Tag Archives: songstall

Dan Dabner (Songstall) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the second (and final) part of the interview with Dan Dabner from Songstall. If you haven’t done so already, you can check out part 1 here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

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

When I was younger my mum listened to the singles chart on the radio every Sunday, so I had a feel for some pop music, but my brother introduced me to heavy metal when I was about eight or nine and I think I bought a tape of Metallica’s Black Album so I’d have my own copy.

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 used to play the keys in the lonelyband a few years ago but sadly the band split in 2006.  I’m not aware of any videos on YouTube but naturally our music was the first available on Songstall!  http://www.songstall.com/thelonelyband Continue reading →

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 →

Songstall – An Online Marketplace For Unsigned Musicians

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Songstall

Name: Songstall
URL:  http://www.songstall.com

Every musician knows that the Internet is akin to a freeway of opportunities when it comes to promoting his art and getting through to others. But it is a freeway that has some hazards along the way. While it is true that it is a superb platform for self-promotion and selling your music, it is also true that many sites that act as online marketplaces have a series of inherent limitations that make the experience a somehow diluted one. For starters, many of these sites do charge fees that end up making the actual transaction negligible. And a vast majority of sites letting artists put up their music for sale make the artist undergo a lengthy approval process for his tunes to be listed.

If you are looking for a way of getting around these shortcomings, then I think a site like this one could be worth a gander. Named Songstall (and recently launched, by the way), it will let any unsigned artist sell his compositions without having to pay any over-the-top fee, nor having to sit through a lengthy process in order to have his music listed online. Artists will be charged only when a sale is made. Continue reading →