After 6 extremely successful years the 1233 ABC Newcastle Music Awards is on again in 2008. This competition is a fantastic opportunity for local bands and musicians to get their music out there. There are great prizes to be won and a good chance of getting some airplay on 1233 ABC Newcastle.

Entry kits are now available from ABC Newcastle, corner of Parry and Wood Streets, Newcastle West or online from the 1233 ABC Newcastle Website. You can get your entry in by Post or drop it in to one of the ABC radio stations. Last call for entries is 5pm on Friday the 13th of June 2008!

Categories this year include:

• Alternative: Also known as ‘indie’, encompassing the rock / pop style of music that is a little left of centre (from The Cure to Radiohead to Nirvana to Pavement to PJ Harvey to Arcade Fire…); by all means anything a little left of centre in its genre - alt folk, alt country.
• Blues & Roots: From classic Blues (Muddy Waters) to Blues rock (ZZ Top, John Spencer Blues Explosion) to Roots (John Butler Trio, Ash Grunwald) to a mix (Mia Dyson).
• Contemporary: Dare we call this the more ’serious’ side of pop? Formerly known as the ‘Adult Contemporary’ category (Missy Higgins, Coldplay, John Mayer).
• Country: From Slim Dusty to Kasey Chambers to Keith Urban.
• Folk: Songs that tell a story; from traditional bush bands, to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, to The Waifs.
• Instrumental: Music without lyrics, where the melody is carried by an instrument other than voice / vocals. Classical music entries fit best within this category.
• Jazz: Traditional, Swing, Instrumental and Acid varieties.
• Pop: Literally, popular music. Also includes style-specific pop in the tradition of The Beatles, the B52’s, 80’s pop, Britpop and Aussie bands like Custard, for example. The line between a pop song and a poppy rock song is very fine …. we’ll leave it up to you!
• Rock: From old school rock (ACDC, Cold Chisel) to garage rock (White Stripes) to pop rock (Crowded House). Heavy Rock is its own sub-category.
• Soundtracks: Music for Theatre and other Productions. Original music composed for and / or used in theatrical, film and other productions in (or coming up in) 2008. Please include details about the production and where the song / score section fits in.
• Urban: The umbrella for the following sub-categories: Hip Hop, RnB andElectronica (includes Dance, House, Trance, Drum n Bass, Ambient and all digitally generated music).

Amongst the new features of this years awards is a blog maintained by the Music Awards Co-ordinater, Natasha Schaad, that will keep you up to date with the latest developments.

Also, for the first time there is an opportunity for local cover bands to show thier stuff in the Viva Le Cover Competition where local bands are invited to submit their rendition of Cold Chisel’s iconic song Star Hotel.

In order to enter a song in the competition the artist/band (majority of band members) must be local to the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Upper and Lower Hunter, Port Stephens and Central Coast area; living here now (for at least 6 months) or having lived here for at least 7 of the last 15 years.

For more information and entry kits visit www.abc.net.au/newcastle and follow the links to the Newcastle Music Awards.

‘Let There Be School Rock’ is not your average high school band competition. Now in its 6th successful year, ‘Let There Be School Rock’ provides an opportunity for young original bands from the Hunter Region and Central Coast to showcase their music in a live performance, for some of the nations leading music industry professionals.

Entry forms for this years competition are now available to download from the Newcastle Music Week website www.newcastlemusicweek.com.au.

This year’s prizes include:

• Free entry into the national MusicOZ Awards, 12 Months Mentorship with MusicOZ
• The winning band will receive a live performance mentoring session with award winning artist and principal of ‘Rosie’s School of Rock‘, Craig Rosevear.
• Each member of the winning band will receive a Rosie’s School of Rock Merch pack consisting of: 1 Beanie, T-Shirt, Bag, Pen and Sticker.
• More Prizes to be announced as they are confirmed.

Judges were so impressed with 2007 winners ‘Kissing the Lipless‘, that the band received free recording time at Damien Gerrard Studios, Sydney which was so highly regarded it made the studios compilation album. Previous winners Benjalu went on to take out the highly prestigious ‘Youth Rock Award’.

For the opportunity to play live at the Civic Theatre and to seriously kick start your bands career, fill out your entry forms and have them returned by June 30, 2008.

For more information visit www.newcastlemusicweek.com.au.

Resonate - the Music Industry Showcase 2008 is proudly presented by TAFE NSW Hunter Institute and sponsored by Coca-Cola, EAO Entertainment, The Brewery and The Post. It is shaping up to be Newcastle’s biggest opportunity to showcase our vibrant local music scene this year!

Resonate, the Music Industry Showcase 08, bridges the gap between local bands and the national music industry! The Brewery provides the perfect backdrop for young emerging artists to prove themselves to industry judges. They are vying for a spot at the Grand Final at the Civic Theatre come October during Newcastle Music Week. Newcastle Music Week, now in its sixth year, is produced by the students at Hunter TAFE studying Music Industry Business and Technology.

The 2007 winners of Resonate, Vaudeville, have released their debut EP with the help of the $20,000 prize package, “Winning Resonate has helped our career in so many ways. We made contacts in the music industry, won thousands of dollars worth of prizes as well as having our next EP recorded for free! It gave us instant recognition and a head start in the industry which we sorely needed”, band member Chris English said.

In 2006, competition winners Light Noise won the coveted support slot for Silverchair on NYE 2006 at The Brewery. Their self-titled debut EP has also been released through Reign Records with national distribution through MGM.

If you’re an amateur or professional band and don’t have a contract with, or receive financial assistance from a major record company; this is the ideal launch pad for your career. All band members must be 18 or over and reside in Newcastle, Central Coast or Hunter Region to be eligible to enter.

Entries into Resonate are now open and will close 7^th July 2008, so get your act together and give it a go! The Brewery will play host to nine jam-packed heats, plus two massive semi-finals. Heats will kick off in early August 2008. The Grand Final will be showcased at Newcastle’s Civic Theatre on October 31, 2008.

Each week The Post’s TE entertainment section will keep you informed of upcoming heats, results and more.

Winners of Resonate this year come away with not only having performed at the famous Civic Theatre Newcastle, but will perform to Music Industry professionals from top indie companies AND win prizes valued at over $20,000. Keep your ear to the ground for details of the awesome prizes on offer this year.

Resonate entrants are lucky enough in the first selection process to have their demos played to a panel of music industry professionals, including Heath Johns (A&R Manager, Universal Music Publishing), Clive Hodson (General Manager, Shock Music Publishing) and Scott Bradbury (NSW State Manager, Shock Entertainment).

If you’ve got an original repertoire and are eligible to enter Resonate - The Music Industry Showcase 08, get your entry form at The Brewery, EAO Entertainment, Hunter TAFE Music Centre or online at www.newcastlemusicweek.com.au, www.eao.com.au and www.qwb.com.au

Rock Solid PR & Fan Relations founder Kirri Liepins announced today that, after a brief respite, the locally-based business is returning with all guns blazing.
Kirri, 23, was forced to take a break in 2007 due to illness, but says she is excited about Rock Solid’s return: “I love Newcastle and I’m looking forward to working once again with the incredible creative talent that exists in this city.”

What started in 2005 as a street team management business has grown into a dedicated PR service that caters for many creative entertainment sectors including Music, Theatre, Film, Television, Comedy, Art and Nightlife. Rock Solid offers not only a full range of media and public relations services, but also has a division called ‘Fan Relations’. Based on the belief that the fans are also the employers, Fan Relations bridges the communicative gap between an artist or organization and their audiences.
Since Rock Solid’s inception, it has been involved with local musicians such as Tearsun, The Wireflys, Lout and Wohteba, as well as national acts Jon Stevens (Noiseworks), Thirsty Merc, Andy Clockwise and Melanie Horsnell. Kirri has also volunteered her services to local events such as Newcastle Music Week and the Shootout 24-Hour Filmmaking Festival. Kirri hopes to expand Rock Solid’s musical roster whilst opening her books to other entertainment organizations.

The announcement of the re-launch also indicates the return of the Rock Solid Showcase, an event last held in Hamilton in January 2007. Other events will soon follow.

For more information contact Kirri Liepins at info@rock-solid.net.au or visit www.rock-solid.net.au.

On the brink of embarking on a tour to promote their debut self-titled EP, it is clear that Paper Champion’s star is on the rise.

After many months of constant touring around the Sydney live music scene, the Sydney four-piece is playing a series of dates to promote their independently-released EP, taking in west Sydney and the Central Coast, culminating in a show at the Cambridge Hotel supporting Grandvue on 22nd November.

Founded by Dave Clark (drums), Denis Giasli (bass) and Dom Alessio (guitar) the lineup was completed after 18 months in 2006 with the addition of singer Grant Spencer.

Following a swathe of energetic gigs around the Sydney circuit Paper Champion’s profile has risen quickly, supporting big names like the Birds of Tokyo, Dead Letter Circus and Bushido. On the back of this stage success their debut EP was recorded in August at Modern Music Studios in Brisbane which has been graced by the likes of the Butterfly Effect, Dead Letter Circus and Small Mercies. Produced by Rick Hollis, who has worked with Shihad and Sunk Loto, the five-track EP is a solid recording, with a polished sound reflecting many months of collaboration, hard work and dedication from a hard-touring band. This effort has not gone unnoticed, and in recent weeks the band has had airtime from Fasterlouder.com.au and FBI and has a performance and interview on the Lock Up Garage on Central Coast FM scheduled for 19th November.

Heavily influenced by the Butterfly Effect, Decoder Ring and Karnivool, Paper Champion’s music provides a fusion of prog rock and melodious ballads, their music infused with ambient and aggressive elements with undertones of political and social commentary.

Discussing the band’s progression, lead singer and lyricist Grant is ambivalent when asked if he prefers performing live to recording, saying that the key part of the music process is to “tell a story… Recording is like painting, playing live is the showing, both are important”. And when you see them live you understand why. Their live shows are an infusion of brooding energy, angsty vocals and potent guitar work. From the ambient harmonies of Undone to the darker Arithmetic, Paper Champion has a diverse repertoire under their belt, describing their music as “hard rock with a progressive edge”.

Paper Champion pride themselves on telling a story and there is no doubt of the band’s song-writing prowess. Grant is enthused by the feature vocals provided by Shadow Treasurer Wayne Swan’s daughter on the EP, including Undone and some surreal vocal gymnastics on Arithmetic. However he is quick to point out their music is only influenced by politics to the extent that “the political influences the personal”, with tracks like This Mute Tide exploring the superficiality of consumer culture.

After building up a respectable fan base in Sydney, their energised and well-publicised EP launch at the Agincourt Hotel in Sydney was supported by The Hotel Charlie and Walking Zero. Their performance was punctuated by a much darker harder atmosphere than their EP lets on, featuring guest performances from local musos. Grant joined Dave on the drums as part of an extended drum score on Teeth adding to the intense quality of the set. The band veers seamlessly between melodious ballads and darker punk-rock, especially on Arithmetic which is reminiscent of the Butterfly Effect, with restrained melodies and angsty vocals seeming into thumping guitar riffs and an angry rocking chorus.

Grant has some advice for upcoming local bands: “The live scene is only as active as you are in it. If you’re going to see live bands they’ll come to see you… The best, most supportive crowd is the one that saw your best show”.

Their music achieves a strange juxtapositioning of melodic ambience and pounding rhythms that highlight the band’s versatility and a burgeoning potential to create the punk anthems that have marked the rise of bands like the Butterfly Effect. Paper Champion is developing a solid fan base as a result of continued touring. This band is on the up, this is not the last we’ll hear from this focused foursome.

Paper Champion can be found at the Cambridge Hotel on 22th November supporting Grandvue with local band Stone Harlet.

The band will be performing live and interviewed on the Lock Up Garage with Lindsay Joel from 7pm on 19th November on 2CCC 96.3 FM on Central Coast or online at www.2ccc.net.

Check them out on Myspace at myspace.com/paperchampionband.

Live photograph by Chantel Bann, group shot by Tim Levy. Article by Rebecca Warren.

After months of touring around the country and playing at many of the major music festivals including The Falls, Point Nepean, Queenscliff and the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival (where she was the second highest cd seller at the festival, not bad for an independent act!).

Dallas Frasca is on the road again…

The foot stomping, ball wrenching, double dueling slide guitar extravaganza that is Dallas Frasca And Her Gentleman have secured themselves a place in the top five finalists list in the Blues/Roots category for 2007! Whilst spreading their infectious rootsy rhythms all across Australia, Dallas Frasca and Her Gentlemen will make a pit stop in Maitland and Newcastle:

Musicoz Awards Finalists - Dallas Frasca And Her Gentleman

• When: Sunday 18th November, 8pm
• Where: Grand Junction (The Junkyard) Church Street, Maitland
• With: Pat Capocci

• When: Wednesday 21st November
• Where: The Cambridge Hotel 789 - 791 Hunter St, Newcastle West, Newcastle
• With: De Jah Groove and Benjula
• Cost: $10

For more information visit myspace.com/dallasfrascamusic or www.dallasfrasca.com.

Brothers Ian and Nigel Date are two extraordinary musicians who will be returning to perform at The Royal Exchange, 34 Bolton St Newcastle, Wednesday 21st November.

Last year the gig was a highlight in their international tour. The Royal Exchange is a fantastic intimate venue with a vibrant funky patronage.

Ian, now based in Ireland, is touring Australia in November performing at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival and the Manouche Gypsy Guitar Festival in Brisbane.

Ian is one of the greatest guitarists to have emerged from Australia. For many years he was associated with the best jazz musicians in the country including Don Burrows, James Morrison, George Washingmachine and Tom Baker. He has collaborated with some of the best guitarists in the world, recording and performing with Martin Taylor, Robin Nolan and renowned gypsy guitar legend Fapy Lafertin.

Guitarist Nigel Date is based in Sydney and has visited Newcastle before with the band The Straight Back Fellows.

In 2006 the Brothers were joined by local sax/clarinet legend Andrew Firth. Expect some special guests this time around also.

For lovers of fine music and fantastic guitar playing, be sure not to miss this rare opportunity and special musical event.

• Who: The Date Brothers
• Where: Royal Exchange 34 Bolton St Newcastle
• When 7PM Wednesday 21^st November 2007

For more information visit www.iandate.com or www.nigeldate.com or contact Dean at The Royal Exchange 0249294969

Popular social networking website MySpace currently has almost 270 million accounts, with over 50 million of those added in the last 4 months. This means that nearly half a million new accounts are being added each day. If this rate of growth is maintained MySpace could be boasting over half a billion accounts by the middle of 2008. Many of those profiles are maintained by bands and musicians listed on this website.

One of the features of the MySpace website is the ability to add so called friends. The image below shows a portion of a screen grab from the Newcastle Music Directory MySpace profile at myspace.com/newcastlemusic showing that at the time it had 680 “friends”.

Another piece of information contained on artists profiles is the date the band established its MySPace profile. For example, the image below shows a portion of the Silverchair profile at myspace.com/silverchair showing that they had signed up on the 5^th of April 2006.

Using these two pieces of information, ie the number of friends and the signup date, it is possible to calculate how many friends per day have been added for that account.

The profiles of a large sample of artists from this website were surveyed on two occasions, the 11^th of September and the 8^th of November 2007, with the analysis of 1490 and 1526 profiles respectively on each occasion.

The following table shows the artists with the highest average number of friends added per day since they joined MySpace.

This is an interesting measure of how each artist uses the MySpace website. The number of friends added per day as calculated in the table is represented in the chart below. Several bands were not included in the first survey but had been included in the analysis by the time of the second. The vertical scale of the chart was truncated to 50 friends/day so that detail could be seen for the lower values.

Basically there are two mechanisms by which a friend may be added, an incoming request or an outgoing request.

In the case of Silverchair, an internationally well known band, one would assume that most of the friend requests would be incoming. That is to say that other MySpace users arrive at the Silverchair profile and click the “Add Friend” icon so that they may receive bulletins etc in order to keep up to date with what Siverchair are doing. There must be someone very dedicated who operates that profile on behalf of the band, checking and authorising almost 170 profiles per day. Lets assume that it takes about 20 seconds to check a profile, and approve it as a friend then this represents approximately 1 hour per day just approving profiles. Then there would be the other tasks such as moderating comments and maintaining the information on the profile.

The high numbers of friends per day for both Kasey Chambers and Catherine Britt are also largely due to fans providing incoming friend requests.

In the case of the other artists listed in the table above, one would assume that a large proportion of their friends were gained by outgoing requests, ie, the band themselves finds suitable profiles and adds them to their list of “friends” in order to promote themselves. The table above provides quite an insight as to which local bands are the most active in this regard on MySpace.

If we take the example of Jeriko, a Newcastle based band who joined MySpace on the 25th of August 2007. The band was found to be adding friends at the rate of approximately 45 per day in the first survey, but this had dropped off dramatically by the time of the second survey. This is most probably because the band members have extensive experience performing in local bands that have existing MySPace profiles. The band members could easily go through the friend lists of their previous bands and readd them to the Jeriko profile one by one. Once heir existing friends lists had been exhausted the process of adding additional friends would become much slower, or perhaps stop entirely.

Short Stack stand out in the above analysis for another reason. They have been members of the MySpace website since the 8th of October 2005. They have been adding friends at the rate of approximately 24 per day for over 2 years, amassing a list of friends that is now approaching 18,000 in number. If we assume that the time takes to find a suitable profile, wait for it to load, and add that person as a friend might take approximately 30 seconds, and that 80% of Short Stack’s friends were added by Short Stack themselves, this amounts to a total of 150 hours of friend adding. Granted, this was occurred over 2 years, but still an impressive feat.

Another interesting example is Thoughts Of A Dream, who, after signing up to MySpace in July 2005 had amassed over 12000 friends at the time of writing. This equates to a rate of 14.6 per day on average throughout that entire period. Interestingly though, 3650 of those friends were added in the time between the two surveys, a period of 58 days. Therefore, during the period between the two surveys, Thoughts Of A Dream were adding friends at a rate of almost 63 per day, a rate that eclipses every other band analysed except for Silverchair.

While some of these calculations were made using some rough assumptions, other aspects, such as the signup date of each of the bands and the number of friends at the time of each survey, are very accurate.

So … how many friends per day have YOU added?

Are you a musician without a gig? Are you a singer/songwriter wanting to get your music out there? Do you just wanna jam with like minded people?

Come and check out the Bay Hotel Open Mic Night every Thursday Night from 9pm. This event is hosted by former Australian Fingerstyle Champion and Folk/Roots artist Dale Willis, who recently just returned to Australia after a year spent living and touring in Canada.

This is your chance to perform to a friendly crowd and get some good stage experience. This is a stress free environment to come and get your music heard! Email info@dalewillis.com or phone 0413828954 if you are wanting to secure a spot on the blackboard or just show up and put your name down on the night.

• What:The Bay Hotel Open Mic Night
• When: Every Thursday Night from 9pm starting Nov 15th
• Where:330 Fishery Point Road, Morisset East, NSW 2264

For more information visit myspace.com/bayhotelopenmic or www.dalewillis.com.

Ramble Rose is an independent video production company based in Newcastle, Australia.

“We feel that the music video is an art form”, they explain, “and as with all art, money doesn’t make for a better result.”

Ramble Rose work with bands across all genres, and can work closely to your idea (or you can just let us run wild) Either way, you supply the sound, they’ll supply the vision.

“The best videoclips come from ideas and innovation, not from bloated budgets and pretentious filmmakers. Our clips are of a high quality, yet because we spend money on important things, it won’t cost you two years worth of royalties in order to get your tunes on television.”

Ramble Rose are asking for local bands and musicians to take part in their survey which can be found online at MySpace (You will need to log in to MySpace read this link) or for those readers without a myspace account the survey has been included below this article.

Survey For Bands/Musicians

1. Have you ever consider having a film clip made for your music?
2. How would you go about getting a film clip made/played?
3. How much would you be prepared to pay for a film clip?
4. Would you be interested in a service like that?
5. Have you ever approached record labels? How did you go about this?
6. Do you have any recordings that you feel are of a releasable quality?
7. How often do you record?
8. Would one of your bands goals be to progress from gigs/demos to having a film clip on television?
9. What of the following services would appeal more to your band?
• Film Clip
• Gigs Filmed
• Promotional Photos
• Band Website
• Biography/Editorial
• Documentary
10. What is your favourite filmclip ever? (just off the top of your head)
11. May we put your bands name/details on our contacts list, so we can let you know once we get started?

If you care to complete this survey, email your answers to the guys at the email address below.

For more information about Ramble Rose visit www.myspace.com/ramblerose or email rambleramblerose@hotmail.com.