Steven Neal Wagner on "Songwriter Radio," a new app for the i-Phone

April 23, 2010

First things first: Did you file your taxes on time and did you get a nice refund or owe an easy amount?

Then again, for some perhaps that is the worst way to start a message this time of year.

Nevermind.

I got some very welcome modern-music-marketing-kinda news today.

But first, a little background: In the cobweb-covered olden days of the music industry, bands and singer-songwriters sought recording contracts with big record companies as the primary route to having a career. "Independent artists" were few and far between. In the '60s through the mid-'90s, getting yourself marketed (known, rich and famous) then meant: 1. Record your music for a record company, 2. Company releases music in solid forms (records, tapes, CDs); 3. Record company (hopefully) promotes record to radio, advertises record in appropriate magazines and other media and generally markets and promotes the act while act is on the road, playing live and making new fans.

With the advent of the world-wide web, digital recording mediums and a shift away from reliance on big records companies and towards affordable do-it-yourself recording, touring, merchandising we have seen the corresponding demise of big chain record stores, a nosedive in new CD sales over the last ten years or so and the rise of the independent artist who has little chance of getting on commercial radio but still has about a million other ways to get his stuff heard by the people who count: music lovers.

Music is mostly purchased now not in a solid form but in a file (called an "mp3"), which can be opened on a computer or digital music player. A few years back we got i-Tunes, Apple's music download service, where one can find damn near anything they want to hear and download it onto their computer for a reasonable fee.

Oh, but wait: I realized with my second cell phone, in 2003, that phones were going to be not just for making phone calls, but for marketing and selling things to the phone's owner: ring tones, video games and mp3s and, later, movies, internet service---man, where does it end? (Stupid question. It's probably just beginning.) Now, the really cool phones are the ones to which you can download "apps" (which is short for "applications," just another way of saying "computer programs") which do all manner of things both practical, entertaining and frivolous, such as...well, it's late and it is really beyond the scope of this long-and-getting-longer message.

So anyway, about my news. I got a message from Mike Gibson, a fellow with the website "SendUsSongs.com." This is a very songwriter-friendly website which, like some of the other services I have probably mentioned in the past, offers writers opportunities to get their songs heard by professionals, recording artists, etc. He let me know that three of my songs (which I'd uploaded to his site) are among those featured on the first installment of "Songwriter Radio," a new app for the Apple i-Phone. So, he is helping to market songwriters via cell phones. So modern! Oh, and he even puts a little icing on the cake: "You are a master 'story-teller' and artist. Love your pure messages and delivery." Go ahead Mike Gibson...make my freakin' day.

So, if you have an i-Phone (I don't...yet), and you want to check out this new app, click here.

I'd love to know how it looks and everything, so send me a modern e-mail and let me know.

For a song,

Steve