Today, Aaron Lessard released his debut single "All Our Yesterdays," which is available on iTunes!
The song is about the loss of love, in a relationship, and taken from Aaron's personal life experiences. This is just the start to the amazing music that Aaron Lessard will bring us. The song was written by Aaron himself, and recored by Valentine Fritz.
Aaron is a student at Berklee College of Music, in Boston, Massachusetts; and from a very small town in Massachusetts. Aaron says, "for years I've wanted to bring my music to life but never had the opportunity. Now words can't describe how excited I am to make my dreams a reality and I can only hope that people will be able to enjoy and relate to the music I put out moving forward."
"All Our Yesterdays" can be found on iTunes, or heard here!
I wanted to write something about music being a business because it's something very important that musicians need to understand. Music is a business and an art. Musicians often fail for many reasons but marketing is a big piece to that, and they either only focus on the music and forget to promote themselves. This leaves an artist with a lot of great music but very few fans that listen to it. Musicians sometimes only focus on the business aspect and completely forget about why they started music in the first place, and the musicians are either pushing the same few songs, or many songs that aren't that good. The music is your product and service, the first thing you need to do before promotion is to perfect it, then worry about promotion. Sometimes the best way to go with promotion is to hire someone to do this for you, so you and your band can focus on your art, and have the company you hire to work on your business. This allows the business aspect to be there and to allow you and your band to focus on your music. Keeping your social media unified is a big piece to this, just having a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is not what matters it needs to look professional, and look like you, it's all a piece of your brand. As a band or musician you are a brand. You are an entrepreneur. This post was brought to you by K. Garcia Productions, a company that offers music marketing, photography, and videography. For more information on K. Garcia Productions contact K.Garcia.Productions@aol.com. Follow on Facebook at Facebook.com/KGarciaProductions Twitter/Instagram @KGarciaProd
At the start of this year I neglected to write for a little while, but I'm getting back into the swing of things, especially with this next college semester starting. Friday afternoon I met the most interesting band: Choro Bastardo.
What I found so interesting about this band is they play Choro, which is traditional Brazilian music, all instrumental mixed with a little bit of their own background. "Choro Bastardo combines the traditional Choro style with each of the band members' different musical and cultural backgrounds to create a sonority that is different from the original, yet loyal to the playful spirit of that music."
Normally what I love about music is the lyrics, but these men played so beautifully together that you could feel the music without any words at all, the music was it's own language, and people say this all the time, but this was the first time I really felt it.
The four men that make up Choro Bastardo are Henrique Eisenmann (piano), Ben Andrews (violin, mandolin, Ilya Portnov (harmonica), Adam Bahrami (pandeiro), and all come from a different background, and a different part of the world.
Currently, Choro Bastardo is on their New England tour, the schedule can be found on their website: http://chorobastardo.com/shows
I highly recommend listening to this band, and to stay updated with them by visiting their website or following them on Facebook!
Marketing in music is something that really separates the famous musicians from those that are not. Many artists understand how important marketing is, and usually their music and merchandise sells very well. Getting a good marketing team together can really help a musician or band.
K. Garcia Productions, a company from the Massachusetts/Rhode Island area that started with photography and videography will begin marketing music. "I have always loved music and business, and this will allow me to use photography, videography, music, and marketing skills," Kelsey Garcia, founder of K. Garcia Productions, explains. K. Garcia Productions is not going to be a regular marketing firm, they're focusing on music, Garcia continues, "I wanted this to be specifically for marketing music, because music is so different than other marketable things, it's not just a product or service, it's both and personality."
K. Garcia Productions will begin operation as a music marketing firm on January 2nd and they are already working with 4 artists/bands: Toska, Moment of Clarity, Aaron Lessard, and A Final Paradox. Garcia says, "I'm very excited to work with all of these talent musicians and they all play a different genre of music, which keeps things interesting."
K. Garcia Productions introduces their new brand with a video that can be seen here:
I have never met a young kid as passionate about hip hop as Toska. Okay, I know what you're thinking, "What the heck is a Toska?"
Toska is a hip hop artist, from outside Providence, Rhode Island. He's only 18 years old and already working on so much. Just one project he is working on is his second mix-tape, Futile Endeavors, which will be released on December 6th. It will be available for digital download and information about that can be found here, but hard copies will also be made available at locations (in Massachusetts and Rhode Island) that will be tweeted, so follow Toska @ToxGoonWoof if you want to know more about that.
Toska put out his first mix-tape, Hide Rosetta, when he was just in High School. One of my favorite songs from Hide Rosetta is a song called "Pill" which I attached below. Toska also put together a charity show, which benefitted the St. Jude Children's Hospital. There aren't many young adults that coordinate something to benefit others like that, especially while they're still in High School.
Pill - from Hide Rosetta
Toska graduated from Portsmouth High School in June, and while he's working on the release of his second mix-tape, Futile Endeavors, he is also working on his first EP, Survival and Other Vices. Which will feature his popular song "Gadzooks!".
There are only a few days left until Futile Endeavors is released, and there is a lot to look forward to! "Take Your Life Away" is one of the songs that will be on this mix-tape, and the music video for that was released this September. The video was directed by another Portsmouth High School graduate, Kelsey Garcia.
My personal favorite song on this mix-tape is "Undead Dances." Which will be the next single released from Futile Endeavors. The music on this mix-tape isn't the only art to it, the cover was also hand drawn by artist, Greg Crimmins.
Just a few more days until Futile Endeavors is officially released, and I can barely wait another minute.
I'm aware that MockingJay is a movie and not music, but I thought it was a good topic to touch upon. I really love the series so I had to go see it. It was better than I thought it would be. The novel Mocking Jay had a very slow beginning, even my sister exclaimed "why are they splitting this book up the first half is so slow!" As we all know, movies aren't exactly like the books, as much as this bothers many people you do need to take into consideration that this is another persons perspective and interpretation of the story. It could've used more action, and fighting, but the movie did what it could with the story.
The music for this movie was also pretty good. But nothing can compare to the amazing shots full of emotion, props to the cinematographers! If you haven't seen it yet I would recommend it, especially if you liked the other films!
The American music awards are still on my mind, but not for the show. Obviously the performances were fabulous, and the presenters did mostly a good job. The main reason I still wanted to talk about the AMAs was because of what was done differently, and that would be snapchat.
I'm not really sure how many people noticed the snapchat story that was the AMAs, but a lot of the story was sponsored by Samsung. My thought is this is going to be a big piece of marketing, especially for events like the AMAs, New Years Eve, and other award shows and performances.
What makes this different from other social media marketing is it is still new, and it gives the consumer a point of view that they have not seen before. Usually in a snapchat story you'll see a small clip of your friends driving around town, or a photo of your friend's cat, but the night of the AMAs there was video of celebrities on the red carpet, and photos backstage, which are pieces of the show we as the viewer don't normally see.
I do see this as a big step in the future of social media marketing, especially in the music and performance industry.
It is time for the 2014 American Music Awards, and so far it has been beautiful.
Taylor Swift's performance of "Blank Space" was amazing, playing into the psychotic man eater that the media thinks she is. The flames in the background were a perfect touch! The dancers also did a great job, and the props were perfect.
Charli XCX performed after her, introduced by the beautiful Ansel Elgort. Performing her two songs "Boom Clap" written for The Fault in Our Stars and "I Just Wanna Break The Rules." The change of costume was fabulous for this, and she was great all over the stage!
Static in Verona releases its second full length album, Everything You Knew Before You Knew Everything. Rob says "[This album] took over 4 years to record and I went through a lot during it which inspired many of the songs (my parents separated, my children were born, I moved to a different town)." Something I find personally unique about Static in Verona is that it is a one man show! All the sound, writing, and singing comes from Rob Merz!
The album is available on bandcamp, and is donation based, I encourage you to check it out.
This album is following up their first album Be Quiet As You Leave, which was released in 2010, and is similar in subject matter but the sound is a little different, fans will surely enjoy both albums.
This morning I was thinking about the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and a little over 10 minutes ago it happened! Taylor Swift posted she will be performing!
I have to say I'm not shocked. One of the biggest "fashion" events of the year, and there is always an amazing artist. Tay had to be there. Performing is marketing.
Selling music isn't all of the music industry, selling shows and merchandise are other pieces.
As I have said before musicians are businesses, but they aren't just a product or service, they're a product, service, and personality. Product being her album, and service being her 1989 Tour.
That is the next piece to market, so I wouldn't expect Taylor Swift to slow down anytime soon.
