S T A F F B L O
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Recording Tips with Sean Russell
Sean Russell, VP of Multimedia
A
Bachelors in Marketing Crammed into a Summer
Lauri Greene, VP of Promotions and Assistant to the President
Every marketing book I’m reading right now, including PyroMarketing by Greg Stielstra and BuzzMarketing by Mark Hughes, says that I should give stuff away for free. So here I go!
New Indie Artists is starting a giveaway campaign. Starting this Friday, we'll give away 1 song from each artist and a video for FREE every week!
Written by Lauri Greene, VP Promotions for New Indie Artists
Sean Russell (our media man) has finished the 11 minute promo video for New Indie Artists!
It starts out with this sexilicious picture of Ama Atobrah with
“Come to Me” in the background, which fades out as a teaser. (When she records
more stuff, her part will be longer.)
Abigail Kiser’s music then cues up and of course the French
version of “Autumn Leaves” sounds amazing. That’s definitely one of my favs of
her songs. Her accent sounds way better than the average product of the high
school French classroom cookie cutter. It syncs with one of the black and white
Parisian pictures Garrett Fees took of her.
Alexe Colbus is so photogenic. It’s almost unfair. The hook of
“Because the Night” syncs up with one of the come hither pictures Jenna Dean
took, “Take me now, take me now, take me noooooooooow!” What can I say? It sure
worked for me.
Since we don’t have but a few pictures of Amanda Wilkins, her part is kind of short, but her videos more than make up for it (duh…) When she sings “Oh Darling” and “Runaway Man” I swear she sounds EXACTLY like Janis Joplin. It’s kind of scary how someone as gentle and soft as Mandi can sing with so much power!
At the end are the videos of all the girls singing “Son of a
Preacher Man” together and the encore “Honky Tonk Woman”.
Sean used Keynote and some other Mac goodies to create the
thing. Unfortunately, it looks SO good that you almost can’t tell how much work
it took him. He always makes that stuff look so easy. He used videos from
the June 12th and July 11th gigs. He recorded the sound
at the gigs so he could get good quality stuff to sync with the video… or some
other such techno-babble… The font he used as the headliner for NIA ended up
being the one I chose as the headliner for the blog and website (when I
overhauled the B#$%@!!) So props to him for doing the video and for choosing a
tight font.
To read more on Sean’s magic media skills, check out his blog and his site.
The promo video should be up soon for the WHOLE WORLD to see my lovely girls.
K so as the VP of Promotions for NIA, I’ve been reading up on online marketing to promote NIA and its artists. I came across this one book called BuzzMarketing by Mark Hughes, and find some of the ideas used for big successes kind of silly, like how he convinced the town of Halfa to rename themselves Half.com, after his internet retail store. This is of course the point of the book, thinking of a Big Idea that’s buzz-worthy and refreshing. Jeff (el prez) and I were kicking around some CRAZY ideas. Just thought I’d share a few…
* Underwater concert
* Sing for inmates as tribute to Johnny Cash
* Sandwich named for the girls at a Hollywood sub place
* Girls on TV soundtrack like Grey’s Anatomy
* Abba should write jingles for commercials
* Girls sing “Son of a Preacher Man” for the Pope
* National annoying AOL-like CD campaign
* Girls parachute from a plane, holding hands, and singing
* Topiaries of the girls’ faces
* Have the girls perform on commercial airplanes
By the end of the day we actually came up with a few promotional campaigns, which I'll post more about later today! Keep in touch!
Has anyone read a helpful book like BuzzMarketing? Any other crazy/reasonable ideas?
I really enjoy coming up with titles for my songs. “Festival of Thieves”, “Kingpin”, and “Circus Surreal”, are some of my favorites. My next CD is going to be called “Bobo Bazinsky and the Bronx”. There is also a cut with the same title. I gotta tell ya, I just thought of the name one day and it sounded great, and since I’m from New York, I've always wanted to include it in one of my song/CD titles. We’ll have the track mastered in a few days for your listening pleasure!
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Dictacted by Jeff Kaye, President of New Indie Artists (NIA)
The first CD I ever produced
was with Lauri Greene, a songwriter and guitar player. I met her when she was a sophomore at South Lakes High School (Reston, Virginia). This was
when I was introducing Arts and Education in Concert (AEIC) to high schools. Lauri and her friends came up with the concept of
Project X, an after school open mic club, where students could freely express
themselves. To make a long story short, the success of AEIC led to me forming
our current indie record label, New Indie Artists. Lauri is now entering
her junior year at Virginia Tech, studying Finance and Management. Each year
since I’ve known her, she’s also worked with me during the summer as the
driving force behind all the successes of AEIC and NIA.
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Dictated by Jeff Kaye, President of New Indie Artists (NIA)
I don’t usually write music
with a theme in mind (unless I’m doing specific arrangements of a cover). I
mostly get my inspiration from rhythm and then build my compositions from
there. There was one song that was different from my usual style, though. After
writing the rhythm track and then adding a synthesizer on top, it started to
suggest tension and a certain sense of heroism. It made me think of the third
plane that went down in the 9-11 attacks that had 40 passengers overcoming the
terrorists. I started to write with these people in mind and called the song
“Forty Heroes”.
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Pictures from the Women of NIA Concert held 7-11-06 at Jammin' Java have been posted to a new album: Check them out!
More pictures and videos from this concert are pouring in since we had such an amazing turnout. We're even working on an 11 minute promo video that will be available to view online! Keep checkin' back here and the NIA site for more updates!
Dictated by Jeff Kaye, President of New Indie Artists (NIA)
I first met Ama Atobrah at South Lakes High School (Reston, Virgnia) at an Arts & Education in Concert Project X open mic session. Because I was so impressed with her talent as an R&B lyricist, I immediately demanded Ama sign with NIA. We made quick work of her notebooks filled with scribbled ideas and combined her lyrics with a jazz fusion beat I wrote with an Arabian feel. Our first collaboration was the song “Come to Me”. It's unlike any R&B track I've ever heard. My beat kicks it up a notch from typical hip-hop. Check this shit out and check back at Ama's artist page for updates!
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Dictated by Jeff Kaye
While vacationing at my house in Woodstock, Virginia one Sunday, I happened to mosey into the Woodstock Café & Shoppes where they were having a wine tasting event with live music. That’s where I first heard Amanda Wilkins singing with her husband Rick on piano. This is another long story that can be made real short-- I thought her singing was fabulous and told her about my label, NIA. After listing off who she’d opened for: Rascal Flatts, Travis Tritt, Taylor Dayne, and more, we signed Amanda by the end of that month (late June 2006). We are now in the process of producing her first CD with NIA. I think you’ll agree that she’s an amazing talent.
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Dictacted by Jeff Kaye
Abigail is unique. She is a free spirit and has a mind of
her own. When Abigail and I first started working together I told her that
after she laid down her guitar and vocal tracks that I would be producing each
song with at least bass, drums, and guitar. She was hesitant about adding
anything, but I reassured her that if she didn’t like whatever I produced, then
we wouldn’t use it. I spent DAYS, hours, an UNGODLY amount of time producing
what I thought was an incredible CD. The musicians I used to play drums, bass,
and guitar were by all standards some of the best musicians in DC. Everyone who
heard the CD before her was amazed by how everything working together. I was so
excited to play these arrangements for Abba that I could hardly contain myself.
I anticipated the, “OOOOH!! I LOVE IT!” response. You can probably guess by now
what happened. She hated it. I had to ask her at least ten times if she was
sure. Each time the answer was the same—“Ick, yuck, Oh my God, I hate it!”
Well, I gave her my word that I wouldn’t use it if she didn’t like it. So we took 90% of it out… she agreed to leave SOME bass and drums. Now I’ve learned that when I record Abba, it’s just guitar and vocals. That’s how she writes. That’s how she wants to perform, and she’s the artist, and I respect that fully.
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How Long
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Brain Washed
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Autumn Leaves (French)
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Poor Boy
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Till There Was You
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Both Hands
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Change is good
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