Rising country singer-songwriter Shane Wyatt has entered into a sponsorship with Farm Boy & Farm Girl brands, fresh clothing and accessories capturing the heartfelt pride of the farming lifestyle. The partnership is a perfect fit for many reasons, given Shane’s rural upbringing and down-home musical style.
According to Dan Adamson, Partner and Creative Director of Farm Boy & Farm Girl brands, “We’re very excited to partner with Shane Wyatt and look forward to joining in the fun as he travels the country this year. As a former 4-H member and an FFA officer in his hometown in Oklahoma, Shane is a natural fit to represent Farm Boy & Farm Girl brands. Shane’s raised cattle and raised horses and his infectious energy on stage raises the roof with audiences too.”
Farm Boy & Farm Girl brands is supporting Wyatt’s radio tour promoting his debut release, The Last Cowboy, where he’s already made stops in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Texas, Oklahoma (Wyatt’s home state) and Minnesota. Farm Boy & Farm Girl brands will promote Wyatt via its digital marketing, including its consumer website, Facebook and email blasts and is exploring cards for fans to receive a free music download from Wyatt. Additionally, Farm Boy & Farm Girl brands is providing clothing and accessories for listener giveaways and special events.
Wyatt relates, “My whole team and I are excited about the partnership. The Farm Boy & Farm Girl brands perfectly embody the country and small town spirit that I strive to convey in my music and in my shows. These clothes are the coolest way to show that you love the farming lifestyle, agriculture, and the country way of life, and I am proud to bring them out on our radio tour and show tour this year.”
Wyatt’s plans include appearances at Farm Boy & Farm Girl booths at fairs, where fans can expect to see Wyatt and his band sporting their attire at shows and appearances.
“Whole Lotta Love,” Wyatt’s newest single from his critically-acclaimed debut album The Last Cowboy, is burning up the charts across the country with airplay on over 200 stations. The single also has climbed into the Top 10 on a number of charts in Europe.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Shane Wyatt Teams with Farm Boy & Farm Girl
Friday, June 19, 2009
Grand Ole Opry Adds Captions for the Hearing Impaired
For the first time in its 83-year history, the Grand Ole Opry will offer captions for the hearing impaired.
About 450 people participating at the Hearing Loss Association of America convention in Nashville this week will attend the Opry's Saturday evening show. They'll be able to follow along with captioning on large projection screens all the acts performing at the beloved country music program.
Pete Fisher, vice president and general manager of the Opry, said it's treating Saturday's show as "somewhat of an experiment" and may continue to use the captioning in the future.
Hearing loss officials say such captioning at entertainment and other live events is becoming less rare, with a growing number of sports stadiums and complexes using it.
Kyle Wyley & Nathan Lee Headline "Give a Damn Sunday" at 12th & Porter
Kyle Wyley & Nathan Lee
This concert series will focus on providing safe water to over 340,000 Ethiopians. There will be an effort at each show to raise awareness of water related issues in a southern region of Africa. We will respond to this crisis through a World Vision grant. Every dollar that is raised at the door is being matched to double the impact of this initiative.Where: 12th & Porter (114 12th Ave N, Nashville, Tennessee 37203)
When: July 5, 12, 19, 26 and August 2 & 9 (Sunday)
Who: Kyle Wyley & Nathan Lee
Time: 7:00 & 8:00
Cost: $5
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Hot Dog Grilling Tips
Get ready for the 4th with these hot dog grilling tips
We want to make sure you get the most enjoyment out of your next package of Jumbo Beef Franks.
Be prepared. Gather everything you need before you begin. Leaving the grill to retrieve something you "forgot" can result in burnt dogs.
Don't go in cold. Always preheat your grill. If you don't, your dog is more likely to stick.
Never jab! Always use tongs to turn your hot dogs. A fork will punch holes in the dog, which lets the natural juices escape.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
P is for Panda Announces the Signing of Gasoline Heart
In what has been the worst kept secret in our short span of life as a record label, P is for Panda, a subsidiary of Hopeless Records, is so proud to announce the signing of Orlando, FLs own Gasoline Heart.
Orlando Weekly described Gasoline Heart “reminiscent of the Heartbreakers, only fronted by late-career Springsteen” and Paste Magazine described songs off their first record “You Know Who You Are” as “songs that achingly reach out for the glancing flash of moonlight on a whiskey bottle”. Basically, songs that rock.
Gasoline Heart, along with P is For Panda and Paste Magazine, are initially releasing a compilation of songs from their previous records along with three new songs from their upcoming Panda release (Armadillo, Stop Pretending and Just Like A Ghost) for FREE. Cucumber Riot is the title of this “best of” and only available digitally at Paste Magazine for 4 weeks, starting June 2nd.
Following the release of “Cucumber Riot” Gasoline Heart and P is for Panda will be releasing “Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be”, Gasoline Heart's 2nd full length, digitally on June 23rd. Gasoline Heart will be selling CD’s on the road and you can purchase them on pisforpanda.com.
Through non profit organization Sub City, 5% of the suggested retail price on all albums sold will be donated to the Layla House, a child care facility operated by Adoption Advocates International, an agency licensed in Washington State and an NGO in Ethiopia with authority from the Ethiopian government to arrange adoptions of orphan children with qualified and loving parents. Located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Layla House is an one acre compound, composed of four smaller compounds, situated on a hillside in a nice residential area of the city, with lots of space for outdoor play for the children. To learn more about Layla House please visit http://www.adoptionadvocates.org/ethiopia/ethiopia_help_projects_layla.php.
In 1999 Hopeless Records formally started supporting non-profit organizations under the Sub City name with charitable albums, tours, and events. Now itself a registered 501c3 non profit organization, Sub City continues this mission of raising funds and awareness for worthy causes and to date has raised nearly $2 million dollars for over 50 non-profit organizations. To learn more about Sub City visit Subcity.net.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
CMT Crossroads: Taylor Swift and Def Leppard DVD
CMT Crossroads: Taylor Swift and Def Leppard, the first DVD produced from the CMT concert series, was released Tuesday (June 16). The release coincides with their appearance on the 2009 CMT Music Awards airing Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Their Crossroads collaboration on Def Leppard's "Photograph" is nominated for CMT performance of the year and Wide Open Country video of the year. The song selection on the DVD includes Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Hysteria" and Swift's "Picture to Burn," "Teardrops on My Guitar," "Love Story" and "Our Song," among others.
Country Music Fans as a Group Lack Home Internet Connections
As tens of thousands of country music fans made the annual pilgrimage here over the weekend for the summer rite known as the CMA Music Festival, recent news from the four-day event's organizer, the Country Music Association, has left some executives on Music Row quaking in their cowboy boots.
With the Internet becoming an increasingly dominant way for fans to discover and purchase music, a survey of 7,500 people by the country music industry's trade organization revealed a sobering fact: Only 50 percent of core country fans have Internet access at home. That statistic, released in March, is far below the national average. A 2008 survey by Nielsen Media Research found that 80 percent of all U.S. homes have a computer, and almost 92 percent of those homes have Internet access.
The 50 percent figure "was a bit of an eye-opener," admits Tammy Genovese, CMA's chief executive. "We know that most of our fans have access to a computer. We just didn't realize they didn't have it in their homes."
"It's dial-up, and it's just too expensive," says Chuck Taulbee, 39, from Stockton, Mo., who was in town for the festival, which concluded Sunday and featured performances by such superstar acts as Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift. Like many of the people polled in the CMA survey, Taulbee lives in an area without broadband, making accessing the Internet so tedious that he'd rather do without.
In addition to lack of broadband, those surveyed cited cost and concerns over content as reasons they stayed offline. Perhaps more disturbing to the country music industry is the news that 42 percent of those ardent fans who do not have home Internet access have no desire to remedy the situation.
Country music lovers with Internet connections may enjoy joining Trace Adkins's MySpace karaoke contest or reading about Swift's insomnia on her online journal, but for a beleaguered industry, the Web is more than fun and games. As album sales continue to free-fall, it's imperative that labels connect with every potential music buyer.
The lack of interest in the Internet "tells you that it's not as easy" to reach the hard-core fans as it might seem, says Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante. "You'll have to work harder for it."
Galante, who helped devise the CMA's study, said focus groups conducted by Sony Nashville parent Sony Music had already shown him that country's digital penetration was less than that for rock or hip-hop, but "people didn't want to believe it."
It's the CMA's hope that in this bleak economy, the survey results will spur labels to work smarter. They will help the record companies to better identify fans and develop "a dual marketing plan that includes both a traditional approach as well as ideas geared at consumers who are more digitally dominant," says Dan Bowen, CMA's vice president of marketing and communications.
The CMA poll revealed that core country fans, dubbed "countryphiles," were slightly more likely to be female than male, between the ages of 25 and 39, married, white and from small towns. This group, according to the research, drives "nearly half of all country music revenue."
As traditional retailers continue to disappear and even Wal-Mart, by far the largest seller of country music, devotes less floor space to CDs, Capitol Records Nashville President and CEO Mike Dungan says that what worries him is, "if a sizable [portion] of our audience has no access online, then we're out of business."
Dungan thinks he has mitigated that risk somewhat by signing such artists as Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley and Eric Church, who appeal to a younger fan base raised on the Internet. Nielsen research shows that the older people are, the less likely they are to be online.
That fact is borne out in online sales as well. For example, 27.3 percent of the revenue from Lady Antebellum's self-titled debut album comes from digital sales, says Dungan, whereas only 10 percent of the revenue from Adkins's "X" comes from online sales. The three members of Lady Antebellum are in their mid-20s; Adkins is 47.
Although almost all country artists have their own Web sites plus MySpace and Facebook pages, label chiefs say that the amount of Internet activity beyond that is often determined by the artist's comfort level. For the 19-year-old Swift, whose audience has expanded far beyond country, and Lady Antebellum, blogging and tweeting aren't part of a job description, they're part of their lifestyle.
"With Trace, we have to ask him to do it, we have to ask Darius [Rucker] to do it and they kind of grumble," Dungan says. "But for Lady Antebellum or Eric Church or Luke Bryan, this is what their generation does."
Indeed, Lady Antebellum owes its very existence to the Internet. Singer Hillary Scott discovered future band mate Charles Kelley on MySpace: She learned of him while visiting the MySpace page for his brother, singer-songwriter Josh Kelley. Scott recognized Charles Kelley one night in Nashville, introduced herself and Lady Antebellum was born (Kelley's friend Dave Haywood rounds out the trio).
Lady Antebellum's main means of communicating with its fans is online, and no detail is too minute. For example, Scott recently stopped in Chattanooga to take a tour of the MoonPie bakery. As soon as she was done, she uploaded a picture of herself in a hairnet in the plant. "There's no second thought about it," she says. "We're trying to build a fan base. . . . The more ways you can find to relate to [your fans] and they to you, the more loyalty you can build."
Even if a sizable portion of their core followers isn't online, some veteran artists are embracing the Internet as a way to broaden their fan base. The Oak Ridge Boys, some of whose members have been with the country and gospel outfit since 1965, recently launched MySpace and Facebook pages to promote their cover of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" to a younger audience. They are also on Twitter.
Country superstar Reba McEntire, 54, regularly blogs on her Web site. "I have to go with the wave of the future, or I feel I will be left behind," McEntire said in an interview conducted via e-mail. She is also on Twitter, although McEntire admits she's amazed that "anyone is interested that I'm going to lunch or that I have family in for a visit."
Just as McEntire adapted, her non-Internet fans may risk being left behind if they don't move into cyberspace. She has migrated her bimonthly newsletter, which was previously mailed out to more than 50,000 fans, onto her Web site.
Neal McCoy has likewise found the Internet to be an invaluable tool for spreading the word about his career. While with Atlantic Records in the 1990s, McCoy scored eight Top 10 hits, but he's now without a label to push his music on the radio or promote his other efforts.
He tries to remember to plug his Web site from the stage, but admits he sometimes fails to do it. Unlike McEntire, McCoy still sends his quarterly fan club updates by snail mail. "It's too soon to try solely on the Internet," he says, "maybe because we're a little older act."
For the country music industry, the CMA survey results have only led to more questions. A second, more detailed poll is planned for this summer. Galante hopes the new survey will look beyond how to reach fans and concentrate on how to reach their wallets. "That's the overall goal as we go through and learn more and more about our consumer. How do we motivate them" to buy?
Thanks to Melinda Newman
Monday, June 15, 2009
HOLLY WILLIAMS UPCOMING NATIONAL TELEVISION AIRDATES
Watch Holly Williams on the following shows:
“Chelsea Lately” – June 18
E!’s “Daily 10” – June 15
“The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson” - TBA
“The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” – June 19
People.com will premiere the video for the track “Alone” June 16. Filmed by director Philip Andelman (Beyonce, Lenny Kravitz) in Paris, France, the video captures the vulnerability of the solo-penned tune and features some of the city’s most famous landmarks.
Holly is also set to play the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco June 17, L.A.’s The Mint July 28 and is playing various other tour stops on her own, as well as opening some dates for Sugarland.
Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes at The Ryman
Ever since releasing his 1980 homage to ’60s R&B, Get Happy, Elvis Costello’s career has been that of a tireless musicologist proving both his righteous love and vast knowledge of genres including New Orleans R&B, jazz, chamber pop and classical, with the occasional pop/rock offering thrown in to keep the hounds at bay. However, not since 1986’s King of America has Costello indulged his infatuation with country music. Establishing a recent trend in Costello’s approach, his latest offering Secret, Profane and Sugarcane—like its stellar predecessor Momofuku—was spontaneously recorded with breakneck speed (a mere three days).
For his return to country, Costello enlists longtime confidante T-Bone Burnett as producer and veteran bluegrass luminaries Stuart Duncan, Jerry Douglas, Dennis Crouch and Jim Lauderdale as his main attractions (dubbed the Sugarcanes) in adding yet another loving genre tribute to his cannon. Given the A-list musicians on board and the fact that (like wine) Costello’s voice only seems to get better with age, the results are sure to please general fans of both Costello and the genre alike.
Thanks to Adam Gold
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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