INDIE NEWS BEAT 
June 20, 2005 Edition
* Independent Movie Taps Into Independent Music
* Dress Code "Sonic Boom EP" Downloads Available Now!
* Blow Up Hollywood Releases New CD Stars End
* Vonmodik's Debut Album Released!
* Music Of Pucka Kayuba On Cdigix & Ruckus Network
* "Dance" By The Neurons Is Released In May By Lakefront Records
* Groove Pocket Ranks 16th Out Of 260 Acts On Radio Crystal Blue
* CPU Records, A New Resource For New Artists
* Go Global With AmpHeadMusic
* Gorillaz Limited Edition Album Unlocks New Secrets On Website
Independent Movie Taps Into Independent Music
Enter Gus. A hitman sent from Chicago to either whack Alphie or let him go. The order will come on the café payphone, affixed to a wall only 10 feet from where Alphie sips his coffee.
Alphie, straightening his flatware as he folds the Buffalo News, looks up. "Gus." he says. "Alphie," Gus replies, "Mind if I sit down?" As if he needed to ask.
Cue music.
But the new independent feature from White Lightning Productions won't feature the usual fare of expected Mafia music or top popular hits, "Waiting on Alphie," slated for a Fall 2005 release, has complied a diverse and eclectic soundtrack to punctuate the original script.
"As we began editing this movie," said writer-director Kevin Hicks, "we realized we had a very unusual and different kind of hitman story unfolding. Working with various artists from across the country allowed us to fill in the background with a wide array of styles that adds to the overall feel of the picture."
Music like the country/punk strum and twang of Ohio's B.J. O'Malley or the metal thrashing of 36 Hours or the trance-like melodies from La Cacahouette, both from Buffalo, New York, where the movie takes place. The soundtrack, which often emits from an antique café radio includes Wayne Garard from Detroit, The Blackwater Project from Columbia, Missouri and a title track from Tampa, Florida's Anevis that sets the mood for the initial meeting of Gus and Alphie.
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Dress Code "Sonic Boom EP" Downloads Available Now!
Electronic/dance music artist Dress Code's "Sonic Boom EP" now available at several download sites.
Dayton, OH-based electronic/dance music artist Dress Code's "Sonic Boom EP" release is now available for downloading at these sites: Napster, Apple iTunes, and at MusicNet parnter sites, including Yahoo!Music, FYE Download Zone, Virgin Digital, Ctrax, RCN Music, and MusicNet@aol.
Dress Code is an eclectic mix of electronic/dance music with rock, funk, and hip-hop influences--a style described as "funky rocktronic dance music" by Dress Code musician/producer Derek "DJH" Holley. Derek co-founded Dress Code in the early 90s as a duo and "musical experiment" with a style that had rock, funk, dance, and pop influences. Dress Code later released their debut CD, About Time. Music from this release has been featured in various MTV, VH1, and independent film projects.
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Blow Up Hollywood Releases New CD Stars End
Blow Up Hollywood is set to release "Stars End" on May 31st, an improvised 40 minute musical experiment that was recorded live from the WXPN radio studios in Philadelphia in November of 2004. With instruments in hand and complete creative freedom, anything that was in the studio quickly became an instrument of choice. Instrumentation on the disc includes electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, cello, harmonica, wine bottle, Tibetan singing bowl, vocals, dinner bell, small gong, whistling. The art is in the listening.
Blow Up Hollywood, who's name is a backlash to the excesses of glitter marketing in the mass media, is made up of 7 critically acclaimed New York musicians. The band creates a huge orchestral wall of sound with blissful string arrangements and poignant vocals making each track a requiem. The bands live show is a mixed media event with the staging of a self-produced film being run on a screen while the band score it live, almost secretly in the dark.
Blow Up Hollywood's virtuoso mastery of their respective instruments have won them fanatical fans all over the globe, connecting with fans one on one thru the web. Their cinematic sound is being hotly pursued in the film and tv world by the likes of major networks and independent filmmakers who want to tell their stories within the emotional backdrop of Blow Up Hollywood's music.
Blow Up Hollywood are currently finishing tracks for their third studio effort, a cd entitled "The Diaries of Private Henry Hill", which was inspired by the journals of a young American soldier who perished in Iraq. The release date is set for early 2006.
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Vonmodik's Debut Album Released!
Today sees the arrival of Vonmodik's eagerly awaited debut album, 'UNTITLED' on Bionnic Music one of the most diverse electronica albums you're likely to hear. So far 6 of the tracks have made various Top Ten Charts at Broadjam.com including House Top Ten, Dance Top Ten and Breakbeat Top Ten (expect more!). Prior to release radio stations from Los Angeles to Boston have spun tracks and Vonmodik is beginning to receive invitations for on-air in-studio appearances! Vonmodik is also now featured on
Music.Download.Com!
"Your vibe is great. ... you have a contemporary sound ala Erlend Oye, Radio 4, Cut Copy etc. Really nice tone and emotion ... great ideas and lots of great sounds." TAXI.com review
Vonmodik's music includes a mix of traditional instrumentation with heavily layered, digitally generated programming to help produce an original and clearly-defined sound. Already an established and unique graphic artist, his approach to music emanates from a fresh perspective of sound experimentation. His modern influences include Orbital, Moby, BT, Junkie XL, Groove Armada, Deep Forest and Bent, while some of his classic pop favorties are Sting, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, Duran Duran, The Psychedelic Furs and The Cure.
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Music Of Pucka Kayuba On Cdigix & Ruckus Network
Already available through MusicNet, Pucka Kayuba's music from the "Peace & Love" CD is now available for purchase through the Cdigix music on demand network, which is operated by MusicNet, and accessed by over 310,000 students at American Universities and Colleges, such as the University of Maryland, Yale University, Penn State University, Purdue University, Duke University, Rochester Institute of Technology, DePaul University, Indiana University, University of Michigan and more than 10 other U.S. colleges. Students use the Cdigix system, designed specifically to provide digital music services to students on campus, to purchase song(s) directly or to otherwise pay for the music through subscription fees paid by the student or the school.
Pucka Kayuba's music is now also available through the Ruckus Network , a Cdigix competitor, which provides music services to Bentley College, Hampton University, Clark Atlanta University, Frostburg State University, American University and more than five other schools using the Ruckus Network.
Pucka Kayuba, who lives and records his wonderful reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica and has worked with Jamaican legends such as Sly Dunbar, Pam Hall, Jah D (Dennis Fearon) and Zammerock Kahunda, continues to see distribution and promotion of his music expand through his relationship with U.S. label Loud Dust Recordings as well as enjoying top 20 chart positions of his songs "Arise", "Let Us Come Together" and "Love Is The Key" for many months at Wraptor.com and ListenerStation.com.
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"Dance" By The Neurons Is Released In May By Lakefront Records
UnderGround magazine in Los Angeles states "WOW! Where the hell did this come from? This record grooves like no other. World class improvisations..."
Members of The Neurons have played throughout the world such as The Tonight Show, The Playboy Jazz Festival, and the Montreaux Jazz festival. One Neuron spent 13 years "groovin" with Ray Charles. The other has 8 solo albums and has built guitars for Daryl Hall and members of Stevie Wonders Band.
Dance will "Groove" you and "move" you. World rhythms, great exploratory solo's and joyous loop grooves make this album very special.
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Groove Pocket Ranks 16th Out Of 260 Acts On Radio Crystal Blue
Groove Pocket from Hamilton, NJ just ranked 16th out of 260 acts for radio play on Brooklyn's Radio Crystal Blue, "Top 55 Internet Airplay Recording Artist for the Spring of 2005". Qualification for this chart included 2 songs receiving airplay in a 3 month period, and a 7 song rotation between 4/04 and 3/05.
"It's an unbelievable honor to be on this list with such great artists. Dan is the man!" This coming from drummer Lee Micai speaking for the band.
Groove Pocket recently made an appearance on X106.9 in Ocean City, MD on the Glassman and Crazy Eddie morning show. Tracks from Groove Pocket's Debut album, "Everything's Whatever", can also be heard on Blow Up Radio (Old Bridge, NJ), Harris Radio (Brooklyn, NY), Jack And Jill Radio (Sunrise, FL), WDYN (Rochester, NY), WNTI (Hackettstown, NJ), Liquid Compass (Denver, CO), Radio Takeover (Medford, NJ) and WPKN Radio (Bridgeport, CT). CO), Radio Takeover (Medford, )NJ and WPKN Radio (Bridgeport, CT).
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Gorillaz Limited Edition Album Unlocks New Secrets On Website
This week, Parlophone launches brand new content on the award-winning Gorillaz site. In an integrated campaign, some of the site's new content is only accessible to fans with a copy of the limited edition of Demon Days. When fans insert the disc into their PC, they can enter the kitchen in Kong Studios, break into a cupboard and access an exclusive, downloadable bonus track, as well as PC wallpapers and screensavers.
www.gorillaz.com is the band's virtual home, Kong Studios, and is made up of various rooms and scenes, offering fans a 3D animated, interactive Gorillaz 'world'.
As Gorillaz only exist in the virtual, online world, the website has been at the heart of the album's launch and promotion, as Lisa Gower, Digital Media Manager at Parlophone, explains.
Gower comments, "Gorillaz.com allows fans a peek into their world. The new content continues the site's theme of playing and interaction, drawing fans further into Gorillaz world and adding to their experience. As Gorillaz obviously can't do physical interviews, gigs and signings, the new content allows fans to get closer to the band, adding greater value to the relationship."
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CPU Records, A New Resource For New Artists
CPU Records was set up for unsigned bands and singer/songwriters to let them distribute their songs, biographies, pictures and other information about themselves to a wider audience via the internet. The idea was to create a hub where people wanting to check out new talent could do so, in the comfort of their own home or office,and to do so free of any charge.
Halloween night saw the launch of the Artist section with performances by some of the cream of unsigned talent from Manchester and Ireland, namely Stazi(who have x factors Rowetta satchell as backing singer)lee gorton from Alfie,Dublin Anarchists The Subtonics as well as other bands and DJing on the Night was Mani from Primal Scream and Andy Rourke from The Smiths. Since then the site has been recieving over 2 million hits a month and climbing rapidly.The latest band to sign up is Vinny Peculiar, featuring Mark Joyce and Andy Rourke from The Smiths.Bands simply sign up, upload what songs they want people to hear, as well as biographies and pictures. Every time a song is listened to it gets a chart position with a top 10 being published every thursday.The songs are also then queued into the internet radio station and gets randomly played to listners.For every band that has a major label contract there are hundreds that are just as good that are unsigned and www.cpu.ie is the place to find them.
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Amphead Entertainment Group are driving the digital revolution in Australia for non-major labels and artists. Partnered with The Orchard from the States, They distribute the largest catalogue of digital music in the world. It currently sits at 355,000 tracks distributed through 72 countries. They act as a non-exclusive distributor for Artists and non-major labels with a 70% return + mechanical royalties back to the Artist.
New and unsigned artists can benefit from Amphead's network, as more online shoppers are turned on to fresh artists via recommendations and digital media, which they would never normally have in a regular retail record store. Word of mouth is becoming an even stronger medium as artists now have increased global reach via their websites and email promotions. Statistics are revealing that the hits are only generating half the digital sales, whilst niche catalogues are generating the rest.
When an artist lists their release with AmpHeadMusic, it is encrypted and sent to The Orchard for global distribution. The artist receives a username and login so they are able to check on a daily basis where and how much of their music is being downloaded. With a timeline of 4 6 weeks from receiving product to availability at online stores, this is the fastest way for artists to export music on a global basis.
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Provided by the MusicDish Network. Copyright © Tag It 2005 - Republished with Permission
