A heavy hitter in the Australian and NZ country music scene, Don Allen’s, Old Guitar, is now #1 on Australia’s Root’s Chart. Recently Don partnered with Musik Radio Promotions for worldwide radio campaign.

Don’s music career began at the tender age of 11 and from there he has gone on to carve an enviable reputation within the entertainment industry.

That big velvety voice of his earned him numerous awards as well as many television and radio appearances throughout Australasia. Don’s talent was widely recognised in many parts of the entertainment industry so much so that he was approached by the production company for the New Zealand production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” to play the role of “Judas”. This was a very successful production and tour of New Zealand and Don’s performances earned him an abundance of accolades.

Shortly after, Don moved to Sacramento, California. Again the success was forthcoming. More television appearances were had and numerous headlining performances at live shows. After a successful stint in the USA Don moved to Australia. There he released his first full album “Let It Be Me” . He was quickly signed by USA label “Comstock Records” who took the album on a very successful campaign throughout Europe where to this day songs from that album are still being spun. Don released a further two successful albums “For The Life Of Me” and “One For The Road”

After four successful decades in the industry Don is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, 2014 will see Don embark on the release of what is touted to be his best album ever.  “Only Time Will Tell” Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee with the professional and extremely talented team at CMG Records comes 12 amazing original tracks penned by Don and also some very seriously talented writers and musicians.

Don has pulled out all the stops for this album. Not only has he been recorded by that amazing team at CMG who have also given the first song released from the album “Old Guitar” a great head start with some radio play and interviews etc but he has also brought in some big hitters to promote this single to worldwide radio. Extremely successful US indie label Musik and Film will be implementing their far reaching radio promotions campaign for “Old Guitar”.

2014…and “The Don” seems destined for success again.

Big Rome  and Musik Radio Promotions recently parternered to begin a worldwide radio campaign for the single, Strictly4Radio.  It  has now been  featured on  Yo Raps, Europe’s No. 1 Online Magazine!

W.K. Jerome Higgs is his birth name. He was born in a small town in Southern Missouri. He moved with his mom to Arkansas back in 1985 where life got in the way of dreaming for better things. Getting involved in street politics landed him in the Department of Corrections for 3 years.

Upon his release, he found a new purpose and a new focus. He started a new movement with his mentor, T. Rodgers. Their vision was to teach kids to stay out of street gangs and to learn how to love themselves. Big Rome joined a community Masonic organization known as Spring Grove Masonic Lodge #305 in his community.

The entertainment industry knows him as Big Rome, a man of many talents. Being a member of the Famous Poets Society has bought him wins in their annual poetry contest, In 2002 winning poet of the year & in 2003 winning honorable mention. He is an amazing writer and rapper, being able to put his life story into a swag and a funk that your body automatically moves to. He has seen success with music placements in T.V./Films/Video Games ect. He is definitely an artist to watch.

“Music Is My Passion” Says Big Rome. Don’t Expect For Him To Stop No Time Soon!

The  Mona Lisa Twins debuted at #1 in the UK and #20 globally on the ECMA Charts.  Musik Radio Promotions began a global campaign of their single, The Wide Wide Land, and immediately began receiving an enormous amount of airplay.

The MonaLisa Twins, with 19 year old twin girls named Mona and Lisa being the core of the band, are one of the very few modern groups who write original songs in the 60’s Beat music tradition, reviving the genre with a fresh twist without sounding pop-ish or trivial. On their debut album “When We’re Together” (2012) they present finest Rock ‘n’ Roll and Beat music, skillfully venturing out in Psychedelic, Folk and even Latin genres, inspired by the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel.

Their signature features are polyphonic harmonies and a wiry, bright guitar sound. The even mix of fun and depth in their music and lyrics brings back the spirit of this time and therefore speaks to a wide range of international audiences, especially on the Anglo-American music markets. They’ve already played lots of live-shows, and their high quality music videos have garnered a total of over 2 million views and thousands of subscribers on YouTube and Facebook so far.

The Mona Lisa Twins have received amazing reviews:

“The likes of Bob Dylan or Sir Paul McCartney wouldn’t turn down performing one of these songs“
Music News

“These girls have some great things ahead of them if this is what they are capable of at 19. The Next Big Thing? The Mona Lisa Twins“
Soletron

“I was pretty shocked after hearing the guitar playing on their album „When We‘re Together“ that these two cute Austrian girls are only 19. The guitar work is more intricate than what was on the radio during the sixties. Their strength is their songwriting, their voices are never over emote and stay honest in their inflections.“
Hiplanta Music Blog

“The MonaLisa Twins are bringing back the POP in pop. They present pop the way it used to be: sweet, harmonic, with easy breezy lyrics that are impossibly catchy. The two have managed to capture the essence of what art is and what it means to people.“
Celebrity VIP Lounge

“Big things could be on the horizon for the MonaLisa Twins, because at 19, they are already accomplished musicians and have a firm direction for their music. Harmonies seem to come natural to them and if they continue to write slick, catchy pop songs that you can tap your feet to, then there’s no reason why they can’t keep the sound of the 60s alive for a good time to come.“
What Culture

Their signature features are polyphonic harmonies and a wiry, bright guitar so MonaLisa Twins – Press Quotes

“The likes of Bob Dylan or Sir Paul McCartney wouldn’t turn down performing one of these songs“
Music News

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As an Indie Artist, you want to make a living out of your music which means going into business for yourself.  All business has to advertise or no one would know they exist and would not have any business.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) says on it’s website, “When you hear a song on the radio — this didn’t just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive.”

The same goes for you as an indie artist. You may have the best music in the world, but unless you advertise no one will know you exist.  In this case your advertising budget includes going to radio – which is still the most viable way to get heard and to be able to tour.

Any business that advertises receives leads. Unless they follow up on their leads they will not make the most of their advertising. The same goes for your music.

How does an indie artist get leads?

There are many radio promotions services that use different methods to get a track to radio stations. In the case of Musik Radio Promotion campaigns, the artist receives a “real time” link to check for radio stations that have downloaded the track for airplay. The radio stations are your “leads”.

How does an indie artist make the most of their leads?

(1)    This is a process that takes 3-4 radio promotion campaigns a year. One release will not endear an artist to the stations’  PDs.

(2)   Use the radio promotion reports to find the radio stations contact information. Contact the stations that are playing you and thank them.

(3)  Offer the stations’ radio liners, radio interviews and most importantly, offer to send them a dozen promo give- away cds. Radio likes to offer their listening audience  “give- aways”. To give your cds away, they play you more, mention who you are more and increase your exposure. Once you have done this you are that radio station’s friend.

(4)  Once you make a friend, ask the stations that are playing you who their advertising venues are. Get their contact information. Call and email those venues. Tell them you are playing on xyz radio station in their town and want to come to their town to perform.

(5)   Inform the radio stations know you are going to do this and they will back you because if the venue hires you the venue will hire them to advertise the performance. This will get you even more exposure on that radio station. Radio will love you because they got the venues advertising dollars because of you. You get a performance date that is well advertised and a radio station that is playing your music and supporting you. Most likely when you go to perform you will have a full house of people who came to see you.

(6)  You will sell merchandise, gain fans and if you do a good performance be asked to come back again. Everyone wins

A smart artist will not be under the illusion  the world will embrace them with open arms. The artist will understand that no matter how good they may be, radio is not going to play your music unless you market to them, giving them business reasons why they should play it.

This will not make you a superstar overnight, but it will build your business as you continue to promote yourself.

The Poor Musician Gets Poorer

Does Sony or Apple give their products for free?

It was a cold dark rainy night when a fleet of tractor trailers backed up to Sony’s and Apple’s warehouse and loaded up every computer. Then they put up a big ad everywhere that read – free computers – Sony and Apple were enraged. They demanded justice. Their warehouses had been robbed of it’s entire inventory.

Once upon a time, Sony and Apple and every other company on earth that offer digital streaming thought it would be a wonderful idea to break into every musician’s warehouse, load up all their music that had costs the musicians thousands of dollars to create, then put up a big sign and gave all the musicians inventory away.

Now ask yourself – what is the difference – giving away free computers or free music?  It is still an end product that has cost money to create that was stolen.

Does Sony or Apple give their products away free?

I have been in this business for over 3 decades and thought I have seen it all but I guess not. I have been in the music business most of my life. I was with a major label in the 80’s. I still am a writing and performing musician.

I got into digital distribution at its inception well over a decade ago. At first, no one paid any attention to digital music. Everyone wanted a cd. But after a few years into digital, it became a viable source of income for Indie artists.

For years I had a good digital income along with many other artists. I know many who made a good living off their digital sales. No one ever asked my permission to allow my music to be streamed and given away; or if I wanted to be paid $.000023 cents a listen. So what gave any of the services the right to stream my or anyone else’s music? I agreed to be digitally distributed and for my music to be sold – not to be streamed for free. Harvard Law calls streaming, “piracy”, and it is just that.

How would Apple or Sony like it if someone other than them decided to give away free computers? They would scream like Banshees. It cost them money to manufacture those computers. Well it costs musician’s money to record their music. Then they try to sell us this misconception,  “Look at the exposure for your music”. The same applies to them give a few thousand computers away and “Look at the product exposure”.

I had heard rumors that the majors said that they welcomed streaming because it leveled the playing field for them. That indie artists were becoming a threat. Who gets the minute airplay royalties? Not the artists. Who’s making money? Not the artists.

What’s going to happen is no one will pay to record their music because it is just stolen from them anyhow. Then there will be no more new music,  because of greed and control. Once again, the Indie artist is squashed making the poor musician poorer.

Contributed by Stephen Wrench.  Stephen has been in the music industry over 30 years as a singer/songwriter with a major label and indie artist, a label executive, producer, manager and now owner of Musik and Film Records.

“All I want, is everything”, proclaims Julia J Starr Ortega.  Ortega is on her way to getting “everything” as her release of first single, “So Sick”, with Musik Radio Promotions campaign has already been picked up by Disney Radio.

“So Sick” is the first single release from upcoming album “The Origin” In her single, Julia admits that most of her lyrics derive from personal experiences and developing a connection with pop culture.

The Pittsburgh native discovered her musical talents at the ripe age of six years old, while growing up in sunny Central Florida where both parents inspired her to explore all genres of music.  Now at 16 years old, Julia happily confessed “I write my own songs and I can write for hours”.  Julia looks forward to collaborating with other talented artist and building her brand. If you ask anyone who knows Julia and they will tell you Beyonce is number one on her favorite female vocalist list, followed by Demi Lovato and Jojo.

For many artists, providing listeners with a great beat to rock is idealistic, but Julia is motivated by vision and becoming legendary. “I intend to help others, inspire others, and create a world through music that teens and young adults can use as an escape from life’s challenges, at least for a little while”, Julia states.

Julia is now continuing her work on perfecting her album “the Origin”.

Courtesy of Indie on the Move

**Guest post written by David Priebe of Green Room Music Source, a full time agent/artist manager and also part time instructor of music business at the Institute of Production & Recording in Minneapolis.

“It’s official- it’s now impossible to make money in the music industry.”

There are scads and scads of articles and commentary that sound a lot like that statement. What you hear much less about are the people who completely disagree with that sentiment. I’m in that camp, and I’m going to tell you why. 

When I was in high school contemplating a career in music, I would frequent the local music store and pawn shops that had guitars and dork out over the gear. Every once and a while I’d bump into this coked-out sound guy who’d lurk around the same places. He’d come out of nowhere and warn me not to get into the music business like a haggard sailor always making foreboding statements about the devilish sea. That was 1995. Being young and ambitious, I paid him no mind.

Through the years, I’ve run into many other people who have shared similar sentiments with me. Some of them veterans of the industry who got out, but most are people who tried and failed or had rather brief stays in the music business. Sometimes people who left long ago look at the way things are and wonder how people still make money. I’ve been working here and there in music since I left high school, but it wasn’t my primary source of income until after the digital revolution- so I don’t have a huge basis for comparison, but I do know I’m seeing a measure of success right now. I’ll tell you what I attribute that to- Really, it’s simple. It’s all business. Here are a few simple guidelines you can follow to stay out of trouble: Plan, expect change, and make smart decisions. (and I know how lack luster and basic that sounds, but it’s simple things like that that are behind the failure of most business regardless of industry.)

Before you look at how to make money, let’s look at the state of the industry. Is there demand and consumption of music? Yes. In fact, there’s more consumption of music now than there ever has been thanks to the ‘treacherous’ internet. But, is there still money being made? Yes. In fact, in 2012 global revenue was 16.6 billion dollars. While that’s down slightly overall, there were rises in some places in the industry such as synch revenue and even digital sales. So if the market is still demanding music and there is still a lot of money being made, then it would stand to reason that there must be a way for you to go out there and claim a piece of that pie, right?

Shrinking revenue isn’t something encouraging to most people, especially not when you presume that means that it will continue to shrink until it reaches zero and musicians spend thousands of their own dollars to entertain as slave labor- but that’s simply not realistic. People enjoy music, and they still are willing to pay to enjoy it. However, their ideas of how to value certain products have changed to a degree.

So let’s start back at the beginning; you want to have a career in the music industry, what are you going to do to make money? …specifically that is. You want to be an artist? What’s your business plan (and a business plan doesn’t always need to be a 50 page formal document) for how you’re going to get where you want to go? If you’re internal response to those sentences is “who, what?” or “this is boring” you’re probably not going to do that well. Too many artists wait until they’ve been playing for years unsuccessfully before they start worrying about the fact that they’re not making any money, or gaining ground on their career. Then they start panicking, or conclude the industry is fixed against everyone and there was no way to win in the first place. Well… if that’s the case, it would be smart to do a little digging and figure that out before wasting all your time. Fortunately it’s not true. Bring this back to basics again for a second 

Anyone with any kind of background in business will tell you that things changing is the fundamental constant in the business world. People who don’t expect it, predict it, anticipate and prepare for it have no control, whatsoever, over their business’s future. Music isn’t the exception, and it’s not even the poster child, it’s just an industry like any other. It’s, of course, smart to repeat successful ideas and hope for similar results, but I think it’s incredibly dangerous for rely on the repeating of ideas to bring continued success. In fact, the saying, ‘If you’re not moving forwards, you’re moving backwards,’ is more than rhetoric. The growth and expansion of a business should always be the primary goal, but it’s also the thing that keeps them from failing. This is how major labels shrank and why there are more and more successful indie labels. The former banked on owning the blueprints for how the business operated. They were so greedy that when things changed, rather than finding new avenues to replace revenue, they fought to preserve the old ones. But you can’t tame the market (at least not completely.) Indie labels have been successful because they embraced the changes, understood them, and, most importantly, built businesses that were limber and could change again quickly if needed.

Finally, the most obvious and least recognized fundamentally good idea in music: make good decisions. People, especially musicians, can quickly get blinded by their obsession to succeed and make horrible decisions. Big and small. Once you’ve made a plan you should have short-term and long-term goals for your band, business, or career. Every single decision – every one – should be a part of reaching one of those goals. If it’s not, don’t do it. Likewise, every business takes risks, but you need to make sure you limit your expose to things that can be harmful to your goals. Look at something with a critical eye and ask how likely it is that the risk will pay off, and how big will that payoff be? If it doesn’t work out, how much will that failure damage the business?

And, if you’re thinking that all of this general information is great, but doesn’t tell you exactly how to still make money in music then you’re missing the point. If you legitimately can’t figure out a way to make money in music than you shouldn’t invest in a career here. Too many musicians think that making the music is their only job. Hopefully you’ll get to a place where that is your only job, but until then you’ll need to be a jack of several trades, including the trade of being a businessman/woman. If you don’t have any business acumen and you have no one else to rely on- then go get some. Intern with someone who does have a good grasp on those things, or go to school, or hire someone to consult with you…

The music industry has always been incredibly hard to break into at all levels. It’s a “glamour” industry. That’s one thing that isn’t likely to change. What I mean by that is there are a disproportionate number of people who want a roll in the industry just for the sake of being able to reap the rewards people expect from a business like this- fame, glory, power, bragging rights… sex, drugs, and rock and roll… And people are willing to put up with just about anything to get what they want. (But, while being persistent is great, it’s not the same thing as being smart.) This isn’t anything new at all, and it doesn’t mean the industry is in a state of collapse.

Here’s the thought I’d like to leave you with. I hear more and more about people not bothering to print CDs or even try to sell them. People are spending money to record great music and then giving it all away online as “promotion.” This is the worst idea I’ve ever come across. If you want to give away some music, do as you will- things like Spotify and Rhapsody are close enough for me. But even if you do, still leave an avenue for people to pay you if they want to. That’s the one thing that the sales numbers don’t tell you. Lady Gaga’s sales numbers from Walmart going down likely has zero relevancy for your career. There’s not much reason that your band can’t sell the same number (or more) as last year or the year before- because you’ll sell them at live shows, and the people who buy them are doing so specifically because they want to support your music. If you play shows all the time and no one ever buys anything… the state of the industry isn’t your biggest problem.

– See more at: Indie on the Move