Hello everyone and welcome to this new section of Fresh on the Net, Six Degrees.
Every week I will feature 6 bands that have already featured in some way on Fresh On The Net – two videos, two songs and two live performances.
In order to reinforce the work of the bands and artists that have participated in Fresh On The Net, Six Degrees is designed to track the progression of these musicians. Often bands and artists have success at having their work featured in magazines or blogs, but what happens next?
Magazines and blogs aren’t always able to continue to feature these artists and many times pass them up for another band with new releases. In 6 degrees, I will try to return to these bands, keeping alive their work and encouraging them to move forward, as many of these artists are in very early stages of their career.
In this section I will try to highlight artists who may not have reached the Fresh Faves, but who have not gone unnoticed by the team – and especially by me. Everyone who votes here every weekend knows how difficult it is to choose just 5 artists. Many of us include comments about another 5 or 10 of them that we would have included.
In Six Degrees, any band that has been in the batch of the 30 artists on the listening post that it is published every weekend can be included, and I want to keep encouraging them to keep and grow that participation.
With the help of Tom and Johnno, we have designed a format of 6 bands (two in each category – video, song and live performances), mixing artists from the Fresh Faves with those who were popular with our team, and those that I personally like best.
I hope you enjoy this section of Fresh On The Net and that it becomes so successful that I can include even more bands in the future.
Thank you and enjoy!
Music Videos
Intervals – Water
Motivation, effort and determination are the principles that are outlined in this beautiful video from Intervals. And these are the same principles that many musicians practice when they are learning an instrument or during the rehearsal of a certain sound. Music and sport are often marked by the same road.
Band links: Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube
Sex Hands – Way No Way
But music is also about having fun and it has a thousand ways of expression. Not always the most difficult path leads to the best result. The music of Sex Hands is one example of this and with less formality it produces on me other sensations that I need in my daily life.
Band links: Tumblr | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter
By the way, have you ever played with your dog’s mouth while it sleeps? Making thousand of faces by moving its nose up and you see its teeth? This funny video has many of those doggy faces that I’m talking about.
Music/mp3
Magic Arm – Through The Mire
Another track from one of the top 10 bands that were on the listening batch 32 last week and that I personally like very much. It is very gratifying when we find a new band that we like, but it is even more gratifying when we follow that band and we find out that we like so many tracks from them.
Band links: Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube
JoyLand – Bella The Butcher
“Bella The Butcher” is perhaps the most conventional song of this Londoner indie rock band, JoyLand. With dark atmospheres that open progressively, the band is completing the release of a brilliant work, including other great tracks like “Whitebate“, “Trucks Of The Sea” and “H.O.M.E“.
Band links: Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | Videos
Live Sessions
Live sessions will be the part of this series of posts that will include gig videos, acoustic sessions, studio sessions, radio performances, and any other kind of live records.
In order to have a closer overview of the different bands and artists participating on Fresh On The Net, in this subsection I will try to bring an approach of their live music, from groundbreaking and wild performances, to sensitive and romantic ones.
Alex Lipinski – When Will I Be Home
Artist links: Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube
Alex Lipinski, studio session. Taken from his debut album “Lonesome Train“. You can also watch the video for “Lonesome Train” on this studio session here.
Melissa James – Have a Good Day
Artist links: Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube
Melissa James is one of the artists that I have known trough Fresh On The Net and that I have been following since then. With a wonderful voice and style, Melissa’s work touches different genres like Blues, Jazz and Soul defining an elegant fusion of sounds.
This performance was recorded at The Green Note in Camden on Thursday 21 June 2012, during the celebration of Melissa’s debut album launch party, Day Dawns.
Tracklisting
- Intervals: Indie Rock. Batch 31 (Fresh Fave, Top Team, My 5).
- Sex Hands: Garage Rock. Batch 32 (Top Team, My 5; Different track).
- Magic Arm: Indie Pop. Batch 32 (Fresh Fave, Top Team; Different track).
- Joyland: Indie Rock. Batch 31 (Top Team, My 5).
- Alex Lipinski: Folk, Singer-songwriter. Batch 4 (Fresh Fave, n/a; Different track).
- Melissa James: Blues, Jazz, Soul. Batch 7 & 29 (Fresh Fave, My 5; Different track).
Top 10: Band on “Fresh Faves”; Top Team: Band voted by Fresh On The Net team; My 5: My own sellection; Top 30: Band from any batch; n/a: Not applicable, batch where I didn’t participate.
excellent idea… many of the bands previously featured on here deserve more exposure – are you going to work your way backwards to the beginning of the year? or select in a random fashion?
Hi Len, thank you 🙂 I am listening and following bands/artists from batch 1 to batch 32 (last one). At this moment I am at batch 14. Basically, any of the bands that have being featured on the listening posts every weekend, can be added here. I track/listen/save their works by Soundcloud, Youtube and Facebook, using an account made for 6 degrees. Slow, but efficient 🙂
love the idea. you guys are doing fantastic work…
Great work Mar.
Your enthusiasm for new music is wonderful to read about.
What a great idea. It’s true: the album is released, the reviews come out, the buzz is fantastic but then it all dies and what do you do? You need to keep moving forward as an artist but it’s hard to keep the music in the spotlight once the release date has passed. Thank you so much for featuring me here..yet again. Really appreciate the love and the support. Enjoyed checking out the other artists too. :-))
Hi Mar… good work, this whole enterprise deserves more attention than it currently achieves… as much as I can I spread the word I do – I might try and do something on reddit… it never ceases to amaze me how select an audience this whole ‘fresh on the net’ thing is …. thank goodness for the regulars on here – for any bands reading this – I can only say that there are opportunities to be had – but you have to seize them… the world is what you make it
Thank you John, Johnno and Melissa. That was the original reason for this section. And I have to say that Johnno helped a lot discussing how to do it. And Tom giving a decisive touch to it.
I think that many readers appreciate different songs apart of the standard singles and video releases. We want to feature more artists and this make us to pass to other works. Only as listeners we can really keep the music alive. And we are all listeners. I am very happy to have the opportunity to do this section.
Sorry Len, I just saw your post. Thank you again 🙂 this is a good point all the people that come every weekend to listen to the music. They are very committed. And they get so happy when “their” bands make it. They say “my 5, my bands”. I love that.
Great idea this!
That is an amazing piece of work – the time taken must be amazing.
Excellent – I am almost lost for words at how comprehensive it is – puts so many blogs to shame 🙂
What a smashing idea Mar
brilliant idea! x
Excellent stuff Mar, a great way to further our interest in the bands.
Thank you again. The clue is on the organization of the subscriptions. The time invested at the beginning will save a lot of time in the future. I will have all the music and videos on my dashboard soon, listed by dates. But I want to remark that this work is just 1 step after the work that FOTN team has done listening to bands every week, and the public listening to them later. Not my merit.
This a fantastic idea – Thank you for all your hard work!
1st degree honours for hours of dedication–5 more for insight,perseverance,
retrospect,proactivity and hope.Thank you.
Mar, I love it. Great!
Wow! What an amazing idea, its brilliant and pats on the back all round for the all the hard work you guys put into this site. 🙂
Thank you, thank you, thank you 🙂 I’m very motivated for the next post. We have great bands at FOTN. Sellecting just 6 is as painful as sellecting 5 every weekend.