Since the Pixies reunion tour wound down last year, guitarist Joey Santiago and drummer Dave Lovering have been busy working on their new band project. Entitled The Everybody they quietly released a nine-track album called Avatar (timely) before Christmas.

As well as regular download versions, they are also offering a deluxe package with a twist. For $40 (€27.83) you get the album in lossless FLAC format, bonus songs and videos but most importantly, royalty-free stems of each song with the legal right to create new music or remixes from the band’s work.You can sell them commercially if you like or you can submit your music back to Joey and Dave via Soundcloud for the opportunity to be included in the second side of a vinyl package called The Everybody Else later in the year. Now, the name makes sense. More info at theeverybody.com.

These Pixies guys aren’t the only ones experimenting with online submissions as it was announced that annoying gossip blogger Perez Hilton is to team up with pop choreographer Jamie King, American Idol creator and entertainment management mogul Simon Fuller in a bid to bring us “The Boy Band for the next generation”. Groan. Continue Reading..»

Digital looks at two bloggers who took very different approaches to starting a record label.

“Who is Sliimy?” was a phrase bandied about by many music celebs like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Britney Spears on Twitter last month and within hours most of their followers (and intended audience) found out whether they wanted to or not. Sliimy turned out to be the first signing to celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s major label-backed record label Perezcious ( like “precious” but harder to pronounce), a French Mika-esque pop star with funny hair who releases an album in September.

Perez had enlisted the help of his celebrity friends to promote Sliimy to the masses. Perez may not be as groundbreaking as he intends to look though. Sliimy is already signed to Warner in France so Perez’s endorsement is merely an attempt to help Sliimy break into the U.S. Market.
While Perez has the pop culture platform for endorsing artists through tours and labels, on the other end of the scale, most are still relying on word of mouth and blogger recommendations to help them get where they want to go.

You couldn’t get more of a polar opposite to Perez than Neon Gold Records. The “boutique” New York-based label started by two New York college kids Lizzy and Derek began life as a blog in August last year with the express aim of releasing 7-inches of artists they were excited about. They used the music blog as their mouth-piece for getting the acts noticed and then would release 500 copies of each release, creating a hip label that majors now look to for upcoming acts.

Their indie-buzz acts have gone on to secure major label deals as the two became known as online tastemakers. Their first release was Passion Pit’s Sleepyhead – a band now signed to Sony, followed by the wonderful Marina and the Diamonds – now signed to Warner and playing Electric Picnic next week.
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When news of Michael Jackson’s death filtered through by text in the pub last week, many present jumped straight onto their Twitter accounts to see if they could ascertain if it was hoax or truth (myself included). In the next hour as the news varied from unconfirmed to “alive but in a coma” and back again in a torrent of Chinese whispers, it was a salient reminder that Twitter should not be treated as a legitimate news source in any capacity.

This hasn’t stopped Twitter becoming the first port of call for many looking to announce or denounce. Last week, NME Editor Conor McNicolas resigned from his position on the micro-blogging service telling his “followers” that he is moving to become editor at Top Gear magazine while in the aftermath to a alleged assault between celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas, both took to Twitter and videoblogs to fight their corner. Perez tweeted that he was attacked by Will.I.Am and his security guards – “I am bleeding. I need to file a police report.” He had time to tweet but not ring the police?
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