Must Be Present To Win

April 8, 2008 · Posted in Guitar, Marketing, Media, Music, Music Business 

There’s an old saying in the music biz; “Must be present to win”. Back in the day, it meant that to make any type of headway, you had to move to L.A., New York or Nashville.

Is that still true?

One of the big promises of the digital world is; “You can do anything from anywhere”. Does that apply to the music game though? There are a ton of places, on the web, where you can upload your music and let your presence be known. It isn’t a new idea and, I really haven’t seen much evidence that this way of doing things has been effective.

But, you know, things change. I saw this in a press release this morning.

NEW ENGLISH BLUES… How did a Handyman from Upstate New York and a Heating Engineer from Maryland End Up on a Classic English Rock Album…

SYRACUSE, N.Y., April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire/ — Through the magic of the
Internet, that’s how. Mark Cloutier, a very talented Semi professional
Guitarist From Upstate New York, and Rob Grant, a Heating engineer from
Maryland, logged onto the SoundClick Musicians board last year they did not
know they would end up playing on a classic English concept album…

This is how it happened, JC Carroll, a London (England) based composer
musician and songwriter, was looking for people to play on his New Rock
Opera when he heard Mark’s guitar playing. “I was blown away as soon as I
heard him I wanted him on the album, even though I already had two really
brilliant guitarists. I wanted to bring Mark’s unique feel for guitar into
the mix.” Rob Grant, who coincidently had also worked with Cloutier, had a
piece of unfinished music that he thought might appeal to JC. That piece of
music went on to become “Caveman TV” one of the most outstanding tracks on the album.

SOURCE Stoppress PR

So, this guitar player, Mark Cloutier, put some of his stuff up on SoundClick, and a guy making a record, JC Caroll, found him.

Must be present to win.

Caroll is a known entity, he was a member of The Members and has done solo work and film/T.V. stuff. Cloutier, he’s a good guitar player, I listened to some of his stuff. It’s cool to see that a guy like this can get recognized. Good going, Mark.

You can hear a stream of the J.C. Caroll record “New English Blues”, that features Cloutier and Rob Grant’s song “Caveman TV” , here, for a limited time.

And if you have some music to upload, you might want to check out SoundClick.

Comments

7 Responses to “Must Be Present To Win”

  1. Pat on April 8th, 2008 7:38 am

    Yeah, I put down some clarinet spits at SoundClick, in the nIna Hagen genre, and I’m waiting to hear back… thanks for the encouragement, Jack. I just know they will be calling sometime this century.

    Pat’s last blog post..Defining Moments

  2. Pribek on April 8th, 2008 7:44 am

    I am a classically trained pianist, working on forming a classical trio. I am currently looking for a classically trained violist or clarinetist who has:

    free time during weekday evenings for rehearsals
    time on weekends for performances
    has at least four years or more of experience
    can read music
    is reliable

    Interested? Contact me!

    http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/tlg/632710841.html

  3. Pat on April 8th, 2008 8:05 am

    You see a clarinetist and a frog on the causeway to New Orleans…

    PAID GIGS!!! truly humorous… the frog is not classically trained.

    Pat’s last blog post..Defining Moments

  4. Sans Direction on April 8th, 2008 9:25 am

    You forgot Athens, Austin, Seattle…..

    I should try to put something together. This sounds like a cool thing.

    Sans Direction’s last blog post..I think I mentioned this before

  5. mark cloutier on April 9th, 2008 2:44 pm

    wow–too cool—thank you so much for the plug– i am honored–had a terrific newspaper interview today over the whole new english blues album concept–talked about world wide collabs and the support and interaction among indie artists–plugged my band and all my internet friends-musicians–some great talent out there lurking in the shadows–cheers–drinks on me!! mark

  6. Pribek on April 9th, 2008 8:33 pm

    Hey, thanks for stopping by Mark and congrats on the record.

  7. mark cloutier on May 19th, 2008 12:32 pm

    hi there hope you are great–some more fun in the aftermath of PR RELEASE—- http://blog.syracuse.com/listenup/2008/05/here_are_the_links_that_put_ea.html

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