The Fader app offers exclusive features, fresh editorial content from the magazine, a slideshow of images from each issue, a music player featuring podcasts and exclusive mixes, mobile access to Fader TV, information about Fader events, and so on.

“We are very protective of The Fader brand, and we’re extremely selective about anything we output to our specific and loyal audience of tastemakers,” said Andy Cohn, EVP and Group Publisher of Fader Media. “The Fader’s mobile app is another dynamic platform in which our readers will be able to consume all kinds of the original content we’re known for, including music, video and photography.

The Fader app

“In 2006, we were the first magazine in the world to make full issues available on iTunes as a free PDF,” continued Cohn. “Wherever our readers are, and whatever technologies they’re using, we’re right there with them.”

In early 2010, The Fader released a mobile application through Mobile Roadie for its annual Levi’s Fader Fort festival held in Austin, Texas with up-to-date news on concert schedules, music streaming and official photos.

Another brand who took advantage of Mobile Roadie Pro is Ninja Tune, with an app that features profiles for all 90 of its artists, including photos, a video stream, and the option to buy songs and gig tickets.

As suggested by Sandbox.fm, Mobile Roadie might simply want to offer extra features due to Apple’s unhappiness with the large number of ‘cookie-cutter’ apps appearing on its App Store, using the same platforms and looking the same.

You have to pay more for such additional customization, though.

The social buying and selling feature is an addition to TheIndie.biz’s Frindie application launched in April. Frindie is based on the concept that like-minded people (friends) tend to have like-minded tastes in music and is the basis for the social buying and selling feature.

The Indie

“We’re truly happy to be offering this unique opportunity for fans to be able to buy the music their friends are listening to right from their social media profiles,” said Damon Cleveland, TheIndie.biz’s CEO. “There really isn’t anything out in the market like it and we’re excited to be the first to offer this to our fans and member bands. This is what TheIndie.biz is all about, giving independent musicians and bands the avenues to sell their music to new audiences, while offering music lovers a taste of what their friends are listening to so everyone’s music experience is enhanced.”

In addition to allowing music fans to expand their music choices and enjoyment, with the social selling feature bands will be able to reach a growing, fan-driven audience as users listen to and post their favorite songs to their social network feeds right from TheIndie.biz. As people see the music their friends are listening to, they will be able to listen to and buy the songs that they like directly from their friend’s profile.

Independent musicians, labels and bands can post their music for sale and distribution through three primary options. The first package lets bands sell an unlimited number of songs and includes full membership to TheIndie.biz for a flat fee of $149 a year, plus a 15% fee per song sold. The second and third options are $7.95 per song, or $19.95 for three songs, plus a 30% fee per song sold.

The representation of the not too revolutionally new idea is pretty intriguing, in my opinion – give it a look.

So here we go, Slayer just entered the “app age” with the launch of Slayer: Pinball Rocks, a new pinball game app developed in conjunction with American Recordings/Columbia Records, Sony Music Entertainment and Gameprom.

Slayer: Pinball Rocks

“As a life-size pinball player, this looks so awesome,” said Slayer’s Kerry King. “It looks really fun and entertaining, with a shot of evil, and it could definitely keep me up all night with a few shots for myself…”

Slayer: Pinball Rocks should appeal to both long-time and new Slayer fans, as well as any pinball enthusiast, by giving gamers multi-ball play and tap-along mini-game, as well as cool visual elements like spinning razor blades, guitars, amps, concert lights, and a skull that eats your ball and spits it out through its eyeball. As you might have guessed, this is all accompanied by music courtesy of Slayer.

Slayer: Pinball Rocks is available worldwide for $2.99 from the App Store. The game includes original voiceovers from Slayer members as well as songs from Slayer’s latest American Recordings release, World Painted Blood.

This app has been developed by Gameprom, a company famous for its series of Pinball games for iPhone and iPad.

See a video of Slayer: Pinball Rocks below:

Have you tried this out? Thoughts?

After viewing the “Teutonic Terror” video, a Turkish fan entered “ACCEPT pwns” into his update box on Twitter, only to find out that someone named @pwns was now following him on Twitter. Both the Twitter story and the video spread like wildfire across the internet as the unlikely worlds of metal music and technology blogs including Gizmodo, Mashable, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times and Blabbermouth picked the story up and spread it faster than a heavy metal guitar riff. Gizmodo and Mashable detailed very simple explanations telling their readers how to exploit the security hole, while Twitter went into panic mode and to fix the “Accept Bug” by resetting everyone’s followers back to zero. Even Ashton Kutcher had as many friends as most of us… for a couple of hours.

Accept

Ashton Kutcher posted at around 1 p.m. EST, “twitter is being hacked by some turkish hacker. haha I have 0 followers.” Stacy Keibler saw the bright side of things, tweeting, “People are freaking out about Twitter followers going to zero. I look at it like this: Right now, I have just as many followers as @aplusk!” Kim Kardashian was one of the many stars who had trouble dealing with the Twitter bug aftermath, writing, “Someone hacked my twitter account and direct messaged me! They have added over 200 new people! Ughhhhh.”

The hacker certainly got an earful from celebs like Justin Bieber who sent a fair warning, “u have now pissed off over 2 million teenage girls. They are more dangerous than Navy Seals.” Elsewhere, Jim Carrey pondered, “Imagine if this hacker put his/her talent 2 some worthy use. They could 1 day have more than a false sense of superiority.”

More celebrity woes from:

@chriscolfer There has been a twitter glitch, also known as a twitch
- Chris Colfer, Actor (“Glee”)

@michellebranch Is this all part of the finale of Lost?
- Michelle Branch, Musician

@sarabareilles Oh my gosh! Twitter’s been Hacked!!!!! CALL IRONMAN.
- Sara Bareilles, Musician

@joejonas Wait.. So this means I have to “talk” to my friends… :^/
- Joe Jonas, Musician

@iamdiddy I feel so lonley!!!!! Lol :) come back soon. I can’t live without yall!!! :( can somebody send me some followers pls lol :). Let’s go!!!,
- Sean “Diddy” Combs, Rapper, Actor (“Get Him To The Greek”)

@jordansblog I semi feel like I’m back in Middle school with no friends…
- Jordan Pruitt, Singer

@markhoppus People freak out more when twitter crashes than the stock market. Next up: Senate Hearings on the Great Crash of 2010.
- Mark Hoppus, Musician (blink182)

If you are curious, Blood Of The Nations, Accept’s twelfth full-length studio album, is scheduled for a September release in Europe & North America.

In the Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion! app players embark on an adventure taking them through six districts in the game, each featuring the distinctive style of a band member. The master goal is to retrieve the band’s stolen music track – Blackbirds, an unreleased Linkin Park song made exclusively for the game. The song is unlocked upon completion of all missions inside the game (I’ve heard it doesn’t take that long to do it, which is logical).

Production on the game began more than a year ago, with the band (vocalists Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington, drummer Rob Bourdon, guitarist Brad Delson, DJ Joe Hahn and bassist Dave “Phoenix” Farrell) working with Artificial Life, Inc. on various aspect of the game, such as storylines, gameplay, character design and music. Mike Shinoda designed the band members’ avatars and edited every line of dialogue.

The iPad app renders the adventure with HD graphics, and a user interface that has been redesigned to utilize the iPad’s larger screen.

Among the game’s highlights are original and 8-bit remixes of Linkin Park tracks including “New Divide,” “One Step Closer,” “In The End,” “Crawling,” “QWERTY,” “Hands Held High,” “Faint,” and “No More Sorrow.

Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion! game screenshot

Additional game features, according to the press release:

• Personalization of players’ avatars and apartments provide a unique community experience
• Non-player characters (NPCs) inhabit the world, adding drama to the gaming experience
• Shopping for virtual items with coins awarded by winning fights and completing missions
• Earning trophies for adding friends to the rebellion
• A news feed to stay up-to-date with Linkin Park
• Facebook and Twitter integration connecting millions of social network users worldwide

But the main feature of the app is probably that it’s not a rhythm based game!

For more details about Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion! visit this website. And check out the trailer below:

On a side note, don’t forget to enter our latest giveaway for a chance to win 1,2,3’s colored Confetti 7″ vinyl for simply “liking” the Dotted Music Facebook page!

Designed and built by RUNE Entertainment and GRAND Creative Studios, the website opens with the story of family man and steel factory worker Drake Carter ending his affair with seductive co-worker Thea Landa. This sparks a chain of events that leads to Drake’s murder at the hands of his former lover and secret Villain as she moves to claim his soul.

Hail The Villain website

Freezing time in that savage moment, the website allows you to navigate through the scene to unlock character back-stories, clues, downloads, to participate in the story by becoming “Villain-ized” and to share messages with the band.

According to the press release, the concept for the website grew out of a series of sketches the band had created as a rough draft for a comic book inspired by the sounds of their new album, Population: Declining which will be released via Roadrunner Records on June 8, 2010.

HailTheVillain.com includes a series of illustrated environments to explore, with clues and hints, character bios and Easter eggs hidden here and there. Numbers scrawled in matchbooks unlock audio content when punched into a phone booth, while a map hidden in the glove compartment foreshadows a darker plot twist that will be revealed in one of the upcoming comics.

You are also invited to activate your webcam at the beginning to “uncover various opportunities to upload and modify pictures of yourselves,” (FYS look pretty modest with their simple flash app) record and share videos with the band and other users.

I haven’t had a chance to test the game with a webcam, but the experience was impressing enough even without it – now I just can’t call this game a website anymore. Great job.

Your thoughts?

Myself, FYSed

Upon completion, the photos can be saved and sent to either Facebook or Twitter. Or posted on a blog, like here on the right (I decided to keep it simple, as I look dumb even with only those sunglasses added).

As the announcement says, Four Year Strong have always embraced the idea of not taking themselves too seriously and now, they have spread that philosophy with FysYourself. Hours after its launch, FysYourself reportedly attracted the likes of Pete Wentz, Paramore’s Hayley Williams and over 10,000 other viewers.

Fans will have the opportunity to enter a contest with their FysYourself “masterpieces,” and the best entry will receive the ultimate Enemy of the World prize package: FYS Skatedeck, vinyl, CD, shirt, poster, pin pack, and tickets to see the band live.

What has been done here is relatevely simple technically wise, which only confirms that a viral idea doesn’t require an enormous budget.

My advice: if you are thinking of what game concept could be adopted for your own brand, just go to a random online collection of Flash games for inspiration – you will get dozens of ideas. But if you don’t care about viral promotions, or just goofing off at your computer: go FysYourself.

Let’s take a look at two iPad apps released this week: Korg’s iELECTRIBE and GrooveMaker from IK Multimedia.

iELECTRIBE

Korg‘s popular among electronic musicians hardware Electribe Series is now also available as a dedicated iPad musical instrument app – the Korg iELECTRIBE virtual analog beatbox.

iELECTRIBE

“Korg Electribe products have been popular due in part to their interactive, easy-to-use front panel controls. The iPad’s 9.7″ multi touch display offers an intuitive layout that will be familiar to previous Electribe users. Just as on the original Electribe, users simply choose one of the eight parts (or sounds) and touch the 16-step sequencer to quickly build patterns and grooves.

The iELECTRIBE faithfully recreates the historic Electribe’s entire sound engine – including analog synthesis modeling and PCM synthesis, along with virtual Valve Force tube modeling. The sequencer can record instrument parts as well as advanced Motion Sequencing – the recording of knob movements as part of a pattern.”

The iELECTRIBE is currently available from Apple’s App Store. Regularly priced at US $19.99, a special introductory price of $9.99 is being offered until June 30, 2010.

GrooveMaker for the iPad

The infamous IK Multimedia‘s GrooveMaker series of remixing apps is now released as an iPad version as well.

GrooveMaker for iPad

“Released for the iPhone and iPod touch in August 2009, GrooveMaker has become one of the most popular mobile loop remixing apps. The GrooveMaker Free version has consistently been in the top 100 music apps with over 600,000 downloads, and the entire GrooveMaker family features 11 style-based apps for the most popular genres of music.

GrooveMaker for the new iPad offers the same smart features and streamlined workflow as the iPhone/iPod version for making music with loops, but also takes advantage of the new larger multi-touch surface to provide enhanced operation with an integrated, advanced controller.

Also, GrooveMaker for iPad adds even more control when working with loops, providing a new level of creative flexibility. Users can now switch “snapped” grooves with a single touch, plus control the number of loops that are automatically combined during a random mix. GrooveMaker iPad is the perfect addition to a DJ set, providing unlimited creative flexibility in live remixing and DJ applications.”

There are 4 GrooveMaker packs for the iPad available now: Free (a 120-loop pack with a mix of House and Hip-Hop), House, Hip-Hop, Drum & Bass. GrooveMaker House, Hip-Hop and D’n’B contain over 300 loops each and are $9.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Check out the demo video below:

I’m wondering, will we ever see Ableton Live on a tablet?

Ultimate-Guitar.com, the world’s biggest guitar tablature database and musicians community, has officially announced a joint venture with internationally renowned artist Slash.

Here’s a part from the press release:

Slash

Under the agreement, Ultimate Guitar and Slash will co-develop and co-own digital assets associated with Slash’s online initiatives, including his official website, www.slashonline.com, which launched today. In addition, the Joint Venture will develop and release a variety of Slash-branded mobile applications as well as instructional videos featuring Slash.

“As a musician & fan there’s nothing cooler than to partner with Ultimate Guitar. They’re THE source for gear info, tabs, music & artist news & the list goes on & on. There is no online site that comes close to UG for supplying such comprehensive music information. I’m proud to be onboard,” said Slash.

“Slash is the ultimate guitar god and his brand resonates with the Ultimate Guitar community like no other musician. He is one of my favorite artists and a major inspiration when I started Ultimate Guitar in the first place,” said Ultimate Guitar founder Eugeny Naidenov. “This partnership creates a unique opportunity not only for Ultimate Guitar to leverage the Slash brand but also for our worldwide community of guitar enthusiasts to interact with and get close to a revered artist, and vice versa. For an artist of his stature to tie his brand and web property to an online social community is a forward looking approach that truly breaks the mold.“

Noticed the “Slash-branded mobile applications” part? We are in fact going to release a co-branded iPhone application in a week, you will love it.

Meanwhile, Slash‘s self-titled album is released tomorrow (April 6th), be sure to check it out – dope LP.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone app #1 in App Store’s Music category

Obviously, this is the most important news of the current week for me. Ultimate Guitar Tabs, an iPhone app for searching and viewing guitar and bass tablature from Ultimate-Guitar.com, made it to the first spot in the Music category of the App Store in the US and four other countries, displacing the infamous I Am T-Pain app (UPDATE: after the price increase, UGT is again at 2 – I think this is temporary :)). UGT was also on the 8th place in the general top of the US App Store, which is neat.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone App

Gorillaz release an addictive online game

Gorillaz announced a simple, but quite well-done online Flash game, Escape to Plastic Beach. “‘Escape to Plastic Beach’ is the first game of its type merging numerous levels of Flash and Unity formats along with a new single MP3 to create an audio, visual, graphical and gaming experience to expand fans’ experience of an album. Increasing the experience beyond traditional album release – the game features original artwork, voiceovers from the band and numerous other tracks from the new Gorillaz album.” This is a part of the act’s broad marketing campaign, which was greatly covered over here.

Noisia spread the Infection, an online music game

And another online game, this time a rhythm based one – from Dutch producing trio Noisia (one of the best drum&bass acts in the world). Noisia have released a Flash music game to coincide with the release of their new single “Machine Gun“. Check it out, pretty interesting experience.

The Chemical Brothers prepare films for their iTunes LP album

The Chemical Brothers are set to release their seventh studio album, called Further, on June 8, 2010 on Freestyle Dust/Astralwerks. This album is said to be the band’s first to be released with corresponding films made specifically to match each of the 8 audio tracks. The films will be included on an iTunes LP and special edition DVD. If the Chemical camp will keep creating and adding worthy content to the iTunes LP, similarly to Gorillaz, then this is definitely an album I am looking to myself.

And last, few cool links from Twitter:

• How to make a great music app (via Forrester Blogs)
• Plastikman launches innovative iPhone app for live gigs (via Sandbox.fm)
• Lou Reed’s New iPhone App For Aging Eyeballs (via Hypebot)
• 8 people you’ll find hanging out in a music store (via Guyism)