New Exclusive Partner: The Orchard

 

SellaBand find new digital distribution home

 

The Orchard, a global leader in digital music, video and new media services, and SellaBand, today announced an exclusive worldwide licensing deal. Under the agreement, The Orchard will provide global digital distribution and marketing for each artist that raises the $50,000 on SellaBand.



SellaBand is pleased to announce our exclusive partnership with The Orchard. Says  SellaBand’s Managing Director Johan Vosmeijer  about this strategic choice for The Orchard: “Our working with The Orchard is a perfect fit. They are one of the biggest players in the world of digital music and marketing, but remain independent, which is important to us.” Adds SellaBand Music Director Dagmar Heijmans: “We feel privileged to have our digital catalog powered by The Orchard. To give you an example: They are i-Tunes’ second biggest supplier, after Universal.”

Comments Greg Scholl, President and CEO of The Orchard: "This is social networking with real added value - an exciting partnership between artists and fans, empowering consumers and rewarding artists.  Great music happens when talented artists, producers, and engineers work together constructively as a team to translate an artist's vision to tape (we hope) ... or at least, to a hard drive. Some luck helps. Then, if clever people are marketing it and promoting it, odds are, the art will find its audience. We applaud SellaBand's ingenious approach to the whole enterprise, and are honored that they selected us as their distribution and marketing partner. We hope we're half as clever in selling the music as they've been in getting it recorded. Hats off to SellaBand, and to the Believers.”

 
Greg Scholl, President and CEO of The Orchard

These past month, SellaBand has been speaking to numerous potential partners for digital distribution. We feel that this is the way forward for getting our artists to the next level in the online world, and for Believers to maximize their return on investment. The Orchard is a leading supplier and marketer of digital music and video to digital retailers and mobile operators throughout the world. The Orchard controls an unparalleled catalog of music from thousands of artists and labels, encompassing all genres, eras, and regions. With localized marketing in 27 countries serving all major music territories, The Orchard designs global sales programs that are executed by local experts, who are knowledgeable about and sensitive to each country’s unique market dynamic. The Orchard functions as a true business partner with its clients by providing retail sales and marketing support, an extensive suite of online promotional programs and song placement. The company was founded in 1997 to provide independent artists and labels with broad and fair access to distribution. For more information, please visit  www.theorchard.com  for further reference. 

 

Community Singing

The place to announce special incentives, competitions, collaborations, etcetera.

 

Roll Over Austria: How Was It?

We’ve read and heard some of the stories and feel more and more sorry that we missed out on what must have been one hell of an event. The one thing we could and did do, though, was to ask the man who put it all together to tell us the story in his own words. So, Markus from Confused 5: Roll over Austria, tell us the story in your own words, please…

 

By Markus Melms

As already mentioned before, I began organising "Roll Over Austria" after a phonecall with Docnik talking about cooperation. The Rockhouse was already booked and so we had to decide about the final line up. A quick thought about our fellow Austrian bands was postponed, because they didn´t show any activity on SAB at this time - but hey, Kontrust and Rooga, we will do it again sometime! I asked Docnik to do all the SAB communication and I did all the physical work :). Doc asked Lorraine Jones to join in and after her confirmation we had our line-up. Now the real work started: On some lonely evening together with MaWa we brainstormed on Skype about finding a headline, I don´t really remember but it was like "Good night Austria!" and "One night in Salzburg" to "Roll over Mozart" and finally some full pints later we had - you know the score! MaWa easily designed within minutes the logo and even ConFused5´s graphic designer ATLAN didn´t change the logo! in the meantime summer was over, everybody back from holidays it was time to start attacking the press and start clarifying all the technical details.

 

So I asked my 2nd advisor Peatnik to join the team. we arranged the timetable, asked every artist to arrive in Salzburg at 3 pm and talked over a huge amount of details to give the audience a perfect show. Now one artist started communicating with me, who I already knew, but didn´t pay too much attention before. But from that moment on we "had more fun" with Pieps. Now we had 3 acts with 4 SellaBand artists, that’s real efficiency. I was really busy all the time, organizing hotel rooms, getting no feedback from the press, printing posters, and all the other stuff. Doc started communication on SellaBand, some believer quickly joined in (more than I had expexted), Pieps asked for beer and sausages and I started to pick up some steam and I got feedback from the press:

Press article 1

Press article 2 

      

and when I next opened my eyes it was already the day before "Roll over Austria". We had our community get together (Sommersby and his lovely wife, Dave the esthemian and Suky, Alex S, Magic Shoe, Gigi, Vollkorn155, Alex and Olga from Nearfield, arriving late Docnik and my wife)  at the Gablerbräu. On Friday afternoon we met with MaWa and late afternoon with Jügewara. Now Solidtube and ConFused5 met at 3 pm and began the soundcheck, Lorraine sent a message that she is already on the way..... we finished sound check at 5 pm, Lorraine sent a message that she is still on her way - only 80 km away from Salzburg ........ we weren´t that good in time anymore, but she managed  to arrive just in time, making a quick sound check, while I began to advise all the good ghosts (ticketing, cashier, film team, wardrobe and security service).


 

10 minutes past 8 Pieps entered the stage, just 1 man and his guitar, Dr. Egon Wichtig hosted the show, introduced the SellaBand concept and Lorraine Jones.

 THE START OF THE SHOW!!!!!!!!  During the evening everything went fine: we had an audience of 200 people, from all over Europe.  All without any problems, thanks to all the 31 men and women who were busy working on and off stage during this evening. In total the event resulted in a very small loss financially, but I won´t go bankrupt - unfortunately it didn´t made that amount of  profit so that I could quit my job..........    BUT IT WAS REAL ... AND REAL FUN!!!!!!!!!

So, it’s over now, but maybe just for now.

 In case you have missed it:  

- MaWa's review of "Roll over Austria" in his unique view

- and here and here are more photos covering the whole evening, thank you again to everyone, who was so kind to give me the pictures!”

 

 


SellaBand was Nominated again (Yawn...)

 

for the Accenture Innovation awards. Click the link below to cast your vote!



Q + A

Sheet Metal

 

They’re among the loudest, most active, and most omnipresent bands on SellaBand. This week marks their first anniversary on our platform, so if ever we needed an excuse to give them a bit of space in the Tribune, this would be it. So, ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome, from England… Sheet Metal!

Who are Sheet Metal?
“Well, there’s myself, Dreb Haklett on vocals. Mick Chinchilla is on bass and backing vocals. Grim and Dollop Lolly are lead guitar and sonic artillery. Finally Pel Smedley pulls it all together with drums and backing vocals. Sheet Metal is the epitome of maximum volume fun and medical testing. We are available for weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, openings, closings and local county-council by-elections.”    

How many times have you had to explain the band name?
“I’m not sure what you mean? What do you mean? Oh... I see. Well, let’s just say that if we had a dollar for every time we had to explain the name of the band, we probably wouldn’t need SellaBand after all! As the saying goes, I don’t care what you call me, as long as you call me.”  

You have been with us for 1 year now. Do you still remember what made you join?
“We had either killed or deafened most of our existing fans and were looking to broaden our audience via the internet.  MySpace wasn’t doing anything for us, except attract “friend” spam. Chinch had just joined a mail order book club and Grim had developed a serious Nintendo habit. It was time for action. I opened up a search page and typed “help! We need a really cool crowd funding music initiative” and up popped SellaBand. It was very interesting to us, as people were listening and commenting on the music unlike the social networking sites that were around at the time. I signed us up and we haven’t looked back since.”

 

Have you had any regrets about joining SellaBand, so far?
“Time. Time. Time. I wish we had started earlier. I wish I had more time to spend on initiatives. My only other regret is the time I have wasted on certain people who seem to want to drag the SellaBand initiative down into their own private pit of self loathing. Some individuals seem to think they increase their artistic merit by “not participating” and decrying the 50k goal, even going as far as mocking those who are actively seeking that target. I have some advice for them – If you don’t like the journey, get off the bus!”

You are so busy and active on SellaBand. What drives you?
“We genuinely want to be involved. Whether it’s through something as obscure as our 30 Days of Art contest, or polling the community to see who they would like to see play at a central London showcase next February, we believe that in order to benefit from SellaBand, an artist needs to actually *be* a benefit to SellaBand. We hear too much moaning these days about lack of exposure of artists. Well, no one is going to see you sat over there on your page. Get out there and expose yourself! Well, maybe I could have phrased that better...”

What are the band's ambitions?
“Grim: To be the first man alive to spontaneously combust on stage during a solo

Chinch: I plan to buy some new bass strings in March?! Is that what you mean?

Pel:  I want to build a rock oriented theme park on an uninhabited island. I’m going to call it Rock Island. The entrance will be built in the shape of Noddy Holder from Slades’ trousers. You’ll have to enter through the zip. Obviously it’s still in the planning stages......

Dreb: Establish Sheet Metal as the #1 no BS UK rock band on SellaBand, then dominate the world.

Dollop: Be as far as possible over the other side of the stage when Grim spontaneously combusts during that solo...”

 

Tell us about your upcoming gig on Feb. 1 in London? “SellaGig UK is a Sheet Metal initiative to put together a SellaBand Showcase in the heart of Merry Olde London Towne™. On Friday the 1st of February 2008 there will be five SellaBand acts for your listening pleasure at Storm in London’s Leicester Square. Already confirmed on the bill are Kaitee Page, Rebecka Haak and of course Sheet Metal!  The opening and headlining acts are yet to be confirmed as they are subject to a nomination and voting process. Why choose what people MIGHT want to come and see, when they can choose who they DO want to come and see! There will be a website and online ordering for tickets soon! Space will be limited so book early to avoid disappointment.”

Why should people Believe in Sheet Metal?
“Because Sheet Metal know what works. OK, so there may be people out there with better chops, or more mainstream music on SellaBand, but without being able to cross over into the real world and roll with the punches that ‘aint worth a damn. We know how to make a world beating 50k album with around 14-15 songs designed to both sell to the world outside of SellaBand and bring the outside world INTO SellaBand. Sheet Metal make music to move people. Sheet Metal don’t make music just for the dollar sign, so belief in us is belief in the future of music. I think we’ve said enough.”



Sommersby is at it again!

By Phil Sommersby

 

“My new competition is dedicated to Christmas. This Competition is open to ALL SellaBand Artists, including our eleven $50k achievers and ALL Sellaband Believers!


Artists

The rules are quite simple. You have until Midnight GMT on Sunday 16th December to post a new ‘Christmas/Festive Season (Holiday) Song’ to your SellaBand player and/or post a new ‘Christmas/Festive Season (Holiday) Video’ to your SellaBand profile.

Artists can enter both elements of the competitions with the same song.

This can be a totally brand new Christmas/Festive Season (Holiday) song, a ‘take’ on an existing song, collaboration between artists and/or believers but, please note that any collaboration can only count as one entry, in one name.

You can promote your song in any way you wish to maximise voting potential. I will use the Forum to keep an ongoing list of new Christmas / Festive Season songs/videos and to that end you will need to send me a message to say your song/video has been posted. The Forum will be kept updated daily from the time the first Christmas/ Festive Season song/video is posted.


Believers

This is also your chance to excel within the same time scales as above. You are all invited to produce a Christmas/Festive Season video be it a song, greeting, sketch, poem etc – it’s entirely up to you so long as the video has a Christmas/festive/holiday theme. The winner will share in the prize fund by way of parts being gifted to you to make use of as you wish. The Prize Fund currently stands at $500.”

People who wish to contribute financially can drop an e-mail to Sommersby. SellaBand is happy to confirm that –just like we did last year-  there will be a special Christmas Jukebox up and running where all audio entries can be played and heard on a special Christmas Playlist. Details of how to enter your contribution on this playlist will be announced shortly.