Did the comp on Saturday, I didn't win put put in a reasonable show which was nice.

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To those upset people who emailed me with the 'What's the point in trying anymore' messages regaring the picture of my recycling box, please don't worry. I've written to each person's demo in that box with details of this platform so they can upload their tracks and have their stuff listened to. Simply going though them for their contact details is time-consuming enough but to give them a proper listen aswell would take forever. That picture was showing pretty much a day's work and the box wasn't that full. Luckily since starting the blogs we don't get as many mail submissions in preference of the online thing.

Update on that lyric book I was sent, it's actually from the woman in that picture. I managed to work out the return address, it belongs to someone called Mary in Trowbridge. Full of some great folk tunes. Trowbridge has one of the best folk festivals in the UK apparently, I'm wondering if this woman ever went to them. Anyhow, I'm going to photocopy the pages so I can carry on getting the better songs out of it for forwarding onto the sites that collect that sort of thing. Then I will either send it back with a letter or see if it can make it's way to Dylan's people in the states.

Looks like I may be getting my meeting with LastFM this week. How many of you out there are into LastFM? I'm only really just getting into using it as I used to be a Pandora person but the more I use it the more useful I find it. I'm still investigating possible methods of interaction between the two platforms but as always I'd be happy to pass on any suggestions you may have as regards functionality you'd like to see.

Anyway, I'm going to keep the post short today so I can get on and become an expert in various subjects I'm going to talk about tomorrow which is going to be fun.

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Gigs - 12/11/2007

Just the one tonight, but what a gig. Fox Cubs are playing the Hope and Anchor. If you've not had a listen to these chaps make sure you head over to their page and check out Beasts of England or I Could Be Wrong.

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Jujitsu was excellent last night. Did more excapes from garotting, though now I have rope burns on my wrist and a couple of scratches on my back. Hmmm. Sounds dodgy but was all in the name of getting my blue belt. Bit battered and stiff today though. Decided to join a gym as I'm eating too many pies.

Although we have sent the message out that we don't accept physical submissions, they keep coming in. I asked the postroom to forward them onto me so I can send them a message getting them on here. However, I've not had time for a couple of weeks and now they've mounted up. I've got loads to get through. It's going to take me ages. I'm going to have to do a pile a day or something as there's too much to sort out.

Ok. The media player, the first and easiest idea to start on. The spec I'm working to so far is:

1. Sidebar embeddable
2. 30 Track Playlist (20 Playlisted 10 Wildcards - changed weekly - best of get added to playlist)
3. Can Be embedded on other sites
4. Each track has link to artist's Vox homepage
5. Artwork window at top
6. Play/Pause/Skip/Random Play Buttons

That's the spec. I'm going to approach our digital creative dept to start work on it unless there's anything screaming out at you that needs adding?

Artist services - Well the gigs thing could work. After all I've already started working on my own thing. So if that works out maybe it could be taken larger scale? We'll have to see how that works. The distribution thing is a whole other matter which will need a lot of talking about.

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Gigs 31/10/2007

Busy one tonight for Hallowe'en, you doing it in fancy dress?

Worldview is doing an acoustic set @ The Purple Turtle (Oxford) from 6pm

Our friend Susie Wilkins is returning to the Troubadour tonight, though the actual stage time has been sketchy. I'd say get there for 7 and you'll be fine.

Angular Electro Pop outfit Molloy are celebrating Hallowe'en at 93 Feet East which should be a good laugh. 8pm.  Be sure stop by Beyond Retro. It's one of my favourite bits of London around there.

Right, I'm going for a quick sit in the carpark whilst it's sunny then onto the mountain of demos, emails, letters etc.

Hope all is well with you.

IB

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Just sent off my new A&R list to the labels, will get onto them this afternoon and hassle them to see what they think. I treat the lists as almost my own personal best-of's. I will start publishing them once this platform has been running a year I think. I'm in with RCA tomorrow so will be able to show off my wares there aswell.

I was meant to go to the Fox Cub's gig last night but as it took me about an hour and a half to get home to drop my stuff off, and I couldn't get any cash out because of this...

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..I couldn't make it. Damn. I had to scrounge change from around my room to make it to work this morning.

It's such a hassle but it will probably stop me spending for a while which isn't a bad thing.

Anyhow. I've forwarded on the results from the discussions happening around the development of the A&R platform to my boss. I also mentioned to Ged the recent activity and he was pleased to hear of the input and has been having a look around I believe.

Rather than put a poll up, which is what I thought about doing in the first place. I'm simply going to investigate every option to see how feasable it is first then see if I'm in a position to implement them. If it's something fairly easy (like the new media player) then we might aswell just do it. The more complicated ideas, like co-branded nationwide gigs, may be a little harder to acheive. But I will have a look nonetheless.

Big apologies to the Fox Cubs, it all got a bit much once I got home. Will have to catch the next one. Did anyone go to the Claire Toomey gig? I'm curious to see what she is like live too. 

Tonight Shortwave Fade are playing at the Charlotte in Leicester. They've been in the community a while and are worth checking out. I really like their track Stay As You Are, take a listen if you get time.

Hope all is well with you, keep on adding the gigs and as soon as I've glued my card back together I'll start getting out and about again.

Hope all is well with you.

IB

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Survived Jujitsu class last night.

Not sure what was up with me, was far more delicate than usual. Maybe strange sleep patterns and lots of going out over the weekend were to blame. As a result I've jarred my elbow, neck is giving me bother and got a big bruise on my behind. All good though, got another grading in a few weeks so then I'll be on my green belt. Halfway to black :-) As usual, ended up at the pub afterward and got chinese takeaway on the way home. So health benefits were a bit thin on the ground.

Anyway, today is going to be spent going through the submissions as I'm a little behind at the mo, plus I've got a heap of messages to get through. I've got a couple of spammers again so it's making life a bit difficult.

One of the labels seems quite interested in one of the artists I presented recently so I'm chuffed about that. Can't release details until things are in motion/go anywhere. But if things happen I'll be sure to post about it.

Been playing with audiomap a lot recently. Fascinating stuff, it takes data from Last FM and Amazon and builds maps of artists using that data. So if you searched Dido and 'expanded' that node, you'll get Nelly Furtado, Alanis Morrisette, Kelly Clarkson etc etc. You see some interesting relationships between artists. As the data is from Last FM the results should be quite reflective of people's tastes.

I fancy a bit of a catch up evening this evening. Not really had time to get anything done. I've been invited to a blues jam in west London next week so I think I need to polish up my skills somewhat so I don't embarrass myself. Plus I need to sort out one very messy house.

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Not got that much to write, but I'm feeling quite chilled out, the sun is shining and I just had a great lunch. This is the first good afternoon I've had in a while.

New guy started today and seems like a good chap. Knows what he's talking about and got really good experience. Might see if he'd be into the blogging as he'd knock out some interesting posts I think.

Plus, I think I'm happy that there's actually someone in my office. I work in a large open plan space. No one else in it bar one person at the far side of the room. Plus I sit facing a wall. Rubbish. Started feeling like I'd been a naughty boy or something.

I must've look quite miserable after reading joamo's post, as I instill guilt into passers by it seems. Be sure to visit her and leave a comment of how distraught I've been that she hasn't been blogging. ;-)

Just had a quick A&R meeting with Columbia, it's RCA's turn tomorrow. Forwarded on my wears just now and will demo the stuff tomorrow aswell. I'm starting to feel a bit like a door to door salesman with a suitcase of artists.

Got a lot of homework to do tonight, no going out for me plus I've managed to spend myself through my overdraft and don't get paid till the end of the month, damn. It was fun though.....

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Not really but it feels like it....

I've spend most of the weekend going from the begginning to the end of all the tracks submitted so far. Think I got most of the way through as I started recognising tracks from the last time I did it (there was only half the amount of people last time). A couple had me bopping about in my room.

I've found lots of good stuff which I'm going to listen to again today then post my highlights this afternoon. Be sure to give them a visit, say hi. :-)

Oh yes, my life is over. I discovered Second Life. Oh my god, I thought "Ahh, it's not that great, just a social media thing" 7 hours later I was wondering where the hell my day went. I was in music venues, bars, I went shopping for clothes and I met musicans who actually gig in Second Life!?! I'm sorry if I sound like I luddite but that blows me away. And the fact that people make money there (real money). I'm going to look into this further if there's any scope to tie in what I do here with some kind of second life area. Luckily I can listen to demos whilst titting around in Second Life.

Anyway, I've also been looking at the new groups you've been forming all over the place. I will feature one on the label blogs as I find it fascinating how people quickly establish roots and similar artists/personalities are drawn in. I think I might try and get a couple of posting groups together.

I'm talking with my mate at Vox today hopefully as I want to get some data together and there's something I want to run past you. I was thinking about maybe compiling some kind of chart for the community. Who's getting the most plays, most visits to site, biggest content creator, highest new entry and that kind of thing. I've got on my soapbox before about not wanting to add any competative element but many of you have asked to know how your doing as regards traffic as you're wanting to use your blog to communicate with fans aswell as us.

If you hate the idea then fair enough, I'll think of something else internally perhaps but as always you're feedback helps me a lot.

Keep the messages and posts coming in. All looking good. More to follow this afternoon.

IB

PS. I'm also working on something REALLY good that I think you'll love. :-)

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Feeling quite exhausted today.

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Was up late recording a tutorial video for the unitiated, which is why I probably sound like a zombie in the last two vids.

Got up this morning and started into the massive pile of demos I had to go through. These will be the last batches of demos listened to on CD. :-)

I was pleasantly surprised as I've found some really good stuff. One of which I've already stuck on my MP3. Their called Hats and I'll make sure there's more details of them later. 

It wasn't all fantastic though. I got a few demos where no thought had gone into them at all. Which is a shame. They don't have to be ellaborate, just something that reflects the feel of the band and contact details.

That's why the sooner the band blogging is off the ground the better. That way if it starts of as crap they can improve and add to their blog over time. Going through these CD's really underlined the hit and miss nature of demo submission for me. I will never pick up the stuff I've put to one side again, whereas a blog developing over time may reappear on my radar again and again.

Anyway, I need to get my video tutorial finish. But I will do a video blog this evening to keep you up to speed on what's happening.

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