via WM

I’m surprised that more musicians aren’t taking advantage of Bandcamp. After all it is one of the best places to sell your music on the web, and it’s simple to use.

You can basically think of Bandcamp as a personal digital music distribution system for musicians. If you don’t have the money–or know how–to be able to sell your music directly from your website, then Bandcamp is a great option for you. And here’s why:

13) Custom URL

This is a great feature that helps connect your website seamlessly with the Bandcamp platform. Instead of yourdomain.bandcamp.com you can change your URL to a sub-domain of your website like music.yourdomain.com.

12) Design Customization

While Bandcamp still lacks total control over it’s design (in order to keep things as clean as possible) it now allows you to create image maps in order to mimic the navigation on your own website. This is another big boon in the quest to integrate Bandcamp seamlessly into your own website.

11) Variety of Formats

After uploading your files in WAV format, Bandcamp will automatically convert your files to Mp3, AAC, Flac, Ogg Vorbis and ALAC. This gives your fans the option of downloading the format they are most comfortable with.

10) Metadata is Automatically Added

I can think of few things more annoying than downloading music only to discover it appears as Track 9 in my iTunes. As you fill in the information on your Bandcamp page, the site will automatically update the meta data so that your downloads come complete with track names, artwork, album names, and even lyrics.

9) Useful Selling Options

The good people at Bandcamp seemed to have thought of every combination you could want to give away or sell your music. Besides being able to give a track away for free, you can also: give a low quality version away for free while a high quality version requires payment, allow users to pay what they want, set a minimum price, and many more.

8) PayPal Micropayments

Bandcamp sites allow you to accept credit cards for your music by using PayPal. You now have the option of switching your account to micropayments in order to reduce the cut that PayPal will take from low priced sales like song downloads.

7) Ability to Sell Physical Products

Bandcamp now offers the ability to sell physical products like CD’s or vinyl through the site. Be aware you are still responsible for shipping out any product you sell.

6) Easy to Share

Using customizable widgets, the site allows you or your fans to easily embed your music onto other blogs or sites.

5) Collection of Email Addresses

Bandcamp gives you the option of collecting your fans email addresses in return for a free (or paid) download. This is a great way to add names to your mailing list.

4) Lightning Quick Streaming

Songs on Bandcamp load at amazing speeds. The listening experience is never interrupted.

3) Download and Discount Codes

This is great for short term promotions by allowing you to give out free music to contest winners or entice people to buy by lowering the prices for a limited time.

2) Great Customer Service

The Bandcamp team is fairly easy to get a hold of through email, and they are always seeking suggestions on how to make their service even more kick-ass.

1) IT’S FREE

Need I say anymore.

Besides the free factor, the great thing about Bandcamp is their never-ending quest to make the service even more useful to musicians. New updates come every few weeks and each change makes Bandcamp even more appealing. If you don’t currently have the ability to sell music directly on you’re website, then I recommend checking out this service and signing up immediately.

Since 2008, Washington DC’s Kid Architect have been working hard at constructing a new rock and roll blueprint.

Instead of processed pop ballads and manufactured music, KA focuses on heavy piano driven compositions drenched in airy guitars and passionate, poetic vocals. Lead vocalist and king of the keys Thom Bridgwood is both infectious and versatile. Equipped with a lung reminiscent of Incubus’ Brandon Boyd, Thom commands ears and hypnotizes listeners with his heartfelt wails. His vocals, when mixed in the buoyant instrumentation and percussion, blooms like spring foliage, despite the blustery context. It’s these types of casual combinations that turn little bands into giants.

After listening to the five tracks on BandSoup, I was shocked to see that the band is brand new. Two short years in and they already carry a sound that belongs to a veteran group that has bled on stage for two decades. It seems that the rest of the DMV is catching on as well.

In March of 2009, KA released their first EP, PhilosoRaptor, and have already distributed over 1,000 copies around the local metropolitan area. Motivated by their instant success, the band went back into the studio and hammered out their first LP, The Great Pretend, which is slated to release sometime this month (September 2010). If the diamonds in the rough uploaded to BandSoup are examples of a newly formed band cutting their teeth, the The Great Pretend might be the unveiling of rock’s latest perfect design. Get ready to stand in awe.

Listen to Kid Architect on BandSoup

Stay in touch with Kid Architect on Facebook

After numerous leaks and a stunning video, Boston MC Black EL is mic’d up and ready to give the hip hop community his color commentary on life and music.

The Dick Vitale of Hip Hop shows his everlasting energy and excitement for music on his sophomore release, even more so than on his debut, A Major Minority, an almost impossible feat.

Black has definitely upped his game and has transformed from a diaper dandy into a PTPer with Ryan Durkin at his side. Tune in.

Download: Black EL & Durkin- Color Commentary // Stream the album here

By Mike Venti @ The Wayward Musician

A sold out show is a day that every artist looks forward to. Nothing’s better than a packed house where the energy emanates from the audience to the stage and back again.

Unfortunately, many artists don’t get to experience sold out shows that often, if at all. Perhaps, only at the occasional CD release show, or a coveted opening spot for a more established act.

Thankfully, there is an easy way for you to change this and begin playing sold out shows more often. It’s quite simple in fact.

The key is to play in venues you can sell out.

The typical artist wants to play the best venue in town, regardless of their draw. The club where you have to play Tuesday nights for months, until the booker notices you and maybe bumps you up to a Thursday. It doesn’t matter that the venue has a 500 person capacity and you can only bring out 50 people.

A show is a show, right?

Wrong.

The atypical artist sees this situation and thinks differently.

Instead of spreading out the fans you do have in a cavernous room, start booking your own shows in smaller venues. Really small venues if you have to.

Do you have a city where you routinely draw 50 people? Then book a venue with a capacity of 40. If you can bring out 250 people, play a 200 capacity club.

The benefits to this are numerous.

1. Capacity Crowd

The gigs will feel bigger. Those 50 people who would have been spread out all over the cavernous club are now in a much smaller space, giving the overall show a “full” feeling, and  a better vibe as a result.

2. An Experience

You’re providing a better concert experience for both the fans and yourself by creating a full house of audience members who are there solely to hear your music.

3. Building Buzz

Having the words “sold out” posted on your website, and the venue’s marquee, will help create buzz around you and your music. And, having a line up to get into a club never hurts your credibility.

Get started!

Start making a list of smaller venues you know that you can sell out. Contact the promoters of those venues and start developing a relationship with them. If you routinely pack their space, you will be invited back.

Keep in mind…

You don’t need to rely on promoters to book smaller shows. Take control. Rent out a venue and book your own shows. Many cities have smaller art spaces available, take a look around for any place you can transform into an atypical music venue.

Advertise your sold out shows to the world.

After the show has been sold out, don’t stop there. Start spreading the word. Announce the sold out dates on your social networking sites. Doing so will help build buzz and entice more people to come check you out, where you can hopefully covert them into fans.

Remember…

Routinely selling out your shows is as much up to you as it is your fans. By booking proper sized venues to showcase your music you can work towards the goal of making every gig a sold out show.

Have you played a sold out show? How was the experience any different from a regular gig?

Listen to MORE music from Outasight on BandSoup by Clicking Here!

It has been quite a beautiful ride to watch Outasight grow into a superstar. So far, on every free release, he has found a way to one-up himself, refresh the swagger, and tweak the mishaps from the album before, which has quickly molded him into one of the most talented and beloved new artists of the internet age. On his highly anticipated new mix tape, Never Say Never, he has done it once again.

Never Say Never shines a dimmed spotlight on a vulnerable Outasight trying to cope with numerous situations every twenty something faces at one point: worrying about college degrees, 9-5 jobs, and social status; dealing with getting older, the loneliness that comes with age, and new responsibilities; and  contemplating relationships, women, and the future, while trying to live it up in the Big Apple. With all of this happening at once, it seems that the Yonkers MC lost a bit of hope and belief in himself as an artist. A natural reaction to a brutal and lonely time in our adult lives, but one that will be immediately muted by his fan base after listening to these fourteen new tracks.

As we sit and wait for his major label debut with all the freebies he has given us, we will begin to wonder with Outasight:

An acoustic guitar wielding singer/songwriter sneaking into college music rooms with a classically trained cellist to practice folk music sounds like a scene from a romantic comedy entry at Sundance, but it’s actually how The Last Monarchs began their journey as a band.

After numerous mischievous adventures under the moon, lead singer Matt Rouch realized he was onto something good and began his hunt for highly talented musicians that shared the same passion for folk music and story telling that burned inside of him. Now, with Matt Rouch on acoustic guitar/vocals, Sara Boyce on violin, Todd Koren on drums, and Andrew Hill on upright bass, The Last Monarchs strive to bring unique and heartfelt folk music to Alexandria, Virginia and the rest of the DC metro area.

Despite Northern Virginia and DC ‘s lack of interest and output in folk music, The Last Monarchs have  seemingly arrived at the perfect time. Today’s indie rock universe widely accepts and encourages the organic sound the Monarchs execute with ease. Combine that notion with Rouch’s breezy vocals, Sara and Andrew’s accompanying strings, and the band’s serendipitous open market location– The Last Monarchs could soon become DC’s first big folk rock outfit.

Currently, The Last Monarchs are preparing to release a follow up EP to there 2009 release One Fell Swoop. The band will re-record “Riders from the Hillside,” along with a few other previously released tracks. If you are a fellow 703er like us here at BandSoup, be sure to check out The Last Monarchs’ upcoming live events on their Myspace page (which also streams their entire One Fell Swoop EP). The band has recently adjusted their setlist to fit the DC bar scene, adding more bluesy rockin’ songs like Riders, but still add a sprinkle of quieter folk music.

You can listen to the live studio recording of “Riders from the Hillside” here on BandSoup!

Popularized by The Beatles in 1967 with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and then mastered by its predecessors Pink Floyd, The Who and David Bowie, the concept album is one of Rock music’s toughest creative quests. Many try, many fail– only Gods prevail.

Modern bands such as The Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria and Green Day have had success with their conceptual records, but many present day attempts fall short of their initial ambition; however, this notion was smashed by a recent BandSoup entry from a New York based indie rock band, Ghost Ghost.

The band’s ten track concept album, No Clothes on Ragged Island, is based on the life of New York poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. The project was conceived by Kevin Peckham and Karl Ward on February 20, 2010 after reading Savage Beauty, a biography on Edna Millay’s life. Each track is a scene from the poet’s life, told in chronological order. All songs were written on February 21, just one day shy of Millay’s 118th birthday. Arrangement, recording, and mixing were completed within one week.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first woman to receive a Pullitzer Prize for Poetry, but is better known for her unconventional, sexually promiscuous, bohemian lifestyle. Ghost Ghost’s members are constantly absorbing inspiration from literature and reincarnating it into their music, but Edna’s “morphine addiction, sexual trysts and tragic end—when she was discovered dead at the bottom of her stairwell—are the imagery rock music is made of.”

Full of beautiful folk arrangements, haunting vocals, and picturesque poetics, No Clothes on Ragged Island is this year’s best kept secret. Ghost Ghost has constructed a conceptual classic and the real travesty lies in its abandonment. Make room on your 2010 top ten list, it’s almost frightening what Ghost Ghost has accomplished.

You can stream the entire No Clothes on Ragged Island by clicking here. On this site you can listen, read the lyrics and concept of each song by clicking on the song title, and of course, make a purchase. $10  for the Compact Disc Deluxe Package is an absolute steal! It includes: The CD, an immediate free digital download of all 10 songs, a free “No Clothes on Ragged Island” booklet that includes a timeline of the songs in the context of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s life, as well as lyrics and guitar chords for all ten songs, a poster and more.

You can stream my personal favorite track, Bizarre Love Triangle, Here @ BandSoup.com!

In the land of DIY one of the toughest things to do is organize. The geniuses at Fanbridge.com have come up with a fantastic idea to help you with just that.

Fanbridge  helps artists build valuable fan relationships.

We do this by making it fun, easy and effective for artists of all sizes from around the world to leverage our Fan Relationship Management platform to engage with their fans.

Powering over 70 million valuable artist/fan relationships and counting!

Any band or solo artist with a substantial fan base looking to grow and maintain their fan connections and communication need to check this out ASAP! Make sure to tell them BandSoup sent you.

Dextrous, diverse, and downright funky best describe the Hamilton, Ontario Canada based group known as the Subterraneans Collective.

What started out as a acoustic duo in 2003, formed by Jay Baggett & Jon “the Bassist” Busutti, has now turned into a versatile seven piece group that are often supported by “Collective” members ranging from soloist horn players to simple percussionists. This wide range of sound and genre gives their music unexpected, Shyamalan-esque  twists and turns, which adds excitement to the layers that eventually lead to a crisp, full, and stainless body of work.

Led by Jay Baggett  (Vocals, Guitar), David Abbey  (Drums, Vocals), Dave Reed (Keys,Vocals) and Jess Stone (Bass, Vocals), Subterraneans Collective recently opened their doors to new members and added Sam Klass, Tarek Ajak and Aerin Ellison, who lend their talents on Guitar, Sax/Flute and Trumpet respectively. After forming their new multi-faceted power collective, the Subterraneans released their 2010 debut, self produced, full length album, The Sinking Ship.

The Sinking Ship is a schizophrenic record laced with a wide range of musical moods: folk to reggae, shoegaze to pop, spaced out to funky. The band’s respect and admiration for Tom Waits, Grateful Dead, and The Television blare throughout the LP, but are comfortably nestled in between the Collective’s own genius, giving new life to old legends.

The band is now offering a double vinyl package that includes a free download copy of the album (which you’ll receive while the vinyl’s being pressed– it might have already been pressed pre-bandsoup article [?]), as well as three brand new, unheard, unreleased and otherwise unavailable tracks. Right now is the best time to jump on this, as the price will go up in the not-too-distant future. You can order The Sinking Ship on the Subterraneans Collective’s website here.

If you want a taste of Subterraneans Collective…

Check out “Devil May Not Care” on BandSoup.com!

The music industry has changed DRASTICALLY. The latest trend: artists giving out their music for free, usually with a zip file link posted on their website, blog, twitter, or facebook account in hopes that the freebie will give their music more exposure or an opportunity to go “viral.” MicControl founder Jon Ostrow explains to artists why they shouldn’t give their music away for “free” and gives fantastic tips on how to receive e-currency for all of their hard work.  [Via TightMix]

At this point, most emerging artists are familiar with the (potential) benefits of giving their music away for free:

- Maximizes the possibility of discovery
- Free Advertising
- Can create viral-buzz about your music

But in reality, unless you already possess quite a large fan-base along with the subsequent reach, giving your music away will be the last you hear from most of these new “fans”. This situation is only ideal for artists who have successfully converted people from fans to loyalists – those who not only want to share this music with others, but who actively seek out others who share a common interest in the music. If you are not at this level on a large scale, consider using a slightly different strategy.

What you need, is a way to turn this seemingly one-sided transaction, into one that is mutually beneficial. You essentially want to continue charging for your product, but in a way that replaces value in terms of money with that of brand growth. Consider charging for your music using social currency, which would put you in the position to receive a tangible return that would increase your reputation and reach, rather than increase your bank account.

The following are a few different ways for you to charge for your music using social currency:

Collect e-mails

This is the ideal choice of social currency. Building and maintaining a mailing list has many long-lasting benefits that can be used to leverage fan engagement and can even lead to the necessary conversion of fans to loyalists.

Most importantly, a mailing list gives you a direct channel of communication between you and your fans. You may have 10,000 followers on Twitter or fans on your Facebook fan-page, but if you post up an announcement, how many will actually see it? Social media works in real-time. Unless all of your fan-base is online or is specifically looking for updates from your Twitter/ Facebook account (a typical characteristic of a loyalist), the chances are that the initial announcements will be overlooked. Your mailing list, however, ensures that your reach out to your fans WILL be seen.

As mentioned above, mailling lists also give you the opportunity to leverage additional fan engagement that may cause the conversion from fan to loyalist. Through exclusive benefits such as pre-sale opportunities, additional free downloads, discounted merch, etc. you have a better chance to keep your fans engaged and interested.

Bandcamp: This site offers an app that allows you to build your mailing list in exchange for giving away some music of your choice. Bandcamp allows you to choose whether you want to give away an entire album, a collection of songs or even just a single track, all of which can be downloaded for free as long as the person joins your mailing list.

Exchange Tweet For DL

This can also be an effective form of social currency, and is a great alternative option to give those uninterested in joining another mailing list. However, the effectiveness of this method is entirely dependent on three things:

• The persons involvement and reputation on Twitter
• The time of the tweet
• YOUR involvement and reputation on Twitter

Exchanging a tweet for DL can be very helpful IF all of the above criteria are met, otherwise the tweet will likely be a wasted promotional effort. While this method is much more IF-based than a mailing list, it can be a great way to building up your own presence on Twitter.

Here are a few services that can help you set up “tweet for a download” functionality:

Tweet For A Track: A free and easy service that allows you to not only customize the tweet that will be sent out and can track how many downloads have taken place, but requires the downloader to input an email address as well. Win-Win!

Pay With A Tweet: Similar to Tweet For A Track although it does not require an email address. This service does, however, give you a widget to embed in other places.

NOTE: If you do offer this as an option, make sure that the tweet includes your own Twitter tag.

Exchange FB Share for DL

This also has the potential to be an effective form of social currency, since most of the word is on Facebook and is typically (though not always) connected with friends who share common interests.

Again, the pitfall with this option is that not only does Facebook’s news feed work in real-time, but now uses an algorithm to determine which wall posts appear in other peoples’ feeds. Unfortunately this means your wall may get lost in translation with out ever getting seen.

Cash Music: This non-profit organization has created open-source applications for both Facebook and twitter that allow you to offer free music downloads in exchange for telling others about the music. Ironically, Cash Music has made it a requirement that you also share a tweet or wall post on Facebook in order to download the code for the app.

The idea of accepting social currency as payment for your music will give you more opportunity than ever before to grow your brand throughout different avenues of social media. While the mailing list is the ideal option, it is important to offer a few different ways to allow people to pay with social currency, as not everyone will be interested in joining your mailing list.