8 posts tagged “music”
Happy New Year! Everyone's coming back together after being away on vacations and holiday, so what better time to get together with your fellow Voxers?
London Music Meetup
Last month, Indieboy - RCA & Columbia's liaison between the labels
and the artists on Vox - held a musical meetup for Voxers in London. As you could see from the videos and photos, it featured great performances by artists who have a home right here on Vox.
Indieboy has another "End of Camden" event scheduled for this Saturday,
January 12th in London. All Voxers are invited to attend! Here are the details:
The performing bands are The Electric City, Molloy and The Lost Levels, handpicked by Indieboy straight from Vox. The cover charge will be £2 and everything starts around 7:30pm.
If you're going to be able to make it to the event, leave a comment to this post.
Austin, Texas
I moved back to Austin a few months ago, and I would love to meet some fellow Voxers in the city if enough of you are interested. I posted to my blog asking for feedback about where and when to meet, so stop by and leave a comment with your ideas. I'll post again here to Team Vox when the meetup is scheduled.
Your Town, Anywhere On Earth
Interested in putting together a Voxer meetup in your town? It's easy! Send me a message and I'll help you with all the details.
- Krissy
There were two great Vox meetups on Saturday night, one in Palo Alto, California, and the other in London, England.
The Bay Area Voxers gathered for a fun night of bowling on lane 23 at Palo Alto Bowl, thanks to seasoned meetup organizer Reesie. At one point the bowling alley announced over the loudspeaker: "Attention we have a birthday! It's Kat's birthday on lane 23!" and played her a birthday song, even though it wasn't actually her birthday. Hmm, sounds like we have a league of troublemakers on our hands.
The bowlers included: (L to R, back row) Ken, Denise, (middle) Steve, Kat, Reesie, Patty, Dave, (kneeling) Miss Scotch, Deb, Ben, and Laurel. Beau was there too, but he left early. Read recaps of the event from Reesie, wirehead, rouma, Deborah, Abject and Beau.
Across the globe, London Voxers attended a night of music organized by Indieboy.
Read recaps from The Picture Show who said "The atmosphere was electric and very intimate at the same time and the line-up of bands were a cut above the rest" and This Morning Call who were delighted to perform "in an ideally sized bar that [they] could fill, but also in such a welcoming atmosphere, and most importantly perhaps, a 'listening' atmosphere."
Huge thanks to Indieboy and Reesie for their hard work in getting Voxers together for a night of fun. If you'd like more information on how to put together a meetup in your city, send me a message.
- Krissy
Back in April, we announced a really cool partnership between Vox and SonyBMG Music Entertainment UK. Instead of accepting demos from new artists on physical formats such as CDs, the only way RCA and Columbia Records UK now accept demo submissions is via Vox!
Over the past several months, tons of artists and musicians have signed up for Vox to share their music and be heard by the record labels. Indieboy has been on the front lines as a liaison between the labels and artists, communicating with the bands and taking note of the best music he hears.
In addition to giving feedback to the artists and regularly posting to his blog, Indieboy has set up a showcase event in London featuring five bands he's found via Vox.
As you can see, the event will be held in London and is open to the public (although you do need to be 18 or older since it's at a pub). The lineup includes Fox Cubs, The Picture Show, Susie Wilkins, D-Finitive and This Morning Call.
Since all of this came together via Vox, we're considering this a Vox meetup in London, which means we'll be sending over a box of Vox t-shirts and goodies for the Voxers in attendance. If you're in the London area, it will be a great chance to meet your fellow Voxers and see some up and coming musicians. Indieboy is having the event filmed as well, so be ready for your closeup. For those of you who aren't anywhere near London, hopefully we can share some of the filmed footage after it's edited together.
If you think you'll be able to attend, let us know in the comments, and be sure to spread the word to any of your Vox neighbors who live near London!
- Krissy
Last week I led a fun tour around Vox using the Me.dium software. Me.dium is a free Web browser add-on that lets you see what websites your friends are surfing to and chat about cool stuff you've found online. Thanks to everyone who joined us!
Tomorrow Me.dium kicks off their RockMe. event which is an online music festival happening over five days, from September 18-22. During that time, you can get up close with Rose Hill Drive,
The Fiery Furnaces, Jeffrey Lewis, Gosling, and The Willowz via live music, live tours and discussions led by the artists
and several guest hosts. Check out the schedule:
-- Krissy
The first poll is up in the "What Do You Have To Say?" contest sponsored by HP. This poll covers the first week's theme of photography. Click on the link below to cast your vote:
Vote in Poll #1 in HP's "What Do You Have To Say?" contest
Congratulations to the finalists! One Grand Prize winner will receive a $150 gift certificate and two runners-up will each receive a $25 gift certificate to HP.com.
This sponsored contest runs through September 23rd so there's still time to participate. Read all about it on the HP contest landing page and don't forget to read the official rules.
Music is this week's theme, so be sure to answer the Vox Hunt to be automatically entered into the contest.
- Krissy
Vox already makes it easy to add photos and videos to liven up your posts, but what about adding a song too? By using the new embed feature, you can add a song to a post or put a song widget in your sidebar to create a theme song for your blog.
One service we've found pretty easy to use is Sonific's SongSpot. Just sign up, search for songs, and then click to create a free music widget that will stream the song of your choice from their catalog. They're still in beta and are adding to their catalog every day, so you're not going to find top 40 songs in their selections just yet. They do have music from some popular artists like Barenaked Ladies, but we're most impressed with all the genres of music that they have available.
Looking through all their genres made me think about adding some theme music for your posts.
- If you're writing about a bellydancing class you tried out last week, you could insert this song:
- Want a soundtrack to the birds theme you chose for your blog? Add some nature sounds to your sidebar:
- Or add a lovely version of "Twinke Twinkle Little Star" to a post about the new baby in your family:
What other kinds of music widgets have you used on Vox?
-- Krissy
We're sending out a big congratulations to our friends over at the Columbia and RCA Demos blogs. Since they announced just three weeks ago that they're only accepting new music via Vox, over 1000 artist blogs have been created!
Indieboy posted about it on the RCA and Columbia blogs, saying:
More important than the quantity is the quality of music that is now within our community, and you are all recognising that, commenting and communicating with each other and helping showcase each other's talent.
I have already started presenting unsigned acts from the community to the labels with positive responses, people within the labels are also listening to your music and circulating it.
See what Sony BMG UK Chairman Ged Doherty has to say about the partnership with Vox:
But perhaps the real congratulations should go out to all the musicians who have taken advantage of this opportunity. Having this kind of access to and response from A&R staff at a record label is invaluable for artists. If you're an artist yourself or have any aspiring musicians in your friends and family, be sure to tell them to get a Vox blog and add the Columbia and RCA Demos blogs to their neighborhoods!
If you'd like to check out some new music and show your support, browse the Columbia blog's neighborhood and RCA blog's neighborhood to check out all the artists.
-- Krissy
SonyBMG Music Entertainment UK has just announced that starting April 2nd 2007 it will no longer accept demos from new artists on physical formats such as CDs for consideration by the company’s Columbia Records or RCA Records labels.
In fact, the only way RCA and Columbia Records UK will accept new music or demo submissions is via Vox! How cool is that?
We think it’s very cool to see entertainment companies embracing the multimedia aspect of blogs, and the way that Columbia and RCA UK are embracing Vox is exceptional. They explained it like this:
“We don't want demo CD's anymore, that's what part of this is about. It takes ages for you to do, they get lost and it's a waste of plastic. Register your blog and be part of our on-line community. You will be directly connected to us and everyone else who's in the community. That's the other reason for this, the artist community being closer to the labels they want to be involved with.”
Here's how it works: Anyone who signs up for Vox through this Columbia landing page will automatically be added to the Columbia Demos blog’s neighborhood. New Voxers will be added to the RCA Demos blog's neighborhood when signing up via the RCA landing page. If you’re already on Vox, you can add either or both blogs to your neighborhood.
The A&R staffers will peruse RCA's and Columbia's neighborhoods to check out new stuff, keeping an eye out for songs and videos that get a lot of comments and [this is good]s. You don’t have to be from the UK to be signed, but they are going to focus primarily on finding UK-based acts.
If you’re in a band, sign up for a Vox blog and get heard. If you have friends in a band, now’s the time to tell them about Vox. If you’re interested in the music industry or music in general, surf around the neighborhoods of Columbia and RCA to hear what’s brewing.
Check out the RCA Demos blog and the Columbia Demos blog for lots more information!
- Krissy
