The Importance of online content/engagement for Independent Musicians

 This was done a while back, but highlights just how important it is that you do the legwork and get your material discussed, reviewed, posted about, talked about, etc. All those activities contribute to an artists visibility and viability... -N

From Hypebot.com
A new study by New York University's Stern Business School tracked blog chatter for 108 albums for four weeks before and after their release dates.
The study showed that the volume of blog posts led to future sales, but that large increases in an artist’s Myspace friends had a weaker correlation to sales. According to the study, if 40 or more blog posts were made before an album's release sales ended up being three to four times times the average for both indie and major releases. If blog posts crossed 250, album sales rose to six times the average regardless of label.
But don't throw out the old school rules just yet. Albums released by major labels and albums with a number of reviews from mainstream sources like Rolling Stone also tended to have higher future sales.
Advertising has always been about impressions, but previous marketing efforts were often aimed at big scores - a magazine cover, a TV apprearance or even a major national tour slot - and the bump in sales they provided. But in a fractured media landscape it seems to be the cumalitve effect of a multitude of impressions that matters. This study provides some early clues for music marketers interested in assessing the relative importance of Web 2.0 sites and metrics and suggest that looking at cumalative online action appears to provide predictive value far beyond looking at each in isolation.
PDF of full study

Bruce Houghton in Marketing | Permalink

Top 15 Rock Albums of 2010 - From About.Rock.com

Here is a top 15 best Rock albums list of 2010. I think it's pretty spot on, aside from the bands i would just never listen to.. not cuz thyre not good, just cuz i dont like it... personally i thing stp and the dead weather shld be top 10... but its all opinions right? - N

By Tim Grierson

15. Stone Temple Pilots - 'Stone Temple Pilots'

Photo courtesy Atlantic.

It seemed pretty much impossible that Stone Temple Pilots would reunite after years of acrimony. But not only did they reunite, they put out a pretty solid comeback album. Stone Temple Pilots heightens the band’s interest in yummy ’70s-style pop-rock, and with the insanely catchy “Between the Lines” leading the way, the new record demonstrated just how much we missed these glam-rockin’ hedonists.
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14. 10 Years - 'Feeding the Wolves'

Photo courtesy Total Assault.

On their best album, 10 Years shoot out the expected hard-rock tunes and melodic mid-tempo numbers. But with a major assist from producer Howard Benson, this long-running quartet also figure out how to maximize their songs’ emotional punch. “Don’t Fight It” is an impassioned cry for a departed lover, while “Dead in the Water” is an angry diatribe against religious hypocrisy. What holds Feeding the Wolves all together is a steady, confident skill for accessible, propulsive songwriting.
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13. Eels – 'End Times'

Photo courtesy Vagrant.

Eels frontman E has spent his last two albums exploring the difficulties of making love last. But unlike 2009’s Hombre Lobo, End Times is a starker, more despairing affair, filled with melancholy songs backed with only the sparest of instrumentation. As a result, End Times is a record for dark nights of the soul when it’s just you alone in bed talking to the wall.
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12. Toadies - 'Feeler'

Photo courtesy Kirtland.

Toadies worked on the songs for Feeler back in the mid-’90s, but their label wasn’t impressed, and so the record was shelved. This year, the band revisited those tracks, adding some new material along the way. Miraculously, the album doesn’t feel dated, instead pulsing with the anger and vitality we’ve come to expect from this Texas trio.
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11. Anberlin -'Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place'

Photo courtesy Universal Republic.

On Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place, Anberlin very consciously aspire to be a big, sweeping arena rock band in the tradition of U2. That's no easy feat, but the Florida quintet have polished their sound and focused on powerful, accessible guitar hooks. Consequently, the fury of “To the Wolves,” the yearning beauty of “Depraved,” and the towering romantic spirit of “You Belong Here” all work together to capture a band that have mastered the art of blending sonic ambition with sincere, human-sized emotion.
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10. Band of Horses - 'Infinite Arms'

Photo courtesy Brown/Fat Possum/Columbia Records.

On their third album, Band of Horses fine-tune their formula for woodsy folk-rock jams and back-porch ballads. As warm and inviting as its title suggests, Infinite Arms is the perfect record for quiet mornings spent reflecting on past loves and nagging regrets, but frontman Ben Bridwell’s powerful melodies are there to pick you up so you don’t get too down.
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9. Hole – 'Nobody's Daughter'

Photo: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images.

On the charts, Courtney Love’s comeback album may have been a bit of a flop, but on Nobody’s Daughter the Queen of Hole gets back to the blunt-force honesty and crunchy alt-rock purity of her ‘90s masterwork, Live Through This. Older but not especially wiser, Love realizes she still lives in a world dominated by men, and even if she doesn’t have any answers, she’s bound and determined to make some noise about it.
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8. The Dead Weather - 'Sea of Cowards'

Photo courtesy Third Man/Press Here.

Sea of Cowards continues in the same vein as the Dead Weather’s first album, Horehound, reveling in its skill at crafting weird, hypnotic little tunes. Jack White and Alison Mosshart do not spend one single second of their sophomore release worrying about hits. Rather, they want to create an album full of the dark sounds that suggest the anxiety and voodoo that make modern life so mysterious and frightening.
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7. Stone Sour - 'Audio Secrecy'

Photo courtesy Roadrunner.

On their third album, Stone Sour strike an excellent balance between accessibility and aggression. Audio Secrecy documents the dissolution of one love story and the beginning of a new one: Lead singer Corey Taylor got divorced and remarried in the last few years, and the agony and ecstasy of those relationships are all over the record.
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6. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – 'Beat the Devil's Tattoo'

Photo courtesy Ink Tank.

This San Francisco trio have gone through a sonic evolution over their career, deemphasizing their early albums’ shoegazer rock for a more earthy Americana approach of late. On Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club decided to throw together all their influences, producing a record that’s eerie and urgent when it isn’t stark and vicious.
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5. The Hold Steady – 'Heaven Is Whenever'

Photo courtesy Vagrant.

On the Hold Steady’s fifth studio record, frontman Craig Finn is up to his usual tricks, but with a few new wrinkles. As always, his bar-band rock is exuberant and his short-story lyrics are pitch-perfect, but the Brooklyn sextet’s sound has become both more romantic and more hard-hitting.
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4. Kings of Leon - 'Come Around Sundown'

Photo courtesy RCA.

Southern rock heads to the beach: That's a rough approximation of what Kings of Leon achieved on Come Around Sundown, a confident, polished follow-up to the band's breakthrough album, Only by the Night. While not trying to duplicate their last album's success, the quartet both evolve their sound and stick to their moody alt-rock roots for a relaxed, breezy affair.
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3. Kid Rock - 'Born Free'

Photo courtesy Atlantic.

As the album cover of his latest record suggests, Kid Rock is taking it easy and not letting things bother him too much on Born Free, his most melodic and laid-back effort. With guests ranging from Sheryl Crow to T.I., Born Free finds Rock looking for signs of hope amidst the bad news in the world today. His answer to war and recession is good songs, and while that may not cure society's ills, it does make for an engaging record.
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2. Drive-By Truckers – 'The Big To-Do'

Photo courtesy ATO.

Smart, tough, touching and raw, Drive-By Truckers’ The Big To-Do­ is the perfect album for our Great Recession times. This Georgia sextet merge arena-rock, alt-country, and indie-rock into a heady brew for songs about strip-club encounters, bad jobs, murder and the casual heartbreaks that make up too much of everyday life.
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1. Deftones – 'Diamond Eyes'

Photo courtesy Reprise.

Can an alt-metal band be thunderously loud, poignantly emotional and ferociously original all at once? If that band is Deftones, absolutely. Inspired by longtime bassist Chi Cheng’s 2008 car accident, which left him in a coma, the California quintet have produced their most articulate and muscular record, one that channels all the highs and lows of life itself. Diamond Eyes came about because of tragedy, but Deftones figured out how to make triumphant music out of their pain.
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Touring and Giving Away Your Music - Article from Songkick.com blog

Long-tail artists are touring more than ever before

Download long-tail artists graph here.

This is the graph we love the most!! We were inspired by this economics study[1] by a group of Harvard and Stanford academics (Hi Julie and Chris!) that examines the relationship between file-sharing and live music, concluding that file-sharing “increases live performance revenues for small artists, perhaps through increased awareness. The impact on live performance revenues for large, well-known artists is negligible.” The minute we read the study it felt right to us. We dug into this more by dividing our artists into quartiles based on popularity and examined their US tour dates over the last four years. The fourth quartile (least popular bands, long-tail acts) has had the fastest growth in touring over the last 4 years, while the first quartile (most popular bands) has had about the same number of concerts over the last 4 years.

The great power of digital distribution is that it’s much easier to discover and listen to new bands. Back when we had to hunt down physical albums in stores, our rate of new artist discovery was much, much lower. That means a new band can build a widespread following much more efficiently than back-in-the-day, and can therefore do a world tour a lot earlier in their career, whereas huge, popular acts like U2 and Rolling Stones are already big as ever, and won’t benefit from this additional digital distribution. (I mean… Die Antwoord anyone? When has a South African artist skyrocketed to stardom through the Interweb like that?)

We hope this opens up a discussion about how live music is contributing to artists’ revenues and whether bands can sustainably make a living by going on the road. What we’re happy about as fans is that our chances of seeing The Antlers (a team Songkick favorite) is much higher now than four years ago.

This won’t be the last from us! If you have any ideas about what analysis you’d like to see next or want to do some number crunching of your own, please get in touch.

Thanks a billion to Michael and Gideon for making this analysis happen.

[1] Mortimer, Julie Holland, Chris Nosko, and Alan Sorenson, “Supply Responses to Digital Distribution: Recorded Music and Live Performances.” NBER Working Paper No. 16507. October 2010.

Kissmas 1976

Kiss, October 1976
 
Gesturing in a somewhat phallic nature with candles, members of Kiss pose for a mock Christmas card arranged by Creem magazine. Though the Kiss album 'Alive!' broke the US Top 10 in 1975, many fans still hadn't seen the fiery, costumed hard rockers until October 1976, when Kiss performed -- as did 'Brady Bunch' mom Florence Henderson -- on 'The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.'

Not long after that program -- the band's first major TV appearance -- the single 'Beth'/'Detroit Rock City' became Kiss' first US Top 10 single. Neal Preston, the photographer who took this shot, has toured with rock acts including Led Zeppelin, the Who and Bruce Springsteen, capturing iconic images of rock 'n' roll at its wildest.
 Posted on Dec 24th 2010 10:30AM on Spinner.com by Pat Pemberton Photo - Neal Preston, Corbis

Warner Drive Bad Ass Band Pic and Upcoming Album Release @ the Roxy

This is a shot I came across today of Warner Drive, a great LA band thats a big part of whats happening in rock and roll here. It's a bad ass band photo. Way too many rock bands w these tough guy pics that are often, um... lame. (fuk.. ive been in those haha)

Anyway it's a great shot that shows the personality of a hard rocking, real, and raw band. Any of you that have been to some WD shows know that they get the audience jacked up, rock great tunes effin hard and have a fine time doing it.

they have an album release show/party comin up at the Roxy on February 25th. ya should def come out. The band has a lot of really good material, like well crafted rock music u can dance and party to..


Heres their Myspace  Chek it

In RoK
Nikolazzi - get the Tweet

some Sunset Strip Hollywood Rock Shows for rest of 2010

Here's some uv whats Coming up on the Sunset Strip: (more to come)

The Cat Club - 2010 Christmas Party with Permanent Damage 
Event Link:
http://mysp.ac/fALUqO
Thurs 12/23/10 9pm

The Cat Club is an Iconic cool little dive next to Duke's and the Whisky on the strip. Dayle Gloria is the club promoter, shes been in the business for a long time and is a HUGE supporter of local bands. You can see live music here every night of the week.

The Whisky a Go Go - New Years Eve with Vains of Jenna
Event Link:
http://mysp.ac/gVSoy1
12/31/10 8pm

For the past several years VOJ has been doing NYE at the Whisky. I went a few years back and it was a lot of fun. They have a new singer now, our boy Jesse Forte, so this years show will def be a good one. Also, Celina Denkins is the booker at Whisky, she is an awesome lady, also very supportive of local working bands

House of Blues Hollywood - New Years Eve with Steel Panther
Event Link

What can ya say... Steel Panther is gonna be in spectacular form this night no doubt. If yer going you likely know what to expect. But this night they definitely turn it up to 11. Plus these guys are all really good musicians so for you players out there they can be fun to watch just for their instrumental prowess. Go... get drunk, see some rock and titties and ring in the new year.

I'll post more on the remaining 2010 rock shows in LA/HWD... gotta go

In Rock- Nikolazzi
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Dave Grohl with Foo Fighters does Nirvana Reunion at Paladinos

Just heard that the secret Foo Fighters show went down at Paladino's in Tarzana. About 500 fans packed the venue while Grohl brought up Novaselic and Pat Smear. Krist apparently played on the Foo's upcoming album. As many of you know Smear played w Nirvana back in the day, and also with the Foo Fighters.

It's crazy how many awesome artists come thru this town and that they're into doing these smaller shows and getting intimate with their fans. I dig..


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songkick's top 10 US cities for Live rock bands in 2010

Just checked out this songkick report for best cities for live rock music! The blog section of their page has some awesome info on it. check it out here http://www.songkick.com/blog

The Sword - Tres Brujas

Dunno why but this tune has been stuck in my head for the past 3 days...

these are the lyrics for the chorus, i think theyre fn piercing. whenever a lyric can be a story thats been told for a thousand years... u know its good

Three witches you shall meet
along the road to your fate
The first at twilight, the second at night,
and the third at the coming of day

Three witches you shall meet
upon the path to your fate
The first will love you, the second will deceive you,
and the third will show you the way

Three witches you shall meet
along the road to your fate
The first is twilight, the second is night,
and the third is the coming of day

Check them out here:
http://www.swordofdoom.com/
Heres the songs youtube vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk9uevsHvAE

Rok the Fahk out!
Nikolazzi

A SUGGESTED HABIT FOR BANDS TO ADOPT!

This is Anton , the drummer of machine empire. As the years go by and you listen to all your favorite badass bands you love. Sometimes you listen to them, sometimes learn the parts for your instrument, emulate, copy and steal pieces for your chops stash. With all your tools together you try to write, and play the most badass songs you can.Sometimes it works sometimes not. Perspective? maybe. One thing that i have learned over the years as a musician. Is that the best songwriters i have meet, know how to play more than just their instrument. When you see a guy like James Hetfield jump on the drums, and throwdown, or find out Charlie Benante writes alot of the guitar parts for anthrax. You come to realize. There is a reason some people are successful song writers, and great bands, and some are not. So do what the military teaches. learn the other mans job on your team, and you likely have more success with your own job!!!!!

Rock The Fuck Out!!!!!!!!!!

Some good Rock bands in Hollywood

hey y'all, Nikolazzi from Machine Empire. takin a bit of time to give a shout to some of the GOOD local rock bands that I've either seen or played with this year. I'll keep this thread going and will keep adding bands in the next few days.

Love and a .38 - Solid straight ahead rock band. Machine Empire played with them earlier this year at the Cat Club on Sunset. They don't come off as a cheap rock  act, they believe in what they're doing and have great riffs. You can check them out at -
http://www.facebook.com/Loveanda.38


Electric Sister - These guys are from San Fran, but need to be mentioned here because they kick ass. Had no idea we were playing with them that night but when I got to the club was like... what the fuck?? who's that? Again, theyve got their rock down. Might be a newer band but def bringin the noise. You can check them out at - http://www.myspace.com/electricsister

Snew - Played with Snew at the Slidebar in Fullerton last weekend. Dude... these guys are cool as shit. Not at all posing rock douchebags- super laid back, funny and put on a great straight ahead acdc like rock show. You can check them out here -
http://www.snewyou.com

Stay tuned for more Hollywood rock band updates n shit

Machine Empire Live at the Whisky December 16th, 2010