Image credit: Megson

If we are indebted (and we are) to anyone for the blog’s success in 2011, it is to you, the faithful reader.

We’d like to thank you for your continuing interest, devotion, and feedback this year.

The outstanding moment in our year was marked by the unprecedented success of Chris Purifoy’s Defining The Music Industry Crisis, which garnered 340 shares on social-networking site, Facebook, with a further 140 tweets on Twitter.

We look to expand our online profile in 2012. This calendar year we have worked towards building our presence on both Facebook and Twitter. We have achieved our short term goals, but we fully intend on expanding still further: if you enjoyed reading Dotted Music in 2011, you are going to love what we have in store for you in 2012.

From the Dotted Music Team,

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Keep the music in your festivities.

Interest Through Release

The most difficult job for any budding musician, developing band or heavyweight contender is simply to keep people interested. The music itself is never enough to glue people to your sound and style, you have to ensure that people are always tuning in and checking up on the latest developments, however small they might be. Strategic release is a great way to do that.

First off: the album is not the only release. That’s a myth that should die right now. Singles, b-sides, press releases, videos, blogs, pictures and all sorts of other things are types of release that will keep people watching. Let’s examine what makes it strategic.

Image credit: photosday on Tumblr

Timing is everything, and, when considering timing, the best thing to look at is just how much material you have. If, for example, you intend to spread the releases over a year or so, you can then use each piece of material at certain times. Six videos could be released one every two months, with two press releases coming up every six months.

The most important thing, of course, is to ensure that releases are constant, and that you don’t end up with everything being released at once in order to overwhelm people.

• Press releases can be done from the moment you first form a band, and never have to halt. A local paper, the smaller the better, can announce the forming of your band and, from there, you just go bigger. Aim for websites, music magazines and onwards. If you’re planning to write them yourselves, spend some time studying the press releases for other bands.
• Videos are an easy release. YouTube has proven that of late. As early as before your first gig, talk to a venue during a quiet day about doing a gig that isn’t a gig. Basically, you perform and record without having a dedicated audience and for no pay. After that, you split the video into tracks, then release them slowly and with different titles.
• Pictures are more difficult. Having your own website is good for it, but your own website will always be more difficult to draw people to. MySpace and Facebook are in ideal positions here, as is the generally successful Facebook fan page. Pictures can be taken from practice spaces, performances or they can be stills taken from videos.
• Blogs are likely the most difficult to engage people with. Yet again, your own website is the ideal solution, but a mix of MySpace, Twitter and Facebook can make up the difference. A blog for a band serves the same purpose as a blog for a person; it allows people the chance to connect with you on a deeper, more personal level, since you will be speaking about more personal things.

The limited release can be your best friend, especially in regards to singles and b-sides. Heavily advertising a one week release that might potentially never be seen again. It acts as a treat for those loyal fans who keep track, and acts as further enticement to keep track for those that don’t.

Some parts of marketing are very simple, and strategic release is a great way to keep a buzz going and to slowly increase the numbers of people aware of you. The only thing you need to do is never miss a deadline.

That’s like betraying fans.

Tom Colohue is a writer from Blackpool, England. Though he specialises in Fiction, he also writes music theory articles, and new media articles based primarily on the internet. On occasion, these also intermingle. He is well recognised by numerous critics and analysts for his integrative descriptive work and his cynical textual mannerisms. For more information, Tom Colohue keeps a Facebook Fan Page, which contains updates from new articles and his personal blog, Mental Streaming. This page can be found via this link.

Alex Gilbert (Dotted Music): Blogs (web-based) and Magazines (print-based) have a lot of similar material. With how technology exponentially increases, how do you see the future for both blogs and magazines? Regardless of technology, both do still spread the good word, eh?

Bill Knowlton (We Love Metal): I agree that both do spread the good word, but in much different ways. For some reason bloggers aren’t taken as “real” journalist as compared to our print market peers. The unusual part of that is magazines are near death. Blogs are free to read and contain the most up to date information. Magazines have a printing deadline so they often get left behind and report old news, which the reader has to pay for.

Magazines will often get the biggest and best interviews which surprises me because We Love Metal and sites much bigger than ours get more readers in the run of a day than the larger magazines even print, let alone sell.

What I will say to the magazine defense is often they have journalists with education and background in written media. Most of us “bloggers” are self-taught fans that get better as time goes on. I will forever find it funny that magazines mock bloggers, but they are all switching over to digital media.

We Love Metal

What are some of your favorite blogs and magazines out there right now?

Two blogs that I read every day are bringbackglam.com with Alyson who is one of the reasons we started our blog. Her honest fan based approach appealed to us and made us decide that being nice to musicians can actually work. She is great at taking the negativity out of the music industry. On the other hand I read metalsucks.net because those guys say things I can only dream of saying.

As for magazines, I will occasionally pick up Revolver, but not as a norm.

The internet is instant international access. With such an abundance of websites out there, it’s hard to get people to click automatically like one would a Google.com. What are some of your marketing methods for WeLoveMetal.com?

We have tried a lot of different techniques for marketing of We Love Metal and we don’t have unlimited money so it’s difficult to pay for constant ads. We went through a time of link building and reading every Search Engine Optimization book out there, but ultimately it came down to writing good stories that people want to read.

We have been around 2 years as of this month, but only started to take this very seriously last year with a new design and constant updating. The results have been phenomenal. We picked some target words and ran with them. We now have the #1 position for “Heavy Metal Blogs” and that has helped greatly. Although not a majorly searched item on Google it’s a great niche market for us.

To really answer the question: you have to write to get fans, those fans will bring fans and so on. When we first started I hated people saying the only way you can get ahead is with solid, original content, but it’s true.

What advice do you give for aspiring music journalists out there?

Two pieces of advice:

1. Expand your horizons and don’t be scared to ask what seem like stupid questions. A good example would be when I first started covering harder metal I asked a musician flat out what a “blast beat” was and apologized for not knowing. He gave me the definition and explained that most writers use the term, but really have no idea. People can see through you faking it, so get your facts and knowledge down. Write, write, and write.
2. Don’t be an asshole. It seems that the negative guys get ahead, but when you are black balled by every major label and musician because you act like a smart ass; you’re not going to get ahead or be much of a respected journalist. Every artists who puts their music out there deserves a form of respect, you don’t have to like it, but finding some merit in someone’s passion is worth investigating.

When we come to party out with you in Canada, where would you say some good places to catch a show, grab a bite to eat, party it up, and get a good grasp on the area would be?

You would need to hit two places. Montreal is the mecca of metal in Canada. You could hit shows of all nature in Glam, Hard Rock, Death, Black, or a bunch of Cores. The drinks are cheap and the music rules the streets. Doesn’t matter where you eat because your ears are going to be bleeding from the bass. Montreal does have a couple of booty clubs as well. Just a couple!

Than you would have to head over to Halifax because that’s where I’m at and we would be tearing up a city that has the most bars per capita in the world. Mix that with local bands like Black Moor, Orchids Curse, and Broken Ohms and you are in for one hell of a party.

Bill Knowlton with Dan Donegan

If you were to create a dream tour, who’d be on it?

My dream would be a one day festival show with tickets sitting in the $60.00 range. The line-up would consist of 10 bands and leave you speechless at the end. In order:

The Worshyp – Mastodon – Black Label Society – Motley Crue – Testament – Anthrax (Belladonna) – Guns & Roses (Original) – Megadeth – Metallica – Black Sabbath (Dio)

There are others, but these 10 on one day would be the day I could die. I think we could have an after party with Quiet Riot (Dubrow) as well.

On the promo side for We Love Metal, are you looking for any more writers (of course one’s that know how to handle the digital pen)? If so, how can they get in touch with you, send you some samples, etc.?

I’m always interested in new writers and their take on things. I can’t imagine why people want to hear us over and over again… lol! Anyone can submit samples to me, but must realize that payment can be low. Sometimes very low. They can send it to blknowlton@eastlink.com with a PDF attachment.

Bro, thanks for your time, and I always enjoy reading WeLoveMetal.com! Any last words?

Only last words would be keeping the metal alive to all. We need to teach the mainstream of the talent and charisma Heavy Metal stars have. For me personally, media pushing music that is played with a machine corrupts real music and real musicians. Kids thinking they are musicians by putting samples together not only degrades Metal and Rock stars, but also people ranging from classical musicians to someone’s grand pappy playing the fiddle in the kitchen.

It’s about real music with real instruments. Just like real metal news on welovemetal.com

Thanks for doing this man; you’re a class act and a pleasure to work with.

Interview by Alex Gilbert.

The full interview is available at this location, read few excerpts from it below (the most practical ones, in my opinion):

What sort of tips can you give to new music bloggers and new musicians looking to establish the direction of their own blogs?

As Seth Godin recently warned, “the Internet is almost full”. Picking readers’ attention is harder and harder and harder each year and even month or week. I don’t think you need to afraid to fail though, remember that it’s all about fun (good luck if you began blogging to get rich). Experiment, try things that no one or only few have done before, see the results and either stick to the new direction or try something new again. Your goal is to stand out against the crowd of blogs in your niche, so experimenting by itself will do a lot for you.

If you are a musician, of course just blog in any way you can, even if your grammar skills suck. Don’t do it for the sake of being trendy, do it for fun. Keep your posts short if you are not wordy (most readers will appreciate that!), but say something cool each time you leave a post. You are a rock star, and your life IS interesting to others by default. What seems boring to you will sound spicy to others, especially your fans.

Did you do any research to learn new and more effective ways to establish and promote your blog? If so, where did you receive the best information from?

I had been spending hours reading dozens of blogs dedicated to that, like Copyblogger, ProBlogger, Blogging Tips etc. They are all great, that is fact, but these sites are mostly recycling the same information over again. I’ve learned absolutely essential things from such blogs, but also understood that there is no need to constantly keep up with each of them to get your website running great. Instead of falling into the learning trap, like I love to do, just open your online editor and write a new blog post!

Did blogging present new avenues for networking and establishing connections with people that may not have been available to you through social networks?

Yes and this is one of the most amazing things about blogging to me. Owning a blog gives great opportunities in finding new connections in your industry. Most of the people nowadays realize the influence of blogging, so you’ve got very strong chances to get a response from a high profile person even if you blog is young and small.

How can a blog network benefit new bloggers looking to establish their own brand?

If you want to build a name in your niche (and I know that you do), you should find as many blogs of the same topic as possible and start not only reading them, but constantly leaving comments in their posts, contacting their founders, asking to do guest posts. And if you do a guest post, share the best stuff you’ve got!

Networking is crucial for establishing a successful blog and spending more time on networking is one of the top priorities in my to-do list for Dotted Music.

How long did it take you to establish a ‘voice’ within your writing? Do you have any tips for new bloggers looking to find their own voice?

I think I’m still establishing my voice! Writing in English is an exciting challenge by itself, as I’m Russian. But I have to note that expressing ideas in a language different from your native one proved to be healthy. You don’t have a too wide scope for writing unnecessary stuff, and so this is my advice to everyone – keep it clear and to the point.

If interested, read more over here, and be sure to check out other articles from the series – very inspiring.

Also, using a chance, I want to apology for writing here so rarely lately. You will see a lot of interesting stuff on Dotted Music very soon, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading :)

MicControl

While music bloggers make up a significant portion of the overall population of the blogosphere, there are far too many blogs that just float along in cyberspace without the understanding or direction to put their blog onto the path of success.

Meanwhile, there are far too few artists who truly understand the power of a blog and why it should be used in congruence with a strong social media presence.

Therefore the purpose of The Blogging Side Of Music is twofold – First, to share some powerful insight with existing music bloggers as to how they can get on the right path towards success. Second, is to elaborate on the effectiveness and usefulness of a blog in any artist’s overall marketing strategy.

The bloggers featured throughout the series have all found success at their own levels of blogging, each with their own purpose and motives for establishing a blog in the first place. The following is the schedule for the 5-part series:

• Monday June 7: Matthew Moran – Musician/ Social Media Consultant
• Tuesday June 8: Dave Tamkin – National Touring Musician
• Wednesday June 9: Peter Malick – Award Winning Music Producer/ Blues Musician/Blogger
• Thursday June 10: Andrew Apanov – Editor-In-Cheif, Ultimate-Guitar.com/ Blogger (Jon, thank you!)
• Friday June 11: Christina Duren – General Manager, Ariel Publicity/ Blogger

Photo by: Steve Wampler on Flickr

Thankfully for the more corporate enterprises, though unfortunately for the independent musician, the aforementioned big guys have started to see the benefits that can be reaped using the internet. Public broadcasting is a much wider option on the internet than it is in more conventional methods, such as television and the radio. General view counts will usually be lower on the internet, but only as long as popularity is limited. Once a broadcaster reaches a reliable, wide-reaching audience, the potential for reaching even higher view counts than television. One of the main reasons for this is that your chosen piece of music is constantly available, rather than being singularly broadcast. Much less money can be earned by showing off your music online, but once you reach a certain level of popularity the income begins to fly.

In taking advantage of this, some rather interesting stuff has found it’s way on to the internet. My main example here would be things like ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog’. This is a web broadcast musical, forty-two minutes long and released in installments. Rather than just music, the internet allows the perfect tool for anything that can be created, regardless of budget, cast or preparation. Advertising in these manners is usually done entirely through word of mouth. However, since the company making the video or music file already have a considerable amount of capital behind them, they can put their work out for all sorts of international syndication. While they will undoubtedly spend much more money putting their work onto television, it could easily garner a much reduced reward when it comes to the outcome.

Creating music videos, at a low budget, is an incredibly common thing for any band or musician to indulge in. While some promoters are internet based, and can thus advertise your work all across the internet, but there are still limits to it. On the internet, everybody is on an even playing field. You put your work out there, usually in the same places as most of the more popular content, and hope that it draws attention. From there though, it’s out of your hands. The content can be passed, traded and downloaded, regardless of file size or type. This, though, is where the independent musician has an advantage.

For the independent musician, peer to peer file trading is the absolute best thing for their continuing popularity. If it’s just one or two people pooling together to throw out a track, it’s no big loss to have it traded for free between a few dozen people. For the big company throwing it’s weight around, they’re looking at a gigantic loss between the flight of thousands of free copies.

In a digital economy, big business still loses millions, while the independent musician has nothing but gains.

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

Read also: Effects Of The Internet: Musical Mobility, The Effects Of The Internet: Contract Giveaways, The Effects Of The Internet: “Making It”, The Effects Of The Internet: Music Distribution

While the need to record in a professional studio used to be the standard, the same quality of recordings can now be achieved from the comfort of your own home – you just need to know what you are doing. The purpose of this series is twofold – first, to explore different forms in-home recording in hopes of sharing some insight with other emerging artists looking to record their own music. Second, to expose the music of emerging artists who have put the time and effort into perfecting their craft.

MicControl

The music featured in Recording In The Home will vary from acoustic based blues to electronic based house, where the recordings were obtained in settings that range from an attic to a home-office based studio.

Except from interview with Eric Dennis – Metal Guitarist who goes by the stage name Daemon Blak:

Typical how many tracks will one of your songs contain? Can you explain the different tracks use?

On most of my songs, there are the following tracks – Drum rhythm tracks= 3-  main drum track for the primary beat, one fill track for cymbals, one fill track for drum fills, Bass track= 1. Rhythm guitar =2 tracks- one for left, and one for right, and Lead Track=1 for the guitar solo. There may also be two additional tracks for a lead harmony. That makes for an average total of 7 to 9 tracks for the music. There will be one track for vocals (when I find a singer), so the average track count is 7 to 10 total tracks, depending on the song.

Except from interview with ESEMDEE – Electronic Instrumental Composer:

Where do you get your samples from?

I hit the dollar (record) bins something serious. I had to not shop at the spot I go to for a while because I cleaned house. I got Prince’s “Purple Rain” album for .50 cents not too long ago. Everything from my 404′s & Cold Sores* album was made from dollar records. With vinyl back on the rise, so are the prices. I’m a man on a budget. If I’m feeling lazy, I’ll just sample whatever songs I have on my computer. It could have came out today or in the ’40′s.. I’ll sample it. When I first started, I was using the sound of a heart beat for drum kicks. I might record my vocals to chop up and throw in a track from time to time. I get my samples from anything and everything. I’ll record voice memo’s on my phone when I’m riding the bus or hanging out and use everyday events even. Nothing is safe. You can’t limit your sources.

This series is right in line with the goals and purpose of MicControl.com – to establish a learning network through the use the fully functional blogging platform, where musicians can teach each other and learn from past experience. While MicControl.com is a fully functioning music social network, the primary focus is blogging and learning – forming a level of engagement and trust within the music community that has yet to be established on the internet.

This was a guest post by Jonathan Ostrow. Be sure to check out his ‘Recording In The Home’ interview series next week and express your thoughts on the topic in the comments below.

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)

So, today in the world of DM:

DottedMusic.com

What to read on the main domain? First of all, recently I broke the news about two fabulous Ultimate Guitar projects I’ve been involved in: Arcade Rocker and Ultimate Guitar Tabs (already first place in the App Store!! 2nd place in the App Store’s Music category, right after I Am T-Pain!). Definitely worth checking out are Starting A Record Label series by Ben Histand, inspiring pieces from music specialist Draven Grey and my friend and a kick-ass publicist Brian Rocha, and comments on the music biz from Jared Leto and Reader’s Wives’ frontman Niall James.

Dotted Thoughts @ Posterous

This is the first time I’m revealing here my Posterous blog, called Dotted Thoughts. Don’t be confused, it’s actually a part of the Dotted Music project, soon to be transferred to a dottedmusic.com subdomain. Dotted Thoughts is more about brief news on music and technology. If you don’t want to subscribe to its updates separately (which indeed might be confusing for some of you), keep an eye on weekly “Dotted Thoughts Round-ups,” containing the most interesting news and links from that Posterous blog and my Twitter account. I will begin posting the round-ups in April.

Fiverr

This is a little weird experiment I’ve launched on the Fiverr platform. For those who hasn’t heard about Fiverr yet, it is a place where people will do various things for you just for $5, and where you can offer your own $5 services. To put it short, I am promising to give you a complex personal music marketing advice for five bucks. Interested, anyone? It’s a limited time offer ;)

Facebook Page

Be sure to join the Dotted Music page on Facebook, if you haven’t done that already. It’s a great way to receive updates from both DM and DT blogs, and to be the first to read exclusive news from time to time. Several Facebook contests coming up in the future, so don’t hesitate to join us on Facebook!

Twitter List

While some of you are following me on Twitter already (please make sure you are among those some though), not many people have heard about the music biz Twitter List I’ve created. Follow it to get tons of exceptional music industry updates in one feed (I will be adding even more intersting personas to the list soon). Moreover, if you follow this Twitter List – I will mention your Twitter name in the nearest Dotted Thoughts round-up!

I think that’s it for now, read Dotted Music and be inspired!

The interwebs is very much a vast ocean when it comes to what can be accessed, what is out there, and how there are sites upon sites that I have yet to discover. Now as a publicist for the past six or so years, I have come a pretty long way. I was once naïve and felt that no blog could matter, no chance, no care, don’t tell me about your blog and please do not ask me to cover my artist – it won’t happen. Humans are evolving now to have one eye, as all the computer screen staring is starting to fit into natural selection. I can’t cite where I read that, but I assure I did not make it up or see it on The Simpsons. More people are reading news and gaining their information via the net, then people are reading hard, tangible media.

Photo credit: qwz on Flickr

Circa 2003, I read lots of print publications, from my university newspaper, to the local newspaper, and of course many music magazines (in high school, my walls were plastered with pages of Hit Parader). It seems in about seven years, I obtain just about all good tidbits of info – news – sports info – arts & entertainment scoops – all from the internet. Print has not completely gone the way of the buffalo though, as my reading of countless print publications has dwindled down to like three or four, including my town’s local newspaper.

Nowadays, I am happy to work with blogs in an effort to get my artist exposure. My recon will never cease in trying to find more neat music blogs on the internet now. Hell, I pitch them now. I hold them in high regard, and I have completely dropped my “any kid can have a website” attitude. Having been on a slew of blogs over the past few months, I notice all of them have a heart in common. Blogs are rather passionate, I mean case in point here, as I type this. I don’t know if this will reach one person, but you know I will finish my thoughts before wrapping this up. You know what blogs do not ask for, ads and money. Maybe they do, I don’t know, but my guess is they will be much more keen to cover an act, ad or no ad.

Rutgers University and Comm. 102 taught me about the outlawing of payola, yet, it runs rampant in so many aspects of life today. Will I provide an example here… no. But back to blogging, you know where else I have been learning about cool bands… yup… on blogs. I don’t really have any favorites but all and all, I am now a sound believer in the importance of the interwebbing of the interwebs. It’s the little guy that actually gives a shit and wants to say something – who cares if someone hears the message, it is out there and it will eventually be found.

Brian P. Rocha is a co-owner at Fresno Media, handling publicity for some heavy bands. When he is not working 25 hours a day, he dreams of taking a subway to Venus.