Listen to this…

(Feed viewers: This is the full 6 minute 07 second, 12″ promo version of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” by the late Michael Jackson. View it HERE)

ShareThis

You are an internet savvy music lover and have probably found your way to this page because you are engaged in some form of social online activity. Welcome. Thanks for stopping by.

Now that you are here, we’d like you to join us in an experiment in grassroots, online music promotion. The experiment is also a competition, with over £400 worth of prizes up for grabs, and all you need to do to win it is come up with one, simple idea.

Here’s how it works…

We’ll provide you with 3 unique codes, each of which will enable a free, high-quality download of the next album release on the label, “Everything is for the Best” by World of Fox.

The first download code is for you, as a thank you from all of us at Commercially Inviable Records for agreeing to take part. The second code is for you to give away to a friend. We hope that both you and your friend enjoy the album.

The third code is for use in the competition…

We’re challenging you to come up with a clever, quirky and innovative way of giving away this code to your audience. The code can be given as a prize in a competition of your own, or as an incentive to subscribe to your feeds, or purchase items from you. The general idea is that you use this code to help grow your own audience reach in some small way, and in that way we all benefit.  Once all the entries are in, our expert panel of judges will then look at all the individual entries and select the best mini-campaign as our winner.

THE JUDGES

Andrew Dubber

Andrew Dubber is a Senior Lecturer in the Music Industries at Birmingham City University; a member of the Interactive Cultures research team and is the author of New Music Strategies.

Bruce Warilla

Bruce is a strategic advisor, analyst and blogger focused on the music industry.

Capsule

Capsule, the brains behind Supersonic Festival, are curators, promoters and fans of the finest music, revealing the otherwise indescribable connections between contemporary music and art, crafting extraordinary events for adventurous audiences.

Pete Ashton

Pete Ashton does Internet stuff and thinks about what it all means far too much. Sometimes people pay him for this. Which is odd.

Team Inviable & World of Fox

That’s us here at the label and Simon Fox, the man behind the album.

THE PRIZE

• £50 in cash
• Signed CD copy of “Everything For The Best”
• Signed Limited Edition Print of Album artwork by Ruth Green 
• A selection of Commercially Inviable CDs and goodies
• Hand-made vinyl bag from Needles and Hooks (one of only 7 made)

RESOURCES

Here’s everything you need to complete your entry. If you need anything else, please feel free to ask. We’ll accommodate all requests for supporting material wherever possible and within reason.

ARTWORK (JPG)
PRESS RELEASE (Word Document)
4 TRACK SAMPLER (ZIP) or (RAR)
WEBKIT - Contains all of the above in one file - (ZIP) or (RAR)

HOW TO ENTER

Email info@cominrecords.com with your name, a brief description of yourself and your online activities and links to your own website. Shortly afterwards we’ll email you back with the download codes.

The competition runs from 28th May 2009 until 1st August 2009 and details of your entry must be posted online on or between these dates, and must remain online until at least 1st September 2009.

When you post details of your entry to your own site or blog, please include a link to this page to enable us to track entries, and for others to see yours. Additionally, and in the case of two separate ideas being the same (or very similar), the first entry posted and linking back here will be considered the original of the two.

The decision of the judges is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Twitter: If you post anything regarding your activity to Twitter, or are running your campaign exclusively via Twitter, then please use the #foxprcomp hashtag so we can trace the activity.

Good luck!

ShareThis

NAS PRESS RELEASE: 21st May 2009

James Summerfield supports National Autistic Society with album and tour

Birmingham singer-songwriter, James Summerfield, is supporting the National Autistic Society (NAS) by donating £1 from his latest album ‘Count To 10 & Start Again’ and collecting money for the charity at all of the gigs on his upcoming tour as he supports Scott Matthews.

The tour will take him from his home town of Birmingham to Nottingham, Oxford, Cardiff, Manchester, Bristol, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Leeds and Wolverhampton.

James said: “Autism is a cause very close to my heart as I have worked with children and adults with autism in the past. I hope that people will dig deep at the gigs and donate as much money as possible to the NAS as I know they work hard to support people with autism all over the country.”

NAS Head of Fundraising, Steve Cheshire, said: “We are really greatly to James for his generosity in supporting us in this way. Autism is a serious, lifelong and disabling condition that affects around 1 in 100 people. As a charity, we are dependent on donations and fundraising to continue to provide services and support to as many people as we can.”

For more information on James’ album and tour, please see www.jamessummerfieldmusic.com. For more information on autism, please see www.autism.org.uk

Please contact Kimi Gill on 0115 847 3528 or 07946 590614 or email kimi.gill@nas.org.uk for more information, interviews, photos

DOWNLOAD ORIGINAL DOCUMENT - PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO YOUR MAILING LISTS

ShareThis

In the late 1990s in California Dorian Wood decided to track down his worldwide namesakes using the interweb and eventually got in touch with Birmingham-based Dorian Wood. Finding someone who shares your slightly out-of-the-ordinary name on the other side of the globe would be one thing, but to find out that you are both involved in the creation of strange and beautiful music is something quite altogether different.

On Friday 8th May 2009 we are bringing together these two unique talents to play on the same bill for the second time… It’s the Million Dollar Rematch.

Here’s what happened last March, when we did this for the first time and when Anna sang with Dorian Wood USA:

(FEED Readers can see the video here)

Friends of the Stars and Commercially Inviable cordially invite you to kick off your weekend with a night of music, dancing and collaboration.

If your name is also Dorian Wood then you’ll receive FREE entry but proof of identity will be required.

Boringly-named individuals will need £3 to gain access.

We hope to see you there.

******************************************************************************

DORIAN WOOD (USA)

His recently-released Bolka album is without doubt one of the best things we’ve all heard in a long time and really, really deserves to be heard by a much wider audience. Dorian has a voice that is really beautiful and he writes songs that call to mind Rufus Wainwright, The Blind Boys of Alabama and Anthony Hegarty - all rolled into one.

THEY SAY: “Wry, wistful and deliciously eerie, BOLKA is a valentine to the brokenhearted”

DORIAN WOOD (UK)

One half of the marvellous and frightening TeaTowel, the Friends of the Stars remixer of choice and the man behind the world’s only and best Happy Hardcore covers band, Pete_Prescription. Dorian will be playing brand new compositions freshly minted in his Kings Heath studio so expect Krautrock, Melody, Noise or something else entirely.

THEY SAY: “Elevator Music for people descending into hell”

FRIENDS OF THE STARS

Commercially Inviable Since 2000, this alt-country outdfit have harmonies, tunes and hooks in abundance and after surviving over 7 years of mild success and self-inflicted disappointment they bring you songs from ”Lighting and Electrical”, their first full-length album.

THEY SAY: “Their new disc is packed with the kind of authentically sad, lovely, and whiskey-drenched tunes that are tragically absent from the modern country FM dial.”

******************************************************************************

INFORMATION:

Email info@friendsofthestars.co.uk

Call +44 (0) 7740 358 162

******************************************************************************

USEFUL LINKS:

FRIENDS OF THE STARS

THE HARE & HOUNDS

******************************************************************************

DIRECTIONS:

LOCATION ON MULTIMAP.COM FOR DIRECTIONS

******************************************************************************

ShareThis

You can listen to entire albums, download selected tracks and share with friends, all within the individual Bandcamp windows.

It’s what all the cool kids are doing, you know.

Friends of the Stars

James Summerfield

World of Fox

ShareThis

We’re 3 weeks into the new series of Britains Got Talent and the whole world knows who Susan Boyle is following her 25 trillion You Tube hits, but the group that caught my attention last night was one cruelly treated by the judges, and given only scant airtime: The Synth Sisters

For those that missed it, The Synth Sisters are an all-female keyboard troupe who attempted to bontempi their way onto the bill of The Royal Variety Performance with a display of synchronised, instrumental music. By way of spectacle they occasionally engaged in some vaguely disinterested ‘one-hand-in-the-air’ keyboard moves, whilst not a single one of them looked up from their keyboards towards the audience. It was pretty piss-poor, but somehow compelling, and worth a place in the next round.

If you’ve seen the movie Donnie Darko, imagine what might have happened had when the members of Sparkle Magic hit their teenage years, lost interest and only stayed together in the regional entertainment business to please their parents. Talking of which, there is only one video online at the moment and it appears to have been uploaded by one of the Synth Moms, and it looks to have been recorded by pointing a video camera at the telly. Without the sound on.

When a better one appears online, and it will, I’ll post it here. In the meantime….behold:

ShareThis

Strangely, and despite it’s simplicity and apparent dumbness, it just seems to be the gift that keeps on giving…

….and the prove that we’re correct on that point, new online is the rather fabulous DonkDJ. 

In a nutshell, you upload the MP3 of your choice to DonkDJ and within minutes you are able download a donk remix MP3 of your song. It’s probably done by computers, or something, but it’s fair to say that the kids are going totally batshit for it, and it’s taking Twitter by storm.

Completely unable to resist the refected glory of a Friends of the Stars DONK remix, we sent off the song Dragonfly…

Listen: DragonDonk 

Enjoy

ShareThis

Record Envelope is a website that is attempting to bring them all together and stick ‘em online in the one place, allowing the likes of you and I to gawp at them.

It is, as their banner suggests, a little library of factory sleeves, which is a nice thing.

So, if you’ve got a sleeve that’s not in their growing and lovingly displayed online collection then I’m sure they’d love to hear from you. I don’t know where they are based, but that hardly matters these days. Go rummage in yer singles box….

ShareThis

FOTS-POD#14 “Robson The Headless Thompson Gunner” follows the tried and tested Music + Swearing formula that has proven so successful in previous broadcasts. So successful has this been in fact that interweb subscribers to this rubbish now number more than 20..Who are you people? Seriously. Maybe you’d like to get in touch and ask Executive Producer Robson a question? Email info@friendsofthestars.co.uk with what’s on your mind.

This episode features music from Percy Sledge, The Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra whilst the boys disucss The Movies Of Stephen Seagal, Front Row on BBC Radio 4, Podcasting in the Nude and Whether of not the CIA listen to FOTS-POD.

LISTEN

TRACKLISTING

“Drifting Texas Sand” -  Webb Pierce
“Keep and Open Mind” - Captain
“Back in Black” - EC/PC
“It Tears Me Up” - Percy Sledge
“Good Timin’” - The Beach Boys
“I Would Be In Love (Anyway)” - Frank Sinatra
“Step into Christmas” - Elton John

DOWNLOAD

Subscribe in iTunes and have new episodes sent directly to you

ShareThis

In the raffle at Twestival on 12th Feb I was lucky enough to win a cover of a song of my choice by Friends of the Stars, which was kindly donated by member Craig Hamilton.  I inevitably chose an Irish folk song - my favourite, Black Velvet Band.

But then I went and butchered the lyrics to reflect the recent Noise Abatement Order problems suffered by The Spotted Dog and The Rainbow, so the hairpiece is worn by a noisy colleen who gets a poor Digbeth barman into all sorts of trouble.  Play it in the little playbox above or download a 128kbps version (5mb), which should be small enough for downloads.  I’ll be burning a few CD’s for all the local pubs in good time for St Patrick’s Day.

I hope you like it, I think it’s beautifully done.  If you hate it because you’re an ardent Dubliners fan and this amounts to sacrilege, I’m really very sorry.  If it’s any consolation, my Dad’s going to kill me.

Here’s the credits:

Friends of the Stars - Black Velvet Band (Trad.)
Additional Lyrics by Nicky Getgood
Arrangement by Friends of the Stars
Recorded in Birmingham and Glasgow in Feb 2009 by Friends of the Stars
Anna Russell - Vocals
Campbell Docherty - Bass, Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals
Craig Hamiltion - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Piano kindly played by Rich Batsford

ShareThis