The Whitehalls

So long Billboard Top 100…hello Ultimate Chart!

pjcwhite — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:10:06 +0000

Anyone at all familiar with music and the music industry knows the Billboard Top 100 – this is the chart musicians have grown up hoping to top (The Whitehalls are no exception)!

The Billboard Top 100 charts & ranks artists based on how many albums they are selling via traditional outlets. This chart worked great in the past, but as record sales decline and alternative means of building brands (YouTube, Twitter, direct-to-fan, etc) are becoming more common it is telling the complete story less and less.

So along comes Big Champagne (if you don’t know who they are click here) with The Ultimate Chart.

The Ultimate Chart (from an article by one of our faves Hypebot) is:

- a ranked list of the week’s most popular artists and songs
- integrating data from categories including:

* Song and Album Sales
* Radio Airplay
* Online Audio and Video Plays
* Fans/Friends/Followers

the Ultimate Chart is the first and only chart that looks at all of the ways in which music is popular, online and off.

The real question will this change anything…

Probably not dramatically – anyone who becomes an internet sensation will soon be exploited by what is left of the music industry to sell physical units.

But it is a fact that there is more to becoming an artist these days than just selling CD’s, and as an artist you have more control (and work to do) than ever in creating your own destiny!

- The Whitehalls

Video from our friends Karmacoda

pjcwhite — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:03:22 +0000

It’s been awhile since our last post, but wanted to let everyone know we’re working hard on the next release from The Whitehalls -- due out this fall!

We’re in the final stages of mixing and we can truly say this is our most ambitious & exciting release to date.

In between studio sessions we also managed to skip out to another great show by Karmacoda, our producer B’s amazing band, last Friday at Harlot in San Francisco.

Also check out this awesome video for Skylines from Karmacoda:

Directed by Luis Otavio Feldens, Produced by John Vasicek

Skylines is the second single and video from the Karmacoda album Illuminate. The video, directed by San Francisco-based director and animator Luis Otavio Feldens features a stunning combination of digital still photography and high definition, full-motion video.

It’s incredible…enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Ih6kBljuY

Who says you can’t make $ in the Music Biz?

pjcwhite — Sat, 01 May 2010 18:19:34 +0000

As indie artists we are always looking for opportunities to make a living anyway that we can. But who knew that the tactics for domain squatting that worked so well on the net would work so well for band names?

Exit Through The Gift Shop – the name of a band and also the name of famous UK Graffti Artist Banksy’s new film project.

(was Banksy recently tagging in the San Francisco Mission? Read this post from Mission Mission)

The band agreed to rename themselves “Brace Yourselves” and in return received via van a Banksy original appraised at $300K!

Check out the full story on Hypebot.

Anyone working on a film entitled “The Whitehalls” should contact us immediately!!

Karmacoda show

Neil Smith — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:46 +0000

Drew and I went to see our producer B play with his electronica band Karmacoda last night at Harlot in San Francisco. It was a terrific show – great crowd, great venue, great visuals and great music.

I don’t really have any ground-breaking comment to make except that you should check them out: www.karmacoda.com

The Whitehalls debut CD distributed by Tunecore!

pjcwhite — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:44:14 +0000

The Whitehalls are now signed with Tunecore for all of our digitial distribution!

What does that mean for you?

By the end of March all songs from our debut album, “Say It Like You Mean It” will be available from the following:

iTunes – U.S., UK/European Union, Canada, Australia/N.Z., Japan, Mexico
Amazon MP3
MySpace Music
Napster
eMusic
IMVU
Lala
Rhapsody
Shockhound
Amie Street
LimeWire Store
Nokia
Zune

According to a recent article and data from Neilsen (Soundscan – the people who track CD sales from record stores) & Tunecore:

According to Nielsen (self defined as “…the world’s leading marketing and media information company.”) there were:
“…106,000 new (music) releases in 2008″
In 2009, TuneCore released approximately 90,000 releases
This means, if their numbers hold true, almost every single new music release in 2009 was distributed via TuneCore.

And now add The Whitehalls to that list!

Feel free to check out the songs via the cool new Tunecore Widget on this blog and support us with the purchase of a song or two!

Think of it as a cheaper alternative to buying Drew drinks at the bar…

;o)

- Drew, Neil, Bill, PJ

More vox

Neil Smith — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:38:58 +0000

I was out at the studio on Tuesday night to do more work on the backing vocals, now that Drew has finished lead vocals. B and I were able to get through five songs, to add to the two I’ve already done. Four to go, then we’ll all take a listen to what we have so far, decide what else needs to be recorded and push to get it all done.

One thing that was really interesting was to listen to the work that B had done on Drew’s vocals. It is no secret that everyone corrects pitch on pro recordings these days, and we’re no different. Usually you can’t hear the results, but what I heard on Tuesday sounded a bit… odd. After talking it through for a while, it turned out that the cause of the unusual nature of the edited vocals was in fact some extra heavy compression. Things sounded fine with either the compression or the pitch correction, but both together made for an unnatural effect. They are after all doing the same thing, smoothing out the track. Compression smooths the dynamics (volume) whilst auto-tune smooths the pitch. When it sounds too smooth, it sounds unnatural. The solution was to dial back the compression, and now it sounded terrific.

It was really enjoyable to work with B on the problem-solving process – I always learn such a huge amount whenever I’m working with him, and we’re incredibly lucky to have him at the helm of this project.

Listen (or download) songs from The Whitehalls debut CD!

pjcwhite — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:55:35 +0000

Here’s few songs from our debut CD, “Say It Like You Mean It”

(we’re in the studio recording the follow up CD right now!)

Click the big arrow on the left to play the song – click the download button on the tracks if you like them!

The Whitehalls – Say It Like You Mean It (Sample)

Drew gets a new toy

Neil Smith — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:09:55 +0000

Drew and I spent an afternoon last week playing with his new Christmas present, a Line6 audio interface. After years of recording his song ideas on a Walkman with a built-in mic, it was time to move into the 21st century, and the Line6 allows him to connect a mic, guitar or other electronic music device to his shiny new HP laptop.

I’d bought one last month and found it to be awesome, so I knew Drew would benefit from it. He’ll now be able to develop his songs much more than just having a rough vocal and acoustic guitar part recorded on a crappy Walkman.

Here’s a pic of how my dining room table looked whilst he was getting his training on digital audio recording. My wife was momentarily stunned to see four laptops there at one point…

Happy New Year & The Whitehalls video

pjcwhite — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:38:15 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tO7PeEq02w

Hi everyone -- The Whitehalls hope you are having a great New Year so far!

There is a lot going on:

- We’re busy recording our next CD
- Planning some shows
- Writing new songs
- Some special surprises coming soon including a new band Podcast

We will also soon have some awesome hi-res video from our recent Great American Music Hall show.

But in the meantime -- here’s an oldie but goodie called “Stars” from one of our Hotel Utah shows.

Enjoy!

The Whitehalls & SVR Rocks raise over $27K for Music in Schools Today!

pjcwhite — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:16:01 +0000

Earlier this month The Whitehalls were asked to participate in a benefit at GAMH doing a little to give back to Music and Music Education.

I’m pleased to report that the Silicon Valley Rocks Benefit raised more than $27,000 for Music In Schools Today!

We had a great time playing this show and it’s fantastic to see that the effort of all the bands, sponsors, and people involved in pulling this off had a nice result.

Drew in his Dylan pose...

More pictures from that night are available here

- Drew, Neil, PJ, Bill