Monthly Archives: September 2011

Facebook, Web Updates, Dreamland Compilation

So I was trying to make it so the Silber Facebook Page (as opposed to just my personal page) has posts feed in from my Twitter.  It seems like for the non-personal pages it can only go one way (Facebook …

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One Response to Facebook, Web Updates, Dreamland Compilation

  1. GoddakkATTACK says:

    for the plumerai page, i update on reverbnation and it feeds FBpage, twitter, myspace.

CD Case, Blogging, Norm MacDonald, Dream

So I did some work on the possible disc case thing.  Here’s a video of me trying to assemble one while holding a camera in the other hand.

I talked to Shane Sauers a bit about the assembly thing (the …

Posted in daily news, dreams, music, video | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

5 Responses to CD Case, Blogging, Norm MacDonald, Dream

  1. GoddakkAttack says:

    well in order to even break even you’ve got to either price the CD’s high or sell a lot of copies so just relying on word of mouth or the multitude of blogs that nobody really reads unless they’re looking for their own reviews probably doesn’t help.

    I’m doubtful ads even work in this day and age. I mean when was the last time you went to a website and saw an ad and was interested enough to click on it? Then again not everybody is me and i did run a couple of those cheap FBook ads as an experiment and while it was only 25$ the most that came out of it was 2 or 3 more FB likes.
    Publicist, i’m weary of… on one hand they can do more for you than you can due to their established connections and ability to put the time in and the other, what they do is it really going to help you out enough or are you just paying money to see yourself in print etc. . . . . if you’re still only getting into the hands of people that aren’t going to like your music anyways, it’ll never translate to sells or more people at your shows despite more awareness. That’s why i dunno if that route would do Silber niche any justice. If we only played punk or metal this would be way easier to make connects.

    I still think the #1 way to increase exposure is through live performance and meeting people. I don’t know of a single artist that got popular any other way except for novelty acts like DieAntwoord or ones that had members of formerly successful artists.
    That $10,000 might be better served sending people out on the road if the goal is to sell more music/CDs etc. . .

  2. GoddakkAttack says:

    i think in the chart on the page you linked Cold War Kids “A&R reps frustrated with blogs creating artificial fan following” is the most important statement on that page. Also that the internet is more or less marketing to people that don’t really like music, who i guess technically are the people you need to reach but being the internet and all these people no longer put worth on music and then how can you expect them to do anythign but download it for free or not at all.

  3. Yeah, I think the $10,000 I would much prefer to set for putting bands on the road. If I had the money & gave bands an extra $100 per show I think that more touring could happen. I mean, it seems like the bands that I’ve known that have made it did it by doing 200-300 shows a year for 5 years. Of course gas was cheaper then & booking agents were easier to come by & show attendance was higher. But I think touring is great also because it brings a band together &/or breaks them apart so you either end up with a better band or a band that shouldn’t exist not existing anymore.

  4. I think the theory of getting a publicist & becoming a buzz band is possibly scoring an advertisement placement or film placement that will hopefully cover the investment.

Blogging, Short Runs, From Oceans to Autumn, Remora, Cerebus, Conspiracy Theories, The Outer Limits, Dream

So I just figured out how to get the blog to show comments on the front page instead of just individual entry pages.  Starting to feel a little bit more comfortable with WordPress I suppose since I am going in …

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Finally Checking It Out, Short Runs

I posted up a couple reviews on Finally Checking It Out of a couple proto-graphic novels by Lynd Ward & the ultra-early graphic novel It Rhymes with Lust.  I saw Event Horizon while I was working on some things …

Posted in comics, daily news, movies & television, music | Tagged , | 13 Comments

13 Responses to Finally Checking It Out, Short Runs

  1. GoddakkAttack says:

    did you see Sunshine, which is basically the same type of movie?

  2. Nic says:

    I like the letterpress style cases. You may consider also Arigato Pak – although I have no idea about which is the less expensive…
    By the way, recently n5MD started a special repress series in Arigato Pak. I’m going to buy the SubtractiveLAD one which I missed and see how it is.

  3. GoddakkAttack says:

    or Moon. which isn’t hte same type of movie but i think you may dig it. also i think Bowie’s son either directed or wrote this possibly both.

  4. Sunshine is the same movie in certain ways, but better mainly because it doesn’t try to showcase special effects (which always makes something dated & cheesy, sometimes already when it comes out). Solaris is kind of the same movie but better also. I haven’t seen Moon yet, but I hear good things & if it ever happens to be on in a room where I am sitting I plan to watch it.

    I looked at the aragato pak & I think I might go ahead & work with Shane Sauers (Rollerball/Miss Massive Snowflake/Starbage Hands) & make something similar of my own design specifically to fit Silber’s needs. I think the aragato design isn’t very friendly for radio & that’s something I really want to be.

    • Nic says:

      Well, Arigato Pak may appear to be hard to open but this is not always the case. Some letterpress releases that I have in my collection are very complicated to open without damaging the artwork though.
      I remember when Independent Project Records used to release limited edition CDs packaged in those tasty letterpress cases. I bought the Half String stuff, it was not so easy to extract each CD from its case :D

  5. michael says:

    I’m not one to be influenced by the “handmade” thing people tend to drop with limited releases. Cd sized objects – no matter how much love has went into them – don’t influence my decision to purchase an album.

    However, I’d be naive to ignore that people really like these things.

Paper Jamz, Paper Dolls

My nephew has one of those Paper Jamz guitars & I thought it would be funny if I tried to do a show with it or something some time (they have an output jack on them).  But even when I …

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Paper Dolls, mwvm, Dream

So when I printed up the miniature paper dolls, the color prints looked all pixelated, so I had to print them in black & white & recolor them.  Didn’t have a chance yet to start shooting the video.  Maybe tomorrow?…

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10 Responses to Paper Dolls, mwvm, Dream

  1. Nic says:

    As for mwvm, any chance to have a limited run of physical copies (maybe CDRs)? : (

    • I’m not sure. I’m really torn on the ultra limited run stuff & I haven’t figured out if I should be doing that or just going digital (especially since as I’ve said before, I don’t personally listen to music on a computer or MP3 player). My problem is most CDR stuff I see ends up looking a bit cheap & I’d rather not do it at all than have something chintzy. All that said, I’m still thinking about it conceptually. I am always (somewhat secretly) willing to burn a CDR of a digital release for a fan & mail it to them for $5 plus shipping.

  2. Nic says:

    I see your point, Brian. I don’t listen to music on a computer or MP3 player, either (only CDS). I was just thinking about a CDR thing with essential artwork like Plumerai “Res Cogitans” – although it wasn’t a limited edition, I suppose.

    • Well, with Res Cogitans that was something we weren’t even trying to break even on, it was just to get people ready for Without Number. We just made 100 of them with the knowledge that would be plenty. It was also at a point where money seemed a lot easier to come buy. Really what I suppose I should have done was invest $1000 on a CD duplicator with the ability to print on discfaces back in 2000 or so & not ended up with all the stock on hand. Hindsight….

  3. michael says:

    how about this? i will burn a cd-r with artwork FREE of charge to anyone who pays for the album via silber?

  4. Nic says:

    @Micheal, I remember when you sent me a CDR copy of your Demos in the past, but now I’m wondering if it would be convenient for you – considering also the shipping costs…

    • michael says:

      hello nic,

      yes, i remember, italy if i recall? i’ll probably ask the recipient to cover postage costs via paypal, a nominal £1.50 or something.

      • Nic says:

        Yes Italy, Michael. I live in the south – specifically in Sicily :)

        Covering postage costs via PayPal is a good idea – just let us (followers) know if you decide to burn some CDR with artwork.

Car, Paper Dolls, Dream

So my trickery worked & my car passed inspection.  Pretty excited about that headache being gone for a year.

I finished drawing & coloring the original versions of the paper dolls for the Remora video.  Just have to print up …

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Spotify & Music Money Today

Ned Raggett asked me to move this into a blog post so he could refer people to it, so here it is from a Facebook discussion.

Brian John Mitchell

Anyone seen these press releases some indie labels are doing about
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2 Responses to Spotify & Music Money Today

  1. anthony monday says:

    missed this. I certainly have never seen a cent in any of my Carta ASCAP statements from any internet plays at all, though I know they happen. It’s a mystery to me. I’m fortunate (maybe) enough that I don’t count on music for any portion of my income and it provides a decent tax write off for me, but it would be nice to see, like, $5 at some point from one of these services.

  2. The internet plays I just got on the current BMI statement I have are from a two year old record. Most of which is for Rhapsody streaming play (which I would have thought I’d get that money from Rhapsody via my digital aggregator?). I don’t know exactly how things work, but it seems pretty random as far as actually getting money from a PRO because most of the places that play indie radio (community & college stations) have tiny broadcast radiuses & often get a special license to not need to pay the PROs.

Car, Wheelchair, Rollerball, Dream

I only got an hour of sleep last night, so my day was mostly a haze.

I got the follow-up emails on the new releases out.  Just have to wait & see if anyone responds as far as getting on …

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2 Responses to Car, Wheelchair, Rollerball, Dream

  1. GoddakkAttack says:

    are these pandas sitting at the table or are they doign normal panda activities?

Remora, Spotify, XO, Worms

So I did some more work on my paper dolls for the Remora video.  Drew three out of five, still have to scan them in, color them, & cut them out & then find out if my camera can do …

Posted in comics, daily news, music, video | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

8 Responses to Remora, Spotify, XO, Worms

  1. GoddakkAttack says:

    if it doesn’t cost the label/artist anything to be on it, i would see Spotify as free promo (i guess cdbaby puts you on there as part of their deal, not sure how working direct works out).
    Although I imagine at a certain level the artist becomes promo for Spotify as opposed to the other way around.

  2. GoddakkAttack says:

    also i gu ess i don’t know how spotify works either, is it just online radio like pandora? or do you get to download the songs for a subscription fee?

  3. On Spotify you get to listen to any song you want with no subscription fee. I haven’t heard an explanation of why anyone would get their pay service & in most countries about 5% of people use the pay service.

  4. As far as it being free promo, it would be free promo if people came to your music through it instead of going to it for your music.

    • GoddakkAttack says:

      well i imagine it’s supposed to work that way, like last fm or whatever. where hey i like Metallica so it’ll suggest i listen to Megadeth. So i’m sure people will go for metallica and megadeth and maybe hear some other horrible metal band from the midwest as a result potentially. so possibly promo if it works that way but from what i gather, it’s one of the weaker points of the app.

      anyways, i was reading this article about this and it made a good point that the major labels have big shares in spotify so they don’t really care about the streaming revenue since they’re making profit from the ad & subscription revenue anyways. win win for them.

  5. I hear there’s some kind of thing on it where you can check out what your friends are listening to that’s supposed to be “fun.” Yeah, the labels owning Spotify is probably the real reason Apple hasn’t bought it & closed it down yet.

    • GoddakkAttack says:

      It’s in their interest to make the company look successful even though it’s not so that their shares skyrocket. Explains why there’s been so much media support for it.

      • Yeah, it’s like Second Life. Why was that shit on the news all the time when even at my level of geekery I never met anyone that had an account they used more than the one time to find out the thing was kinda lame?