Tag Archives: Insight

Dan Dabner (Songstall) – Interview (Part 1)

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Dan Dabner from Songstall (the startup I introduced you to last week) was kind enough to be interviewed on MusicKO. This is the first part of the interview I conducted with him– proceed here for part 2.

Songstall

Full Name: Dan Dabner
Age: 24
Startup: Songstall
Position: Director

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are the features that (in your opinion) give it an edge over the competition?

The idea for Songstall came from a discussion between my brother and me while we were jamming one evening.  As musicians ourselves we know what it’s like to be an unsigned artist and all the options out there are based around the ideal of getting signed by a big record label.  All the services that offer to help in that long-term goal (promotion, recording, etc) always seem to charge high up-front fees that we know most artists simply can’t afford and prices them out of the market.  That’s where Songstall comes in – you don’t need a record label to sell your music online, and we don’t charge anything to sign up.  We just take a cut on any sale artists make to cover costs so we only make money if they do, which means our interests are aligned with theirs.  In addition, artists get their own customizable shop page so they can set their own prices, choose their own colours and get their own URL they can promote at their gigs.  We’ve not seen another service that offers all of this.

What was the original launch date?

We launched the website on Halloween 2009.  How rock ‘n’ roll is that?

What has been the response so far? In which countries has it been more successful?

We’ve had some very positive feedback about the website and the sign-ups are really picking up.  We’ve been most popular in the UK, USA and Canada, though we do offer our service world-wide. Continue reading →

William Rodríguez (Tweet My Song) – Interview (Part 1)

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This is the first part of the interview I had the pleasure of conducting with William Rodríguez, CEO/Designer of Tweet My Song, a service I reviewed here.  Part 2 of the interview (“Music & You”) is here.

Full Name: William Rodríguez
Age: 25
Startup: Tweet My Song
Position:  CEO/DESIGNER

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived?

I was thinking of new ideas like I usually do on a daily basis. I had decided I needed something that can market itself. Twitter is the most viral thing on the internet right now so I decided to look at applications. I then evaluated niches I was interested in. I decided in making something for music. I then checked out twitpic.com and twitvid.com and looked to see if there was something similar in music and could not find anything. That’s when I knew I had to create something for the musicians out there to easily market their music to the millions of Twitter users.

What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

Most distinctive feature is the easy and quick ability to upload your music to be tweeted to your followers and Tweetmysong.com’s followers.

What was the original launch date?

October 15, 2009 Continue reading →

Andy Bull (We Love Festivals) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the “Music & You” part of my recent interview with Andy Bull from We Love Festivals. In case you haven’t done so already, check the first part right here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU


When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

In the 70s. Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder.

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a file on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

I am a DJ. You can download a recent mix:

http://www.mediafire.com/?yjx0lykhmwj

Musical likes and dislikes? Favorite artists?

Reggae, funk, disco, house, electro. Johnny Osbourne, Roy Ayers, Don Ray, Dennis Ferrer, Wolfgang Gartner.
Continue reading →

Andy Bull (We Love Festivals) – Interview (Part 1)

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This is an interview I conducted with Andy Bull from “We Love Festivals” . As you probably recall, I reviewed the site a couple of weeks ago. Here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth!

We Love Festivals

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

From that feeling you get when you arrive back from a great festival and you want to share your memories with everyone who went

What was the original launch date?

May 26th 2008. Continue reading →

Jake Chen (Musefy) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the second and final part of the interview I conducted with Jake Chen from Musefy. You can read Part 1 by clicking here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

Oh man, I can’t remember that far back… I have to say at least before elementary school, since I was really excited during those days when you got the opportunity to try out all of the instruments. Then again, I was already set on the saxophone by then because of jazz music, and I suppose the saxophone really represented that style of music to me. As for that first album, I really can’t remember unfortunately, sorry 🙁 Continue reading →

Jake Chen (Musefy) – Interview (Part 1)

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I have had the great pleasure of interviewing Jake Chen from Musefy, the service I covered on its week of launch. The review is split in two parts – part 1 is found below, whereas part 2 is found here.

Enjoy!

Full Name: Jake Chen

Age: 22

Startup: Musefy

Position: Founder

Mr. Jake Chen

Mr. Jake Chen

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

I like to think of Musefy as a virtual representation of the entire local musician community, thus providing ways to branch out and meet new characters that you would normally happen through mutual friends or sheer luck. Right now it’s only in its Alpha stage, so Musefy can only set up musicians with musical groups such as rock bands, jazz ensembles, a cappellas, and so forth. But down the line it’ll reflect all of the local elements a musician or a group might want to connect with, such as friends and fans, upcoming events, performance venues, and more.

As for the idea, I came up with the concept of Musefy after looking for a band to practice guitar with and being completely dissatisfied with Craigslist’s classified ads. To me, after using web applications such as Facebook and Last.FM where information is abundant and easily to sort though, pure text classified ads like those on Craigslist just seem very backwards. And thus Musefy was conceived. It has a powerful matching and filtering system and that is what I think sets it apart from the rest of the crowd. Using Musefy, you can stack multiple requirements to filter out exactly who you need, selecting not only from obvious things like instrument, location, and style, but all the way down to experience level, equipment, to the amount of time they’re willing to devote to a new group. Continue reading →

Month In Review – September 2009

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This was quite an interesting month for a number of reasons. First of all, MusicKO became 100 post old this month. In addition to that, one of my favorite sites on the WWW (Chalkhills, a huge repository of information devoted to XTC) linked back to me and I am very grateful for that.

I am also glad I added a band I love to MusicKO: The Goo Goo Dolls. Moreover, I reviewed some great compilations like Crystal Gayle’s “All-time Greatest Hits” package and a ZZ Top’s greatest hits album. Continue reading →

Kristian Dupont (Minimum Noise) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is Part 2 of the interview with Kristian Dupont from Minimum Noise. You can read Part 1 right here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I have been a music lover for as long as I can remember. My first purchase was “Into the Dragon” by Bomb the Bass. Vinyl. Great album all over, and, it featured Megablast – the sound track to the video game Xenon 2 by Bitmap Brothers which I absolutely loved as well.

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a file on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

I played the drums for 7 years and was in a band at one point but it didn’t amount to much. Later, I got into electronic music production when “soundtrackers” started to appear on the PC platform. These days, I toy around with Ableton Live. Continue reading →

Kristian Dupont (Minimum Noise) – Interview (Part 1)

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As you probably recall, last week I reviewed (and was very impressed) by a startup named Minimum Noise. I was lucky enough to interview co-founder Kristian Dupont, and I am extremely grateful for his insight and advice. I have split the interview in two parts, the first is found below and it deals with the company, whereas the second one is the “Music & You” section that you are probably familiar with already if you are a MusicKO regular. It is found here.

Enjoy!

Kristian Dupont

Mr. Kristian Dupont

Full Name: Kristian Dupont

Age: 31

Startup: Minimum Noise

Position: Co-founder

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

Sammy (my co-founder) and I have worked with tv-production and video games for many years. We love all things media. Having seen the crowdsourcing model work well for design sites, we wanted to apply this to media production in general. Minimum Noise does this for music. The concept is simple: if you need music production, you post a “project” on Minimum Noise. This project describes your requirements and how much you want to pay. Musicians can then upload mp3’s with sketches of how they would make it. You pick a winner, pay the musician and get the audio material. Continue reading →

Henry Bueno (myMusicCircle) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the final part of the interview I conducted with Henry from myMusicCircle. Here we discuss the role music has played (and plays) in his life, along with his likes and dislikes. And don’t forget to check Part 1 (about his company) here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I loved music all of my life. The first album I purchased with my own allowance money was Thriller by Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace). My father has video of when I was 7 years old doing the moon walk. hehehe Continue reading →