SONG CONTEST BLOG

Hey this is Dave from Jaga. I’m here in London right now having made the short trip from Galway, Ireland on Friday. We are listening were nice enough to fly me here to record our song ‘Oxygen’ as part of the reward for winning the 2006 Singer/Songwriter awards. I’m currently in the amazing Sphere Studios, having recorded the drums, bass and guitars yesterday. The studio musicians provided were top class. We will finish off with vocals today. I’m honoured to work with the studio crew Franco, the sound engineer, is a complete lunatic… but in a really good way! And he really knows his stuff! Steve Williams, the producer, is fantastic to work with. His attention to detail is second to none, and he is one of the nicest people I’ve met. Well that’s about it, but before I go many thanks to Lior for his immense hospitality and for organising everything in fine detail! (but never take him on at table tennis, he’s a hustler!!)
All the best!,
Dave

Hey there, this is Chris Volpe, one of the winners of We Are Listening’s The Singer/Songwriter Awards, here in London! Came all the way from San Francisco yesterday–definitely enjoying the generous hospitality of both Lior and the locals. Random meeting on the street last night brought me to some perfectly dingy pubs, one amazingly sweet lady even got me on stage to play a couple of new tunes–great responses. Many many thanks Lior and We Are Listening for bringing me out to the UK…

You can now compare the original recordings of the winning songs, as submitted for The 2005 Singer/Songwriter Awards, to the recordings we produced in London. Furthermore, there are two different mixes of the new recordings to listen to.

This will demonstrate the effect superior production will have on your material. However, we are also conscious that most artists have a vision and one that is not always captured through expensive recording equipment, producers, engineers and session musicians.

We would love to get your feedback on this! Please take the time to listen to all the versions and share your opinion with the rest of the community under this topic.

Please note that these mixes only apply for Vivek Shraya and Walter the orange Ocean.

http://www.wearelistening.org/winners.php

Co-founder of Artists First (www.artists-first.net), Thomas Reemer is a veteran artist manager and e-commerce expert responsible for the development of the successful online musician resource as well as achieving overwhelming chart success in Germany.

We recently sent a newletter, In the Spotlight with Thomas Reemer, interviewing Thomas and inviting the We Are Listening community to ask Thomas questions through this blog.

We are currently in the process of evaluating all of the submissions we received. Everyone will be contacted via Sonicbids using the Status Manager System and we will also keep you up-dated and announce the results in our Newsletters. You can expect to receive a response by the end of this month.

With the end of this contest begins a new one – Round II of The 2006 Singer/Songwriter Awards. This time, you can submit additional songs for only $20 before August 15th.

We welcome your thoughts and suggestions regarding We Are Listening’s services and your experience with The 2006 Singer/Songwriter Awards.

Please add your comments below.

We look forward to the results (as we are sure you are) with great anticipation!

-We Are Listening.

“I’ve got to listen to a few more songs before..” – is what I often hear from promoters who liked what I sent them but are not yet convinced.

I generally assume that, unless I have a long standing relationship with a promoter, he or she will not take the time to listen to more than 30secs of music (if that). As such, I like to email one MP3 by an artist I support and wait for a reaction.

If the response is positive and to the effect of – “I like what I hear but..” – I prefer to approach the artist for a show reel (short snippets of four or five songs highlighting the theme of each, edited to one audio file, no more than a couple of minutes long) and following up with the promoter this way.

From my experience, few artists have such an edited recording of their work at their immediate disposal. Do you?

Film makers, voice talents, actors all have something to this effect (it’s an industry standard) and yet artists often rely on MySpace to showcase their work.

Let’s get reel! Ha ha, silly me. Seriously, you have come so far with your recordings and producing a short mix of a number of them is not such a stretch.

Carly Vermes at Paramount Pictures and Dory Benami at New Regency Productions have joined We Are Listening’s Judging Panel for The 2006 Singer/Songwriter Awards.

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Carly Vermes has been working in the music department at Paramount Pictures for the past five years. Her responsibilities include screening incoming music from record companies, publishing companies and managers/agents, selecting music for single tie-ins and assisting in the compilation of soundtracks. Some of the more recent projects she has worked on are: School of Rock, Failure to Launch and Mean Girls, to name just a few. She is also working closely with a select group of artists, aiding in the development of their musical careers.

Dory Benami is a Distribution Executive at film and television studio – New Regency Productions. Credits include Mr.& Mrs. Smith, Elektra, Guess Who, Runaway Jury, Daredevil, Big Momma’s House, Big Momma’s House 2, Date Movie, Bedazzled, Man On Fire, L.A. Confidential, Fight Club, Heat. He currently oversees all international theatrical releases, foreign television, output deals, worldwide DVD releases and 95+ title film library catalogue. As well as playing a key role in the sales and acquisition of incoming projects, Mr. Benami works with other executives at Regency to ensure that the marketing, media and publicity matters of a film are consistent in message in every country and format in the world.

Winner of The 2005 Singer/Songwriter Awards, Michael Logen, and Finalist Judge, Andrea Stolpe, are getting together in Nashville tomorrow for a co-writing session.

Andrea, who has written for Faith Hill, Josh Gracin and Daniel Lee Martin, discovered Michael during The 2005 Singer/Songwriter Awards.

After hearing his winning song, “Mystery”, she got in touch and decided to schedule a co-writing session.

Michael, who is putting the finishing touches on his debut release, jumped at the chance to work with Andrea and, perhaps, include their creation in his up-coming album.

We all look forward to hearing the result and will keep you posted!

Visit www.AndreaStolpe.com

Visit www.MichaelLogen.com

[b]We have created ‘Certificates’ for the Winners, Finalists and Runners Up of The 2005 Singer/Songwriter Awards.[/b]

We encourage you to copy & paste the code provided on the following page wherever you have an online presence (website, MySpace, forum etc.) in recognition of your achievement.

http://www.wearelistening.org/certificates.php

Should you need any assistance with this, please feel free to contact us.

-We Are Listening.

The Veterans of World War Two are currently dying at the rate of almost 2000 per day.

Of all of the wars of the 20th century, World War Two truly threatened the West’s culturally diverse and free society.

“Before You Go”, written by Sam Bierstock and John Melnick, is a profound [i]Thank You[/i] and tribute to the men and women who fought in the war to save our way of life.

Sam and John’s goal is to get this song to every living veteran of World War Two, their families and survivors.

Please help us by forwarding this link to every World War Two Veteran, relative and descendant that you know.

www.beforeyougo.us
[i]
…we have not thanked them enough.[/i]