Chris Yong » Musician & Band

How to launch a rock super group

Chris — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:30 +0000

There is a new rock super group on the horizon made up of drummer Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), vocalist and guitarist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age & other bands) and bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin).

They are calling themselves Them Crooked Vultures and have started creating a bit of stir without an album, without a record label and mainly just using the internet!

You can read more about this story at WebInkNow.com

Iron Maiden: Flight 666 movie review

Chris — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:55:03 +0000

This movie documents the first leg of Iron Maiden’s most ambitious tour ever, the ‘Somewhere Back In Time’ world tour 2008. In 45 days they play 23 sold out shows that span 13 countries in Asia, Australia and North, Central and South America.

For two whole hours, you are given an Access All Areas pass to what it’s like on the road touring with Iron Maiden as they board Ed Force One for the first time not knowing whether the plane will actually take off with 12 tonnes of gear plus 70 crew, through to playing shows for the first time ever in South America and giving metal fans the experience of a lifetime they never ever thought would happen ie. Iron Maiden playing in their ‘asshole’ country as one fan put it.

There is plenty of behind the scenes footage revealing what the band got up to before and after shows, as well as how they passed the time on days off which include playing golf, tennis and time in the studio when they weren’t confined to their hotel rooms.

You also get to hear from all the band members about what they think of their band mates. By the end of this movie, you feel like you know the band almost personally.

What I got out of the movie is how down to earth all these guys are at the end of the day despite their phenomenal success. They don’t take anything for granted and truly live to give each show they play the very best they can because their fans deserve that much from them.

This movie is an absolute must see whether you are a Maiden fan or not. The madness, the mayhem and the inspiration of a world class touring rock band is captured so at least everyone now has the chance to partially experience a day in the life of a touring rockstar!

More movie info available at www.ironmaiden.com/flight666/

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NIN iPhone application – Trent Reznor’s latest cutting edge idea

Chris — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:11:50 +0000

Trent Reznor is one of those remarkable musicians who has fully embraced the internet and what it can be truly capable of. He let go of the traditional record label music business model years ago and since then has been doing what he can to move forward.

His latest innovation is he’s developed a Nine Inch Nails iPhone application which is truly something else!

You really do have to see how he’s taken web 2.0 to another level to help build a nurture his own community amongst Nine Inch Nails fans.

Read more about it and watch the video on the Nine Inch Nails iPhone application.

John Mellencamp’s thoughts on the current music industry

Chris — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:46:25 +0000

John Mellencamp’s perspective on the current climate of the music industry is very interesting to say the least. He recently made a blog post over at the Huffington Post where he goes into great detail on how the music industry has progressively dug itself into the current state.

As an artist for 35 years, he’s seen the music industry go from nurturing artists to being completely being about the bottom dollar that can be made.

He states “If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other’s problems.”

Read On My Mind: The State of the Music Business by John Mellencamp

Heated music industry debate between Gene Simmons and Bob Lefsetz

Chris — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:53:06 +0000

Here is a very interesting video of a recent music industry debate where rock star Gene Simmons of KISS fame takes on online music industry critic Bob Lefsetz.

Old school music promotion thinking versus new school? You decide.

The Musician’s New Career Perspective

Chris — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:42:02 +0000

The business model major label’s use to use for the last two decades is no longer proving to be effective.

Instead of going after the mass market, focus on really developing and building your niche.

That’s what Bob Baker suggests and it makes a lot of sense.

Read more about it in his post Recalibrate your Music Career

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Twitter Roadmap For Musicians

Chris — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:00:17 +0000

I had a couple of previous posts introducing you to Twitter and why you should use it.

Ariel Hyatt at Cyber PR has a Musicians Twitter Roadmap blogpost which should help give you some direction as to how artists can effectively start using Twitter.

For the record, you can start following myself at http://twitter.com/chrisyong.

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Musician’s Guide To The New Look Facebook

Chris — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 01:00:26 +0000

I came across a very handy guide for musicians about the new look facebook from Ariel Hyatt at Cyber PR the other day.

Facebook initially didn’t have artist pages when it first started but now they do and you can add apps to them also.

Ariel’s blog post highlights how to quickly set up your own Facebook artist page as well as some of the more useful apps you can add to it.

Check it out: The New Facebook – A Musicians Guide

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Book Review: Music Success In Nine Weeks by Ariel Hyatt

Chris — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:00:06 +0000

I found this ‘Music Success In Nine Weeks‘ to be quite an informative and valuable read.

The author Ariel Hyatt runs her own business Cyber PR that specialises in providing online PR services for independent artists so she knows a thing or two about promoting an artist online.

Each ‘week’ in this book really is an aspect that you should look into and incorporate as part of your overall online promotion and marketing strategy as an artist.

The first week is about getting you to think why you are an artist and about setting tangible goals for you to always aim for and hit.

The second week gets you to think about and craft your elevator pitch for your music. This was one of the most insightful sections of the book for me as most musicians always struggle to convincingly answer the question “So what does your music sound like?”

You need to be able to concisely describe what you do to someone who may never have heard you before, make it sound compelling and pique interest.

Week three is about optimising your website so it is actually useful and not just a pointless use of webspace ie. capturing the details of visitors

In week four, Ariel explains four web 2.0 resources that finds invaluable for cyber promotion.

Week five is about how to effectively use your mailing list that you should be building and encourages the use of a regular newsletter rather than random email every once in a while.

In Week six, we learn of some effective methods to help build your mailing list.

Week seven is about other creative ways you can get people onto mailing list through some offline methods.

Now week eight was a very informative section for myself too. Most of the time, we think the only things we can sell are cds and tickets to live shows to our fans. This section is about expanding the products you can potentially sell to boost your income as an artist, where you provide various products and services of higher increasing value to your fans.

Last but not least, week nine contains some valuable tips on traditional PR, how to create a good press kit and how to format a proper press release. Ariel also provides tips on how to be your own publicist.

There is a lot of useful content in this book targeted towards the musician who wishes to take control of their promotional activities specialising in online methods.

Yet another useful resource for the artist that wishes to take control of their own music career and not have to rely on a record label to pick them up and do everything for them!

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Are You Using Twitter For Band Promotion?

Chris — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:00:32 +0000

Twitter is one of those newer web 2.0 things that a lot of people don’t know about or unsure of as compared to say something like Myspace or Facebook.

I’ve also heard from other people that Twitter should definitely be looked into as another useful promotional tool.

I came across this really interesting blogpost the other day about using Twitter for Music Promotion.

Check it out, it’s a good read!

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