This time round I want to look at some of the tools and services I’m going to use for this project. There are many options out there, and other tools may suit your exact needs better than the what I will be using here. I’m going to list out the what I have chosen for each component I mentioned in part one and also an alternative that came close in consideration.

Web Site Platform:

Chosen Platform: Joomla!
Runner-Up: WordPress

Joomla! is an open source CMS (Content Management System) that I have been using now for a while. The fact I am very familiar with how it works was a strong factor in my choice, but even for a new comer, it may be the best solution. Joomla!, with its large repository of components and add-on functionality either has all the features out of the box, or features that can be added that will handle all the site features I am after: user management (Fan Club), mailing list management, content management for news and blogging, and additional components for message board and image gallery.

The additional components or modules that will be installed to provide this extra functionality include :-

• Community Builder - user management
• Gallery2 - image gallery
• Fireboard - message board

WordPress is by far a more robust blogging tool, but as the site is a bout more than just blogging I feel that Joomla! is a better choice.

Online Audio Distribution:

Chosen Platform: Broadjam
Other Platforms: iTunes via TuneCore, Paypal direct from site

There is no single solution for this. The more places you can get your music out there for people to buy, the better. But you want to keep it manageable. As far as song downloads go, I believe BroadJam is possible the best choice. With different account type to suit your budget and your requirements, and possibly the best return from each sale to the artist that I have seen, I think they are the hands down best choice.

But what about iTunes? I hate iTunes. There, I said it. But it is a necessary evil. So rather than deal with that evil you can have someone else do it for you. For a small fee TuneCore will handle all the dirty work with iTunes and get your music on there for you.

Another option to consider is to sell your music directly through your site with Paypal or similar payment system. I will most likely be doing this with of my older demo’s that I couldn’t really sell at full price. There are a few PayPal services that can facilitate this, with expiring download links, that I could utilise. As I’m not too sure on this yet I haven’t really looked too much into it, but will do so eventually.

Online Merchandise:

Chosen Platform: Spreadshirt
Runner-Up: CafePress

This one was tough. Spreadshirt may be a little more expensive than CafePress, and they don’t have the range of products of merchandise, having mostly only apparel. But the apparel they have is much better than CafePress’s offerings and offers a higher flexibility in design and printing options. Also, no monthly fee is required to sell multiple designs on the same item. This is the biggest thing it has going for it. I want to sell multiple designs on multiple types of apparel so Spreadshirt wins the contest.

If I decide to offer other items such as stickers etc., I will set up a CafePress store. I’ll start with Spreadshirt and go from there.

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Now that I know what I’m going to be using, it’s time to work on the site design. This will be an interesting process as I have several ideas that I keep going back and forth between. It will be cool to see what eventually sticks.

One of the services I would like to provide is affordable websites for musician that encompass digital distribution of materials. Being a musician myself, and a musician who is finally coming up with recordable ideas again, I figured I would have a first run at this service with myself as the guinea pig. So over the next few weeks I’m going to document my research and efforts in setting up the ultimate site for a musician/band. Hopefully this will be a great resource for other people wanting to make a band/musician website and you can learn from my inevitable mistakes.

Getting Started

First things first. Before the site can even begin we need to know what features it is going to have. I could jump in and start building a nice design but if the pieces don’t fit then you just make more work for yourself. Here are the features I think are the bare minimum that any musician site should have.

News/Blog: This is obvious. A news/blog section that tell of current events, releases etc. This is one of the most important aspects of the site and needs to be updated constantly. Blogging is a great way to keep in touch with your fans and let them know what you think.

About/Bio: A good bio is essential. It is usually one of the first stops for people visiting the site to get a better idea of what the artist is about. I personally like the mini-interview style bio with quotes from the artist interspersed with the rest of the content.

Calender: Now I don’t think just a gig calendar as such. Put other events on there as well, such as new releases, promotional events, other artists you know or are involved with.

Free Downloads: People always want something. So give it to them. Don’t want to give away your music for nothing. Well you need to change your thinking a little here. Give away one or two tracks from your album, and stream the rest (more on this elsewhere). But don’t forget other things like desktop wallpapers, MySpace banners etc. These things are just as important.

Audio Store:This is possible the most important. This is so important I will give this an post all of it’s own. But in brief you need somewhere for people to actually buy your music. Wether directly through your site, or from the online places such as iTunes, Broadjam etc, there needs to be a purchase portal. For the purposes of my site, I will be using an online sales system via another site, some direct downloads from my site of older “not really retail quality demo’s” at a cheap price using PayPal, and getting my music on the big boys like iTunes/Rhapsody etc. with the aid of additional service providers.

Merch Store: Keep it simple to begin with. Stickers, posters make great merch. From there once you build up some fan numbers go for more items like shirts, caps, hoodies, whatever.

Fan Club (for lack of a better name): As you build fans, you need a away to stay in touch with them. Have a membership section they can join for additional benefits, such as special downloads, free tickets to gigs, and anything else you can think of. Have a discussion forum so they can talk with each other and also with you. The number one objective of

Image Gallery: People want to know what you look like. A gallery is a great idea for posting pictures of your latest gig, of you hard at work in the studio, or playing with your pets in your down time. Add a twist though. Get your fans to post pictures as well. There photos of you with gigs, or pictures of themselves digging your music. Make a contest out of it for members only - see above - and give stuff away.

Links: Links to other bands, links to your fan’s personal sites, links to your MySpace site, your music store and any other site that you may have had some affiliation or passing reference to. Does that pub you played at last week have a website? Link it.

Now for my personal site I’m going to add a little extra. If you are a “performance” musician, as in play live or have the ability too, be it a singer songwriter or a live DJ/mixer, then this could be the best thing that you do. Think about doing a semi-regular podcast. This is one way of getting people back to your site and also a way of getting more exposure. My take is that every few weeks, do an acoustic performance of a new song I’m working on, maybe share a new finished or near finished track, do a few covers of songs I like and invite in friends to jam with. I know that if I found more sites for artists that had this sort of contest I’d be listening to podcasts all the time.

Well that is a start. Now that these main ideas are down and documented, it’s time to see what services and and technology is required to make this happen. That will be the subject of the next instalment.

Little accidents to keep me safe
From where I’m meant to be
A few drops of innocent blood
For a drop of my sanity

I’m going to start jotting down lyric ideas as I go. I do still come up with them but never write them down. Seeing as I want to start work on a new batch of songs maybe I should.

Now that I have my new studio toy, a Yamaha 01x console, I’m really keen to get back into record. Problem is, I have nothing to record. I could go back and re-record some older tracks but they are not me anymore. I’m a different person and my music is very different. To get inspired I’ve been jumping between all my favourite songwriters in an almost manic fashion. One moment I’m on a Radiohead kick, the next I’m being blown away by a Neil Young performance.

So it has finally occurred to me exactly what I want to do. I want to record a double album. Yes I know that sounds pretentious and I’ve said my share against the sort of artists the do record doubles (RHCP???) but it feels the right thing to do for the reason I want to do it.

I am more moved by performance than anything else these days. That said I do hold great regard for great songwriting. My love of the performance is what is actually stopping me from starting the acoustic gigs yet. To be a successful as a solo / duo you must be “entertaining”. Entertaining in the way of songs that people enjoy but ultimately can ignore as background music. I’m still trying to find the balance between that and moving someone with an astounding performance of a powerful song that has resonance.

This mentality has been permeating through my thoughts on sound production / recording techniques. The Silos’ brilliant album sounds fantastic and is so simple in production it is great. Drums are centre-ish with some mild panning of toms and cymbals, guitar one panned hard left, guitar two hard right, acoustic guitars and vocals down the middle with bass. Every instrument has room to breathe but when combined sound massive. So the songwriting ideas I have been having are starting to form in that shape. When I write I usually hear every aspect of a track. All instrumentation and arrangement, and when I record it’s a matter of trying to get close to that sound. I want to stip that sound I hear in my head back down because what has started to happen, the sound in my head starts influencing what I am writing.

The double disc idea doesn’t included two different batches of songs thrown together. It’s the same album done twice. Disc one (working title Stripped) will be a typical recording with the new sound I am aiming for. The second disc (working title Naked) will be the same songs, but performed live solo acoustic. When I say live, I don’t know yet if I mean in my studio or as a live performance with audience. But I’ll get to that when I do it. First things is to write the music, and that will be done on acoustic only. I feel I write best that way. It will allow me to kind of act as my own band. Different guitars make me play in different ways and I can use that to my advantage when recording.

There will be a few old songs that I still keep (demos of the one I like most are on my MySpace page, but in general I would rather write a whole new batch of songs. I’m looking forward to doing it once I get all this other web work done.

I’ve been rehearsing like hell with all the acoustic material I have collected getting ready to begin my acoustic gig career. One thing that has become very apparent in my practicing is how strong my voice has become over the past few years. I used to smoke a pack a day quite about two years ago now. There is an extra clarity and strength behind my voice, and I have much more control over it a friendlier volumes, which also means more dynamic performances. Another thing I noticed is that I need about another 15 songs. That could be difficult, but I’m trying. And I think I have a solution.

For a while myself and former Sledge band mate Ian were going to do a duo. I’m thinking again that it may be an idea. He is the more of a showman (showoff?) than myself, and he would not argue that I am the better singer (technically - and these days even more so) and the better guitarist. But the two of us together make a great duo. And not just musically, but also personally. He tends to be a bit more flighty than I am, where I always somehow keep things together. I also know that he is really keen again to start playing.

So I had a thought that may be interesting. Instead of just a duo, we have a type of alliance. We work together at gigs but also solo. Open with a set of both of us, a solo set each, then another duo set. This would really mix up the sets for the audience and also make it a bit less work on each of us. If we are ever busy and have two bookings on a night we could also do one gig each as solo’s. It would be advertised as Ian or Chris from Watson/Belcher (or whatever we call ourselves, I’m really over band names). A shared website for the duo with the typical gig listings and whatnot, a MySpace Music page for the duo as well as MySpace personal pages for each of us (which I already have anyway). It’s like building brand recognition.

The other idea that goes with this and feeds back and forth from the website is song requests. People at every gig ask for song they want to hear. So if they ask, let’s learn it for the next time we are at that venue. It’s also a great way to add songs that people want to hear. Get people requesting via the website, we see what is popular, they see when we are playing and more likely to make an effort and come as we will play their request. Personal ownership of the performer/audience relationship begins to appear in the audience favour, even as we mine them for song selection and have direct marketing to them on a personal level. I think it would work great.

Later on down the track we could “hire” a drummer and bassist and do band gigs under our own name as well. The possibilities are endless. I’m going to see what else I can come up with. I’m liking this idea so much.