I am very excited about this...Steve Lawson and Lobelia will be in town next week. Steve will be doing a clinic at Owens and later that night Steve, Lobelia and I will perform at The Ground Level. The Owens even is FREE and those who attend will get into the Ground Level show for free as well. Otherwise there is a $5.00 cover charge.
So yeah, I've been blathering on about Bandcamp for a while now. I've even pointed you in the direction of a nice directory of Bandcamp musicians. But that assumed you had all the time in the world to read my post, go read Steve's post and listen to the rather large amount of peeps there. Let's see if we can make it a tad easier.
Some special highlights from the list and few that may not be on there:
First up is Gustaf Fjelstrom's Metamesmeric, which is described as Ambient Looping Bass Cello Excursions. It's all sorts of ambient loopy goodness...Listen and meditate...or something.
Next is Trip Wamsley. Solo Bassist, Extended Range Bassist...goofball. Aparently was once a zygote...but he got better. Listen now. He's good...like real good.
Here we have Atmos Trio, Rob Michael: guitars, Joe Shotwell: drums, Drew Waters: bass Rob has been doing loads of Ustream performances, so if the tracks aren't enough you can check him out HERE. It's all excellent music.
I can't leave out Steve Lawson. Solo bassist, fellow looper, and all around social media wizard. It helps that his music is good too:
That's it for now... More to come as I discover more. Take a listen to everyone and if you like, it wouldn’t hurt to throw some of that spare change you got lying around at the chaps above. They could use some more Ramen.
Bandcamp seems to have become the next big thing for musicians. It's super easy to use and it has all the usual widget type things that make it very useful in getting your music noticed as well as providing an easy way for people to purchase your music. Speaking of... Matt Stevens a fellow looper and blogger discussed why now is the best time to be a musician on his blog a bit ago. I agree, it's an age of DYI. The only thing that seems to be holding anyone back is commitment. You can't procrastinate and expect things to happen. So get out there, make friends and don't annoy people with tweets that contain nothing but "HEY BUY MY MUSIC!" it's rude and generally people Will not listen. What's the point? Why interact with someone who yells at you to buy something. Billy Mays you are not.
This brings me to the idea of community. I would like to link to Steve Lawson's Bandcamp directory. It's an example of how to do this right. Build a community, interact with this community, make friends in it, and help promote each other. There be loads of great music in here. Please take your time, stroll through the widgets, and if you like it, support it. (was tempted to type put a ring on it...apologies)
I'm on bandcamp, the new CD will be on bandcamp. Hell just about everything I do will be on bandcamp. In fact Surrent(AKA Jake Hildreth) and I are using bandcamp to document our progress in creating a new project. Here is the first version of what we're doing. IT gets rough in places, but I think preserving the creative process is interesting, to me and Jake anyhow. Please take a listen, and provide feedback, I would love to hear comments, both negative and positive.
In other news:
My Skjold Bass is coming together nicely. It's looking fantastic!
That's all for now. No movie clip today. I've got word on a movie called "Highway to Hell" that looks promising. I'll let you know.
But I do have this hilarious look into a discussion of a solo bass gig thanks to Steve Lawson:
