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Speaking of ways to interact with Myspace (while not actually having to go there), the Myspace API has officially been released and I have started to mess with it. Functionality is pretty limited right now, but maybe in the future they will add more features. I want to see (or build..wink wink) a centralized web app for bands that will interact with all of these different sites making it easier for bands to update content.

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My main problem with Ursession, besides the fact that it looks like it was designed in 1995 is that the voting system is totally unrealistic and reminds me of tagworld. Basically a new user that signs up will be inundated with emails that say “hey I checked out your music and left you a vote, return the favor and vote for me”. People are for the most part generally nice, and if they get an email like this, they will “return the favor” without evaluating the artist’s music, which just inflates the voting results and creates false numbers for both the artists. The artist that sends out the most emails, 90% of the time will end up with the most votes. Notice this band/artist’s music and quality of this music has never even entered into the equation.

If you go to Ursession and listen to some of the “top” artists you will soon realize that they aren’t the “top” artist because of their music. Is Ursession going to give a record contract to these people? I highly doubt it.

Ursession is just another ill fated attempt at creating an online community for music/musicians in an already flooded market and won’t succeed, “revolutionary” or not.

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Why Did You Do It? - Acoustic EP
Had Enough - Acoustic EP

I’m finding it pretty easy to get these acoustic versions down, and some have even started to take on a life of their own. I have also realized how dark some of my lyrics are lol.

On a some what happy note, I have covered one of my favorite Beach Boy songs “God Only Knows”. The song itself is not the happiest of Beach Boys song, but I think the way I did it makes it sound happier than it really is lol. My version sounds like it should be in a Shrek movie or something……… anyways enjoy.

God Only Knows (Beach Boys Cover)

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To tell you the truth I had pretty much forgotten about urSession because it was supposed to go live late last year, but to my surprise I received an email inviting me to join the pre-launch of their site over the weekend. What is urSession? UrSession is a “revolutionary” website/label envisioned by Shavo Odadjian (System of a Down bass player) that features user generated and rated content. Artists and Bands can upload music and/or videos showing off their band or individual talents. Other users can then vote for and or rate this uploaded content. An online talent show or just an online version of American Idol? The winner(s) will get a chance at a urSession label deal.

The site is kind of ugly, looking like a rocked out version of myspace, however everything seemed to work well and I did not find many bugs. I signed up for my account and even uploaded a few songs. Instantly I was bombarded with 5 “urCommunity” friend requests from bands in various musical genres, and I even received one comment from one of them (which after I looked around, was the same comment they left everyone else). So during my first 5 minutes on the site, I could see that the spam is going to be right up there with myspace. Granted these users seemed legit, but the site is not even live yet so it is only going to get worse.

Last.FM To pay Artists Royalties

Last.fm announced this weekend that it has released a new on-demand service that allows users to listen to their favorite bands full-length tracks and entire albums for free. Good news for listeners, but also good news for the artists as Last.fm will then pay royalties to the artist per play. You can read the entire announcement on the Last.fm blog.

Amie St.

Amie Street is not a new site, but if you are an artist trying to break into the webosphere then you should definitely check it out. Amie Street is in my mind a revolutionary site, with one of the coolest business models I have ever seen. At first the site looks just like another well designed social networking music oriented site, but it is not. Any artist/band can upload music which is instantly available as a free download. This might scare artists or bands, but hey if you want to get your music out there, then giving a couple copies away for free is something you have to do. Each time a song is downloaded though, the price jumps up. So even though the first download is free, the next one will not be. The maximum amount you can pay for a download is $0.98. If a user downloads and recommends a free track that later goes on to be popular then that user receives “street credit” which can be turned into money for downloading more music. So not only does the artist get paid, so does the listener who has the ear for discovering great new music. Pretty cool eh? I should note that the artist does not receive all of the money from purchases. The first $5.00 per song goes to Amie Street for a “maintenance/hosting fee”.

One tip I can offer artists using Amie Street is to not upload your entire library of tunes all at once. Upload a few songs (or only one album if you have a few albums). This will help you develop a fan base, and then once you upload a new song these new fans are automatically emailed letting them know you have uploaded new music. When you upload new music your band will also displayed on the “new music” section for your genre so new users will also be able to find you there.

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http://www.yoursite.com/mint/pepper/myspacepepper/image.png

Here is where things get tricky though; In the same directory that contains the image file is a .htaccess file which changes the image.png file’s header to that of a PHP script! What this does is basically make the .png act like a php file while still retaining a .png extension. Because this .png is not really an image, but a PHP file with an extension that has been changed to “.png”, everytime the image is called you are really calling the PHP script and myspace doesn’t even notice. Bingo!

Because this pepper is not really myspace specific, you can include this same image tag on all of your different social networking profiles. Basically if you can add an image to your profile, you can use this pepper. Every visit will appear as a myspace visit though in mint. To solve this, I created a pepper for each profile I wanted to track, and then installed them each individually so now I can see which profile gets the most traffic.

Now for the bad news: This pepper does not identify users by profile id’s; instead it gathers the users IP address which it then converts to a general location as well as records the users duration of stay at your profile.

This is great for bands who would like to see in which general area of the world most of their fans live.

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Right Click and “Save As” to download

1. Not Me (Mix 7)
2. Had Enough
3. Lonely Eyes
4. Change
5. Leave Me Alone (Demo)
6. Rest In Peace (Demo)
7. Listen To The Rain (Demo)
8. Tonight -
9. Full Album ZIP

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On a positive note I did achieve some goals that I set for myself in 2007.

I officially started a record label; Lowstring Media. Why media and not records you ask? Well because I make websites too, and wanted a name that would encompass everything that I felt I could offer.

I released an 8 track EP entitled Had Enough. This EP was released to help put to bed some of the older tracks that have I have been mulling over. I decided to stop nit-picking songs to death and just let the creative process happen. Record > Mix > Release….. that is how it should be. The EP is available for download at the Canvas Within artist page, or available for purchase at the lowstring.com/store. The EP is also on its way to iTunes, and should be available for purchase in a few weeks.

I switched from Sonar to Pro Tools. This was not an immediate goal that I had set for myself, but is a goal I achieved anyways without choice.

Looking forward to 2008:

First things first; this website is in need of a re-design, better yet a design period! The current design is not mine (it is a public wordpress theme). Lowstring.com has to look more professional and less like the mess it is! Canvaswithin.com and brettdriscoll.com are also in need of redesigns. Brettdriscoll.com will become a showcase site for personal music, as will Canvaswithin.com.

I think I have a pretty good idea for a music/band web application that I am currently doing research on (more on this later).

And last but not least I will release a full length album in 2008! I will also put out an acoustic only version of this album. As always the music will be available here first for free, as well as a paid download.

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I personally like #13 (the second #13 mind you…… which he may change to #14 when he notices his mistake)

13. Whenever possible, sell subscriptions
Few businesses can successfully sell subscriptions (magazines being the very best example), but when you can, the whole world changes. HBO, for example, is able to spend its money making shows for its viewers rather than working to find viewers for every show.

The biggest opportunity for the music business is to combine permission with subscription. The possibilities are endless. And I know it’s hard to believe, but the good old days are yet to happen.

I personally think that in the not so distant future, music/media will be delivered digitally via a subscription of some sort. Music will become a utility, much like cable tv….etc.

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Feel free to visit the new Lowstring Media Store and check it out. The store is a work in progress as I am still tweaking it, but it does work. If you have any problems with it, feel free to drop me an email and I will try and resolve your issue. Most of my songs will still be available via a free download, but I would appreciate that if you enjoy the music, please feel free to donate some money to the cause. If you would like to donate and not purchase a song/album then feel free to use the donate button in the sidebar. Money earned will go towards the release of my first full length album, which I am hoping will be ready early 2008. As always thanks for visiting the site, and spread the word!

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