Gaining 1000 New Fans In 50 Days

Howdy all you crazy diamonds! Hope everyone’s doing great. Besides listening to excessive amounts of Pink Floyd, recently I’ve been working on this cool project that will help me grow my fan base as a musician, and it can help you too!

Over the next several blog posts, I’ll be sharing my progress and giving you all helpful tips, so be sure to subscribe to my blog and check back frequently!

I encourage you to join in on this challenge with me, and let me know how you’re doing and if you need any tips.

Here’s the basic run down of what my goals are:

-1000 SoundCloud Followers
(currently 161)

-1000 Twitter Followers
(currently 503)

-At least 500 plays on each of my SoundCloud tracks

I plan to have this all hopefully completed by July 1st 2012.

What I plan to do to achieve this goal:

-Connect with 20 new SoundCloud users each day, listen to one or two of their tracks, post a genuine comment and send them a private message introducing myself.

The key here is that these must be genuine messages and comments, no spamming.

-Follow 10 new twitter users who I believe would be interested in my music each day, and message each one who follows back, introducing myself.

I encourage you to join in on this challenge with me, even if it takes you longer or shorter than July 1st. It’ll be a fun experience as we grow our fan bases and strive to achieve success. Happy dream chasing!

My SoundCloud: SatellitesAndStars On SoundCloud

What I’ve Been Up To Lately

Howdy there everyone! I haven’t posted a new post in a while! I do apologize to my readers for that, I’ve been incredibly busy for the past few days and weeks.

The weather here in Toronto has been beautiful! It’s been very warm and sunny, and today it looks like we’ll get some much needed rain. The leaves are starting to return, the grass is turning green again, it’s beautiful!

Also, I recently finished recording a brand new album! It’s called Alexis Drive, and will be out on May 3rd 2012. It’s got a great rock feel, and I’m sure people will really enjoy it.

Even though the album doesn’t come out until May, if you want to be one of the lucky tomatoes who gets to hear it first, email me at br9austin@yahoo.ca and I’ll send you a link!

Here’s the title track from the album, it’s called “Drive”:

http://soundcloud.com/colourfulsound/untitled-2

Something’s Missing

For the past several months, I’ve been busy writing and recording for a new album I’ve been working on entitled Alexis Drive.

A big part of the album’s concept revolves around that “Something’s Missing” feeling.

That feeling where everything should be okay, but you’re not alright and you don’t know why.

Check out and download this free song off the new album, this song’s called “Sons And Daughters”.

http://soundcloud.com/colourfulsound/sons-and-daughters

Stop And Smell The Roses

As an artist/musician, it’s easy to get caught up and pour hours into a project. While this is good, it’s important to remember a few things.

First off, why did you start making music or art? Chances are it was because you enjoyed it. If you’re feeling overly stressed out, you’re probably not having a great time. It’s okay to be stressed out, but if it reaches the point where you can’t express yourself efficiently, it’s a problem.

A good thing to do is take a break and go back to the basics. In the middle of recording an album or working on a new art collection, go ahead and write a few songs/make a few pieces just for fun. Make a few pieces that have nothing to do with the project you’re working on.

This will help you rediscover the fun side to your work and also help you relearn any basic skills you may have forgotten or haven’t used in a while.

Happy creating, and HAVE FUN! 🙂

Rejection

Whether you’re an artist or not, you’ll have to face rejection eventually in your life. The important thing to remember is that rejection doesn’t mean the end of the road. The Beatles were rejected by just about every record label they went to at first.

Imagine if they had given up on the first try.

You may be rejected once, but who knows? Maybe a bigger, better opportunity will arise! Keep your head up!

Drive: Update

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been busy recording a brand new album entitled Drive.

The album’s lyrics and musical theme deal with corruption, insanity and violence. It’s got a heavier rock sound and is influenced heavily by the Foo Fighters.

I’m currently working on some weber artwork for the album, so I’ll share those with you all, maybe even ask you to help me choose the best one!

Thanks for your help!

P.S. In terms of a release date, I’m looking at late March, early April.

What Makes Great Album Art #1

Over the next few blog posts, I’m going to be sharing some album art which I find very effective, and why.

Remember, these rules don’t necessarily have to be followed, but they provide some good guidelines. Remember, sometimes the greatest artwork is the one that breaks all these rules.

Rule #1. Today I’ll be focusing on album art which displays a basic “snapshot” of the album’s lyrical and musical theme. This is done by basically converting the lyrics and melodies into “picture” form and giving the listener a rough feel of what they’ll be hearing.

Here’s some art which I feel accomplishes this:

Green Day’s cover shows that American Idiot is a very “political” album, possibly speaking against war, judging by the grenade.

Eminem’s album cover shows the rapper walking alone, which draws from the metaphor that he’s on the road to recovery. The album’s music and lyrics give that feeling as well.

Three Days Grace’s album signifies being different, by showing the single stockman figure with an “X” while the others all have check marks. The album’s music and lyrics definitely have strong hints of individualism and downright alienation.

Check back over the next few days for some more pointers and great album art!

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Marvin Gaye’s “Heard It Through The Grapevine” is one of my favorite tunes. I’ve always dreamed of recording a cover, but just got around to it this weekend. Check it out, lemme know what you think in the comments below!

http://soundcloud.com/colourfulsound/i-heard-it-through-the

House of Broken Glass

The thing I love about doing these Artist Spotlight blog posts is that I have a chance to chat with some pretty talented musicians and artists. Nathe Sinfield of House Of Broken Glass is no different.

HOBG is a solo ambient rock project by Nathe Sinfield. Nathe has been writing music since 2005 in various bands before focusing on this project.

One of my favourite tracks by HOBG is Can You Hear Them Call?”. The track features vocals from Jordan Daniel, ex-frontman of The Gorgeous, previously signed to Distort Entertainment. Check out the tune here:
http://soundcloud.com/houseofbrokenglass/can-you-hear-them-call-feat

I like the “distant” sound that the vocals have. The track has an overall ambient sound. which I feel suits the lyrics and vocals.

House Of Broken Glass recently released a new EP entitled “Restless”. I had a listen to it and was pretty impressed.

http://soundcloud.com/houseofbrokenglass

Download the new EP “Restless” from HOBG for free here: http://www.tinyurl.com/RestlessEP

I had a brief little chat with Nathe Sinfield, check back to find out some interesting facts about his music, including influences and his songwriting process.

Comets

Comets are some of the prettiest things you’ll ever see in the sky. They shoot across, sometimes you only see em for a second and then they’re gone, shooting off in the distance.

But that brief glimpse always fascinates me.

Taking the idea of comets being here for a second and gone the next, I wrote a song and related it to relationships. This song is not meant to relate to only romantic relationships, but all interactions with friends, family, ect.

Comet by SatellitesAndStars

Sometimes the people in our life are just like comets. When they’re around in your life, they inspire you and amaze you with their beauty, both inside and out. But it can never last forever.

Soon enough, they’re gone, just like a comet. They’re off to change someone else’s life, off for someone else to be amazed by them.

Referring to actual comets, gravity keeps them falling. This mysterious force is what causes them to fly across the sky.

How can we relate this to life? Gravity can be seen as reality. No matter what, no matter how happy someone makes you feel, the reality is that they won’t be around forever. So enjoy them while they are around.

Reality can be sad at times, but as soon as you accept that it exists, you will truly be happy and live life to the fullest.

Hope you enjoy the song, try to make it relate you you as the listener. That’s what music is all about, relating to the listener.

Check out “Comet” on iTunes