Category: Music. & Lyrics
How should "Underexposed"songs be seen on Spotify?
It certainly feels like networking – indie music promotion on Twitter
I love how networking can go and what it can show you – about yourself and your colleagues.
Read MoreWithout a job and without a path forward
I’ve got a conundrum.
In the business world, it’s not a problem really: Long-time veteran of a field of business leaves said-field for two full years and then gets an inkling to re-enter as issues faced personally or an attempt to find a career in a new field hadn’t pass muster. This ambiguous jargon makes it seem plain and simple, don’t it?
It’s not that simple. Not for me.
You can see in a couple of recent blog posts I’ve done that I’ve been touching on my old forte in hockey blogging. I am one of the original hockey bloggers, having founded Boltsmag.com in February 2004, running it independently for five years before being recruited by my long-time colleague James Mirtle (who started his own writing career independently at Blogspot) to SB Nation where I founded Raw Charge. I blogged about the Tampa Bay Lightning and NHL for 12 and a half years before resigning due to burnout (a burnout which also seen as symptoms of a surprising health issue that almost killed me).
Blah, blah, blah… Maybe I should ge back in? I’ve got nothing else going for me.
Read MoreMorning Song by Babe Rainbow (music and lyrics)
By the Australian Alternative/Indie group Babe Rainbow, “Morning Song” was released last week and I crossed it by chance… It’s had me hooked with its mellow sound since. Have a listen via the official music video and read the lyrics below:
Songs in the queue for Spotify Playlist review
I’m approaching a year as a Spotify playlist curator, having started the Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist in May of 2018. While the playlist has amassed 107 followers in the time it’s been active, I don’t know how many of those “followers” actually listen. I’ve already talked about that downside of Spotify though, so I’ll move on.
The Underexposed playlist is at 137 songs, it’ll keep growing as time goes by, as will the Softer Side of Indie 2019 playlist as I cross songs that fit the angle I’m going for with that list.
How do I find the songs, though? While I’ve crossed some posted on Reddit’s Indie music community (which have tended to fit the Softer Side 2019 playlist most often), the majority of the songs I’ve posted on the Underexposed playlist have come from my listening to Lonely Oak Radio and other indie stations (Only Rock Radio, Catorweb, and Indie Star Radio primarily). When I cross a song that might fit the bill of the playlist, I put the name of the song and the artist into a txt file queue of songs to potentially add after review.
Read MoreFor those on Reddit and who enjoy the Adult Contemporary class of music, join me on /r/AdultContemporary
Soft rock, easy listening, and love songs…nothing but love songs. This is a seven year old subreddit that has long been mothballed. I’m trying to get it going.
Simply click on the title for a redirect to the subreddit.
Spotify playlists and the follower flaw
There’s a downside to me trying to push indie music on Spotify. It’s not the fact I spend time trying to find tunes through radio streams and online sites curate the playlists accordingly, it’s not when people approach me with music – sometimes fitting, sometimes not – to consider for the lists. It’s the common habit with Spotify that people might follow a playlist, it doesn’t mean the people actually listen.
Read MoreSoft rock, easy listening, adult contemporary and the Tampa Bay music scene
With the growing and growing and growing and growing nature of the Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist on Spotify and me crossing work on the Music Tampa Bay playlists that embody the underexposed moniker and yet are also aging with some artists missing in general from social media, I’ve been compelled to start a new soft rock/adult contemporary playlist.
This isn’t open to all and any musicians; this is open to artists in the Tampa Bay metropolitan region. The Lighter Side of Tampa Bay currently has only nine musicians on it, but a number of songs from each:
- Ed Woltil
- Four Star Riot
- Fowler’s Bluff
- Gypsy Star
- Rebecca Zapen
- Robert Andrew
- RosewoodCreek
- Steve Dockendorf
- Swearingen & Kelli
There are more groups and artists in the region with worthy content than this. This is, in part, why I’m posting on my blog: Hey! Tampa Bay musicians with calmer tunes! Share’em with me and potential listeners online please!
You might want to listen to the list as-is to get an idea of the sound I’m going for. I don’t know if hip-hop would mix in, or a bass/beat heavy dance/pop number with wailing vocals. Explicit content is also frowned upon. Seriously, I’m not calling it “The Lighter Side of Tampa Bay” because of the sun.
Feel free to suggest artists or songs to me through comments or directly to me through the site contact form. I’ve also got a music-specific Twitter account or my Facebook page where I can be reached at.
Music Tampa Bay’s 2015 Top 100 list is now a Spotify playlist
Music Tampa Bay, the St. Pete-based radio station and online streaming station that highlights music from Tampa Bay and West Central Florida musicians, is known for having an annual Top 100 list. The list is a compilation of 100 songs from the previous year that had received the highest vote tallies on weekly Top 40 lists/polls featured on the station’s web site. The Top 100 ran from 2008 up until this year.
I’ve done a service for featured artists on that list of putting together a link-to-the-works listing three times – 2008, 2016, and 2017. The whole rationale is because graphic lists of songs don’t give people (not just station listeners) the chance to actually hear the songs, or find out about the artists. Not all of the songs are available online as the artists didn’t necessarily use distribution companies that went that route.
In more recent months, I’ve put the 2008, ’16 and ’17 lists – what songs I could find – into Spotify playlists. The listings all have just over half the 100 listed songs.
That said, I’d like to announce the addition of the 2015 Music Tampa Bay Top 100 list (well, 53 of the Top 100) as available on Spotify.
Read MoreIntroducing The Softer Side of Indie 2019 Spotify playlist
I’m running a playlist on Spotify trying to highlight soft rock and easy listening by indie artists that aren’t well known. The UnderexposedSoft Rock and Easy Listening playlist is just shy of 6 hours in length as of this writing and the sound holds consistent with some songs going a little stronger than others. That’s been soft rock radio for decades though, hasn’t it?
That playlist compiles songs from over recent years of the indie and small label variety. I’m announcing a new playlist that will focus squarely on 2019.
While the intent is to take a variety of songs and offer them to the public for listening – and that’s a catch: actually having people listening to the playlist — one thing I’m not looking for is the “chill beats” sound with drumming/rhythm-section driven. I’m looking for the more traditional sound of music. I’m also not looking to add a multitude of foreign languages; if what you have isn’t in English, it’s not appropriate to submit it as a song.
I’m also not looking for songs with explicit lyrics. Think of it as a general-audience appeal I’m going for here, not the 18+ year old adult segments who accept that stuff.
I’m posting the playlist itself below. It’ll remain barren or mostly empty for I-don’t-know.
If you want to submit a track for consideration, please use the contact form. Make sure the subject reads “Softer Side 2019 Submission”. If you’re on Facebook, you may also try contacting me through the Johnny Fonts Facebook page.
The indie music scene and Lonely Oak Radio
Are you into the independent music scene or do you have curiosity into what’s currently going on in that music realm? Perhaps you’d like to discover a new flavor of rock/alternative/pop music? I’d like to recommend a radio stream for such.
I’ve been listening to Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist (Note: Don’t take that as a sign everything Lonely Oak plays is on the softer-sound side because it’s not, its only a fraction of the sound cache the station produces). Not many of the acts on the station are widely known, that’s the life of the indie artist – the chase for exposure
This link will take you directly to the radio stream of the site. No, it’s not a bare-bones audio stream tool but shows the song currently playing as well as the artist and the next artist. There are links to AmazonMP3.com so you can get the song playing if you’re interested in as much. It’s just really integral to have knowledge of what’s playing (without a DJ yammering at length before and after the song plays). It’s also integral to actually hear music without having to deal with advertising (or pay a monthly fee for ad-free radio).
If you’re an artist, you can submit your music to Lonely Oak Radio here. If you’re a fan or supporter of an artist featured on the station, you can donate money to Lonely Oak Radio to get a song to play a few days in a row (the quirk is knowing if you’ll actually catch the song on-air, but I digress).
There are more indie stations out there than I know of, providing more music y little known artists they world over… This stream is just one sampling of what’s out there.
“The Playlist Exchange” is a promotional avenue for content on Spotify
Just a heads up for musical artists who are looking to promote their tunes on Spotify as well as for people running niche playlists who want to promote that list, there’s a place for that.
The Spotify Community is a message forum area devoted to the Spotify platform, covering a lot of areas of the field including playlists. The Playlist Exchange is the specific forum in the community where playlists are promoted and curators look for new songs to add to their lists. Many music genres get covered, but so do many niche areas such as topics, moods, musical arrangements and what have you.
Mind you, the Exchange may be an avenue for promotion but it doesn’t guarantee songs getting added to playlists or people actually following a playlist you post. I’ve submitted music by little known groups to playlists (songs by artists I am not associated with, I’m just a fan of) and got passed over while I’ve also posted my Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening list with little gain.
Marketing is a chore. The Playlist Exchange is simply a potential contributor to goal achievement.
Like all history, this “Revolution” remains relevant
The world has changed quite a bit in 50 years but a song has regained immense relevance. It’s a song that societies around the world and pop culture has found relevance time and time again during its existence. Sometimes it’s just figuratively relevant while other times it’s very much directly relevant.
In the United States of America in the fall of 2018 we’ve seen mass shootings (several times) with political ideological history tied to the gunmen. That’s not as literal as the #MAGABomber that attempted assassinations of political and public figures through mailed pipe bombs.
That’s what makes Revolution by The Beatles extremely relevant at the moment.
For the record (and those who don’t know history), “Chairman Mao” is a reference to Mao Zedong, former Chinese emperor.
With the 2018 election having set in just days ago, the requests for a contribution has been common (a norm in US politics). All-too-common for this election cycle was ”minds that hate” looking for cash.
There’s a healthy form of politics and then there’s what is occurring in America at the moment. Political ideologies always contrast, but it’s when society works in cohesion that America can thrive. Society thriving isn’t the driving factor of “Make America Great Again” and those using death and destruction to show support toward it are proving it.
Both sides of the political fray should take some comfort in the chorus of “Revolution” though it seems distant at the moment. You don’t need to go extreme, life works its way out:
Don’t you know it’s gonna be
All right
2017 Music Tampa Bay Top 100 — now a Spotify playlist
Music Tampa Bay‘s annual Top 100 lists (which ran from 2008 through 2017) featured a wide swath of music — we’re talking genres and time-of-publication. Some of the songs were relatively new releases, some were much older. All of them were from artists derived from the Tampa Bay and west central Florida area. I use that as a lead-in to the 2017 Music Tampa Bay Top 100 playlist on Spotify because only 54 of the 100 songs were on Spotify (or at least that’s the amount I found).
While some of the songs are very much available online, others aren’t and some are on select sales and streaming avenues and not on Spotify. Another issue I’ll cite here is that the Top 100 list for 2017 was hindered with thanks to Hurricane Irma’s effects on the Tampa Bay area. While that has nothing to do with only 54 songs on this list, it does explain why some of the songs on this list were also part of the 2016 Top 100 list (…a playlist with only 57 of 100 songs).
I very much intend to add the 2008 Top 100 listing to the Spotify playlists, but if these more recent lists are getting just over half the list songs, I don’t expect 2008 to do better. We’ll see about that.
One other thing — if you’re a Music Tampa Bay listener or a musician featured on Music Tampa Bay, I encourage you to donate to the station. They are a non-profit station trying to promote music created by local musicians. It costs to broadcast and stream online, though. Every bit of supportive income helps.
A new Spotify playlist of Tampa Bay musicians and music
In spring of 2017, I took to the task of taking aMusic Tampa Bay Top 100 list of 2016 post was an attempt at exposure for the artists and their work that went further than the hyper-local radio broadcasts and its online music stream.
I’m taking things a step further though I don’t know if this will lead more people to check out this music or what. I’ve created a Spotify playlist of the 2016 Music Tampa Bay Top 100 list.
In trying to aid the exposure of the artists and their music, I don’t know if it did the job so much. Let’s see if a Spotify playlist can help things along.
From my experience researching three different Top 100 lists, I’ve learned it’s a tradition for not all the songs to be available through online streaming. In this case, only 57 of the Top 100 songs from the listing were available… They represent a mix of music genres: Rock, Reggae, R&B, Folk, Pop and Country. The performers herald from the Tampa Bay and west central Florida area and while their sound may be taken as unique, they are all very much of the genres they are derived from in music.
I have intentions of also posting the 2017 Top 100 list and perhaps ones that came before it too. That’ll come in time. Right now, first things first and the 2016 list is here.
Wordiness and a would-be song; “Cool Dude, Loose Mood”
Poetry and I are not strangers, the evidence is here on the site in the “Creative Writing” section and elsewhere if you look around. I’ve been penning prose of one variety or another since the 1990’s.
Yeah, I’m old. Deal with it.
There are some that have inspired musicians to actually put the words to music. That’s a longer story than I can tell at this time (wink wink, nudge nudge) but my point is that songwriting is something I’m dabbling in. It has created a plight, though.
See, early in the summer I had a friend send me a guitar riff he recorded. He was looking to build a song around it. Now, this idea was garage-rock in caliber. Do-the-job, verse-chorus-verse simple and straight. The riff is the base and the center for the song in melody and what has to be done is to give it some words to finish the product. The problem there was… well, maybe I’ve been exposed to too much Alternative over the years or maybe I’ve seen too many rock songs that have been larger tellings than Keep It Simple Stupid? Then again, maybe I’m a poet and lucky if my words ever go to a finished song… Read More
Spanning the world and united in melody, the music of Lucy, Racquel and Me
The Internet is the land of opportunity for musical artists. Any artist/group of any music genre from any location who has access to the Net can communicate with producers and other artists to hone and refine their work. You can see this playing out daily on Reddit’s WeAreTheMusicMakers subreddit message board. They’re able to offer their art to the masses with thanks to distribution companies who will place finalized music copies on major digital-sales web sites (such as Apple Music, Amazon MP3 and Google Play) along with putting the tunes on streaming services utilized by the general masses (Spotify and YouTube).
Indie music can be an art form in itself with thanks to the basic element of the Internet in the form of communication. It’s like I already said – you can talk to others in music, hone and produce songs with others from all over. And certain recording artists are just that – groups comprised of elements from different places. They may have never personally met and yet they’ve created by working together.
An example of this is the pop music c work of Lucy, Racquel and Me. Read More
Underexposed indie soft rock and easy listening playlist on Spotify
This is an ongoing playlist build of songs by indie musicians that are unknown or not widely known of in pop culture. It’s also a variety of music – pop and rock of a more casual variety – that doesn’t get the kind of exposure it once did in music.
Click above to go to the playlist. If you are an indie musician who would like one of your own tunes considered for the list — either leave a comment or contact me and send a link to your work. You have to be listed on Spotify to get included on this list (though another version of the playlist is on YouTube).
How should "Underexposed"songs be seen on Spotify?
Wishful thinking: A cover of a song that can never happen
Two aged songs and performances in music have crossed my mind this morning and then blended together to make me think what if? It’s not the music exactly that gets me wondering as-so-much a performer and how a song would be covered if said-performer got a go at it.
Both songs are classics and stories of their own. Both performances I’m thinking of and linking together are classics too. One from 30+ years ago (that gets little focus at this time) and the other from 25 years back. Read More
Discovering the Best Releases by Local Bands nominated in the 2018 Best of the Bay poll
Creative Loafing’s annual Best of the Bay is here for the 2018 season. I won’t tell you what to vote for and all that jazz (I’m not a nominee, nor is this blog. Not like that would have happened anyway). What I would like to provide here is a little tool of hyperlinks for specifically one voting list.
The Best of the Bay Arts and Entertainment section has quite a few music related categories and voting opportunities. There’s general band listings, rock, hip-hop, country, bluegrass, blues, etc. The category that’s leading to this post is “Best Release By A Local Band”. Read More
Radio Airplay: A review of Jango’s backend service after 2 years use promoting music
If you’re an indie musical artist or even one under a label and looking for exposure, you may see Radio Airplay, which powers the Jango music streaming service, as an option. Indeed, it is an option to get heard around the world by music listeners who listen to stations aligned with specific performing artists that you align your own music with.
As a legit means of service, though, you have to pay. Oh, do you have to pay…
Read MoreRegarding Music Tampa Bay Top 100 posts for 2008 & 2017 [UPDATED]
Due to server issues created by me over-doing music embeds and such, I’m going to have to repost the Top 100 lists of songs from Music Tampa Bay’s top 100 for 2017 & 2008.
Originally, the lists (which are both divided into several parts) worked okay and everyone had access, but it would seem my hosting company has tightened standards on the shared-server hosting system.
When the lists are reposted, they’ll simply be a text-and-link based list, a-la the 2016 Top 100 list.
UPDATE June 19, 2018: Both the Music Tampa Bay 2008 and 2017 Top 100 lists are now operational again. It required some changes to this web site on eh back end but things are working at the moment. All media that could be found was linked to while we sites or social media accounts representing the musical groups (that could be found) were also linked to.
Finding relevance today in a 1978 television theme song
Do you ever get a television theme song in your head? Y’know, earworm type deal? Yet you go further, looking at the lyrics, and suddenly they take a new weight to them or just seem fitting for the moment in time that you (or life around you) are in? That’s my morning… Read More
Regarding “Missing piece of history — Jim Morrison in Clearwater”
In 2005, I penned a blog post that was inspired by the then-St. Petersburg Times had written an epic feature regarding the days of Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, had spent living in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. Being a Morrison fan and living only a handful of miles away from locations mentioned in the piece, I was blown away. I had known about Morrison having been born in south Florida but I didn’t know about this.
Part of what inspired the blog post was the fact social media wasn’t then what it is today. Not that writing a blog post was going to necessarily draw eyeballs. Yet to this day, Missing piece of history – Jim Morrison in Clearwater still draws web traffic because of Morrison’s romantic interest (and song inspiration) Mary Werbelow.
At any rate, to get to the point, the now- Tampa Bay Times has basically failed with how they treat their archives online, which now hides the articles on a for-profit site (…unless the Times plans to fix their “Page Not Found” issues on archival articles). Between this and my old blog post failure in being more direct and obvious on the link to the feature section from September 25, 2005, finding the feature reading is next to impossible.
Well, was.
Underexposed, softer sounds from rock and pop artists
I’ve assembled a playlist on YouTubbe (and I may try to copy it at Spotify but no guarantees on that) of songs that I’ve heard from various artists through various sources that I consider “soft rock”. They’re not all rock songs, they’re not all adult contemporary, and they’re from a mix of years within the 21st century (not all recent releases but mot are from the past decade).
One thing is for sure though: They’re underexposed numbers that will likely never explode in popularity. Independent artists don’t get that kind of exposure from the mainstream media or at least it rarely happens. Yet, that’s a truth for all music out there — even if people catch your tunes on the radio or at a live show, there’s only a chance that it’ll click with them and gain an ounce of popularity.
The underexposed soft rock playlist has only 29 songs at the moment but my intention is to keep growing the list as time goes by. It just depends on when and where I cross the music and if I feel it fits or not. Mind you, it’s the arrangements that make me add the songs to the list. The lyrics may or may not fit.
If you’re a performing artist and have a song that you think might fit in, or if you’re a listener who knows of a song by a small-time act that doesn’t exactly have a huge audience checking out one of these lighter songs, you’re welcome to contact me through the site form with a link to the song’s YouTube page. I can’t guarantee submissions will get added, but it’s worth a shot.
I also suggest to artists to consider submitting their music to Lonely Oak Radio, it’s the most straight-forward indie music submission site. It’s not Pandora or Spotify in open-listener popularity but it is a unique mix of songs from various artists out there.
Update May 11, 2018:
I’ve been made aware by Europeans that not all tracks on this playlist are accessible.. While this playlist is crafted by an American with access to everything, I have no control over what is not accessible for those overseas. It may put more weight on me trying to re-create this playlist on another platform (Spotify).
update May 13th 2018:
The Spotify Version of the playlist is now up. Not all of the songs are on the list and not all of the songs are able to be added (such as Grease Fire by the Pretty Voices or Arms Around It by Ricky Wilcox) because those tracks aren’t on Spotify. Others aren’t included because I haven’t gotten to them yet, but they will be added and likely others.
How should "Underexposed"songs be seen on Spotify?
The ode to The Great American Stupid
There are many indie bands out there that never went anywhere, such as Desk. You’ve never heard of Desk (unless you got to this blog post by directly searching for the band, in which case I say “Hi!” ☺) and shouldn’t have at this point – the group called it quits a few months after releasing the album All-American Awesome.
Yet there’s something relevant at the moment off of an album that was produced in 2016 and released in May of that year. Something that American society or specifically the politically inclined may or may take interest in. Oh, and rock music fans – I can’t forget rock fans.
I crossed track #6 from the group’s 7-track album while listening to indie radio station Lonely Oak Radio. The title alone seemed timely and came off as a word of protest: “The Great American Stupid”.
A song released before the 2016 Federal Elections that’s fitting in 2018? Indeed. The song is aimed at the Dotard in Covfefe, now-President Donald Trump. The lyrics (which are posted on the group’s Bandcamp listing of the song) are below.
There are likely more noteworthy protest songs out there by indie groups… How far the tunes go depends on how well the number is put together and how much effort is put into exposure. In Desk’s case, not much was done but it is out there.
Something familiar and Fab lurks with Blac Rabbit
Two gentlemen singing in harmony to create a fantastic melody in a song titled “Eight Days a Week”. That was John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and it happened on many songs for a decade. Yet I’m not talking about John and Paul in this case. I’m talking about a duo who can be seen in the act at subway stations in the New York area.
one thing you have to do today is watch this video of amiri and rahiem taylor covering the beatles – they sound exactly like lennon/mccartney and it gives me serious chills pic.twitter.com/lr3r9ew5Dm
— ? (@mattwhitlockPM) February 25, 2018
It was by chance I crossed a friend who posted a video of Blac Rabbit performing on Facebook. It’s pretty common to cross gentlemen from all over doing covers of Beatles work and sounding pretty good. This was different. This was John and Paul…at least in this writer’s opinion as well as others who cross them in the New York subway stations.
The Blac Rabbit website doesn’t seem to feature an “About” page to give up facts about these guys. Their Facebook page isn’t much more informative on the “about” section there, either. It was through a news article by a New York TV station that I found out that they are twin brothers, Amiri and Rahiem Taylor.
They began busking to make some pocket money, and found a receptive audience on the subway with their Beatles covers. The brothers say they’re continuing to perform on the subway while performing original music at venues across the city.
I also found out that they do have an about page on their website (yeah, slight me for that because I couldn’t find the damn thing myself):
Born and raised in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, identical twin brothers Amiri and Rahiem Taylor do not make the type of music that their borough of origin is usually associated with. Growing up surrounded by hip hop culture and all it’s glory, the Taylor brothers had more exposure in their house to pop, funk and soul music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. So naturally when they began writing songs in high school, they decided “why not learn from arguably the greatest song writing duo of all time?” and proceeded to teach themselves how to play guitar and write songs based off of the Beatles. After high school they formed Blac Rabbit, bringing in former metal and church drummer Patrick Jones, followed by resident shredder Josh Lugo on bass (and sometimes guitar) to play their original psychedelic rock tunes.
They do their own music? Oh, yeah… Their own stuff can be found on SoundCloud while YouTube can show you more o their performances as well as their original stuff. Here’s one of their songs, just to whet your appetite:
With their harmony and abilities, it piques my curiosity where the group can go with their stuff. As someone who was drenched in the music of the same era as the Taylor duo, I know that can inspire rather grandly. It’s what their creativity brings that remains to be seen.
I also hope they go beyond New York. Let that be a memo to the Tampa Bay club scene in St. Pete, Ybor City and beyond in the Tampa Bay area: Lure these guys here. Could you imagine what that’d lure to your establishments? Just where in the area they’d end up performing in a busker spot remains to be seen but it’s not like we’re totally lacking on such locations. Ybor City, Pier 60, the West Plaza before a Lightning game. That’s just a shred of potential spots.
There is a question that remains though: Hass Sir Paul McCartney had someone tell him about this pair yet? Cover acts are not uncommon, but this is different. The Taylor duo and Blac Rabbit seem to have something “Fab” going on.
Tomas Fornstedt — Outer Space
Back in January, I posted a song by Tomas Fornstedt here because I had been listening to it for a year after crossing it on Lonely Oak Radio…and discovered that was on YouTube but never had been accessed by a listener up until I found it.
In fact, Tomas’ YouTuve page shows (as of this writing) most of his songs from his last album have never been listened to through YouTube. Oh, sure, Tomas has a SoundCloud account and that is a better music-first community than the expected-video YouTube, but YouTue has general wider popularity and Google will show a pretty nice bias in search results and list YouTube songs in search results… if those songs (or videos) actually see the light-of-day publicly.
To cut to the chase, Fornstedt released a new single in January called “Outer Space”. Like “Be My Friend”, I discovered I was the first person to ever listen to the song via YouTube. When Tomas promoted the song on Twitter, he pointed to Spotify.
Yeah, well, I’ll embed it here — the accessible YouTube listing :
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIs-LVF8HU4[/embedyt]
The one thing I will say about “Outer Space” and this presentation — I don’t know if it does this in other formats on other sites and the MP3 purchase, but I was taken aback about how abruptly it ends. It’s not a fade out, there’s no final instrumental strum, it just sounds as if a recording device was shut down abruptly. That sort of mars the overall flow of the music. That’s just one man’s opinion though. I’ll let you be the judge for yourself.
Random order and custom order of an iTunes music playlist
I listen to music almost nightly on my iPod Nano Touch. I’ve been doing that for a while now and one thing bugs me. Not from the songs, but from the sorting options and the shuffle on the iPod. The former has resulted too often in repeat order and the latter is never random enough. In fact, despite shaking options to randomize the shuffle, too often the same songs end up in the first-plays of a shuffle, just with a few different ones around them, and in a different order than the last play. Talk about annoying.
I wanted to jumble a playlist order by a static means – do it before I start using the iPod. Call it a static shuffle that randomly arranged things. The results I kept finding on Google search results were pointing to Apple forums with people asking the same question and the answer being a proverbial shrug with directions simply to employ shuffle to do the job. That’s frustrating.
Last night, though, I did something random on iTunes, just a shot in the dark attempt. Maybe I already have crossed this option in the past and done the deed and I had just forgotten. Maybe it’s already widely known as well as posted online on another instruction-attempt article/blog post (or several dozens of them), but there is indeed a means to randomize a playlist (with the program doing the first bit of work and you gaining the liberty to do the rest).
Note: This was done with iTunes version 12.7.14. If it works with later versions, grand. I’m certain it works with earlier versions of the software too.
- Open iTunes
- Select a playlist that you want to jumble/randomly arrange.
- Look at the list sorting options at the top of the list (things like name, play count, last played – they are fields that you have had the ability to randomly set).
- On the far left side, there will be no option above the numeric ordering column. Click on that sort area.
What should happen is there will be a re-sort – call it a jumble – of the playlist order. The most important thing is here that you now have the ability to randomly sort the song list order; highlight a song on the list and drag it up or down to the position you want it in the order.
You won’t get a jumble-sort again by clicking the number-sort field over and over again. It’d be a plus if users did get that. There’s no guarantee a static, visible playlist order shuffle is going to be truly random (just as I complained the Nano shuffle was not random enough), but having the manual ordering ability is a plus that will likely be more beneficial to short playlists than the long ones. The latter would take a lot more time to get just right, with no guarantee you ever make it through the entire list.
Pint Size Hero — Spin the Wheel
Again, this is an act I caught on Lonely Oak Radio. I wanted to revisit a song and was surprised to discover I’m the first person to cross the music on YouTUbe.
The difference here compared to Tomas Fornstedt and “Be My Friend” is that “Spin the Wheel” by Pint Size Hero has been available on YouTube since May 2015.
Listen and judge it as you will:
Unconfirmed Memory from Mariah Carey’s “I’ll Be There” performance on MTV Unplugged
I’ve been participating on Reddit’s /r/softrock, a community that posts a wide variety of toned down songs from rock’n’roll to pop music. It introduces people to tunes from days-gone-by more so than current music. I’ve had a habit of trying to mix in songs that I cross that are from more recent days (and they tend to e from unknown or little-known artists) as well as things from the 1960’s through the 2000’s. Others are doing the same over there and it’s worth looking into if you’re into soft rock.
The subreddit seemed like the proper place to inquire about something from music history that I can’t verify. Something I was exposed to so often but can’t visibly or audibly be re-introduced to… Unless I’m wrong on what I thought I saw (over and over again)?
I liked MTV Unplugged, especially when artists went out of character and went to limited instead of electric and intense. Mariah Carey is intense with her vocals no matter what, so the setting was fine for her. What wasn’t fine, I think, was an unaware audience hearing the vocal range of Trey Lorenz. Read More
A musical throwback: Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 of 2008
I’ve posted two of Music Tampa Bay radio’s “Top 100” lists. Let’s be honest to start here: It’s an unknown station for the most part and the acts being highlighted are mostly enigmas. The question that could be asked about these blog posts is: Why do it? Why post them in text format when they’re already available online, albeit in image form?
The answer is pretty simple to me but it remains to be seen if I have actually accomplished it or anything near it with these previous posts. That answer is exposure. While these songs have aired on the online stream for MTB over the years, that’s a niche audience. While the songs have likely seen air-time with MTB’s broadcasts on the FM dial in St. Petersburg, Florida, that’s a limited potential audience in Tampa Bay or beyond.
While not all musicians dream of going big, there are those who want lightning to strike,Four Star Riot accomplished that with thanks to their inclusion on the Deadpool soundtrack in 2016. But others remain out there but no one has heard them beyond the niche in live performances and how far they’ve pushed their own exposure to the masses.
What’s posted below is the original Music Tampa Bay Top 100 representing 2008- The nine-year old list (released in 2009) features some songs that got somewhere – the “views” count on their music videos/audio streams show it. Others didn’t go anywhere beyond finally seeing time online in 2015 with thanks to CD Baby’s publication program. Others are a mystery – the fact they’re on this list in name-only shows that. They may be out there and I may have missed them in my web search but there’s also the high chance they aren’t.
How good these songs are don’t stand in their order, so listen to what music is available and be the judge yourself. Don’t look for performers you know because unless you know the music scene in the Tampa Bay region you likely won’t know anyone. Consider this post your opportunity at music discovery. If not this post, then the more recent Music Tampa Bay Top 100 lists from 2016 or 2017.
Read More
Tomas Fornstedt — Be My Friend (with lyrics)
Just a tune by an indie artist on his debut album, Thoughts, that I discovered on Lonely Oak Radio last year. While his SoundCloud post of the song has been widely discovered, I was the first to cross it on YouTube this evening. Enjoy.
[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFNLChOm3eM[/embedyt]
Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 list of 2017: Top 25
This is where the proverbial countdown of 100 acts from the Music Tampa Bay 2017 list comes to its pinnacle with the top-voted songs from their web site. These are the folks who’s songs represented here were most often voted to remain in the weekly Top 40 voting chart displaying on the site each week.
Fan support bolstered these numbers; Gypsy star is known for being among the high-rankings annually with thanks to their fans. Yet for popularity of all the songs, some can’t be found on the common media-embed sites like YouTube, SoundCloud, ReverbNation, BandCamp, MySpace, or others. In fact, the entire reason for this series has been to grant direct exposure to the songs for the general public (well… you the person who clicked to see this. Yeah, you. Hi.).
I encourage you to sample the songs if not here then on Part 1, Part 2 and/or Part 3. For the performing artists, it’s got to be nice to have a song that airs on the radio or an audio stream, but it’s even better when someone chooses to listen to it optionally and see what the artists or group sounds like.
Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 list of 2017: #50-26
We’re now in the top 50 of Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 from 2017 with today’s post. You can find 100 through 76 and 76 through 51 by clicking on those links.
Let me stress here that the Top 100 list was compiled by way of voting on the Music Tampa Bay web site. With that said, the order of the songs does not truly show rank or popularity of the songs as-so-much support that the artists gained on the Music Tampa Bay Top 40 vote each week. This also isn’t a listing of top current acts as-so-much recordings by local (Tampa Bay area) performers that may have been made at any time. While putting together this post I found two songs were from the 1990s. Others I could not find online coverage for and that seems to suggest they could come from any time (though I would not suggest the music is older than 20 years).
In the end, take this as a music and artist discovery opportunity as well as direct exposure for the performing artists and the songs that cracked the list.
Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 list of 2017: #75-51
As the annum that was 2017 drifts off into the history books, its stories and stats are reflected upon in one way or another in a multitude of categories through the world. The facts of the year-that-was will be referenced and reviewed because… Well, it’s history and things that happen are relevant.
Like music.
It’s an annual thing from St. Pete, Florida-based community radio station did a reflection post on 2016 last spring to give people a taste (and the music optional exposure) of some of the local music created from Bay area artists. With a new (old) year comes a new list of songs that were successes on the Music Tampa Bay voting poll through 2017. Each week, users are able to vote on the Top 40 on the site and those votes are tallied up into what becomes this grander list.
Unlike the Top 100 listing on Music Tampa Bay, the list version here includes (when available) links to the artist personal web site or a social site (Reverb Nation, Facebook) linked to them. The song is listed of course as well as embedded on the post (when possible). 25 songs are listed on 4 seperate blog posts (100-76, 75-51, 50-26, 25-1.
So, if you have time, interest and a musical curiosity, may I present to you the second group of songs from the Top 100 Songs from Music Tampa Bay from 2017. Read More
Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 song list of 2017
As the annum that was 2017 drifts off into the history books, its stories and stats are reflected upon in one way or another in a multitude of categories through the world. The facts of the year-that-was will be referenced and reviewed because… Well, it’s history and things that happen are relevant.
Like music.
It’s an annual thing from St. Pete, Florida-based community radio station did a reflection post on 2016 last spring to give people a taste (and the music optional exposure) of some of the local music created from Bay area artists. With a new (old) year comes a new list of songs that were successes on the Music Tampa Bay voting poll through 2017. Each week, users are able to vote on the Top 40 on the site and those votes are tallied up into what becomes this grander list.
Unlike the Top 100 listing on Music Tampa Bay, the list version here includes (when available) links to the artist personal web site or a social site (Reverb Nation, Facebook) linked to them. The song is listed of course as well as a hyperlink to a location you can listen to the song (when possible). 25 songs are listed on 4 separate tables below (100-76, 75-51, 50-26, 25-1.
So, if you have time and interest and a musical curiosity, may I present to you the first 25 songs from the Top 100 Songs from Music Tampa Bay from 2017. Read More
“Summer Dreams” to “Sgt. Pepper” and Brian Wilson’s Ask Me Anything on Reddit
AS a fan of the Beatles, I’ve read many different pieces of writing about those four Liverpudians, be that magazine or news articles in print and online or books… Many things that almost always touched on an album by another group and one specific musical composer from that group: The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds and Brian Wilson.
Volunteer assistance sought by Tampa Bay community station Music Tampa Bay
There’s a special community radio station based in St. Petersburg that airs local music, to say the least. the 2016 Top 100 list and a Top 40 from this past summer. EDIT: You can find the Top 100 page with each individual year of Music Tampa Bay here.
Yet Hurricane Irma did her damage and complicated things with the station that were already challenged in one way or another. The site representing Music Tampa Bay has long been in need of upgrading to improve accessibility and exposure for the artists and the station itself.
All that said Music Tampa Bay is looking for assistance of the high variety. Everything is voluntary but the open positions listed are basically everything. The MTB sit’s declaration shows it:
All Volunteer Staff Needed
General Manager – Sales Manager – Business Manager – Operations Manager – IT / Website Manager – Program / Music Director – DJs – all shifts
Here’s the official statement off the site about volunteers and the station:
Radio Station Volunteer Staff Wanted
The music stream on this website is now in its 13th year of continuous operation. 96.7 FM in St Pete is now beginning its 2nd year, since the FCC issued a non-profit broadcast license in October 2016. If these listening platforms are to continue serving the local arts communities as stipulated in the license, new management is needed in key revenue generating and operational areas. A new general manger being sought to work with the existing team and eventually assume control once the original license period is renewed in early 2020. Air talent is also needed to fill program positions and operate from the new live Radio Central in The Zoo Studios in St Pete. All air positions are currently open, 24/7. Interested beginners and professionals are encouraged to contact rick@musictampabay.com / 727-455-8848.
This is a great starter place for those interested in being part of the music business or working in communications; a prime opportunity for students. It’s also a great place for those who are embedded already in local music as performers to further expose themselves by working as DJs (or, if qualified, in one of the higher-up positions). Most importantly of all, it’s part of the community. While MTB isn’t available in terrestrial, traditional broadcast throughout Tampa Bay, the online stream is readily available for everyone to hear performers who were, and are part of music.
Suffering an unsound situation – Epilogue: Sunrise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgiQD56eWDk
It’s odd when a song takes a new dimension in your life and you sob while listening to it.
I’ll admit, I’ve been locked on to The Beatles and their 1969 classic audio impairment suffered by chance mid-summer.
Mr. George Harrison, who penned “Here Comes the Sun”, was inspired by way of coming out of a (repeated) boardroom blandness (the downside of Apple Corps LTD for the members of the Beatles) and seeing London delighted in the sunshine of spring. In my case, the silence is a night that lasted far far too long.
In some ways, this moment of my life is a learning experience as the technology difference between the Nucleus Freedom and the Nucleus 6 (which I was upgraded to) is profound. Many similarities are there, too… especially the root of it all: Sound.
It’s the dawning of a new day in my life, yet it’s a resumption of what I’ve known naturally and artificially through my existence. I don’t want to be without it again. It stands in its existence as a verification of who you are, where you are, who others are and the textures of life. Sound has that dimension. It’s not as if those who embrace deafness can’t find these through visual means and other senses. I’m just not one who embraces the silence nor found a direction in life as a late-deaf adult.
Where things go from here, I don’t know. That’s life, though, isn’t it? This is the dawn of the resumption of an aspect of life that makes me elated and optimistic at what the next day holds and where it will take me.
The plight of a newbie lyricist marketing a song demo
Even if they aren’t into country music, my friends have been impressed. I’ve already unveiled it but here it is, all over again! A nineteen-year old poem converted into a would-be pop/country song! Slowly, Her Name Fades Away:
Okay, so now what?
Seriously, now what? Read More
A pop playlist of “relaxing, easy favorites” on Spotify
“Relaxing, easy favorites… with less talk!” That radio pitch from how-many stations in collaboration or owned by the same company? Maybe I’m wrong on that, but “Warm 107 FM” / “Warm 107.3 FM”, “Warm 94.9 FM” all pushed he same type of easy-listening, or a toned-down variety of music from the past few years or longer. It wasn’t that distant to the past that the stations trekked from what I remember… except in rare events for shock or approval. Seeing I’m referencing stuff I heard on the airwaves in the 80’s and 90’s, basically those throw-back numbers were from the 60’s… if they happened at all.
A few years ago I started putting together a personal playlist on my iTunes that mixed together a number of songs that weren’t rockers, or necessarily pop… Then again, some are legendary (Yesterday by the Beatles, Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, Hotel California by the Eagles). The song list grew as I remembered certain tunes from the past as well as picked up some indie songs by way of listening to Lonely Oak Radio.
That’s led to a playlist of 224 songs spanning a total of 13 hours and 49 minutes. Not all of them perfectly fit the motif of “relaxing, easy favorites” but that’s the title of the playlist. And my own recreation of it is available on Spotify.
The Spotify list doesn’t perfectly recreate things as I’ve taken certain songs off my personal list, I was unable to add others (such as Paul McCartney’s (I Want To) Come Home, Michael Stipe’s mixed-group performance of U2’s One, as well as others). It’s still 182 songs in length…
I could see people arguing “relaxing” does not describe performances by the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s (stuck in silence (for the rest of my life) and not mess with music that I miss. Who knows? The point is – the playlist is public on Spotify and maybe you’ll be interested in looking into it or – gasp! – listening.
Silence and song; the musical demo of “Slowly, Her Name Fades Away”
How does a deaf composer get the attention of the music industry? Think about that for a minute, would you? It happens to be a serious question asked by a man who is currently sitting in an unsound situation.
I’m not Ludwig van Beethoven – far from it – but I can say that my toe is in the proverbial water of the music industry at the moment. Okay, actually it’s actually my entire foot up to my ankle or lower shin (that comes by way of me having spent time trying to promote the Pretty Voices over the past year). It goes by way of words and actions, not so much plucking piano keys and writing orchestral symphonies.
See, I wrote a poem back in the fall of 1998 (a long long time ago in a galaxy not-so-far away) that I’ve clung to over the years. It’s a poem I had intended for inclusion in a self-published poetry book… It’s also something I thought could be done in a musical arrangement to make it into a song.
So, when I got frustrated and vastly slowed this past spring, and while I still had thoughts tying said-poem into a musical arrangement, I made an inquiry with the Nashville Song Service if the lyrical-verse really could be done as a song. Indeed, it got the green light. Read More
Members of the Tampa Bay music scene
I’m a regular in a Reddit subgroup that represents the entirety of the Tampa Bay area, /r/tampabay. Most of the citizens of the cities in the Bay area aren’t members of that group, they’re in the singular cities like /r/tampa, /r/stpetersnurgFL, or not in a city subgroup as all (hey, power to the people – it’s not like everyone goes on Reddit to talk about local life).
Anyway, a couple of months ago on the less-populous /r/tampabay subreddit, a new-resident sounded a disdain for the lack of original musicians in the Tampa Bay area:
So, I’m starting to think there just doesn’t exist any kind of local music scene here at all, unless you consider septuagenarians playing jurassic-rock covers a “scene”. Please tell me I’m wrong. The only show that I’ve gone to in a year and a half was when I flew back to Ohio to visit. This is depressing.
This opens up a question of where in the Bay area they were looking for performances and when – it’s not like it’d happen every day of the week. It’s also not like you can expect original music by local band members to be available at a golf resort or at a bar/pub/club/tavern deep in suburbia. Oh, it likely happens but you’re more likely to get cover acts in small time locales like that.
Lack of local music scene, though? No… That’s not the case. Read More
Music Tampa Bay’s Top 40 for June 26th, 2017
Earlier this year, I posted a list of the Top 100 songs from Music Tampa Bay for 2016: Converting the image list to text and linking to various locales where you could actually listen to the songs (side note: I’ll still take link and genre submissions for some of the unlinked artists/songs, thanks).
Well, the Top 100 list for each year on Music Tampa Bay is built around a weekly running Top 40 list that Music Tampa Bay has going on. I’m not sure how it has functioned long-term but as of now you can vote once per day on a song that’s been placed on the Top 40 list. Voting ends at 6 PM ET on Sunday nights and the results make up the Top 40 list for the week ahead. How a performer or band get on the list to begin with is Music Tampa Bay’s choice while the songs listed aren’t all recent releases by Tampa Bay musical artists.
Now, exposure to the song is subjective to those who cross the Top 40 list. You either have to be a Music Tampa Bay listener (online streaming or over the airwaves in St. Pete, Florida at 96.7 FM), or have crossed the music by other means (like deliberately hunting down a listed song online, as I’ve done in the past).
Well, this article is a little twist on things. Below you will find the Top 40 list from Music Tampa Bay (released on Monday, June 26th) with embedded versions of the songs from the list. Not all songs are embedded. Omission like that is not a deliberate act as-so-much an inability to locate the song online. Some songs do appear on the web in sales locations or on streaming locations like Spotify. For the sake of accessibility, those instances aren’t linked. In other cases where a song can be accessed by anyone but the tune isn’t embeddable, things will be simply hyperlinked.
Many of these songs have been and will remain listed on the Music Tampa Bay Top 40 for some time to come, so if you like one of these tracks a lot then you should support it: Go to Music Tampa Bay and view the Top 40 list and cast a vote in favor of it (button next to the song on the Top 40 list). Read More
When an established band gets deemed as nothing
I like Reddit. I’ve already posted here about Reddit and promoting content on Reddit. I also know Reddit doesn’t work for everyone, especially at the community-level where commentary can get volatile and discussion stunted by way of sarcasm and reactionary responses.
I want to speak of ill I’ve encountered, but not a malicious incident. No, no, it’s posting restrictions that thwart participation. Subreddit’s having rules are a necessity or everything goes chaotic (or spam-laden), so I’m not trying to frown on rules here. It’s when they go too far and are over-reactive in an effort to… what, exactly? Read More
Note for Tampa Bay area indie musicians: WURK it out and submit!
If you’re a musician in the Tampa Bay area – a recording artists with your own records to show for it – you may want to take a look at WURK Radio’s web site and their submission process. WURK went on the air in May 2017 in the Tampa area and is a community, volunteer driven radio station. I don’t know how far and wide it is listened to in its fledgling status, but it remains important to spread your name and your talents locally and WURK is one of those opportunities.
Oh,they’re also on Twitter and Facebook (though the Facebook entry is a private profile).
The downside of submissions is that they require hard copies — Compact Discs, not digital submissions. If you’re willing to go that route and explore other positives for you and your act by way of WURK, click thru and have a read.
