Who the hell are The Nerves?

I thought I knew all of the great forgotten bands: The Replacements, with their great songs, unpredictable live shows and self-destructive attitude; Big Star, with their perfect tunes at exactly the wrong time; Nick Drake, with his refusal to tour and corresponding failure to sell records, despite their melancholy brilliance. But somehow amongst all of these lost gems I managed to miss The Nerves.

It was Rdio that finally brought them to my attention. A colleague found them through an Rdio playlist resulting in The Nerves’ compilation album One Way Ticket appearing in my Recent Activity feed – a good illustration of the power of streaming media.…

Beta Week 1

Wow – what a great first week: praise, bugs and tweaks!

Opening the gate is always a scary moment for any startup, especially in Beta. There aren’t enough hours to get everything done; you’re sure you’ve tested everything, but know a few bugs are lurking, waiting for an unsuspecting member to find them. *Boo*

Thanks to you guys it we had a great starting week. You helped us find a a number of bugs and sent through smart suggestions.

We really appreciate you taking the time to connect with us. Getting early feedback helps us make MusicHype even better.…

We’ll See You At Music Biz 2012

It’s official. The new MusicHype is launching at Music Biz 2012 in LA next week, put on by NARM and digitalmusic.org.

We’ll have a table at App Alley, outside the main ballroom on Wednesday from 11am-6pm and we’ll also be floating around on Tuesday. You’ll also be able to catch Kevin doing a 3-minute overview of MusicHype at the Digital Music LA meetup 7-9pm on Tuesday night. If you’re a label, management company or artist who’s struggling to focus on the fans that matter – you need to talk to us.…

Ben Folds and Fans (Update)

Update: Below, I sang the praises of Ben Folds and his band mates touting their fans, first, for the announcement of a new Ben Folds Five album. The following week I was more than delighted to see that Ben launched a Pledge Music campaign. The campaign launched just over a week ago and has already generated 4,146 pledges, exceeding the bands expectations and pledge goals by 206 percent. What’s interesting is that Ben Folds has 522,000 likes on Facebook and 486,000 followers and Twitter. His blended social equity puts him in the neighborhood of 500k, not bad.…