Latest Entries »
One of the hardest things to find is a way to promote yourself, gather information and ideas from friends, family and complete strangers. I guess a big part of it is the dreaded fear of rejection. So when challenged this week to reach out to potential listeners my fist thought was of the telemarketer who calls when you just got out of the shower, are late for work, and have found your pets been sick all over your new rug by the wine stain someone left from the party last night you would like to sooner forget. It’s more then a little daunting. What should I say?
One magic lightbulb moment came when Ariel mentioned sending out a survey. This is not a plea for money, Another Hey vote for me popularity contest. Or a who has the most bragging rights newsletter. A survey could be fun. Keep it simple. So I drafted up a quick survey ay Surveymonkey.com and posted it to my Facebook page. Instantly I started to get responses. The next day I added Reverbnation and later this week I’ll add more music specific sites and see the reaction.
parker is now in the recording studio. We’re making our final choices for our next recording. This is the part we’re we have to choose what select songs we’ve fostered find a new family and which songs have to go back to the adoption agency. Hopefully to make a good impression the next time. It’s heartbreaking. Survival of the fittest. Unfortunately It has to be done. I wish I had enough money to find a home for all of them. I Choke back the tears knowing that its better this way.
I’ll post the survey results at the completion of my nine week journey. It’s obvious this will continue long after the Nine week battle. Like a weight loss exercise regimen I’m only starting to see results. I have to stick with the program to get those rock hard abs I picture our band having. The important part is to keep at everyday. And like Ariel reminds us “don’t beat yourself up.” that’s a hard thing to ask from a starving musician who at the end of the day just want’s to find a way to spend more quality time with the kids’
Tom McNeil
As I round out week four exercises and launch into week five of Ariel Hyatt’s Music Success in Nine Weeks Blogging challenge I can’t help but reflect on the personal growth and progress I’ve made.
First I’ve begun to blog on more of a regular basis. I’ve now up the ante from one post a week to at least three or more.
I’ve always been an avid movie fan and have wanted to find a way to incorporate my love of movies and
music. Not that this is the perfect platform or necessarily the best fit. However it does speak to me.
So I’ve started a new blogging feature “Addictions and other vices” which will be a way for me to share
my love of movies,games,music you name it. Not as a promotional tool for my band but more of a personal
challenge and catharsis.
That’s one of the great things I’ve discovered through these exercises is these are all guidelines and not everything is in the form of cookie cutter answers. There’s a lot of self discovery to be found. Depending on the type of person you are and to some degree the type of audience you intend to reach . Some of the recommendations are trial and error. And you have to be willing to take a leap of faith and maybe fail a few times.
I signed my band parker up to the Podsafe Music Network and that night we we’re played on Michael Angel’s Cosmic Grab Bag podcast. So that definitely felt instantly rewarding. I’d never heard of Podsafe and now I’m thinking I may set up my own podcast there.
I’ve added about 70 blogging sites I feel would be a good fit for our band. I plan to become an avid reader and comment on posts I find interest in. The one problem I’ve encountered is a lot of the blogs that I had made contact with previous to this challenge our sadly writing their final post. So this will take a little more time to fully immerse myself in and feel comfortable with.
I recently added an email sign up and a street team option widget to our website. Sent parker’s Street team on their first mission and have had some success there. I realize I need to rethink my prize option though. I was offering a physical copy and download of our CD “Bombshell.” The problem is I have now been informed from emails from some of our members that they have already purchased a copy of our CD. Which is actually a good thing. My next mission will now involve T-shirts and more goodies. As they say learning curve.
This pretty much brings me up to speed. Next week we’re back in the studio. So it’s all thankfully moving at a quick pace.
And with this book It feels like there’s a GPS in the car and if I need to I won’t be too proud to ask for directions.
Tom McNeil
After watching an episode of Obsession on A&E I have this urge to go back to bed and try to start this day all over again. Last night watched the Michael Douglas 1993 movie Falling Down directed by Joel Schumacher.
This is not my first time seeing this film. I first saw the movie at the theatre and was moved by the films sentiment. My memory of the movie however was a little skewed I thought of the Michael Douglas character D-fens being more of a victim who out of circumstances afflicted on him explodes in revenge. Much like Charles Bronson in the Death Wish movies.
With fresh eye’s this movie is less a story of a vigilante and more about the loss of ones mental reasoning.
The desperation of someone refusing to face their personal failures and playing God. The title of the movie was
derived from the nursery rhyme “London bridge is falling down” which is used several times in the film.
Robert Duvall does a fantastic job of playing Sergeant Pendergast who at his wife’s insistence is retiring from the LAPD. The movie was turned down by every major Hollywood studio until Michael Douglas read the script and declared it was one of the best he’d ever read. I highly recommend this film. It’s hard to believe how timely it is. (Filmed during the LA Riots.) Scary like the similarities of movie Wag The Dog and the parallels to the proceeding Gulf Wars. This movie examines what it feels like to be “not economically viable.”
A movie that today unfortunately rings just as disturbingly true as it did 17 years ago.
It may even like myself force you to go reclaim sleep and try to wake up on the right side of the bed.
Tom McNeil
Movie Addict
Just watched some great short video’s by Commoncraft. I had never really thought about Delicious I had always seen the logo but had no idea how helpful the site could be so I signed up and added my first few favorites yesterday. I also added Google reader another time saver.
I find myself reading blogs everyday and for some reason it never dawned on me to just add a comment. I thought of it as some sort of private information I was gathering like a voyeur and less like an active member of a musical community. My dirty little one up secret. It’s a lot easier to approach all aspects of this business as a friend then a covert spy. Here it is out in the open that’s the way I honestly thought of it. How self destructive is that for a band?
Never mind a person. For me it’s all or nothing I either divulge my inner soul or keep my feelings neatly locked up. It would be good to find middle ground.
I have friends who scoff at Twitter they say “why do you care about what sandwich some big celebrity is eating?” It’s crazy people still have this impression of Twitter. There are people tweeting a lot of useless information but even more sharing valuable insights. A few months ago I sat in my home office on my laptop and felt a tremor from the floor. My first instinct was to tweet “That was weird just felt the earth shake.” Now I live in Toronto so we don’t get these sensations very often. I soon had friends replying on twitter they had experienced the same thing. So it was confirmed I wasn’t going crazy. So I googled latest posts and what did I read but thousands of tweets from all over the globe curious about the Earthquake in Toronto. It wasn’t till about ten minutes later that I read a post from the news media. Now that’s a global village. I understand that’s how we first heard about the earthquake in Haiti. Of course a hour later Justin Bieber tweeted about what he had for lunch. I use Twitter as a music marketing tool and a way to vent or have a laugh. It’s whatever you make it.
I have a bit of a Love Hate relationship with FaceBook. The Demi God of social networks. All the rules to play by. I’ve had my band accounts removed twice. Now this was a while ago but the scars are still there.
I didn’t really use the site that much it’s just I added clubs and bars I wanted to play at and people I hoped to work with. Now as I understand my big mistake was not setting up an artist account. Seems pretty evident in retrospect what raised so many red flags. My site was without explanation abolished from the network. The Facebook Gods had spoken. Now that was the first time. I wrote letters asking if there was a way to have my site returned and received no reply. So I vowed never to return.
Of course that all changed. I realized I had a lot of friendships built there and soon tried to set up another account. This time as an artist only account. This lasted about three weeks until one day my password didn’t take and I found I had been rejected again. This is one of those unexplained events that still plagues me to this day. Where did I go wrong? This can’t be happening again. I’ve just sent out invitations to all my past Facebook friends and have had people add themselves to my fan page. I’ve played by the rules and this isn’t fair. Don’t ask too many questions we know big brother doesn’t like that so just try try again.
So this is the third time I’ve set up my account. I think they call this perseverance or masochism. I’m not sure which category I fit into. So far no complaints. I’m afraid to rock this boat in any direction. I don’t really want to
ask my friends to join this ship just yet. Of course I do. Fingers crossed. One of my other dilemma’s is I have people joining my long lost accounts I have no access to so now I have unwillingly set up a few static Facebook accounts.
I’ve had a Flikr account for a while now. So when Ariel mentioned to add pictures I was sure I had this covered.
I did this as soon as I began this challenge. Like answering all the questions on a school exam and running out of time to only later find it was multiple choice.I look at the pictures on my website Flick connection and discover they all look grainy I’ve uploaded to small of size. How long has this been going on? The same day I’m on my Soundcloud page and decide to listen to my uploads. This is what a year after I signed up. I hear a parker practice session I’ve uploaded for one of our songs. Ironically titled Cloudy (with a chance of rain) including the humming of lyrics I had yet to write and a few choice add libs I would like to sooner forget. I think I’m unearthing a pattern here. Always do a dummy test. Or you get the big picture.
O.K. so now I’ve been to confession and its’ time to move onto blogging. Set up my targets (I mean friends)
and enjoy what they have to offer and give my feedback. That’s too easy isn’t it? Should I be enjoying these exercises? Shouldn’t this feel more like work? Maybe this is the time to admit I don’t know everything and I’m wiling to learn even if it is the hard way
Join parker
I’ve been working on the last few weeks blog challenge at the same time. I’ve had to get around a few learning curves and have found this method worked the best. So I’m happy to say I’ve climbed a few mountains this week.
First and foremost parker started recroding a new song for our follow up CD. It was great getting back into the studio.
Second I’ve added a Free download for one of our most requested songs “Love Myself” to our website.
Also have started to collect emails and have started to assemble a street team. .
This has been a slow but very rewarding process and will be ongoing.
My next goal is to start to build the community page.Im trying to decide if I should add a forum page or more of a comment page.
Join parker
http://parkertheband.ca/
I’ve been thinking about updating my website for some time now. And have recently found a hosting site I’ve been happy with. I previously had a website I had created I was very fond of but was more static then I wanted so I decided to try something new.
I have built up some solid friendships and dare I say it fans on various music and social sites. So at the outset my biggest thought in creating my new website was building a sense of community. A site that would welcome posts but reject spam.
I also starting blogging and am still trying to make it a part of my every day thinking. A lot of music hosting companies offer 30 day trials so I decided to start there. At first I wanted to integrate my past template but found no one really provided that option with all the other goodies I wanted to incorporate. I first tried the 30 day trial through Reverbnation and Bandzoogle built around similar template provided formats. For someone with no previous website experience I would highly recommend it. Everything drag and drop and at your fingertips. Curiosity did get the better of me and I upgraded to the Pro Plan before months end with Bandzoogle. I still felt I wanted more.
I wanted to integrate my blog. I tried Blogger,Typepad and then decided on WordPress for the apps. Im scoured all the various WordPress hosting sites. The internet is littered with so many warnings of which sites to avoid. The problem is with every recommendation there is someone else claiming this host sucks.
I used my time at Bandzoogle to design a rough concept of my new website. I played with all the features and decided what worked and more importantly what didn’t.
I came across a site in my late night search that was hosted in my backyard. Local hosting could that be the answer? So far for me it has been. I went with a company called E.P.K. Hosting and powered by WordPress Mu.. I loaded my blog and tweaked a few of the features started with my flash picture intro and was on my way. Yes, don’t tell me I realized before publishing the site that it was taking too long to load so I axed the full page flash template and went with a much faster option. I’m still working on perfecting the site but I think it’s now something workable. I’ve just got to get my head around loading HTML code into WordPress and I’ll be a happy (internet) camper.
Now comes the hard part putting it all into play.
parker’s genre: Indie, Alternative and Easy Listening.
Bands we’ve been compared to: Snow patrol,The Verve,Pete Yorn,Crowded House, James Blunt,Travis,
Echo and the Bunnymen.
Influences:Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, R.E.M., Billy Bragg, The Cure, The Smiths, Squeeze, Blondie, U2, Pink Floyd,David Bowie,The Clash,Irving Welsh,Anais Nin,Henry Miller,John Irving,Cary Grant,Warhol,De Limpica,
Dali,John Lennon, Mel Blanc
What kind of impression does parker want to leave: passion,strength,risk,peaceful,moody,ambient,
parker
I know in the past setting goals was done very tongue and cheek. “We’ll take whatever you’re willing to give.” Now luckily I’m starting to see past that. Take ownership.
I remember my first year in high-school Science class. My friend Richard was having a Birthday party at the Legion Hall. I said to him “Well if you need a band.” I had no band at the time. I wanted one.
So we agreed on fifty dollars for the night. Then I recruited my friends who seemed most like a band to try to make this happen. I claimed I played guitar but after our first rehearsal it became painfully obvious how bad I was. I sang and wrote songs but I was a little tone deaf. It was declared I would be the bass player. When we hit the stage (I’m not sure when I noticed) they unplugged my bass amp. Still I jumped about and looked the part. I even got to sing on the odd song. Now I wanted to be the front man.
But how?
As I continued my music pursuit I was mostly regulated to playing Tambourine, Cowbell, and even whistled during one song. I had drive. For me music has always been less about technique and more about feel. Pure emotion.
parker is whatever Thomas and myself want it to be. I’m done with the diplomatic band process. When you choose to record songs based on the cool guitar lick, or percentages of players who also want to sing one of their compositions. We’re the most unlike any band I’ve ever been a part of. OHHH The Power!!
And with it comes a great deal of responsibility and pride. I’m a part of the inception, design and production.
There’s no one to blame but myself and occasionally bad luck and timing if things don’t pan out. The distance from your goals is self determined.
The fantastic thing I’m discovering and developed on the various music and social sites we’re on is the friendships. Something I as never expecting. I can’t believe the amazing support we’ve had. We’ve started to cultivate a musical community. Currently more than anything this stands out as what I’d like to see continue to grow. Our website even though I do love it is a bit too static and I’d like to break down more barriers and expose my inner parker.
What a perfect opportunity to start these exercises. We’re about to head back into the studio to finish our next album. I’ve also made the decision to make this more of a full time pursuit. I hated my day job so bad that I think I manifested through prayer and misunderstanding a way out and into the unemployment line. Thanks to the merciful heavens I’ve been left naked with only my music and art to fall back on. I even attended workshops recently on How To Find The Job Your Best Suited For and no matter how I spun it always came back with the same answer. ARTIST
If only it was that easy. Well maybe it is. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life (right?)
RIGHT!!!!
Well it’s the one thing I haven’t tried. So now I can walk back blindly into the recording studio but with a real sense of purpose.
First Month Goal:
From July 15-August 15
Improve the website. Make it less static more interactive.
Continue blogging.
Establish presence with social networking.
Continue to FIND ways to Sell and promote parker’s first CD “BOMBSHELL”
Three month goal:
August 15-Nov 15
Record mix and master new parker CD.
Design new CD artwork including E.P.K.
Start my own podcast
Establish promotion plan of new CD.
Look into Film and T.V. placement
Rehearse live show.
CD Release.
Nov 15- Apr 15
Release music to targeted Blogs
Build street team
Source potential sponsorship
Remix Contest
Film video for song
Play live gigs
Look into openings for festivals
Apr 15-Oct 15
Play at festivals
Look into touring-Travel
…. That’s as far as my projection can take me before my brain explodes with sing it Frankie!!! antici pation.
My main goal is to do what I love and to appreciate the process while it’s happening.
Tom
parker
