Saturday, August 23, 2014

April Wine Roller (cover)


Crank it up, Rockers!! New Project-43 video cover of April Wine's "Roller".

Friday, December 3, 2010

Independent Music on the Web

Today the Internet is flooded with Indie bands trying to get noticed. It's amazing the amount of great music that is available (and some not so great) to us by doing nothing more than Googling. However, for the band or group sweating it out, creating all of the great tunes, it's not so easy to stand out above the rest.

Take for example, Project-43. This band was started a few years ago by a couple of guys who met on the Internet. They wanted to explore the options that were available to them to be able to make music on the net, post music on the net and eventually sell some music on the net.

Over the past five years, the band has released three Indie CDs. There's some great music accross all three and a lot of growth can be noticed over that span. What's truly amazing is that all of the music was created over the web with none of the musicians ever in the same room together. While this is becoming more and more commonplace, it's still pretty remarkable when you think about it.

So as the band continues their musical adventures (they're currently working on a cover CD with songs that inspired them musically), they must try and figure out the modern music distribution madness. How do you get folks to hear your music? How then do you get them interested enough to want to follow the band and hopefully purchase their music? The traditional method of touring and playing gigs is not possible with Project-43 as they are separated around the globe and are truly an Internet Band. This really puts a new spin on the traditional methods of getting the message across to the fans.

Free music or MP3 downloads are one way to entice listeners. Internet radio air play is another. Obviously, GREAT music is the key, but fans have to hear it first to want to go look for more. It's kind of like the age old conundrum of the chicken and the egg. There has to be a way to get the music to the fans so they can hear it and then want to hear more.

So, what's the best way to approach this? There are many marketing sites that will tell you one thing or another. Many boast of great sales or huge exposure. Is the answer Social Networking? Is having a lot of Facebook friends or Twitter followers the answer? I'm sure those help, but I'm not sure it's THE answer.The best plan is probably a combination of all those, but how does the independent band find the time to create the music and market it all too.

Project-43 will continue to make great music, because that's what they love to do. Will they be able to share that will everyone they'd like too? That's the real question and is still yet to be seen.

What are your thoughts?