OurStage to award slots at Bonnaroo and CMJ Music Marathon
Boston – OurStage, the only 100% democratic online competition for emerging music and film talent, is pleased to invite musicians and bands of all genres to enter the competition at www.ourstage.com/go/beatwire where over $10,000 in monthly cash prizes and coveted exposure with industry trailblazers is up for grabs, including spots to perform at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and The CMJ Music Marathon.
BONNAROO 2007
OurStage will sponsor the Bonnaroo Sonic Stage, where three musical acts will be selected from OurStage to perform. OurStage will also have its own showcase area next to the Sonic Stage at Bonnaroo - where artists and bands gather for smaller, intimate performance sessions during the festival. Bands and musicians should upload their work in the OurStage May competition no later than May 27th, 2007 to be considered.
The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival June 14th – 17th in Manchester, TN, Bonnaroo 2007 will feature more than 100 bands and 20 comedians on 13 stages over the course of the 4 day festival. With an expected attendance of over 100,000 music fans, Bonnaroo is one of the largest festivals of its kind in the U.S.
CMJ MUSIC MARATHON
OurStage will also award six showcase performance slots to perform in front of industry tastemakers, influencers, and music fans during CMJ Music Marathon October 16th – 20th, 2007 in New York City. In addition, one OurStage top-ranking band will be performing as part of the College Day event at the festival.
Starting in June, OurStage top talent will be highlighted in CMJ New Music Report and CMJ New Music Monthly. OurStage winning bands will also have the opportunity for a music track to be selected for CMJ New Music Monthly's CD sampler, which includes a quarter-page spotlight on the band in the magazine, for a total of 6 sampler spots. Bands and musicians should upload their work through August, 2007 to be considered for CMJ Music Marathon Eligibility.
About OurStage, Inc. (www.ourstage.com/go/beatwire)
Based in Boston, OurStage is the only purely democratic online competition where the fans decide who's the best in emerging music, film and video. The OurStage mission is to help talented artists achieve critical exposure by solving the greatest challenge on the Internet today: sorting quality content from the sea of mediocrity online. OurStage provides a neutral, trusted, game-free platform, in which the true judgment of the fans drives the best content to the top. Through its wealth of partner programs, including Paste, CMJ, PLUG Awards, Slamdance, Relix, Gen Art, Noise Pop, Videomaker, IFFBoston, and many others, OurStage offers winning artists real opportunities to actually launch their careers.
"OurStage is addictive…I have a feeling this one is going to be a big deal."
- Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired.com
Contact: Anne-Marie Kennedy
[email protected]
May 18, 2007 (Austin, Texas) Broken Oak Records, a new record label focusing on americana music, is donating three dollars ($3) for every CD by Matt Burt bought at the Texamericana internet record store to listener-supported public radio stations.
Texamericana is a non-profit internet record store that donates between $1 and $5 from every CD sold to a public radio station of the purchaser's choice. It was formed by a group of artists who have gotten together to give back to public radio, which has long supported independently-produced music and has been a major force in breaking new recording artists. Texamericana was co-founded by Barbara Kooyman, who was nominated for a Grammy in 1986 with her band Timbuk3 for the song "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades". The internet record store offers CDs from independent recording artists and some well known artists such as Willie Nelson and Michelle Shocked.
Music directors from can use the Texamericana web site to find new artists and music to feature on their radio stations, providing a simple way for the music directors to find high-quality independent music.
The site also gives music fans an easy way to find new music and helps the recording artists gain exposure to radio audiences and provides much-needed funding to public radio.
Matt Burt's self-titled debut album taps influences such as Neil Young, James McMurtry and Son Volt and is infused with Matt Burt's uncanny sense of storytelling. It features a collection of original songs penned by Burt that combine honest songwriting with a compelling cast of characters and infectious hooks. This Americana CD blends together alt. country, folk and roots rock.
"The tasteful use of pedal steel on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and reverb-soaked guitar on "I'll Always Be Here" are the type of touches which distinguish…this from run-of-the-mill indie-rock releases" –Kevin Stroud at Americana Homplace radio.
What defines Matt Burt's song craft and singing is his commitment to the honesty of the song, "I've shelved more than a few songs because, when it was over and done…they didn't really express any truth about the characters and just seemed kind of frivolous," said Matt Burt.
About Broken Oak Records
Broken Oak Records is a new independent record label based in Austin, Texas focusing on Americana music.
Reader contacts:
Matt Burt
[email protected]
www.mattburtmusic.com
Texamericana Internet Record Store
www.texamericana.org
The Electron Love Theory is an idea that fuses concepts of chemistry, psychology and philosophy into music, the subconscious, and human relationships.
The Electron Love Theory is also an award winning artist (named 'Best Independent Electronic Artist in the World' in 2000 by ArtistDirect.com) from Seattle with a brand new album called Colors of the Galaxy.
Colors of the Galaxy explores the love, hope, pain and sadness of the modern world. By combining dark electronic textures, soaring female vocals and inescapable melodies, electron love theory has won fans worldwide while being compared to such luminaries as Dido, Portishead, Morcheeba, Zero 7, Massive Attack, Everything but the Girl, and Frou Frou.
Since its release earlier this year the collection has earned serious street and industry cred:
• The single "Into the Moonlight" scored the #1 spot on the World Indie Top 40 Countdown— a syndicated radio show that broadcasts to over 200 stations world wide.
• An additional 60+ terrestrial and satellite radio stations are spinning the disc in the US and abroad.
• Electron Love Theory tracks have landed in ads, promos and top shows like "Punk'd', "The Real World" and "Bad Girls Club" on networks that include HBO, VH1, MTV, Discovery, A&E; and others.
• The single "Uptown" has been rated by fans of Garageband.com with 4 1/2 stars (just a half star away from perfection)
• Dozens of internet radio shows, blogs and fans have commented on the disc:
>> Really good electronica is almost Zen-like in its ability to soothe the ear and inspire inner contemplation. Electron Love Theory demonstrates such ability on its latest album Colors of the Galaxy, a lovely and light mix of crisp arrangements and lush vocals that make it one of the most listenable records of the year. — Brandon Whitehead, KCactive.com
>> This is the kind of album you want to play on a clear night—seductive, sparkling, floating and introspective. —Ilen, Itunes
>> The Electron Love Theory lyric speaks in a full, clear magnificent voice about yearning, celebrating the ability to love with reckless abandon, the inner spiritual worlds of the creative existentialist, and the passions of those lonesome seekers of love's glory. —John Alfred Longlott, composer
>> This album shimmers and bounces with hip, often trancey, always Euro-trash sounds and pop-star sass. —Aaron English, CDbaby
>> Electron Love Theory incorporates different musical directions into a depth and breadth of sound that takes the best from each and mixes them into an aural ecosystem where every part adds to the whole. —MuzikReviews.com
With a degree in 'Creative Writing with Perspectives from Philosophy, Religion and Psychology' songwriter/ producer Jeff Leisawitz is no stranger to the depths and shadows of the human experience. Combined with years of professional listening as a music journalist and an undying love for melody and inner exploration, Colors of the Galaxy ignites listeners with a unique sound that stirs the soul from the very first spin.
Colors of the Galaxy is available at:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/electronlovetheory/from/jl
itunes, emusic, napster (and hundreds of other online music stores worldwide)
For interviews, music, etc., please contact: [email protected]
http://www.lovetheory.com/
Baltimore, MD, May 15, 2007 — One Band Man, the long-awaited second album by Baltimore-based singer/songwriter Geoffrey Welchman, has finally emerged.
"To quote the Rutles," Welchman said with a sigh, "the first album was recorded in twenty minutes, the second one took even longer."
The reclusive artist recorded his critically acclaimed debut ("Comfort Noise") in a single afternoon session in 2001, while One Band Man took over three years to complete, with Welchman handling all the instruments (guitars, bass, keyboards, drums) and multi-tracked vocals.
The former writer for such magazines as Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, People, and Might had long dreamed of just such an exercise in megalomania. "This was truly a life-long dream," he says, "which started as a four-year old listening to Sgt. Pepper and thinking I want to do that."
Recording began in February of 2004 at the Chicken Coop Studio in Fulton, Maryland. Engineer Scotty O'Toole admits he didn't know what to make of the new material at first. "He built the songs from the ground up," O'Toole said, "starting with drums, then bass parts over the drums. I didn't hear guitar or melodies for three or four sessions, but he always knew where he was."
With years of experience playing guitar and bass, the drums were a new challenge. He started playing them in 2002, "really just for fun. I think all guitarists are secretly closeted drummers." After a couple of years of practice, he decided not to hire a session drummer, making One Band Man possible. "I finally got in touch with my inner Ringo."
One of the first songs he completed is "Out on the Road," a serio-comic depiction of a nervous breakdown. With a taut beat and a chunky acoustic groove, the song mixes wild west imagery with desperation. "I wrote that during a rough time out in California, after a night where I tried to get in my car and literally drive out of my life."
One Band Man's range is startling. Based in a style he calls "folkrocky blues," Welchman nonetheless weaves in English folk (the celtic outro of "Is It Okay?"), classic 4/4 rock ("Wendy"), backwards-guitar textures in the psychedelic mashup "Unforgiven," even bottom-heavy funk in "Fender Bender."
"I always loved the variety-show feel of the Beatles' albums," Welchman said. "They took such care to make each song sound different from the last. I'd hate to stay in one groove for a whole record."
In the liner notes, he thanks influences as varied as author Neil Gaiman, singers Joan Armatrading, Marvin Gaye, and Louis Prima, and trip-hop band Moloko. He also cites an album of music by the 15th century German nun and composer Hildegard von Bingen, which begat a sensual tribute ("Hildegard") that begins with a quiet harpsichord passage. "Hildegard" follows the raucous "Here, My Dear," a thought experiment that had Welchman amassing multiple rhymes for ear (final total: 21).
But it is the acerbic wit of the album's centerpiece, "Crowd Control" that supplies some of the most memorable moments on the album, as in the first verse: "Weapons of mass destruction/cheeseburger and fries/blow up a whole nation/change the system from inside."
"I don't set out to be controversial, or topical," Welchman said, "because I don't necessarily plan to write what I write. I just tend to blurt out things that I'm thinking about. Songs like Crowd Control or Hildegard came very quickly."
Bypassing labels and producers, "CDbaby and the web make those things seem a lot less necessary", Welchman produced the sessions himself, even providing the cover art drawing. The self-financed One Band Man was finally mixed at Nice Package Studio in early 2007 and mastered by Gary Sweda, making it a totally Maryland-produced album.
Praise is already starting to trickle in. "My son says he's going to buy the album as soon as it's on Itunes," Welchman said with a chuckle.
High praise, indeed.
Website: www.GeoffreyWelchman.com (One Band Man available at CdBaby.com, available soon from digital distributors; "Comfort Noise" also available for purchase online)
Contact: Geoffrey Welchman
[email protected]
Louisiana-based musician Mark Kerr's induction into the Blues Hall of Fame is a remarkable achievement. After only 15 months as an independent artist, his silky smooth guitar skills, dogged determination, and, above all, true love of the blues have wowed fans and critics alike. But Kerr's place in "Cooperstown" is no mere accident. Playing professionally for almost 30 years, his sound shows off the best of modern blues, mixing rock and funk with hints of jazz fusion in the lead guitar.
Such style is embodied in his album One Drink Away From The Blues, which mixes original tunes with a cover of BB King's The Thrill is Gone that has left critics amazed. "With a mouth-watering tone that could even make Santana weak kneed, Kerr's earnestly passionate and technically stellar guitar runs dominate much of the record," says Muse Magazine, while Living Blues Magazine calls him a "Texas roadhouse rocker" whose songs give him "a chance to showcase the breadth of his considerable skills." No surprise Mark is also the Ambassador to the Blues for the state of Louisiana.
Kerr's 13th March induction into the Blues Hall of Fame pays homage to these skills, which he has honed over many years out on the road like the other blues greats before him. First picking up the guitar at age 12, he was playing professionally three years later, and passed up a jazz scholarship to start touring and seeing the world. "I really had no interest to keep going to school, I had had enough of that for a while," he says. "I was so hungry to get into a road band and was ready to start chasing the dream."
Model blues man for the 21st century
And chase the dream, he did. Playing with greats such as Percy Sledge and Curtis Mayfield's Impressions, Kerr combined studio work with touring, while always perfecting his mastery of modern blues that lies at the heart of his one-of-a-kind sound. Not surprising as his influences range from Larry Carlton to Ted Nugent, Freddie King to Jimi Hendrix. Muse Magazine says: "Unlike those who've taken another turn and have gone the wrong way, Kerr's open and visible celebration of his influences adds a new flavour to a very familiar genre."
This ability to take the blues genre to a new level is central to why Kerr deserves his induction into the Blues Hall of Fame. Through hard work and persistence, as well as old fashioned blood and sweat, Mark Kerr is the model blues man for the 21st century.
Contact Details:
Mark Kerr
www.markkerrltd.com
[email protected]
