Neworleansmusicians.com Podcast is roughly five months old (August ’22) and it seems to be doing well. The listener base is growing and I’ve run across people paying it compliments. So far, we’ve featured local rocker Levi Clark that’s in several bands in Metairie and extremely active in the community. We also went to Kenner and did an episode with Michael O’Hara, founding member and front man for national touring band The Sheiks and BMI writer for artists like Patti Labelle and Donna Summer. Next we sat with John Autin, owner of Rabadash Records, at his Mandeville studio and learned what recording artists could expect from him as a studio and a label. I’ve truly enjoyed meeting with these people!
But now it’s time to branch out even further and explore not only artists from other parts of Louisiana, but other genres and music professions as well. That’s where you come in. I have launched a social campaign to reach out to our followers and see who would be interested in being on our show. There are some guidelines to follow so please read carefully. If you are a band, you MUST be from Louisiana. The sites namesake, Neworleansmusicians.com, represents the hub. But we serve all Louisiana musicians ONLY. If you are a music industry professional, there are no geographic requirements. The way we see it, businesses in the industry are a resource to our artists and we want the two to get to know each other. So, without further adieu, and with a simple click of the button below, I’ll point you in the right direction.
Article courtesy of Dittomusic.com. Please do your own research… Thanks! Admin
Independent artists have more opportunities than ever before to launch their own career without the backing of the majors or a big budget.
While we are seeing more and more unsigned artists breaking through off their own backs, many promising new artists out their simply don’t know where to start or how to maintain a successful promotional campaign and make money from music.
How to promote music in 2022
It should go without saying, but first and foremost, making great music needs to be your primary focus. You can follow all this advice to the letter, but if your track, EP or album isn’t well-written, tight instrumentally and professionally produced, you’ll fall at the first hurdle.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s look at the best ways to promote your music independently in the modern music landscape.
You can watch our Unsigned Advice video or read on to learn more!https://www.youtube.com/embed/pum1Ks7yf2k
1. Sign up to artists services
Most of the biggest music streaming services have platforms built specifically for artists. So if you’re releasing music, signing up is a no-brainer.
These services will allow you to access an array of features and benefits within the platform, that are exclusively reserved for artists using and releasing music on the platform.
So for example, signing up to Spotify for Artists allows you to add a profile image, submit music to Spotify playlists (more info on that below!), edit your Spotify artist bio, view streaming analytics and access Spotify’s ‘Artist’s Pick’.
Creating a slick, professional website as a base for your online presence is vital, but perhaps even more important is building a large & dedicated mailing list.
Your website should obviously include links to your music, bios, images and tour dates, but make sure to also include a mailing list sign up form. Email marketing offers direct access to the inboxes of people most likely to engage with your music.
If a fan gives you their email address, it means they want to hear from you, and a message direct to their inbox about your latest release or upcoming tour is much more likely to reach them than a social post that can be restricted by a platform’s limited reach.
The power of a good social media marketing strategy is no secret. Developing and maintaining a consistent, interesting and engaging presence across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and even less obvious platforms like Snapchat, is essential. Also, try and keep your profile handles consistent to make things easier for people searching for you online.
There’s an insurmountable amount of advice out there on how to manage your social channels, and things are constantly changing across every platform. Look through some of these helpful resources for more info on how to run and make the most of your social media presence.
You can’t afford to ignore streaming and playlisting. Playlists across Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and other platforms reach hundreds of millions of listeners across the globe, racking up billions of streams. Getting your track into a popular playlist can help you rack up thousands of streams. That’s not only great awareness but also royalty earnings in your pocket.
While getting your music placed on curated playlists is great for awareness and credibility, being placed on algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly can make a big difference to your stream count. So it’s worth persusing all possibilities.
If your music gets featured by music publications, whether that’s mainstream mags or niche blogs and webzines, those placements can help build hype and give you the credentials to take your music career up a level.
Hiring a professional PR executive to handle your campaign is generally the best way to get great coverage. But this isn’t always affordable or possible for a new artist with a limited budget.
Do-it-yourself PR is an option for artists without a big enough budget. But it’s important to approach bloggers and journalists in the right way. Firstly, you’ll need to create an electronic press release. This should contain all the essential info about you & your music. The resources below offer advice for musicians who want to take PR into their own hands.
An exciting, interesting and original music video has the potential to go viral online, even if the track isn’t a hit.
Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to creating a video for your latest release. Think about the kind of videos from acts like OK GO and Childish Gambino that have blown up thanks to online traction. They’ve had something unique and intriguing about them, whether that was a deeper underlying message or a quirky theme.
You might want to develop a standard music video or live performance-based visuals – which is perfectly fine. But investing thought, time and effort into your videos has the potential reap huge rewards.
You might prefer the lone-wolf approach to promoting your music, but there can be huge benefits to surrounding yourself with a great team of like-minded people. If you have a team of well-connected individuals who are passionate about your music all working in your interest, it stands to reason that your chances of success will increase.
If you can put together a team of friends who’ll help you free of charge, or for a cut of eventual earnings – great! But sometimes, you’ll need to acquire the services of professionals to help give you the edge in the competitive music market. Whether that’s a PR person, a radio plugger or promoter/booker – there’s nothing wrong with accepting help.
It’s also a good idea to get yourself a great manager. Again, make sure they’re passionate about your music and believe in you as an artist. A manager who’ll go above and beyond for you is worth their weight in gold.
Where and to whom you market your music can make all the difference. Thriving music subcultures exist in all corners of the world, some huge and sprawling, some small and dedicated. Finding, knowing and exploiting your musical niche is key to your promotional campaign.
It might sound obvious (and it should be) but if you’re a metal band, play metal venues, join a metal community and win metal fans. If you’re a rapper, find rap venues, join rap communities and win rap fans. And so on.
But niches aren’t always defined by genre. If your music has more widespread appeal, start locally. People generally want to see an artist from their area succeed. Take advantage of this mentality and grow your fanbase close to home to before expanding nationally or even globally.
Utilising the different artists services features will allow you maximise your in-platform marketing and unlock new potential for engagement with your music from your fans and listeners!
9. Play live often & make an impact
Obviously this is a bit more difficult in the post-Covid-19 era, but gigs and tours offer an invaluable way to connect with fans. Get booked at nearby venues, play awesome sets for local music fans and you’ll quickly develop a strong, new fan base. But remember, you have to make them remember you, so be memorable.
Once you’ve built up a local following, you can head out on the road, taking on new music scenes city by city or even country by country. If this sounds too easy & simplified – that’s because it is. Touring and playing gigs night after night is hard work, but if you’ve got a killer live show, the rewards will speak for themselves.
North of Lake Pontchartrain off of Hwy 59 in Mandeville, Louisiana sits a fine example of acoustic perfection. And nestled within its walls lies both a rich history and a promising future for the world of music. I am talking about Rabadash Studios, home to Rabadash Records, owned by John Autin. But in order to properly acquaint you with these elements I must first take you back some fifty-three years to a building located at 52 W 8th Street in New York’s Greenwich Village that would come to be known as Electric Lady Studios.
Working for an architect firm by day and playing in a band by night, a man by the name of John Storyk decided to take a volunteer position as a carpenter converting a loft in SoHo to a bohemian theater of a club known as Cerebrum back in 1969. His work caught the eye of the one and only Jimi Hendrix who hired John to build a club just like it. But Hendrix would quickly pivot from building a club similar to Cerebrum, to building a recording studio. It would be the only artist-owned recording studio in existence at the time. And this became the famous Electric Lady Studios, cementing Storyk’s place in history as one of the greatest acousticians of our time.
Fast forward to the year 2005. Hurricane Katrina had hit the Gulf Coast and a guy by the name of Dave Fortman, former guitarist for Ugly Kid Joe, was in search of a new home for his own Balance Studios. Years before, and for years to come, Balance Studios produced and engineered for such groups as Down, Superjoint Ritual, Evanescence, Slipknot and Eyehategod to name a few. Fortman found his new headquarters in an empty 4,000 sq. ft. building in Mandeville, Louisiana. He enlisted the services of John Storyk to design his new studio whom by now with his firm, Walters-Storyk Design Group, had designed and built studios for such artists as Alecia Keys, Bob Marley, Jay-Z, and Whitney Houston. Construction began and as fate would have it, even the contractor hired to build this studio was himself a musician. Doesn’t this all feel so good already?
As warm and fuzzy as this all may feel, Balance Studios would only reside there for a year or so. But this building would still play host to a different recording studio for nearly two decades. And THAT, if you’re still with me boys and girls, is the chronological spaghetti that leads us to the spicy meatball on our plate known as Rabadash Studios. The legacy continues to this day within that building, and the Chef du Jour is John Autin.
From the street one would never guess the precise architecture contained within its outer shell. For all intents and purposes, it looks like a plain warehouse. And prior to John being able to secure the building, it was actually slated to be gutted and used as storage space for a lighting company. But luckily, before this travesty could ensue, the building owner’s son Nick LaRocca, who was also a musician, walked through and recognized its original purpose and future potential. You might say the vibe from this building has resonated with musicians since day one. Because even the LaRoccas are a musical family that are very important historically in New Orleans. Nick was named for his father’s uncle, who recorded the very first jazz record with the original Dixie Land Jazz Band back in 1917.
Even just past its skin, this unassuming warehouse is made with nine insulative layers. Torrential downpours do not faze the acoustic integrity within. Every single piece of wood, every single piece of fabric, every piece of glass was placed just so by Storyk himself. The spacious live room is optimized sonically, providing an intimate setting ideal for tracking and overdubbing drums, horn sections, strings ensembles or vocalists. The wood floors and trim throughout are absolutely gorgeous. Large fabric panels and track lighting accentuate the area.
Through triple glass, the control room looks directly into this space and is flanked on either side by isolation booths. The monitoring system is custom designed by Dynaudio. Near fields, midfields, and large built-in natural wood faced monitors give arguably the best mixing environment in Louisiana. The back wall of this space ship is an architectural masterpiece where Storyk intended sound to be deposited, never to be heard from again. Twenty years ago, this concoction totaled over four million dollars. But as I stood there that day setting up for our interview, I couldn’t help but feel it was priceless.
Before the interview with John began, he was kind enough to give me a tour of the facility. Beyond the front door and past the foyer, there is a long open-area workspace. An antique organ caught my eye as John turned my attention to the full kitchen. The building sleeps six for out-of-town bands on a budget, and even has a full bath and shower upstairs. The second level housed a sound board, monitors, and screens dedicated to his newly launched Rabadash Radio. It is currently streaming online and you can find that link below along with a link to our interview footage.
In our interview, John outlined what he expected of artists interested in recording at his studio, as well as what they can expect from him. He stressed the importance of artistic freedom “almost to a fault” as he put it and touched on his methods for focusing on the artist’s strengths, allowing those elements to shine through in his mix. His decades of experience in the music business are further fortified by Platinum Record award winning engineer/ producer Marc Hewitt. Marc has been involved in the music business since 1981 and in his capacity as a sound engineer, producer, and musician has worked with such artists as Aaron Neville, Art Neville, Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino among many others.
John’s presence was a comfort. And combined with the spacious, relaxed atmosphere, I could see how an artist would feel free to create in this realm. From a business standpoint, recording here would be an intelligent move as well, both for the many years of experience John and his staff have, and the fact that Rabadash Records has been in business as a label for over forty years. I enjoyed my time at Rabadash Studios with John Autin. And I hope that the musicians out there reading this will consider recording their next project there.
When the Hughes & Kettner company introduced the Spirit Tone Generator a few years ago together with their BS 200 series, a worldwide murmur went through the scene. Never before it has been possible to get so close to the sound of a vacuum tube with a transistor amplifier. Due to the patented, purely analogue circuit, the amplifier managed to bridge the gap between the light, inexpensive but also poorly-sounding transistor amplifiers to the top league of all-tube amplifiers in terms of sound, which unfortunately also have a high transport weight and, due to their components, have a significantly higher price .
It was immediately clear to me that this part would be a box office hit, but even I didn’t expect the immense success of this amplifier series. Other products such as the Nano Heads or the AmpMan followed and, with the help of the Spirit Tone Generator, were able to deliver a significantly higher quality sound than what the retail price would suggest. But Hughes & Kettner wouldn’t be Hughes & Kettner if they weren’t constantly striving to expand and improve their portfolio, which is why the latest addition to the Spirit Tone Generator family is called StompMan and again comes with a number of very well thought-out and extremely practical ones Features would come up.
The structure of the Hughes & Kettner StompMan
The experienced reader will probably be able to guess for which application the Hughes&Kettner StompMan was designed after just a quick look at the layout of the amplifier in combination with its name. The dimensions of just (W x D x H): 132 mm x 52 mm x 153 mm and the weight of 650 g suggest that the amp was designed for floorboard use. In order to be able to operate the amp, on the other hand, the included power supply unit must be used, since the performance characteristics of 24 V and 2.5 A cannot be supplied by any multi-voltage power supply unit that is normally used in floorboard operation. But the whole thing shouldn’t be a real problem, since the power supply was designed to be relatively flat and narrow and should therefore fit under most floorboards beyond the Nano / Mini series with 2 cable ties or the like. The power supply works worldwide due to its voltage processing of 100 – 240 volts.
The concept of the amplifier, designed as a single channel, is based on the AmpMan, which is characterized in terms of tone control by dispensing with a three-band tone control in favor of a tone controller. In addition to the master volume and the gain controller, the Hughes&Kettner StompMan offers three controllers from the power amp area, which are divided into the areas of resonance, presence and sagging. The sagging controller in particular is a unique selling point, as it emulates the saturation behavior of a tube power amp and can play to its strengths, especially in the crunch area.
The amp delivers 25 watts into 8 ohms, which is more than enough for a regular club gig. Since it is a transistor output stage, the power output varies depending on the impedance of the box, i.e. the amp offers almost 12.5 watts at 16 ohms, but 50 watts at 4 ohms. The Hughes&Kettner StompMan offers 2 footswitches, a solo switch with which the output level can be increased by up to +6 dB (adjustable via a potentiometer on the front) and a bypass switch whose function can be combined on the front with a mini switch FX-Loop toggle switch and we will go into its exact function in a moment.
The design of the amp The Hughes & Kettner StompMan, with its single-channel orientation in the stand-alone function, is based on the “more-or-less-clean” and distorted sounds of the 60s and early 70s, which can be found as a house number in the JMP and JCM area, or to put it another way, Clean is done with the volume control of the guitar and lead / high gain with an overdrive / distortion pedal connected in front of it. The gain range was designed to be rather moderate and focuses more on the power amplifier work, which can be varied very well with the sagging controller even at low volumes. If bypass is activated, gain and tone are taken out of the signal path, but presence, resonance and sagging are still available and deliver finely controllable tube power amp sound. So far everything is fine, but that alone would not necessarily be a strong argument for the amp, so we now come to the application examples of the amp!
The application examples of the Hughes&Kettner StompMan
Unlike guitarists who need a modeller as an “all-in-one” solution, a typical pedal board player mostly wants a modular solution where they can express their individuality using their personal pedals. He may also want to connect additional preamps and, depending on the area of application, use separate speaker emulations for direct to FOH or in-ear applications and may also use external noise gates. Here the StompMan can help with a comparatively simple but ingenious setup:
1.) As a full-fledged single-channel amp
Use with booster, fuzz, overdrive, chorus, flanger etc. in front of the input, and reverb or delay effects in the loop is the main application of the Hughes&Kettner StompMan. Here the StompMan is used like a classic single-channel amp including pre- and power-amp sound parameters with a guitar box, with the convenience of a switchable FX loop and a clever solo function to relieve the FOH .
2) As a power amp (bypassing the internal preamp)
Thanks to the integrated bypass, the user does not need to “abuse” the FX return to bypass the internal preamp so that external preamps can be boosted. Bypass removes gain and tone from the signal path, the power amp sound parameters presence, resonance and sagging as well as the FX loop can still be used. To adjust the input level of the StompMan to the output level of the connected preamp, the StompMan offers a trim pot on the underside.
3) Recording via FX Send/Line and Software Cab-Sims
Whether with or without ballasts or preamps, the StompMan output labeled “FX Send / Line” picks up the signal directly in front of the master, so it already contains presence, resonance and sagging. Ideal for going into the line input of the DAW and using software cab sims and effects.
4) In Ear / Direct to FOH / FRFR
Appropriate hardware cab sims can be used for direct to FOH or in-ear applications. Instead of going into the return of the StompMan, at the end of the signal chain you simply go into the input of the Cab Sim and from its output to the console. It is still possible to use the power amp of the StompMan: if you connect the output of the Cab Sim to the return of the StompMan, its power amp amplifies the full-range signal of the Cab Sim FRFR boxes can be operated at the speaker-out of the StompMan.
The Hughes&Kettner StompMan in practice
In the practical part, I concentrated on the stand-alone operation of the amp, since the sound effects of external pedals would change the sound of the amp too much. The first thing that strikes you once again is that the tone control actually makes 80 – 90% of all three-band settings superfluous. On the contrary, the risk of an incorrect setting is massively reduced. Left stop has the typical British mid boost, right stop has a typical scoop alignment, everything in between is infinitely adjustable.
As with the big example of the Hughes & Kettner StomMan (I guess it’s supposed to be a 2203), the tonal effectiveness is kept very moderate, i.e. even with long control paths the change in sound remains moderate. So you can z. B. like to set the Resonance control to the right stop without causing a lot of pumping, but that’s exactly what makes u. the sonic appeal. Once again you have to keep in mind that this is not an all-tube amp, because the analog circuitry in combination with the sagging control makes it really difficult to filter out the difference in sound. The amp is highly dynamic, hangs very well on the guitar’s volume control and offers the perfect basis for classic riffing in blues, rock and traditional hard rock.
For the American clean sound, the Hughes&Kettner StompMan also offers very variable options, for example I was very impressed by a clean gain setting with a strong sagging component. To hear the sagging effect in an A/B comparison, I recorded the same riff with and without sagging, the result speaks for itself. In conclusion, the StompMan can only be given top marks. The amp convinces with tiny dimensions with a very good sound, which is really, very close to the originals in the style of a 2203 or 2204, but has a significantly higher circuit flexibility, which again significantly increases the portability.
With the Hughes & Kettner StompMan, the German company has landed another big hit. The excellent-sounding amp impresses with a clever concept, which puts it in the front row of working musicians in terms of transportability and flexibility.
If you want to get the maximum sound out of your floorboard, you should definitely try the amp.
For further information about the amp, please check out THIS LINK and check your language at the upper right corner.
“How I Got Over”, a gospel hymn published in 1951 by Clara Ward, was inspired by her experience with a group of black female church singers travelling to Atlanta in what was at the time a staunchly segregated Georgia. Threatened with death by racist white men, one lady played that of a woman possessed, sending the men fleeing in fear. In more ways than one this moment parallels the life of Michael O’Hara. From a well-behaved son of a Baptist minister, to a barbaric entertainer, then onto becoming an ordained minister himself, it was a long road filled with his own personal ups and downs. And just like Ms. Ward sang in the song, he was “falling and rising all those years.”
This story takes place from the headwaters of the Mississippi River on down to New Orleans and everywhere in between, where a funk rock band was known to haunt. By this time, what had previously been known as The Spoon River Band had morphed into something greater and more powerful than the sum of its parts. Afront this whirlwind was a man with a turban on his head and a banshee-like howl. The persona known to their fans as The Sheik would emerge from behind the keys, strutting across the stage like Mick Jagger and inciting the crowd into a frenzy. Together he and his band of merry cohorts would reciprocate with the crowd, aiding and abetting their energy. But night would soon turn to day. And before long they had packed up their things and moved on to the next town. To bear witness to such a larger-than-life character on stage, one would never be able to draw the connection between Michael O’Hara the front man for The Sheiks, and Michael O’Hara the child from St. Louis, Missouri.
With two brothers and four sisters, he was raised in a large, closely knit Baptist family. His father, like many others in his family, an ordained minister. Though far from the singing dancing wild man on stage he would one day become, his interest in music was undeniable. When he was six years old, his parents bought a piano as a gift for all of the children. Michael recalls, “When they unwrapped that it was like meeting my best friend. Within two weeks, and I believe through the power of God, I had written my first composition”. He would grow up performing in a church that played host to hundreds of ministers, pastors, evangelists, saints, bishops, and missionaries. Being trained by Clara Ward and spending time with Mahalia Jackson were some of the experiences that enriched his life. But like Shakespeare pointed out, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances”. And so, like a player on this great stage, Michael set out to find his own way in life. He did so as the Soldier in this Shakespearian play, “Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation.”
For years Michael honed his chops playing on the circuit. At one point he and his brother, Leon O’Hara, joined The Spoon River Band founded by bassist Dave Torretta. He would continue playing in that band until fate stepped in on the night of March 5th, 1976. David Bowie was on the Diamond Dogs tour. And on this particular night, he was playing the Keil Auditorium on Market St. in St. Louis, Missouri. Donned with more glitter than Bowie himself, Michael and his girlfriend sat second row center. When the show went to intermission, a drummer by the name of Rob Sanders approached him. Michael recalls, “Rob came up to me and introduced himself. Somehow, he knew Spoon River was in a transitional phase with losses of members. He said he’d like to form a new band with me. From there, we were auditioning musicians over some months ‘till we found guitarist Leslie Martin Jr., who was added immediately. Nick (Ferber) came later, as he was playing bass in a band called Mama’s Pride at the time.” Wanting to distinguish himself from previous projects and also leave the name with its founder, Michael O’Hara and the Spoon River Band moniker were about to part ways.
With a double entendre involving the Stokes and Sane blues duo The Beale Street Sheiks, and an at-the-time popular condom company Sheik, the band had found its new name… The Sheiks. True to form, both name sources were surely seasoned and well established, even back then. The blues duo cut records in the late 20’s, and the condom company had been in business since 1931. It was Rob Sanders who liked the idea of paying homage to an incredibly influential blues band. And it was Rob Sanders who birthed Michael O’Hara’s new look as The Sheik. Rob brought up the image of the 1920’s actor Rudolph Valentino and approached Michael with the concept. To hear Michael tell it, “After months of performing as The Sheiks having my huge afro falling into my face from perspiration, and me complaining vigorously, it was Rob who suggested I wear the scarves of The Sheik thus stopping the sweat from getting into my eyes, while giving me a striking image.” The likeness resonated with Michael’s spirit. And he would later spice things up with tight jeans, leather, and fancy jewelry. In more ways than one, this was the beginning of the end.
As Mac Rebennack explained in his own biography, Under a Hoodoo Moon, He was never previously known as Dr. John. The real Dr. John was a medicine man, a Senegalese Prince that came to New Orleans from Haiti. With a call back to New Orleans’ Voodoo roots and all the eye candy one could conjure, Mac eventually took on this alternate identity. As fans we appreciate these features in their physical sense. And it goes along with what the artists feel the band embodies at the time. But before they realize it, the larger-than-life character on stage begins to inhabit and take over the artists’ psyche. Though being The Sheik helped propel the band and gave Michael a trademark appearance, the persona began to outpace the man. Michael admits, “I had gone so far beyond my home training and the things that were instilled in me as a child. I debauched myself, I was a cocaine addict. I used to drink upwards of sixteen shots of Jack Daniels Black plus Quaaludes, you know. I was a skunk. I really went so far down.” Smoking upwards of four packs of cigarettes a day, sleeping with everything in sight, and even living in a commune at one point, Michael had lost his way. The Sheik had taken over. On the outside, this real-life character had Michael opening for giants like The Rolling Stones, The Who, and The Police. It placed him in the spotlights of the Saenger Theater, the Whiskey a Go-Go, the Superdome, the Roxy, and the World’s Fair. But on the inside, it pilfered little bits of his soul along the way.
With contacts brewing in Los Angeles, and the realization that his vices were slowly conspiring to kill him, Michael began to think about a complete change of scenery. He would nurture the possibility while on the road with The Sheiks by securing a contract as a staff writer with MCA/ Universal through his personal manager at the time, Stan Plesser. Torn between two worlds, Michael had arranged show dates for The Sheiks but he and the band weren’t seeing eye to eye. He made it known that he would stay with the band for the next year-and-a-half while they made their final decision. In the end it was just Michael and Christopher Geiger, one of his roadies from the band, driving across the desert to L.A. Michael travelled in tears as he turned off the ac in an attempt to sweat out all that colluded to end him. He had to think but was finding it hard to hear his thoughts over the sadness from which he was overcome. And in the back of his mind lived a pact he had made with God, “either save me or kill me.”
Los Angeles held new hopes for Michael; money in the bank, a more civilized atmosphere in which to work, and the musings of becoming one of the elites he now shared the room with. Invited by MCA to a party with the likes of Robert DeNiro and Barbra Streisand, he recalls how his brand new skin tight leather outfit was received by his family, “And my late granny said, ‘Oh honey’. How you get in ‘em britches? You gotta powder up? I ‘spect I need to get my needle and thread because you about to bust out them britches.” Finding his own way through new surroundings, Michael was finding success despite home sickness and the absence of his band mates. Some of his achievements included songs picked up by Anita Baker, Patti LaBelle, Jody Watley, CeCe Peniston, and Donna Summer. Spike Lee even picked up one of his songs, Feels So Good, for his iconic movie Do the Right Thing. He would eventually leave Los Angeles settling in Fort Worth, Texas, securing his position closer to the Lord in the role of preacher. His church welcoming people of all Christian denominations. Until one day an old friend came calling.
Jimmy Anselmo had been after him for some time to come and perform at his venue, Jimmy’s Music Club. But Michael toiled with the idea and the impact it might have on his now clean and sober life. After much consideration he would eventually accept the invitation. Michael came out of show business retirement to perform a solo act at what was now the Willow, formerly Jimmy’s Music Club, on July 26, 2014 to a packed house. And he was featured in the Times Picayune as well as appearing on several news stations in the area. Being so well received that night was enthralling. Beneath the surface however, the crowd had grown older. The scene before him was no longer the youth-centric hotbed of his yester-year. Michael realized, “When I came out of retirement (for his show at Jimmy’s Music Club), the turnout was amazing. I thought, I’m back! But there’s also this. My fan base, which is considerable, is as old as I am or a little older. They have homes and cars and businesses and children and grand-children. And so, I quickly learned that. It took one night after my opening, which was jam packed. Then the next time I played, not so much.”
Deep down inside, Michael always knew his talents were a gift from God. He could never separate himself from such a strong conviction. As far as show business goes, Michael now opts for more intimate settings and can still be found singing and playing piano all over New Orleans. As for behind the scenes, his passion for writing and for the Lord has never changed. He is a twice published author, having written twenty novels. He also collaborated with acclaimed writer/ producer Robert White Johnson resulting in a Gospel Rock Opera based on the Book of Revelation as told through the eyes of John the Revelator. The production beckoned Michael to once again grace the big stage as the central character and was a huge success. It has been performed for the New York Theater Guild and at St. Louis’ prestigious Powell Symphony Hall, not to mention spending four years on Branson, MO theater stages. And when the pandemic put performances on pause, he seized the opportunity to drop a new album, Journey of a Thousand Dreams, on Rabadash Records where he also accepted the role of Vice President and Head of A&R.
From his early days to the present, I couldn’t help but draw a long-standing connection. At the age of six Michael’s first composition was Guess Who’s Coming to the End, based on his father’s sermon at the time on the Book of Revelation. And recently he collaborated to produce Isle of Dreams, a Gospel Rock Opera dealing with The Book of Revelation. Had it not been for what some might say was divine intervention at the apogee of his relationship with the Lord, his soul would not have made it back to the place where it belonged, sitting before God.
While preparing for a radio interview for a program aimed at independent musicians, I was forewarned that the host would likely ask me about Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). NFTs are supposed to be the next big thing for independent musicians like me, but I had been avoiding the subject, since it’s highly technical and drowning in jargon like “blockchain,” “smart contracts,” “distributed ledgers,” and “bonding curves.” Even the name “Non-Fungible Token” is off-putting. Why should musicians even care to learn about it? All I ever wanted to do was to write songs and perform them at a few gigs!
Anyway, not wanting to seem like a Luddite, I decided to school myself about NFTs. After some study, I concluded that an NFT serves the same function as a portable flash drive on which can be stored files like digital art, mp3s, video game items, documents, and other digital goods or links. Assuming that any of those stored digital files are rare or unique, the flash drive itself could become valuable.
But if NFTs are simply like flash drives, why do we need them? The answer is that NFTs are created using blockchain technology – like cryptocurrency – that provides a failsafe way to prove ownership of a particular digital asset and assure it cannot be altered. In contrast, the contents of a flash drive can be easily altered, and absolute ownership by any one person would be fairly difficult to prove. By imbedding that same information on an immutable blockchain, proof of ownership and identity of the contents are secure.
To see the implications, let’s say that NFTs existed back in 1952 and the Topps Candy Company minted a Micky Mantle rookie year baseball trading card not on cardboard but using an NFT. Would it today be seen as a valid collectible worth $5.2 million, just like the cardboard version? Many NFT boosters would answer yes, and that’s what has helped set off the NFT gold rush we’ve seen in the past year.
According to Chainalysis (a cryptocurrency research house), an estimated $41 billion was invested in 2021 to create new NFTs, and that amount is likely understated. That’s billions with a capital B – an amount almost as large as the entire world market for art and antiques in 2021, and more than 3 times the music industry’s total 2021 revenues for streaming, CDs, vinyl, and digital and customized radio services, combined.
The vast majority of those NFT investments so far have been in digital art, rather than music. But since music, like art, can be digitized, those eye-popping investments have grabbed the attention of many in the music industry. Depending on who you listen to, NFTs are poised to revolutionize the industry by opening up a new revenue source for musicians that will reduce their reliance on stingy streaming companies, touring, and record label payouts. On the flip side, others say NFTs are just a fad generated by the current over-the-top infatuation with cryptocurrency and will soon confirm P.T. Barnum’s observation that there’s a sucker born every minute.
Some recent attention-grabbing NFTs include one by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey who just auctioned off an NFT that links to a jpeg of his very first Tweet for $2.9 million. Another recent NFT sale that astonished even its creator (Mike Winkelmann, an artist also known as Beeple) was Christie’s auction of his NFT-linked jpeg art entitled “Everydays” for $69 million. What did the purchasers get for those millions? In the case of Dorsey’s Tweet, the purchaser received a certificate of authenticity signed by Dorsey’s @handle, but no copyright or commercial rights for the Tweet’s image were included. In the case of Beeple’s $69 million jpeg, the purchaser also seemingly did not get much – just a link to the file and some vague language about display rights.
Could these simple jpeg files actually be worth that much? It’s common wisdom that the fair market value for any item is the price agreed to by a willing buyer and a willing seller. That’s an economic fact but examples like the above have left some people questioning whether NFT sales at such astronomical prices can form the basis for a sustainable economic model.
If you were to buy the Mona Lisa, you would get a one-of-a-kind physical painting, with the original brushstrokes and pigments carefully applied by the great Leonardo DaVinci himself over 500 years ago. With a digitized piece of art or music, you get something that can be duplicated exactly digit-for-digit and is likely already widely shared on the internet, and can be downloaded anytime by anyone simply by right-clicking the image and hitting Save As. In essence, these NFT purchasers got bragging rights but not much exclusivity. It should be noted that NFTs do not actually contain any digital files – rather they contain a link to files that are stored somewhere else, a setup that raises a host of access and security issues.
Despite these questions, many recent NFT offerings have been remarkably successful and have naturally opened the floodgates to digital offerings by numerous other artists looking to cash in on the current craze – some excellent and some showing questionable talent – but most priced far higher than one might think considering that all you get is a link to file.
In the music realm, one of the earliest NFTs was created by the Kings of Leon who sold tokens for $50 each that provided a download link for their latest album, artwork and access to a limited vinyl edition, along with entry in a lottery to win VIP concert seats and other perks. The band also sold high-roller level NFTs (so-called golden tickets) that included a lifetime pass for the band’s concerts, guaranteed front row tickets and VIP treatment on every tour, and other perks. One of these “golden tickets” sold for about $160,000. The ones that did not sell were destroyed but altogether the Kings reportedly raked in some $2 million for these offerings.
Taking a slightly different approach, André Allen Anjos (also known as RAC) released 100 NFTs linked to a cassette tape of his latest album BOY. Each token (known as $TAPE) could be redeemed for a physical copy of the tape. Since the auction, those tokens have changed hands for as much as $4800. Justin Blau also known as 3LAU auctioned for $11.6 million a collection of 33 NFTs that included tokens for vinyl records, unreleased music, special experiences and an opportunity for one token holder to collaborate with 3LAU on song creation.
Other recent random NFTs include Duran Duran auctioning 100 images taken from its AI-created video for the song Invisible; Whitney Houston’s estate auctioned for $1 million a “never-before heard” demo track she recorded when she was 17 years old, along with a digital art video; Mick Jagger joined with Foo Fighter Dave Grohl to benefit a charity with an NFT auction of a new song coupled with 3D art by Oliver Latta (who goes by the name Extraweg); and Grimes made $5.8 million with some of her artwork NFTs that sold out in less than 20 minutes.
Those transactions are fascinating but an even more intriguing idea is now evolving, which takes advantage of the NFT’s ability to execute “smart contracts,” which are simple if/then contracts imbedded in the token that run when certain preset criteria are met. Using these, the creator of an NFT might automatically get a commission on subsequent resales. In that same vein, multi-platinum recording artist, Pia Mia, auctioned an NFT collection in December that included not just her new song “Whole Thing” and artwork by Ben Ditto, but also 10% of the master royalty for that song. 3LAU recently gave tokens to 333 fans entitling them to 50% of the streaming rights to his latest song, “Worst Case.” As of this writing, 3LAU’s royalty-bearing NFTs are trading in the $5000-7000 range giving them an aggregate value of over $2 million.
Hand-in-glove with the explosive growth of NFTs, we’ve seen the emergence of numerous online marketplaces – such as Opensea, Rarible, and Nifty Gateway – where people can create, showcase, buy and sell their NFTs. There are now dozens of such marketplaces with an aggregate annual trading volume in the tens of billions of dollars. Meanwhile, new types of cryptocurrencies are being launched at the rate of one per day.
For musicians, one conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that to be successful, an NFT must have some element of collectability, i.e., some scarcity, rarity, or baked-in benefit, that combines ownership with exclusivity. We do not see successful music-only NFTs, i.e., those that link solely to stand-alone digital mp3 files, precisely because mp3s are not scarce. Consider that the goal of every musician is to have their music become ubiquitous – broadcast on the radio, streamed on numerous playlists, danced to in clubs, downloaded, synched, listened to on CDs and anywhere else a song can be played. It’ll be hard to convince potential NFT buyers that an mp3 file is rare or collectible when it’s available everywhere.
Moreover, it wasn’t very long ago that the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster had 80 million registered users happily paying nothing to download music collections from other users, some of whom boldly proclaimed that music should be free. It’s going to take a lot of work and chutzpa to convince many of the same people to now pay substantial sums of money for an mp3 simply because it’s linked to an NFT that’s bundled with some artwork or a t-shirt. This may change if clever marketers can somehow tweak an mp3 to convey rarity such as by indelibly marking one as an “original file” or a “limited edition,” assuming that the marketplace will value such things. But at the moment one mp3 pretty much looks like another – unless of course it’s bundled with a bunch of other unique goodies or the promise of royalties.
A second conclusion is that average working musicians should not think that by minting an NFT it will suddenly start raining money. The headline-making NFTs yielding big bucks for their creators are pretty much the province of very successful multi-platinum Grammy winning artists, with hundreds of thousands of followers and very high profiles. These are not the common folk of the music world. Sure, lower-level artists can and will issue NFTs but stripped of all the technobabble, these more likely resemble GoFundMe campaigns, where fans support their favorite local artist by swapping dollars for t-shirts and memorabilia, except those benefits are linked to an NFT instead of a fulfillment house – basically old wine in a new bottle.
This leads me to a third and perhaps less obvious takeaway, that many NFTs are being snapped up not by fans or supporters of a particular artist, but by investors and speculators. In a review of the overall NFT market, Chainalysis found that just 9 per cent of NFT owners held 80% of the market’s value, and many of those engage in flipping to turn quick profits. Cooper Turley, the Editor of DeFi Rate, observed with respect to RAC’s cassette $TAPE NFT, “Trading at $100 just 2 hours after its release, the $20 entry price was quickly purchased in heaps by speculators, with many buying upwards of 5-10 $TAPE at a time. This was the first signal that there was no intention for the vast majority of early buyers to redeem the product. In fact, roughly 50 of the 100 total tokens were scooped up in the first minute of the offering going live.”
Finally, most of the artists who are pioneering the use of NFTs are young, hip and tech-savvy, which is also true of their fans. Given that demographic, it’s no surprise that genres like pop, EDM, dubstep, house, electro-pop, hip-hop are disproportionately overrepresented in the most successful NFT drops. Conversely, more traditional genres – blues, classic rock and country, for example – have not been on the cutting edge of the NFT boom. This has implications for old school artists who appeal to an older less tech-savvy demographic who may be more skeptical of NFTs and unwilling to tackle the technicalities of purchasing them.
Looking ahead, if we want to peer further down the NFT rabbit hole, we may see a future where many of us are supposed to be sitting around in virtual reality headsets, hanging out in virtual nightclubs, and using crypto to buy and sell NFT-based assets including virtual real estate where we display our NFT art and listen to our NFT music. That may sound like something out of the Matrix but for some it’s already here. In one online virtual world known as Sandbox, Snoop Dogg is building a virtual replica of his luxurious California home where fans can come and hang out, and someone else just paid $450,000 for some virtual land in Snoop’s vicinity.
The Sandbox will be even more crowded in the future due to companies like Adidas that purchased 144 parcels as a platform from which to market digital and physical wearables. Meanwhile Warner Music is planning a virtual music theme park where its artists can “hang out” and mix with fans, to be accompanied by a sale by Sandbox of adjacent parcels for music fans. Elsewhere, a virtual real estate developer recently put up $2.5 million to purchase a parcel in Decentraland, another virtual world. The digital asset manager company Grayscale estimates that the entire virtual real estate market may be worth more than a trillion dollars and I personally think that’s what this whole game is about – NFTs are a gateway drug that will hook people into a plethora of virtual realms that generally come under the heading of the metaverse.
It’s obvious that NFTs have been successful and profitable for some big-name entertainers in the recent past. It also seems obvious – to me anyway – that the market for NFTs is experiencing irrational exuberance and driven by speculation, with some folks paying tens of millions of dollars for digital files that can be had for nothing, through simple expedient of “right click and SAVE AS.” It also may soon be saturated.
So, what happened to my radio interview? It turns out that my conversation with the host pretty much focused on live music, studio recording and songwriting, so we never got to the subject of NFTs, and that’s pretty much the story for most of the musicians I know who also have not gravitated to the subject. In fact, there’s probably more interest in exploiting the 70-year old technology of vinyl than there is in embracing NFTs which appear to offer very little value for money to purchasers and performers alike – except for wealthy speculators and Grammy winners.
About the author
Jon Spear is an independent musician and retired public policy analyst with a law degree from American University. (He is also an alumni of Bruce Houghton’s Berklee College course of music technology).
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“I got inside of it (the tomb)… I dug down a little further, and it was about the size of a cigarette pack. It looked like the little bible you get from Sunday school. And I knew immediately what it was… I could barely read any of the words. It was weathered and in bad shape. But I read those words, that poem, and it hit me what this guy was going through.” What Levi held in his hands was actually a diary containing the last words of a man headed off to battle in the Civil War. He would go on to include this in his upcoming EP, Gettysburg.
Levi Clark grew up in Metairie, Louisiana in typical American hard-working household. They built cars, they played football, they worked on dead people, and they played music. Okay, maybe not entirely typical. But they were close knit and full of life. The youngest of five children, he began to gravitate toward music at a very early age. And there was certainly a wide variety where he was raised. Levi remembers, “My brothers were listening to Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin; there was Woodstock basically in that room. And my sisters listened to LTD, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Peabo Bryson. Mom had Coltrane and Billy Holiday. Dad had Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson, ZZ Hill, Muddy Waters.” His first experience making music was on his brother Avery’s drum set. At the age of six, he snuck into his brother’s room with the intention of figuring out what drums were all about. But with no drum sticks in site, he proceeded to break a drum head using a brush and a comb. Being a percussionist, part of the discipline his father handed down was playing Led Zeppelin IV over and over, and making Levi learn how to play the proper way, this time with actual drum sticks. “Every time I made a mistake, I got popped with a drumstick. And when this (interview) comes out, my brother Avery will find out how I learned that because he has no idea that I got my ass tore up for breaking his drum”, Levi recalled.
At family gatherings, the Clarks didn’t break out the radio. The family would bring their instruments and a live session would serve as entertainment for the occasion. With his brother Avery on drums, his other brother Ronald on bass, his step-brother Donald on keys, and his cousin Wade on guitar, the gatherings became real events. “They were kids, barely in their 20’s! And they’re back there playing Hendrix. And they’re back there playing Muddy Waters, and Sly and the Family Stone” Levi exclaimed. Music would always be a huge influence in Levi’s world as a child and even to this day. At the young age of five, he got a chance to see his father DJ at a dinner reception for his brother. And one could argue that this experience forever changed his life. The place was packed, everyone was on the dance floor. And to close out the night, his father played Who’s Loving You by the Jackson 5. Levi explained, “I had already known that Michael was my age when he sang that. And I’m watching these grown, drunk ass men belt out the words being sung by a 5-year-old. At that point it became my disease. I thought, I wish I could create something that made people move the way I saw those people move.”
With an ear for the drums, Levi would spend the rest of his life in pursuit of his new found passion. Though his first band was known by the name of Never Fall, his first gig was a sold-out show at the municipal auditorium with a band by the name of House of Dread. He was just sixteen years old. Accompanied by his two cousins, he showed up with all his gear only to find out that, unbeknownst to him, the band had hired a guy named Kufaru to replace him. Yet he didn’t cower, nor did he break. Wounded, betrayed, and dressed to the nines, Levi got on stage anyway. “It’s a live gig man”, said Levi. “Shit’s gonna happen that’s out of your control. Not everything is going to go the way you want it to happen. You just have to duck and cover and move forward.” With a hard lesson learned, he went back to playing with Never Fall which, according to Levi was a three-piece progressive rock band influenced by bands like Rush and Saga. And oddly enough, he would be using his brother Avery’s drum kit. On the bill with Big Sum, Exhibit A, and Dead Eye Dick, Levi recalls one night playing at Muddy Waters, in Uptown New Orleans. “So I’m on stage during our last song doing my Neil Peart thing, my big rock thing (insert mouth drum sounds here), you know. I hit the last note and found out that someone had put a door behind the drum riser. When I hit this last note, the centrifugal force threw me back and through the door to the outside. I had to run back inside and up on stage to close out the set.”
As Levi was well aware, paying dues came with the territory. But the common goal was always to make it to the big leagues. One time at practice, he found himself face to face with an A&R for Sony Music Group. The only thing more they wanted was a bassist and a rhythm guitar player to make the outfit complete. At the time, Levi was occasionally jamming with another band by the name of Sobriquet. From that experience, he was able to call on some friends. As Levi explained, “I contacted Michael Prado and a guy by the name of Brad Richoux. They were ready but Adam and John decided that school was more important. And they were right. John went on to be a banker or some shit but Adam went on to do work for Steve Vai.” Always moving forward, Levi would form his new band Cain immediately following.
Cain would start out playing at The Abstract on Magazine Street, and even got an opportunity to Play with Green Day before they made it big. To hear him paint the picture, Levi described The Abstract as the CBGB’s of New Orleans. “They had Dang Bruh WhY, Cain, Apostacy, Abuse played there. One of Philip Anselmo’s projects called The Satanic had played there. It was a shithole. But it was the best shithole. It was the atmosphere, the ambiance. To get any further underground you’d have to go to Haiti. But it grew. It grew like an oak.”
I wanted to shift focus a bit so I inquired about a bar in Fat City that so many people of that era used to frequent. Arguably, it was one of the most important bars for the metal scene in the greater New Orleans area. This gem was known as Zeppelin’s. With bands like Crowbar, Sevendust, Morbid Angel, Sepultura, Obituary, Anal Cunt and countess others, and often for as cheap as five bucks, you couldn’t find a better place to go see live rock music. Alongside this hotbed of talent came networking and opportunity. And Levi with his band Cain was eager to come up. He thought back to one such fortunate night playing at Zeppelin’s where his band scored a chance to perform on tour with Sevendust. “We showed up that night, played our asses off, and hit it off pretty well with Lajon. We threw all our shit in a minivan and followed them.”
Remembering a time after a particularly rough day on the job at the funeral home, Levi told me how he came to meet his now guitarist and closest friend, Trey Heflin, at the Ski Lodge in Fat City. “I drive up with my entire 10-piece drum kit packed into my Nissan Pulsar, don’t ask me how. But I get in there and standing on the bar, smoking, drinking, doing shots is Trey Heflin. We had played with his band called Genocide at the time. And about a month after that gig we got a call from The Abstract to go do a gig at the New Orleans Music Hall. (We played with) MeJack, Gwar, and Rawg. That was insane. Genocide would end up being Cain’s brother band. We would play around town with them. I haven’t left that dude’s side since.”
Albeit small, the metal scene was very interconnected at the time. Sometimes, the same guys you heard on the local radio station that day were the same guys you saw in the bar that night. And Levi’s experiences were no exception. “I was at Last Stop one night when I actually got a chance to hear the Down’s album NOLA record demo there. Philip (Anselmo) had gone in there some time after midnight when the crowd had thinned. I heard Temptations Wing, Underneath Everything, and Eyes of the South. I said to Philip, ‘man I don’t know if you know it man but that’s some bad ass shit.’ That was the first time I actually saw Last Stop…. Stop.”
As a current member of not one but two bands, Misled and Southern Brutality, he’s somehow found time to cultivate a new sonic venture. Levi’s latest project, 1016, is named for the address of the house he grew up in, where his love and obsession for music began. Resonating an influence of blues from his mother and his father, he maintains that 1016’s style is raw, uncontrived and unpretentious. His vision is to see it fester into a disease that will infect as many people as possible. (That ought to trip a few Covid algorithms) Following 1016’s eminent EP, Gettysburg, their first album will come. And they hope to spawn a tour shortly thereafter. When asked about his vision for the band, he cited no one particular direction, literally. “I’ll put it to you like this. The same vision that Robert Johnson had, the same vision Leadbelly had; they had no vision. They just did it.”
Whether it be visions or messages, both can be found hidden in the sounds coming through your speakers. Levi pointed out one such message conveyed through the power in 1016’s melodies. “The reason why we’re tuned to C and still playing the blues shit is to show people you don’t have to be blast heavy. The technique I’m using is a blues technique; the call and response technique. And the reason I do it tuned like this is to get rid of that whole death core, metal core, blues core… whatever you want to call that shit. It’s called Rock and Roll man.”
Take that all-important step to enter the 18th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards). Door closes soon, ends next week… Enter Online Now >>
Fellow Musician,
It’s time for you to enroll in the 18th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards) now. IAMA promotes excellence in Acoustic Music Performance and Artistry. Acoustic artists in various genres can gain exciting radio and web exposure through this competition. Participating sponsors include Acoustic Cafe and Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Win prizes in 8 different categories: Best Male Artist, Best Female Artist, Best Group/Duo, Folk, Americana/Roots/AAA, Instrumental, Open (any musical style or genre), Bluegrass/Country,. There will also be an Overall Grand Prize winner awarded to the top winner worth over US$11,000, which includes radio promotion to over 250 radio stations in US and Canada.
Why Enter?
• IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards), the preeminent musician awards will strategically and smoothly increase your music industry exposure. You could give your musicianship a boost by entering Best Male Artist, Best Female, Group, etc.
The Powerful 18th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards) has provided unknown musicians such as Meghan Trainor from obscurity to international super stardom, she hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, Billboard 200 Album Charts and won a Grammy for Best New Artist. Just turn on Top 40 radio and you will hear any of her hit songs.
• If you’re not sure what Acoustic Music Awards is, that’s fine. At one time many music acts didn’t know what it was either…same with many of the past winners. However, being in its 18th year really means something.
It could be the all-important key that will lead to bigger opportunities you should have been earning a long time ago.
Hear What People Are Saying:
“I am very excited and surprised to win” ~ Meghan Trainor, 6th Annual IAMA Best Female Artist Winner. She hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Charts, won a Grammy Award 2 years ago for Best New Artist. Her debut single is one of the best selling debut singles of all time, selling over 15 million copies and hitting #1 in 58 different countries, becoming a global household name.
“I am thrilled and honored to be recognized. It’s also inspiring that my song “Put the Gun Down” that addresses such a pressing issue in a personal way, can have an impact and win this award“ ~ Jonatha Brooke, Top winner of the 15th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards)
“I was fortunate enough to win the Grand Prize at the International Acoustic Music Awards. That was unforgettable. The people there hooked me up with gear I would never have been able to afford. I’m so grateful …” ~ Jack Newsome, 2015 Top Winner
“Wonderful and thrilled by the award” ~ Bertie Higgins & the Bellamy Brothers, 2016 Best Folk Winner, both multi-Platinum music artists with #1 hits such as “Key Largo” and “Let Your Love Flow”.
“I’d like to thank the IAMA for the honor of this award. It’s nice to know that there are still nice surprises around the bend on this long winding path of a career. I love a good song — writing them, hearing them by other people, and sharing them that seems to fit into the mission of IAMA. Thanks for reminding me I’m on the right track still!” ~ Ellis Paul, Top winner of the 16th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards)
“Kudos to IAMA for giving artists a chance to be heard and to build a career they may otherwise not have had” ~ Diane Stilwell, musician
“This is an excellent achievement for you and your winners, this also shows what a great competition the International Acoustic Music Awards is. Congratulations to both Meghan and the IAMA” ~ Cameron Ingram, singer-songwriter
*[DEADLINE APPROACHING] Hurry, enter by November 5th or earlier. Winning songs will be on the Acoustic Music Compilation CD and radio!
Don’t confuse this competition with the traditional reality TV show music competitions you’re used to be getting over the years like American Idol, the Voice and X-Factor.
Your music DOES get listen to, period.
They’re simply the value you’ll get by entering the 18th Annual IAMA….
Still waiting to enroll? You will be making a bigger impact if you do…. don’t wait till the last minute!
Jessica Brandon Artist Relations, IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards)
P.S.: Take action – register now! To save time, you may enter online with your songs on YouTube, Soundcloud, or Reverbnation. It only takes seconds to upload your songs and profile! P.P.S.: But you must enter by November 5th 11.59pm, or earlier. Don’t miss out… Enter Online Now >>
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Day breaks, and the landscape has changed. Anonymous, sub-cultural ambassadors left calling cards ten feet wide in the middle of the night. Seldom seen in the act, their swagger reads on walls like the proclamation of a boss. And any place can get it. Mops, rattle cans, even backloaded extinguishers; the top dog figures out a way. You can miss them slipping through fences and scaling walls in the strangest of places. One such place, the Market Street Power Plant, is a stunning example. Built in 1905, and abandoned in 1973, this steel mammoth has become the best unknown gallery in New Orleans. A multitude of graffiti styles cover nearly every surface within it. COUCH, ESCAPE, EKSA, YESAH, BEANO, GEYETTO, HYPHE, KELTR, REZNOR, ENOK, DUKY, KONQR, HOER…. These kids get up. And regardless of your overall stance on graffiti, you can’t help but respect the craft.
Within earshot of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the building was purchased for $10 million back in 2007. From there it was tied up in litigation and sold again in 2015. Between the two properties, a 47-acre development has heavy machinery scraping the earth clean by day to prepare for a 1,200-room hotel, 1,400 residential units, and various tourist attractions. You wouldn’t know it by its appearance, but the area known as the Trade District is apparently worth something.
Definitive monetary value is not hard to arrive at when dealing with commodities that are accepted in society. “Experts” in the field establish a bar, and everyone else presumes it to be fact. Words and phrases are repeated, becoming trends, and the sheep will follow. I once saw a program where ten art experts were called in to interpret and rate various works of art by artists whose names would not be revealed to them. The experts spent some time discussing their interpretation of each piece and placing a value on them one by one. The majority were impressed by these works. In the end, it was revealed that every work before them was created by a kindergartener. I could not have been more pleased.
Art is such a personal experience. The artist reveals his or her thoughts and feelings visually. Emotions are conveyed on another plane, through a different language. At the Market Street Power Plant, graffiti artists have graced forgotten halls with secluded synapse. Ten dollars or ten million, the structure itself is a display of how what is accepted and established in society can, and will inevitably be, absolute. In all its magnificence it is still finite. But the culture of graffiti art will never die. And challenging the system is this culture’s life blood. How apropos it is that you find fresh thoughts and feelings plastered across the face of such degraded majesty.
I feel fortunate to have been able to capture these images with R504 and share my experience with you. And to those graffiti artists who were kind enough to bomb this shack, THANK YOU!! Neworleansmusicians.com supports you. If any bands out there want a bad ass backdrop for their next music video, contact us and we may be able to put you in touch. And if any of you graffiti artists ever want to do an interview, anonymously of course, e-mail us at neworleansmusicians@yahoo.com.
Ever since my boy Devin ran it down to me, my mantra has been this: “I try to take a cigarette break every hour, on the hour”. Of course, he was talking about where I could find him while we were at work. But I thought to myself, I think I’ll adopt that modus operandi and apply it to life in general. I tend to implement a real “take it or leave it” approach to things. And for the most part, society doesn’t make sense to me (this will become apparent to you in future rants). I’m here with Neworleansmusicians.com for several reasons. First and foremost, I love music; the passion, the grit, the ability to make a connection without saying a word. And I love New Orleans. There’s just no other place like it on earth. If I had to move out of this state, you could stab me. If I had to move north of the Mason Dixon line, you might as well just shoot me. I’ve seen Narnia, and fuck that. I don’t have to go that far to find mounds of white powder. Anyway, my intentions are true. I tend to rant at times. And honestly, I think that’s why they signed me on here. But I intend to give it to the readers raw dog, like I already know y’all don’t have an STD. I don’t want a following, but I do want people to feel me. I’m not flashy, but I am loud. If you see me out, be prepared to drink, or fuck, or fight. In my opinion, the bands in New Orleans, and the surrounding areas for that matter, are due a lot more credit. I really think this site is going to help deliver it to them. And hell, even if it doesn’t, it’s free! I want to see bands coming together on here with fans. This is not some giant corporate worldwide bucket for local bands in which to be a drop. This is a soap box for US. And it’s a chance for local bands to actually make a connection with their fan base and do for self. So, to the bands I say, come hither! Sell your merch, book your own shows and tours, peruse NOM’s directory and DIY! This is what it’s all about…the experience of making it. I’ll be here on the sidelines, with a bucket of popcorn, some 3D glasses, and something loud like a bullhorn or something. If any bands out there want to score an interview and some free press, NOM is accepting e-mail submissions at neworleansmusicians@yahoo.com. And by submission, I mean send them something good man; a back story, and a link to your music. I guess that’s about it kiddos. So, yeah, this is me…. Howdy!
