Secret Codes & Battleships

“It took about four years, actually,” the vocalist admits. “I’m Australian but I live in London, and my last record was pretty experimental. It was the first time that I put out an album on my own label, and at the end of that period I was a bit burnt out to be honest. That was 2007, and it took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to do. I think the shortest answer to your question is that the goal for me was to really try to make a record that was a lot closer to the very beginning of my career, and the way that I used to write songs. That was focusing on song craft and writing classic melodies and really being quite hard on myself, the opposite of where I’d come from which was just being pretty indulgent and not really being concerned about airplay or commercial success. This record was about reconnecting and really trying to be disciplined, so that’s where it began and it was a pretty amazing run. I got to record all around the world; I got to reunite with a lot of people I hadn’t worked with since the beginning of Savage Garden, as well as working with songwriters and producers like Carl Falk who is a new Swedish producer. He’s a fan of Savage Garden and had actually come to my shows when he was 18. I’ll be 40 next year, and here I am in the studio with this 20 something prodigy and making new music together. It was a pretty extraordinary ride.”

Darren Hayes

Secret Codes & Battleships will be the second studio full-length to be issued through Hayes’ own record label. “I’d been with Sony Music or Columbia Records since I was 23 years of age, and when the record deal ended I didn’t even try to get another deal,” he confesses. “I felt quite frustrated towards the end of the record deal; I’d made an album called The Tension And The Spark and it was the most critically acclaimed record I had ever made, but the record label hated it. I experienced what it feels like to have a record essentially buried; it got a release in the UK but the US refused to release it, and it was really upsetting. I think at the end of that period, I vowed that I never wanted to put myself in that position again where an album that I’d made and was proud of was at the mercy of someone else. That was the beginning of me starting my own label, although Secret Codes & Battleships is out through Universal in Australia and EMI Music in the UK and the rest of the world. It’s a partnership between my label and those major labels, and that’s amazing because I’ve still retained all the control over my music and I’ve got this incredible machine and this enthusiastic promotion team behind the record. I can never really be in that position again, where a record of mine is essentially shelved.”

However, negative aspects come to forming one’s own record label. “I think partly why I’ve partnered up with major labels this time is because just being on my own was exhausting, and financially it’s very expensive – there’s a lot of costs involved in just getting stock to stores, and hiring a team,” the Australian explains. “There’s probably 20 people that work directly for me and with me on the record, so having that burden shared with a major record label as I do today is easier than just being on my own.”

The answer to this question, is that CD duplication and CD replication are two separate processes which achieve essentially the same end, though the two finished products are in fact slightly different from each other, with replicated CD’s being the more superior in terms of the quality of the disc and printing – this is because duplication involves making a copy onto an existing blank disc whereas replication involves stamping out a whole new disc from scratch.

If you think of the process involved when you want to make a copy of a disc on your home computer, you’re basically thinking of the process of duplication, though of course on a much larger scale, with high quality blank media and multi-disc duplicators that ensure fast burning speeds. After burning, the discs are then printed, sometimes with an inkjet but preferably with a thermal printer, and packaged.

The following video demonstrates the duplication process:

In a completely different process, replication uses an original glass master disc as its original product from which to stamp out and create finished discs. This far more involved process has better playback and results in a disc with a silver bottom, whereas duplicated discs have a more blue/green tint. Replicated CD’s are generally printed with offset or silkscreen printing which results in a better print quality than thermal or inkjet printing. It’s a lot more complicated and takes more time but replication equals a more professional product.

The following video demonstrates the replication process:

Duplication has a faster turnaround and is a lot better for a smaller run, so if your band needs 200 copies of your disc made for a couple shows you have coming up, then duplication is probably the best route for you, whereas replication can take slightly longer and is better for larger orders, the product comes out slightly better quality (though duplication by a professional company such as Mixonic ensures the highest quality duplication possible) and is a much better option if you are looking to order a couple thousand CD’s to take out on tour or self-release.

This is a guest post by Pandie Suicide) of Mixonic, a CD duplication service based in San Francisco.

The first thing to think about when making this decision is what are your goals with CD? Are you self-releasing your very first full-length album? Or is this an EP? Are you thinking about starting your own record label? Distributing your album through a large retailer like Best Buy? Are you looking to get signed? Or is this a free give away to interest new fans or act as a promo disc for college radio?!

Once you decide what you are looking to achieve, it will become a lot clearer what options might suit you. For a free give away, a paper sleeve or simple printed jacket would probably work best, but if it is a promo item, perhaps with an accompanying DVD or multiple discs, you might want some type of digipak or printed wallet. If it is a demo CD that you are shopping to record labels then a tin jewel case would probably work best, you want it to look good and unless you think they’d prefer an album that is a finished product that looks completely sales-ready, you want to make sure it looks like it’s a demo so they don’t get confused and think you don’t need a record deal because you’ve got it all handled yourself. For an album you will have available for sale in stores, at online retailers like amazon.com or to take on tour with you and sell at shows, however, you can really be creative.

Image credit: ACDSleeve.com

While the ‘industry standard’ for albums is generally considered to be the Jewel case, the recording industry has completely flipped on its axis in recent years, making it anything but standard meaning that if you want to step outside ‘standard’ there’s never been a better time. Digipaks stand out for this very reason, in that they are a non-standard option that look great and are eco-friendly, and a printed wallet also equally eco-friendly makes a good option for something like an EP, ‘mix-tape’ or single should you decide to release something along those lines.

Cost-wise, the simple paper sleeve is definitely your most inexpensive option, but in a lot of cases where it’s not just a simple giveaway, you will get better results – sales or promo-wise, with spending a few extra cents on an option that is better suited to your needs, and leaves your CD looking great. Mixonic has cost-effective packaging options available for your short run project. Remember, these days when people are shelling out their cash on a physical object as opposed to buying it online, they want to get their money’s worth – so make it eye-catching, make it look as good as possible, as professional as possible, as unique as possible and you will get your CD into more people’s hands.

This is a guest post by Pandie Suicide) of Mixonic, a CD duplication service based in San Francisco.

While the band stayed in Australia, Ultimate Guitar writer Joe Matera sat down with Biffy Clyro singer and guitarist Simon Neil to talk the new album, touring and music business. Read an exclusive excerpt below:

What have been some of the most important lessons you have learned from being in this business?

Image credit: news.bbc.co.uk

The one lesson we learned the most was to just believe in yourself. Just because someone thinks you’re crap doesn’t mean you are crap. And like wise, just because some one thinks you’re amazing doesn’t mean you’re amazing. It’s really about the belief in yourself.

We’ve always had a focus and a drive. We were lucky that we had a start where people didn’t like our band for years and we made small records on indie records. And if we didn’t have the belief in ourselves, we still wouldn’t be doing it. If we were doing this to make money or to meet tons of girls we would have given up after about a year. For us it’s really about the thrill of making music.

What have been some of the most memorable experiences in the band’s career thus far?

There have been quite a few. I guess on a basic level when we got to meet The Rolling Stones that was a real pinch yourself moment. And that was because they are a band that really shaped rock and roll from day one. I probably prefer The Beatles slightly more musically than The Stones, but they have done a lot. That was a moment we’ll never forget, and also having Josh Homme play guitar on the record. He is such an amazing songwriter and guitarist.

Read the rest of the interview on UG next week.

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.

The rules are dead simple. You have two options to enter the giveaway:

• “Like” the Dotted Music page on Facebook.
• Share the message about the sweepstakes on Twitter (and don’t forget to follow me).

Or do both ;)

The winner will be announced later in June (the end date has been pushed back).

1,2,3

Confetti 7" Cover

A little background on 1,2,3, signed to almost as much young Ooh La La Records, a boutique artist development company and record label from Brooklyn, founded by producer Theo Aronson.

The outfit consists of Nic Snyder (vocals, guitar & keys) and his long-time pal Josh Sickels (drums). 1,2,3 hail from Pittsburgh and are late of the well-known power punk outfit, The Takeover UK.

“I’m really excited about this new band,” Nic proclaims, “It’s what I’ve always wanted a band to be.”

1,2,3 is the platform for some very smart songwriting, for example, “Confetti,” a tune about death that quite happily sounds like the orgasmic collision of latter day Beatles (definitely a Lennon tune), Gram Parsons and Big Star, and “Can’t Bribe God,” a kind of slow, Gospel shuffle that finds Snyder displaying simply the most viciously visceral vox work this side of Prince Rogers Nelson with a middle eight that feels curiously like ELO… in a good way.

Both songs were recorded last Fall at Aronson’s Brooklyn recording studio. Inquiring minds can expect to hear them very soon, followed by a full album in early 2010. Check out the band’s MySpace page for a sneak peak. “Confetti” is available in the Ooh La La Records online store.

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.

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:

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.

Using the stock exchange as a basis for my business model, I’ve constructed a theoretical approach to help support up-and-coming bands, starting from when they’re still at their earliest stages of their artistic and commercial development. Thus, individuals could invest in bands that they think have potential, and when (or if) the band gains popularity and starts gaining profits from CD and ticket sales, the initial investors get a financial return from the band.

Image credit: Gripweed on Pixdaus

Because buying a “share” or “stock” of a band sounds too possessive (these are still human beings after all), we’ll use the term “bond”. A bond in the finance world is a debt security, as in, an individual buys a debt from a company so that at a future date, once the company becomes more profitable, the investor is repaid the amount of the bond by the company along with interest. In the case of investing in bands, the debt would be repaid if the band eventually sells a profitable amount of music, and instead of interest, the band would also pay back a percentage of their revenue.

One way that this whole process can be facilitated is if we can invest in specific bands through their record labels rather than investing in the record label as a whole, or giving money directly to the band. Although this would technically eliminate all bands that are unsigned, it could conversely create an opportunity for them to get signed: they amass a certain amount of money from investors (which would mostly come from family and friends), and offer it to the label in exchange of getting signed, which consequently reduces the risk for the label of signing a new band since they won’t require as large a sum of funds from their own treasury. This greatly supports the industry on many levels: first, the band because they are now signed with a record label and have a sum of money that will go to their commercial needs. Second, it supports the record label by allowing them to sign more bands at a lower risk. Finally, the mechanism also provides a way for people that love music and that are looking for investment opportunities to invest in an area that they know and enjoy versus the complexities of stock markets. Because of a possible financial return, it is more appealing than simply supporting a band by buying their music.

Although this business model is certainly flawed and doesn’t consider potential problems such as band breakups, it is mainly to serve as a theoretical basis to thinking outside of the box in regards to supporting young and talented bands that are swallowed by the leviathan that is the music industry scene. There will practically never be a sudden dramatic plunge in illegal music downloads, and even if there are several other ways of supporting a band, there are still countless obstacles musicians have to face before being able to make sustainable careers out of their art. It is up to us, their avid listeners, to provide the beginnings of a reform that can allow musicians to attain their appropriate level of recognition by being judged solely on their devotion and talent.