Songzilla MP3 Blog - MP3 - music - digital trends and bedlam: the Internet. Thoughts from beyond the edge of... what? [reference Eric Pederson of the Songzilla Music Meta Data Enterprise]
About these MP3 Links
We are FOR Musicians and Music
Recording artists, and plain old bands, need exposure to find their audience. Thanks to the Internet, they are no longer wholly at the mercy of the big music industry talent scouts, and their narrow, greed driven assessment of what people want to hear.
One way for a music artist to get heard, and develop an audience, is to post one's tracks on the Internet. Smart talents are marketing themselves this way.
This is great for the adventurous listener who gets to hear great, new artists sooner, one step ahead of the cigar smoking music executives. And let's face it: grass roots fans, the "early adopters" of new sound, have been the basis for all great modern music.
The MP3 tool here on the Songzilla blog is an attempt to aggregate these promotional Internet releases for the shared benefit of the listener and artist, and so that we can all enjoy good, new music. IF you like what you hear - seek the artist out - adopt them - bring them to the ears of the world!
Listen now! Most MP3 links are active for only a limited time as they are posted as a promotion to egenrate interest. Future improvments will include more frequent checking and verifictaion that the links given are active.
Yeah, a Disclaimer
Neither this blog, nor its principal, hosts nor distributes music files. All links are to other sites promoting the songs listed, and we have no control nor responsibility for such hosting and distribution. We have made an effort to include only sources we believe are authorized to promote the songs linked, however we cannot reasonably ascertain whether such actions are legally authorized to any degree of certainty.
Should the holder of copyrights to a song/recording contact us with the desire to have their song excluded from our links, we will comply.
Conversely, any valid holder of copyrights to a song/recording who would like their track included is invited to contact us.
Long live Rock! - and Punk, and Soul, and Rap, and Electro, and... the people who create it. May their music travel far, and their feet travel in style.
Contact this blog at: Eric-rock-and-roll-.Pedensenerson at Gmail.com
Friday, June 17, 2005
Hack an iPod/mp3 Input to Your Car Stereo [step by step]
In the pursuit of better iPod in-car fidelity, Matt Gilbert has hacked a $1 connection between his iPod and his car stereo.
Sometimes the simple approach gives better audio than the options you can buy. At $1 it costs less as well.
[mp3] Indies Produce Top Sounds, Even the "Brit" Sound
Mastering
It is mind staggering (or at least industry changing) the resources available to Independent artists these days. As a example, check out eMasters, who will give your tracks first class British production without you having to fly to London and navigate to The Soundmasters studio.
Here's the pitch from Kevin Metcalfe:
"... Now you can get the same engineer who's currently mastering say Groove Armada, Usher or Paul Weller to work on your own track for Fifty Euro, Dollar or Pounds. No matter where you are in the world, you'll get the same service that major labels and artists get with absolutely no compromise."
Streaming?
I'm always on the look out for better web hosting (reliable, good customer service, and better technical features at a price that recognizes this comes out of my grocery money). So where do you host to stream your MP3's?
DreamHost appears to be offering quite a bit more storage at lower price points. They offer 2.4 GB storage as part of a very nice 7.95 hosting package; and, better yet, they are having a sale offering 7.7 gigs of storage for $15.95. They've got my attention.
The reason I mention them here is that they offer QuickTime streaming, using a dedicated streaming server, as part of their packages. Beautiful.
Apparently DreamHost is where VibeFlow is run out of:
Vibeflow is an outlet for DJs in the Los Angeles area to come and strut their stuff over the Internet. The DreamHost offices actually house a full-featured Internet broadcasting studio which we use exclusively to showcase local talent on a global scale.
Aha! They must be music people.
Remember: these days there is virtually nothing the main music industry can do that independents cannot do as well, or better (OK, other than book on Jay Leno).
Some folks are not too subtle about systematically (and automatically) spamming search engines, but there can be a golden pot at the end of that fake rainbow, as I'll show you.
You might look at Phill465 and his dozens of substance-less blogs, like the appropriately titled kwsxzg . Clearly this is programmatically generated content with no added value. Spam, spam, spam.
Much to Phill465's design, I suspect, if you scan far enough down the one line blog entries you will find a title that sounds interesting (to you personally). It's social engineering in all its glory. Cover enough topics, and you'll raise a spot of interest.
Let's say an intrepid blog reader scanned down and could not resist the link to hottest soccer mom. Well, it would take a true optimist to expect to see a "hot" soccer mom there, rather than what we find: an even more sophisticated web of automatically generated web pages, which provide no sentient value add. Somebody flag the domain lazyprice.info as a spam site, please.
But hold on.
If you click enough times on the web, like those monkeys trying to hammer out Shakespeare, well, sooner or later you get something.
[mp3] Would you like to authorize this song on this computer?
Today's impulse buy.
When my 12 year old mentioned (the color) deep purple to his brother, I had to intervene. It's not "a deep purple" it's "the" Deep Purple; or better yet, just Deep Purple.
Deep Purple's Machine Head was the listening experience that opened up music for me when I was 12 or 13.
"Deep Purple, the rock band," I told my boys, "You know: Smoke on the Water!"
But they didn't know and, as my old LP was lost decades ago, the modern music industry had its chance.
Searching on iTunes brought up several renditions of the song quickly, all for $.99, making the purchase a no-brainer.
iTunes couldn't remember my account name, but after a couple minutes guessing, I got it right, it charged my card, and the song was downloading. Great.
And then the dialog box popped up and ruined my morning.
"Do you want to authorize this song on this computer?"
What? "Authorize"? WTF?!
No, I don't want to authorize anything. More importantly, I do not want to think about copyright and DRM and how my rights are limited and how my use will be restricted. I do not want to think about licensing.
It was a huge intrusion on my frame of mind.
$.99 was not the price I paid. The price was much greater, and eclipsed the pleasure of sharing a moment with my sons.
The lawyers need to get the hell out of my house.
And let's be clear, my desire for music is not an invitation for an industry and its baggage to enter my home.
I ask for music and you present me with a license and a use problem I need to manage?
If the music industry is Rome, then we know how it will all end.
Baaah!
This is what you offer for my entertainment and pleasure?
I've made some changes to the back-end of the mp3 links listing, and I am interested in any feedback. Less of the data resides on Google's servers which should make it load faster, except that Google's servers may be a fair bit faster than my host.
The new structure will allow me to update mp3 links automatically and at random intervals - a necessary step forward. Lots of possibilities now.
Speaking of possibilities, I noticed the FM2 promotion of the Black Eyed Peas, and the Black Eyed Peas store.
Where's the money in music? The money is in retail clothes, and I see a hoodie in the BEP store with my name on it (actually it's not my name on it, its the Black Eyed Peas' name, and their name is cool because their music is).
[Starving artists make sure you do not sign away the right to market clothes with your name and likeness on it]
You might like to check out the Fading Ways Records "Jukebox" (top of their home page). Very cool - and great music!
Business wise, here's what Fading Ways has said:
We have had orders from people who, if it wasn't for the CC license, would never have heard the music. Our "Share" sampler series is the key marketing component in our CC strategy — it allows fans to spread good music to their friends and via p2p; and the sales follow! Not to mention the associated other benefits such as higher attendance at shows, direct connection between artists and fans, and a positive, constructive approach to musical culture in our societies.
The future is for the brave. Business success always is anyway.
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was the listening experience that opened up music for me when I was 12 or 13.
