It’s been a while since the last update, but that is because there has been a lot going on behind the scenes in the meantime. I’ve been working on establishing a record label to release my own projects and those of my friends. That record label officially launched on August 10th 2012 and is called Make Music Productions. Make Music Productions released Opener by A Rising Force, my band, on August 9th, submitting the song through TuneCore to iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, and other music distribution stores.

With the release of Opener, there has a been a significant increase in the fan base due to the promotion of the single.  The SoundCloud page now has 135 followers and continues to grow steadily.  The A Rising Force Facebook page is up to 145 fans, but is largely dependent on running ads to gain fans; without the full album available, it’s hard to promote a single song for a very long period of time without other content to go along with it.

Jango Airplay Internet Radio

The other tool I’ve been trying to promote the band and the single is internet radio airplay.  I’ve been using Jango Airplay to promote the band using paid plays after other similar artists.  There was a bit of a challenge in finding the exact right artists to match for the song, but I’ve tweaked the settings over the last few weeks and think I finally have it down.  I started off strong with a PopScore of 85, which I’m guessing means 85% of the people liked the song or something to that effect.  That score netted my a bonus of 100 song plays for my first week (I used a few hundred plays to get that score so not a bad trade).  Things went downhill once I started messing with the targeting controls trying to get into the 90s.  Bad move.  The next week I slipped to a PopScore of 55, still enough to earn 50 bonus song plays, but not the effect I wanted.  I knew I needed to change course and go back to what was working week one, so I stripped back the targeting and focused on what had worked the first week.  The results for week three were better, getting me a PopScore of 59, but more importantly – I was finally starting to understand what I needed to do to reach the right audience.

Jango Airplay – A Rising Force : the PopScore is back up to 82 this week from 59 last week.

The trick that I finally learned was to focus on only the minimum number of bands required for targeting.  This means you only choose 5 bands to play songs after.  That strategy seems to work the best and I’ve been able to tailor the bands to the exact song I’m promoting.  What I also learned was that as much as I’d like to think fans of my favorite artists may like my music, they may instead be a bad fit or the song could be too different from the style of that artist.  It turns out that fans of the Arctic Monkeys like my music the best.  I would never have guessed this, but with the analytics available to me through Jango, I’ve been able to discover it.  I’m pleased to say that using my new techniques, I’ve been able to get my PopScore back up to 82 this week!  We’ll see where it lands, but I’m very happy with the results so far. I’ll be using these techniques when with other Make Music Productions by A Rising Force and other artists I’m developing.

Before I sign off for this post, I’ll say that I’ve been working on some updates for Stats by Numbers.  I plan on launching a new site soon and preparing for the upcoming NBA season.  More to come about that in the next post…

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SoundCloud has also been a great way to connect with new fans for the band. As of today, there are 69 followers for the A Rising Force account and it has only been up for a couple months. I waited way too long to start posting my music online – the earlier you can get your music up to start getting feedback and connecting with fans, the better. Once all the audio content has been posted, I’ll finish editing the video track reviews and post them to the band website.

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With regards to my other side projects, I’m still heavily looking into some type of app (leaning towards game) development for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The only problem here is the capital investment of buying a Mac. I’d probably get an 13-inch MacBook Pro or a Mac Mini if I wanted to save some $$$.

The other project is a website focused on NBA statistics. I can’t talk about too much yet, but I plan on launching it in the very near future.

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Top 5 Favorite Concept Albums
The Mars Volta – De-Loused in the Comatorium
The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Deltron – Deltron 3030
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon
Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Honorable Mentions
Cursive – Domestica
The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
Gorillaz – Demon Days
Lupe Fiasco – The Cool
Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
The Mars Volta – Frances the Mute
Pink Floyd – The Wall
David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Kate Bush – Hounds of Love
Coheed & Cambria – In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Styx – Kilroy Was Here
Green Day – American Idiot
Saul Williams – The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!
Mastodon – Blood Mountain
My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade
Queens of the Stone Age– Songs for the Deaf
The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come for Free

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It never will come,
It never will come,
But still you stand here,

It’s not forgotten,
Not forgotten,

To be a man,
To be a man,
To be a man,
And never fall down,

It’s not forgotten,
Not forgotten,

Forever would have come so soon,
I never would have run from you,
Sisyphus, you’ll learn a thing or two,
What you can and cannot do,

Patient ’til the end of time,
Waiting at the end of time,
Forever could have come so soon,
I never would have run from you,

Only, one

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from far away, we saw them standing with their hands held in the sky,
you never know just how you’ll go, until you end up where die,

the mark of faith, he claims to hold, our righteous path, god’s on our side,
we kill to win, to cleanse their sins, with blood red hands, we sacrifice,

we’re going down this road, our paths been sold, we’ve got no choice, our fate is tied,
indoctrinated by the greed, hellbent to succeed,
executive faith, manifests hate,

go away, just go away,
i said go away, just go away

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