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SellaBands invited to perform at Concert At Sea Festival
On June 30, 2007, a special music festival called Concert At Sea will take place at Brouwersdam in the provence of Zeeland, the Netherlands. No less than 60,000 people are expected to watch local headliners Blof and a handful of other artists at a unique location: the Dutch coastline. There will be a so called 'Second Stage', made possible by leading weekly magazine Nieuwe Revu and SellaBand has been invited to provide at least 3 bands to play on this stage.
Basically, Concert At Sea is an event that is hosted by Blof. This band has been dominating the Dutch charts for the past 10 years and are selling albums like hotcakes. The band members also happen to be big music lovers, want to support new and upcoming talent and fully endorse the concept and principles of SellaBand. In fact, one of the band members has been a Believer for quite a while. Blof will be headlining the main stage on June 30, and will be joined, amongst others, by special guests De Dijk and Trijntje Oosterhuis, all household names on the Dutch scene. But the Second Stage will be reserved for new talent. It has been dubbed the Nieuwe Revu Stage, and the slots on the stage will be occupied by SellaBands.
Concert At Sea Charts
Here's the deal. SellaBand has invited Nemesea to take the last slot on the Nieuwe Revu Stage, and to be our headliner. There may be room for another SellaBand Recording Artist, but there are a few more details to be worked out here. The two remaining positions are open for all SellaBand acts. Your chance to perform in the Netherlands in the presence of 60,000 music lovers. We ask you to submit an e-mail to concert@sellaband.com. Just let us know you want to be a contender for playing Concert At Sea and we will submit your music to the boys from Blof. That's right, Blof will handpick the band/artist they would like to perform on their festival. And then, assisted by Nieuwe Revu and SellaBand, they will select another 10 acts who will compete for the final slot on Concert At Sea. These 10 artists/bands will appear on a special Concert At Sea Chart and then it will be up to the Believers to make that final decision. Details of how Believers can 'vote' will be announced in the next few weeks, but we promise it won't be too heavy on the credit cards;-) One important condition for participating artists: there will be no performance fees for the Nieuwe Revu Stage, but there will be a contribution of maximum 1000€ for travel costs.
Free tickets
We are thrilled to be invited by Blof, Nieuwe Revu and Concert At Sea to take part in this cool event. Like with almost everything we seem to be doing these days, the Netherlands are 'fertile testing grounds' for our partnerships and initiatives. If Concert At Sea is successful and worth wile for our artists then nothing will stop us to take part in other major festivals in the future. So, if you're based in California and feel that 1,000€ will simply not cut it for you to come to the Netherlands, we suggest you wait for the next opportunity to come along. Participation is based on free will (Your Music, Your Choice, remember), but we must have your registration before June 1, 2007. O, and in case you were wondering, yes, we will have a limited number of free tickets for this festival available for our Believers...
In short:
- Concert At Sea will take place on June 30 at Brouwersdam in Zeeland, The Netherlands.
- The Nieuwe Revu Stage will be 'Powered by SellaBand'. Nemesea will headline this stage.
- Famous Dutch stars Blof will handpick one band/artist to perform on the Nieuwe Revu Stage.
- 10 Other finalists, selected by Blof/Nieuwe Revu/SellaBand will compete for the final slot on this stage.
- The Believers of SellaBand will choose the final winner out of these 10 bands.
- SellaBand will contribute a maximum of 1,000€ in (travel) expenses to perform at Concert At Sea.
- Submit an e-mail with your (band)name to concert@sellaband.com before June 1.
Home of Concert at Sea; Brouwersdam The Netherlands
To Part or not To Part…
… that’s the question. This week we sent out an e-mail to all Believers who have Parts in one (or several) of our Recording artists. The issue is as follows: SellaBand are preparing the launch of the SellaBand Store, in which all SellaBand related items will be sold. These items include the Limited Edition Albums (remember, 5000 Parts warrant one CD each) that Believers may want to sell.
Some Believers own up to 500 Parts in one of our Recording Artists. Now, while EmpireOfOne may want to open his own store in Detroit in due time, or John Baloumba will be caught at his own stand on the famous Lyon market, we felt there should be an easier way to sell your ‘overstock’ of Limited Edition CD’s. Enter the SellaBand store. Ultimately every Believers has the right to decide him/herself what he/she wants to do with the albums. And if you feel you can get 25€ for them on e-bay, go ahead and have fun. For us, the fairest and best way to sell these copies that people do not wish to receive at their home address, is to sell them on our website for a fixed price. And we’ve set that price at $15.
Why May 22nd?
While most people seem to support the idea of the Store, the main question that arose was: why do I have to make my decision before May 22? Here’s the answer: In our Terms and Conditions we declare that we will use the FULL $50,000 for recording, manufacturing and distributing the 5,000 CD’s. To complete the budgets of the four artists who are currently recording their albums, we need to know (in time), how much exactly we will be needing for packaging and postage. Hence the deadline. The less CD’s we have to send out, the more we can add to the budget and Nemesea, Cubworld, Second Person and Clémence can spend it on the design of the booklet, that extra vocal session they may need or extra content they may want to add. We will of course respect any decision that a Believer makes and if somebody wants to receive the whole box of album he/she is entitled to, we’d be more than happy to oblige. Let’s hear what a handful of our ‘biggies’ have to say on this matter…
Unbiased mavericks
Our admin tells us that a total of 39 Believers own one or more Parts in all four SellaBand Recording Artists. These include Pim, Dagmar & Johan (Chris missed out on Clémence, but refuses to tell us whether this is deliberate or not), so there are only 36 unbiased mavericks. Some of them own multiple Parts. We asked a number of them the following question:
You own more than One Part in all 4 SellaBand Recording Artists. Have you made up your mind yet about what you're going to do with those CD’s?
John B. Baloumba
John B. Baloumba: “Well, I first realized that I should receive more than one CD when I granted the 104 parts on Nemesea; and Johan wrote to me that I will have to open a shop in the city ;-)
Fortunately, thanks to the team (hello Dagmar and Pim), I will sell them on my own Sellaband Shop, but most of all, I will first share tons with my friends and offer them the Nemesea limited edition, dedicated by the main producer :-)”
Jon Satterfield: “I kept a few of the CD’s, but I'm going to sell most of them. I think a lot of people may be thinking what I am. If we can get enough money out of the sales of these CD’s to cool down those credit cards, I intend on putting money right back into the next artist!”
Arnis
Arnis: “Although I think the believer shop idea is excellent, I have opted to take a handful of disks from each of the current recording artists for my personal collection and leave the rest to be traded by SAB. I think you guys will do a far better job!”
Campuslegend: “I've decided to keep 3 CD’s in Second Person and Cubworld for myself and 2 in the others. The rest can be sold through the shop.”
Plastic Willem
Plastic willem: “I will give some copies to my family and friends, but will put most up for sale, otherwise they would just be gathering dust in my basement.”
Do you intend to own Parts in every artist who gets to 50k?
John B. Baloumba: “As said in my profile, I will act as a collector... and Believe in each artist who will record. May I suggest all to believe in T-ka?”
Jon Satterfield
Jon Satterfield: “Yes I intend to invest in ALL artists who make it to the 50k ! I even started my own GOLD believers club where you only invest AFTER a artist reaches 40k but alas no one seems to want to join...I think they feel I'm being Rude to the new Artist and that’s not the case at all. I just feel with 3500 artist on here I have to watch my money some how and that seems a safer
way.”
Arnis: “Good question ! I guess it’s not an explicit intention to own a part in every 50K artist but looking at the top forty artists on SAB I can safely predict that I will have at least one part in each artist that hits the 50K for the foreseeable future. One of the great things is I am picking up music in genres I would not have considered before. Six months ago I never imagined I’d have any rap/hip hop disks !!”
Campuslegend
Campuslegend: “I do intend to own at least part 5 parts in each artist that make it to 50k. more if I really like their music and believe they might be a huge success.”
Plastic willem: “Yes, I intend to own Parts in all artists on their way to 50k. I think it’s cool and fun and want to support new talent as much as I can.”
CD Extra content
Also on this subject matter, we can confirm that both Cubworld and Nemesea are now adding the finishing touches to their respective albums. Both CD’s are expected to be released in June, hopefully by the middle of the month. We will confirm these dates as soon as we get the tentative shipping dates from the factory. What we can confirm is that both Limited Edition Believer Albums will be released as CD Extras, containing extra content which you can access with your CD’s only. We can officially reveal that Nemesea’s album will be called ‘In Control’, Cubworld’s project is entitled: ‘Step Lightly:: Create Out Loud.’
Q + A
Radius
Holland is still the leading country on SellaBand in sheer number of artists. Remarkably enough, only a dozen or so of the Dutch contingent seem to be working very hard and are going places. Among them is Groningen’s Radius who would like to introduce their own little competition in this Q + A…
Give us a bit background on Radius, please...
“Radius started in 2001 as a solo project of Johan Faber (guitars & vocals). While he was the singer of Awake he wrote some songs on his own and recorded them at his home studio. When the songs were finished, he made a decision: let’s bring this thing to life! Bassist Danny is a Radius member from the beginning and drummer Henko joined about 1,5 year ago. After recording some homemade demos and playing live in the local scene we decided to make a good demo at Studio Spitsbergen. While recording the tracks there was a great connection between us and producer/engineer Bauke van der Laaken. He asked us if we would like to work together for a longer period to get Radius to a higher level. We started talking about our ambitions and which steps to take. The past 3 years we worked on and off on 13 tracks with Bauke to get everything in the right place. We’re having a great time and we learned a lot about songwriting and production techniques. We decided to finish and record 3 tracks first as a promo CD. With10 tracks as a backup we would be ready to go if an opportunity showed up to record a complete album.”
What made you join SellaBand?
“Bauke was involved in the whole Nemesea process so we were following SellaBand from the start. During our recording and songwriting process a lot of questions came up. There was one very important question: How do we get our music where we want it to be? We thought SellaBand could be the opportunity to spread our music and to finish our album in the best way possible. And most of all; Sellaband is a fair system; the listeners / Believers decide, by buying parts, if a band will record the album they’ve been dreaming of. No longer the record company executives are in charge but the Believers! That’s Fair Play!”
You, Nemesea, Awake and Radio Orange are all based in Groningen in the Netherlands. Is there a connection between you?
“Yes there is……well…there are…… Awake is the former band of Johan, and Danny also supplies the groovy bass lines in Awake. The guys of Awake are very good friends of us and Siger (guitarist Awake) helped Radius for a while to work out the songs in a live ambience. Nemesea and Radio Orange are working in the same studio as we do, Studio Spitsbergen and the Soundverb Studio. Bauke is involved in Radius, Nemesea and Radio Orange as a producer/ co-writer. But overall: Groningen Rocks!”
How much time do you spend working on your SellaBand account?
“We’re spending a lot of time on SellaBand. We’re trying to answer messages as fast as possible and are always up to date with `what´s going on`. Doing the best we can to communicate with our Believers and refreshing our info as soon as there is some news about Radius. And of course, it also takes a lot of time ( and fun ) to be creative and come up with original ideas. Like the Valentine song, that worked out great. And now we have something new to offer our Believers…our promo cd is finished and already in the hands of a lot of our Believers all over the world. And …... we will give away 9 parts (3 parts for the 3 most creative believers) to whomever will find the hidden message on our promo CD. I can´t wait to see who will find the answer. So if you want to join the new Radius competition; all you have to do is buy two parts in Radius. We’ll send you the promo CD as quick as possible so you can join the competition.”
How difficult is it to work so hard, and only slowly progress towards the 50k?
“Music is partly about hard work, holding on to your dreams and going for it. ‘When faith is strong enough and it comes from the heart it has to work out’…someday… somehow… But slowly? We’re on 5th place if you look at bands that signed up in 2007, and the 3rd Dutch band in the charts……not bad at all. And our name is well known in the weekly charts.”
What are the band's ambitions?
“We all have played in many bands and we all know that Radius is different, we think it has the potential to become big and we decided to go for it and take this as far as possible. When we are playing together there is something happening between us, it’s like magic. Words alone cannot describe this, music is a language that goes much further than words and is the most beautiful thing there is. We all think we are able to have a great future with Radius and it feels so good, we won’t rest till we’ve tried everything. We are now preparing our live show and are looking forward to interact with the audience. Playing live music is simply the best thing there is and with Radius we’re able to make you dance, but also make you quiet and touch your soul. And of course, we can’t wait to play for a sold out Amsterdam Arena. (and after that; Rome? Sydney?)”
Are there any other SellaBands you particularly like?
“Yes, a lot.…. Bulletproof Messenger have a cool sound we really like. Trail and Headphone have songs with great potential. Radio Orange are artists who have so much more than good music to offer, their vids and artwork are impressive. Of course our friends of Awake …… and everyone has to agree that Brian is the king of Sellaband and already a bit of a rock star.”
Why should people Believe in Radius?
“Because it’s a Pop Rock band with its own unique mix of Wave rock and electronic influences. Johan Faber is a gifted songwriter and singer. He proved to be able to write songs that are catchy and musical and he can bring the songs alive with his unique voice. This supported by the strong, rhythmic base provided by Danny and Henko, and all the capabilities for an international breakthrough are there!!! Everything we are we put in our music and lyrics, it all comes straight from the heart. And we really would like the world to know what our other 10 songs that will complete our album sound like.”
London Calling Update
As you can see in the so called showreel on the homepage, we have decided on a new name for our showcase on June 5 in London. The London Calling tag was indeed a ‘call’ to arms for Artists and Believers to participate and qualify, but the night itself is something different. It will be ‘An Evening With SellaBand’ and that’s exactly what we’ve called it…
Unexpectedly, all Clémence Believers received an e-mail from our French chanteuse in which she claimed to meet you all at Gibson Guitar Studio on June 5. Well, we have the pleasure to inform you all officially, that she will also be performing. Just her and the piano, but it will be her first performance outside of France so it promises to be a special occasion for both her and her Believers. How on earth we are going to squeeze in all the performances before curfew on the night itself is a whole other story, but we're sure our Music Director and Promotions Manager will work something out.
Final Tickets
Last week we gave away the final 50 tickets for the show. The answers to the multiple choice questions were as followed: D, B, C, A, D. Because there was some confusion over question 2 regarding $ and €, we decided to approve all possible entries on this question. The 25 winners will all be notified a.s.a.p. and will all be put on the guest list. More news and updates on ‘An Evening With SellaBand’ in the coming weeks.
Clémence
Adam’s Apples #16
Lots of new arrivals this week so let’s get started right away:
Name: Thick As Thieves.
Artistry: Indie-rocking poppers.
Where: Boston, USA.
They sounds like: Powerful and original – strong vocals and arrangements.
The songs: The melodic “Here’s To Waking Up” is great.
What they’re doing: Live shows around Bosstown.
Adam says: “Keep an eye open, something’s happening here”.
Rating: 4 apples.
Name: Blue Jar.
Artistry: Eclectic string trio.
Where: Northern Ireland.
They sound like: Gypsy jazz and classical.
The songs: From Saint-Saens to swing.
What they’re doing: Gigs and festivals.
Adam says: “Stunning musicianship and really enjoyable”.
Rating: 3.5 apples.
Name: Noon.
Artistry: Pop/electronica/trippy.
Where: Italy.
They sound like: Cool grooves, great songs and production.
The songs: “No Tears For” could be a classic.
What they’re doing: Hanging around in studios.
Adam says: “The next Second Person?”
Rating: 4 apples.
Also….
Loren City for the beautiful but achingly short “When It’s Right It’s Wrong”.
Nick Carter for three well crafted acoustic folk tracks.
Cherries for some fun Italian-styled R&B on “Misled”.
Turner West for the hot countryfied “Speed Dating”.
And I can’t stop playing Bim whose new track “I Dream This World” is wonderful.
Comments, feedback or just saying hello are always welcome at adam@sellaband.com
Weekly Update
Chart Analysis
A clear and distinct victory for Lovely Lily, this week. This is her second consecutive week in pole position and now that Darth Koala has officially started her Final Countdown, it is likely that our Latin Diva will be on top again next week. Having said that, Bulletproof Messenger are clearly making the most of their presence on Page 1 of our Search Engine. At #2 on this Weekly Chart and over 30% in budget, these boys seem unstoppable. And what about Australia’s leading lady Mandyleigh, who is quickly approaching the 25K mark and is at #3 on both the Weekly Charts and the Overall Ranking. Some familiar faces re-entering the Charts, where Kirt has the highest new entry at #4, but also nice achievements from mainstays Slim Void (#14) Daniel Ward-Murphy (#15) and Wetwerks (#17). England’s BIM are this week’s biggest gainers (from #16 to #10) and Norway’s Con see their name change into Tongue-tied & Twisted rewarded with a chart entry. Special Mention of the Week is for Portugal’s AliouneK who’s new entry at #9 seems to mark the arrival of Summer with his feel good reggae sound…
Press release for Bands
Many bands are trying to promote themselves and SellaBand by contacting local media. Sometimes it turns out that all the hard work is in vain, but sometimes there are clear and exciting results. Take Blister for example, or Black Jack, or Kirt. All have successfully approached media which has resulted in major exposure for both SellaBand and themselves. Because making music and writing songs is the main competence and focus for most artists, we have decided to draw a standard press release with instructions which is free to use for all SellaBand artists. The SellaBand folk know nothing about making music, but marketing and promotion are what we are made of, so we hope you trust us with this. Later this week all artists may expect an e-mail with the press release which they can then adjust for local use.
Blister on RTL2
Vote for webawards
After the Van Speijk Price we have again been given an opportunity to win an Award. We have been nominated for The Next Web Awards as one of the disruptive upcoming services that will change the web. We like to be seen as disruptive so please help us win this award by clicking here to vote for us under the disruptors tab!
SellaBand The Movie
Today SellaBand the Movie premiered on our homepage. We made this short film with and for our community to share our accomplishments in the short period that we have popped our heads above the online cornfields. We would like to take this opportunity to thank every Artist and Believer who has delivered a contribution to SellaBand the Movie. 
We could have made a 90 minute blockbuster from all the material we received but considering the attention span of today’s audience we were forced to make a selection to keep it short. So if you’re not in it, don’t blame us, blame the editor! We have made it possible for you to share The Movie by placing it on your SellaBand profile page, your MySpace or whatever site you have access to. Just click on embed code and follow instructions. Please share this film with as many people possible because we want to keep growing to get more new cool artists in the studio!
The Week That Was…
It was a week of peace and tranquility in SellaLand, at least as far as we’re aware. No fights or arguments, just one annoying little kid pretending to be Jamiroquai. On a positive note, it was the week in which Lovely Lily passed the crucial 35K mark which is regarded by many SellaBand die-hards as the official start of the Final Countdown. Fact is that so far all artists who have reached the full $50,000, took a week or less to complete the final 15K and in most cases less than 48 hours to pack in the last $10,000. Meanwhile, Bulletproof Messenger crossed the 30% hurdle ($15,000), and Lucia Iman rose to Page 1 of our Artist Search Engine. By the middle of the week, a major feature on the BBC News site drove hundreds of new Believers and Bands from the UK to SellaBand. Knowing Adam Sieff, he will be handing out loads of Brit
ish based Apples in the coming weeks. As the week drew to a close, the King of Cool, aka Kirt saw his missionary work in Argentina rewarded with a re-entry on Page One of the Search Engine. He, Wetwerks and Lucia Iman are all within a couple of hundreds of dollars from each other and with the ever hard working Daniel Ward-Murphy lurking around the corner as well, that magic #10 spot has a number of potential inhabitants. Let’s see what the new week has in store and who will come out on top…
Congratulations...
.. to GD Allan and his wife Sonia. Yesterday at 3.33 pm, Sonia gave birth to Mahalia Rose Allan. As GD just wrote to us: "Mali and Sonia are both healthy, happy and at home with me."
The Other Side Of…
Seth Warden (Wetwerks)
In which we try to show you that there is more to our artists than ‘just’ their music. This week we invited Wetwerks' voice and frontman Seth Warden, who turns out to be a talented soccer player…
What is your full name?
Seth Todd Warden.
Date & place of birth?
July 12, 1977 Watertown New York.
Where do you live?
Saratoga Springs New York.
Do you have a job?
I am a project manager for a cutting edge construction company here in Saratoga named “Bonacio Construction, Inc.” and I teach guitar to 10 students a week.
What are your hobbies?
Music, Movies, Art, SOCCER (Football to my European friends) which I played extensively throughout high school and college, and actually played in Holland’s “Harlem Cup” during my high school years, but the next time I visit SellaBand’s home town I promise it’s not going to be for football… it will be to ROCK!
Favorite food?
Italian, Mexican, Chinese.
Holiday destination?
The ocean, no matter which one, no matter which coast, no matter which continent (as long as there are palm trees). I would really love to visit New Zealand, so maybe when Maitreya plays his home town on his world tour, I can do a little guest appearance at his show!!
All time favorite artist?
Ok, this is the most difficult question on here….I grew up listening to what my parents liked; The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, James Taylor, The Doors, Simon and Garfunkel…as I developed my own taste and desire to become a musician I did so because the music that was created by; Pearl Jam, Guns & Roses, STP, Alice in Chains and the mighty Metallica (the list goes on and on).
All time favorite book?
The Lord of the Rings Trillogy (Tolkien), The Five People you meet in heaven (Albom)
All time favorite movie? The Lord of the Rings Trillogy, Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Star Wars.
Best friend?
Well of course I travel with my entourage wherever I go, but the truth is that Rob Parzek (drummer/designer/programmer for WETWERKS) and I met in 1994 at auditions for music school, and have been trying to get our pinky toe in the door of this crazy music industry for over a decade now. We’ve been best mates on a long musical ride of up’s and down’s, but then Sellaband comes along, and I’m positive that we’re only going up from here!
Love of your life?
My beautiful wife Tanika and our 1 year old German shepherd named Quoia
Do you have anything to declare?
There is more music flowing through my veins than there is time to make it, so once WETWERKS hit’s this 50k, and I can dedicate my time fully to music, LOOK OUT because what you’ve already heard is just the tip of the ‘berg!