What Ben Learns

As a rule, if you aren’t currently engaging in conversations with your fans, piers and friends on twitter, regularly using @username replies, starting conversations with stimulating questions, generally being interesting about both life and work, and getting fans involved in your creative process, then you need to check your bad twittering self.

If you are more than occasionally using twitter to pedal your wears, then please stop reading this immediately and go self flagellate vigorously with a large wet fish, I can recommend the Sarcastic Fringehead.

Once the above comes naturally (the twittering, not the flagellation) then its tempting to have a little fun with twitter as a promotional tool. From crowd sourcing house gig tours across the USA, to making $19,000 in 10 hours, the limits of what you can achieve with a stream of 140 chars is only limited by your acid addled imagination. Lets look at one promotional idea that will give you and your fans a nice warm spine tingle, and avoid any that could potentially trigger flash backs. What was Badly Drawn Boy thinking?

Album Reviews on Twitter

The old record industry knew a thing or two about promotion. Or they knew people who for a wodge of your cash would provide it. As an independent artist, promotion, and particularly getting your music reviewed can be tough. Ill save my soul destroying experiences with blogger outreach for another day.

By far the easiest people to approach to review your music are the people you already know, and if you are using twitter effectively, that’s not just your fans. In the socially networked world the NME no longer has dominion over opinion. Everyone you know online has an audience (sometimes larger than you realise), and more than ever people are able and willing to proffer their opinions forth onto the web.

The socially enlightened of your contacts will be eager to offer you a review, Steve Lawson suggests that “the single most powerful currency online is gratitude”. People want to talk about you, to share their gratitude with others; you just need to give them the reason, then opportunity to do so.

Oh don’t we just love to hear people’s opinions. Well, yes actually. If like me you can’t resist a glance over customer reviews on amazon.com, imdb.com or tripadvisor.com you are not alone, “78% of global consumers say they trust and believe other people's recommendations for products and services - more than any other medium” (Source). (Tip: always check the nationality of any travel reviewer; our friends from across the pond have some interesting idea’s of what constitutes an awesome vacation!).

The smart folk from Culture Jam know all of this. They are the brains behind this extremely clever and perfectly formed twitter album review page for Moby’s last album, Wait For Me. Take a look: http://twitter.moby.com/

The concept is simple; Listen to the album, tweet your review, the best tweet each month wins a prize.  

What’s clever about it?

The page is clean, clear and simple. Everything is on one page, and its so easy to use even you’re Nan could do it. (and if Moby really is as old as Eminem suggests, she may well be a fan.)

But its the science behind the page that is rather clever. It provides people with the opportunity to easily share their gratitude (and supreme taste in music) virally via their twitter network, whilst simultaneously tweaking their creative writing and journalistic instincts. Then the page feeds that good stuff straight back to the next listener. Feedback we know the listener trusts. Right next to the handy “buy now” buttons.

As well as that, all this information gives the music the one thing all music needs: context. Ill be writing more about giving your music context soon, but essentially, we feel quite different about music given to us by a loved one on a mix tape than a song we hear in a corporate lift. This page oozes context, context which the listener soaks up as they sit and listen, drink cough medicine and try and summons the spirit of Lester Bangs into 140 characters.

How do I make a page like this?

Thankfully, the technology is fairly simple too. Your techie friend could easily replicate this page using tools which are freely available and it would be reusable for everything you release.

The album is streamed using the fabulous Soundcloud player. As well as the option to play and buy, Soundcloud enables the listener to add comments chronologically at any point in the track. This is the first option the listener has to review the music and also to get context back, as you can see below, this can be quite effective.

Soundcloud also enables to give your music away for free download, although Moby didn’t enable this, it is something you should consider.

There are some simple instructions and a tweet this box which allows you tweet your review direct from the page. The tweet has a built in link back to the page, a hash tag for the album (#waitforme), and the @thelittleidiot link to Moby’s twitter account so he can reply directly. You could achieve something similar by using the nifty Twittlink tool, or a whole host of other tools available including the twitter API itself.

Down the right there is a list of latest reviews which again provide great context and affirmation for the listener (See below). This can be achieved simply by using an RSS feed of the twitter search results for the #waitforme hash tag. There is an official Twitter Search Widget which you can use to do this.

I have tested the feed and it doesnt look like Moby has done a Microsoft and censor the stream.

At the bottom of the page there is a list of places you can buy the album from. And there is quite a list. If you arent already selling your music online start by setting up a page on the fabulous Bandcamp and link to that. There is evidence to suggest that the more places you sell your music from, the more money you make.  And don’t forget to link to all your other online presences from this page. (Ha ha Culture Jam, got you there, you forgot this one, not so clever after all hey!)

Last but not least, the page displays this months winner. Great exposure for them, and something they will surely tell thier friends about, and point them back to this page. There is lots of evidence that people love to see themselves online affiliated with things they enjoy.

If you can get a similar page setup for your next release, the long term winner could be you; remember twitter users spend more money on music than none twitter users.

I would love to hear about any other ideas for getting your music reviewed online?

If anyone makes a similar page I would love to hear about it.

For more ideas like this, follow me on Twitter.

This morning my outlook calandar reminder dinged open. “Jasons Last Stand”, “14 hours over due”. I sat and starred at it. Why had I added this as an event at all? As if I didn’t trust myself. As if somehow I expected my brain would deny it was happening. But it did. Last night was Jason Miller's last stand.

Jason played bass in a band called Hope and Social. Previously called Four Day Hombre. They played together for 13 years but last night was Jason’s last gig in a blue blazer. He was leaving the band on good terms and with good reasons, but unusually at a time when the band had struck gold with both their songs and their onstage confidence. Under these circumstances it left the crowd last night with a lot to talk about.

What does it take to be in a band for 13 years?
What does it feel like to leave a band after 13 years?
What does it feel like to have a band member leave after 13 years?

Last night Hope and Social answered these questions, and told the story of their parting the way that they know best; with their performance.

As they took to the stage for final setup it was noticeable that there was very little eye contact between them.

Simon broke the tension, “Play those drums Gary”.

The band pushed and pulled like I have never seen a band push and pull before. Each of them giving their all. Instruments, pedals and amplifiers driven to (and past) their limits. Lyrics, notes, and melodies intensified and exalted to the point of destruction. Gary Stuart on drums, bouncing high off his stool to accent bass and snare punches. Rich Huxley wrestling his guitar screaming in and out of the feedback window as if part of an exorcism. Ed Waring brutalising his keyboard demanding ever more of it sonic capabilities. Simon Wainright delivering a vocal performance nothing short of devastating in both power and tenderness, and urging the band to give ever more... and Jason Miller, well, Jason was swept away with his band. The songs they had written together over the years carry such a depth of quality that they shone even brighter under this ferocious onslaught from the band.

It was a mortal cry of a band about to separate. A halleluiah. An atom being split.

Of course the crowd played their part in every way. The room was charged. A Kazzo and Jason mask for everyone adding to the involvement. We sang, danced, screamed, kazooed our hearts out and ultimately we shed the odd tear. But the night wasn’t about us. It was about those boys. The boys who started a band 13 years ago and grew together, stayed together. It was about what they have achieved and what they stand for.

Jason recounted his top 5 highlights of his time in the band; Playing Glastonbury, foot on monitor at the Hammersmith Apollo, touring LA, touring New York and any gig at the Blues Bar in Harrogate. He decided against listing his top 5 lowlights, but I expect they would have been equally as extreme, instead Jason concluded “At one point things sort of changed for us, for a long time we were trying to chase something, to make it, whatever that means, but after we stopped trying to do that, well since then, it has been a lot of fun.”.

Two valuable lessons any band can take from all this are:

1. Play every gig as if its your last
2. Only do it for the fun

There was not a dry eye in the house by the end of the show. Jason was the last man on stage. He put down his bass, and pushed the pedal to shut of the distortion for one last time.

After a recent gig at The Crypt, I emailed Jason to congratulate him on a successful night. He said, “I walked of stage to a room full of beaming faces, and ultimately that’s what its all about”.

I would like to say to Jason Miller, and everyone else who dedicates their life to their art, thank you for the music, and so much more.