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Mark, et al, In a message dated 7/23/03 7:41:12 AM, sine@zerocrossing.net writes: >If you want feedback, why not just post a few mp3s and save yourself >the heartache of mailing so many CDs? I get good feedback this way >and I don't have to spend a dime on postage. Because not many (if any) actual print publications will consider reviewing an MP3 posted on the internet. Sure, an online e-zine might just possibly. But, I think it'd be rare even then. I don't want mere feedback. I want actual REVIEWS by people who might have the credibility and visibility to influence listeners (and hopefully buyers) and/or other future reviewers of my projects. I want to keep doing this (making music). And, I want to make it at least a semi- self-propagating activity eventually. Don't worry. I won't quit my "day job." I can assure you I am smarter than that. Heheh. But, I want to keep it going and growing. The kind words of colleagues and/or friends are ALWAYS truly appreciated! Nothing can take the place of the good feeling of having a sense that you are even "somewhat" esteemed by your peers. However, a semi-positive quotable line or two by a professional critic from even a minor print publication or a notable e-zine is ten times more useful in the long run -- in getting gigs, generating interest and a modicum of local, regional, national "visibility," and in being taken (at least a little bit, heheh) semiseriously. I am hoping that the next time I send out CDs I will be sending them out to people who remember my last project (even positively, one would hope) and have a certain expectation and/or prior knowledge of what I do. Therefore, I hope I will not have to send out quite as many since the "Flux" CD was my debut solo product and I was entirely an unknown entity to all of the recipients this time around. The only thing they had to "go on" was the pfMENTUM label. Those 750 CDs went out to the label's regularly "purged" list of reviewers and programmers who have already previously responded positively to their other offerings. Additionally, I want actual radio airplay. Internet radio is great too. But, not everyone is listening to that just yet. I do not know of any FM radio broadcast that mixes in music obtained from online in their playlists. It may occur, but I am not aware of it. Programmers (just like reviewers) get 100s of discs a day from people saying "Please, please play/review my new record." It is hard for them to open up and weed through all the stuff as it is. If you simply send them an e-mail and say "Please, check out my website and my MP3s. Click here to go to www.mymusic.com" you make that "weeding" process all the more difficult for THEM actually. So far, I know that cuts from "Flux Aeterna" were at least played by these radio outlets (because they publish their playlists online and not all stations do): WNCW 88.7 FM Spindale,Spindale NC USA WSIA 88.9 FM Staten Island, NY USA WSUM 91.7 FM Madison, WI USA KUCI.88.9 FM Irvine,CA USA WOMR 92.1 FM Provincetown, MA USA KDSU 91.9 FM Fargo, ND USA KCSB 91.9 FM Santa Barbara, CA USA WXYC 89.3 FM Chapel Hill, NC USA KLCC 89.7 FM Eugene OR USA WORT-FM 89.9 Madison WI USA KZSU 90.1 FM Stanford, CA USA KDVS 90.3 FM Davis, CA USA KSDS 88.7 FM San Diego, CA USA WPKN 89.5 FM Bridgeport, CT USA KBCS 91.3 FM Bellevue, WA USA KFJC 89.7 FM Los Altos Hills, CA USA WHUS 91.7 Storrs, CT USA CKUT 90.3 FM Montreal, Quebec Canada CFLX 95.5 FM Sherbrooke, Québec Canada CJAM 91.5 FM Windsor, Ontario Canada CIUT 89.5 FM Toronto, Ontario Canada 3D Radio 93.7FM Adelaide, Australia RTR 92.1 FM Perth, Western Australia FRK 105.8 FM Kassel, Germany RCV 99 FM Lille, France 90.1 FM Sens, France RCV 100.4 FM Barcelona Spain RF 91.5 FM Barcelona Spain KAPSAI FM 100.2 Marijampole, Lithuania Radio Indonesia 102.1 FM Mekarsari - Cimanggis, Indonesia Not too shabby for a 50-year-old half-wit "nobody" with minimal talent and an ugly guitar to boot, huh? At least I think so. The idea that somebody, somewhere, who doesn't speak my language and may not even share any of my cultural references or values hears and enjoys my music sends chills up and down my spine. Not THAT'S cool! When you send a physical CD you are making a statement of commitment and professionalism (for the lack of a better word). If you are on a label that they might already be familiar with, this helps. If you package it right and make your CD visibly stand out (in a positive way somehow) from the others in the pile on their desk, this helps too. You are giving them clues as to who you are (or might be) to help them weed. If you're an unknown artist, it may peak their curiosity just enough to get them to give it a try and listen to it for a minute or two. The rest is up to the music itself to reward/fulfill that curiosity and earn you the review or the airplay you seek. This is not to say that the paradigm is not changing even as we speak. The internet is becoming musically more important all the time. It's likely that someday it WILL be standard practice to simply send an fancy HTML e-mail with direct links for reviewers and radio programmers to follow to your online audio files -- to some degree or another. This could include all of the photos and PR stuff that is expected and mandatory (in physical form) now and still accomplish all of the same goals as before. However, with this will come abuses. This whole scheme smells an awful lot like SPAM. And I, for one, am not sure I want to become a professional music spammer. Just how are those reviewers and programmers supposed to weed through all of this e-mail? A subject line can say only just so much. Will we have to titillate, bribe, or outright lie? As I said before, a lot of good will and good feeling is generated when we offer positive feedback on each other's musical efforts on Loopers' Delight. Several kind people on this list have said some truly, amazingly nice things to me about my music. So nice, in fact, as to be rather hard to believe. Yet, on a personal level, this still means a heck of a lot -- to be "well thought of" by a community of peers -- that even the occasional hyperbole is regarded with a good deal of warmth. It buoys up the spirits. But, a good review is important too . . . to me at least . . . and it has it's own unique usefulness in regards to keeping the whole process going along, project after project. Best, tEd ® kiLLiAn http://www.mp3s.com/tedkillian http://www.pfmentum.com/flux.html http://www.CDbaby.com/cd/tedkillian http://www.guitar9.com/fluxaeterna.html