October 2009

Oniric Records artist Marc B. has been in the studio the past two days in Montecito recording with legendary producer Sjoko Koppert (The Who, Pink Floyd, ABBA, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Beach Boys, Doobie’s, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Yes, Rod Stewart, etc, etc). They are recording a track for our compilation CD Solutions for Dreamers : Season 3, which will also feature tracks from The Wailers, Matthew McAvene, and a whole host of other amazing artists!

Here are a couple shots I snapped of Marc and his accomplished percussionist Maxx Farris in the studio with Sjoko yesterday.

Traditional 80’s fast food Marketing is back!  For better or worse…

A Business market segment is a group of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics that cause them to have similar product and/or service needs.

In this case, Burger King and Microsoft have teamed up pushing the “Windows 7 Whopper” to their market segment (very very hungry and/or large people in Japan).  For 7 days only, you can shell out Â¥777 (or $8.55) for 7 beef patties on a sesame seed bun, in support of Windows 7.  BK’s in Japan are limiting this price to the first 30 customers each day, upping the price to Â¥1,450 ($17.10), officially breaking the “7” theme.

But this campaign has pushed beyond the limits of traditional marketing into the digital realm.  Yes, blogs all over the web have picked up on this story (including our own SFDBlog.com).

For blog publishers to resist re-posting this image is nearly impossible.  It has all the necessary elements: two American company logos, Japanese characters and 7 mouthwatering beef patties.

But I would like to give a huge thank you to Gizmodo’s Mark Wilson & co. who attempt to down this burger for Generation YouTube to “enjoy.”

Enjoy a slideshow of over 100 photos of the 2009 Heal the Ocean Benefit Concert.

This event featured guest speakers Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jean-Michel Cousteau & Hillary Hauser. Fine artist Matthew McAvene provided us his Fabulous Fish Puppet Show.

Oniric Records produced the music portion of the night, featuring Culver City Dub Collective and The Black Seeds who played until The Coral Casino in Santa Barbara kicked us out.

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.

That’s right, it’s here.  The holiday season is in.  No, not Christmas, not Halloween, not hanukkah or any thing like that no.  It is National Design Week!  The most glorious time of the entire year, and the design room is celebrating.

The National Design Awards have been handed out.  Here is one winner who caught my eye:

Lifetime Achievement Award

Bill Moggridge

Bill is the co-founder of IDEO, a global design consultancy, creating impact through design.  He is an industry design specialist and expert, most notably, he designed the world’s first laptop computer.

Recently, I was creating tour date events in facebook for one of our artists that has a huge fan base.  I was blazing through the creation of these events when I received a warning message that I’ve never see before:

It looks as though facebook, is now watching over the content we post and the frequency of the postings.  I thought this functionality was pretty cool at first - I liked how facebook was looking out for the well-being of the fans and what they supposedly wanted.  That lasted for about a minute.  I then became a bit annoyed that facebook had this power over me and wouldn’t let me continue with the work that needed to be done.  It was all a little too “big brother-esque” for me. 

I can understand and appreciate what facebook is trying to do for the fans in this situation.  However, those tour dates needed to get up in order for the page to have the latest and greatest content.  Isn’t that what a facebook fan page is for?  Further, I wasn’t publishing any of the events on the artist’s wall so no one was even seeing them. 

Perhaps it’s a bug or perhaps it isn’t.  What do you guys think of this facebook warning message?  Good idea or bad idea?

Marc B recently came up and played a show at SoHo, one of our favorite venues in Santa Barbara.  Here’s a little video we got of Marc and his percussionist Maxx Farris jamming out.  You can grab this song on iTunes if you dig it.

Found something interesting today… an advertisement for the “iTunes Pass.”

Here’s what it is as explained by iTunes:

Now, with the purchase of an iTunes Pass, you can get new music and special bonus content from your favorite artists delivered as soon as it’s available.  Ratitude is the seventh studio album (soon to be known as “the one with the dog on the cover”) from power-rock band and all-around pop geniuses Weezer.  Maybe you’re already dancing in the streets to the strains of first single, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To,” but you just wait—there’s plenty more radness to come.  The purchase of this iTunes Pass will give you the group’s upcoming Ratitude album, videos, live tracks, remixes, bonus tracks, and other untold riches.

From the look of the purchase page on iTunes (picture available in “Read More…”), it seems like the pass will currently deliver…

(Please click “Read More…” for full article and what I DON’T like about the iTunes Pass)

One of Oniracom’s best ambassadors Kurty D speaks about CitySourced which he co-founded.  Please enjoy a ReadWriteWeb interview with Kurt about this new real time web application!

CitySourced provides a free, simple, and intuitive tool empowering citizens to identify civil issues (potholes, graffiti, trash, snow removal, etc.) and report them to city hall for quick resolution; an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern; and a positive, collaborative platform for real action.

Check out the sneak preview of Matthew McAvene’s new song “Super Hero Dreams” for the Solutions For Dreamers : Season 3 compilation to benefit I Went Hungry.  I Went Hungry is a non-profit set up by The Wailers to help eradicate world hunger.

Matthew premiered this song live as part of the New Noise Music Conference & Festival at the Sandbar with a little help from Jose Esquivel (Culver City Dub Collective) and Adam Topol (CCDV & Jack Johnson).

This past weekend, I was running around as the Official House Photographer for Santa Barbara’s New Noise Music Conference & Festival.  It was a blast attending both the shows and the music industry panels (future blog posts will unfold my thoughts on these).  Over a span of three days, I saw and shot probably over 40 sets of music at night and ran around the industry panels all day.

Here is a comprehensive look at what you missed if you weren’t there:

New Noise Santa Barbara was a great success.  Being their first year, nobody was certain how heavily attended the concert component or conference component would be.  Both turned out to be a success!  People raved about Michael Franti’s Arlington Theatre performance, Jack Johnson’s film screening with last minute acoustic performance as well as many of the sold out club shows. 

The New Noise Panels were also well attended and talked and tweeted about all weekend.  I was asked to speak on two panels, “The Future Is Unwritten” and “The Green Musician.”  Below I’ve written a list of 5 items from each panel that I learned from other panelists.

What I learned from other panelists on “The Future is Unwritten:”

(click “Read More…” below)

What I learned from other panelists on “The Green Musician:”

(click “Read More…” below)

We had the privilege this past weekend to catch our client Zach Gill (of ALO, Jack Johnson) and Kyle Hollingsworth (of String Cheese Incident) play together on their West Coast tour.  Two great musicians playing together was not only a blast, but hilarious as well.

Here is a video chat we recorded between Zach and Kyle pre-tour and edited together to give their fans a little preview of what they may see at the shows.  Check it out below.

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….

Check out Oniracom client Robert Cray on page 18 in the October 2009 Issue of Premier Guitar!

Cray is featured in this month’s edition alongside his Inca Gold signature Strat. The photo of Cray was taken by Joe Coffey in late August at the Englert Theater in Iowa City, IA. 

For more information on how to catch The Robert Cray Band and his signature Strat on tour please visit http://www.robertcray.com/tour.

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?

Thomas Campbell makes “stuff”.  That’s the short description.  But if you take a look at his body of visual work, you’ll see that the word is appropriately broad.  Film, paint, photography and typography are just a few things he’s impossibly talented at.

If you’ve been following Jack Johnson’s career as a musician and as a film maker, then you’ve seen Campbell’s work.  Check out the beautiful handwritten “Jack Johnson” font and macro photography on www.jackjohnsonmusic.com as well as the artwork featured on his surf films “The Seedling”, “Sprout” and “The Present” (all on Jack’s Woodshed Films).  Campbell has brought a bold, timeless and fluid graphic touch to each project.

Campbell introduces himself on his web site’s bio:
“Well, I am not a huge fan of using words to describe art and every time I am asked to write an artist statement my gut instinct is just to say “Um, I make stuff”.  And in reality, that is what I do.  I am a creative person by nature and by trial and error - and I just enjoy adapting to different creative scenarios and moving with them.”  Check out the entire interview on Campbell’s web site.

Also, Brushfire Records just released the soundtrack to his film The Present which you can pick up here.

I usually try to refrain from using any sort of sporting analogy.  Unfortunately, “Game Changer” seemed to be the most fitting title for Google’s new social media attempt- Google Wave.  Google already has a well established name, a great reputation and a ton of money- it only seems natural that they would try their hands at social networking.  It looks like they might have a “winner” too.

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/

Rumors are coming that apparently the highly anticipated Kanye West / Lady Gaga tour may be cancelled as early as tomorrow.  Here are the two speculated reasons:

1) MSNBC reports that Kanye may be going to rehab

2) MediaTakeOut.com reports (I’ve never heard of them—so not sure about credibility):  “What happened, you ask? It’s not yet clear – all we know is that it’s LADY GAGA who wants out, not Kanye!!!”

Who knows at this point, but either way, Kanye seems to attract the drama.  At any cost, having had to do damage report with cancelled shows before, it has to be a huge, costly pain to cancel this many shows.  Tickets to refund, fans to notify, re-routing (if only a couple shows cancelled), canceling sound/lights/crews/catering…. it’s a mess.  I know Special Ed will be bummed.  I haven’t even told him yet.  I wanted him to read it here first.