“Amber Jean”, The New Video By Neil Young

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"A Treasure" Is Neil Young's Latest Album. It Covers His American Tours of 84/85.

Canadian legend Neil Young is releasing a live album on the 14th of June that chronicles his US tours of 1984 and 1985. Named “A Treasure”, this album is going to feature six previously-unreleased songs, making for a total of 12 tracks of the master singer/songwriter at the top of his game.

This is the first video to have been distributed to promote the album. The song is “Amber Jean”, and it was performed live on Nashville television on September 24, 1984.

Is Spotify Coming To Facebook?

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Despite What Some Think, Spotify Isn't Coming To Facebook Yet

The rumor that Spotify and Facebook have become partners has been spreading like wildfire. And it has also been written off for what it is – a rumor. According to what some people have been saying, Spotify has partnered with Facebook, and users of the social network will shortly be able to stream music right from their profiles by merely clicking a button.

Sounds good, right? Well, but it is something that is not happening until Spotify launches in the US. As you know, Spotify is striving to appease record companies in the States so that it can (finally) bring its services to Americans. It has begun taking measures that have met with acrimony such as limiting the access people can have to music for free, for example. But that hasn’t been enough – it is said that two major record companies are still reticent to give the European streaming service the go-ahead to land in America.

Until that happens, you can rest assured Spotify isn’t coming to Facebook.

And believe me, it isn’t happening in a hurry.

NADIEQUIERE Discos, A New Uruguayan Record Label Launches

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A new Uruguayan record label has launched. It is named NADIEQUIERE Discos (official page here, Facebook fan page here), and it has some bands I already covered on MusicKO (such as Casablancas), and other bands like The Bear Season that I’ve always meant to review but that are still on the pipeline because I’m as peripatetic as Ryan Adams. You know, I actually look a lot like Ryan – the only differences are that he has tons of hair, that he can sing and that he can play guitar. Oh, and that he has dated Winona Ryder.

The label also has a good handful of artists that are completely new to me, which isn’t surprising because (as those fabtastic Swedes sang) “I’m living in a box but I come out when opportunity nox”. I hope to get to know them better soon…

In the meantime, give NADIEQUIERE Discos a look (official page, Facebook fan page – whatever excites you more). Of course, you need to understand Spanish to read these pages. But if you don’t, that shouldn’t be that much of a problem. I mean, how many people who are regular opera-goers know Italian? Eh? And how many people could make sense out of the wreck that Tommy was narrative-wise when it was first issued? Poor Pete Townshend, I read he did almost 1,000 interviews to cover those narrative deficiencies. Lessons learned, kids? Do things right the first time around.

How To Play The 30 Day Song Challenge On Facebook

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I see many people have visited MusicKO as of late looking for information on how to play the 30 Day Song Challenge on Facebook. The post I recently published where I highlighted my 30 days of music seems to have motivated that.

I recall that I also had trouble getting started, so I decided to write this post. It basically tells you what to do in order to start posting videos once you have liked the page itself on Facebook.

This is the way it’s done:

1) Log in to Facebook.
2) Go to YouTube, and look up the video you want to post for that particular day.
3) Click on “Share”.
4) Click on the Facebook icon. This will open up a pop up (E, a separate window) that you will use to post the video to Facebook. This is done by addressing 30 Day Song Challenge (@30 Day Song Challenge), and then pasting (or typing) the information for that specific day (as found on the “Rules” section of the 30 Day Song Challenge page). This is the step that can confuse people. Look, a picture is worth a thousand words:

This Is How Videos Are Posted To Facebook When Playing The 30 Day Song Challenge

There. It wasn’t that tricky, was it? But we all definitely agree this info should be provided on the 30 Day Song Challenge page itself.

Tonall – A Social Network For Those Who Can Play An Instrument

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Name: Tonall
URL: http://www.tonall.com

Tonall is a social network for musicians, but the instruments are the real stars of the show here. Why? Simply because connections on Tonall are made based on which instrument one plays.

If you become a user of Tonall you will be able to review the instrument you play, and wax romantic on its sound, its appearance and all these things that makes your eyes go misty when you think about it. The idea is that others will both get to know you better thanks to such reviews, and (which is every bit as important) get to realize if such an instrument would be a good fit for them.

And as it is only suitable, users of Tonall can buy and sell gear – a marketplace is provided to these purposes. It is browseable (and usable) by any single person who signs up for a Tonall account. That costs nothing, by the way. As long as you can speak English then you can jump aboard.

MusicKO Is Now 2 Years Old!!

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It fills me with joy to announce that today MusicKO has become two years old.

An enormous “thank you” to all the readers and to all the these bands that are a never-ending source of inspiration, and which motivate me to keep on writing and writing even when my job and other activities take up most of my time.

Special thanks to all the Uruguayan artists that contact me and ask to be included on the blog. You always thank me warmly for the posts afterwards, but you have no idea how much I get out of it, the feeling of joy and realization that washes over me whenever I manage to cover a new Uruguayan act.

To quote Richard Thompson… “I’ll never give it up”.

My 30 Day Song Challenge On Facebook

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There is a game going around on Facebook named the 30 Day Challenge. Well, I have taken to it, and just for those who are curious-enough what my full month looks like, here you have the 30 songs filling it up:

Day 01 – Your favorite song Don’t Look Back In Anger (Oasis)
Day 02 – Your least favorite song Que Ves Cuando Me Mes (Divididos)
Day 03 – A song that makes you happy Mayor Of Simpleton (XTC)
Day 04 – A song that makes you sad Concrete Angel (Martina MacBride)
Day 05 – A song that reminds you of someone Wish I Could Fly (Roxette)
Day 06 – A song that reminds you of somewhere Last Goodbye (Jeff Buckley)
Day 07 – A song that reminds you of a certain event Red Red Wine (UB 40)
Day 08 – A song that you know all the words to Runaway Train (Soul Asylum)
Day 09 – A song that you can dance to Should I Stay Or Should I Go (The Clash)
Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep Everybody Hurts (REM)
Day 11 – A song from your favorite band Real Good Looking Boy (The Who)
Day 12 – A song from a band you hate With Or Without You (U2)
Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure Baby (Justin Bieber)
Day 14 – A song that no one would expect you to love De Nada Sirve (No Te Va Gustar)
Day 15 – A song that describes you La Cienaga Just Smiled (Ryan Adams)
Day 16 – A song that you used to love but now hate Step Out (Oasis)
Day 17 – A song that you hear often on the radio Because Of You (Kelly Clarkson)
Day 18 – A song that you wish you heard on the radio Love Me Like The World Is Ending (Ben Lee)
Day 19 – A song from your favorite album 5.15 (The Who)
Day 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry Please Return It (The Posies)
Day 21 – A song that you listen to when you’re happy Going Mobile (The Who)
Day 22 – A song that you listen to when you’re sad I’ve Been High REM
Day 23 – A song that you want to play at your wedding You’re The Inspiration (Chicago)
Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral Aozora (Lia)
Day 25 – A song that makes you laugh I’m Gonna Be 500 Miles (The Proclaimers)
Day 26 – A song that you can play on an instrument She (Elvis Costello)
Day 27 – A song that you wish you could play More Than Words (Extreme)
Day 28 – A song that makes you feel guilty Vulnerable (Roxette)
Day 29 – A song from your childhood Sacrifice (Elton John)
Day 30 – Your favorite song at this time last year Special Needs (Placebo)

Just for your information, Divididos is a band from Argentina, No Te Va Gustar is from my country (Uruguay) and “Aozora” is a song from the anime “Air” (a great yet depressing show).

And yes, I know who is on day number 13. I wrote so many posts about him that the song wound up nestled in my head.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa…

How To Sell Your Music On iTunes

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How Do You Sell Your Own Music On iTunes?

How Do You Sell Your Own Music On iTunes?

To think that once upon a time the dream of every musician was to have his own CD on the racks of record stores all over the country… now, his aim is to have it featured on iTunes. Yet, how many stop to think of what would it take to make it happen before doing anything? How many understand how it really works? I hope the text below answers that, and gives anybody something of a direction when thinking about selling his own music through iTunes.

The first thing to realize is that you are not going to work directly with Apple – the requirements for doing that rule most people out (IE, you must have 20 albums in your catalog – that is more than bands like The Who put out in their actual time together). No, what you are going to do is to work with Apple through an aggregator such as TuneCore or CDBaby. These are companies that work with Apple in order to ensure that the content which is featured on iTunes meet its actual quality standards, and they also take care of marketing/promotional duties.

In the case of the two that have just been mentioned (TuneCore and CDBaby – they are easily the two most popular aggregators around), you retain the rights to your music, and you also retain more than 90 % of the royalties for every sale (TuneCore actually lets you retain 100 % of every transaction). Aggregators also let you sell your music on other stores and services such as Amazon MP3, Spotify, MySpace Music, Zune, Rhapsody, Nokia, Amazon On Demand and (in the vast majority of cases) you are also allowed to market your music physically, and have it sold on record stores. Continue reading →