hypebot

Chinese Indie Artists Shanren Use RocketHub To Finance North American Tour

Formed in China's Yunnan province, Shanren fuses Chinese folk music from multiple ethnic groups with contemporary western forms. They toured Korea and appeared at midem in Cannes. Now they're planning a trip to the U.S. in March and they're using RocketHub to supplement their funding.

Music Meets Tech At Unique MTV O Music Awards Unboxed Events

The O Music Awards is a music and tech oriented event from MTV that happens twice a year. Now event organizers are adding to the year's schedule with Unboxed, an attempt to create a new kind of event drawing together music, art and technology in a party-friendly environment.

The O Music Awards' first Unboxed event takes place February 23 at New York's Webster Hall featuring "MNDR, Miracles of Modern Science, a mystery app, a rainbow machine, an interactive music video shoot, and tons of dancing."

Concert Tracking App Bandsintown Used By 50,000 Bands, 3 Million Fans

Live concert tracking app Bandsintown,says it now has 50,000+ artists using the platform to manage & promote tour dates to a fanbase of 3 million active monthly users. Bandsintown also powers tour information on partner applications including BandPage, BandRx, eMusic, Fanbridge, OneSheet, ReverbNation, Shazam, Soundhound, and Tracks.by.

Listening Room Festival Still Open To Indie Artists

Listening Room Festival is the new project from Fran Snyder's ListeningRoomNetwork that also created ConcertsInYourHome. Though my post on that project focused on house concerts, Snyder's related activities include shows at a variety of alternative venues. Listening Room Festival will feature indie artists performing in the full range of alternative venues from homes to any other nontraditional spot that volunteers to host a show.

Bonnaroo's First Decade Nets $5 Million To Charities

Promoters of the Bonnaroo festival announced that after the first 10 years of the festival, they have donated more than $5 million to local, regional and national charities and organizations.  Festival partner Rick Farman explained that as they prepare for the 2012 festival, organizers have challenged themselves to surpass that over the next 10 years with new programs and upgrades to existing charitable outreach and philanthropic support through the Bonnaroo Works Fund (BWF), the festival's official charitable arm.

Live Nation CEO Predicts Strong Year For Live Music

Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino is upbeat about the live industry's prospects in 2012. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rapino reiterated what the company had teased in an earlier quarterly earnings report; business in 2012 was up as much as 14%. The teaser also reported that the number of shows being booked was on the rise to the tune of 15% worldwide.

Gigs4Good: Connecting Artists & Non-Profits

Team Up for Nonprofits is a Seattle-based nonprofit that organizes music events for other nonprofits in their Gigs4Good program. Created in 2009, they're building up to their 10th event benefitting a Washington state-based organization. The focus is on raising both funds for and awareness of nonprofits among the 20 and 30-something demographic. It's a great idea that allows good causes to gain support without having to start from scratch with music events.

Indie Band Spanish Prisoners Using Kickstarter To Buy Van For SXSW Trip [VIDEO]

A lot of elements go into a successful Kickstarter campaign. Spanish Prisoners combine a unique request, funding the purchase of a low-budget tour van, with unique offerings, songs recorded in the van along with other goodies from their upcoming trip to SXSW. Of course, the music needs to appeal to listeners and the pitch video needs to communicate effectively. You'll have to decide for yourself but I think Spanish Prisoners have put together a campaign that has a solid chance of success though they've only reached about $2000 of their $5000 goal.

American D.I.Y. Musician Establishes A Base In China

After writing about 88tc88 and the potential for outside acts to develop an audience in China, I heard from Aaron Gibson, a DIY'er in every sense of the word, who has performed in China and is planning a return visit. Aaron provides insights into going it alone and his experience of reaching crowds of enthusiastic locals outside of major East Coast cities echo those shared by Jack Doom of Corrupt Absolute, a band that has made multiple low-budget tours of China.

Concert Locator ConcertCrowd Adds Streaming Audio

Social and location-based live concert locator, ConcertCrowd, has added the ability for users to stream audio from artists coming to town through an exclusive partnership with Rdio. As Hypebot reported previously, ConcertCrowd is a Facebook application that connects with a user’s Facebook page to help discover upcoming shows of their favorite artists (artists they currently “like”), as well as provides recommendations based on how many of a user’s friends like a particular artist.

Warner In'tl Exec John Reid Joins Live Nation Europe

John Reid, the former CEO and Vice Chair, Warner Music International has joined Live Nation Europe as President Of Concerts. Simon Lewis remains Live Nation Europe's CEO.

Joshua Bell Records New Album In A Musical Instrument Museum

This week violinist Joshua Bell with pianist Jeremy Denk released "French Impressions," the first album recorded in the Music Instrument Museum's Music Theater. An intimate venue in Phoenix, the MIM Music Theater books a busy schedule of world class artists and was designed to be a space for recording as well as performing. French Impressions offers a full-length example of the Music Theater's recording qualities in performances by an accomplished classical duo.

Paradigm Bets On Electronic Music With AM Only Booking Agency Partnership

Talent agency Paradigm has struck a deal to create a strategic partnership with one of the leading electronic music agencies, AM Only.

The agreement will allow Paradigm to continue to bolster their already solid roster in regards to electronic artists who've become a very hot commodity in recent years.

Festival Awards Europe Announces Winners

The best European festivals, artists and promoters of 2011 were announced last night at a ceremony at Groningen's De Oosterport in The Netherlands. This third edition of Festival Awards Europe was judged by a combination of 350,000 public votes and an industry jury with more than 200 European festivals participating. The winners are:

What Live Nation’s Acquisition Of BigChampagne Means To Future Of The Live Music Industry

(UPDATED) COMMENTARY: In February 2006, shortly after Michael Rapino took the helm of Live Nation, he shared his vision of what the company needed to do to grow the live music business. He spoke of an industry where the vast majority of tickets are sold online yet the majority of marketing is still done via traditional media; and consumers turned off by high ticketing fees, even higher ticket prices and a less than saticfacotry concert going experience.

Kyle Bylin Exits Billboard, Joins BigChampagne + Live Nation Team

Just weeks after Live Nation acquired influential media measurement firm BigChampagne, the live concert promoter has announced another major talent grab: Kyle Bylin.

Hypebot readers know Bylin from this blog, where he served as Editor and a leading music industry and technology analyst that elevated this publication from a news site to a place of in-depth analysis and editorial. He went on to become the Social/Streaming Chart Manager and regular columnist at Billboard Magazine, and has now left to join Live Nation and BigChampagne.

How National Tour Packages Are Ruining Music And Artist Discovery

Guest post by Nick Hardy, first published on Sinizine.net.

I grew up in Memphis, Tenn. and was involved in the punk scene from my first Rancid tape stolen from my high school. I had my crappy ska band and many of my friends had just as horrible punk bands. During the mid 90's Memphis was booming with amazing punk and indie shows coming through venues like Barristers, The Antenna, New Daisy, The Map Room…the list goes on. You could bet your balls there was going to be local support for a national tour coming through town. While the national bands were picking up stream on MTV and college radio, they still couldn't hold a night by themselves with their tour mates. All the local bands would claw at the promoters and venue owners to

Top Hip-Hop Agent Cara Lewis Jumps To CAA

(UPDATED) With live performance left as the top source of income for most artists, booking agencies are fast becoming a new music industry battleground. Yesterday influential agent Cara Lewis shifted sides and landed at Creative Artists Agency, where she will join Rob Light's team. She will continue to be based in New York. Lewis, left William Morris Endeavor last month after a 23-year stint, where she rose to SVP. While at WME, Lewis worked with some of the top names in Hip-Hop, including Eminem, Kanye West, 50 Cent and Rihanna.

ChatWithTheBand Monetizes Artist Video Events With Virtual Goods

Many music tech startups are wrestling with the issue of how to make money online and a number are doing so by helping artists make money, often by getting a cut of digital music sales. ChatWithTheBand, an emerging Facebook app for video events with fans, has added virtual goods to the mix with digital items that fans can give to artists. After free credits are used fans can buy more and artists get a cut of fees paid for the sale of credits used as virtual currency within the app.

Alleged Threats From Live Nation Lead To Lawsuit By NJ Promoters

Live Nation is facing a lawsuit from two local New Jersey concert promoters after they claimed Live Nation used threats and coercion to prevent the promoters from booking acts for the State Fair Meadowlands last summer.