A personal blog of Andrew Apanov, founder of a digital marketing agency for the music industry Dotted Music.
A very nice tool. Look forward to its forthcoming Labs features!
From the press release: "The video was shot on location in NYC and not only includes Matt & Kim's gang of friends, but also loyal Twitter followers who showed up to fulfill Matt's fun and fresh concept of a flash-mob performance occurring in numerous iconic New York City locations. Crowd surfing on the Brooklyn Bridge, performing in a Chinatown intersection, and taking over the NBC Rockefeller Plaza are just a few of the raucous scenes included in this fun-filled music video."
Had a chance to attend Slash' gig in Moscow Arena this past Wednesday, and meet with the legend after the show. What an awesome person!
Thanks to everyone who made this happen (including Slash's management, and my boss who took me with him to this trip, of course)
Simple, but so lovely - reminded me of old console games I had been playing when I was a kid. Try out the Escape to Plastic Beach game, and read more about it below:
"Parlophone has confirmed the release of "Escape to Plastic Beach" - a multi level, multi format game release that takes fans on the Gorillaz journey to their new headquarters on Plastic Beach. The game also includes an MP3 download of the band's new single 'Superfast Jellyfish' taken from their new album 'Plastic Beach'.
"Escape to Plastic Beach" is the first game of its type merging numerous levels of Flash and Unity formats along with a new single MP3 to create an audio, visual, graphical and gaming experience to expand fans' experience of an album. Increasing the experience beyond traditional album release - the game features original artwork, voiceovers from the band and numerous other tracks from the new Gorillaz album.
Gorillaz Bassist, Murdoc stars as the main protagonist in "Escape to Plastic Beach" but will also play the game along with fellow members Cyborg Noodle and 2D - posting scores which fans can view and compete against via a global high score table. Fans who bought the "Experience" edition of the album had an exclusive preview of the 3D gliding game chapter as part of the extra content offered via the CD. Experience buyers will also be able to access the entire game in full, for free via their copy of Plastic Beach. Fans can also save their high scores in the members area of www.Gorillaz.com."
Have you heard about fiverr.com? It's an interesting place where you can find people who will do various things for you for $5 (from designing a business card or setting up a website, to becoming your virtual slave). You can offer your $5 services as well - and that's exactly what I've done.
I am promising to give you a complex personal music marketing advice for five bucks.It should be a fun experiment, will see. Interested in trying me out, anyone? ;)
Dutch producing trio Noisia has released a Flash music game to coincide with the release of their new single ‘Machine Gun’ this week. I yet have to figure out how to play it properly, but this thing kicks ass! Check out the game here.
An excerpt from the press release and a trailer are below:
"Having already been featured heavily in major computer games such as Gran Turismo, DJ Hero and WipeOut HD, the producers are aware that the use of a song in such high-profile games guarantees millions, maybe even billions, of plays worldwide. Figuring that the concept of music supporting computer games could be reversed, they teamed up with developers Flavour for an online game based entirely on Noisia’s music.
The game is all about the music. Through each level you 'play' the songs and fire on the beat. The better your rhythm is, the higher you eventual score will be. The boss battles are based on remixes of the original. After more than a year of development Flavour is launching the first level on March 8th. This level is designed around the first single, 'Machine Gun'.Speaking on the ‘Noisia Infection’ game, Emily Jacometti, commercial director of Flavour said: "This playful way to bring people into contact with music is a logical next step in online trends. In the '80s MTV revolutionised the music industry with the introduction of music videos. Games are the interactive videos of the future."The full release of the album ‘Split the Atom’ on April 5th will be paired with the release of new levels with new tracks. The game will continue to innovate with extras and upgrades and by doing so Flavour expects to gather a large group of repeating visitors with Jacometti stating "Noisia is the first band to implement a game of such a big scale, but other artists are already at the door."Games are the interactive videos of the future? Can't agree more!
After reading all the latest stories about OK Go's contradictions with EMI (I'm sure you've heard a lot about it lately) and watching an alternative video for "This Too Shall Pass", which the band filmed after the label prohibited embedding the original one, I can't feel anything but even deeper admiration of the act.
In his November 2009 interview, posted on Dotted Music, OK Go singer Damian Kulash didn't seem to count on viral videos as the only and main promotional weapon, and most probably didn't know that YouTube would bring the band another boost of popularity just few months later. But that the band's "make cool shit" motto works despite anything.
A quote from that interview for your inspiration:
At the end day, make cool shit. It’s so ridiculously oversimplified. It’s true that YouTube is no longer outside of the box or cutting edge. It’s become the main medium for videos. People make their videos for YouTube now, not MTV.
...
Things are exciting. Thinking about it like, “I have a band and I need to figure out a clever marketing plan” – that will always fail. If you look at it like, “I have a band and I want to make cool shit” – if you’re really good at that, it will market itself.
Rockstar Games has posted "a previously unreleased" Beaterator produced track by Jay Electronica, which could leave one wondering if we should expect exclusive iPhone or PSP records from established artists in the nearest future. The producer created the tune at the Rockstar Beaterator House of Hype Lounge at the MTV Video Music Awards late last year using Beaterator for PSP (I covered the iPhone version on Dotted Music back in January). Jay's original track with "a hypnotizing bass line and an innovative electric crescendo" was made "in mere minutes". Here it is:
Wait, OMG, this sounds like... A crappy track created on a modern sophisticated toy!
And the thing is that it is totally fine, a PSP is a toy. And I'm pretty sure the guys at Rockstar are having a good time promoting this game as a serious music creation tool (I would!)
MAKE THE GIRL DANCE [KILL ME] (official video)
Not that heavily fascinated by the content (have to confess though, I love watching footage from NYC, especially since I've never been in the States yet, lol). But the concept is fun, good job!
Amanda Palmer performing Radiohead's classic with her ukulele in front of Palais des Festivals' Auditorium Debussy for MIDEM 2010 attendees. I filmed this on January 23rd, leaving the last panel of that date.
The quality is really shitty, unfortunately, but you can still feel it - she's awesome!
