It’s been about 6  months since I logged in to my Myspace profile or even had a look at what was going on over at “space”. I think most people who got on board with Myspace early have just given up on it now, times have changed and there are much better ways of being found on the web if your a musician. I had a look at my page and as it loaded I could here some music playing, some really bad techno music, AND IT WASN’T MY MUSIC!! In all my time away the spammers on Myspace have stepped up a level on now embed their own music players on your page!

So I deleted the account.

Only thing was as I pressed the “delete” button I had a few nostalgic feelings about the old dog, I guess the main feeling was for some of the connections I made when I first started the account, I’ve collaborated with a few of the artists I met on Myspace and still keep in touch with those guys. The fact is that I just don’t use it to make those connections anymore or to find new music, it’s Soundcloud or Mixcloud or the many killer music blogs around. If I were just starting out I’d probably consider still using it but I still think Soundcloud kills it for ease of use, functionality and the more focused community which exists over there.

I’ve also been blown away by the talent and drive of quite a few of the artists I got friend requests from when I first got the account, the one who still sticks in my mind is Dorian Concept. He was one of the first Myspace friend requests I got and i’ve followed his career since he first started. The guys a synth freak and always takes it to the next level on his tracks, here’s one of his little “messing with” video’s plus a killer jam with Dorian Concept and Flying Lotus.

This weeks “inspiration” post is gonna focus on one of NZ’s best kept secrets and one of my favorite vocalists and music lovers, miss Lisa Preston aka LP. LP has been working with a long list of amazing up and coming producers over the last few years and I really wanted to put together a little “best of” so you can all check out her style. I first checked out Lisa on a track from the K15 & LP EP “A New Path” which I posted about in late 2007 and had the pleasure of working with Lisa on the “High times” track on my EP. Lisa has a unique & enchanting sound with a strong passion and ability to really push each track to something new and exciting. I’m a big fan of “futuristic” style beats and I think it takes a strong sense of self in a vocalist to really shine over these heavier styles, Lisa seems to pull it off and is always a big part of the arrangement and feel of the tracks too, which for me made it a real collaborative and inspiring process.

Check out the tracks below, some of them are on the “free download” if you want to grab them, really looking forward to the new Benny Tones album which features a colab with Lisa called “Odyssey” plus the imminent vinyl release of the “A New Path EP” 12” with remixes coming out through Rationale Music.

UPDATE – Benny just added the new single “Odyssey” with LP on his soundcloud so head over and check it out.

Onur Engin & Lisa Preston – Love Gift by Onur Engin
Paddy Fred & LP – One by kowtow music
Lord Jackson & LP. by LordJackson
stevo & lisa preston – sigh by stevo
Know U feat. LP by Cy Tru™
Vaiper Of Cafeteria – Pomare (Feat Lisa Preston) by Vaiper Despotin
MoOnjoy – Indigo Pyramid ft.LP by Infinite Potentials
Koru Licks – Riosynth by Koru Licks
High Times by Bluevibestudio
TheJunk by Bluevibestudio
D.Construction & LP – Hit Me Up by D.Construction

Lisa Preston aka LP

Vocalist, alchemist, dreamer, believer….playing with the harmonies and layers, waxing lyrical about moments & things that matter to me…

The cherished collective – beautiful friends who enter my world and share my dreams of beats and harmony…LOVE in collaborative form….shout outs to all the beautiful brothers from near and far I have been blessed to meet and jam with….

Live Jams with Sons of Puha, future soul beats & production With Adi Dick and Pet Johnson….

Rivers & LP, two turntables and a microphone….

Releases to date:

Jellphonic and LP 7” vinyl through wonderful noise Japan 2009

‘Know u’ single, Cy Tru Feat LP , Sub Soul 2 digital release 4Lux 2009

K15 & LP – A New Path EP (digital release 2009) 12” release with remixes being released 2010 through Rationale Music

“Odyssey” single, Benny Tones Chrysalis 12” vinyl through wonderful noise Japan 2010

New jams & releases brewing with Sir Froderick & Lord Jackson and Josip Klobucar & LP “sunlight” , more goodness to come….

www.myspace.com/thecherishedcollective

www.soundcloud.com/lisa-preston-aka-lp

www,twitter.com/lpcalling

The New EP from St Liquor-ish and mixed at the Bluevibe studio is now finally available to download for free over at the St Liquor-ish Bandcamp page.

I’m really proud of the EP and it’s been a real learning curve for me to try and get the mix right for all the tracks on the EP. I’ll be posting about some of the production techniques involved on the EP and the work we’ve done to promote it. The next St Liquor-ish EP is already being mixed and let’s just say it’s a killer, but for now enjoy this tasty bit of filth from the man Jellphonic’s alter ego and stay tuned for a full pack of instrumentals and remixes from the EP.

Thing’s have been pretty busy in the studio lately so I’ve not been too heavy on the updates on what we’ve been up to, so, here’s a little taster from the new EP I’ve been mixing for St Liquor-ish.
After 13 long years, 14 studios and a gazillion dollars the highly anticipated first EP from St Liquor-ish, formerly and simultaneously Jellphonic, is ripe.
“Lay the Sex” is the first single taken from the forthcoming EP – “The Lick” which smashes jagged beats with sacred subjects such as sex and hating with subtle undertones of grace and pornography.
Collaborations for the EP include the smooth vocals of Lisa Preston on “The Junk” and the Electron Don, Zackey Force Funk on “Money Sack”.
Check out http://www.myspace.com/jellphonic

Just click on the player to here the track.

Lay the Sex

I’ve also been working on the promotion for the project and have had some amazing help from a long list of DJ’s and bloggers from around the world. It’s really been a pleasure to make some connections with so many passionate people, thanks to everybody who’s offered their advice and opinion on the project. We couldn’t have done it without you.

To all the people who’ve been in touch to check out when the EP’s coming out all I can say is, soon, so in the meantime you can head over to the new St Liquor-ish Bandcamp page and grab a copy of the track “Moneysack”. You can also jump over to the St Liquor-ish facebook page http://www.facebook.com/stliquor-ish for some tasty music which has inspired and influenced that dirty St Liquor-ish sound.

As for Bluevibe studio, well there’s a bunch of new projects going on plus I’ve been expanding the services we are going to be providing over at the studio so check back for more information on that soon. peace. J Bluevibe

So it’s been an amazing year here at Bluevibe studio and I’d firstly like to thank all of the people who have supported me over the last 12 months by either checkin the blog, checkin the music and maybe even buying the new EP. So much has happened for me in 2008 I thought I’d run through some of the highlights and share some amazing plans I’m already cookin for 2009, it’s gonna be a big year that’s for sure.

• I released the first EP from The Ghostfaders which is still available as a free download and will be writing and releasing the second EP in early 09, again for free, so watch this space. The new EP’s gonna feature a few more guest instrumentalists and is gonna be heavier and dirtier than last time, I’m already saturating the tape deck!
• I also started working over at The Depot Artspace as an artist career facilitator and have met and worked with some amazing and inspiring musicians this year. Huge plans over there for next year including the launch of a new resource website for artists as part of the Creative Peoples’ Centre; more workshops and seminars for musicians plus we’re already planning something special for NZ music month.
• I’ve also been working with Depot sound recording studio to create a new audio community over at the studio for 09. This will include giving upcoming audio engineers access to the amazing facilities and holding regular workshops with established engineers who will be sharing their knowledge and getting together with the engineers to work on new recording projects. If your based in Auckland and would like to get involved just drop me a message and I’ll let you know once we’re up and running.
• Finally I released my first Bluevibe studio EP – This life volume.1 which is now available in a store near you. I’m really proud of this first release under the Bluevibe moniker and would like to thanks all the crew involved in helping produce the EP. I’ll be starting work on the next in the series in Feb 09 and will be looking for new vocalists and remix artists to get involved, again drop me a line if you like the first EP and want to colab.

I’ve really enjoyed blogging in 08 and despite my lack of posts in Dec (life’s been just too crazy) I’ve fully upgraded the whole back end and will be adding a new design and new feastures in early 09. It’s amazing to see the traffic coming through from google and I’ll be writing more about online music resources, new artists and fresh music blogs so register for the newsletter or signup to the RSS feed for the latest Bluevibe news, peace and merry xmas.

So it’s actually been a year since I started the tracks for the Bluevibe studio presents EP and they’re finally ready to go off to get mastered. This EP has been a bit of a labour of love for me and while I actually have another 2 EP’s more or less completed I’m really excited to be finally getting these tracks out. It didn’t actually seem like a year until Lisa Preston pointed it out, I guess that’s because I’ve had a baby and started a new job since this project kicked off and the months have just flown by, that’s babies for ya!

In my previous post “Bluevibe studio presents – finishing the tracks for the EP” I outlined 7 stages in the release and I’m now up to stages 3 and 4, funding and mastering. I’m still working on funding options so I’ll run through the mastering this week and get on to funding the EP next time.

My good friend Kerry Adams from The Proof will be taking care of the mastering duties, he’s got a wicked ear and works in quite a few different genres so he seems like the perfect man for the job. The EP consists of 2 main tracks with 2 remixes of each track plus 2 bonus tracks which have previously only been available in demo form. I mix on Genelec monitors and although they are excellent my mixes sometimes don’t translate too well when played on other systems. This makes the mastering stage even more important for me and is the key reason why it’s great to have a a mastering engineer work with each track to make sure they sit together on the EP and translate across different playback systems. I would always recommend you get someone else to master your tracks but if you don’t have any budget and really want to DIY then here’s a list of some great tutorials for you to check out.

Next week funding!!! It’s the big one for me as I’m basically an unknown independent artist doing his first full EP release so I’m going to have to get creative with the cash if I’m going to make the most of it!!

• The secret of the mastering engineer – Bob Katz – mastering manual from the TC electronics finalizer written by Bob Katz, well worth a read.
• Mastering with plugins from Har-bal.com – complete in the box tutorial.
• The elements of home studio audio mastering – nice simple tutorial over at tweakheadz using some of the excellent uad plugins.
• Mastering masters – Mastering article from the excellent Sound on Sound website.

Since moving to New Zealand in 2000 I’ve had the pleasure to have worked with one of the most helpful and talented producers in the country, namely Kerry Adams. Kerry goes by many names including Tech, Bromide Dub, Compressor Kid and.. well the list goes on. His latest project has just been launched online and is the pilot from a series of “production tutorials” called “The Technical sessions“. Head over to The Proof website and check it out, this first episode focuses on the procedure for setting up a tone arm on your turntable. As Kerry points out it’s a question he gets asked regularly and he takes us through a great 5min rundown of the different types of cartridges and the basic concept behind setup.

The idea now is to get some funding or sponsorship for the rest of the series so if your interested in helping out then just let Kerry know, I’m sure he’d appreciate it. The fact that Kerry learned how to use the video editing software and put the whole thing together on no budget just shows what you can achieve if your passionate about what you do and proactive about getting yourself out there. Make sure you check out the tracks on his page too, the opening track on the pilot episode is a remix Kerry did of one of the Bluevibe studio tracks, Believe. With a few tracks being signed to some overseas labels and big plans ahead for The Technical sessions lets hope that Kerry gets some funding to really take his projects to the next level.

There are a huge number of local NZ artists taking it to the world with no assistance from local funding bodies who’s primary mandate is to focus on the local commercial market. Maybe it’s time to broaden the scope of funding to focus on the individual artist and their markets both locally and overseas. For many artists creating a sustainable income must include tapping in to their genre based markets overseas. Lets look a little deeper at encouraging local artists to have long term careers, not market driven blips. Ok rant over, props to Kerry and make sure you check out the pilot, well worth supporting some local talent taking it to a world stage.

BVX – steppin back (first draft)

So here’s the first tracks from my new outfit BVX, it’s a ruff draft and really needs a vocalist to take it to the next level. I’ve got an acapella from Dwight Trible on the track at the moment which works really well and gives you an idea of where I’m going with it, if only I could get Dwight to do the vocals for me! If you’d like to drop some vocals on it then just leave me a comment and I’ll send you the track through to have a jam with.

BVX is a new project I’ve been working on for a few months and I’m looking to get an EP out as soon as the “Bluevibe studio presents” EP is done. The BVX stuff is more electronic and upbeat than most of my other stuff although “steppin back” is still on the mellow side of things. The rest of the tracks are much heavier although still sitting around the 100bpm mark. I’d really like to get out live again so all the BVX tracks will be either written on or transfered to the Yamaha RS7000 sequencer for some live improvised action. I’m looking at getting a vocalist and synth player to join me on stage but I’ll get that sorted once the tunes are more or less finished.

Let me know what you think of the new vibe by leaving me a comment and just hit me up if you’d like to collaborate.

When I’m not writing music I’m usually reading about how to promote and make some money out of it. There are a huge number of sites dedicated to the music industry and discussions about “industry models” and the future of the industry which most people don’t really care about because they’re steeped in speculation and theory. Here’s a few links to some of my favourite E-books which are based a little more in fact than theory.

The first is the fantastic book put together by Blink from A Low Hum. Once subscribed you get access to the best little E-book about the New Zealand live music scene full of advice and information about booking, promoting and surviving tours in New Zealand.

“Local Knowledge is a simple guide to touring New Zealand for bands from New Zealand or overseas looking to tour New Zealand. “

Local Knowledge E-book

The next is an essential guide to online music written by kiwi expat Andrew Dubber. The book is compiled from a series of blog posts from March to May 2007 from his New Music Strategies blog. This E-book isn’t new but is still an essential read for those who still don’t know about it.

The 20 things you must know about music online – E-book

The final E-book is from the Inner Rhythm website and is written by Kavit Haria who is based in London and runs seminars and workshops on developing and marketing your music online. I only got this E-book a couple of days ago and can highly recommend it, it’s basically a marketing tool for Inner Rhythms new online coaching program and is full of music marketing advice, promotion tips and social networking tactics. Lots of specific tactics for getting people to your site and therefore listening to your music through social marketing. Don’t think I’ll be paying for the coaching program but I’ll be focusing more on my social networks in future.

A Strategy guide for succeeding as a musician in 2008 – Free E-book

If you’ve got any suggestions for other online resources then just leave me a comment and let me know what you think of the E-books if you download them, i’ll be posting more about my successes and failures with social marketing in future posts.