We’re just back from a fabulous run of house concerts in England and Scotland. All kinds of good times were had, friends were made, internet chums suddenly existed in meat-space too, and a lot of very fine music happened. Big, big thanks to the truly awesome people who hosted the gigs in Leeds, Camberley and Edinburgh. Expert humans, one and all. Continue reading “New House Concert Video”
Online Music: Balancing The Scales Of 'Free'
I’ve just been reading Helienne Lindvall’s latest blog post on the Guardian site, entitled, ”
Behind the music: Can we ever measure the impact of downloading?“
It’s well worth a read, as it talks about vested interests on either side (though doesn’t mention that Helienne herself was a signatory on the patently loony pro-Mandelson AIR statement from the Featured Artist Coalition – she probably has mentioned it in previous posts). It does contains a couple of interesting points that I thought I’d throw out for discussion. Continue reading “Online Music: Balancing The Scales Of 'Free'”
Posterous: Blogging For Everyone Else
OK, so the thought of maintaining a blog full of pontifications on the state of the world, the web, music, whatever is a bit daunting. The self-imposed expectation that there needs to be loads of amazing stuff to read about on your awesome blog is just too much…
…So what do we do? Clearly, the web these days – and in particular, music on the web – is ALL about sharing. Without sharing, we’re all screwed.
Enter Posterous – it’s a blogging platform that’s been around for a while, but seems to be really gaining in traction of late for a whole host of reasons. I’m going to focus on what an awesome service it is for embedding, and posting links to, things you really like online. Continue reading “Posterous: Blogging For Everyone Else”
Marketing By Accident
I’ve written a lot over the years about the power of curiosity – that most of my own best disoveries have just happened because I was interested in something and decided to investigate it without waiting for any kind external confirmation that that was ‘OK’ or ‘wise’.
So yesterday when a link from a friend landed me at xtranormal.com and I saw that there was a ‘create’ button, I set to work writing a comedy script for two people talking about a solo bass house concert.
Since then it’s had about a thousand views (pretty good going for overnight on a Sunday!), and I’m sure has quite a journey to go on yet… All because I saw a link, clicked it and played around.
Try it, sometimes it can really help 🙂
Anyway, here it is. “Solo Bass. It’s The Future.”
Feel free to share it around, or make your own videos. It’s pretty time consuming, but well worth it 🙂
[EDIT] it’s worth noting that the first place I shared this was Posterous. An awesome blogging platform, that I’ll write more about v. soon!
Second Lot Of Video – Solo and Duo – From the Gig with Michael Manring
I’m processing the video I’ve got from the gig as fast as I can – two more are now up for your delectation and delight. Firstly, the second of the duet improvisations: Continue reading “Second Lot Of Video – Solo and Duo – From the Gig with Michael Manring”
Video From Wednesday's gig with Michael Manring
The first bit of video from me, and a lovely little trailer for the gig (and therefor future gigs!) from BenjaminEllis of BassGuitarBlog.com:
Here’s The trailer:
And here’s the first of the duo improvs that Michael and I played, with my introduction to it (about 2 minutes of talking – I’ll probably put the music-only version of this on youtube!) More audio and video coming soon:
Steve Lawson and Michael Manring, live improv in London. from Steve Lawson on Vimeo.
Independent Music Manifesto Pt II – The Video!
So, after having posted yesterday’s blog spelling out the ‘State Of The Indie Union‘, I found a tweet linking to this video of me talking at Leeds Metropolitan University a couple of weeks ago. The event was organised by JAMES – Joint Audio Media Education Services – who booked me to talk about the state of play for musicians in the new music economy.
Given that it was a room full of educators and students who were also musicians, it’s leans further towards the education end of the spectrum in places, but is pretty much a video version of the manifesto in yesterday’s blog. Enjoy!
Independent Music Manifesto
I was asked to write a piece for Agit8.org.uk about ‘The Future Of The Music Industry‘. It was a nice chance to pull together a lot of thoughts, which, given that we’ve no idea quite how the future is going to pan out, are actually all about where we’re at now. A state of the indie nation address, if you will. So here it is. Enjoy, it’s a pretty good summary of where my thinking is at just now.
-o0o-
Major label collapse, 360 deals, Pirate Bay, Spotify, Bit Torrent, Youtube… It’s clear to anyone with half an eye on the news that something huge is happening in the world of music. And if you believe the majority of the press, it’s universally a bad thing – lots of very sad multi-millionaires are seeing their scarcity cash-cow sacrificed on the alter of ubiquity.
However, the problem is not actually with the music industry, but with the CD selling industry. There’s an old saying, ‘when all that you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’ – if your entire view of what being ‘in music’ is about is shifting CDs, then indeed, the future of the CD selling business looks pretty bleak. Continue reading “Independent Music Manifesto”
How To Respond To A Crisis. A Lesson From Sungard.
I have a friend who works in Marketing for Sungard – they’re a huge, multi-national, multi-billion dollar IT Services/financial information/Software company. Massive. Bigger than big.
What interesting for us musical types is their response to the financial crisis. A situation which, naturally, they took very seriously indeed, partly because they were deeply affected, but also because it was a time when all the big finance companies were being shaken up, and previously held notions of who were the ‘big players’ could be re-jigged. It was a chance for companies to rebrand, reposition, and use the recession as a chance to do some fairly risky thinking, and ask some massive questions. Continue reading “How To Respond To A Crisis. A Lesson From Sungard.”
More Music Video – New Public Beta experiments + Duo with Theo Travis
Here are the latest couple of videos I’ve put up. The first is another of the experimental ideas I’m working on for the new album – this time I wanted to try something a little more solidly rhythmic, just to see how the replace functions interact with a percussive track. (the part is played by muting all the strings, and then using a ‘double thumb’ technique, more readily associated with slap bass, to get the percussive pattern).
Continue reading “More Music Video – New Public Beta experiments + Duo with Theo Travis”