Your Demos are wanted!

Subject: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 04:56 AM

Hi fellow 'catters

You may have been following the thread entitled "Need to be Heard?" which is launching soon as a dedicated folk music download site. This service is aimed at promoting artists who have music they wish to make available to a wider paying audience.

However. We are fully aware that there are many many artists who as yet may not have a full album available, or have possibly just recorded a handful of demo tracks. For such an artist, promotion is vital, so we are extremely happy to be able to offer a free service for those starting out in the music business.

All you need to do is this.
1. Select 2 or 3 tracks and burn them to a CDR
2. Put together a package containing info about yourself. This may be biography, photo, reviews, contact details (web site, email AND postal address)
3. Send all the above direct to me. Ian Southworth, 9 Fazackerley Street, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 2SQ, UK

By returnpost, I will send you a document that you need to sign and send back. This document will briefly state that you are the owner of the work, and that you give us permission to offer it for free download via the site. Once received, we will convert your music into high quality MP3s for download and include your music on the free demos section.

One point though. This free section is solely for use by new artists who have no product to sell.

If you want more detail about all aspects of our dedicated folk music download service, visit the site at
FOLK MUSIC DOWNLOAD SITE
If you have questions about any aspect of the service, you can E.MAIL me at any time

Best wishes
LL

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: My guru always said
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 05:45 AM

This sounds really good! Though a mere novice I could probably burn a couple of live recordings if they'd be acceptable? Or does it need to be sudio recordings?

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 05:56 AM

Hi My Guru!

Live recordings are fine and very welcome

Cheers
LL

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: My guru always said
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 06:35 AM

Excellent, Thanks!

Am in process of sorting a 'souvenir CD' so will take advantage of your offer when done. Might not be for a month or so though.

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 07:58 AM

okay I'm your man

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 08:21 AM

Hi Drummer and My Guru
We can take them as soon as you send them!
Looking forward to hearing them and making available for others

LL

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 01:59 PM

I am getting too old and cynical. When I saw the title of this thread I assumed that it was somebody trying to rip off aspiring performers.

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 02:02 PM

oh for god's sake. wheres the rip off. admit it, most of us can't give the stuff away.

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: My guru always said
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 02:29 PM

Know what you mean wld, my Brothers hadn't heard me sing folk before & though impressed they probably won't play it again. But the Folk music isn't their scene *grin*

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: GUEST,Mark Coyle, Woven Wheat Whispers
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 05:19 PM

Hi all

I know there are on the net (especially in the alt.folk and similar public newsgroups) those 'we will help release your music and make you rich' type rip offs. But I assure you we're not that, indeed we started with a chat with each other saying 'let's be realistic, there's not much money to be made here' but that's not why we're doing it.

At the site which hosts the music service I run (theunbrokencircle) we have loaded 270 sample Mp3s by a wide range of artists at our own cost just to promote new niche areas of music. Nothing was paid or expected in return. If anybody is making significant money out of folk I would be surprised (and I'm certainly not)!

If you read the new 'Who are we?' bit at the site, you'll read that we've wanted to help people for years but didn't know how. Both LL and myself are constantly hearing from folk musicians how hard it is for them now to find a way towards building an audience and how the music industry currently doesn't care about anybody who won't sell huge quantities (and that works relatively in folk too - labels often want you to have the audience ready to buy rather than build up before signing anyone..)   

If somebody doesn't make a stand to try and help the music it will just get narrower and more self-enclosed, an ageing audience just buying artists they know so with little potential for growth. In particular, we're genuinely trying to build on acceptance of acoustic music at this time (unlike say in the mid 80s 'power drum hell') and bring young musicians people towards this area, not judging them if they don't fit a strict folk definition.

Bascially there are two reasons for this demo thing - one, how are we all ever going to grow the music and help nuture new artists if they can't be heard? The second is quite simple, we have the bandwidth/server space and want to use it to help.

What has become apparent in setting up the service and the demo page in terms of feedback has been how frustrated artists are, how there are so few channels to release music, that there is little encouragement and that often it's difficult to break into the relatively self-contained folk area. It's also apparent that many artists make nothing or tiny amounts from their releases. It's all this kind of thing we're trying to move forward a little.

cheers
Mark

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 06:22 PM

To be honest I was thinking of putting all my music on my website so that anyone could download it. Then if I make provision in my will for my website to be kept going - at least my music will be published for a few years after I'm gone - few musicians/artists could do that in past generations.

Has anybody got any experience of this. I was thinking of starting a thread about this, but seeing as we're on to the subject.....

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: GUEST,Mark Coy,e Woven Wheat Whispers
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 06:35 PM

Hi

putting free music on your own web site is easy so long as you have the space (and it is very space intensive, a four minute track at decent sound quality is somewhere up around 4MB or more) and don't mind people downloading it (which of course a lot of people do mind).

It's very simple

1. create Mp3s out of your music (this is by far the most widely format).

2. Put them in a folder with your web site

3. Create hyperlinks to the files

4. Upload / publish

(make sure you have the web space and have provisioned for any hosting costs and any site usage costs from your ISP if you go over bandwidth peaks incurred as people download)


That's it. Where the difficulty comes in is making it commercial / ensuring it's not ripped off etc.

A quick guide though - Don't ever put up any music you might later want to sell or release commercially - no label or distributor will touch it if it has been up for free already as some smart alec will upload it to an illegal file sharing service and kill all the potential sales.

Do think about it before you allow downloads - once you're done it, you can't get them back. Often far better is to put up the music so it streams and can be heard but isn't downloadable.

For any help / guidance on any of this let me know at [e-mail]

cheers
Mark

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 09:42 AM

One other point.

MAKE SURE YOU COPYRIGHT YOUR MUSIC BEFORE PUTTING IT OUT IN ANY FORMAT!

Imagine how you would feel in a couple of years, when Robbie Williams (or whoever) becomes a folkie and rips off your songs.

Dont think it cant happen. See Led Zeppelins early career (music stolen from around the world)

LL

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 03:44 AM

By the way.
If anyone wants to read the "terms" of our service, they are all on the website. Also I am happy to send you a copy to your email address. You can print off and read at your leisure. As you will see there are no hidden catches
EMAIL ME
Cheers
LL

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 02:21 AM

Just one point.
Someone mentioned the fact that you can host your demos with other sites.
Of course you can, but we host your demos WITHOUT CHARGE !

LL

Subject: RE: Your Demos are wanted!
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 08:12 PM

Hello everyone,
Thanks for those who emailed support for the site. Here is an update on progress so far.


Woven Wheat Whispers -  release news 1st November 2005.

I'm pleased to let you know that we have today put up seven new releases distributed by Woven Wheat Whispers with another 15 listed as coming soon (during November).

Our development has attracted a lot of artist interest and we have been keen to build on this by getting their releases available quickly and easily so that we can start to build awareness of them.  We have many artists working on new albums for the service and reissues possibly in the pipeline that we will announce in coming weeks.

The music service also now has its own standalone site to facilitate growth at http://www.wovenwheatwhispers.co.uk (and also at the .com).  The site has new areas like a free demo submission, 'coming soon' and 'catalogue listing' pages.

Artists we have released today are:

WWW-0003    Boštjan Soklic  -  wonderful folk guitar and raga pieces from Slovenia
WWW-0004    Dave Jenkin   -   folk, blues, rag-time and folk-rock
WWW-0005    Barry Reeves   -   liberal christian folk
WWW-0006    Big Al Whittle   -   acoustic folk and story telling
WWW-0007    Gwilym Daves   -   traditional songs from Gloucester
WWW-0008    Puzzlejug   -   folk carols and customs songs from Hampshire
WWW-0009    Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon   -   soft psychedelic folk from Ireland

For each release there is a review, web links, three extracts to hear and supporting information.


Forthcoming Releases

Please do feel free to take a look at our 'coming soon' page where we show new albums and reissues coming very soon to the service.

We're very excited to exclusively be issuing two new compilations of work by Jancis Harvey from her classic out-of-print albums.

In our next announcement we should be ready to release a wonderful folk-drone-song work by 'The Triple Tree' (which is one of the foremost modern experimental folk artists).

We continually look for artists and labels to work with, new and old for either current or reissue albums.  In support of this we now have standard terms and conditions available for viewing.

Remember, we also host free downloads of demos for new artists too!


More information & promotions

The service may be emailed at [e-mail]   As this is a service seeking to bring together artists and those who appreciate their music, we do value your thoughts, feedback and ideas

Please do visit the site, spread the word about the service and the releases.  For journalists and web promoters, please do get in touch about promotional copies.   We are in touch with many music press and internet promoters who we will be helping to promote the service in coming months.

Thank you for the early support we have received.   Thanks also to The Anvil for being the first artist to join us a few weeks ago and get things going.  With no prior promotional cover,  The Anvil's album sold within the first few days in UK, Denmark and USA.

cheers




Woven Wheat Whispers:  the music of the fields will be heard