Canadian folk-pop songwriter Carmel Mikol releases her long anticipated debut release titled In My Bones on March 30th. The 10 track album has been grabbing a few ears as it was recently featured as “Pick of the Week” in Halifax’s Chronicle Herald and it’s first single, “Blaming Myself” has been climbing the charts on East Coast Countdown heard worldwide. Carmel is regular guest on CBC radio and will be recording a live in studio concert for the national broadcaster later this month.

Learn more about Carmel and order a copy of the CD at carmelmikol.com. Here’s a video intro to the new record…
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Popularity: unranked [?]

Woke up to this message from iLike in my inbox this morning.

We wanted our artist community to be among the very first to hear officially that MySpace has entered into an agreement to acquire iLike.

We’re sure you have a ton of questions, most importantly: How will this affect me or the artist/band I manage?

• First off, you can count on business as usual: The iLike Artist Dashboard, website and apps will continue to operate as always – except that they’re going to get even better in the weeks and months to come.
• Our friends at MySpace share our commitment to helping fans discover your content and connect with you online. Together we hope to make our social music discovery platform even more powerful. Most artists manage their online artist presence via a MySpace page and separately via the iLike Artist dashboard. These two dashboards give you access to fans across all the biggest social networks. It’s an obvious opportunity for us to integrate these services to give you easier technology and access to more fans. We expect to announce some cool new features and integrations in the future.

And that’s not the only big iLike development in the last few days. iLike is now enabling music fans who discover and share your music on iLike.com to purchase songs and albums (in MP3 format) in-page directly from us.

Our download service provides a smooth, immediate in-page purchase experience. Fans can sign up, enter their credit card, and download music without ever leaving the page they discovered your music on. We think the speed and convenience of our service will spur music sales.

We’re delighted to be selling music from all the major labels and hundreds of indie labels through our partnership with MediaNet. We’ve heard loud and clear from lots of independent artists who want to find ways to sell their music directly. We have nothing to announce about this yet, but your feedback has been heard, just give us some time.

Our MP3 download service is currently in Beta, meaning that it’s an early preview, we’ll improve it rapidly as we get feedback from fans and artists. We’ll also make it available on iLike’s applications on leading social networks. Our goal over time is to offer music fans the ability to impulse buy in-page from wherever they are.

Change is exciting, but we know it can also cause anxiety – even when the developments are good. We’ll continue to update you when there is anything new or noteworthy to share. We value your ongoing support and we welcome your feedback.

Sincerely,
Ali & Hadi Partovi, co-founders, iLike

I’ve had mixed success promoting my artists’ music with iLike but this is a good buy for Myspace. The big question everyone’s asking…what does this mean for iLike and Facebook?

Popularity: 16% [?]

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing some research on Ariel Hyatt and her PR prowess when it comes to independent music. I was planning to do a feature in the next week or so about how much of an undiscovered gem she and her service could be for a struggling act or artist. I mentioned her (hopefully) influential article about Twitter from musicthinktank.com on the blog yesterday.

Unfortunately, Ariel just launched a new marketing program for herself that will probably guarantee her and her team will be so busy they’ll be turning away loads of work for months. If you’re lucky enough to get a spot in one of her publicity programs, take advantage of it as soon as you can. If you’re truly certain your act is ready to compete on a worldwide stage, Ariel will be able to help you take it to the next level as far as online media is concerned. Just make sure to give your project plenty of lead time – your album promotion should start at least 3 months in advance of your release date!

Want to know more about promoting your music online? Learn more from Ariel Hyatt’s CyberPR.

More of Ariel Hyatt’s resources:

Music Success in 9 Weeks

Roadmap to Social Media Success

Cyber PR Publicity Campaigns

Popularity: 28% [?]

I was cruising through some of Jimmy Shelter’s posts this morning. If you haven’t been to Jimmy’s blog recently, you should check it out. He has a great collection of resources for do-it-yourself indie music marketing.

In his Band Promotion Links IV post, Jimmy links to a really important article by Ariel Hyatt posted at musicthinktank.com (check it out). Ariel talks about Twitter, and how it’s a great tool to use for reaching new fans and making industry contacts.

Don’t underestimate the power of Twitter. If you happened to be watching Twitter’s election pages after Obama’s big win, you would have been amazed at the volume of ‘tweets’ that were rolling down the page, and the stories that were being told with just a few characters of text.

This is what you want to achieve with Twitter. No, I’m not talking about thousands of messages, but messages that help you tell a story about your act – to build a relationship with people who are following you and create a unique and interesting reason for them to care about who you are and what you do.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Sitting down to write those first mind-racking band descriptions and introductions on your profile can be very hard. It involves a great deal of thinking, planning, and usually a lot of collaboration with the rest of the band, your friends and family members for ideas and the “right” thing to say. But, rather than worry excessively about what you want to say, you should consider what people want to read about your band.

New Fans and Innate Curiosity

When a new fan visits your site, they likely have three questions in mind:

• What kind of music do you play?
• What are you and the other band-members like?
• How does this affect me?

MySpace provides plenty of space and prompts for you to provide information about what kind of music you play and what kind of band you are. You can upload tracks for them to listen to, list your major influences, and create a series of mini-profiles with information about your band’s members. However, the third question is one of the most important and must be addressed carefully in the descriptions you write.

You might notice that many bands write a very long, involved profile discussing who they are, where they came from and what they see in their music. Other bands simply post a concert calendar and a short bio of 200 words. While a profile that is too long will simply bore readers, one that is too short does not address the question of “how it affects them.”

To address this question, you must write less with the “goal” of your music in mind and more with the “substance”. What do you do that is different from other bands and how do you interact with your fans? Fans want to know that you are an active, fun band. If you know you are going to be traveling a lot and that you will update your blog, respond to fan messages, and listen to requests, write that into your profile. If you want to hear feedback on a track or have a cool idea that you want to run by a large group of people, do it in your profile.

By combining the basic marketing information that all bands include in their profile – origins, influences, and aspirations – with the basic, interactive information that your fans want to hear, you can ensure they know what you want them to know while feeling like stopping by you profile has a positive effect on them.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Too often, people tend to think of MySpace as the only marketing tool they need to have in place when they utilize the Internet for their music marketing. They post as many of their songs and their preferences as possible and invite a few hundred new friends to the fold and hope that this will be enough to get them into the upper rankings of bands with Internet presences.

But, it takes more than just a MySpace profile to create a solid online presence. You must have a well built, creatively constructed website at “yourbandname.com”. In today’s online economy, everything that has any prospect of selling must be placed on a website with the product name as the domain name and that includes your music.

There are three very simple reasons why:

1. Exposure - You gain more exposure with a domain name through search engines and directory listings. Anyone searching for your band name would be better off finding a dedicated domain than a MySpace profile because you can even further cater your image to your website and give them something to remember.

2. Marketing - A MySpace profile is easy to market to fellow MySpace members, but wide spread marketing tactics are best served with a domain name that can be submitted to directories, used in blogs and posted on other social networks.

3. Customization - MySpace is highly customizable, sure, but only for a social network. To truly get the creative and artistic freedom you need to target your audience, it must be done with a domain name that can be changed from multiple different angles whenever you want. Add more songs, include more information and if you must, link to your MySpace profile and friends.

A good, solid domain name will take you far in the music marketing business. It will allow you to more solidly approach and share your band’s musical aspirations with your fans without detracting from your MySpace profile. Think of your website as a blue print for your online marketing. MySpace is merely one of the wrenches used to put everything together.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Twitter is one of those micro niche tools that has developed in the last few years to take advantage of the various different opportunities available through Web 2.0 technologies. Basically, the service allows you to post a short, 140-character line about whatever it is you are doing at any given time. You can upload them directly to the website or from a cell phone. It is basically a take on the status messages so many people use on their social networking profiles as applied to the Internet at large.

So, what can this basic little gadget do for you and your MySpace profile? It might seem straightforward – a widget that tells people what you are doing – but it can be so much more if you let it.

Twitter on the Go

First, you need to find the right application for your MySpace profile. You can find plenty of simple, easy to install Twitter profile widgets that will display your posts directly on your profile. Make it as unobtrusive as possible and with the same colors as your background and it shouldn’t stand out too much.

Next, start posting to your Twitter. The best part is that you can post from anywhere in the world by texting your posts in through SMS. After setting up your cell phone to work with Twitter, you can post from shows, on the bus, or the comfort of your own bed.

Now, make sure to post as often as possible. If you post often enough, you will create an effect similar to that of a blog – an interesting, content filled glimpse into your life. Especially if you are able to post to it everyday, you can be sure to have something new and interesting for your visitors each time they visit your profile – one of the most important things you can do.

Ultimately, twitter is just another small tool in the monstrous toolbox that is the Internet. But, like the other tools that are available to you, Twitter – when used properly – can provide a solid boost to your page views, fans, and ultimately to the connection you have with those fans. You want them to keep coming back, so give them something to come back for.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Holy crap.

If you’re in Toronto, Canada for the North by Northeast (NXNE) Music Festival, you probably don’t want to miss the MySpace NXNE Showcase at Sneaky Dee’s (413 College St. at Bathurst) on Thursday night.

Doors @ 8:30pm.

The Darcys (Kirby, Wes, Jason, Mike and Dave) hit the stage at 1am to play their hearts out for music industry buffs like yourself.

MySpace has been plugging the show like crazy, driving hundreds of new fans to The Darcy’s profile. They’re promoting these Toronto/Halifax boys next to acts like Coldplay, Radiohead and the like. I sense the world is catching on to that infectious sound called Endless Water.

Joining The Darcys on the bill Thursday night:

Check out The Darcys on MySpace here.

UPDATE:

Speaking of Coldplay…according to MuchMusic.com they’ve rescheduled their Toronto shows (originally planned for October) to July 30th. That’s 3 months earlier!

Tickets on sale Saturday, June 14 @ 10am ET at the usual outlets (Ticketmaster.ca, Livenation.com or by phone 416-870-800).

$49.50, $77.50 & $97.50 + fees.

So if you happen to know anyone tight with Chris Martin, let them know you want to see The Darcy’s set the stage for him LIVE in TO!

Preview Coldplay’s new album Viva La Vida (Due out June 17) FREE over here at MuchMusic.com

Popularity: 31% [?]