When news broke last week of rock icon David Bowie succumbing to liver cancer at the age of 69, the Internet reacted quickly. Within 12 hours of the news, the hashtag #Bowie generated over a million tweets globally, and “35 million people had 100 million interactions about the singer on Facebook.” Perhaps the most relevant and intriguing statistics after any musician’s death in this digital age come from online music services like Apple Music and Spotify.

Everyone’s favorite Australian psychedelic rock group returns with the much anticipated release of their third album Currents—albeit with a new musical style and a re-defined Tame Impala itself. Kevin Parker emerges as the lone mastermind of Tame Impala, revealing that the presentation of the band has merely been a facade, and Parker writes, records, and produces all of the music by himself in his cloistered home studio.

Apple entered the music streaming marketplace with the launch of Apple Music, debuting worldwide on June 30th. The app and streaming service aims to consolidate all of your favorite features in online music and foster greater engagement between fans and artists. The release quickly produced animated debate in the tech and music communities; namely, how does Apple Music compare with existing services, such as Spotify and Tidal? Does Apple Music offer any new features that will tangibly enhance music consumption?

For those of you who might not know, AIGA is the professional association for design, and AIGA Santa Barbara is one of 69 chapters across the nation. One of many cool benefits of being on the AIGA SB board of directors is being able to put on great design-related, educational, and networking events for our local chapter and community. Oniracom has already been part of many AIGA events (Jacob and Tad have been Portfolio Day judges, and Oniracom hosted a studio tour this past May), but the biggest bang so far was definitely last Thursday’s “Art of Music” discussion, where Jacob was a panelist and I co-moderated with David Cowan, also of AIGA SB.

We were thrilled to be speaking with some legendary heavy hitters: Hale Milgrim (former President/CEO, Capitol Records); John Kosh (former Creative Director, Apple Records; current Principal at Ten Worlds Productions), and Andy Engel (former Art Director, CBS Records; current Principal, Andy Engel Design, Inc.), and they did not disappoint. The combined wisdom from our featured panelists was a great blend of business, design and inside information, and music by DJ Darla Bea helped set a groovy tone. Here’s a quick rundown of what we covered (full audio at the AIGA SB website; all photos by Tad Wagner):

FYF 2013 completely won me over, and it instantly became one of my favorite festivals. From the music to the giant emoji balloons to the food trucks to the overall ~vibes~ of the festival, FYF was an amazing experience and one of my best memories from last summer. This year’s lineup is, in my opinion, one of the best lineups of the festivals this season, and here’s a quick preview of what i’m most excited for:

On February 25 of this year St. Vincent released her fourth album, St. Vincent. Critically acclaimed upon its release, what makes this album so significant from a marketing standpoint is the immense success of its sales immediately following its release. In its very first week on the shelves, St. Vincent sold 29,506 albums - a significant increase from the first week sales of her last album Strange Mercy. While no single factor can take credit for the overwhelming success of St. Vincent, the digital marketing campaign headed by The Found Group deserves some special attention for the methods they used in this campaign.

The Found Group, a company that provides “integrated digital marketing campaigns…for the music industry” utilized their own web tool, found.ee to target and retarget pools of potential customers and fans. A currently exclusive service, found.ee uses a shortlink to track how fans have interacted with their advertisements and what content from an artist a fan has viewed. They then program these links so that fans will be redirected to new content and advertisements instead of the same repetitive content over and over again.

In January of this year Beats Electronics launched Beats Music, an online music streaming service designed to curate music for listeners through a variety of sources including algorithm, professional and user input. As of March 4, 2014, Beats Music has announced its acquisition of Topspin Media. Topspin, launched in June of 2007, is an online application that provides direct-to-consumer merchandising and marketing for musicians and other creative professionals. In yesterday’s blog post, Beats Music blog post, Beats Music announced its deal to acquire Topspin and its plans for the future to combine “music discovery and direct relationships between artists and fans in a revolutionary way.” Topspin noted in its blog announcement that customers will experience no immediate changes, and that a Beats Music team is now working in Topspin’s ArtistLink to “lead the industry in empowering artists in their service.” This deal was spearheaded by previous Topspin CEO and current CEO of Beats Music, Ian C. Rogers. A veteran in the digital marketing world, Rogers noted his excitement in integrating Topspin with Beats Music to create his “unique vision” that is the future of music streaming and artist/fan interaction.

Renowned music industry veteran Jimmy Iovine’s new project is almost ready to be released to the public. It is a new, online, subscription based music service. Now that in itself is nothing new as we already have Spotify amongst other streaming services. So what’s different this time around? What will make this successful?? Take a look as I attempt to break down several different features of this new service recently named: Beats Music.

The CEO & co-founder of Beats Electronics, Jimmy Iovine, plans to launch his new online music streaming service Beats Music (formally known as project Daisy) in the next couple of months. Noticing the lack of context and emotional connection in music streaming today, he has recently hired an expert team of curators to give the online music streamer a more personalized experience. If you want to find out who the curators are just click here.

The first single from the new album “From Here To Now To You” due out September 17, 2013

Before we dive into all the holiday tunes and listing the top albums of the year, we decided to compile a nice covers only playlist! We have quite the eclectic staff. You’ll see covers from Bon Iver, System of a Down, Johnny Cash, and Adele. Enjoy our interesting mix below!

This past weekend was full of New Noise Santa Barbara festivities. The New Noise Music Conference and festival kicked off on Wednesday with a couple of shows, and continued on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Thursday was filled with musical performances at various venues sprinkled around downtown Santa Barbara. Artists such as Tyrone Wells, American Dirt, Naked Walrus, and The City performed at Muddy Waters, SOhO, Whiskey Richards, and Velvet Jones.

Friday was fully packed with interesting panels all about new media and the music industry. This year, Jacob Tell and Mike Wald of Oniracom  lead a hands-on workshop about New Media for Traditional Business. Gideon Rubin Local Market Launch and Kyle Ashby of Kaldera Marketing were also panelists at Oniracom’s workshop. During the panel, Oniracom discussed how traditional businesses can use the internet and new media to captivate audiences and develop unique web presences. The audience even received a “digital marketing plan” worksheet to help them organize their own plan for their traditional business.

Sacred Hills EP is a short, sweet snapshot of the long and winding journey of a man named Matt Costa. The E.P. has four tracks; two unpolished (but superior) classics hidden in the middle surrounded on either end by more sing-along, bigger produced songs. In other words the intro/outro tracks are nice, but like a geode, the gems are in the middle.

The single and opener, “Good Times” is a large celebratory sound reminiscent of the The Beatles, with colorful horns and that happy folk-rock feel, but the lyrics are somber, speaking of a return to hard times…a return to truth, to “the man I once was.” Back to reality. Matt is clever here, offering an economically timely piece. Roundabout the second chorus you get this feeling of, “Aha! I see what you’re doing here!”

The second track, “Never Change”, is the stand-alone classic.  It could have come from the past 80 years of music. The soundscape is reminiscent of Donovan or even an old Woody Guthrie ballad. Costa’s tired voice hinges on the feeling of a theme song or the ending credits to an old Western.  It’s almost got a smirk to it though…actually the whole album does. While the album spins, especially during “Never Change,” you feel a satisfactory buzz and when it ends, you wish it hadn’t.

Right now, as I write this, sitting next to me are two of my acoustic guitars. My new Martin sits by my desk, its warm, rich mahogany gleaming in the low light. I can almost smell it from here. On the neck a rare and beautiful rosewood from East India is laid where my fingers go, along with solid Black Ebony and Sitka Spruce details. And then there’s my Taylor. The top is a crispy crackling Sitka Spruce, making it loud and bright. Indian Rosewood runs across the back and sides of my instrument, and this fingerboard is a solid piece of ebony, a deep, durable but extremely rare wood.

So let’s get this straight…in my room right now, I have mahogany, rosewood, ebony, and Sitka Spruce. Common sense makes it seem wrong. In most countries, these are illegal to harvest. In fact, ebony can now only be found from one country in bulk, the small Eastern African country of Cameroon. But still, when a well-versed guitar player walks into a guitar shop, he or she will insist on therarest woods on the planet. Why?

Back in the 1930’s C.F. Martin & Co. was producing instruments of mahogany, Brazilian Rosewood, and other high-quality tonal woods from all over the world with free reign.

We at Oniracom have crafted a fully packed playlist with songs that have been personally selected from each staff member. This marks the first ever edition of our “Monthly Staff Playlist.” Be sure to come back at the end of each month for more and more playlists created by our staff here at Oniracom. This month includes loads of tracks from Frank Ocean, as our office just can’t stop listening to his new album Channel Orange. You’ll also see other tracks from new album releases such as Love this Giant from David Byrne and St. Vincent, The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind by Ben Folds Five, and many more. While listening, take a look at which staff member chose what and why!

Imagine Dragons released their first full-length studio album Night Visions out September 4th on Kid Ina Korner / Interscope Records. The release of the highly anticipated album debuted #2 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, selling over 80,000 copies in the first week.

Oniracom Portfolio | Imagine Dragons (ImagineDragons.com/NightVisions) from Oniracom on Vimeo.

When I discovered that the marvelous David Byrne and Annie Clark (also known as St. Vincent) were collaborating on an album together, I knew something magical was going to be produced. Yesterday, their album titled, Love This Giant was finally released. Although I had been listening to the album intently and continuously over the past few days, (thanks to the full stream made available by NPR) I gave the album yet another few listens yesterday since it marked their official album release date.

The Oniracom Doheny Days crew had a blast this weekend at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point, CA. It is always amazing to see our artwork come to life. Our Art Director Tad Wagner implemented and designed this official logo for the Doheny Days music festival.

The xx’s new album campaign truly showcases the power of social networking! On September 3, (which is a week before their album “Coexist” releases) The xx, in collaboration with Internet Explorer, released a stream of their album. Within this stream, you can listen to Coexist in full as well as track your location and share the album with people around the world. What better way to spread your love for The xx and to “coexist”?

The web page features a world map which shows how the stream of The xx’s new album has been shared. The map has several curves shooting out from one end of the world to the next, which originated from someone either tweeting, emailing, or posting a status on Facebook. This campaign is a great way to encourage fans to share the album stream, bring awareness to the album release, and express what they think about the new album. However, I believe that the campaign could have been more interactive and involved.

Keep up with @Oniracom, @JacobTell (Jacob Tell, CEO), @MikeWald (Mike Wald, CBDO), and @JustTheDavis (Justin Davis, Lead Strategist) for all the latest from the ground at SXSW!

Here’s some snapshots:

The 2011 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) took place last night, August 28, 2011 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. This year marked the award show’s 28th year. While the show did not have a host, it was nothing short of surprising and entertaining.

Many artists and celebrities strutted down the red carpet in fabulous garments while Selena Gomez hosted the VMA pre-show. The most memorable appearances were from Nicki Minaj, who wore metal, stuffed animals and pink hair, and Beyonce, who showed off her baby bump and announced that she and husand, Jay-Z are expecting a baby! Cobra Starship and Sabi performed as part of the pre-show.

What started as the first successful online marketplace selling music and related media, has recently been focused on establishing new pop-icons, leveraging their traffic with co-branded promotions. iTunes is still the titan of online media, but while the Apple-run marketplace has been focused on film and television sales, new media technology platforms have been innovating and perfecting music release campaigning. Musicians use sites like Justin.tv and Ustream.com to host CD Release, and private listening parties prior to releasing their albums to market. These and similar techniques have been very successful for artists, generating plenty of social buzz and blog coverage, surrounding their album release….

Epitaph Records reached out to us to create a cool splash page for their band Falling In Reverse:

We developed a custom media player (built on SoundCould‘s API) that allows users to listen to 3 songs and then prompts them to enter an email address or sign on with Facebook to unlock the full album.

We invite you to check out   FallingInReverse.com!

We recently launched a site for the Music Preservation Project.  Music Preservation Project is working to preserve endangered music collections by digitizing them, developing curriculum for educators, using the collections and allowing free access for educational purposes.

You can watch an intro video and learn more at musicpreservationproject.org.

Reggae artist Duane Stephenson is one of our amazing clients. He’s currently touring all throughout summer and hit recent single “Better Tomorrow” is generating some serious buzz and airplay, along with the song’s music video. Duane and his team have truly been a pleasure to work with. If you haven’t check it out yet, head over to duanestephensonmusic.com to see what we created and learn more about this fantastic artist.

Oniracom is proud to be working with the David Lynch Foundation Music on an innovative marketing campaign through PledgeMusic.

DLF Music brings together the world’s top & emerging recording artists to support the good works of the David Lynch Foundation’s stress-reducing, meditation-based educational programs.

Featured artists of our Pledge compilation include: Arrested Development, Au Revoir Simone, Ben Folds, Peter Gabriel, Mary Hopkin, Moby, Maroon 5, Neon Trees, Ozomatli, Heather Nova, Iggy Pop, Carmen Rizzo, Salman Ahmad, Slightly Stoopid, Dave Stewart, Andy Summers and Tom Waits.

When you Pledge for the 17-track compilation download, or any of the other unique items and experiences during this 6-week Pledge campaign, you gain access to Pledgers-only updates from participating DLF Music artists. Each week you will receive 2 or 3 of DLFMusic’s featured tracks … PLUS receive exclusive video, photo and blog updates, giving you an insider’s view into the artists lives and experiences.

Great Artists—Artists and musicians are standing up in support of The David Lynch Foundation by donating their creativity and music for a…
Great Cause—Download for Good and all profits from your support will benefit DLF’s educational outreach programs — all based on the theme, “Change Begins Within.”

Great Artists + Great Cause = Music That Changes the World

Marie Parie is a new client here at Oniracom! She presents a different genre than we normally work with and we are excited to start working with her. She is a Parisian pop artist that moved to the United States in 2005, providing her with a unique view of American society. Marie is fascinated by the process of dating and is motivated by the power of futuristic music. Her full length album, Alien Victory, is aimed to be released early this year. Watch her first music video, Dating, here! Follow her on MySpace and Facebook to stay tuned for the release of her album!

With the 30th year anniversary of his death, Bob Marley remains the most well known reggae musician. His music is credited for spreading not only Jamaican music, but also the Rastafari movement worldwide. A truly captivating and challenging performer, we remember his music that remains timeless and universal.

Now here’s a brilliant album release campaign. UK songstress Adele, grammy winning “Chasing Pavements” singer, is releasing 21 (XL, Columbia) the much anticipated follow up to her debut album, 19. To generate buzz and increase fan engagement with the record in the weeks leading up the it’s US release, team Adele has set up quite a creative splash page:

Music licensing has become stricter and stricter due to the immense amount of untrustworthy and illegal music sharing stations there are across the net. Last.fm has provided their members with tons of free radio stations with limited listening, as well as offering subscriber-only radio stations such as the Loved Tracks Radio, Playlists, My Neighbourhood, and Personal Tag Radio Now that we all are familiar with and love on our handy dandy scrobblers. Unfortunately, beginning November 17th, Last.fm has been forced to omit some of these subscriber-only stations in order to direct their “energy on improving our most popular features, developing new and innovative stations, and offering the best music discovery service to our global audience,” says the members at Last.fm themselves.

“At the MobileBeat 2010 conference in San Francisco, Eric Tseng said that Facebook “really sees mobile as the future,” and that we can expect to see Facebook’s “Like” buttons in mobile applications soon.

Tseng used geolocation as an example to illustrate the power of the mobile Open Graph. If you were to walk near a coffee shop and get a location-aware notification that there’s a happy hour going on there, you’ll probably be even more inclined to visit it if the notification comes bundled with recommendations from your Facebook friends.”

We have compiled a list of what we find to be the most interesting and informative music blogs on the web. The list amounts to 21 music blogs, but is divided into four categories; Music Blogs (general reviews of up-and-coming music), International Blogs (reviews up-and-coming music from specific countries and around the world), Entertainment Blogs (covers news and reviews of a variety of art forms), and Music Industry Blogs (covers the latest happenings of what is moving and shaking in the music industry).

Music Power Network, or MPN is a new online resource available to up and coming musicians and aspiring music business professionals. MPN was started in November 2009 by music industry guru Dave Kusek. Kusek is the Vice President of Berklee College of Music, and founded their online music education program.  He also co-authored the best-selling book, “The Future of Music, Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution” years before the advent of the current digital music business.

Read more

The dominance of the web has changed the way people work, live and stay informed. For now, I’m going to leave aside a discussion about what the internet has done to the average person’s experience of life and the way people relate to others (though they are certainly worthy subjects for reflection and consideration).

What I want to share with you today are the tools we at Oniracom use to help us stay on top of the rapid shifts and changes which we encounter daily.  As a company that works primarily on websites and social media, every new application, every new site, every new contribution to the field of design, development and social networking has the potential to rearrange the way we go about business.  This means that it is a necessity to stay flexible, because you will encounter challenges and you will be expected understand the new developments and rise to the occasion (or risk being met by a client asking, “well they did that over their; are you not as capable?”).

So with all these changes and rapid sharing of information, what is the trick to staying on top without driving yourself crazy?

The solution is finding good tools that bring you the most relevant information and allow you to communicate easily and work efficiently.

Click Read More to See The Tools We Use on a Daily Basis and leave a comment about the tools that you use!

Rumors are starting to fly about Googles new music service.

It seems as if the service will be going after Bing who is trying to offers users a better search engine.  Google’s music service would simply be an upgrade to their search results for music.  If you search for an artist like Jack Johnson it would now give you a small list of some of his most popular songs and videos pulling data from music services such as LaLa, MySpace, and iLike.  You can stream the music right there on the same search results page, watch the video and even click a link to download and buy it.  While nothing is official yet we have been working on updating some of our clients on those music services just in time for press release.

Check out the sneak peak at what the service might look at over at TechCrunch.

Oniracom will be well represented at this weekend’s New Noise Music Conference and Festival, held in Oniracom’s backyard of Santa Barbara, CA.  New Noise Santa Barbara is a three-day music and digital media conference that will showcase emerging and established bands, host educational panels on the music industry’s hottest topics, present esteemed experts from all aspects of the business, and serve as a place for players big and small to connect and plot the future of music….

The music industry is in a pit.  The future is uncertain, and people just aren’t paying for music anymore.  Thats what the RIAA will tell you as they sue, sue, sue in full panic mode.  The industry is scrambling for a way to make money off album sales, something they say is vital to the future of music.  How and why would record labels produce albums if they don’t sell?  How can bands create music if there aren’t any labels around?

Noise Trade is a service that offers music for free to anyone willing to give them five email addresses. This is another thing to add to your list of “stuff you must know if you like music.”  You know you have a list like that.  You know it.

Noise Trade was started a few years back by Musician/Songwriter Derek Webb.  The principle is simple.  People want music without paying.  Musicians want to get their music out there for people to listen to.  Noise Trade makes all of this possible.  The theory behind Noise-Trade is that grass-roots promotion is far more valuable to independent musicians than album sales.

Although early on Noise Trade’s catalog carried just Derek Webb and local Nashville-area artists; their list of bands has grown dramatically. Currently one can find indie-artists from all over the U.S.  We recently placed Oniric Records Artist Marc B on noise trade…check out the widget at http://marcbmusic.com/freemp3/

5) Panels, Panels, Panels
-Valuable for anyone interested in the music industry at all levels of knowledge.  Some awesome panelists and topics lined up!

4) Shows, Shows, Shows
For $40 you can see 46 bands over 3 days.  Pretty remarkable, right?  Here’s the lineup and schedule.

3) Michael Franti & Spearhead at the Arlington Theater
Pay a little extra cash and you can check out Michael Franti at the Arlington Theater, just like he did for our SFD Festival!

2) Jacob Tell of Oniracom will be speaking on TWO panels!
Check out “The Green Concert” and “THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN: Exploring The New Frontier In Music” panels to hear our Jacob Tell (VP of Oniracom) speak!

1) World Premiere of Jack Johnson’s New Live Movie: En Concert
What better way to see Jack’s new film then with 2,000 other fans in the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara??

For all the details, check out newnoisesb.com.