We’ve mentioned before how much we love Kickstarter, the crowd-sourced funding engine that’s helping artists, writers, film-makers, designers, and others bring their projects to life through small donations.

Now, one of our long-time faves, Marshall Crenshaw, has listed a project.

Crenshaw wants to release on 10″ 45 RPM vinyl (and MP3), six EPs over the next two years. Each EP will contain a new song, a cover, and a re-imagining of a Crenshaw classic. He’s positioned it as a subscription series.

To raise the money, Crenshaw will give those who pledge goodies that range from signed versions of the EP to a private concert via Skype to an actual performance in your living room. Pledge levels run from $1 to $5000.

His ask is a rather significant $32,000. And he needs it by April 28. As of this writing, Crenshaw has raised $8348, or just better than 25%.

According to Kickstarters rules, it’s all or nothing. If he doesn’t hit the 32k goal, nobody pays and the project goes away.

As can be expected, more than half of the pledges are coming in between $25 and $100. If that keeps up, he’ll need anywhere from 300 to 500 more people to get on board.

For an artist like Crenshaw, that’s certainly achievable — if he can get the word out.

That’s really the key to Kickstarter — getting those superfans engaged. For a web-savvy, social media friendly digi-native, that might be easier than for an artist with a fanbase that might not exactly be full of early adopters.

Someone like Marshall Crenshaw is going to need some help from old friends — perhaps in AAA radio who can tell the story on the air and online. Kickstarter is a great story to begin with, and this project would make for a great morning show bit at the least.

New York area stations should consider getting on board in a bigger way — it’s a story they can talk about (and take credit for) literally for two years if the project comes through. Kickstarter-like projects will become more and more common, so here’s an opportunity to hip your audience to the concept with an artist they know.

Check out his pitch, which can be embedded on any site…

By the way, we’re in for $200.

From the CANAL+ winning spot at TED's marketing challenge.

TED, the highbrow non-profit dedicated to Technology, Entertainment and Design, has announced the winners of its 2011-12 marketing challenge. Looking for “ads worth spreading,” the organization highlighted ten spots and short films that went viral.

Both creative and inspirational, here are four we liked the most. Worth watching to get your creative juices flowing…

CANAL+ (a French pay cable channel)

Engagement Citoyen (Belgian NGO)

NTT Docomo (Japanese mobile)

Rethink Breast Cancer (Canada)

Photo courtesy BruceSpringsteen.net

As part of a campaign leading up to the March 6 release of Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball, Columbia Records has arranged something of a listening tour of the album — making a different album track available via stream to a different partner every day through March 2.

Friday, it’s radio’s turn.

Stations can embed This Depression on their websites starting at 12:01 EST, 9:01 PST — for 24 hours.

The embed will come as a very reliable Soundcloud player (we were an early adopter and love those guys!).

The player will look like the following:

Cut and paste the following embed code into a WYSIWYG portion of your site:

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder=
"no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.
soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F36867202%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-2COFb&amp;
auto_play=false&amp;show_artwork=true&amp;color=ff7700;
sharing=false&amp"></iframe>

And while you’re at it, embed this video of Bruce talking about Wrecking Ball for a group of European journalists…

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Credit: Robert Knight/Authentic Hendrix L.L.C

Jimi Hendrix: The Live Experience
Winterland

Six shows over three nights — October 10, 11, and 12, 1968.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience took the stage and made history at the legendary, 5400 seat Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.

Now comes the definitive collection- a complete 4-disc box set or single disc: Jimi Hendrix – Winterland.

Celebrate this historic weekend with our hour-long radio special — available in a 52-minute commercial version, or a 59-minute non-commercial version.

Hosted by Q-104/New York’s Ken Dashow, the show features interviews with Bob Weir, Billy Gibbons, Jorma Kaukonen, legendary SF Jock Bonnie Simmons, Winterland manager Bob Barsotti, as well as archive interviews with Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell, and Jack Casady (who played on the Winterland gigs).

Plenty of music, including performances of:

* Fire
* Hey Joe
* Like a Rolling Stone
* Little Wing
* and much more

Program will be delivered on CD via U.S. Mail unless otherwise requested, and will be available for airplay starting the weekend of September 23. Spice up your main channel, HD2 or HD3 channel on the anniversary dates, or airdate of your choosing.

To sign up, send your:

Name
Call Letters
Market
Address

Request commercial or non-commercial version

to: Hendrixradio@gmail.com

We will confirm shortly thereafter.

]]> http://www.thetop22.com/2011/09/jimi-hendrix-winterland-the-radio-special/feed/ 0 http://www.thetop22.com/2011/08/alice-cooper-welcome-2-my-nightmare-the-radio-show/ http://www.thetop22.com/2011/08/alice-cooper-welcome-2-my-nightmare-the-radio-show/#comments Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:30:51 +0000 The Top 22 Editor http://www.thetop22.com/?p=9275 Alice Cooper is back with a Top 5 track at Classic Rock. Grab these soundbites and one-hour radio special. Alice talks candidly about his sequel to the 1975 original, the invention of Alice Cooper, and much more…

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Alice Cooper: Welcome 2 My Nightmare

– The Radio Show

(Now Available via PlayMPE!)

Alice Cooper is back with a Bob Ezrin-produced event record — the sequel to his 1975 original Welcome to My Nightmare.

Welcome him back with a one-hour radio special, hosted expertly by KLOS’ Gary Moore and produced by Ben Manilla of Media Mechanics. Air window opens Labor Day Weekend — and stays open. (Album street date is September 13)

In the show, Alice talks candidly about why a sequel made sense, the invention of the Alice character, the album’s special guests (including Ke$ha), and much more.

There’s also plenty of hit music, including:

* I’m 18
* No More Mr. Nice Guy
* Welcome to My Nightmare
* Poison

The special is 52 minutes long, no barter spots involved.

Use on your main channel, spice up your HD2/3 channels, or website. If Alice is not up your alley, pass along to others in your cluster or company.

To sign up, email the following:

* Your Name
* Your Call Letters
* Your Street Address (we’ll ship CDs UPS)

to: AliceNightmareRadio@gmail.com

We’ll confirm shortly thereafter.

Alice Cooper Soundbites

Feel free to use these soundbites in morning shows, specialty shows, newscasts and before you spin tracks from the album. Right click to download. Mac people should click while holding down the “option” key.

1) Steven character (Alice references producer/collaborator Bob Ezrin)

IN: “Well I just felt…”
OUT: “…boy on Alice’s shoulder.” Cold
DURATION: 0:43

2) Alice’s fans

IN: “Alice will always represent…”
OUT: “…how we get there.” Cold
DURATION: 1:17

3) Nightmares

IN: “You have nightmares…”
OUT: “…makes sense at the time.” Cold
DURATION: 0:48

4) Inventing the Alice character

IN: “I invented Alice because…”
OUT: “…when ‘Poison’ came out.” Cold
DURATION: 1:24

5) Too long a wait for the sequel?

IN: “No, I think things always…”
OUT: “…ladder for this resurgence.” Cold
DURATION: 0:25

In an attempt to raise $250,000 in just three days for charity Shelterbox, 100 artists donated tracks for a compilation called Songs of Love for Japan.

Music lovers can purchase all tracks for a $100 donation to Shelterbox, or a limited 20-song collection for $20.

The sale ends at 10 a.m. EST Thursday, April 21st.

In addition to getting the songs, buyers are eligible to win grand prizes, such as meet and greets with Sara Bareilles or Brandi Carlile. Other gifts from artists will also be handed out at random.

Shelterbox is a charity that ships emergency shelters in the form of a high-end tent for up to ten people. Also in the box are additional items ranging from blankets to cooking utensils. Each box costs $1000, and dozens have already been delivered to Japanese who have been living in cars or are otherwise homeless.

The 3-day “flash sale” is a strong example of an instant fundraiser, which adds urgency to act since the product will not be available for long. The idea offers several lessons for development staff at Public Radio stations.

Purchase the compilation here, and if the you missed the sale, learn more about Shelterbox here.

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Layla: 40 Years On

Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the release of Derek and the Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs with Media Mechanics’ hour-long radio special.

Featuring interviews with Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, producer Tom Dowd, Eddie Van Halen, and others.

Hosted expertly by Q104/New York’s Jonathan Clarke and produced by award-winning radio documentarian Ben Manilla, the show comes in both Commercial (52 mins) and Non-Commercial (59 mins) versions. Commercial version has three breaks, no barter spots. Non-Commercial version has two thirty-second breaks that are covered with instrumental music)

Street date for the 40th Anniversary package is scheduled for March 29 — one day before Eric Clapton’s 66th birthday on March 30.

The special will be available digitally March 21st, and available on CD for the week of Monday, March 28.

A limited number of promotional opportunities are also available for 40th Anniversary versions of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

To sign up, email your
Name
Call Letters
Street Address
Commercial/Non-Commercial version preference, and
Digital or physical version preference

to: derekradiospecial@gmail.com

Confirmation will occur within 24 hours.

Adele’s sophomore release 21 will hit the stores Tuesday (February 22) and will likely debut at #1 on the sales charts for the week.

One of the reasons for this is the spot-on web promotion available on her website.

Called 21 Days of Adele, a splash page aggregates content created in support of her current promotional tour.

Trailers, performances, and contests become available each day like some sort of digital Advent calendar.

There’s a lot going right here, ranging from the fact that it’s all collected on a splash page, without significant navigation required, to the use of curated content created by others to support the cause.

It’s all about design — a warm space with quick and easy access to excellent, rich content, with a heavy emphasis on the user — helping to solidify relationships with the fans. It’s hard not to anticipate the release of 21 after spending time on this site.

This page works so well, you have to wonder why most band’s websites don’t simply look just like this– all the good stuff, right there.

Congrats to Columbia’s new media department on this project. It’s franchise-worthy and will likely be duplicated.

A great video that’s been making the rounds for the past few weeks is a clip from manager Peter Malkin called Managing Musical Artists in the New Digital World.

In it, Peter rapidly walks us through a soup-to-nuts tutorial of the digital DIY music business. There are scores of applications — too many for anyone to actually use. But there’s gotta be pay dirt in there somewhere — or the pay dirt will come from someone who innovates these applications further.

It’s a great riff, packed with dozens of applications and ideas to improve your business…

Digital Overload (All You Need To Know) from Peter Malkin on Vimeo.

Visit Peter Malkin’s blog here, and thanks to Mike Henry of Paragon Media Strategies for bringing it to our attention.

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Keane onstage at Boulder's Fox Theater August 13, 2010

Keane closed out three nights of great music at the Fox Theater as part of FMQB’s Triple A Radio Conference, and it was a pleasure to see a band that is largely a stadium act in such relatively intimate quarters.

Having seen them for the first time a few years back as they opened for U2, the growth was apparent – especially with singer Tom Chaplin looking and sounding better than ever.

Keane's Tom Chaplin was in fighting shape for the U.S. tour for Night Train.

Chaplin’s new golf-centric lifestyle appears to be paying dividends as looks to have dropped 15 pounds since the last time we saw him.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Tom and chief songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley alongside Boulder Creek for a quick chat about Night Train, collaborating with K’Naan, the new single My Shadow, and future plans.

Check out the clip, then embed it into your station site or blog.

Bonus! Keep an eye out for a cameo appearance by “Lucky”– the three-legged dog…

Also worth a look is the official fan-made video for My Shadow. The clip was created by Elmira Temirgaliyeva — a fan from Almaty, the largest city in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan.

With a combined 70 million people using Pandora or subscribing to Sirius, maybe it’s time for commercial music radio to quit playing defense.

Fact is, the strategy really hasn’t worked.

The misuse of Arbitron’s Personal People Meter data and the fear instilled by group program directors has zapped radio of almost any kind of risk-taking at all. The homogenization is driving many of its best customers to other options, and drives the medium toward commodity.

This tiger was bored. A big red ball changed all that.

There’s a rule of thumb that radio programmers should live by:

If you can turn off your radio station for a week, then come back and not feel like you missed anything, you’re in trouble.

Lately, I’ve been able to leave some stations for months and return without feeling like I  was missing anything. Not good. At some point I’ll drift away from those stations for good.

It’s simple animal behavior.

Zookeepers call it “enrichment.” They’ll freeze snacks for the polar bears in ice. They’ll throw a new tire into the monkey cage.

It breaks up the monotony and perks things up — every time.

Humans need the same thing, and if you’re not throwing a new tire in the monkey cage on a regular basis, you’re gonna be in trouble.

Good programmers and great broadcasters know this. They know that they must deliver special series and stunts to keep the consumer energized.

That’s why NBC pays big money for the Olympics, and it’s why The Discovery Channel continues to do Shark Week.

Shark Week, by the way, will turn 23 years old this year. They must know something.

As an added bonus, to perk up Shark Week itself, the stunt will be hosted by CBS’ Craig Ferguson (who regularly notes that Shark Week is his “favorite holiday”). Watch in the coming weeks how Discovery gets PR mileage out of this.

Do you think there’s ever a worry at Discovery that Shark Week displaces fans of their regular programming for a week? Not a chance.

As a radio programmer, you should worry less too. The idea of specials and stunts causes tight sphincters for programmers who live in fear of PPM.

Smart programmers know that the marketing and station branding value for a well conceived and executed stunt will outweigh any tuneout from P3 and P4 listeners.

And best of all, specials and stunts rarely cost a thing.

For example, WXPK (The Peak)/White Plains regularly “unplugs” the radio station to “save energy” on hot days — playing a day-long mix of acoustic versions of songs. Perfect.

So stop over-thinking it. It’s radio. It never was and never will be rocket science.

Valleys of Neptune sold 95,000 copies its first week out -- ranking #4. With the catalog re-issues, Hendrix has 5 albums in the Top 100

Welcome to the Top22.com Jimi Hendrix Page

More than 350 radio stations aired the World Cafe/Media Mechanics Valleys of Neptune Radio Special.

But it’s not over yet!

Valleys debuted at #4 on the Soundscan Sales Chart, #1 at the Coalition of Independent Music Stores Sales Chart, and considering the catalog re-issues, Jimi Hendrix has 5 albums in the Top 100.

With that, we want to thank the more than 700 radio stations that aired either the World Cafe/Media Mechanics doc, the House of Blues Radio Hour, the Rockline special, or teamed with us to do giveaways.

Considering the strong showing, we also would like you to carry on with your generous airplay of the album.

Gems like Stone Free and Fire make for great two-fer plays, and we’re seeing a lot of interest in Bleeding Heart as well.

Feel free to grab and use the content below to enhance your on-air product as well as your website.

There’s still plenty of time to air or re-air the radio documentary. Hear perspective from Janie Hendrix, Jimi’s little sister and keeper of the flame, bassist Billy Cox, producer Eddie Kramer, and more — hosted expertly by World Café’s David Dye.

The program is open to all stations and comes in a 48 -minute commercial version as well as a non-commercial, newscast compatible version for public stations.

Email: Hendixvalleys@gmail.com to grab this for your station.

Video

Interview Clips

Clip 1 :51 (Janie Hendrix)

Jimi’s sister Janie, COO of Experience Hendrix, talks about Jimi’s drive and musical legacy… Download Here

Clip 2 :43 (Eddie Kramer)

Producer Eddie Kramer puts 1969 in perspective, noting that Jimi was looking for a new direction… Download Here

Clip 3 :49 (John McDermott)

Valleys of Neptune co-producer John McDermott adds perspective to the post-Electric Ladyland period — a time of transition for Jimi… Download Here

Clip 4 :52 (Billy Cox)

Band of Gypsys bass player Billy Cox gives first-hand background on where Jimi was headed in these sessions… Download Here.

Clip 5  1:03 (Janie Hendrix)

Jimi’s sister Janie talks about the new sound and new direction that Jimi was heading in — reflected in the album Valleys of Neptune… Download Here.

Clip 6 :44 (Eddie Kramer)

Producer Eddie Kramer describes the atmosphere of the sessions…. Download Here.

Clip 7 :60 (Janie Hendrix)

Janie talks about the letters they receive, and how many just ask about what Jimi was really like…Download Here.

Clip 8 :60 (Billy Cox)

Bandmate Billy Cox talks about Jimi looking for his destiny…Download Here.

Clip 9 :42 (Andy Fairweather Low)

Andy toured with Jimi in ‘67 and sings backing on the new version of Stone Free…Download Here.

Clip 10 :60 (Eddie Kramer)

Producer Eddie Kramer talks about the formation of the New Experience…Download Here.

Clip 11 :60 (John McDermott)

Valleys co-producer John McDermott give details and insights about the album…Download Here.

Strong content for station sites and blogs as we get a video and widget from Bob Dylan, a video for Monsters of Folk’s Say Please, and a movie trailer for the Jeff Bridges/Maggie Gyllenhaal film Crazy Heart — featuring music from Ryan Bingham.

Bob’s video for Must Be Santa:

Here’s the Dylan widget, designed to help feed the hungry during the holidays. Post it and help out:

It’s rare to see a full-on concept video these days — most are the cheaper-to-shoot performance variety. Check out Monsters of Folk’s Say Please.

Lastly, we smell date movie! Jeff Bridges is a man’s man, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is the kind of woman we love. Oh, and Ryan Bingham does some soundtrack work for Crazy Heart.

The amazing Bonnie Raitt is celebrating her 60th birthday on Sunday, November 8, and we have a couple of tools for your site to mark the occasion.

First, feel free to steal this widget, containing an exclusive birthday related conversation between Bonnie and House of Blues Radio Hour host Elwood Blues. Perfect for House of Blues affiliates, but it can work basically anywhere. The widget contains a button that will allow listeners to sign a massive birthday card we’ll be sending her. More than 1200 people have already signed up. (The button will open TheBluesMobile.com in a new window, and that’s where we collect the names).

Grab the widget by hitting the share button and copying the code into your site.

Second, download this archive interview clip in which Bonnie talks about the importance of the blues. It is set up by Elwood, but you can easily pick it up when Bonnie starts speaking:

Bonnie Raitt Clip

Hope this helps, and I would be remiss if I didn’t plug The House of Blues Radio Hour. Hosted by Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues, the show is now in its 16th year of syndication. If you’re interested in the program, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.