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.

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.

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.

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?

We are in the 6th month of a 12 month year and I wonder what I have to show for it. My dreams of doing music full time have been hanging on for dear life. Why? I could blame poor time management, insufficient hustle, cluttered workspace, etc. But I’m going to blame all of the above. Yet, these are silent killers. I wouldn’t have noticed it until the finale of LOST a couple of weekends ago. In fact, a bunch of my favorite shows ended for good this year: LOST, 24, Heroes, & FlashForward. I’ve been obsessed with watching these shows instead of getting Quiet Entertainer off the ground.

Here’s how it happens. I don’t watch TV on actual TV. I use Hulu and Yidio to watch pretty much everything I’m going to watch. I think if I watched on the regular timetable, I’d at least be able to say “oh I’ll work on music until 24 comes on.” But as it is; I can watch at anytime; and I’ve been lazy and finding an urgency to get things done. I love Hulu and Yidio, but in this case it’s been sucking all my time! I blame myself. But who could resist watching every clip and web exclusive of LOST leading up to the finale? And Jack Bauer’s finale season: How far will he go?? And a Hulu bonus! the entire series of the A-Team is on Hulu right now! Should I watch the entire series before I go see the movie in theaters?

I wouldn’t have noticed the slow death of my music career if not for a few artists. Let’s look at The Hood Internet. They recently came through Nashville on their tour. I had never heard of them before but they were booked to play Mashville, Nashville’s monthly DJ party. So, I went online to check them out and they had released 9 free mixtapes over the past 3 years! How did I miss this? So I downloaded just 4 mixtapes (for free) and I instantly had 4 hours of music to listen to. Well these guys aren’t lazy. This exact thing happened when Pretty Lights came through half a year ago. I had never heard of him, but he was coming to Nashville so I looked him up. He had four free records on his site too! I don’t know when he started but I think it’s also been 3 or 4 years his current setup. I downloaded it all and had about 4 or 5 hours of music with which to get acquainted. I’m a big fan of both now.

This discussion made me remember a blog post I read a while back from Justin over at AudibleHype.com asking Is Touring Really Necessary? I encourage artists of any genre looking to do this for a living to go read that. Long story short though, He says the five core ingredients to success without touring are:
1. Great Music
2. Easily Accessible
3. Prolific Output
4. Evangelist Fans
5. Low Overhead

I had to look around; is anyone doing this in my town? DJ Wick-It is pretty close. I think he’s got at least 4 of those 5 goin for him if not all 5. He’s got all of his (very dope hip-hop & dubstep) music available on his soundcloud page. Also, Spoken Nerd is super prolific. Since I’ve known him, he’s always put out a lot of music and is always thinking two records ahead. Check his latest from his bandcamp.

So, I am looking to these artists for inspiration. With some of my favorite shows out of the way, I have no excuse. I have to get to work and make actual music. I know my e-mail list will keep me accountable. Maybe you will too. So thankfully, I don’t have to worry about Jack Shepard OR Jack Bauer. At least not until the 24 movie comes out.

If you liked this post, I’d love it if you’d re-tweet or share. Also you can subscribe to my blog.

First, you need to know: What kind of DJ are you? What techniques and skills are most important for you? What kind of control do you need? These simple questions will guide you in your decision making. Most mixers will allow you to do all the essentials, but let’s customize a little further.

Scratching is important to me, so I want a mixer with an adjustable cross-fader curve. Here’s a quote from hiphop-directory.com:

A crossfader curve adjustment on a mixer allow you to gradually alter the way how fast a crossfader will cut in the second sound. The settings of the curve range gradually from an X-curve into an inverted U-curve. The X-curve means that when you move the crossfader from one end to the other, the sound that is playing will fade out gradually, and at the same time the sound playing on the other turntable will become louder gradually. With an inverted U-curve, as soon as you move the fader even a little off the other end, the new sound will be audible at full volume, but you will also hear the original sound in the background. Thinking of the settings visually might help in understanding it – with X-curve, both sounds increase and decrease very linearly. With an inverted U-curve, sounds cut of very abruptly at both ends of the fader, making this setting very essential for any type of scratching.

So there you have it. This was my first hard lesson in mixers. My first mixer came as part of a DJ-in-a-box kit. My friend had bought it for himself but then decided that he didn’t want to learn to DJ. I was so eager at the time AND I was getting a discount on it, so I bought the whole set from him. I didn’t realize why I wasn’t sounding like my favorite DJs. You can still learn technique with any kind of mixer, but you’ll be at a handicap if you get a DJ-in-a-box kit. I am grateful for that kit, since before then I had NOTHING and would not have ever gotten started. If you can wait, and you can get a little more money; I recommend saving up for a better quality mixer.

What else? Do you need EQ control? Effects Send & Return or even built in? How many channels do you need based on your situation? For mine, I can get by with the basic 2 channel mixer. Although for a typical show, I max out that mixer (2 sources per channel). One feature that I like to see in a mixer is a transform switch. My most recent mixer has the switch but I’ve worn it out and since the mixer is discontinued; I can’t get replacement or compatible repair parts. Long story short, each channel on a mixer can go phono or line. You can switch between the two, but you can also have a transform switch allowing you to switch quicker and you can actually “scratch” within the two sources from the same channel. Anyway, look at MixMaster Mike as he does this (at 2:00, 2:35, & 6:04):

Okay, so you know what kind of DJ you are; you know what you need your mixer to do and what features it needs to have. Now, you have to look at cost. Do you want to get buy and then try to upgrade later? Or do you save up for the best possible mixer and get it first? You might spend more money in the long run doing the buy-low/ upgrade strategy. But you make up for it because you have a mixer actually with you. Depends on how fast you can make money. While, I don’t think all mixers are created equally, I do think that if you know what you’re doing and what you need the mixer to do; you can have a great experience.

Here’s some other links I found that might help you on your search:
Tips for Choosing Your DJ Mixer
Where Can I Buy a DJ Mixer?

And here are my favorite mixers:
1. Rane TTM 57SL with Serato Scratch Live – The Crown Jewel of Mixers. Complete with Serato!
2. Vestax PMC-08Pro – This one does just about everything.
3. Vestax PMC-05ProIII VCA – Has all you REALLY need.
4. Stanton SA.3 – Stanton has pretty good mixers; usually at a lower price. I’ve used Stanton for a long time.
5.KAOSS Dynamic DJ Mixer – What’s cool about this one is the KAOSS pad built directly into it!

Okay, to recap:
1. Determine what type of DJ you are.
2. Determine what you need your mixer to do.
3. Decide what mixer features you need.
4. Look at the cost.

What do you think is important when trying to find your mixer?

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

Machismo EP

I’m really excited and please about the Machismo EP. It’s a collection of some tracks I’ve done with some of my friends & favorite emcees. Let me tell you a bit about it, track by track:

I definitely want you to have this music. Now that you know all about it, please go ahead and click here and put your email address in there and I will send it to you!

Click here to download the “Machismo EP”

Quiet Entertainer at The Rutledge

I finally got to do a show at The Rutledge! It was a lot of fun. Robert, Frank, & Andy were very nice to me and all of my friends who came out. Thanks to them; and thanks to Tyrone Carreker, Rebecca Moreland, and Xilehom for allowing me to be on the show with them. Great people.

Click the picture above to get more pics from that night; courtesy of raywen.org

This was a cool show since I finally had J. Prodigal there. It was the first time in a while I’ve gotten to perform the tracks with J. Prodigal since Machismo starting playing on Pandora. So far, it seems like only Wildfire, I Am…, and Machismo from the Machismo EP have been getting Pandora plays. So that was cool to have him there along with James Fate.

If you haven’t heard those tracks from the Machismo EP, you can download it for free.

5. The End – I’ve played The End just a few times here in Nashville. None of them recently. I did Mashville there way back in 2008; Also BEAT Nashville. And we booked the Holla/Blogworthy joint show there. Speaking of Mashville, I attend frequently. It seems that of all the venues that host it, The End works the best. Just has the right kind of vibe for it, I guess. I’m not going to say it’s hard to get a show there because people play there all the time, right? Anyway, I’ve had nothing but good experiences there with everyone who works there. I wish they had food though Here’s a video of me at the End.

4. 12th & Porter – This place has the lounge and then the big room. If you play the big room, you get the benefit of having “the lights.” I put it in quotations because I can’t readily think of a better light display in a bar/venue in Nashville. With great quality comes a hefty price tag for artists though. All that aside, the people who work there are great. In a town full of artists, they always remember me and are as helpful as possible. For whatever reason though, I can not get people out to see me at 12th & Porter. Why not? don’t you know that I look like THIS when I play there? :

Quiet Entertainer @ 12th & Porter

3. Mercy Lounge – You probably read my last entry about my recent experience at Mercy Lounge. What’s cool about this place, they have great sound and great sound-men. Really nice bartenders and nice manager who seems really in touch with local scene and music overall. And they have a green room behind the stage! If you’re an unknown DJ/performer who doesn’t get to play out of town much, this is pretty cool. Their green room is better than The End’s green room, let me tell you. They have a free music showcase on Mondays called 8 off 8th. And while sometimes it seems like the same bands play it all the time, I could probably say that about ALL the music venues because we’re all here playing the same places. Nobody’s fault but ours. I played 8 off 8th once:

Quiet Entertainer at Mercy Lounge

2. The Basement – I have never had a bad show or experience at The Basement. Only good. Plus it’s located underneath Grimey’s, my favorite record store in Nashville. I’ve never really booked a show there myself; I have only been able to jump onto other people’s shows. Chip Greene, for instance, is an artist in town that has always put me on to shows there. My most recent show there was part of New Faces Nite, a free music show they do every Tuesday night. Here’s a video clip of me at The Basement.

1. The 5 Spot – I haven’t played there in a while, but from what I can tell it’s still the most artist friendly place/experience that I’ve personally had. Very straightforward booking process. Great bar staff. Friendly door-persons. I’ve met a lot of my closest artist friends there. I guess I’m ranking them ahead of other better sounding venues because of overall atmosphere and vibe. I don’t smoke at all but it’s a smoking venue and a lot of people are into that. This is great because you don’t want people outside smoking while you’re playing your set. They might as well be inside watching you while they do it! It’s not for everyone but the 5 Spot is great for artists/musicians who want to have a great show.

Quiet Entertainer @ The 5 Spot

I didn’t mention any of the bars and places on Broadway and downtown. I just don’t go there really. Do you? Where’s your favorite place to see a band in Nashville?

I’m playing a show at The Rutledge on Tuesday night. This is especially significant since I have never played the Rutledge before. I’ve always seen it as one of my final frontiers of venues to play here in Nashville. Alright so come out and see me play at the Rutledge, Tuesday night at 8pm!

I had a pretty good show last week at the Mercy Lounge. It was the first show I’d done in a while in Nashville where I had also booked the other acts. Thanks to Billy Gemmill of Naked Without Us for giving me that opportunity; and thanks to Mercy Lounge for having us.

The pic you see at the top is from raywen.org, run by Ray & Wendy. I mention them here because they have been faithfully coming to QE shows for over a year. Furthermore, they’ve been taking pics for several bands and have done a lot to enhance and document the music scene, especially the hip-hop scene and the goth scene. I have a LOT of pics from shows thanks to them. Of course, they have a plethora of pics from that night.

This night was Get Got’s last show for a while until they get their album done. Right now all they have out is their demo. If you haven’t gotten to hear it, Check it out: Get Got Demo by origthedj

Also, were the Billy Goats, I’ve mentioned them here before. I perhaps will mention them again. I might get to do a remix of theirs. If I do; it probably will be to this song:

The big deal of the night was Spice J; I had never seen him DJ before. I mainly booked him because he’s a friendly guy and I’m a friendly guy. but it was my favorite part of the night.  He did kind of a dubstep set. If you don’t know about Dubstep, click. But anyway, I was highly impressed. He says he’ll have a mixtape coming soon. He does play in another band, the Protomen. Probably the best live show in Nashville. My opinion.

Anyway, this past show was one of my favorite shows; mainly because I got a chance to talk to a lot of new people and just had fun overall. I have another Nashville show coming up soon (January 26 @ The Rutledge) so I hope it’s just as much fun.

Keep in touch.

-QE

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!