There’s a lot of discussion going on if Google really will be able to compete with Facebook or not, which leads to the idea that you should choose between the two of them. Well, I don’t, because they work in completely different ways for me. On Facebook I connect with people because I know them in some way, but on Google+ I connect and follow people because we share the same interests, regardless if I know them from the start or not.
So for me these two networks serve two different, important purposes for me. Google+ is much more similar to Twitter, but I prefer Google+ for several reasons.
There’s a quite some activity going on at Google+, a lot of interesting discussions, video hangouts, loads of brilliant photographers and generous people, and because of the circle system, (you add everyone you follow to a circle you create yourself), it’s easy to get started and get right into the action.
People of course want to be followed and share their circles of people with others, and with a few clicks you can add one or more of these circles to your own people you follow. If you change your mind later you can easily unfollow individuals or entire circles. Here’s a blog post which shows you several ways of finding interesting people.
Well, if you already are on Google+, or if you’d like to try it out, I hope to see you there. /Pär
I thought I should continue our odyssey through interesting music sites today. We’ve been lucky to have our music played on even more shows during the last week, so I’ll grab the opportunity here to thank these DJ:s for this and at the same time show you some interesting music sites you might want to take a look at.
Jogtunes played “Anything” the other day on the Jogtunes podcast, and we talked about this podcast some month ago. But the podcast show is only one part of what Jogtunes is about. It’s overall a great site for discovering and playing music that fits your jogging pace or workout pace and that has good tips about creating playlists for different type of activities. You can also choose genre, pace and artist and the page will suggest music for you. Even better now, if you own an iPhone, is that there’s also an app for that. The Jogtunes iPhone app lets you match the beat with your feet with a couple of finger taps and presents you with a suitable playlist from the podshow episodes.
A completely different type of music show is Music Scene Investigation. Each week the host Rich Wildman is joined by three other panelists in a show, broadcasted live, where they examine three songs in detail from independent artists during an hour. They discuss the production, the songwriting and the songs in general, from the point of view of some experienced music pros. Interesting and quite different from most shows I’ve seen. Last week “The Kiss” from our first single was discussed by these gentlemen and if you’re interested you can listen to or watch the show here.
I was happy to see that one of my favourite podcasts, The Bugcast, aired “Anything” on Friday. As usual they send live every Friday, with chatroom and everything. Very nice indeed, and you can listen to the episode here.
Also, yesterday the russian podcast Night Diary played one of our songs, “Anything”. If you remember from earlier this Autumn we were thrilled about reaching out to podcasts in languages we don’t understand. And yes, it’s still as exciting to hear our russian friend Igor Mercury play our song in his show.
Finally I’d like to present Ed’s Mixed Bag, run by podcast veteran Ed Ovett. Well, I think I can call him a veteran since he started already in 2005 and have made more than 260 shows. He got tired of terrestrial radio and did something about it by starting his own channel. If you’d like to listen to his eclectic independent mixed bag you can find a new show twice a month. You can find the episodes here, and in the latest show you also get to hear “Anything”. /Pär
I’m doing the editing for the new +Bus Stop Dreams video now. The setting is outdoors. We went out walking in the forrest behind my house and found some really nice spots with a lot of atmosphere.
These three frames are taken from the video and I’m very pleased with the way they came out. A lot of late autumn, early winter magic in them don’t you think?
Following the photos the other day from the shooting of the video for “As Long as I Don’t Cry”, we should of course give you a hint of how the video will turn out. So, here’s a first preview clip, starring Ulla Wrethagen:
Yesterday we had a day out in the woods. We were shooting footage for the video for the seconds song on the single, As Long As You Don’t Cry. It was Lasse and Ulla Wrethagen (who sings the lovely vocals on the song) who trampled around the early wintry woods for a couple of hours. And Pär joined in remotely for a while via Facetime on our mobiles.
We got some nice takes and there was a certain atmosphere that will complement the song in the right way. Sort of keyed down green and gray colours accented with a few red and yellow from the last leaves.
So, now it’s on to editing and composing. In time you will see it too.
I found these pictures taken about a year ago of our studio, The Bus Depot. It’s here where our songs are recorded and mixed. It’s very, very small (it looks larger in the images due to wide angle lens magic), but it’s very nice and cosy. And it sounds really good with nice instruments, microphones and equipment. We are really proud of it.
The recording area. And a nice selection of guitars too. The black Telecaster is the favorite one.
The baby-grand is mostly used for song writing and is nice to look at.
Our secret weapon when recording vocals is the Microtech Gefell M92.1S microphone.
Vintage sound with a history that goes back to before the Second World War.
The mixing area. This is what we look at for days when we are mixing.
Monitors are nice Mackie HR824 (lower) and crappy consumer (upper).
Someone asked me if we are getting used to being played at podshows and blogs, in the sense that it means less to us than before, if we’re starting to feel some kind of numbness for each time someone plays our songs?
It was quite simple to answer that question with a no. I can answer for all of us in Bus Stop Dreams in saying that everytime someone chooses to play our songs or write about them, we feel pure joy. That’s the whole point in getting our music out there. I only worry about not being able to give these people all the appreciation they deserve, not only for our sake, but also because they help so many independent artists, and give listeners an option to discover new music they wouldn’t have been able to find themselves. I’ll try to highlight some of these music lovers, some of them you may have seen here before:
NBT Music Radio is an Internet radio station that plays a lot of independent music from around the world, in a variety of genres. I find it hard to encounter net stations myself that doesn’t focus only on top-40 songs and that fit my musical taste, even though I have a very broad view of music. NBT is one of the few I have added to my favourites on my iPhone radio app. And we’re grateful to be added to the playlists with our songs on this station.
(if you do know of other stations, non-top 40, that you like, please add some links in the comments).
Today “Anything” was chosen as the “Song of the Day” by FM102x. Beautiful isn’t it? Like being the soundtrack of someone’s day. Could one ask for more? There’s also a podcast full of good music, so check it out and see if it fits your taste in music.
We have mentioned Michael Angel’s Cosmic Grab Bag, and he deserves to be mentioned again. A frequent podcaster that serves us a very nice eclectic mix of independent music. He have included us several times, which feels fantastic.
The mp3 blog Faronheit honoured us again by adding the songs from “Anything” in a Pick Your Poison -post. Few mp3 blogs presents so many good songs to listen to and download. A good place to browse for new music and read interesting articles.
Erk FM was new to me as I discovered that they had played “The Big One” last week. It’s a podcast based in Australia, and I have started to listen to it, and I really like the mix.
The wonderful podcasters and musicians from Radio Orphans should of course be presented. We were happy to know that they like “As Long As I Don’t Cry” and had played it in their excellent podshow a few days ago.
Recent Music Heroes presented the video for “Anything” last week. A frequent blogger with a rich variety of music, which I really like. It’s kind of a music adventure to read and listen through the posts on this blog.
I’ll finish this time with a blog in Swedish, Den Melodiösa bloggen, who was the first one to write about our new single “Anything”. If you’re interested in melodic rock and knows Swedish it’s the perfect blog to follow as it’s constantly updated with news from these genres.
Well, I hope you’ll check some of these sites out and find some podcaster, radio or blog you’ll like. /Pär
Today is the official release day of the two songs from the single “Anything”: the title song (lead vocals Jenny Fall), written by Lasse Thomasson and Fredrik Muskos, and “As Long as I Don’t Cry” (lead vocals Ulla Wrethagen), written by Lasse Thomasson. As before you can download the songs for free at our music page and we’ve tried to make the songs as available as possible to fit your preferences.
To name a few other sites: Spotify, Itunes, Amazon, Soundcloud and many other sites. A video for “Anyhting” is on it’s way and we’ll publish it in a few days.
Here it is, we hope you love it as much as we do, and we’d appreciate any comment you may have, here or on Facebook or Twitter. /Pär
There’s a lot of discussion going on if Google really will be able to compete with Facebook or not, which leads to the idea that you should choose between the two of them. Well, I don’t, because they work in completely different ways for me. On Facebook I connect with people because I know them in some way, but on Google+ I connect and follow people because we share the same interests, regardless if I know them from the start or not.
