My Life – Memories of Michael Jackson

Today I decided that I was going to blog about my experiences trying to lose weight over the next 6 weeks before I go on a fun filled vacation to the tropics. But it has become such a memorable day other than my life in my weight loss journey. I actually did a full life reflection and I am overcome with a realm of emotion. I had a quick brief argument with my youngest sister last night, we are very close and never ever fight, but whatever she said to me last night just allowed me to let out some things that she had done that had really bothered my heart. It is also the day that we remembered the life of Michael Jackson. I am an entertainer in my whole spirit and was totally influenced by Michael Jackson and I can remember just pivotal moments in my life growing up and how my just straight love crush on Michael just moved through parts of my life.

I remember that he was doing the Thriller tour and I had gotten in trouble calling some boy making toll calls running up my parent’s phone bill ’cause he lived so far away AND he was way too old for me. I was on punishment BUT my Mom refused to not let me go see Michael Jackson in concert. I remember we stood the whole time in the stadium. We had floor seats kinda to the left side of the row. I remember dancing and smiling the whole time that I joked that my cheeks hurt after the concert.

This man, this phenmenon, moved people throughout the world for decades. and in his death I don’t why, but he has moved people to live, and be kind to others, and look at themselves first, and love one another.. He brought the whole world together. He’s made me rethink what I can achieve and my expectations of just me. To be fearless but with integrity, and kindness, and to reach for the stars because life is really too short. I don’t know why a lot of us though he would live forever. I understand he’ll live forever thorugh his music, but really live forever, because he was the real Peter Pan, never growing old. It was such a shock to this system to hear that he ahd died. No way, no way!
About 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to see him upclose just walking by with a group of kids at Universal Studios during one of their Halloween Haunt nights. I went crazy…”That’s Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson!!!” The rest of my crew looked at me like I was a fool to be going crazy over seeing Michael Jackson just walk right by me. He only had about 9-10 people, mostly children, around him. It was crazy and it really was him as we confirmed later with some or the workers at Universal. It was during a time when his popularity wasn’t at it’s height in the states and I guess he didn’t need much of an eunterage or security.. I wished I had had the courage back then to get his autograph or just say hello and shake his hand.

I had his posters on my wall in my room when I was elementary and junior high. I had that one with him in yellow and white, which was my favorite, and the one where he is doing Billie Jean and the sidewalk lit up. He was still chocolate brown back then with the whitest teeth and and awesome smile….awwww my Micheal Jackosn crush. I remember crushing on this boy at school who looked like him at this time and who could break dance, his nikname was “Captain.” LOL. So funny the things you remember with certain music. I conjuers up the time period in your life when you used to listen to that song over and over again.

Oh and the Thriller video. It seemed lik every kid in our neighbor hood was at my house during the premier of Thriller and even after seeing it 16 times you still wanted it to come back on so that you caould do the whole dance routine to it. Could you imagine that today you could go on a thing called YouTube and watch Korean prisoners doing the Thriller video dance for exercise in the prison yard? Crazy isn’t it!!! I can go on and on and this would just not stop about all the memories I have of Micheal Jackson’s music, being intertwined into my life.
So, in his memory he has inspired me to achieve anything to which I put my mind and focus…to keep on singing, my passion, and even losing weight to look and feel my best, and be healthy.

Constant Contact and Aweber and more…

I have been trying to decide which platform for email marketing to use, so that I can deliver to my fans, timely information they want delivered in their email box about my music, my shows, my life. I want to be able to provide an easy to read newsletter and autoreponder using either Constant Contact or Aweber.

I’ve used Constant Contact in the past for another project that I worked on, and it was really easy to format for building a newsletter. The templates were also very “pretty” and looked extremely professional. Even though I knew nothing about programming or writing HTML, my newsletters looked great.

The templates were set up with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) format, just like a word processor. It was like I was typing a MS Word document. I was able to cut and paste my images into the newsletter, as well as place any hyperlinks back to my website with ease. I just read that they have integrated a way to incorporate a paypal button into the newsletter itself, so you could always have your music for sale with every newsletter that email out.

Both Aweber and Constant Contact have simple newsletter or report sign-up forms to integrate into your website. The difference with Aweber, is that that have pretty decent templates, not as many to choose from as Constant Contact, BUT, they have this awesome autoresponder system that allows you set unlimited number of email marketing campaigns that stay on auto-pilot after you set them up. This makes sure that a flow of information about your indie music, is consistently being delivered to your fan’s inbox. You can stay on top of providing them with great service. Aweber also has a function that allows you to Twitter your newsletter subject matter.

Which email marketing system works for you? Which one have you used and what was your success like?

5 Great Tips for Street Team Marketing-Music Ideas for Hiphop R&B Artist

1. Paper the Heck Outta Major Events – Make some great black white fliers of your band on semi-glossy paper. It cheaper than doing the post cards so you can paper( “papering=pass them out) the heck out off all kinds of great events where you know there will be a crowd. Make sure it has A Photo of the band or great graphic, your website, your myspace page, and dates and venues of your coming shows. We did this at the Greek Fraternity and Sorority Fest one year. A few of our friends were going and they said that would pass out fliers. We had people saying they saw us everywhere and we weren’t even there…crazy.

2. Tell Everyone About Your Music – word of mouth is still a great way to “get the Word Out”. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, just tell them. Verbally invite them to your gigs and ask that they make a commitment to bring a few of their friends with them.

3. Promote At Radio Street Team Events – Show up at local spots where there will be a radio station promotion and pass out CDs or fliers. You know you’ll hear on your favorite radio station anounce where their street team is going to be, and at what time and day. Plan to be there, too. Give a CD to the Radio Street Team, and pass out fliers and free CDs to the people that showed up for their promotion. It’s like having free radio advertising for the crowd type of crowd that likes your type of music IF the radio stations music fits your style.

4. Email Blast – Your street team should each have a list of friends and family that they can send emails too regardining upcoming shows, or just about you as an indie artst in general. These should not be spammed messages to people they don’t know but warm contacts of their friends and family. They are just “sharing” with them information about you, their favorite artist, and what they are doing with you, and here is what you look and sound like…

5. House Concerts – Perform at one of the Street Teams members’ homes, or the home of one of their friends. You’ll be able to really connect with your warm market, people who know they are coming to hear and see you perform, and are open to having a good time. They also may know a little more about you and your indie music because they probably visited your website before coming to the show. This is also a great opportunity to ahve street team members gather people in the audiences email address for you mailing. You can also set up to sell them your CD and other merchandise.

Next, contact any local or regional newspapers or entertainment type papers in your area. Most of these newspapers have weekly band listings in their entertainment sections. Email or call the papers until you find the proper contact and send them all the info they request. Usually you’ll want to send Show Place, Date, Time, Band Name, and Cost of show (if applicable).

Lastly, search for concert calendars on the internet for free listings in the city or regional area your playing the gig. Many concert calendars will list your shows for free. Find some of the more popular ones that may get more internet traffic. Do a search on Concerts listings, events listings, free band listings or something of this nature, and add the city to the search.

Above are a few ideas for inexpensive or free self promotion of your band. Try to use all or most of these tactics for every show you self promote. Remember, the more fans you get to the show the better the chance you’ll have of getting booked there again and building a career in that city or region of interest. Good Luck, and get out there and self promote your indie music.

Video Helps You To Book More Gigs

I was reading about David Nevue, the pianist, who writes for the musicbizacademy.com website. He said that he does house concerts. I was looking at his website. One of the things he did was video tape one of his concerts. He then loaded each song that he performed, as individual videos that you could click on on his website. I am sure that this generates more interest in his house concerts. Some of the videos show him telling a little story about the reason or the story behind the songs.

As a matter of fact, I just remembered that I went to my friend’s house concert that was really “off the chain” great!. Her name is Raven Williams. I wonder if she has her performances up anywhere on the web. She held a concert at her house and invited people over…she created this little impromptu stage that looked great on video with shimmering curtains and performed with just a couple of acoustic players including a guitarist and a conga player. It was such an intimate experience…and the people she invited were real cool too.

I am going to do the same thing when I do my next house concert. I’ll post it up. When I do, let me know what you think. Have any of you already done this with some of your concert footage?

6 Steps to Stay Motivated with Your Music

I’ve got to admit, I did get discouraged at one time with my life in the music industry, and I just couldn’t keep going. Mentally and emotionally drained, I left for years, ignoring that music was my passion and I was my authentic self only when I was performing or doing anything that surrounded music. I’ve learned how to stay motivated to keep on going, which seems to me to be easier, with internet, because I have a sense of having my life in music in my own hands. Here are some tips on How To Stay Motivated and Focused in Your Music Career.

1. What Are Your Goals. Are you a singer and just want to get out there and sing. Do you want to be a solo artist or a background singer and travel the world with a big named act. Things to think about right? Figure out what is truly important to you, in your heart, and write it down. Then stop at noghting to achieve them. For me this takes some “time blocking” and life balance because I want to spend quality time with my family too. Write down your goals and focus on getting them done.
2. Dream Big – I am now always of the mentality that if something good or miracle like should happen to somebody, why not me. It’s like the saying, you have to be in it to win it. Well, you have to dream big, the dream that you really hold in your heart, and believe that could even happen to you. Your dreams kind of go hand in hand with goal setting and putting those goals into action and not just words.
3. Daily Action – Some days I am able to accomplish a ton of things that move me closer towards my goals and my dreams and other days I can barely get a thing done, but If I do even the smallest, thing, like making a phone call to a new producer I’ve met and want to cut a track with, I feel like I am still moving closer to my goals. I recommend even stead strides forward…yo’ll hit that mile mark faster than you think.
4. Don’t pile too many projects on your plate at once- Now I am a culprit for this…and you know what…it leads to procrastination and I don’t get anything done. Choose one to three things (three things IF you are a good multi-tasker which a lot of my music mama’s are) that you want to focus on completing.
5. Focus on Priority Items – OK…stop checking your email every two seconds, and responding and uploading your new status on facebook. Set those things aside for a specific time in the day to do them and knowck it out all in that on or 2 hours. That way you can concentrate on the things that really bring you the results you are looking for with your music.
6. Don’t let the Nay-sayers knock the wind out of you – You can do it.. You just have to keep making good music, great songs, getting them up on your site so that the world can experience the passion and the music within you.

Hey…it may not be easy, but playing music, marketing your music to the world, performing your music to an audience, can be the most rewarding life you can live as a musician. Remind yourself everyday that you are bringing emotional joy to your fans, by filling there sould with your music. You can do it…just remember the steps above and keep it going.