So, the place is here http://spring.wavestreamer.com:5819/listen.m3u or http://spring.wavestreamer.com:5819/listen.pls) and the time, is, well that’s going to need a bit of working out…

1530 Friday, UK (Summer Time).
1030 Friday, US (East Coast), in time for your lunchtime coffee.
0730 Friday, US (West Coast), over the breakfast table.
0130 Saturday, Australlia (Melbourne), to put you to sleep.

Expect a twenty minute warm-up, the delightful sound of Mike Borgia followed by AC/DC, and then the latest Friday Rock Show… Live!!!

I’ll be hosting a live TPN Rock Show this Friday (18th May). The stream will be running from 10pm to Midnight (UK Time). You will need to download and open this M3U file in your Media Player (but it won’t connect till the times below).

The plan is to make it full interactive as possible, and thanks to licencing I can get some rock classics in there as well (hey you all get to hear my warm up)! At some point in the show, I’ll switch the recorders on and record that week’s Friday Rock Show Podcast as well. But throughout the show, I’ll have my IM windows open (Skype: ewanspence and GTalk: ewanspence@gmail.com) so you can talk back to me during the show.

Time Conversion

I know I’ve only scheduled two hours, but there is every chance that if you’re all hanging around at the end, I won’t stop, but just keep on going. Till we all fall asleep or run out of power chords.

And while I can’t confirm anything, there may well be a special guest in the first hour as well - just to make this a pod/broadcast to remember!

Edinburgh and Durham, 30th October 2006 – Iain Foulds, the man behind the Unsigned Rock Podcast, is the latest signing to The Podcast Network. Taking the chair to host the Monday and Thursday shows on the TPN Rock show, Foulds brings a strong following from his previous show of audience and bands

Having started in March 2005, TPN Rock has evolved from a single show to a well-respected brand name in the online rock world. As it moved from a single show to a powerful brand name, TPN Rock fans have continued to ask for more music for their MP3 players and computers.

“Till now I have been leaving the audience wanting more,” pointed out Ewan Spence, host of TPN Rock and Executive Director of The Podcast Network, “but Iain’s show was so close to the style of TPN Rock, and because we get on fantastically well, the obvious solution was the way forward.”

“Working with The Podcast Network will allow me to give bands and artists more exposure, and that can only be a good thing,” Foulds comments. “Everyone I get in touch with about the podcast immediately realises the potential, and can’t wait to get involved. I’m sure The Podcast Network, Ewan, and myself can provide even more opportunities and exposure for these unknown, unsigned and under-appreciated bands to be heard around the world.”

With over 60 original shows covering a multitude of genres (including music, technology, lifestyle, sports, entertainment, education and death) The Podcast Network continues to empower listeners with choice, diversity and original programming, all freely available through iTunes and their main website, www.thepodcastnetwork.com.

Contact

Ewan Spence, The Podcast Network
Telephone: +44 (0) 7966 152772
Email: ewan@thepodcastnetwork.com
Web: http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/

Iain Foulds
Telephone: +44 (0) 7921 715065
Email: iain.foulds@gmail.com
Web: http://rock.thepodcastnetwork.com/

Take one part TPN Rock (http://rock.thepodcastnetwork.com/), one part Accident Hash (http://www.accidenthash.com/), and some of the best new music in the world, and you have one almighty collision from two of the most influential music podcasters in the world. Considered a “podcast mashup”, Spence and Chapman merged their theme music, brands and voices along with a diverse yet familiar trend in music.

“More podcasters need to do this to,” said Chapman, “It’s amazing the energy that happens when two shows get together and share the stage and it helps to build the community.”

“The rules of new media are simple. There are no rules,” said Spence. “Brands cannot be islands, they are signs of quality. Introducing our listeners to new music is something C.C. and I do every week, but introducing them to a whole new show? That feels special.”

With music from The Go Station, Sunspot, Jester, Waltham and others; a stroll through some of the issues of music podcasting, appeals to Dan Klass, Doug Kaye, Eric Rice, and their respective Network heads Adam Curry and Cameron Reilly; and hints of their future plans together, the two maverick hosts are continuing to drive the media forward.

The show can be found at both the Accident Hash and TPN Rock websites.

About TPN Rock
One of the leading music shows on The Podcast Network, TPN Rock airs twice a week. Featuring the best in unsigned, unknown and under-appreciated music from around the world it is all held together by BAFTA nominated podcaster Ewan Spence. Alongside podcasts on the Edinburgh Fringe and the Sony Playstation Portable, he is preparing to host the early morning Breakfast Show on Edinburgh’s Leith FM. More information at http://rock.thepodcastnetwork.com/

About Accident Hash
This PodShow music podcast is hosted by Boston’s own podsafe music evangelist C.C. Chapman. Playing the best mix in podsafe music several times a week, C.C. aims to give bands the exposure they deserve to a global audience. His infectious passion for music shines through on the podcast which can also be heard weekly on Sirius 102. For more information please go to http://www.accidenthash.com/

So how does that apply to music? Pretty simply. You might have a few mega hits on your books (choose your own target here, folks… ) but you’ll make a lot more money if you can finance and support the huge number of artists that don’t selling tens of millions of ’stuff’ a month, but from the artists that sell ten units a month. Which makes sense to a mathematician, but is something that may or may not be grasped by the Recording Industry.

Of course, it’s all about how you find and promote these artists in the long tail. The obvious answer is P2P software, but that just brings out execs in hives. Why? Let’s jump over to Chris Anderson’s site on the effect P2p has on The Long Tail

In this counterfactual world with 30% less file sharing, the lower 75% of the distribution of sales is shifted further to the left, while the top of the distribution increases its sales. This is what should be expected given the estimates from above. Artists who are unknown, and thus most helped by file sharing, are those artists who sell relatively few albums, whereas artists who are harmed by file sharing and thus gain from its removal, the popular ones, are the artists whose sales are relatively high… In particular, if file sharing essentially shifts sales away from established acts toward unknown acts, this has potentially very important implications for how talent is developed and distributed in the industry.
Link: The Long Tail

It seems obvious to me that a solid P2P system, on the internet, for promotion, would serve the industry far better than churning out yet another version of The Emancipation of Mimi with one extra song added every month (currently five versions at probably $15 each and counting…)

By making their recordings available for free and allowing people to share them with each other, bands are able to get themselves heard without having to spend huge pots of cash in advertising, or participating in long, dull strategy meetings. Most importantly, it means they needn’t worry about accruing the considerable debt inherent to normal record company practices, where bands are liable for recording and promotional costs against royalties.
Link: The Independent.

Of course what any band (and rock afficionados) need is a way to get new music heard. So to all those bands out there… why not join a growing number of bands showcased on TPN Rock by dropping me a URL to an MP3 at ewanspence at gmail dot com…

“This is serious business,” says Red Light Management’s [Patrick] Jordan. “As managers, we’ve always supported trusting our fans. Copy protection has nothing to do with trust.”
Businessweek: Sony’s Escalating Spyware Fiasco

Time for everyone to start looking to other, safer, sources of music. Using the internet as your primary marketing tool is now coming of age. Podcasts can leverage new artists and tracks to thousands of listeners, they can hit your website directly and buy through a multitude of online services (Paypal, CD Baby, Online Banking…). The labels are clinging onto an old business model when what they should be doing is adapting, understanding, and creating a new type of fan.

Eventually, like soldiers coming back from Waterloo, the [Kaiser] Chiefs will wearily exit their 564th Nothing to Declare lane and find a grinning record company employee holding open the limousine door and saying, “Right, chaps. We’re now going to a top-flight London recording facility to begin work on your second album.” Their press officer must already be drafting the press release about a sudden onset of “nervous exhaustion”.
Link: The Guardian.

The Balance Sheet.
This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.

Record company: $710,000
Producer: $90,000
Manager: $51,000
Studio: $52,500
Previous label: $50,000
Agent: $7,500
Lawyer: $12,000
Band member net income each: $4,031.25

The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 millon dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month.

Read the full article at A Rancid Amoeba.

“The figures speak for themselves. Last year, the British spent £105m on guitars in UK shops, as compared to £30m ten years ago. It’s a dramatic recovery.”
Link: The Guardian

Now all these guitars must be in new bands, which means more music, which means a bigger and better choice for TPN Rock! I’m very happy today.

First thing is simple. If there’s a music show you want to feature in, then email the show! Sounds simple, but going hey, we’re here, come listen to us (or even “Can we send you a CD”) will stand you in good stead. Everyone who makes contact with TPN Rock this way automatically goes to the top of the list of music to listen to. Here’s a great example… Urban Snake’s email to me went like this (they appeared on TPN Rock #23 after this).

NYC Hard Rock band, Urbansnake, would like to slither into The Rock Show.
For more info on the band, see: http://www.urbansnake.com

Next up is your website - there are a million and one design desicions here, and they will all be dependant on the look and feel you want to project for your band. But there are some things that should be absolutely easy to find.

People need to be able to find your email address. If I want to ask you for permission to play a song, I need to be able to reach you. And make sure that you reply to every email - even if it’s to say we’re busy touring and will reply in ten days or something like that.

You’re a band. You have music. Make sure that your band’s music is not only easy to find, but easy to listen to as well. Just an MP3 is much harder to listen to or preview than a streaming version of your music. If you’re unsure how to do that, use some of the web directories who will happily host MP3 files for streaming or download.

Additionally, it’s always nice to make sure you have a biography / history of the band, which you should make sure is snappy, interesting, and gives an idea of the character of the band - remember it’s a biography, not a discography.

Out of the web directories, the three main ones you should ensure you have a presence on are Pure Volume, MySpace and Garage Band. Beyond that, make sure that people trying to find your band name in the search engines will actually be able to find you. Make sure your band name is in the URL, your website title includes the band name, and it’s mentioned in the text on the front page a few times.

Now it’s just hard graft and promotion. But if you’ve got the above bases covered, you’re probably in better shape than the majority of bands I check out.

Link: BBC Wales

I’ve dissed the whole podcasting phenomenom before, but I must say that Ewan Spence’s The Rock Show is podcasting as it should be: one person with a vision and a goal and the time to hunt down obscure bands that won’t get a showing anywhere else.

I just finished up listening to #23 and it was really great. I started listening coming home Friday from a beer & dinner with the guys from work, and it really made the bus journey special.

The rock show is now rooted in my bloglines list, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.
Link: The Occasional Scrivener

It all comes down to copyright and who owns a song. The traditional view is that there are two parts to this, the copyright on the actual song (the lyrics, the order of the notes, etc), and the copyright to the performance. Now the large record companies (remember them?) will generally get all the copyrights to a bands performancs and compositions when they sign the artist. In those circumstances, if I wanted to play Chris De Burgh’s “Lady In Red” on TPN Rock, apart from getting shot by you guys, I’d need to approach the copyright holders, probably by going through the umbrella organisations such as the BMI, to play the song on the show.

Ah but hold on, I hear you ask, most of the bands on TPN Rock are all unsigned. That’s right, so who holds the copyright? That’s right, the bands. So all that is needed is for the brands to grant TPN Rock permission to play the song on TPN Rock. Which every single band has done since TPN Rock started podcasting in mid March 2005. And that’s a policy that will continue. The bands that are signed I usually have to ask “their Manager” rather than the bands directly - and international coverage of their client’s music usually has them very eager to give permission.

Now this does lead to some problems - I’ve a folder on my PC marked “Uncleared Music” that has 41 tracks that I would love to put on the TPN Rock podcast, but the artists have never responded to any emails. So they’ll stay in limbo (although I will point you all towards Jon Maddux, who I approached for the second show, chased for three weeks, and still never seen a reply - check out Envy if you can), even though I could get seven Rock Shows out of all the material.

TPN Rock is as much about respecting the bands and giving them an international platform as well as giving all of you the best 30 minutes I possibly can every week. Everyone supports everyone else. It’s the Circle of Rock, and as long as we can keep it spinning, Rock will never die.

Why do TPN Rock? - well, while I do have a bundle of other things I work on (both here at TPN and on other sites) I love music in a million forms, but especially the ‘two guitars, bass, drums and lead vocals’ genre. Which is pretty wide ranging. While working on the other sites (yes I’m one of those people where the internet pays my wages) I’ve always got background music on, from sources far and wide. TPN Rock lets me share the best of this music with you.

Plus I’ve always loved radio, from listening to the local ‘hits’ stations when I was young, to taking every opportunity to get on air throughout University. Never quite made it to DJ level, so I consider TPN Rock as an indulgence - as is the clickable “Promo Card” of myself on the left. And if TPN Rock leads to other things, then I’ll be very happy…

My favourite colour is purple, the three songs I’d miss most if I never heard them again would be Perfect Remedy by Status Quo, Fairytale of New York by The Pouges featuring Kirsty MacColl, and Paschendale by Iron Maiden (although I reserve the right to change these on a daily basis) and I was born on November 24th.

My hints? Make sure you have properly tagged MP3’s at a decent bitrate (nothing less than 128kbps). The more people that hear your band and fall in love with one song, the better chance you have of making it big. Make sure any visitor can get to the full songs and your contacts details from the front page of your site.

What you need is a host, a guide, someone to walk the dark corners of the internet to find the best underground, unsigned and unnoticed Rock bands for your parents listening displeasure. The Podcast Network’s Rock Show is here. Raise those hands, light the lighters, and all hail TPN Rock.