Speakerheart

Enjoying Next Big Nashville, Speakerheart Style

Friday night could be described as one of great music.  Next Big Nashville has taken over the city, and we started out at the Rutledge to see David Condos perform backed by a full band.  Condos rocked out and the songs felt as tight as the album.  The cello was a great touch and provided a cool dynamic on stage.  He concluded his set with what is becoming his trademark song "I Should Be Lost Without You", recently featured on Barnes & Noble's Sunday Music compilation.  I particularly enjoyed the harmonies on the live version of the song.

Next we rushed over to 12th and Porter to catch the end of Brandon Young's set.  Young sounded great and looks ready for his upcoming studio time in October.

After 12th and Porter, it was off to Cannery Ballroom for Butterfly Boucher, followed by Jeremy Lister.  Jeremy put on a great performance, as expected, complete with a duet with Katie Herzig.

Once Jeremy's set concluded, we walked next door to hear Brooke Waggoner.  This is the first time I've heard Brooke live and I was blown away.  It was refreshing to hear a set of keyboard, cello and violin, and Brooke nearly silenced the crowd at Mercy Lounge with her intimate stories and grace reminiscent of a Regina Spektor performance.  I picked up her recently-released EP Fresh Pair of Eyes and it doesn't disappoint.  This is the type of album I hope to see on Speakerheart as we approach our full launch.  The night concluded with Paper Route putting on a memorable performance to a packed house.  We have a great podcast we captured of Paper Route a few months ago that we can't wait to debut.

There's more great music to be enjoyed tonight, including Matthew Perryman Jones and Gabe Dixon Band.  Jones will be part of our Pies and Pints showcase at Christopher Pizza on September 26th.  Speaking of Pies and Pints, join us this Wednesday for a fantastic lineup as The Music Society Nashville and Speakerheart present Josh Doyle, Natalie Prass, David Condos and Patrick Coman.  The doors will open at 8 p.m. and music starts at 9 p.m.  See you there.

ddub

Live from Exit/In: BarCamp Nashville

I must admit it's a bit odd to be writing a blog from inside Exit/In, let alone have my computer open, be connected to the internet, be in a slightly work-directed mindset and have my laptop bag beside me, but the occasion is BarCamp Nashville.  It's hotter than a rock show, at least temperature-wise.   I'm currently listening to the presentation "Design for the User" by Matt Reed of Nashville design firm Cabedge, first reminding us to think about the designer, client, user and Google.

In other news, CMJ picked up our latest and greatest yesterday complete with a catchy title.  Speaking of CMJ, we hope to be in NYC for the Marathon in mid-October.  More info on that to come.

Chris Wage of CentreSource gave a nice overview of what Web 2.0 is and isn't earlier, the core of his message being that it is participatory, has open communication (two-way), decentralized architecture (less monolithic), includes social networking and is evolving into a semantic Web.

Well, back to networking for now.

dw

Speakerheart love

As Lee mentioned, Speakerheart saw some press pickup yesterday in announcing our spin off from PassAlong Networks.  Hypebot, Billboard, Digital Media Wire, Coolfer and inclusion as a new application at Simple Spark.  All-in-all, a pretty good day.  Also, check out our newer, fancier tutorial complete with enlarging images for you interactive types.  And yes, that's one of Nashville's great young songwriters, David Condos, whose debut album was declared "quite an achievement" by American Songwriter.

dw

Late Night Music

It was a busy week for the Speakerheart team. After writing code and marketing plans for the first couple days, Lee, Cedric, myself and the "consultants" decided to hit up the Music Society of Nashville show at Christopher Pizza.We're going to be sponsoring every Wednesday in September, so we thought we would do a test run..good music, just can't beat that.

Somehow the night was quickly extended instead of ended. Although the smart bets were on going to bed, some of us (me and Cedric) decided to check out a late night picking party on the porch of some of the Speakerheart early adopters, Tyler and Kyle, and Zach from Futureman's Black Mozart Orchestra. They were excited about the upcoming launch and showed us some footage of the "Orchestra" performing on PBS. Can't wait to get that loaded up on our site. We were late getting to work, but as the boss put it "Someone's got to do it".

Thursday...Sleep. 14 hours of it as a matter of fact.

Friday, had a day of Speakerheart planning of digital takeover....Friday night, back at it with a birthday party of an assistant from the William Morris Agency. The party was full of agents, assistants, interns and musicians. It went to wee hours of the morning with the group talking about the future of music, and how to band together to make everyone's job more worthwhile. This was of course, after the disco party...

The common denominator was that people do not want to settle for average or good, they want to be the best and will do whatever it takes. Even if that means staying after a party to get to know someone by helping pick up.

bill@speakerheart.com

Digital Music Forum West

From the fine folks over at MusicIP on Hear Here:

Digital Music Forum

Sort of short notice, but if you’re in the Los Angeles area and interested in music and technology, I’d suggest checking out the Digital Music Forum, happening right down in West Hollywood. I’ll be around most of the day Wednesday, but wandering around instead of holding down fort in a booth. I’ll also be part of a roundtable discussion on indie music - where things are headed and what artists can do to help promote their music and make the most of the tools out there. Should be a fun panel, and the product, Speakerheart, which will be demo’ed during the same session is definitely one to keep an eye out for.