mistrustmusic's posterous

Stephen Fry, blogging and musicians

Musicians and bands should take notice of Stephen Fry's comments on BBC's Analysis programme "Stephen Fry: The Internet and Me". Fry points out that Twitter and its ilk have made it easy for celebs to bypass the press offices and gossip columnists, and tell the world what they're doing as soon as it happens. Why though, are there not many bands and musicians on Twitter? Why aren't there many bands from Manchester (UK) not tweeting that they're doing a gig on Friday night? No DJs either, plugging their new set? Mr Musician, it's ok to have a Myspace page and add a new event, or go on Facebook and tell your followers when your CD is out, but do you use your Myspace blog to involve your fans (or potential fans) in your writing process, or post a comment on your FB wall to say you've finished another track? If you had a Twitter account, you could send update your fans on a regular basis: "someone from a record label was at the gig earlier tonight" - that sort of thing. Surely you're not waiting for manager to do it for you? If you've got a PR person, are they on Twitter, or Digg, or even blogging on your behalf? To me, a lot of bands - especially unsigned ones, are missing the boat. They're not looking for new ways of promoting themselves. Yeah, they're on Youtube, Bandcamp, Facebook, but everyone is. How many people read comments or blog posts on Myspace  these days? How do you know it's not the record company's PR department writing a post? Think about Stephen Fry's "Help, I'm stuck in a lift, but I've still got time to Twitter" tweet as an example of what I mean.  Stuff like Twitter just a great medium for keeping his fans and followers uptodate with what he's doing: when his next TV programme is on, when he's recording a podcast, and when he's going to have a cup of tea. So many people, many of them are celebrities, have switched on to the self-publicity machine that is Twitter, especially in the UK. Jimmy Carr, Philip Schofield, Chris Moyles, Alan Carr - they may not be really famous and massive celebs, but they've all realised that their fans and potential fans read their Twitter posts.  Mr Musician, Mr Band member, Mr DJ, Twitter et al let you build up your profile for your fans and let people know that you're a real person, with real thoughts, not just a noise on a CD. Get Tweeting when you've finished a recording session, or when you're getting a new guitar! My daytime job is in e-learning in a further education college, and I'm amazed by the number of applications, websites, and other stuff I come across that could be used by bands to promote what they're doing. Don't forget, this is just my opinion. If you want to know more about what I'm upto, why not follow me on Twitter!

Filed under  //   mp3   music   musician   social networking   tracks   twitter  

Using Soundcloud in Wordpress

If you're a Soundcloud user and want to play your tracks in your Wordpress.com blog, here's how to do it:  Just copy the link location from the "download" button on your soundcloud player and paste it into your Wordpress visual editor (not the code editor). You need to add the usual WP code to it so you get, eg: [a u d i o ] Obviously, you'll need no gaps in the word audio! So it should look like this: [audio http://soundcloud.com/mistrust/pitch-black-rude-mechanicals-mistrust-remix/do...] Publish your WP post and then view it. The standard WP flash player appears (the one with the speaker and the play icon). You'd think that you would need a .mp3 extension, but you don't! Also, you don't get a Soundcloud player in your blog. Have a look here to see it in action properly: It works! Thanks to Soundcloud.com for hosting my tracks. PLEASE NOTE: My blog has now moved to http://www.mistrustmusic.co.uk so please click the link to go there... The world of mistrust music

Filed under  //   audio   download   mp3   music   player   social networking   soundcloud   tracks   wordpress  

Attention surfer dudes

I got an email yesterday saying that O'Neill, the surfing, skiing, and snowboarding company, have launched O'Neill TV, featuring all their promo films, profiles, and all sorts of other video footage. I thought it would actually be proper tv station on Sky or the Extreme Channel, but it turned out it's just a glorified Flash player on their website. I'm not dismissing it though. It looks great, and there are loads of videos on there, especially for all you surf, ski, and snowboard types out there. Plus, it's got me on there. Actually, it's got my music on a couple of videos up there.

Three tracks - Croydon Library, Never Alone remix, and Hello - are on the Deep Blue Open 2005 event video, and two - Croydon Library and Never Alone - are on the video profile of Trent Munro (world-famous surfer dude).  I signed a non-exclusive deal with O'Neill Europe a couple of years ago, thinking that I'd just get a couple of DVDs from it, but I'm still getting exposure from it. I guess this O'Neill TV thing is getting a lot of hits, so more exposure for me. You can play the two clips here: Trent Munro Profile Deep Blue Open 2005 Both of these clips show how well my music fit with a variety of visuals. Any film makers out there who need music for their latest project, please get in touch!!!!

Filed under  //   artists   band   download   licence   license   music   music library   oneill   record   surf   surfing   tracks   tv   unsigned  
Posted May 25, 2007

All the world's an MP3 stage

I've been thinking about the number of music hosting sites and MP3 directories that I have my music on. Most of them are free-to-download places where people can just have my tracks for nothing. I started off in late 2004 by choosing just one site - Electromancer.com, which is now no more, just because I lacked confidence about my music and it seemed like a good place to start when I'd never even considered putting my music out to the public. In fact, even though Electromancer closed down last year, a lot of the artists are still active on the forums of another site, Nervejam, and are still as friendly and supportive as ever. I got a bit more confident after getting some great reviews, thinking that more people might give me a listen, so I followed links and recommendations about other hosting sites, signed up to 2 or 3, and waited for the plays to roll in. Then I started chasing more sites and more plays, until I had tracks on about 1o or 15 sites. I've now lost track (and usernames/passwords) of most of those sites, and still get the occasional email from them, saying someone has posted a comment. A quick check on google as to which sites I'm on offers up 94 links for "mistrust music site" and 30 for "never alone mistrust" (my first track from 2004). I still see the same old faces on all these hosting sites,

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Filed under  //   artists   band   big chill   blog   blogging   dj   download   electromancer   exposure   free download   free mp3   google   host   independent   ipod   label   library   licence   license   magazine   mastering   mistrust   mp3   music   music library   musician   nervejam   nervejam   oneill   personal   podcast   podcasting   production   prs   random   record   tracks   unsigned   web2.0   work   writing  
Posted May 3, 2007

Signed by a music library

I've sort of mentioned this before, but now I can tell all..... I've signed a non-exclusive deal with a major UK music library, called CandyCover, that supplies music to TV, film, and advert production companies. They've worked with big players like Orange, O2, Virgin, and the Ministry of Sound. It's a massive break for me - never had anything like this happen before. They've asked to use 8 of my tracks - not my long, instrumental tunes that have been doing the rounds for a couple of years like Never Alone and For All we've done, but my more recent ones that are available at Music Freedom. They're all fairly short and are wanted for the library's "Art/Quirky/Cult Drama" section. I've signed a contract with them and the tracks are going to be registered with MCPS, the official publishing organisation in the UK, which means I get paid the proper rate if any of my tracks get used. I know that a lot of musicians get tracks signed to music libraries, and the competition is huge

Listen to this article

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Filed under  //   UK   blog   blogging   forum   help   home   library   life   mistrust   mp3   music   music library   news   oneill   personal   podcast   surfing   tracks   unsigned   writing  

Paul can't open up to people but he can talk to his blog

Should this blog be entirely about music? Comments please! I just wanted to put in a quick word about Paul's blog. Paul Harrison is my stepson, who happens to have PDD-NOS, a condition similar to autism and asperger's syndrome. He's very withdrawn and hates having to meet new people, as it makes him anxious and can't cope. He can't get into school at the moment as his stress levels go through the roof whenever he thinks of being in class - he's 14 y.o. and you just try making him go! The whole thing makes him more anxious and less confident. His school agreed to send him work home, which is a start...

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Filed under  //   UK   aspergers   autism.asd   blog   blogging   childhood   children   family   feed   forum   help   home   library   life   mistrust   music   music library   news   paul   personal   psychiatry   psychology   random   school   thoughts   tracks   unsigned   wife   work   writing  

Breaking the spell

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I'm nervous and excited at the same time. So much stuff going on at home to keep me occupied and  frazzled and to keep me awake at night. If you've read my stepson's blog, you'll know more. Now I've got something else on my mind. Some major news - big, big stuff - about my music. Can't say much at the moment. Am I superstitious or have mildly autistic tendencies and think that if I let the cat out of the bag, it will somehow not happen. If I spell it out, does it count as telling all? Maybe if I say it backwards? Or cross my fingers? Anyway, here goes.

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Filed under  //   family   feed   life   mistrust   mp3   music   news   oneill   personal   random   spell   surfing   thoughts   tracks   writing  

How many forums - how many blogs

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Just how many blogs should a person have? How many forums should a musician sign up to? All in the interest of promoting a new song? My stepson, Paul, is trying to get people to listen to his music. He's only 14 and gets very focussed and obsessed with everything he does. You wouldn't say he's very musically-minded, but he wants to make tunes. He's not interested that they might need mixing properly or mastered to get them sounding good. He just wants to put them on the internet like me. He thought that people would just come across his myspace profile or his page on MP3.com and just his total plays would go up and up without any input or promotion from him.

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Filed under  //   blog   blogging   family   forum   life   mistrust   mp3   music   tracks   unsigned  
Posted April 2, 2007

MP3s and other updates

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I've now added quite a few new things to the site that should make things a bit more interesting. You can now play some of my tracks on the music page, watch a clip from the O'Neill Deep Blue Open video that features my track "Croydon Library", and meet some of my friends and people who've helped me along the way. I've now got a "I'm also on.." section to see where else I've got music or postings.

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Filed under  //   blog   blogging   mistrust   mp3   music   tracks   unsigned  

mistrustmusic.co.uk

I've finally bought the domain name mistrustmusic.co.uk. It's mine (for 2 years at least)! No more "blackburnt.portland.co.uk" in forums and directories! I toyed with releasing all my music under the name Tim Blackburn, but now I'm stuck with "mistrust". I don't think anyone else is using that name, so hopefully I'm unique! I know I sometimes sound like a Massive Attack copy, or maybe a bit of Faithless, or Leftfield, but I try to make original-sounding music, and not stick too much to one style, and try not to be influenced too much by other artists.

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