Everything’s gone green - The world of mistrust music

I’d guess that a lot of people have a video or two on Youtube, Google Video, and some of the many other video hosting sites. Out of those people, how many of them use the videos to drive web traffic to their own, or someone else’s website?

I’ve got a couple of the O’Neill surfing clips on Youtube. These are two of the sections that are used in the “Deep Blue Open 2005″ promo film, featuring three of my tracks.  Since I uploaded them, I’ve have quite a lot of hits, but it doesn’t seem to be driving a lot of traffic to my this blog or the mistrust music website. The videos are amongst quite a lot of other surfing videos so you’d think that people who watch those would follow the links to my music. Maybe not. There doesn’t seem to be a lot written on the web about how to improve your traffic using Youtube etc. Maybe someone could suggest something.

Following on from the last post - “The Colour Purple” - I can now report that I was featured artist of the week on a show on Purple Radio, which is the official radio station of the Big Chill organistion. The DJ, Ketsbaia, played three tracks, “Dubcrazy”, “Painless Light” and “Distant Shores”. I got a few nice comments from the DJ, and some support on the Big Chill Forum. My tracks were played alongside a lot of “A-list” bands, and seemed to hold up ok. He ran out of time to play a fourth track “Never Alone”, but said that he liked it that much that he’d play it in a couple of weeks.

As for other things…

The “mistrust clan” went to Borth near Aberystwyth for a week in a caravan at the end of July. It’s an old fishing village, which is very quiet and suited Paul (my stepson, who has PDD-NOS, and a massive social phobia, amongst other things). It started off as a complete disaster - pouring rain, burst car tyre, everyone worn out - but in the end we didn’t want to come home. Lots of nice scenery and fresh air to inspire me to write some new tunes. I’ll put some of the photos on Flickr soon.

I’m in the middle of applying for a new job, and contemplating a move from the Manchester area to Yorkshire. Things are happening at work which mean I could be out of a job or at least being downgraded in the next two years, so the time is write to put my skills to better use. Besides that, the holiday proved how much Paul, and the other children, need to be nearer the countryside and aware from where we’re currently living. If anyone reading this lives in the more scenic areas of West Yorkshire, please can you leave a comment saying if it’s a nice place to live?

No post for a few weeks, mainly due to family commitments, work commitments, and stuff like that. However, I’m excited right now. I’m finally going to get some tunes played on an upcoming internet radio show. More details to follow after 10pm (UK time).

In the meantime, you can get hold of all my music for free. See the previous post for details….

image: Big chill night view by Neil Cocker (copyright 2005) (link to Neil Cocker’s Flickr page)

I tried it once. That was all it took to put me off it forever. Everyone else was doing it, so why should I miss out? That was what I thought at the time. The whole world except me was joining in and I was the only one not doing it. I finally plucked up the courage to have ago……

I’m talking about “Pimping” my Myspace. The art of changing your profile page to make it look funky, smart, catchy, and anything else you can think of.  Back to my first time…..

…….Well, that was painless, wasn’t it? Let someone else take control and do everything for me. Never again! Not ever! Never will I do that again. What a horrible experience. It looked like something my three year old would do in Photoshop or the like. I copied the code from one of the many thousands of so-called “Myspace editors”, looked at my profile page, and then tried to decipher where my bio had gone, how people could add me, and why all my friends had vanished! Had I done it wrong, I thought. Well, the code hadn’t changed, so it must be like that. Don’t forget that nice floating advert, that pointed everyone in the direction of possible smiley/trojan hell.

I must say, I’ve yet to come across a Myspace profile that has been tastefully decorated or that’s not a navigation nightmare. Instead of “Add to friends”, it’s always “Be my fwend” or something just as wacky. Backgrounds that don’t scroll and are repeated across the page are worse - you end up not being able to see what people have taken ages to write.  I’m sure I know a few things about webpage design - I may not have made the most interesting websites - and most people know when something looks right,  so why are people allowed to to have a free rein over of pimping their space? Myspace should start introducing some guidelines about what you can and can’t do. Don’t forget, too, that Myspacers who have loads of images, videos, banners, and all the other clutter, are just slowing down the page load time. We all know that a lot of users give up afer a few seconds if a page doesn’t load for ages.

I’m quite sure it’s a lot of fun pimping your myspace. It’s not for me, though. I hate it. I’ll never do it again.

If you’re a Myspace pimper and disagree with what I’ve written, leave a comment and show me your myspace page. Maybe I’ll change my mind, but in the meantime, I’ll stick with a plain, boring, profile.

Thanks to Neil Cocker from the Big Chill Forum for use of  photo.

image: 29 may 2006 - eventful.org.uk - 0008 - (medium) by Headancer/Simon Green (copyright 2006) (link to Headancer homepage)

As you’ll probably have read on Paul’s blog, he’s still not back in school. This is having a massive knock-on effect on the rest of family and my in-laws, and is generally causing chaos at Mistrust Towers. Anything from a decent night’s sleep to watching tv is being affected as Paul’s life is almost completely unstructured and he’s having to find things to do all the time, something he finds quite difficult at the best of times. He’s getting tired at all the wrong times, just because he’s getting really anxious in the mornings from not knowing who may call round to see him (school inclusion people, mainly). If you haven’t been here before, he’s got Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not otherwise specified, which means Autism/Asperger’s type personality and behaviour, hence all the anxieties.

What’s this got to do with “mistrust music”? Well, for some reason, Paul has decided that he wants to learn to play the drums. That means he wants a drum kit. Not just a basic, cheap kit. A proper one, with all accessories included. Bear in mind that he has a very small bedroom and there’s nowhere else in the house that it could go. So that’s a non-starter. I’ve told him we’ll get a basic drum pad-type thing - one of those plastic things without about 4 pads on it, with a set of plastic sticks - so he can see how it goes. Judging by his recent attempt to learn to play the guitar, he’ll give up if he can’t work out how to play a particularly beat. With Paul, it will be as follows: Learn the bass drum, then the snare, etc. Then learn a rock beat, then a waltz, etc, and if he gets stuck on one, he’ll pack it in.

He also wants to learn keyboards….. He’s been fiddling with my old Casio MT31 (which still works after nearly 30 years!) but it’s got small keys and he’s having problems playing the notes. He’s gone onto “Learn to Play.com” or something which has basic riffs to play, and has been practicising the same thing over and over till he gets it completely right. The problem is that there’s no audio on the site, so he relies on me to say if it’s right. Once again, if he can’t play one of the tunes, he’ll pack it all in.

It’s good that he’s interested in making music the “traditional” way, instead of using loads of samples in Acid Pro, and he’s actually got potential in the technique side of things. He now wants to use my Evolution Midi keyboard, plugged into the computer, and use a keyboard training program.

All this means I’m getting less and less time to come up with some new tunes. I’ve got the playing bug again and I want to do some live work, but there’s very little time to do much at the moment because of all this domesticity. The tunes that went to Candycover music library should be live soon, and that could open up some new opportunities, and I’d like to be prepared for anything that comes along. Howeve, anything that will keep him focussed, occupied, and will develop his skills, is something we’ve got to keep up with.

You’ll probably have noticed the image at the top of this post. It’s a photo by Headancer, one of the Big Chill Forum folk. I asked on there last week if I could use some of the things that have been occasionally posted on the forum, or if anyone could point me to some others I could use to brighten up my blog. So, thanks to Simon Green (Headancer) for use of the image. If you want to see more of his photography, please go to Headancer on Mac.com and tell him I sent you. Please note: All the images used on this site are copyright and should not be used without the owners’ permission. The pic I’ve used is from eventful.org.uk. It reminds me of the fact that I’m off on holiday in about 5 weeks……

I’ve been thinking about the number of music hosting sites and MP3 directories that I have my music on. Most of them are free-to-download places where people can just have my tracks for nothing. I started off in late 2004 by choosing just one site - Electromancer.com, which is now no more, just because I lacked confidence about my music and it seemed like a good place to start when I’d never even considered putting my music out to the public. In fact, even though Electromancer closed down last year, a lot of the artists are still active on the forums of another site, Nervejam, and are still as friendly and supportive as ever.

I got a bit more confident after getting some great reviews, thinking that more people might give me a listen, so I followed links and recommendations about other hosting sites, signed up to 2 or 3, and waited for the plays to roll in. Then I started chasing more sites and more plays, until I had tracks on about 1o or 15 sites. I’ve now lost track (and usernames/passwords) of most of those sites, and still get the occasional email from them, saying someone has posted a comment. A quick check on google as to which sites I’m on offers up 94 links for “mistrust music site” and 30 for “never alone mistrust” (my first track from 2004).

I still see the same old faces on all these hosting sites, (more…)