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Every so often, we come across a band that sets itself apart from the rest of the music scene. Whether intentional or not (and we think it is), Hierosonic is one of those bands. Formed in 2003 and hailing from Harrisburg, the members of Hierosonic have certainly proven themselves. While many others seem to be following a trend or desperately trying to stay away from trends, Hierosonic creates music that is entirely its own and at the same time not contrived.

I caught up with the band in mid-April at Gullifty’s in Camp Hill, as they managed to gather quite a crowd for themselves on a Wednesday night.

The band explains how its sound has evolved:

H: We didn’t set out to sound the way that we sound now. I think we did try to make sure it wasn’t entirely “typical.” We had no real direction, but we knew what we liked. I think we just have a lot of different influences and each member has stayed true to their influences and their roots, and just kind of luckily meshed. Sometimes people come from different types of sounds and you end up with a mess. It’s worked, so we’re pleased.

Their approach is certainly working with music fans all over. The energy at a Hierosonic show is electrified, with every eye in the venue on the band. The band is simply captivating, and the fans are obviously not the only ones to think so. “Pornos and Razorblades” (released Fall 2005) featured Amanda from the Dresden Dolls singing vocals on one track, and Hierosonic were recently invited to perform at HUMANWINE’s final date of their US tour.

Following their very successful first album was the limited edition “Circuits & Wires” EP that was available only to the people attending the release show in February. The band put on an incredible performance to hundreds that night, and as members of the crowd, we knew what the audience was feeling. I asked the band what their experience was like during that show.

H: We had a blast that night. First and foremost, we make sure that we have fun with what we do. Otherwise, it’s kind of pointless. It’s always a blast, no matter how many people show up or what kind of venue we play in. It’s always fun. It’s always a relief too, to see how much we’re enjoying ourselves and everyone else is too. When you work so hard, not only promoting but just writing songs, and all the hard work behind it that people don’t see, to know that they come out and can enjoy what you’re doing. It’s flattering. It’s kind of funny how it goes from a song being an idea in your head and it evolves and all five members of the band work on it, and it gets put onto the CD, and all of a sudden you’re playing it in front of like hundreds of people and they dig it. It’s like when they respond it, that’s just like the most fascinating part of any show that we play. Especially with the CD release show when we’re putting out new material and people are eating it up, because to us, we remember how it started in our rooms, like being wrapped up in a blanket and drinking orange juice or something. You know, something really simple like that, and then it turns into something that a mass of people are listening to.

WOM: We thought it was cool how a lot of people were singing along, and you couldn’t buy the songs yet.

H: Yeah. That surprised us, too, to tell you the truth. That always surprises us. I mean, it’s wild to me to ever see anyone singing the lyrics. I remember what I was doing when I wrote the lyrics. When I see people singing along to certain parts, I remember exactly what I was doing at the point when I wrote that. It seems so simple. Some of the times we’ll be in the van, and I’ll pull out my notepad and jot some lyrics down, and that’ll be how those lyrics come about. So, that’s always wild seeing someone sing the lyrics.

The band has a few exciting projects coming up, including a slew of shows and a tour of campuses all across the US next year ending with a festival raising money for the restoration of New Orleans.
As dedicated fans of the band know, Hierosonic doesn’t perform all of their shows locally. The band plays quite a few out of state shows.

H: I’d say in the past month, we’ve played more locally than we had in the past two years. We try to spread out our shows. We’ve just had several opportunities, like our CD release show, and a week after that was the Milennium Music Conference, and then Jimmie’s Chicken Shack, that was a lot of fun. Then their (HUMAWINE’S) booking agent called and asked if they could be added to any shows because they were passing through the area. So a lot of shows happened to get planned that way. We’ve been trying to set up more out of state shows, because it’s fun to play them.
Of course, sometimes it’s necessary to travel to see your favorite band, as Hierosonic fans know, as well.

H: I never thought we would have a following. People that we meet out of state will come specifically to see us. When we played West Virginia, we were getting people that came to see us, and in Massachusetts. We did really well there. We had maybe 40 or 50 people there to see us, and for seven hours away, that’s pretty flattering.

By: Tonia Jordan

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JLS – Beat Again – Official Video No.1 In the charts for 12th July 2009 to Present. … JLS “Music Charts” “Uk Big top 40″ “UK Music Charts” “X Factor”

By: billywolves

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I want you to fall in love. In love with recording audio interviews. And I’m going to tell you if you want to make money doing something you love, you should do audio interviews. With Audio Interviews you can package them and sell them.

I’m going to give you a perfect example about how to do this. There’s a website called Tunecore and these guys are doing exactly what I’m teaching. I have no idea who they are, but they have all kinds of information products, audio downloads, they interview experts and the gentleman who asked this, he loves musicians, I would say start interviewing musicians. Let’s say he interviews ten musicians about their career as a musician. What do you think someone will pay more for?

Those two interviews with those musicians and what they love about their career and what their life is like and how many gigs they play? Or what if you did ten interviews for musicians on how to get a number one song or how to do mastering; how to master your songs. Or how to do marketing or how to publish your digital music. An interview on vinyl, creating vinyl records and selling old LPs. Or mixing your music for the best potential sales on copyright issues.

These are subjects that the business of the music industry, I think, would have a lot more appeal and bring a higher dollar volume than actually the lifestyles of different musicians.

So I would tell him start interviewing experts within the business music industry. It’s a huge niche. These guys, I remember looking at what of their seminars because these guys – their niche – is teaching about publishing your digital songs so musicians who create a series of songs it’s not really all about albums anymore, it’s about that one track, that one hit, and it’s about how to market your song.

It was interesting to me because I wanted to learn from music about how to get distribution on an audio interview. It’s not music but it’s still an audio content and their distribution system would work the same way for me and I’ve looked at their seminar. They were selling an online training for about $10,000. So I would tell this guy, go to Tunecore, look at what they’re doing and model it. Their niche is digital music. Maybe you can model something for maybe vinyl music, LPs. I think albums are getting back in fashion with a lot of the younger kids today.

By: Michael Senoff

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100508 @ Popular song.Please visit kjpopbands.blogspot.com for more k pop news! … DBSK

By: kpopseries

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If you listen to only one band from Rhode Island, let Senior Discount be that band! Seriously, these guys made such an impression with us through their music and their hilarious (often ridiculous and even more often disturbing) DVD, we just had to ask them for an interview!

What is the music scene in Rhode Island like?

The music scene is RI is really varied. We (me and the band) were in high school when Monty’s Fan Club (now Monty Are I) and Bad Larry were first starting out, and we loved them. They were two awesome ska bands and that was the local music we focused on. But we also liked M80, which was a punk band that was around at the time, as well as Slik Willy (now Arcadia Landing), which was more of like the newer stuff that could be considered pop-rock as much as it could be considered pop-punk. We also had Zox, which is like a jammy band, as well as tons of others. So we always had this really varied scene here. It’s not like you have a big punk scene, or a big ska scene or anything like that, there’s just a lot of different bands. We have specific friends in the scene now – Monty Are I, Someday Providence, Lemon Lime Tennis Shoes, Arcadia Landing, Mustache Ride, Penrose (and others who will be upset that I didn’t name them) – and none of them really play music like ours, or like each others’ (for the most part). We play shows that have all different types of acts all the time. It’s more about enjoying the music in general, rather then going to a show and seeing two crappy punk bands, then two okay punk bands, then one good punk band. I’d rather see five good ANYTHING bands. Every time we organize a big home show we definitely reach into all the different types of music from the scene and just try to expose kids to more different types of music.

As far as the fans, RI seems to have a pretty good layout of venues for bands to come through, so that helps. But since we got into local music when we were 15 or 16, the same amount of kids just do not come to shows. We promote really really hard and have a big reputation for doing so, so we always get a large amount at our shows, but you can tell in general throughout the local scene, less kids are going to shows then they used. It might even be BECAUSE there are such varied shows. We had a recent fan tell us he’s not going to our local home show coming up because he doesn’t like the type of music of the other bands on it. He told us he would come if we played with Catch 22 and the Brunt Of It. But the thing is, we played shows with both those bands in the past two months! We want to play shows with EVERYONE regardless if they’re not the same type of music. It’s hard because, the age of people who go to shows is pretty young, and that’s also the age when people aren’t really open to all types of music. A 16 year old punk rock kid is not going to be interested in a band that’s been compared to Maroon 5, even if he’s never heard them. And in my opinion, that’s a shame.

Promotion-wise, we do a ton of street promo, we do a ton of personal promo (talking to kids directly), and we also do a lot of video promotion, which appeals to people who aren’t even necessarily music fans, and that gets a lot of different people into us, and interested in going to see us, but you can’t expect every band to be able to do all those things, so it’s hard to just get kids to come out to a show, unless you’re a national act.

Have you ever played in PA? If so, what are your thoughts?

We played at the Smiling Moose in Pittsburgh last summer. Our experience was not noteworthy and we would never judge PA in general on it. This is because we had this booker, who totally screwed us on this tour we were going on and sort of booked us anywhere (if at all, during our proposed 23-day tour), regardless of money, location, other acts, etc.

We got to the Smiling Moose, and the bartender (who was an incredibly nice guy) didn’t even know we were playing. I guess there wasn’t much communication between the bartender and the promoter there. No one even knew about the show, so no one was there.

Not that there would be people there, as no one knows about Senior Discount in PA yet, and we were booked as the ONLY band on the bill. We played our music, sang into one microphone (for three guys) and some of us slept in a room above the bar that had buckets of vomit in it. I guess they were already provided for us so we didn’t even have to throw up. That was convenient.

Other than that isolated experience, we have yet to really get to play there.

Tell us about your recently released DVD? How do you come up with ideas for the skits/dares?

Basically, a few years ago we got this opportunity to be on this huge show in Providence when we were first starting out, and we didn’t know how to promote, because no one knew who we were. So me and my friend, Alan Sousa, wrote a five minute promo video advertising the show, and just promoted it online. The video got a huge response, we sold tons of tickets, and we just kept doing the videos.

It got to the point where people kept telling us to release a DVD. We would always do two types of videos:

1. Real, documentary stuff with pranks or crazy things (putting 300 pumpkins in our guitarist’s room for Halloween, the Ipecac skit)

2. Scripted comedy, like a very physical sitcom

We decided to release a documentary of the band that was based in that first type of comedy, where it explained the band and who we are, and was also highly entertaining. We just felt that type of humor went well with our energetic music. So we got our best stuff together (almost completely unreleased) and created this movie. We sold out the premiere, 350 people, in Providence, and it got this huge response and now a lot of people are checking it out and loving it. It’s called “VBW Attack: The Senior Discount Movie” and it really just introduces people to us. We do a thing every year called the VBW Olympics and it has a Scavenger Hunt where, instead of having to find things, you have to do things and film them. Get a bar dart in the spine, get hit by a car, things like that. That’s all in there. There’s just a lot of crazy stuff- I get arrested for a public enema, there’s a skit with Ipecac that is the best vomit-based segment I have ever seen, the aforementioned “Pumpkin Caper” – it’s just a lot of fun, high-impact entertainment that is totally about creating entertainment and music and fusing the two together. We’ve got a ton of positive responses on this.

Basically, like with the Pumpkin Caper and other “pranks” we sort of just come up with them coincidentally. We plan them out ahead of the point of execution, but it’s never like “We need to do a prank at this point in time” or “What can we do for a prank?” – it’s like our drummer will say “Hey, let’s fill Tom’s room with pumpkins” and we think about whether or not we can do it, and if we can, we do it.

As for the stuff in the Scavenger Hunt, we kind of sit around for a month or so before the actual Hunt and think of what would be difficult, but also possible, to do. My favorite things to think of are things that sound easy and then are completely awful. Like “Swallow A Tablespoon Of Cinnamon”. Sounds easy. Go try it. Or go watch the movie and see what happens.

How long has the band been together? Did you know each other before the band got together?

Basically, my cousin Christian (drummer) and I (rhythm guitarist/singer) had never played instruments (besides my very short-lived piano lessons). Kevin (our bassist/singer) had wanted a band for a while. We were all best friends who hung out constantly. So the summer we graduated, we decided to start a band and that forced Christian and I to learn how to play. For a year we just practiced, maybe played out twice towards the end of the year, and wrote some simple songs. After that we added Tom Wells (lead guitarist) and wrote more serious songs and started focusing on writing good songs and playing out. So we’ve really been together as a full band for about 5 years. Tom was like our “new” friend when he joined the band, but we were definitely all friends first. We are in the process of adding another member to the band right now, Alan Sousa, who has always been insanely close to Senior Discount (we write and film ALL the video stuff together). Kevin and I (who write the music) are going in more layered directions musically, so we wanted to add another instrument. Sousa is going to take over bass while Kevin will join me on rhythm guitar.

Who are your heroes/role models, musically and otherwise?

Personally, the people I look up to are Kevin Smith, Larry David, Mark Hoppus, Mick Foley, Tom Gabel, and Chuck Palahniuk. These all just tend to be people who really create their own form of art and do it in a unique way, which is what I’m always trying to do. As a band we’ve always been heavily influenced by Blink 182, because they were about writing good songs and having fun. I feel like a lot of bands (now more than ever) are about business and image and things that are more about exposure or money or being “cool”, when we’ve always believed in the people who just want to share ideas and touch other people.

Musically, we all come from different places. I’m into a lot of punk stuff that’s not new but definitely can’t be classified as old. I like a lot of acoustic stuff and in general a lot of very random music. Tom is more into metal, Kevin is into very poppy punk, Sousa is into a lot of reggae and ska stuff, and Christian is really interested in music that’s experimental. I think at the end of the day we’re all just really focused on creating good music that people can relate to and can have fun listening to.

Tom wanted me to add that his personal role model is Liberachi.

What is the most important thing people need to know about Senior Discount?
The most important things people need to know about Senior Discount is that we’re not just a band. We don’t want fans, we want friends. We want to create as many different types of art as we can, we want to blend them together as much as we can, and we sort of just want to make people happy in as many different ways as we can.

By: Tonia Jordan

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Whitney Houston was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1963 to John Houston and Cissy Houston, a gospel singer. Dionne Warwick is her cousin and Aretha Franklin is her godmother. By age 11 Whitney was following in her mother’s footsteps and was performing in the junior gospel choir at their New Hope Baptist Church.

Houston spent some of her teenage years touring nightclubs with her mother while Cissy was performing, and she would occasionally get on stage and perform with her mother. Then in 1978, at age fifteen, she got a big break, singing background vocals on Chaka Khan’s hit single “I’m Every Woman;” a song she would later turn into a hit for herself on her massive-selling soundtrack album The Bodyguard. Around this time Whitney Houston also started working as a fashion model. She appeared in Seventeen Magazine and later became one of the first African-American women to appear on the teen magazine’s cover.

Houston signed with Arista in 1983 and had her first To 5 R&B hit with a single released in 1984. Whitney Houston released her debut album Whitney Houston in 1985, which became the best-selling debut album by a female artist according to the music magazine Billboard magazine. In 1986 she lands the cover of People magazine as “America’s Top New Star.”

Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a female artist to debut at number one on the Billboard magazine’s Top 200 albums chart.

From her first two albums and beyond, Whitney Houston became one of the most successful female singers of all time. She has won seven Grammy Awards and been nominated 26 times.

In 1989 Whitney met R&B singer Bobby Brown at the Soul Train Music Awards. Bobby Brown was also a successful performer, having had several hits with his group New Edition and later as a solo artist. Bobby and Whitney married on July 18, 1992 on the grounds of Whitney’s home in Mendham, New Jersey. Later in 1993 they welcomed daughter Bobby Kristina Houston Brown.

Following her marriage to Bobby Brown, Houston achieved phenomenal success with her the movie The Bodyguard in 1992. The movie’s original soundtrack won the 1994 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and became the world’s best-selling soundtrack of all time. Its single, “I Will Always Love You,” became one of the best-selling singles in music history.

Much to the chagrin of Whitney’s fans, soon after her success with The Bodyguard, rumors that the singer was using drugs with her husband circulated in celebrity magazines like People magazine, Us Weekly magazine and OK! magazine after she missed performances, airport security discovered marijuana in her luggage and appeared to sustain a dramatic weight loss. By 2000 she was again on the cover of People magazine, this time under the headline, “Whitney’s Troubled Times.”

In 2002, Houston did an interview with Diane Sawyer to promote her upcoming album. During the prime-time special, Houston spoke on topics including rumored drug use and marriage. She was asked about the ongoing drug rumors and replied, “First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let’s get that straight. Okay? We don’t do crack. We don’t do that. Crack is wack.” Houston did, however, admit to using various substances at times.

Despite her erratic behavior and seemingly destructive marriage, Houston continued to star in feature films and contributed to soundtracks. She renewed her recording contract with Arista Records in 2001 for an unprecedented $100 million dollars. She subsequently released her fifth studio album, Just Whitney the following year with her sixth studio album One Wish: The Holiday Album being released in 2003.

Finally after years of personal and professional turmoil, Whitney Houston ended her marriage to Bobby Brown in 2006.
The singer gave her first interview in seven years, appearing on The Oprah Winfrey show in September. In the interview Houston admitted she was addicted to crack cocaine and weed and that Bobby Brown was emotionally abusive.

With her new album I Look to You, Whitney Houston’s has her first number one album since The Bodyguard, and her first studio album to reach number one since 1987’s Whitney.

By: Jessica Vandelay

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Oriental Wind by mr Hisaishi comment please ^^ fr.youtube.com For everyone who like beautiful music , if you want to speak to me , here my msn adress : nomyocontact@hotmail.com

By: Nomyo

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Create a video blog

My motto which I have found to be very effective is to just give the information away for free.

If you go to my web site you’ll see over 150 hours of audio interviews on business experts, marketing experts and copy writing experts, for FREE.

Many times people say that I’m crazy. They ask “why are you giving this information away for free?”

In the internet world and the advertising world you’re fighting for mind share.

Giving information away for free works. People like free stuff, as long as it’s good quality free stuff and there is value in it.

My strategy is to build credibility by giving first.

If I can give away a very high-end quality interview, that provides answers to my listeners on a subject, I have positioned myself number one as an interview expert, who’s honest and providing value, where others in my field, may be charging thousands of dollars for the same information.

I’m giving it away for free and I have a chance to be listened to and to build a relationship with the listener.

So, by giving it away for free, you get all those benefits. Once you have a relationship with your listeners, you have an opportunity to sell them something. But the trust must come first.

Remember, you are fighting for time with your prospect. And if you are competing with a competitor that is charging for the same or lesser quality information and you are offering it for free, you will win every time.

Try it. It works.

By: Michael Senoff

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Music Interviews