That nice radio interview? Upcycle it to video

Platforms for your audio, everywhere

I've had a little play with some new software. I took some audio from a radio show I did a few months ago, and added images and captions. Now I've got a nice video clip. 

The audio is excerpted from a lovely long interview I did with the great guitarist Gordon Giltrap, now based in the West Midlands. The full show is on Brum Radio's listen again page. 

Gordon tells a terrific story early in the interview; I found myself telling and re-telling it to friends. Gordon tells lots of stories, often in very compelling ways: take in a live show and you'll see what I mean. So I don't want to use too many of them up. But this was an lovely little tale, a nice candidate to embellish. I've put it up in this post, as a YouTube clip, after the jump.

Chris Bowden: new album, rave reviews, a '96 classic reissue, and major hometown gigs. Not bad.

What a difference six months makes - 4,380 little hours...

Half a year ago, I wrapped up a complex two hour documentary, 'The Lost Concert', about alto sax jazz hero Chris Bowden. It's still scoring nice numbers on Brum Radio's listen-again. I built it around an unheard 65 minute live set,  captured by Neil Hillman at the CBSO Centre in 2007. 

Chris's thirty year career has seen amazing highs to go with some desperate lows. He was key to the 90s UK Acid Jazz scene; he helped launch the Heritage Orchestra; he has played with strings of super-influential outfits; he continues to create genre-busting brilliant music.

Now, with a new album, there's been some interesting developments.

Is Facebook over?

It's a question I'm asking most weeks. Musos might well be asking the same thing.

Over time, things grow, peak and decline. Everything has an allotted timespan, even global IT monsters. Those timespans are getting shorter. 

Facebook is posting fat profits because it's now a mobile platform: the app of choice for idiots texting at the movies. But the number of people actually sharing stuff is going down. And that has big implications.

I think this is about its usefulness to people like me and many others, possibly you too. I'm now wondering if it's still much use at all. My page hits from Facebook have dropped; from elsewhere, they're up.

Since at least 2013, there's been speculation that Facebook deliberately hobbles some types of posts, to get people to pay. I won't do that for my blog, which is a labour of love. It's ironic: Facebook gets free content and a data mountain to mine from us, but we're then supposed to pay to use it. 

I'm not happy, and I'm pretty sure other people feel the same. I wonder.... have we seen peak Facebook? And what might this mean for musicians?

West Midlands video viewing numbers

Some West Midlands artists are racking up viewing figures numbers that outstrip viewing figures for established names. Time to take a closer look...

This time last year, I had a stab at measuring airplay for local bands. It was fun but inconclusive. That said, more bands and acts are scoring national airplay this year, but the local airplay picture remains pretty drab. So I've yet to go back into that particular data mine - but I plan to. 

This year, it's been hard to ignore YouTube numbers for some of the acts I've featured on this blog. For example, both George Barnett and Electric Swing Circus have numbers that put some mainstream artists to shame.

So I did a bit more digging: some rough and ready research to try to get a picture of which local West Midlands acts are doing well on YouTube (and Vimeo - although the Vimeo numbers are in the main dwarfed by the YouTube scores). It's produced quite an interesting chart... but it's also something of a statistical minefield. Details, names, rankings, numbers, the all-important criteria and more after the jump.

George Barnett. 19 years old. Unsigned. 120,000 YouTube views in 14 days

A strategy to consider: build your online profile first. Do it systematically. Then think about going on the road. It can work splendidly. So... how to approach it?

A giant leap of faith....

A year or so ago, Richard Shakespeare, affable photographer of this parish, and featured here, had a lot on his plate. Stepping stress levels up even further by taking on the management of an unproven but hugely talented 18 year old - George Barnett -  wasn’t on the agenda. So, of course, that's exactly what he did. Team GB was formed.

It seems to have gone well. Actually, that's an understatement. It's gone pretty explosively well, and it's happening right now. This week, YouTube views for George Barnett’s latest video - embedded further down in this post - clicked briskly past 118,000 and change. To do this in about two weeks is quite an achievement. After all, many people produce fabulous videos which then struggle to hit 10,000 views or less. And they take months to get there.

It's another part of the great online marketing myth: that anyone can put their stuff out there, sit back... and watch it explode. Know what? That almost never happens. Content is key, certainly, but selling that content is essential too. So hitting six figures from a standing start is  impressive, the result of a year’s worth of intensive effort, on-line and off. So how did Richard and Team GB do it? Answers after the jump.