Internet Musician | Singer/Songwriter | Steve Chatterton

Latest Song Fu Results

   » Song Fu'd - Oh well, back to the drawing board «

I concede nothing! Except maybe defeat, just possibly, I guess …

Well, even though the polls are still open for another thirteen hours or so, it’s high time I dealt with reality and came to grips with the crushing blow that I will not be advancing to the next round of the Masters of Song Fu songwriting challenge. Let’s face it, I started in 5th place, I’m still in 5th place, the current leader has more than four times as many votes as I do; I’m pretty much screwed.

Gone are my dreams of potentially off-putting bragging rights, as well as the clutch of fabulous mystery swag. But I’m still happy with the results. Actually, I’m pretty damn happy to have gotten this far. “Do the Reichelt” is the third full-length song that I’ve recorded since rediscovering the studio after so many years, so I should consider myself lucky that this many people have shared the song with me. Plus, a brave, bold, visionary 8% of the voters thought I was best, which isn’t too bad. I’ve personally played to much less receptive rooms. (How many musicians can claim to have been threatened with a knife by a recently released ex-con while on stage? I can!)

Perhaps things would be slightly different if you could cast a vote for every track you enjoyed, as you can over at Song Fight. Who knows. The simple truth is that Jason Morris and Run at the Dog really rose to the challenge and wrote some kick ass music.

A crash course in internet buzz marketing for independent musicians

I had a nice email exchange with Brad Turcotte, aka Brad Sucks, last week. He’s very generous with his time, evidently. When he was in the middle of promoting his brand new album, he took the time to give a fawning fan-boy a same-day response when I asked if he had any advice for building a fan base on the web. Here’s what he had to say:

It’s hard to put it into any quick advice — basically try to spend as much time promoting your music as you do making it. Unfortunately on the internet people don’t just show up looking for great music. Kinda have to get it in front of them. But once you get some fans there’s a bit of a snowball effect that happens which makes it easier.

So there you have; pearls of wisdom I just thought I’d share. I know I’m not the only guy in this boat.

The long, hard road to overnight success in indie music

A friend of mine once observed that every “overnight sensation” worth paying attention to had at least five years of hard work invested in that one particular project before earning an appreciable amount of respect from anyone.

When you consider that I’ve got less than two months under my belt on this project, it looks as if I’ve only just taken my first step on a long, long journey, but it should be an exciting one, so I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m going to keep an eye on the Quick Stop Entertainment site for the next instalment of Song Fu. I’ve really enjoyed being a part of it, so I’ll definitely be throwing my hat in the ring next time. It gets me motivated, and every time I’ve tried writing a song for it I’ve ended up writing another tune along the way that I’m really happy with as well, so it’s a good thing all around. I’m growing as a writer, I’m constantly learning how to use the studio to my advantage, and somewhere along the line I’m hopefully getting noticed by a few new people who like the music I make.

Maybe I’ll try doing a Song Fight challenge in the meantime.