Bulletins

• 

  Nov 04, 02:17 PM

  November update - Awards, Blogs, new Videos, and CD Baby...

  There is SO much to fit in here.  Here’s the “nutshell” version first; feel free to skip ahead as it pleases you.  :)
  
  -Garageband.com loves “Letter to the Editor”
  
  -Many were confused, but *Clang & Chime* IS an actual CD, and you can order that CD without using Paypal now!
  
  -The video I took during the making of *Clang & Chime* is now available for public consumption!
  
  -I’m going ballistic trying to get *Clang & Chime* heard everywhere I can, and I need your help.  In a big way.
  
  -No more tour dates for the rest of the year, but if you help me build it for 2010, I will come.  :)
  
  
  
  “Letter to the Editor” takes home the motherload...    of cyber-awards from GarageBand.com this week.  

Aside from being the website’s featured Track Of The Day in the Pop Rock category this Wednesday, this week the users of GarageBand.com voted to bestow all the following honors on the song:
  
  Best Male Vocals in Pop Rock,
  Best Guitars in Pop Rock,
  Best Bass in Pop Rock,
  Best Production in Pop Rock,
  Best Beat in Pop Rock, and
  Grooviest Rhythm in Pop Rock
  
  If that wasn’t enough, “Editor” got these OVERALL awards, meaning it beat out not only the other songs in the Pop/Rock category, but in ALL categories:
  
  Grooviest Rhythm Overall
  
  and my favorite, which should also make at least 69 other people on this list very happy:
   
  Best Production Overall
  
  :)
  
  If you haven’t gotten your FREE download of this song yet, what are you waiting for?  It's front and center on my iLike page.
  
  
  *Clang & Chime* is now available to order off of CD BABY!    I’m so happy about this. :)
  
  I’ve had the album up for everyone to preview on the Bandcamp website for just over a week, but that, for the time being at least, is no longer accessible.  There are a few reasons for this.
  
  First of all, it seems many folks are confused by the fact that the order form for a physical CD wasn’t in the same place where the download was available.   People didn’t  read/didn’t notice that the CDs are available on another page.  Some people actually wrote to ask why I wouldn’t have an actual CD for sale.  With CD Baby, whether you want an actual disc or just a download, it’s all in the same place; no more confusion.  However you want the music, it’s there for you.
  
  The other problem is that the stats don’t lie:  a LOT of you were just loading up the Bandcamp page to listen to the album over and over again without buying it, and if I’d left the page up, who knows how long that would have gone on.  
Now that you’ve had some time with it, it’s not a risk anymore, is it? Time to pony up and get a copy for yourself. :)
  (You can, of course, still listen to song previews on CD Baby; just not the entire song.)
  
  Here’s the brand new page:   http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/horan5
  
  For those of you who already own the record, please stop by anyway and leave a review of the album!
  
  
  CLANG & CHIME - THE MAKING OF...  SORT OF.     It wouldn’t make a good name for a movie.
  
  But the videos I posted earlier this year while recording the album (previously only available to those who helped produce the album), have now been made public!
  
  I’m only just beginning to use my YouTube page to its full potential, and now that I’m spending the rest of the year in one place (read more on that in a minute), it’s going to be a bigger part of my web presence.
  
  What I’m saying is, if you’re on YouTube...   I’M on YouTube.  We should totally be on YouTube together.
  
  So subscribe to my videos, or “friend” me, or whatever it is the kids are doing these days...  but let’s get together; here:   
  
  http://www.youtube.com/user/sethsbase
  
  
  CALL TO ARMS -- I NEED EVERYONE’S HELP -- NOW OR NEVER -- DO OR DIE.
  
  I put out “Conduit” back in 2004, and that was the last time I did what they call a promotional “push” for my music.  In 2005 I finally got off the road full-time.  In 2006 I started traveling around the world instead of around America.  In 2007 I released the “Happenstance” EP, but cancelled all my promotion efforts when my appendix suddenly burst, very nearly killing me. (Twice).  In 2008 I released “Between Two Oceans”, but that’s a DVD retrospective, and I thought it was best suited for people who were already acquainted with my music, so I didn’t try to do any over-the-top marketing for it.
  
  But it’s still 2009 for a bit longer.  It’s time to DO this.  It’s time to get people excited about the music on a CD one last time before people stop being excited about CDs altogether.  It wasn’t time to do it for an album that was really only half-an-album, or when I was near-death, or for a DVD, but it is definitely time to do it now.
  
  In the half-a-decade since I released Conduit, I have had hundreds of exchanges with people who have offered ideas and opportunities concerning my music and how to get it heard.  People work at radio stations or have friends and family who do; they know the person in charge of an annual festival; a colleague runs an after-school music program; their brother works for a huge booking agency or music publisher; their best friend is a journalist for the city paper... or they just “know a guy”.... 
  
  Many of you reading this are “those people” I’m talking about.  At some point we talked about doing something, but the time wasn’t right, and then life happened, and it was forgotten.
  
  I want as many opportunities as I can get for this album, so if we ever talked about something like this, casually or not, please reconnect with me, and let’s make it happen.
  
  For the many folks who don’t fall into this category, there’s still so much you can do to help get the word out...
  
  I’m looking for people to help update my listing on Wikipedia  (I’m not allowed to do it myself)...
  
  I’m looking for users of internet music sites like Last.fm, Pandora.com, iLike.com, etc. to put this album in their libraries, play it in high rotation and recommend it to their friends with similar tastes....
  
  I’m looking for people who like to post on various forums that talk about music and musicians, who’d like to post the various widgets and players I use to play my songs for music-hungry web-surfers....
  
  I’m looking for public and college radio DJs and college newspaper reporters and fledgling music bloggers and aspiring Twitter gurus...
  
  ...I’m looking for people who think *Clang & Chime* is music worth listening to, and I’m looking for those people to tell that to the world.
  
  Because I can do it...
  
  ...but who’ll believe ME?  
  
  
  My House Concert Report Card came in.
  
  This is the first time in years that I have not done at least a few short bursts of fall touring.  

I considered it, but when it became clear how long the album was going to take to put out, I canned it...  no sense in traveling around, playing and promoting the new album for everyone if the album doesn’t exist yet. :)
  
  I kept only three gigs on the calendar, and all of them were house concerts.
  
  I wrote about them in my latest BLOG:  http://sethhoran.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/we-would-have-such-a-very-good-time-such-a-fine-time-such-a-happy-time/
  
  Suffice to say, they were some of my most favorite gigs ever, and it is now my mission to do as many house concerts as I can, wherever I go.
  
  And I will be GO-ing again starting in 2010!   I will start the year off like I always do, in January at the NAMM show in Southern California, and from there I will stay out as long as it takes.
  
  So it doesn’t matter where you live -- if you get in touch with enough advance notice, we can make it happen.
  
  If you’d like to see my live show (it must be pretty okay if I’ve made my living off it this long, right? ;)   ....now is the time to get in touch!   I’ve had to turn down folks in the past who wanted to set something up with only 2 weeks notice...  I can’t work with that, but if you can look ahead to early 2010, the world is our oyster.  :)
  
  Thanks for reading this far, folks.  And thanks, as always, for listening...

  Seth
• 

  Jun 14 2008, 05:03 AM

  Wanted: Music Producers. No experience necessary.

  I got some really interesting feedback from my last post about the future of (my) music. In that post, I made mention of how I'm going to make my next record... with you.
  
  This is to explain how that will happen. First, here are a few important things to understand before I explain my idea:
  
  1.)I've read in a number of sources that a lot of people claim they don't buy full albums anymore because most records have only one or two good songs on them. I've heard this in a lot of conversations with people as well. They say: if artists made better albums, well then of course they would buy the whole thing. People are, it seems, still willing to pay for quality... or at least the promise of quality.
  
  2.)Normally when an artist goes through the creative process of songwriting, song refining, and choosing songs for an album, he or she works with a producer. The producer acts as a sounding board for the artist's ideas, and steers the artist in a (hopefully) better direction than the artist might have taken by himself/herself. To wit: the producer's goal is to make sure the artist puts out the best possible record.
  
  3.)YOU CAN'T PLEASE ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME... but you CAN try to please most of them most of the time.
  
  So now that we're on the same page, here's
  
  THE DEAL:
  
  -I'm going to record one song a week for the next five months. That's a total of twenty (20) songs.
  
  -Statistically speaking, a few of these will be great. A few will suck royally. And most of them will need just a bit of help to bring them where they need to go.
  
  -You (and by that I mean “those of you who want to”) are going to give me feedback on these songs, and ultimately, you're going to decide which ten (10) make it on to the next record I put out.
  
  You are going to be, in essence, my 'producers'.
  
  -Every week, I will send you an email with a high-quality MP3 attached (it will be a decently-sized file; big, but not huge). The first of these will be delivered on Wednesday, July 9th, and the last one will be delivered on Wednesday, November 26th. There is only one week during which there will be no delivery made, at the end of September/beginning of October, and that is because I will be on tour in the United Kingdom at the time... it still works out that there will be four (4) MP3s delivered each month.
  
  -In each of these emails that deliver the MP3s, there will be a small feedback form, and every week, you'll get to send it back to me with your opinions and comments until the next song is delivered.
  
  -At the end of every month (that is, after every fourth song), I will poll my 'producers' for that month as to how they feel the delivered songs stack up, in order, from 1st place to 4th. The 'producers' will have 48 hours to participate in this poll.
  
  -The song that comes out on top for that month will be slightly re-tweaked using the best of the feedback I've received, and will be re-sent to all my 'producers' for that month along with an email containing anonymous samples of their feedback, my notes, and thoughts on the creative process involved with all four songs.
  
  -At the end of five months, I will post one-minute clips of all twenty songs on the internet. Anyone who has been a 'producer' of the project at any point will be asked to choose their “Top Ten” songs from this list to pick the final songs for the album.
  
  -Those 'producers' who have been more involved throughout the process will have their votes weighed more heavily than those who were less involved. This is partially because of the familiarity the more-involved 'producers' will have with the material. For example, if you were a producer for Month Five only, you would have heard the full versions of only four of the twenty songs. While it is important to get people's general impression of a song from a shorter preview clip, it's in the best interests of making a great album to consider the more informed 'producers' opinions more heavily. The more you've been involved by that point, the 'louder' your voice will be.
  
  -Any 'producer' who has been involved for two (2) months or more will receive free copies of the resulting album, as described in a few paragraphs...
  
  THE DETAILS:
  
  -Anything goes with this. Some weeks I may do solo bass and vocals; other weeks I may invite guest musicians to play with me, or I might send songs by email around the planet for other friends of mine in distant lands to overdub themselves onto. I might do a song with drums and a keyboard part. I might do a song with very few words; or maybe a song that never repeats a word twice. There might be a completely instrumental solo-bass piece in there. I might record my upright bass on a song and invite other people to sing with me. I could do a bluegrass-style song. A jazz-style song. A complete heavy-fricking metal song. I could record two basses, a zither, and a kazoo. I could record my dog barking and play it back through my loop pedal to create a rhythm track. I could be just as surprised (or not) as you by the whole thing.
  
  -The point is, those of you who opt to be a part of this will get to hear the sounds of my creative process. You'll hear everything UN-filtered... the raw material I start with. You'll choose how far you follow the songs as they develop, and you will guide that development process (“Dear Seth, while I really did like your use of the Norwegian fishing chant in last week's song, maybe following it up with a German drinking song-style tune this week wasn't such a fresh idea...”)
  
  THE BUSINESS END:
  
  The opportunity to invest in this production costs $10 a month; you can pay fifty up front and be involved from the get-go all the way through until the album release, you can tread lightly and pay one month at a time, or you can forgo this whole operation, sit back and trust the capable and refined ears of your peers... the choice is yours!
  
  Your level of commitment will determine just what you get out of your investment, as follows:
  
  -$10
  Four MP3s (plus one re-vamped song version) in one month, and a vote for the Top Ten at the beginning of December.
  
  -$20
  Eight MP3s (plus two re-vamped song versions) in two months, and one copy of the physical CD when the final version is pressed. In December, your vote for the Top Ten songs will count twice.
  
  -$30
  Twelve MP3s (plus three re-vamped song versions) in three months, and two copies of the physical CD when the final version is pressed. In December, your vote for the Top Ten songs will count four times.
  
  -$40
  Sixteen MP3s (plus four re-vamped song versions) in four months, and three copies of the physical CD when the final version is pressed. In December, your vote for the Top Ten songs will count seven times.
  
  -$50
  Twenty MP3s (plus five re-vamped song versions) in five months, four copies of the physical CD when the final version is pressed, and a producer's credit in the physical album's liner notes. In December, your vote for the Top Ten songs will count ten times.
  
  And yes, if you decide to try this out for one month and then decide to re-up, your status will accumulate... For example, if you pay $10 the first month to try this out and then decide you'd like to stay on board for the whole project, you can pay $40 more and reap all the benefits of those who pay $50 from the beginning.
  
  Basically, if this sort of thing is up your alley, you can't lose with this. :) I get to make a record that stands a chance of resonating with a large number of people, and you get to help me make the record you've always wanted me to make.
  
  So where my producers at? :)
  
  1.To get started, send an email to sethhoran@yahoo.com
  
  2.MAKE SURE YOU SEND THE EMAIL FROM THE ADDRESS YOU WANT TO RECEIVE YOUR MP3s AT. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.
  
  3.Put the words “seth horan production” in the subject heading
  
  4.In the body of the email, please include your name, and how much you'd like to invest into the project (10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 dollars).
  
  5.I will reply to your email with a PayPal invoice, and once we square that away, you're officially part of the production team!
  
  This is going to be a huge step forward, folks. Not just for me... if we're successful in this, other people will copy it, and you can say that you were part of the thing that changed the music industry.
  
  Food for thought. ;)
• 

  Jun 07 2008, 02:05 AM

  The future of (my) music...

  No matter what you think of the state of the music business, you probably think it's time something changed. See, it's not a question of "if" CDs will stop selling; it's a question of WHEN.

  Being an artist who sells my music to make a living, I'm faced with an interesting combination of factors: People born up until around 1978 or '79 for example, still see a compact disc as a thing of value. It's something they either adopted to replace cassettes or something they grew up with, and people in this bracket tend to have something in the way of a tangible "record collection". When they were in college, Napster either didn't exist or hadn't reached critical mass, and the idea that illegal downloading carried serious consequences wasn't laughed at openly. These were the last people who shopped in "Used CD stores".

  Anyone born between 1980 and '81 saw the whole transition go down... peer-to-peer file sharing was blowing through the roof just as these folks' college years hit, and though these people were probably decent, record-buying americans in high-school, by the time they graduated, deferred, or dropped out of college (gooooo Gen Y!), they were all about the MP3.

  Anyone born after that pretty much looks at a packaged audio CD and says, "WHY?" They think of them as flimsy, breakable, and due to the CD-R's endless and cheap availability as data storage media for computers, virtually worthless. iPods and iTunes came about while these folks were either in college or high school, and it's hard for them to remember life without the option of the .99 cent download, so that's how their perception of the value of music has been shaped.

  I announced a few months ago that my album "Notwithstanding" is officially out of print now. My first album, "...this is the session.", has only a small number of copies left. My "biggest" release to date is "Conduit", and that album was pressed by a label in greater numbers than the others, so it'll be around in CD form for awhile longer, but my fourth release, "Happenstance" will be going the way of the Dodo in short order as well. Each of these titles, however, continue to sell each month via CD Baby and iTunes... as digital downloads (and for those who didn't know, when you download an MP3 album from CD Baby, you recieve the album artwork and liner notes as jpegs).

  I think people still have the desire to buy music, and I think that desire is strongest at concerts -- people feel most strongly about giving back to an artist right after they have experienced that artist's performance. The idea of buying a download works against that, but what is becoming more common now is the sale of "download cards" (like the ones you see at Starbucks). Think of it as a "promise to download", because you're paying for the album up-front, and you're being given a plastic card that you'll take out of your pocket or your purse when you get home, and it will serve as your reminder that "Hey! You already paid for this!! GET IT." These cards have access codes that, when you enter them into the appropriate website, allow you to download the album in question instantly. I've already started selling download cards for "Notwithstanding" at my live shows, and as the other titles in my catalog sell out, I will add download cards for those titles, too.

  (I should note, however, that the new Download Card-version of "Notwithstanding" contains BONUS TRACKS featuring live versions of FOUR of the songs on the album.)

  Now, my latest release is a DVD, and a double-length DVD at that. DVDs aren't looked at the same way as CDs just yet, and the feedback about "Between Two Oceans" has been overwhelmingly positive... this is something most of you have been wanting for years; a slice of the live concert experience that led most of us to cross paths in the first place. Co-X Entertainment and I feel justified that what we're charging for the DVD is a fair price, and nearly everyone who's bought it says they're getting a great product for their money. So the DVD will stick around for awhile longer, at least.

  But what about NEW MUSIC? The old method of making albums just isn't going to work for much longer, is it?

  Well I'm going to give it one more try, but with a twist: I'm going to make the next record WITH you. At least, I'm going to make it with those of you who want to be involved. :)

  Stay tuned for the next update, and I'll tell you how. ;)
• 

  May 25 2008, 10:57 PM

  live nude girls.

  Ah! Would you look at this? All nicely laid out with oodles of cool info and links for you to check out...
  
  ...why don't I do this more often?
  
  Actually... I do! Less than a year ago I migrated my email list over to a new server, and each month, I send out a mailer chock-full of coolness. I started posting that monthly mailer as a bulletin recently, but every day I get more proof in my inbox that the bulletins just don't get through to many of you... they get bumped down in the bulletin list too quickly for most people. And if I post the same bulletin more than twice in one day, I get pissy notes from folks with smaller friend counts who consider the multiple messages spam. Like the saying goes, you can't please all the people all the time.
  
  So that's some incentive, right? If you haven't already done so, please: JOIN MY REAL EMAIL LIST. It's an update-a-month unless there's something special going on (like a show in your town), and there's no wondering... I know that my message will actually get to you, and you don't have to wonder if you've missed an update from me! Win-win! Go! Now! Sign up here!
  http://www.reverbnation.com/sethhoran?add_email=true
  
  May 31st - "Anonymity" is "Track of the Day" at Garageband.com
  
  My song "Anonymity" has been receiving some really nice reviews over at Garageband.com, and has quickly climbed up the "Acoustic" charts there... so much so that they're making it "Track of the Day" this Saturday (May 31st). To celebrate, I've made the song a FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD... if it's not already in your collection, you can get it by clicking on the button:
  
  
  So I took this Finn back to my hotel room in Germany, and we made a video...
  
  Remember my blog about the Frankfurt Music Show at the end of March? Remember the cruel, teasing, 4-second clip of Petteri Sariola and I on stage? Remember I promised that there would be more footage of us jamming together some day? Remember...? Yeah... me neither. ;)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9f_7ZqxJwg
  
  3MOB
  
  3
  Men
  on
  BASS
  
  is finally TOURING! And we're doing it in ONE MONTH! After our increasingly talked-about shows in Boston for the past few years, we're taking the experience to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City this year on our way back to Cambridge's legendary Club Passim.
  
  Pay special attention to the next bit of info if you fall into any of these categories:
  
  -you live within 2 hours of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, or Boston
  
  -you have at some point said to me "I've never seen anyone ELSE do what you do!"
  
  -you haven't been to one of my shows in awhile...
  
  This nice big magenta and blue flyer is for you. Print it out and stick it on the fridge. :)
  

  Inflation sucks!
  
  ...but it is the reality of the situation. The United States Postal Service just increased all their rates, so as a result, I've had to bump up the price of ordering my new DVD, "Between Two Oceans", by 1 (one) US Dollar. So you see: the early bird gets the worm, and gets it cheaper.
  
  Don't wait for some sudden, random paper shortage drive up the price of padded envelopes... if you don't have your copy of "Between Two Oceans" yet, click on my Myspace page, scroll down to the big picture of the cover, and order it now!
  
  The Affirmation Sessions
  
  You may know my friend Joel Ackerson from the years we spent touring together. You may know him because he makes a guest appearance or two on the new DVD. You may not know him at all, but you need to change that, because Joel just released a new album that makes the hair on my arms stand straight up and makes me want to take long drives to nowhere just so I can listen to the whole thing in one sitting. Remember when people made albums that could hold your attention from beginning-to-end? My friend Joel Ackerson just put out a masterpiece, and I'm proud to have played a small part in its creation.
  
  I belted out harmony vocals on one song, I bowed my double bass on another song, and I co-produced a third song, so if you need to know my connection with the project to accept my recommendation, there you go... but if you just want to hear a great full-length album like nobody seems to make anymore, check out "The Affirmation Sessions". And know my friend Joel Ackerson.
  
  
  There's even more cool stuff coming in the June newsletter... don't forget to join the email list if you haven't already!!
  
  All the best,
  
  Seth :]
• 

  Apr 14 2008, 07:06 PM

  Tax season bonus: Seth is giving away his CDs for FREE!!

  Hey all... I'm having a Spring Cleaning Sale...   Anyone who orders the new DVD, "Between Two Oceans", will get a FREE copy of "Happenstance" from now until the end of April!  There's no need to specify that you want to take advantage of this offer... any and all DVD orders received during April will automatically ship with a free copy of "Happenstance".  Such a deal.  :)
  
  Do you need a better excuse?  GO TO http://www.myspace.com/sethhoran and place your order now!!  :)
  
• 

  Mar 27 2008, 11:00 AM

  join the email list... and if you want free stuff, join the street team!

  Greetings, gentle listeners! 

  If you haven't already signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out on a lot! Click the link below and stay informed about my tour schedule and new releases!

  ...actually, why stop there? While you're signing up, check the box marked "Street Team" and join my street team: the HORANIMALS... help spread the word about the music I make, and if you have the gift of gab like no other, you'll be rewarded with free stuff!
  
  http://www.reverbnation.com/sethhoran?add_email=true

   

  Thanks for listening, everyone...  I'll hope to see you all again soon!

  Best wishes,
  
  Seth Horan