I did a bad bad thing.....

I have a confession to make.

In a moment of weakness, I have entered a competition....

To make it worse it has “Unsigned” in the title.

Yes, yes I know but it looked so pretty and Jo Whiley is involved!!

It’s the “Orange Unsigned Act” competition, Mrs Nick and I sat and watched it last year, it was part of our Sunday mornings dammit! This year they are opening it up to singer/songwriters. I may rant later about That tag!

The prize being, I feel as ashamed as Fern Britain munching a hob nob, a record contract a fucking record contract!!

I don’t even want a fucking record contract, honest I don’t.

Ok, cards on the table. I am a middle aged white male. I write songs, good songs. I play guitar, pretty well ok pretty fucking well. I sing, I have been told I have a great voice, I KNOW I have a great voice, if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to stand up in front of a room full of strangers and perform. The only way I will ever bother the charts is if someone else sings one of my songs. I’m very ok with that as the idea of fame and celebrity appals me. I DO want to make a living out of music don’t get me wrong, but on my terms. I want to write for other people, play on people’s songs, and produce other people. I do not want a record contract so it is pure folly to enter the competition.

However

However, what I did think was that it wouldn’t do me any harm to get a little publicity. If I made it through to the TV stage I may sell a few cds, perhaps get asked to do a session or two, get some nice paid gigs, so don’t judge me as harshly as I do.

It all seamed so simple, create a little profile, load up some songs, get through the voting stage, audition and then THEN appear on television TELEVISION I TELLS YA!!!

Here, my dears, is the rub.

Here is where everything is stacked in the teen bands favour although the website, nay Jo Whiley herself, is very keen to include singer songwriters.

This is how it SHOULD work. Punters, that is you dear dear people, go on to my page on the Orange Unsigned webpage and vote for me, in an easy and stress free way. Click on a little box or sum such. Then, all the votes are counted up and the ones that have the most go through to the next round. Yeah?

No.

Before Peter Punter can do anything he has to create a profile of his own.

To expedite this he has to supply his email address to where a confirmation email is sent. He then has to activate his profile by clicking on the link in the email.

With me so far?

Next, he browses some of the 600 or so acts on the website. He can go straight to mine but no body is going to do that unless they know me.

Once he finds an artist that he likes he then selects of their tunes and clicks on a button that adds that track to his “mixtape”.

Yes “mixtape”

Punters as well as acts build up a mixtape of different artists and the artists that appear in the majority of mixtapes would seam to make it through to the next round.

Innovative?

Clever?

Well

What I have found is that there are many punters types with their mixtapes but they all tend to feature one artist i.e. the band that they are in.

Acts like me, there are many, don’t generally have hoards of fans/friends that are web savvy enough to jump through the hoops one has to jump through to be able to vote on this shit heap of a site. Most of my friends don’t have myspace, read blogs (bastards!), and subscribe to anything other than the local newspaper every week. They don’t like giving their email addresses (if they even have one and even if they do never check them, bastards!) for fear of some anonymous hacker stealing their soul. So the chances of me registering more than one vote (thanks Mrs Nick) are pretty slim to nothing.

I will post a linky badge thing so you can go and have a look but I won’t blame you if you don’t bother, honest I won’t

And I promise I won’t do anything so foolish again…..honest…

If you don't how can you expect.....

So how many independent artists do YOU listen to?

So you’ve got your myspace page, Facebook profile, Ilike perhaps even your own website. You have pictures of your beautiful self, mp3s of your songs, news of where and when you are playing.

Then what do you do?

You email all your friends, then you email people that aren’t your friends, then you email everyone that’s left telling them how wonderful your music is and how great you are and how much you’re looking forward to seeing them at your gigs.

After the initial traffic has dies down, you make a few changes. Some new pictures, MP3s and a few new gigs. Email the world once again. Then wait…….wait …..

Then you learn about Meta tags. These are those little keywords you can attach so that when people do searches, your site will appear.
Now you want to choose something that applies to you yes?

“Original” yes original’s good, what else?

“Independent” OBVIOUSLY

“Funky” “Eclectic” “Indy” I could go on, there are thousands.
You apply all these to your site and then wait.
Nothing happens, honest. You may get a few stray “robots” (whatever they are!) but other than that it’s pretty much Heartbreak Hotel.

So the big question is (here comes the point!) what do YOU use when you search for independent artists? What key words do YOU use when you search for other artists in the same boat as you?

You don’t do you? You don’t look for other artists just like you. So if YOU don’t then you can’t realistically expect anyone else to either can you?

It was only when I started to think about this whole “tag” thing I realised that I didn’t search out any independent talent either.

Do it, I did. There are some gems out there, all fresh and shiny and they haven’t had the corners knocked off yet. They’re still willing to experiment, yes sometimes it doesn’t work but then that’s all part of it. There are a plethora of websites that they (and me) are on and you can search for whatever genre (don’t get me started!) you fancy. There are some horrors but even they can be entertaining in a “car crash” kind of way. I have found some great artists this way and it has made me more optimistic about the music scene as whole.
There are a few nighmares, but that goes with the territory and can even be entertaining in a car crash sort of way.

If you are one of this band of “Indies” you must must must go and search for other artists.
If you are a regular punter then go get out there and discover your own pet band, you can adopt them, buy their music, go and see them and if you do, tell them that you found them on the internet because you did a search and they came up. You listened; you liked and then either went to see them or bought/downloaded their music. I guarantee you will make their day!