Recently, I went to a show at a venue that I play often. At the end of the night, I was hanging around talking to people. One guy in particular was having a rough night. I knew him from previous shows I’d done there. Anyway, he opened to me and anyone who’d listen about a lot of stuff. It was very emotional.

Later on that night, He overdosed on some drugs and died. Literally, hours or les after our conversation. I’m really moved because tonight was his memorial service at that same venue. As I reflect on that situtation and upon our last conversation, I’m reminded of a similar situation that Bassnectar went through last year. A fan of his went to a show and then afterwards that fan died after OD’ing. Bassnectar then wrote a blog post about health and safety.

I think that is great. Bassnectar was able to seize a teachable moment and then use his blog to educate his fans. Once again, here’s the link to that.

http://www.bassnectar.net/2010/11/health-and-safety/

This is big because artists often see the world in a way that is unique to everyone else. That is why art is exists. In some ways, I think that art is just an expression or communication of ideas in a way that is not easily seen by most of the world. So artist’s job is to reveal things about the world that are hard to see. Also, the job of an artist is to share experiences that are not easily had in every day life.

The majority of people who read this blog are artists in some shape for form. Most are DJs; others are creative people who are interested in the creative lifestyle. I mentioned this in another post, but I think it’s important for all musicians (or creatives) to be blogging. After an incident like the Bassnectar one, he has a great opportunity to speak on a very fresh and relevant topic.

Again, I think we have a responsibility to use our platform to share what we know or believe. I think this responsibility is especially magnified for artists and musicians; especially DJs. I leave you with a quote from that same article I mentioned.

“It is also a good thing because as we make progress as a civilization and learn ways to positively tweak and improve the way life works, we can pass on that information to others, and gradually increase the quality of life for everyone.” – Bassnectar

ODC (Organized Distraction Collective) is a members only collective of creative professionals in local to the greater Nashville area. A “Creative” is a person who creates anything using skill and talent. Once a creative hones his or her craft to the point of it becoming their career they are to be considered professional creatives. Most professional creatives strive to connect with the public directly. On the flip-side, the average person can not find the majority of independent contractors online and if they are able to be found they are grossly under-represented.

WE PERSONALLY STAND BEHIND EVERY MEMBER

ODCnashville.com is not only going to provide a free solution to having a professional presentation that is a perfect add-on to promote any and all web marketing currently available for each member (websites, social networks, etc.), It will introduce a lot of skilled people, form alliances, and create opportunity for each and every member.

After reading that, I figured it was a pretty cool idea. What could it hurt to sign up? As an artist trying to promote yourself, you need to be everywhere. Well, I’ve been really impressed since signing up. ODC has been great to me early on (including the “Creative Of The Month” mention). They’ve come out to support me at a show. They’ve also put me on their official launch party show which is tonight at French Quarter Cafe.

Check out odcnashville.com and if you’re a creative, definitely sign up. When you get there, look me up.

One of the questions I’ve been asked the most is: How did I get my music on Pandora.com? Well, this is an easy question. Pandora has a wonderful FAQ section and the step-by-step process is spelled out nicely there. However, for the benefit of us all, I will walk you through everything I did, my thought process while doing it, and even what I am doing now that I have music on the site.

First off, it goes without saying. I’m a big fan of Pandora. Just about all the music I currently love is music that I discovered through either word of mouth or Pandora’s random selection. People like Blue Sky Black Death, Bonobo, and Free The Robots. So when I released the Machismo EP, I knew that I wanted it on Pandora. However (and in spite of the great instructions on their site), I hesitated. If you’re an artist, you might be hesitating too. I needed to do a lot of research. I felt like looking around and seeing if other indie artists were going this route. Thinking back, they obviously were or else where would all this great new music be coming from? Anyway, I kept stalling until I read a great blog post about Pandora over at genyrockstars.com. That’s a great post from Greg Rollett and long story short is a retelling of how to and why it’s great to be on Pandora. I recommend it for anyone who is wanting to do this. So anyway, it was a great kick in the pants and if I was going to be serious about my music, I needed to get on it. So, I got started.

I sent my Machismo EP in. I needed to have a barcode. At the time, i was struggling over whether to go with CDbaby or Tunecore to distribute the Machismo EP. I don’t know how it is now, but Tunecore was giving out barcodes with their subscription whereas CDbaby was charging extra fees. So I went with Tunecore for that reason alone. Also, you have to have your physical CD for sale on Amazon. You can easily set this up with Tunecore as i did with their on-demand store. You have to do this and you have to make sure it’s physical copy.

I uploaded two tracks to pandora.com ; filled out all the paperwork and sent that in along with a physical copy of the CD and then you wait. I took this time though to also fill out and get my stuff registered over at SoundExchange. Lots of paperwork, but you have to do all this stuff. Anyway, from the time I started this Pandora process until the time it showed up was about 6 months. Long time, eh? But hey, now it’s on there.

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Ok great! Well, how was anyone going to find my music? Well, if you’ve heard the Machismo EP, you know that I have two instrumental tracks and 6 tracks with emcees. Pandora had only analyzed one track (Machismo) into their system. This means that only that track would possibly show up in rotation. Also, it means that my similar artists would only be artists who had music similar to that one song. Well, it’s the curse of having a diverse little record. I emailed their support to see if they would do any more. They got back to me to say that it’s customary that only 1-5 songs would be analyzed. Well, I thought that was both good and bad. I was able to up the load to 3 analyzed tracks. You see in the pic above it’s the 3 tracks that it says “try tracks 2, 4, and 6.” Anyway, so I have made comments over at my profile and at my record about how anyone can download Machismo for free. And I can edit those comments later if i need to.

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So that’s cool. I noticed that they matched me up with artists like Dela & Panacea. Pretty cool, but I want people to catch my instrumental stuff too. Maybe the next record. One thing I also have done is create a Pandora station. I did this using Quiet Entertainer (again, that’s ME) as a seed. Also, I added some other artists that I like and other songs that I like as seeds. So anyone who listens to my custom Pandora station, will not only get a good mix of similar sounding artists according to Pandora but a great dose of stuff similar to what I’m listening to now and hopefully will have a keen ear to what my next record might sound like. Of course, you can hear the custom made Quiet Entertainer Pandora station here.

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That’s really about it. The joy of Pandora is that it picks music for you. I can’t really push my music on people; and I wouldn’t want to. I hope that it plays my stuff for people and that they enjoy it. I wish I could tell if people were finding me through Pandora. But I guess I have other things to worry about. Like working harder and creating more. Meanwhile, I hope this was helpful to artists and also to anyone else as more of an insight to another aspect of something I deal with as QE.

Two things: 1) If it was helpful, then I’d love it if you’d share or re-tweet this. 2) Are any of you getting your music on Pandora? & how are you promoting it?

Also: If you want to know how I figured this out, then take a look at the NME Blueprint. I went through this system and learned how to market my music like a champ.

Usually, I go through these spurts where I get really into an artist. Then I go and try to find everything I can of theirs and listen to it. I thought I’d let you know about my most recent 5 artists and bands with which I have done this. Here we go!

1. Pretty Lights – It’s really easy with Pretty Lights because his entire discography is online for free! I’d say it’s electronic music with hip-hop and dubstep tendencies. I think the guy performs live as a DJ and then has a drummer with him for shows. Again, his whole catalog is online at his website! That’s great!

2. Blue Sky Black Death – I found these guys while listening to my Pandora station. I love it. Listen to all those samples. All of those sounds. I think they are playing live instruments in there too! I can’t tell what is sampled and what is real-live. That’s what I’m talking about. Hard to find a lot of their stuff online. But I did see their myspace page.

3. Emancipator – I got lucky on this one. He was recently on tour and came here to Nashville. I didn’t have anything going on; I decided to check him out online first to decide if I wanted to go out. I was blown away! It’s such amazing music! He’s a DJ/producer. He also plays guitar. I saw him do it live. I don’t know if he plays any other instruments. Can’t wait to check it out again though! Listen to everything on his bandcamp page!

4. Pigeon John – I’ve been a Pigeon John fan for a long time. He’s got a pretty extensive discography and it would take a while to listen to everything he’s got. Also, he does a LOT of guest features on other people’s records. But anyway, he’s really unique and different in the world of hip-hop but really really GOOD. I lucked out and saw him live a year or so ago play in some art gallery. I’d love to see him play live in front of a lot of hip-hop fans in a bar or something; just to see how it would go!

5. This Will Destroy You – I found these guys on Pandora. At first, I didn’t really listen much to them. However, I was telling someone about Saxon Shore (another band I found on Pandora); and they started telling me about This Will Destroy You. I went back and gave them another listen. Wow! I like ambient post-rock a lot. So this was an easy fit for me.

Well I never got to see them until about a year later. I was doing synth and samples for a band; we ended up opening for them. Immediately, I noticed that they had a really energetic live show. The girl I was dating at the time said that the drummer scared her by how he was playing. Well, that’s a good sign. Knapsackheroes was dangerous.

We did a couple of shows together over the years. I’ve gotten to know them a little bit and they’re a great group of guys. They are actually deep students of pop culture as a whole; and between the 5 of them, they have a wide variety of musical taste. Well, we like a lot of the same bands. So I’ve been excited to get to do another show with them on March 17th at Mercy Lounge along with Details Details (a Postal Service meets Owl City electro-pop artist) and Eyes Around (rock band from Alabama).

On Monday, Vinyl Jones, the rapper in Knapsackheroes, had a stroke. He’s been in the hospital for the past couple of days. I don’t know all the specifics. I’m getting updated with the rest of the world on the Knapsackheroes facebook page. I don’t know if he’ll be okay for the upcoming show. I don’t care about a show. I just hope he’ll be alright and can recover. He’s got a loving family (complete with 8 kids) so I know he has some support. But please pray for him. Pray for his family. Pray for his band.

EDIT: He’s home from the hospital; doing physical therapy and the show will go on! Keep praying. But wow!

And check out the Knapsackheroes! EP

I decided to make a list of my Top 6 favorite bands I’ve booked for BlogWorthy shows. This is pretty much a subjective list based on my own personal taste of the music and of the particular performance at the BW show. A lot of bands are being overlooked. That’s unfortunate. Most everyone I booked was actually BlogWorthy. Again, lots of great memories and highlights.

6. James Fate – He played at the first Blogworthy show; He played at the last one. He played at some in between too. He’s been kind of my go-to guy for shows. He’s just really good. He has great written material; but also, he can freestyle rap. He’s a hybrid pop-singer/hip-hop artist. His dominant strength is with the hip-hop. He’s obviously spent a lot of time learning how to interact with the crowd AND stay on point with the emcee flow. You almost have to see it to believe it. Check him out on myspace or youtube.
http://www.myspace.com/jamesfate

5. Molly Jewell – I have a girlfriend who is not Molly. And I love my girlfriend. So I mean no disrespect. but Molly is “da bomb.’ She’s like…two bombs. I first saw her perform at Starbucks. She was incredible. Whether she is just by herself or if she has a full band, she can really connect with the crowd. I think that is the key. I really don’t know if she is really that shy and awkward for real, but the way she plays it is very endearing. And so, when this girl gets up there and then decides to be amazing; you don’t know how to take it. She has a really funny song about being felt up by a doctor? Ok. Well, check her stuff out.
http://www.myspace.com/mollyjewell

4. The Billy Goats – 247, Iller, & DJ Eticut have been talked about and blogged about a lot around town. It was a no-brainer to bring them onto a BW show. The show they played for me was not well attended. I blame myself. Two months prior, we played a show together in the same venue and had 120 people there. Maybe it was too soon? Anyway, they are really good. Sadly, I didn’t get all 3 of them at my show. Wick-It the Instigator was their DJ instead of DJ Eticut. They just released their debut record. Check them out.
http://www.myspace.com/ilovethebillygoats

3. Get Got – Ray, Gary, & Skyler are three of the nicest guys you’ll meet. They performed at the last BW show ever held at Cafe Coco. They are a blend of funk, hip-hop, & electronica; the kind of genre (con)fusion that I always hope to bring to any Nashville show. They brought a lot of people to the show and those people were dancing! In Nashville, that’s a big deal for an indie show. This is kind of how it was anytime I saw them play. So I loved to book them. Check out their online demo; and go see them perform live!
http://soundcloud.com/origthedj/sets/get-got-demo

2. Derrek Phillips’ Manufactory – This has got to be the most skilled band I’ve ever booked. I couldn’t believe that they agreed to do the show! I was so excited. This was another genre fusion band: rock, hip-hop, jazz, electronica, r&b, all that. It wouldn’t be uncommon for Derrek, Paul, & Adam to write a new song as they were performing live. But it never sounded like they were writing. Up until they played the BW show, I felt like I knew this really great secret. Even though Paul wasn’t able to make the BW show, they are the band that I personally have received the most feedback about afterward. I would rank them #1 if not for the next band’s story. But Manufactory is wonderful and you should absolutely listen to them immediately and DEFINITELY see them live!
http://www.reverbnation.com/dpmanufactory

1. Tallest Trees – I just love this band. It’s strange because I think a lot of their influences are bands that I don’t listen to. However when you see them live, you immediately can deduce that this is an ambitious musical effort. I had seen them play a lot before, but by the time they played the BW show (the last one I’ve been able to do at Mercy Lounge); they were a two piece band officially (Thomas & Dabney), plus their drummer (Art). The reasons I put them at number one: They’re probably my favorite local band (note: I don’t consider Paper Route local anymore because they live on the road and haven’t played here in forever). Their BW performance specifically was absolutely brilliant. And what happened after they played was exactly what I had hoped would happen. I started seeing a lot of blogs and tweets pop up about them and the show. That’s really what I’ve hoped for each time I booked one of these shows! Check out Tallest Trees:
http://www.humantrees.com/tallesttrees/

So much great talent in Nashville performs to empty rooms or to indifferent crowds. These Blogworthy shows have just been a way for me to give another platform to a lot of great music that I see live. Plus it always ensured that I’d get to see some of these great bands! BlogWorthy is not dead; I don’t think. I haven’t gotten to do one in a while though. Keep your eyes open for more Blogworthy shows and for more Blogworthy artists and bands!