Social Media
January 24th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
During the course of the last few years we’ve heard how everyone needs to get on the new web, the Web 2.0, which is full of interaction between the people that post things, and users that are reading said posts. Businesses, musical acts, and all types of celebrities, flocked to sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, in a supposed effort to reach their fan bases. It has been a few years since these platforms have existed, and as a result, I think we can now ask, how social are these platforms? Do they really work? The original concept was to bring you closer to those artists, and bear in mind, I do understand that it is impossible for some of these artists to answer absolutely everything that is sent in their direction. But what’s the point in someone being on say Twitter if they’re still not accessible? To me, this makes no sense.
Why advertise/post, you’re going to be at say The Palms if you aren’t going to make yourself available? Good for you, you’re in Vegas, while the rest of us slobs work, go to school, etc.! We get it, you’ve been invited to play poker, or are going to shoot a round of golf, but throw people a bone from time to time. Ever think this works against you when looking for sympathy regarding your poor album sales? What is posted can both help, and hurt how fans perceive you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked people, are you getting the new (insert band name here) album? And hear in return “F them, they don’t need my money, their guitarist is off playing this or that again”.
Not everyone is like this, there are those like say Mark Morton (@markduanemorton) from Lamb Of God or Nikki Sixx (@NikkiSixx) from Motley Crue, and my good buddy Mark Strigl (@strigl and @talkingmetal) who posting things, and do a good job in following up with fans responses. Again, I understand that you can’t respond to everything, but hell if you can post “flying from L.A. to Vegas, going to be on the net and playing poker online”, wouldn’t that time be better served getting in touch with people that have put you in that position? Touching on the people I’ve pointed out, they all differ in celebrity status, and thus interact in various ways with their fans. Mark Morton often takes questions sent to him on Twitter, Nikki often interacts with other celebrities, and fans alike, while you can read posts from Mark stating he’s going to be at a certain location in New York City so that fans can stop by and have a beer with him.
Being that I’m a big fan of pro-wrestling as well, I follow various wrestlers, and see that wrestlers like CM Punk (@CMPUNK) Chris Jericho (IAMJERICHO) and MVP (@The305MVP) to name a few. They get it, they have fully embraced Twitter, they keep fans up to date with what they’re doing. They respond to fans, make fun of each other at times, and keep thing interesting. I think a lot of musicians could learn from them.
In the end people are going to do whatever it is that they want, and I am in no position to tell people what it that they have to do. The idea of all of these web 2.0 applications is to (as I’ve mentioned above) bring you closer to your customers, in the case of musicians, their fans. So why not leverage these tools to do more than just blab about how cool your life is, or bitch about how illegal downloading is affecting sales? I truly believe the cliché of one hand washing the other applies to sites like Twitter. Maybe if you put an hour a day of your cool life aside to touch base with the people that gave you that life, maybe your album sales might be a little better?
-VMR
Homage To My Influences
December 15th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
There are three individuals that have pushed me to be the music geek that I am. Two of them unknowingly, while one of the three literally convinced me to start two of my shows, and I’m not ashamed to admit but his newest outlet has driven me to put this site and podcast together.
The first person I’m going to mention really lit the spark; a lot of you people know him as the host of That Metal Show. I remember him as guy that did the news at midnight on Metal Mania. This was a Friday night show that aired on WDHA in north central New Jersey. Before the internet, Eddie Trunk was the person to listen to for your metal news. He had all of the scoops before Metal Edge, Circus, Rip, etc. He later progressed on to host Metal Mania, and had many memorable guests along the way. I still have a bunch of these interviews recorded on cassette tape. Including part of a great interview with the late Eric Carr, who was at the station on a snowy Friday night.
Along the years I’ve had some of my correspondence read on the air (what’s up with Vinnie Vincent?), I’ve won CDs off of him, D Generation’s self titled debut after answering a question regarding the movie Airheads which featured one of their tracks. Another time I won a Blue Murder CD after mentioning all of the bands John Sykes was in before Blue Murder. I’ve run into him and said hi at various events as well.
In the past year I’ve tried to get him on the phone to just say thank you, and talk about all things music. For a while there it looked as if the planets were aligning and the interview was going to take place. Unfortunately Eddie is a busy guy, hosting various radio shows, and the aforementioned TV show. He’s also coming out with a book, as a result I haven’t heard back from him in a while. I’ve tried several times, but I realize that I’m small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
I listened to his shows over the years on DHA, WNEW and Q104. Unfortunately the curtain call came when the latter stopped broadcasting their feed outside of the states.
The last two people I’m going to discuss is pretty obvious, without them no one would know who I was, or listen to any of my shows. They are none other than John Ostronomy and Mark Strigl from Talking Metal. They brought something completely different to the table that Trunk has always mentioned that he couldn’t do. They’re fans, they’re hosts, but they’re also musicians! This brings a completely different intangible to the mix. Hearing them initially talk about gear, learning songs, asking artists about their songs, etc. just blew my mind. I’ll admit I’ve always been a wannabe musician, never making it past the local level when it comes to music. But here where Mark and John talking to the likes of Tony Iommi, Dave Mustaine, and Dave Navarro, etc. about their music, gear, influences, etc. Not only that, but they were jamming on their own show with such musical giants as Richard Christy, Corey Clark, and Turtlehead! The latter actually started my communication with Mark. I had been on his forum for a while (www.talkingmetalforums.com), and was mentioning various tidbits about some of the bands they were playing. They mentioned something about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and their guitarists. They mentioned them out of order, so I mentioned this on their forum. Mark’s reaction was something to the effect of “Cool, you should have your own podcast”. My first thought was, is he saying beat it kid, you’re bothering me, do your own show and leave me alone? Or does he really think that I would be decent at having my own podcast? I thought about it for a while, looked for a niche, and started producing my Spanish language podcast Fusion Sonica. As a result, I asked Mark if I could use the Turtlehead’s cover of Motorhead’s Overkill. Their rendition is mind blowing in my opinion; as a fan of their work, I had to spread the word! Coincidentally, when asking Mark about using Overkill, he asked if he could use Fusion Sonica on his station MarkStriglRadio.com. I was more than happy to oblige, so it’s been on MSR ever since. A few months later we met up in Manhattan, and he asked if I might be interested in doing a show in English, and that’s how Mars Attacks was born (I’ll get into the name at a later date).
So long story kind of short, what captivated me about the Talking Metal approach is hearing Mark and John discuss music from a musician’s prospective, hearing them talk to artists in a laid back personal manner (a far cry from the anchor man drivel most interviewers use), and without any hesitation hearing them talk about how they love all types of music, regardless of whether it’s metal or not.
Just to wet your whistle, here is the track that got it all started!
I bring all of this up now because I was just listening to a great episode of the Mark Strigl Show, if you haven’t heard it yet, check out MarkStrigl.net, or subscribe to it on iTunes. While you’re there check out Talking Metal and Talking Rock. Also check out their YouTube channel for more great covers!
In any event, thanks to Eddie, John and Mark, for doing such a great job trailblazing the path that so many of us others follow!
-VMR
