The Nashville Feed

Looks my favorite little website Twitter.com might not be little for too much longer. Actually it hasn’t been small for quite a while but in my circle of friends I was one of the few that used it. As I encouraged friends to join they liked it and it spread from there.  The ease of use and variety of ways to contribute to Twitter makes it addictive and simple. According to Digital Media Wire Twitter traffic is up 70% in the USA and 485% in the UK.

In the past I’ve blogged how you can use Twitter as a cheap way to set up a SMS list and now with the updated iPhone you can now even find people near you Twittering. I do believe the killer app is one that is one that is super simple easy to use.

Further Reading:

• Analysis: Twitter UK Traffic Up 485% This Year, 70% Higher Than USA
• SMS Mobile Marketing for an Artist

We are hitting the lake this weekend, which I am so stoked for...and will be incredibly tired because there is no way I am missing the midnight showing of one of my all time favorites, Raising Arizona at the Belcourt. You can catch it Friday and/or Saturday at midnight (wouldn't that be Saturday or Sunday, then...ah, I digress). Anyway, it should be a beautiful Sunny Saturday, but if you can--carpool this weekend. The air quality is really poor right now. Sigh...

Okay, on to the list!

Friday!

• How I Became The Bomb w/ Velcro Stars and Rosewood Thieves at the Basement. 9pm ($8)

Saturday!

• Tift Merritt at the Opry Plaza. 5:30pm (Free!)
• Robert Plant and Allison Krauss at the Sommet Center. 8pm ($37.50-$67.50)
• Umbrella Tree w/ Mock Orange and All We Seabeesat the Basement. 9pm ($7)
• The Empires featuring John Cowan, Reese Wynans & Tom Britt at 3rd & Lindsley. 9pm ($10)

Sunday!

• Tift Merritt w/ Jim Bianco at 3rd & Lindsley. 8pm ($10)
• Lovenoise at the Place. 9pm

Have a safe and fun weekend!!!

heart,
j.

Ask the song hounds — producers, artists and other music bizzers who sniff out hits in haystacks of demos — what it takes to find a smash, and they’ll often describe their special blend of market savvy and musical sense as “ears.”

Maybe ears get too much credit. What about the inner ear’s basilar membrane, which triggers millions of neurons that set off a psychedelic light show of electrical impulses in the brain?

As long as Nashville has been a songwriter’s town, there’s been a lot of talk about exactly what makes for a great demo. Some say all they need is a rough work tape — just a voice backed by a single instrument — to spot a great tune. Others say a fully produced demo is the key to understanding if a song or an artist is worthwhile. It turns out the answer could be more physiological than either side suspects.

“How a demo is perceived may lie at a sensory encoding level as opposed to a cognitive level,” said Jeremy Federman, a researcher and Ph.D. candidate at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University who specializes in audiology and music perception and cognition. As a former L.A.-based songwriter, Federman brings more than one perspective to this discussion.

“When I was pitching a song to Bonnie Raitt’s producer, he said they didn’t want fully produced demos because they like to do whatever they want to songs, with no preconceived ideas,” Federman related. “But all of my demos were fully produced because of an intuition that a lot of people don’t really know what they are listening for.”

Federman cautioned that “music perception and cognition is a brand new area of research and conclusive results are just emerging.” However, experiments have revealed that more electrical impulses occur, while listening to or performing music, in the brains of musicians than non-musicians because more brain areas are activated, and that the basilar membrane within the inner ear, which converts vibrations from sound into signals in the brain, is more stimulated by a full band than a solo performance.

“Other factors — the skill level of the musicians, the mood and emotional state of the listener — can also affect perception,” Federman added. “But more complex signals do generate more excitation in the inner ear and brain. So it’s possible that a fully produced demo could get a better reception because it causes more neurons to fire.”

Meanwhile, the debate continues on Music Row.

“As a producer, I prefer getting work tapes,” said Rivers Rutherford. “That gives me an opportunity to hear my own interpretations.” But in addition to producing albums for Montgomery Gentry, Jamie O’Neal and other artists, Rutherford has penned smashes for Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley and Gretchen Wilson — and in submitting his songs for consideration, he has learned that sometimes a solo demo just doesn’t do the trick.

“I’ve had it work both ways,” he attested.

Rutherford has also found that the process of recording a full-band demo might even improve a song’s structure. Nine years ago, he and co-writer Tom Shapiro had a guitar-and-voice work tape of a tune they believed in. “But it didn’t get any interest,” Rutherford recalled. “Then we went to demo it in the studio, and I realized while hearing the band play that the work tape was six to eight beats a minute too slow. So we sped it up.”

The result was Brooks & Dunn’s No. 1 single, “Ain’t Nothing ’Bout You.”

At typically $800 to $1,000 per song, recording a demo with a band in a Nashville studio is an expensive lottery ticket. But if it hits, the payoff can be big.

Tom Hambridge won an ASCAP Song of the Year Award in 2007 for co-writing Keith Anderson’s Top 5 hit “Every Time I Hear Your Name,” which was shopped as a fully produced demo. Although he’s had tunes recorded by Rodney Atkins, Billy Ray Cyrus, Joe Nichols, Montgomery Gentry and many others, Hambridge is, like Rutherford, also a solo artist and producer, with albums by Susan Tedeschi, George Thorogood and Johnny Winter among his production credits.

“Because I’m a songwriter, when I’m producing I can hear a good song whether it’s just a singer with a guitar or a full band,” Hambridge said. “But I always do full productions of my own songs that I’m going to pitch, including background singers. In Country Music, the bar is so high that you need to get your song across in the best way possible. The greatest songwriters in the world are here in Nashville, vying for spots on big Country albums every day, and not every decision maker hears things the same way.”

This means presenting each of his songs in a form most likely to help a variety of listeners hear its particular strengths. “Some producers are wizards behind the board, but they need to know what a finished song might sound like,” Hambridge said. “A&R staff may help pick tunes — or management or maybe even the president of a record company. If a label or artist is really going to bet on a song, the marketing department might be asked for an opinion on whether radio will play it. And chances are not all of those people are songwriters.

“Let’s put it this way,” Hambridge summed up. “If you really want to knock somebody out, do you give them a shiny new car or the old one that’s back in the shed?”

How To Make Your Demos Real Contenders

Before you or your engineer push the “record” button, here are some demo basics and not-so-basics to consider:

• Get It Done: “A work tape is crucial,” said Rivers Rutherford. "Specifically, it's a blueprint for demo studio musicians. Beyond that, with just one instrument, one voice, and a cheap digital recorder, it might be all you need to bring a tune to life. Just be sure you’re got the structure of the song tight.”
• Hit Your Groove: “Make sure your tempo is correct for the song and that it’s locked in,” said Rutherford. “The groove has to be on the money for a song to be convincing.”
• Sing It Pretty: “You need a believable vocal performance of a good melody,” Rutherford noted. “You don’t want to get too over-emotive. This is a song-driven market, not a record-driven market like rock ‘n’ roll, so you’re just trying to get the spirit of a song across.”
• Buddy Up: A good studio crew can cut four or five songs in an afternoon session. Tom Hambridge suggests sharing sessions with other writers. “Sometimes there are five or more different writers at a session, all splitting the cost to get good demos of their best tunes.”
• Trust Your Musicians: “In Nashville the session musicians are the best in the world at getting demos done,” said Hambridge. “Songwriters are not usually producers, but good musicians spend so much time in the studio playing on all kinds of songs that they often know exactly what you’re going for. Listen to their ideas.”
• Polish Your Sound: Hambridge likes the sheen added to his demos by a final run through the various compressors, EQs and other devices used in mastering. “My demos sound like commercial recordings,” said Hambridge, “because that’s what most people are used to hearing.”
• Get Personal: Once you’ve got demos to pitch, network through artists’ rights organizations, publishers, showcases, parties, etc., — wherever you can find the industry people best positioned to help place your song. And make friends. “There’s no guarantee that artists, managers or label people are going to hear your demos,” Hambridge said. “You’ve got to get out there and make them interested in you.”

By Ted Drozdowski | © 2008 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.

This month’s UnSpun is all about killing time. We’ve all been there before and we’ve all explored the best time killers Nashville has to offer. I’ve added the first few and now it’s your turn to add what you do.

All you need is an Amazon.com account to add comments, new items and other things. Click the up or down arrow next to each as a vote up or down. If the item gets more votes than the one above it moves up. Vote for each one. So get to it!

More from Nashville Feed Unspun lists.

My goodness, there are some good options for the weekend! So get out and have a good time. That's an order.

Friday!

• Imaginary Baseball League w/ Eric Wilson and the Empty Hearts (MySpace) & the Privates (MySpace) at the 5 Spot. 9pm ($5)
• Lucero at the Cannery Ballroom. 9pm ($10 - $12)
• Sausage Fest 2008 featuring Hurts to Laugh, the Mattoid, Jeff Boswell, Stephanie's Id, Chris Crofton, Radio Death Wave & Creeping Cruds at the Basement. 9pm ($7)

Saturday!

• Jypsi at the Opry Plaza. 5:30pm (Free!)
• Pat Buchanan at 3rd & Lindsley. 7pm ($7)
• Panty Raid!'s Fifth Annual Tease-A-Thon and Birthday Bash at the Cannery. 9pm ($15 - $18)
• Hotpipes (MySpace) w/ the Nobility & D-Funk: a benefit for the Martha O'Bryan Center at the Basement. 9pm (Free)
• Brad Sample (MySpace) w/ Stateliner (MySpace) & Jason Moore (MySpace) at Windows on the Cumberland. 9:30pm ($5)

Sunday!

• Panty Raid! 5 Year Anniversary Wrap DJ Dance Party at the Basement. 8pm (Free!)
• Lovenoise at the Place. 9pm

Grimey's Top 10 Album Sales for the Week

Def a mix of music on Grimey's Top 10 Sales of the week. Go down to Grimey's and get all the goodies! Support your local music store.

1. Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
2. Sigur Ros - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
3. My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
4. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
5. The Black Keys - Attack & Release
6. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
7. Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville
8. Townes Van Zandt - Live At The Old Quarter
9. Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
10. Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair

For the rest of the list visit Grimeys.com.

Again Amazon has it's Friday 5: Five Albums for $5 Each download. They are: Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane, George Strait, Michael Bublé, Jimi Hendrix and Pavement. To find out what albums follow the link.

A plethora of options! Have fun and be careful!

xo,
j.

Technorati Tags: Mercy Lounge, The Basement, weekend

While driving to and back from Florida last week I discovered how bad of a position radio is in; its way worse than I had thought just flipping through the dial in Nashville, TN.

There was almost nothing on while I scanned the spectrum, well almost nothing. I found repeat of Casey Kasem’s Top 40 featuring up comers of the 80s. It should have been named “Top 40 One Hit Wonders that you don’t hear from until they appear on a reality show or The Soup.” Kind of long but it would have been better.

It was so bad I almost thought of re-activating my Sirius sat radio the next time I road trip then cancel it after I’m back. It would have been worth the $12.95 for the week. Lucky for me I had a few podcasts in my iPod which got me home.

What to Do

So what is radio to do? Radio business professionals are saying HD digital radio will save them. For example:

• More variety. Nearly half of all HD channels feature formats rarely found on the dial these days, from gay-programming-oriented Pride Radio at Hartford's KISS 95.7 to "mashups" such as Cincinnati's WOFX 92.5, whose Mother Trucker pairs classic country such as Merle Haggard with rockers such as ZZ Top. "This is unique content you wouldn't get anywhere else," says Jeff Littlejohn of Clear Channel, with 800-plus HD stations broadcasting in its markets.
• Connecting to iPods. A new HD Radio feature called "iTunes tagging" lets listeners hit a "tag" button on their radio when they hear a song they like. iTunes will list the tagged songs after syncing with the iPod for previewing and purchase.
• Less expensive hardware. The first wave of HD Radios were pricey, up to $500. New radios to be announced Wednesday include sub-$100 models from Sony, Coby and iLuv and others for less than $200.

(Source USAtoday.com)

I really think the only thing that will save radio is the break-up of the major conglomerates allowing for more stations owned by more people willing to take risks. The consolidation of the radio industry has created a death spiral. And just when radio needed the funding aka ad dollars Bloomberg.com is reporting that internet ad spending will overtake radio this year.

Artists Moving On

Even if they get their act together it might be too late artists are moving on beyond radio. They are expanding and reaching out to fans online and now the mobile space. Even though getting a hit on radio today reaches large audience it’s not a profitable as it used to be. The artists are going direct to the fans and they are responding with arms open.

Changes are Happening

Whatever will happen radio will not have the power over the music industry as it once had. The artists are moving on to new opportunities. They are finding ways where they don’t need a label to get played for an audience. They are using new technologies that sidestep the establishment.

Further Reading:

• HD Radio sends strong signal, but audience weak – USA Today
• HD Radio stations tune in to everything – USA Today
• Internet Ad Spending to Overtake Radio in 2008, Publicis Says – Bloomberg.com
• Music Radio Should Be More Like Talk Radio – Nashville Feed

Hey hey good people...the feed is joining you from Beautiful Grayton Beach, Florida. This is an abbreviated list...no links, but I wanted to put in my $.02 for the big Independence day weekend...

Friday:

• Guilty Pleasures at the Wildhorse. 6pm ($10.25....seriously, why the .25???)

Happy 4th, y'all!!!

Saturday:

• Elizabeth Cook at Opry Plaza. 5:30pm (Free!)
• The Lonely Hearts CD Release Party. 9pm
• Hurricane Doyle at the 5 Spot. 9pm ($5)

Sunday:

• Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band at the Wildhorse. 6pm ($39.50 - $350)
• Lisa Loeb with Ricky Young at 3rd & Lindsley. 8pm ($10)

Have a safe and happy 4th!!!! love, jamie