Supernova.com Launches Personalized Music Sampler with Gig Listings

Toronto, ON October 29, 2009 — Supernova.com has announced the launch of their new Personalized Music Sampler technology, bringing a custom sample of each week’s top indie songs, live concerts, and gig opportunities to members of their music community.

Users will find a customized music sampler, comprised of artists from their favourite genres each week. They will also see upcoming music events in their area from their favourite indie artists, Battle of the Bandsâ voting opportunities, as well as the most popular events among their friends. This will allow the music listeners at Supernova.com to stay on top of the very latest indie action from their favourite bands.

Bands on Supernova.com will gain the advantage of a personalized gig listing of upcoming opportunities in their area. Based on both their band’s genre and geographical location, the Artist Music Sampler will provide a new way for bands to find gigs, promote Battle of the Bands” voting, and gain exposure for their music.

The Supernova.com Personalized Music Sampler is available to any member of the Supernova.com Music Community, which is free to join. With this new, customized delivery format, Supernova.com’s technology aims to further help indie bands grow, help listeners to find and support new music, and help provide the music industry with the next wave of emerging artists.

One such Battle of the Bands contest is Corus Radio’s 99.3 The Fox Vancouver Seeds, billed as Canada’s #1 Independent Talent Competition. With a history spanning 30 years and past winners including Bif Naked, Nickleback, Default and Matt Good amongst others, Vancouver Seeds has embraced Web 2.0 technology with the help of Toronto-based new music social network and concert production company Supernova.com.  Corina Newby from Supernova explained to me what they are doing with Vancouver Seeds:

“The Supernova white-label network created for Corus Radio’s 99.3 The FOX will host over 300 new band profiles of Fox Vancouver Seeds competitors, featuring new music tracks, artist photos and videos, as well as music exploration and voting modules.

The Supernova.com social network tools not only encourage participation from bands, but also from fans and listeners. Users can log in to listen to the competitors, share their favourite band’s music and video, and vote to help determine who wins Fox Vancouver Seeds 2009. The result is a musically immersive and interactive community, centered around the station’s talent search initiative.”

It is this kind of approach that we are seeing more and more these days and only makes sense in this Facebook/MySpace/YouTube world we are living in now. The cool thing is these Battle of the Bands allow us to all be engaged in listening and participating and voting on all these great bands which is why I am so impressed with all of this.

Some people may look down at any form of competition between bands as somehow a travesty to their art but I don’t look at it that way at all. At the very least it is a way for musicians to get a sense of where they stand from both a professional and creative standpoint and they can learn from that to build up their presence and songcraft to make for a healthy career. At the most they get a recording contract, some gear or a slot on a tour. Either way it is a win-win situation in my books.

By the way Supernova.com has compiled a radio channel with 10 awesome tracks from the finalists. You can check it out at http://www.supernova.com/music/RADIO/seeds.

Twitter CEO Evan Williams says, “We are amazed by all the new ways people are using Twitter, and what Moonalice is doing exemplifies this to the core. Twittering a live show is a new and profoundly cool way for a band to reach its fan base and beyond. We hope to see more of this as bands see the value of connecting to their audience in new ways.”

In addition to Smith (Saturday Night Live house band, Hall & Oates, Bob Dylan) and Sless (David Nelson Band, Phil Lesh & Friends), Moonalice includes veteran players Pete Sears (Rod Stewart, Jefferson Starship), Ann McNamee (Flying Other Brothers, Ann Atomic), Jimmy Sanchez (Boz Scaggs, Bonnie Raitt), Roger McNamee (Flying Other Brothers) and occasional seventh member Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna).

On April 14th, 2009, Moonalice will release their self-titled debut studio effort. The band entrusted legendary producer T Bone Burnett to help transform the highly regarded Moonalice live act into a gem of studio wizardry. Burnett recently won both “Record of the Year” and “Album of the Year” Grammy Awards for his work on Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand. Listeners are sure to notice the sound quality of Moonalice, due not only to its sterling musicianship and exceptional production, but also because it features Burnett’s innovative new XO?E (CODE in Greek letters) mastering technology. In addition to the CD, the DVD-V is packed with a high-resolution stereo version (24-bit/96 kHz), as well as optimized MP3, AAC and FLAC formats, plus two music videos. The entire package comes at the price of a regular, single CD.

In addition to their Twitter CD release show, Moonalice is currently racking up the miles on a nationwide 2009 tour (see www.moonaliceband.com/tour for full schedule). At every show, the audience receives a free, limited edition poster, as well as local updates to the Moonalice legend. All posters are four-color offset lithographs, created by San Francisco’s finest poster artists.

For more information, visit: www.moonaliceband.com/press

To find Moonalice on Twitter, visit: http://twitter.com/moonalice

(PRESS RELEASE) Los Altos, CA — Sonoma Wire Works announces RiffRumble 12, an online song contest for RiffWorks recording software users. Entries will be accepted for two weeks: September 10 – 23, 2008. Contestants worldwide will record songs on their own or team up into virtual bands of two to four musicians, record songs together online, and compete for over $2500 in prizes from IK Multimedia and Drummerheads. RiffRumble 12 takes place on RiffWorld.com, a vibrant online music collaboration and song posting community for RiffWorks users. No purchase necessary (RiffWorks T4 free edition may be used). No entry fee.

How to Play
Use RiffWorks to create a song yourself and enter it by RiffCasting it to “RiffRumble 12″. Or use RiffWorks to create an “invite-only” collaboration, invite 1 – 3 people to collaborate with you, then RiffCast it to “RiffRumble 12″. Or join RiffRumble 12 song collaborations by being invited to a song in progress. Enter songs September 10 – 23. The public votes September 10 – 30. Contestants vote September 24 – 30. Contest & Prize Details: http://www.riffworld.com/riffrumble/rr12

First Prize (Contestants Choice Category): Up to 4 musicians who use RiffWorks to create or collaborate on the song that wins first prize will each receive an IK Multimedia Total Guitar & Bass Gear Bundle download (AmpliTube 2, AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix, AmpliTube Metal, AmpliTube X-Gear, and Ampeg SVX). “Powered by AmpliTube” product information: http://www.amplitube.com

Second Prize (Public Vote Category): Up to 4 musicians who use RiffWorks to create or collaborate on the song that wins second prize will each receive 3 RiffWorks InstantDrummer Sessions by Drummerheads. Drummerheads product information: http://www.drummerheads.com

About RiffWorks
RiffRumble 12 celebrates the launch of RiffWorks T4, a free edition of RiffWorks guitar recording and online collaboration software. With RiffWorks T4 musicians can record ideas at the moment of inspiration, create complete songs with drums and effects, collaborate online with musicians worldwide, cast tunes to the RiffWorld.com online community, and compete in song contests for free. RiffWorks T4 includes an interactive “Quick Start” tutorial (translated into many languages) to help guitar players start recording ideas and complete songs immediately. Upgrade to RiffWorks Standard for 24 tracks plus drums, REX, ReWire, 9 InstantDrummer session loops, AmpliTube 2 Live and more. http://www.riffworks.com/T4

About RiffRumble
RiffRumble song contests are hosted by Sonoma Wire Works and sponsored by the hottest music industry companies. The first nine RiffRumbles were for solo songwriters, and now online collaboration song contests occur as well. Sponsors for past RiffRumbles have included Line 6, IK Multimedia, Taylor Guitars, Recording Magazine, and more. Recent prizes include a Taylor SolidBody Electric Guitar, an IK Multimedia StompIO and a Line 6 Variax Guitar.

About Sonoma Wire Works
Incorporated in 2003, Sonoma Wire Works develops high-quality, innovative products and services that help musicians enjoy playing, recording and sharing music. Headquartered in Los Altos, California, Sonoma Wire Works’ development group has more than 25 years of audio engineering experience. Sonoma Wire Works products have received multiple editorial awards for performance and innovation, including a NAMM 08 Best in Show Trendsetter Award.

Aimed at artists, bands and small labels. HyperDIY can handle anything from simple online distribution to a full campaign including Videos and radio plugging and a number of ever expending territories around the world. The aim is to allow new bands to have a chance at getting their music heard by the public at large, without having to wait to be discovered by the increasingly tight and inward looking circles of the
music Industry.

“A lot of bands and artists feel that it’s hard to get any interest from record labels due to the state most labels are in, they all seem to be playing it very safe.” said Richard, the companies Managing Director. Dawn Firth, the CEO added “A lot of people think it’s impossible to have a successful music career without a label, but there’s a lot of talented bands and artist’s out there who just haven’t been lucky enough to get the breaks”.

HyperDIY’s aim is to provide the tools to level the playing field. For a range of low one off fees, artists can have HyperDIY handle everything that a traditional label would handle for the band. Artists are able to select several individual services such as distribution, mastering, PR, Video Production and online support or to select from a number of packages which combine a number of the above for reduced rates. The best part is that any revenue the band makes from their record sales goes back to the band, with HyperDIY not taking one single percent from their profit. Also, HyperDIY does not have an A&R policy. “We aren’t here to judge,” added Dawn “We always believed that it is for the public to decide- so often the labels get it wrong!”

Many of the packages can be paid for over time and even if, in these recessional times, an artists finds he can’t quite afford the services, Dawn and Richard urge artists to get in touch. “We aren’t some faceless major, contact us for a chat and we’ll see how we can help” says Dawn.

HyperMEDIA also provide a FREE press release service to anyone who signs up to their mailing list, just go to their site, click where advertised and fill in your details, then they will get your press release out far and wide.

So if you are asking yourself, “Who needs a record label?” go to http://www.hyperdiymedia.com and see what they have to offer.

Courtesy of Music Dish

I recieve the latest Audities List digest and one of the items featured is a post from Joseph T. Giddings (the JTG in JTG Implosion) saying that he has posted 5 videos to YouTube of his band’s recent performance at the IPO in Atlanta. I check out the videos, like what I see and hear and check out his MySpace page. Bingo, bango, bongo. Another fan and he is based out of Atlanta and I am based out of Montreal.

The power of Web 2.0. It can be a beautiful thing. Here is one of those videos, “Beatle 96″ from The JTG Implosion, live at the Atlanta IPO on February 24, 2007. Check out those great vocal harmonies!

Later.