DISCOVERING NEW MUSIC

For the last couple of days I've been searching the web to see if we are on all the sites that folk use to discover new music. After all if no one knows we are there how will people discover our blustering melodic rock 'n' roll?

It has been quite a interesting process and I've discovered a few new tracks and bands myself which is always good. I thought I'd blog about some a couple of the sites and hopefully you too can discover some gems (and a couple more Hayze tracks ;-)).

So the first site I came across was Choosik.com which allows artists to upload their music and sell it while allowing fans to buy it and rate it. Fans can rate the song on a number of different categories such as vocals, instrumentation and production quality. The great thing about this site is that it's made up of independent bands, you won't find U2 or Oasis flogging their tuneage here! The great thing about this site for an 'indie' band is that you can actual feedback from fans and interact directly with them....a great way to build and to get to know your fanbase. iTunes is great but for bands like us it is very hard to connect to the people buying our music....we thrive on capturing user data and Choosik.com really helps (or at least it will now we've got our songs on there).

I next stumbled across mufin.com (short for music finder) this site works on the similair principles to lastfm and pandora. By searching for bands are songs you like it will find other songs that match the 'essence' of that song and recommend tracks to you based on this analysis. After uploading Hayze tunes I did some discovering of my own. I started off by typing in 'The Stone Roses' and selecting their belting track 'She Bangs the Drums'...after selecting to preview similair tracks I discovered a track by Bad Religion that I didn't know called Broken - a top little tune. Mufin gave me the option to buy the track, add it to a playlist and view the video of the track from Youtube (embedded in their own funky player!). On top of this they also have an array of apps including their own iTunes style player....well worth checking out!

Finally I went to a site called Hype Machine, this works slightly different to the other two sites I mentioned. It trawls music blogs and identifies those that are primarily sharing tracks and generating hype (i.e. lots of posts related to the artist or tune). It then provides a list of those tracks being discussed in popularity order and allows the user to listen to them. I discovered a top notch remix of The Troggs - Wild Thing...The Exo Tai-Tai Remix to be precise!

So there is my little intro to some of the sites I've discovered today....I'd encourage anyone craving to discover some new music to check them out. I'm sure you won't be disappointed!

Here is a video for one of the bands I discovered on mufin...Built to spill...this track is called The Plan. They've been around quite a while but I only discovered them today....the beauty of the web!

PLANS MADE....

We had our first band meeting of the New Year down in sunny London Town last weekend so I thought it worth to give you a heads up on what you can expect from us over the coming months....

Gigs:
In short there will be lots of gigs coming up, we are going to try and spread our wings and fly to some places we haven't gigged before. Rather than do a full weeks tour this year we are going to do a few days away at a time - cram in a couple of gigs and return to our lair. It will mean we get to play more places and make new friends!

Recording:
We've been writing a lot of new stuff recently and really want to get back in the studio. It's probably going to be May time before we actually commit to some studio dates but are in the middle of recording new demos which we will share with you good good people.

Look out for a new song at our Summerhouse gig on 22nd February...it's called 'Say what I see' and those lucky enough to have heard it say it's a mix of the Stones, Kasabian and Oasis - that isn't too bad is it!!

Speaking of new songs....if you want to have a special acoustic demo of 'lie when I'm lost' then download it from here - Lie When I'm Lost - all yours!

Free Exclusive Music::
When you come to Hayze gigs in the future we'll be thrusting CD wallets in your hands. You'll look at us as if we are slightly mental as there won't be any CD's in these wallets...Don't worry, it is your 'free ticket' to download a bunch of exclusive tracks, including remixes and demos, on-line. The CD wallets will contain all the info you need to log on and unlock a chest of sonic goodness!

If you can't wait for a gig then click here while our backs are turned and you'll get them all now - FREE EXLCUSIVE TUNES

So that's it for now folks...

One thing I am going to do at the end of each Blog is recommend a band I'm currently listening to. If you have any recommendations for us then let us know and it may find it's way onto our blog. My first choice is Brooklyn based rockers White Rabbits and their amazing track 'Percussion Gun'....I love the drums on this, you'll be groovin' I gaurantee it!

DIY PART 1 - HAYZE SPREAD THE WORD CAMPAIGN

Hi all,

It’s Captain Liza here, the bands manager…Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year! As most of you are aware at HAYZE HQ we've been setting up a DIY Label, Oh Mercy! Records.

We're now calling out to all you lovely folk to be involved, we've put together A FREE SAMPLE DOWNLOAD ALBUM consisting of 7 Tracks - a good mixture of old, 2 New Exclusive Demo's and 2 Fab remixes done by the guys pal BEEBA.

You can download the free tracks from the music glue link at the top of the ‘about’ section on the bands myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/hayzeuk

Once downloaded you can burn onto a CD and we can email you through the artwork which you can get by email me at lizabuddy@hotmail.co.uk

What we'd love & need you guys to do is SPREAD THE WORD by simply sharing the artwork with your friends and getting them to download the FREE music too via the sites above OR email me your postal address and we'll post out CD wallets already made up containing artwork for you to pass onto your mates, work colleagues and anyone else you know!

The website is going under some changes so keep checking in as there will be some interesting stuff coming up in 2010...that you're all welcome to be involved in to help the guys move onwards & upwards!

For those that have TWITTER accounts come follow @hayzeuk as updates will be coming via there for 2010....if you're not on Twitter you can sign up http://www.twitter.com

GRAB your FREE TRACKS & lets start the campaign :)

Cheers

Liza