Coming up on Saturday April 4th in Camden Town: an inspirational workshop for songwriters of all abilities. Taking place in North London's beautiful and historic Cecil Sharp House, this is an all-day version of Tom's legendary creative weekends at Bore Place House in Kent - offered as part of the PledgeMusic campaign for his first new album in almost 20 years. Above: artists at Bore…
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Last Thursday March 5th a Facebook user called Tony Montague posted blurry mobile phone footage of a band performing in the streets of Eastleigh, which he captioned "Buskers in Southampton today brilliant." Even though Tony had no idea who they were, in the last five days his video has been shared 47,000 times and had nearly 700,000 views. It's been copied and recopied to YouTube,…
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Our friend Joanne Oliver is a PR for music and the arts - and also partner in a music management - and synchronisation (getting music onto films etc) - company. Why would she be interested in the "No More Page 3" campaign?" We asked her to tell us How Page 3 Affected little Joanne As a 43 year old woman brought up on a council…
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Here's Steve Albini - legendary producer, Shellac frontman and author of the famous 1993 essay The Problem with Music - giving the keynote address at Melbourne's Face The Music 2014 conference. His words define and confirm every conclusion about modern music that I've slowly been groping towards over the last few years. It's a long, dense talk that rewards careful study but basically his conclusion…
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Hello, I’m ShaoDow. Tom, the good man that he is, asked me to write a guest blog to offer some advice and inspiring words on how to succeed as an independent artist in this country. Because that’s what I am; a full time rapper living entirely off my music and merchandise; no label, no manager, no outside funding just some cool supporters who enjoy what…
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This week's guest post on the vital importance of live venues for upcoming artists is written by new music advocate, Listening Post regular and Friend Of Freshnet Rob Ball If you are reading this then it is highly likely that you are either a musician, work in the industry or like me a new music fan. One thing we all have in common is a…
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Hey bands! Why spend your hard-earned cash hiring a PR company to write a press release for your next single when you can do it yourself. Music promotion - as any fool knows - requires a highly specialised vocabulary quite unlike normal English. But using our new handy list below, you too can write inflated nonsense like a professional. After carefully analysing several thousand music…
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IMPORTANT Many BBC presenters and producers like listening to new music on CD and vinyl, and keep free slots where they can play it. I've even written a guide on the best way of sending it to them. But in my own case all my listening to new music - for BBC Introducing, Fresh On the Net etc - is done online. EMERGING ARTISTS If…
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Back in July 2009 there was an early interview with The Big Pink by Alexis Petrides in The Guardian in which they complained about people assuming they were gay. Here's a taster: "...most striking of all was a backstage shot of Furze completely naked, with a fully clothed Cordell draped over him, gently cupping his genitals. The theme carried over onto the sleeve of their…
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Nice To Be Nice
It is nice, to be nice. The promotion of anything musical online is always hard, trying to get people interested in your product. Building up a fanbase takes a lot of input and - if I am honest - a lot of live gigging. You will likely tour with a lot of people with a similar sound, as promoters will target a type of audience.…
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