 when the technology heavy NASDAQ stock market peaked at over double its value the prior year. By 2001 the majority of these dotcom companies ceased to exist having burnt through their venture capital without even really gaining a gross profit. A good amount of these companies were even sued for fraud giving these companies the corky nick-names of dot-con and dot-bombs. The burst also had to do with the 6 interest rates made by the federal reserve till 2000 to catch up with the economy. Also y2k came into play when companies spent so much money preparing for the incedent with nothing to come of it they were left with drained pockets. Another thing that led to these companies failing was that they were under the impression that internet traffic would continue to spike upwards so they spent so much money to make it so their sites and servers could handle all the traffic when, in reality, it didn’t spike as much as they had thought.

The companies that became well established and made it through were companies such as Ebay, Amazon, and PayPal which seem to have the workings to stay strong and be long-lasting companies that we use on a daily basis.

Suicide Silence Knows Just How to Do it (The New Face of Selling Music)

xalexarthurx — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:22:52 +0000

For the past decade there has been an idea that you make money by SELLING your music. With the common practice of downloading and sharing music over the internet this has made it nearly impossible to do so. There are some bands that are now taking the initiative to find a way to still make money making music but, not necessarily through selling their songs.

One band using the methods discussed is a band by the name of Suicide Silence. They are prime examples of giving away special edition packages. The cheapest package for their new CD came with the CD and a special edition shirt, only available through this package. The next package came with a color pressed vinyl, a different limited edition shirt, and a special edition artwork CD. And to top it all off their final package included the vinyl, another t-shirt, special edition artwork CD, and to top it off a full color printed skate deck all completely limited edition. They also had a deal where if you bought the digital download you got 2 special cover tracks that they recorded.

check out this band at www.myspace.com/suicidesilence