I quit my band a few months ago. That’s a great conversation starter.

To be honest, my heart wasn’t really into it, I was writing songs myself that didn’t really fit our ‘sound’ (we played all-instrumental progressive rock), and it was just too much of a commitment that I didn’t feel was making me happy in the long run.

So what now? I’ve decided to take my creative independence to heart and start a solo project. I’ve been toying with the idea for some time now and have been recording material myself for an EP or two, as well as a full-length record. And, while I’m not technically playing live (since I don’t have a band, yet) or have any great publicity for myself yet, I’ve still got a Sonicbids EPK.  Why would it make any sense for me to have an EPK? A couple of reasons (and not just because I work here!)

A great press kit. A common misconception is that the Sonicbids press kit is a paid version of internet presence, something like a MySpace page. I’ve got a MySpace and a Facebook page for my music, but one must consider who exactly will be viewing each page. Sonicbids press kits are just that — promoters, publicists, judges and others are viewing this to determine if your band is right to work with them. I use my other sites to interact with my friends and small fanbase, provide them with demos of new tunes and updates from my life. Sonicbids’ clear, concise EPK format allows me to organize all of my information into a neat little package for these people to view, because I want to focus this type of viewer on my 4-5 best songs. (more…)

Things have been busy here at “the bids” as we call it. But I wanted to take a moment to share something I’m very excited about.

Recently we had Chris Barlow of Hot Pink DeLorean come by the office.  Some bands may not know we have an open door policy here for our members – if they’re in town, or just passing through.  Chris lives over the river in Cambridge.

He stopped by to personally pick up a sweet $1,000 dollar check: payment for Hot Pink DeLorean’s selection and performance at Ultra Fest,  North America’s largest Electronic festival, which took place in downtown Miami’s oceanfront Bicentennial Park.

They performed alongside major headliners including Prodigy, Black Eyed Peas and Moby. Not a bad gig. Then again, they seem to have it together because the print on their hoodies matched the print on their shoes – and a band that can coordinate that well offstage is even more coordinated onstage. Not to mention they tour the USA and Europe heavily. You may have also seen them at SXSW performing in Austin which they also applied to using Sonicbids.

Congratulations to Chris and Hot Pink DeLorean! We’re proud to have you onboard.

Readers of the SonicBlog know that Benjy and myself were engaged in an epic Twitterwar during the month of March.

Well, it’s now April 1st and Benjy won handily.  His prize was to be the first to own the new USB Powered Air-Conditioned Sonicbids T-shirt.

He even let Tony borrow it for a bit to keep cool when answering support emails:

It’s not on sale to the general public just yet, because there are still some kinks to be worked out.

But if you follow me on Twitter I’ll let you know as soon as they’re available to purchase!

Hello friends!

Well, it’s hard to believe SXSW already over and I’m already back in action at the Sonicbids office in Boston. It was a great time and if you don’t mind, let me share some of my experiences. SXSW is a cool event and the city of Austin is fantastic; this was a first for me to travel there and attend the event and while it was a lot of work, I also had a great time.

Most of my days during SXSW were spent at the Sonicbids Booth at the conference trade show. Here I met a lot of existing Sonicbids members (both artists and promoters) and got some great feedback and ideas. Being in Member Relations, I get to talk to folks all the time via phone and email, but you really can’t beat a productive face-to-face conversation. It was awesome to see that people are really excited about what we do and were generally really candid as far as what they’d like to see from Sonicbids in the future.

Interestingly, it was suggested to me a couple times that folks were interested in seeing an official Sonicbids tour in the future. Now, I’m not sure if we’ll be rolling out a full blown tour anytime soon, but we did get our first taste of by hosting our first event at SXSW. On Friday (March 20, 2009), Sonicbids hosted an official SXSW party, presented by the Armed Forces Entertainment and in partnership with The Planetary Group. We held it at Maggie Mae’s, where 13 bands were able play back-to-back between the two stages within the venue. We had bands playing everywhere from across the US, Ireland, Australia, Iceland, and even South Africa. Here’s the full list that played:

Hot Lava: www.sonicbids.com/HotLava
The Forms: www.sonicbids.com/TheForms
Mt. St Helens Vietnam Band: www.sonicbids.com/MtStHelensVietnamBand
Wild Light: www.sonicbids.com/WildLight
Takeover UK: www.sonicbids.com/TheTakeoverUK
Gay Blades: www.sonicbids.com/TheGayBlades
Gliss: www.sonicbids.com/Gliss
The Devil Makes Three: www.sonicbids.com/thedevilmakesthree
Dead Confederate: www.sonicbids.com/deadconfederate
The Parlotones: www.sonicbids.com/theparlotones
The Temper Trap: www.sonicbids.com/TheTemperTrap
The Beat Poets: www.sonicbids.com/TheBeatPoets
Sprengjuhollin: www.sonicbids.com/Sprengjuhollin

And okay, I play favorites: I absolutely loved The Temper Trap, The Beat Poets and the Parlotones especially — but I really do mean it when I say that I was so impressed by all of our bands that played; everyone was fantastic!

During the party, we gave out 1,000 bags full of cool swag like hats, CDs, discounts on musicians gear, and other little fun thingamabobs. We also held our raffle giving away a Pro Tools 8 Studio Giveaway Package, a Taylor SolidBody Classic Electric Guitar, a Guitar Amp, Pocket Pod, Pod Studio (courtsey of Line 6) and a Sonicbids lifetime membership. Jim, Panos and also Christian from Catchpenny (winners of the Armed Forces Entertainment “Entertainers of the Year” award) helped draw the lucky winners. A huge, HUGE thanks to all our partner friends that made the party such a success with either helping to promote the party, staff it or by supporting us with goodies to give out to party attendees: Yamaha, Sweetwater, Jakprints, Onitsuka Tiger, Bambu and Musician Atlas.

In addition to the tradeshow and party, we of course went out to see some of the nearly 400 bands that booked their SXSW gig using Sonicbids. We took some great video footage and interviewed some bands as well. Check out our Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/sonicbids to see just a handful of them (I wish I could have seen them all!). You can also view a TON more photos and on our Facebook and on Flickr.

If we saw you there, thanks for joining us for another great event; if we missed you, we’ll see you next year!

Tess

Hello friends,

It’s time to hit the road again, this time to sunny Austin for SXSW! I can’t express how excited I am to get into some nice weather and speak with a lot of fine folks while I’m there – not to mention seeing shows from the nearly 400 bands that booked their SXSW gig using Sonicbids.

In case you haven’t heard yet, we’re hosting an Official SXSW party at Maggie Mae’s on Friday, March 20 from 11:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Of course, you are cordially invited to join us… but if you RSVP in advance, or present the printed invitations/laminates we’ll be distributing on site, you will have “priority access” to the party. (Yup, that means you’ll get to cut the line.) You can RSVP and also check out the 13 amazing bands that will be playing HERE.

Be sure to also stop by the Sonicbids booth at the trade show (you can’t miss us; we’ll be right across from the Stevie Ray Vaughan Exhibit). While you’re there, don’t forget to enter our giveaways… and let me tell you: we’re not messing around with these giveaways. You could win a Pro Tools 8 Studio Giveaway Package, a Taylor SolidBody Classic Electric Guitar, a Guitar Amp, Pocket Pod, Pod Studio (courtsey of Line 6), or a Sonicbids lifetime membership!

You can get your fill of industry tips and info by checking out the “Artist As Entrepreneur” panel that our very own Panos Panay will be moderating, Wednesday at 1:30.  And if that’s not enough for you, Sonicbids communications guru Adam Ritchie will be part of the “Crash Course #4: Online Resources panel” Wednesday at 3:00.

Last but not least, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @SonicbidsTess since I’ll be traveling around the conference taking photos, doing interviews, video blogging—all that fun stuff.  I can’t wait to see you in Austin.

Until then,
Tess

Inspired by the Twitter feud between LeVar Burton and Michael Ian Black, Benjy has thrown down the gauntlet and declared a war against the other Sonicbids staffers on Twitter.  If Tess, Tony or myself are not able to get more Twitter followers than him by the end of March, Benjy has demanded a USB Powered Air-Conditioned Shirt as patronage.

Only you can save us from this fate by following us on Twitter.

Benjy	Lou	Tess	Tony

Hi friends,

Happy belated Valentine’s Day! Just thought I would give a little update about what happened this past week at the Sonicbids office.

Last Thursday we hosted a meeting for the Boston Young Entrepreneurs (BYE). BYE  is a non-profit that helps young entrepreneurs in Boston develop, launch and grow their businesses.  It was actually co-founded by our very own Panos Panay (seriously, does this guy ever get any sleep?) in February, 2005–just four years after founding Sonicbids. It’s a great organization that helps young professionals realize their dreams of starting their own business, which ultimately helps bring business, jobs and capital into the city of Boston. In this crazy economy, I’d say something like that is pretty important! On the third Tuesday of every month, BYE hosts “a business plan presentation by a member entrepreneur,” and then the group analyzes the plan so they can help the member strengthen his or her company.  To learn more about it, check out http://www.bostonyoungentrepreneurs.com/

A bunch of us in the Sonicbids office hung around to see what it was all about (check out some photos I took below) mostly because we realize entrepreneurs and artists aren’t all that different! If you think about it, both groups need to know how to sustain themselves using their talents, find the right niche of people to connect to, and develop a plan to grow their resources… the similarities are endless. There are a lot of resources out there to think about your own business plan as an artist that I encourage you to check out.  I did a quick search through some cool music blogs and here’s just one that I found by Kavit Haria on Inner Rhythm: http://www.innerrhythm.org/blog/how-to-write-your-music-business-plan/

Feel free to post any other articles or links you think might be helpful for your fellow musician-friends.

Enjoy!
Tess