This month eMusic’s Access & Rewards program is going to let 25 lucky eMusic members (and their + 1s) experience the enthusiasm that is Little Steven Van Zandt - most famous for his two roles: that of Silvio on the Sopranos and, more notably, as longtime Springsteen sidearm in the E Street Band. 

On June 16th, at a secret New York location to be announced, Little Steven will be sharing with a small audience his love for great rock and roll. He’ll talk about the bands that inspired him, and will share his insights on making timeless records, his requirements for a great live show and will reveal how he honed his songwriting skills. It’s a rare, up-close opportunity with a rock titan. Consider it a starter course in pop music appreciation.

This membership exclusive giveaway by eMusic models off the popular “artist meet & greet” strategy that brands like, American Express use to entice its card holders to purchase their live concert ticket packages. 

eMusic embracing this concept and using it as a giveaway shows their understanding in the value of fan-artist engagement (which can ultimately convert to brand-engagement for eMusic).

In the music industry, fan engagement is key - just like the tried and true method of, whichever band stand around their merch table after the show will always sell the most merch. 

On Monday Feb 22nd, our beloved magazine Rolling Stone (and one of the only few we still subscribe the print edition to) had a bit of a blunder with their website.

According to @AdamOstrow, Editor In Chief at Mashable “Someone wake up the domain name admin at Rolling Stone — its website is currently rendering a Network Solutions landing page indicating that the iconic music magazine’s website is “coming soon… This has some speculating that Rolling Stone forgot to renew its domain name”

This internet blunder prompted a whole slew of tweets making fun of the magazine that inspired @RockIsReligion to also get into the action with our RT:

@rockisreligion at 1:21pm, Feb 22: “RT @Chronotope: @BenFrench @omarg: Is @RollingStone so old that they forgot to renew their domain name? www.rollingstone.com (@taraariano)”

The following day @RockIsReligion received this @reply from a @BenFrench at 6:46pm, Feb 23:

“@rockisreligion What’s a domain name? Also, do you think I can play web videos on my betamax machine?”

Turns out, Ben French is actually the Executive Producer of RollingStone.com.

Deflecting blunders with humor? We like it.

Well played my friend, well played.

What sets a good branded social media application a part from a great one are these four main components: Reach, Utility, Contextual Relevance and Engagement. Conde Nast’s latest, “Vanity Fair Hollywood” iPhone application is an excellent example of a social media app that was designed with all those components in mind… resulting in an app that is, indeed, inherently “social”.

Conde Nast partnered up with L’Oreal to create this “awards pool” social gaming tool for their Hollywood flagship magazine, Vanity Fair. But more importantly, they used this opportunity to re-purpose their editorial content into an app that’s not only useful, but newsworthy and therefore, relevant.

According to Vanity Fair, “The app allows you to match wits with your friends, tells you all you need to know about every nominee (yes, even Avatar’s sound mixer extraordinaire Christopher Boyes), and, most importantly, lets you fill out your picks and see how you stack up against the competition, envelope-by-envelope. Thanks to exclusive Vanity Fair content, you’ll be spending Hollywood’s big night bragging digitally about how right you were.”

It’s true that it could have very well been pretty much any brand in the beauty/lifestyle vertical that could have sponsored this very application i.e. “Vanity Fair Hollywood iPhone app presented by [insert name here]” but, kudos to L’Oreal for stepping up and sponsoring this app – you rolled the dice, and it paid off.

It’s no secret that brands like L’Oreal are interested to play in this social media space as an early adopter. But by L’Oreal using Vanity Fair as a media partner to make the introduction for them, not only do they get to leverage off the magazine’s built-in audience, they also get to build brand credibility.

This is a great example of brilliant media partnership. If L’Oreal (or any brand) created this app on their own, it would not have worked. The media partnership with Vanity Fair was their “in” (-or, “invite”, rather) to this influencer group.

The utilitarian component combined with the user-friendly interface makes this iPhone app a great example of how a brand and media partnership can come together to create a social media tool with a purpose, successfully.

COST: Free

NAME: Vanity Fair Hollywood iPhone app

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ROCK IS RELIGION AND PIMPS & PINUPS GIVES BACK TO BANDS WITH “THIS IS SPINAL CUTS” POP-UP SALON PROGRAM

Call Out for Bands to Participate in the “Rock Is Religion Gives Back” Program: Free Haircuts and Styling for Bands Touring Through New York City

New York, NY – 17th December, 2009 – Rock Is Religion (www.rockisreligion.com), the social media news provider of Digital Media news for the Music Industry announces, “Rock Is Religion Gives Back”, its first charity program to help artists on tour. Partnering with Pimps & Pinups (www.pimpsandpinups.com), the London and New York boutique hair salon which combines classic hairstyling with the latest styles, Rock Is Religion will provide artists with the, “Rock Is Religion and Pimps & Pinups’ This Is Spinal Cuts” – a pop-up salon that offers free haircuts and hair styling for bands that are touring through New York City.

The idea of the Rock Is Religion and Pimps & Pinups’ This Is Spinal Cuts program is to help artists look amazing for their shows after being out on the road for weeks. This Is Spinal Cuts is currently looking for bands and artists on tour through New York, NY, in need of free awesome haircuts or styling generously donated by the staff at New York’s premiere fashionable boutique salon, Pimps & Pinups.

To qualify for This Is Spinal Cuts, artists must be on tour at the time of the date they participate in the program, and routed through New York City (with a show, at the most, two days before or after the date of the free service). Artists (or artists’ representatives) must submit a photo of the artist/band to Rock Is Religion. Haircut and styling services is only available for the performing artist/band members.

Rock Is Religion and Pimps & Pinups will arrange a pop-up salon to be stationed at the show’s venue, or artists may wish to receive their This Is Spinal Cuts service at the Pimps & Pinups salon located in NYC’s Lower East Side.

“The objective of the Rock Is Religion Gives Back program is to partner with lifestyle brands to provide free services and products to help artists and bands on tour.” said Emmy Burns, Founder and President of RockIsReligion.com, “Rock Is Religion is incredibly grateful to the prestigious and ultra glamorous salon, Pimps & Pinups for donating their services to artists on tour for the Rock Is Religion and Pimps & Pinups’ This Is Spinal Cuts pop-up salon”.

“Pimps & Pinups as always had a strong affiliation with music and that’s why we are offering our services.” said John Hoad, General Manager of Pimps & Pinups, “After all, any promising band must have a sharp haircut.”

The This Is Spinal Cuts pop-up salon is available now to artists and bands touring through New York City.

For more information or if you would like to be involved, please contact:
Emmy Burns

Founder & President, Rock Is Religion

@rocklisreligion

emmy@rockisreligion.com

About Rock Is Religion

Rock Is Religion was founded in 2008, on the idea to raise awareness of new digital marketing technologies that could benefit the music industry. Rock Is Religion (www.rockisreligion.com and @rockisreligion) is a social media news service provider of Digital Media news for the Music Industry on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. In 2009 Rock Is Religion incorporated the Rock Is Religion Gives Back program to benefit artists on tour.

About Pimps & Pinups

Following the success of its London salon, which has featured in a number of seminal British fashion canons including Vogue UK and Elle, Pimps & Pinups (www.pimpsandpinups.com and @pimpsandpinups) is proud to announce the opening of a second salon in Manhattan’s effortlessly chic Lower East Side at 101 Stanton St, New York, NY 10002.

Rock Is Religion spoke with Toronto-based, Yangaroo’s CEO John Heaven about its patented Digital Media Distribution System (DMDS), a secure B2B digital delivery solution for the music and advertising industries. DMDS replaces the physical distribution of audio and video content for music, music videos, and advertising to television, radio, media, retailers and other authorized recipients with more accountable, effective, and far less costly digital delivery of broadcast quality media via the Internet.

Record labels originally know Yangaroo as Musicrypt, before the company changed its name in hopes to generate a broader reach into new markets (television, advertising distribution and film and television production support).

RIR: How does Yangaroo’s technology allow record labels to send their artists’ music directly to radio station personnel over the Internet in broadcast-quality format?

JH: Record labels upload their artists’ broadcast-quality music and music videos and select destinations, which can be radio-station personnel and even television personnel for music videos.  The intended recipients are notified of the files availability and can download them directly into their equipment on site for review and for later broadcast. Music files are protected by biopassword authentication of users, digital watermarking, secure file encryption, and access rights management to prevent piracy.

RIR: Is this a free service?

JH: Receiving broadcast-quality audio and video files via DMDS is free and rates for customers vary according to volume.

RIR: Yangaroo’s tagline is “Better… Faster… Greener” -how so?

JH: DMDS eliminates the environmentally unfriendly and costly practices of producing physical media such as beta tapes or CD’s and printed promotional materials, and shipping them by truck or plane to their intended destinations.  It has been estimated, for example, that per each CD produced and packaged with promotional information about an artist, .7 pounds of fossil fuel are consumed.

RIR: How does this system mutually benefit both the labels and broadcasters?

JH: This system benefits both labels and broadcasters in many ways.  It’s secure, it’s quick, it saves them money, and it allows labels to instantly gauge the interest in their artists’ songs as they can track content accessed from DMDS.

RIR: What made you design this technology?

JH: Our team’s background in the music industry made us realize that the Internet could be used to the benefit of the industry for distributing and receiving music securely, quickly, and cost effectively.  We first went about devising a means to make it more secure, which resulted in our Biometrics Rights Management System, a patented method that combines biometrics with encryption and web-based distribution.  Content owners and distributors with whom we had relationships were quick to adopt this technology not long after we began making it available in 2003.

RIR: Is Yangaroo the only service broadcasters/labels use to send music?

JH: Yangaroo is the proven leader in this field, having first developed DMDS and then, just this past year, enhancing it to provide labels with the ability to transmit television broadcast-quality video files.  We completed our first successful tests of video delivery in the fall, the first video deliveries ever to broadcasters in the U.S. and Canada.

RIR: What are Yangaroo’s plans for 2010?

JH: We will be expanding our television broadcast quality content distribution for television advertising, music videos, award shows and film and TV program production support. This will complement our continuing growth for audio content delivery for record labels, artists and award shows such as the Grammys.

New York, NY - Multi-platinum, Grammy nominated Papa Roach joined Bruce Springsteen, Crosby Stills & Nash, Chicago, Earth, Wind & Fire, Joss Stone, O.A.R and many others as part of WHY’s Artist Against Hunger & Poverty program.

PapaRoachpartnered with WHY (World Hunger Year) to raise funds and awareness for organizations who are working towards finding answers for hunger, poverty and homelessness. Led by frontman Jacoby Shaddix, who revealed earlier this year that he was homeless as a child, the band are currently on the road, on a co-headling tour with Jet to support their fifth studio album, Metamorphosis (debut at #8 on the Billboard 200 chart, earlier this year), which addresses many of the current social and economic themes prevalent today.

The band’s partnership with WHY will feature an auction in their tour markets where fans bid (www.paparoach.com) on an exclusive experience including an interview with the band, side-stage tickets, soundcheck access and much more – with all proceeds going to WHY.

To support their effortsto raising money, Papa Roach gave a shout-out from the stage at New York’s Nokia Theater during their Thursday Nov 12th show, encouraging fans to go out to the WHY table to make donations in return for a chance to win signed merch by the band.

In addition, the band will build awareness from the stage and visit local food banks and homeless shelters to lend their support. “We’re proud to work with World Hunger Year to help those in need.” Says frontman Jacoby Shaddix “We’ve been fortunate enough to have a voice and we want to use it by giving back. We encourage everyone to help out their local communities.”

It’s nice to see artists finding a proactive way to give back.

[via www.MetalInsider.net] —- Billboard Magazine is holding their annual Touring Conference and Awards in New York. While We’ll be bringing you coverage from tonight’s awards ceremony, where Ozzy Osbourne and Mayhem Festival founder Kevin Lyman will be receiving awards, there was a “Metal” roundtable yesterday, and Metal Insider correspondent Emmy Burns was at the roundtable. Here’s her report:

So far, the only people sitting around the Metal Roundtable at the 2009 Billboard Touring Conference were three students, your correspondent, and a friend. The five of us stretched out around the empty table while the rest of the room tried to claw their way into getting a seat at the very crowded Indie and Country tables. Hey, at least we weren’t at the Heritage Rock table, we joked as we glanced over behind us at one person sitting by himself.

The students were from Berklee School of Music and they were keen to get a chance to talk to “real industry peeps” about how to get into the business.  My friend and I on the other hand, were just interested to hear good metal stories from on the road. Our panelists were Andrew Goodfriend from TKO and Tim Borror from The Agency Group who kicked off the roundtable by asking if we had any questions. We gave way to the kids to ask their questions first. The main topic of the roundtable discussion: How did you get your start in the biz?

Andrew gave us a moving story on how he got his start by calling the company on his concert ticket stub to hound them for an internship and how he worked his way from being a receptionist that sometimes got the unfortunate task of taking calls from angry rock stars who yelled at him. No biggie he says, it only made him more resilient. Tim suggested learning from other genres to inspire new opportunities in Metal – if that includes watching the BET Hip Hop Awards then so be it!

The students were in awe at some of the bands that Andrew and Tim have worked with. Coal Chamber, Sevendust, Slipknot were just some of the metal bands the guys worked with in their early days and helped grow into what they are now. Someone mentioned Slayer as part of the impressive list of metal bands, but the students argued, “yeah, but that’s more ‘Heritage Metal’”

Tim closed the discussion by noting that Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons still stand as the people to discover the most innovative music genre, questioning if there will be another genre so cutting-edge ever again. He then reminded us that Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons were just college roommates when they formed Def Jam from their college dorm room –proof that there really is no official roadmap on how to get into the music business.  “You’ve got to be creative, create your own rules, just get out there, make your way in, any way you can, just like pirates!” he closed.

And with that in mind, we hope to be seeing you next year at the ‘Heritage Metal’ roundtable!