A Gathering of Celts
Once a month, the Austin Celtic Association holds monthly meetings on the 2nd Weds of every month. Yesterday, the Gaelic League of Austin began holding their meetings an hour before making it an incredible evening of Celtic friendship, education, and entertainment.
It started off at Mother Egan's with Ed Miller talking about the Bothy ballads of Scotland. If you EVER get a chance to see Ed Miller, I can't stress it enough, GO SEEM HIM! He's just an amazing speaker and performer. Raised in the folk tradition, Ed is a fountain spring of knowledge of Scots folk music.
Course, there's a great opportunity this Friday. Ed Miller is performing at the Cactus Cafe at UT Austin, and the Sarah Dinan Band is opening for him. Sarah has an exquisite voice and talent for singing traditional Celtic songs. Should be a fantastic evening. I'm gonna do my best to head out there.
Interestingly, I was having a conversation with a Celtic musician the other day. No doubt all the hype of the RIAA has hurt a number of folks from exploring the magic of MP3s. I know it's not the goldmine we've made it, but there are some incredible opportunities to be had by promoting with MP3s. I mean how many of you out there heard of the Brobdingnagian Bards thanks to our MP3s?
Well, that's the reason we give away as many MP3s as we do. We're building a fan base over the long-term. Yes, I want to sell my CDs now, but having fans is much better.
When we first got started on MP3.com, I remember John from Celtic Ways kept saying that MP3s were the wave of the future, and that it was time for bands to start preparing for the collapse of CD sales altogether. He predicted CDs would be out by 2005.
Not likely, but I think he's right. Eventually, musicians will have to find a new way to adapt to the changing musical technology. The Major Labels have yet to figure this one out... okay, not entirely true, they've succeeded in stemming the tide of illegal downloads, which I guess is somewhat good since it preserves our livelihood a wee bit longer. And they've also finally started an intelligent way of getting digital music into the hands of the consumers, thanks to iTunes and whatnot. But even this will die soon.
I haven't even yet mentioned that our music is now for sale on most of those digital portals though because, aside from me being a slow adapter, I still consider free MP3s an important aspect of the way we build our fan base... We bring them in with the lure of free MP3s. Give them plenty of music to listen and learn to appreciate our musical style, and then encourage them to buy our albums. To some degree this isn't the most profitable way to promote ourselves, but again, I'm looking at the long-term.
What will the future have in store? Who can say? Right now, we try to adapt and accept that digital music is here to stay. Shoot, my drive up to Kansas City was a blast. I had six CDs of MP3 mixes. Now THAT was cool! Play one till I get tired.
Been starting to think that that might be a better way to go considering the size of our growing catalog. But not yet. Right now, we take it one wee guerrilla promo tactic at a time.
So while I'm doing that, let me remind you to tell your friends to go listen to our music. I'm pretty certain your signature could use something like this...
Oh, and I hope to see ye at the Cactus this Friday. (I'm gonna try my best to be there, but no guarantees)
It started off at Mother Egan's with Ed Miller talking about the Bothy ballads of Scotland. If you EVER get a chance to see Ed Miller, I can't stress it enough, GO SEEM HIM! He's just an amazing speaker and performer. Raised in the folk tradition, Ed is a fountain spring of knowledge of Scots folk music.
Course, there's a great opportunity this Friday. Ed Miller is performing at the Cactus Cafe at UT Austin, and the Sarah Dinan Band is opening for him. Sarah has an exquisite voice and talent for singing traditional Celtic songs. Should be a fantastic evening. I'm gonna do my best to head out there.
Interestingly, I was having a conversation with a Celtic musician the other day. No doubt all the hype of the RIAA has hurt a number of folks from exploring the magic of MP3s. I know it's not the goldmine we've made it, but there are some incredible opportunities to be had by promoting with MP3s. I mean how many of you out there heard of the Brobdingnagian Bards thanks to our MP3s?
Well, that's the reason we give away as many MP3s as we do. We're building a fan base over the long-term. Yes, I want to sell my CDs now, but having fans is much better.
When we first got started on MP3.com, I remember John from Celtic Ways kept saying that MP3s were the wave of the future, and that it was time for bands to start preparing for the collapse of CD sales altogether. He predicted CDs would be out by 2005.
Not likely, but I think he's right. Eventually, musicians will have to find a new way to adapt to the changing musical technology. The Major Labels have yet to figure this one out... okay, not entirely true, they've succeeded in stemming the tide of illegal downloads, which I guess is somewhat good since it preserves our livelihood a wee bit longer. And they've also finally started an intelligent way of getting digital music into the hands of the consumers, thanks to iTunes and whatnot. But even this will die soon.
I haven't even yet mentioned that our music is now for sale on most of those digital portals though because, aside from me being a slow adapter, I still consider free MP3s an important aspect of the way we build our fan base... We bring them in with the lure of free MP3s. Give them plenty of music to listen and learn to appreciate our musical style, and then encourage them to buy our albums. To some degree this isn't the most profitable way to promote ourselves, but again, I'm looking at the long-term.
What will the future have in store? Who can say? Right now, we try to adapt and accept that digital music is here to stay. Shoot, my drive up to Kansas City was a blast. I had six CDs of MP3 mixes. Now THAT was cool! Play one till I get tired.
Been starting to think that that might be a better way to go considering the size of our growing catalog. But not yet. Right now, we take it one wee guerrilla promo tactic at a time.
So while I'm doing that, let me remind you to tell your friends to go listen to our music. I'm pretty certain your signature could use something like this...
Free and Legal Celtic MP3s http://www.thebards.net/#MarcGunnSo please go out there and share. If it's something that brings you pleasure, no doubt it'll bring pleasure to many others out there. So let them know about it.
Oh, and I hope to see ye at the Cactus this Friday. (I'm gonna try my best to be there, but no guarantees)
posted by Marc Gunn, Music Marketing & Music Promotion | 8:34 AM
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home