In development for over eleven years, X: The Human Condition has been designed to embrace the expanding possibilities of multimedia in entertainment. Featuring an immersive, multi-sensory environment, the live, dynamic concert performance by the music group X: THC, enhanced by the emotionally charged film, X: The Human Condition, previews its uplifting and stimulating shock to the senses for Thanksgiving at the Brooklyn multimedia space, Monkeytown (58 North 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY), on Wednesday, November 25th at 10:00 pm. Thanksgiving is traditionally a time to share with family and friends, but it is also a time when some people feel most disconnected, alienated and a

New World/Folk/Roots duo Bethany & Rufus along with Fulani flutist Yacouba Moumouni and Afro Haitian drummer 'Bonga' Jean-Baptiste will release a new CD, entitled "Live A Fip" on October 22, 2009. The Bethany & Rufus Roots Quartet "Live A Fip" CD features 12 tracks, and will debut in Europe on the Daqui Records label. The "Live A Fip" CD release was a natural extension of Bethany & Rufus' collaborations with Jean-Baptiste and Moumouni. Bethany & Rufus, who share the same label with Moumouni, also shared the stage with him for one song during the 10th anniversary celebration of Daqui Records. They knew instantly that their political beliefs and musical chemistry would bond them together, catapulting them forw

Jordan Zevon wins the Overall Grand Prize of the 2008 USA Songwriting Competition along with co-writers Jordan Summers & Morty Coyle. His winning song home will be on the USA Songwriting Competition's compilation CD this year. Jordan is a singer-songwriter from Los Angeles won 1st Prize in the 2006 USA Songwriting Competition but was not placed in the Overall Grand Prize, Overall 2nd Prize and Overall 3rd Prize at that time. This year Jordan improved to the Top position. He is signed to New West Records. His 2006 winning song "The Joke's On Me" is the first track on his debut album "Insides Out" with New West Records. He has also appeared on TV's "Late Night with David Letterman". Nathan Brumley, a singer-s

Call For Entries: Holiday RiffRumble Holiday Song Contest Judged By Rooney Record a song with RiffWorks and enter to win a Dean Markley Guitar, an iPod touch with FourTrack and more. Los Altos, CA - Sonoma Wire Works announces the Holiday RiffRumble, the 14th song contest for RiffWorks recording software users. Contestants worldwide will compete for $4120 in prizes, including a Dean Markley Acoustic Guitar, an iPod touch with FourTrack by Sonoma Wire Works, an Ultrasound AG30 Acoustic Guitar Amplifier, 12 sets of Dean Markley VintageBronze Guitar Strings, RiffWorks InstantDrummer Sessions by Discrete Drums, and Recording Magazines. Any RiffCast enabled edition of RiffWorks, including RiffWorks T4 free rec

Los Altos, CA - Sonoma Wire Works announces the launch of FourTrack, a multitrack audio recorder for the iPhone and iPod touch (2nd Generation). FourTrack is a songwriting and practice tool for singers, guitar players, piano players and other musicians who want to capture musical ideas and record songs on their iPhone. Plug in a microphone, arm a track, record, and repeat. FourTrack works with the iPhone built-in microphone, a headset mic, or an iPod touch with a third-party mic and headphones. WiFi sync allows FourTrack recordings to be downloaded to any desktop computer with a browser. Tracks can then be loaded into any recording software (DAW) to continue working on songs. FourTrack is developed by Sonoma Wi

Los Angeles, CA - Composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Farish announced the release of his sixth full-length album "Wonderfall." The album, featuring 16 new originals compositions by the Dove award-winning musician, is being released on Farish's label, RYTONE Entertainment, and published by Farish Music International (BMI). In addition to being available through all major online retailers, the single "Holding Hands" is being made available as an mp3 download for a limited period. "Holding Hands" is the hit song that premiered on the smash Midas/EMI release, 'The Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz". The compilation, featuring Ryan's song alongside Jazz superstars Chick Corea, Dave Koz,

Los Angeles, CA - BFM Digital, a leading digital music aggregator and distributor of independent music, announces that it will be using Mi2N's PR Gold Service to promote key album releases from BFM's growing catalog of indie labels and artists. Mi2N, one of the most popular sources for delivering music news, has created a special, premium version of its successful PR Gold service exclusively for BFM's content providers. The exclusive package focuses on delivering broad online distribution and awareness of their press release directly to their intended audience: fans and music professionals. In line with this more 'street team' approach to PR marketing, Mi2N will include distribution through its newswire n

Connolly's Pub and Restaurant, located at 121 W. 45th street in mid town, was the host for the launch of Not Fade Away Records' third album "The Cost" by the Tim Young Band. The Cost by musicdish The party was a terrific celebration of over a year's hard work. Recording began on the album during March of 2007. Tim had located the independent production team of Counter Clockwise Music through an association with Mike Stephens who hosts a podcast in Wayne, MI. Producer Mark Meisel heard the track 'Renegade' on Mike's podcast and became interested in contacting Tim. That's how the story begins. The rest, as they say, is history. The collaboration between Tim Young Band;

New York, NY -- Polarity/1, the multi-genre artist best known for bold, honest, hard-hitting songs, is releasing a brand new instrumental record titled "Music From the Other Side." Fitting to the title, the album consists of smooth, jazzy tracks much different from louder albums like Yankin' the Food Chain. Music From The Other Side is the soundtrack for a dance performance by Lisbon's Quorum Ballet. The Other Side's principal objective is to fuse the style and art of the dance of Lisbon and New York. The work is the collaboration of choreographers Daniel Cardoso, Jonathan Hollander and Thaddeus Davis, artistic directors of Quorum Ballet, Battery Dance Company and Wideman/Davis Dance, respectively. D

Winston-Salem, NC -- Rarely does one come across anything genuinely new in music. All the many genres have been mixed together and blended so much that originality often looks as if it has fallen by the wayside. This is not the case with Osaru on his debut album, Home. His is a unique vocal style, a one-off musical vision and an out of the ordinary personal story. Unlike many of his musical peers, Osaru has spent years honing his talents before cutting a record, and the maturity shows. Having learnt African percussion at the age of 8, church organ at 9 and subsequently discovering the joys of the keyboard and bass guitar, Osaru went on to play music in three separate continents. His inspirations coming fr

Boulder, CO -- Colorado-based jazz performer Steve Glotzer competed with over 100 musicians and bands to win AirPlay Direct's "All Things Digital Jazz / Latin Jazz / World" artist contest. Steve Glotzer will receive the Grand Prize package worth over $18,000 and includes prizes from companies ranging from SHURE Microphones and Shele Sondheim to Beyond Bop Radio and Lisa Reedy Promotions. Steve Glotzer has been performing around the country at clubs, festivals and concerts for over thirty years, opening shows for a wide range of artists such as Delbert McClinton, Blues Traveler, Dr. John, Larry Coryell, David Grisman, Son Seals, David Wilcox, Sonia Dada, Roger McGuinn, John Cowen, Richard Elliott, and more. A

Los Angeles, CA - Award winning Ryan Farish and multi-platinum recording artist Donna Lewis release the first single of their much anticipated collaborative project "Ryan Farish & Donna Lewis". (Farish Music International/Peruzzi Music) Donna's Lewis, widely know for her smash #1 hit "I Love You, Always Forever" (Now in A Minute/Atlantic Records), is the perfect compliment to Farish's chart topping signature chilled, electronic sound and production. Ryan Farish and Donna Lewis create the perfect fusion of electronica and heaven on "Dancing Angel" with vocals that cut through the clouds, an out-of-this-world beat that pulses high above the earth and an angelic techno melody. Lewis' voice takes you to a dan

Nashville songplugger Raleigh Squires, a 30-plus-year veteran of the music business, has announced the opening of a new Internet record label/music download store at www.VirtualMusicMarket.com. According to Squires the store will serve as a platform from which independent artists and musicians can market their music in a different way than most of the other online stores. The label/store debuts with six independent artist products and also serves as a portal to Amazon.com's mainstream music downloads in addition to movies, videos, books, and e-books. Squires' daughter Sarah, a 10-year Nashville advertising and marketing executive, is also a partner in the venture. The store/label will pick and cho

Once in a great while, you put on a CD by an artist you've never heard of before and time stops. The voice is new, yet timeless. The lyrics are all original yet feel immediately familiar that explore love,loss and the lure of the road, lived-in, knowing. And the melodies expertly performed by a first-rate band carry the easy groove This is the story of music artist Ruby James who unveiled her CD, "Desert Rose," on April 21st at the Traubadour Los Angeles. Desert Rose is produced by John Avila of Oingo Boingo who was drawn to Ruby James' sultry voice powerful talent and recorded the album with her in his Los Angeles studio. James elegantly fuses rock and Americana with lyrics that explore love,

On December 11, 2006, Wildflowers Records singer-songwriter Amy Speace was in NY for a live interview on WFUV 90.7 FM's "Folk Sunday Breakfast with John Platt." Now her live performances on the show, including songs 'The Real Thing,' 'Dreamin' and 'Step Out of the Shade, are exclusively available through social network site ReverbNation at www.reverbnation.com/amyspeace This coincides with the release by MusicDish of Amy's most memorable radio performances through a new downloadable MP3 album "Amy Speace - Live On Radio." Gathering nine tracks from performances on Ft. Collins' KRFC 88.9 FM, NY's WFUV 90.7 FM and Boston's WMBR 88.1 FM, as well as syndicated show The Art of Song, the album is available f

Three influential U.S. music marketing and promotional companies have come together to provide indie artists a vast array of personalized marketing and consulting services. MusicDish, Inside the Music Business (sm) and Serchlite Music have announced the Music Consulting & Marketing Collective (MCMC) - a full marketing and promotional service providing a new arsenal of cutting-edge offerings and avenues for indie artists looking to break into the music industry. MCMC is designed to offer a new voice for emerging artists seeking access by developing a substantial suite of hands-on consulting and content-based marketing products and services. Each partnering company will bring their respective spe

Lily Vasquez, singer/songwriter born in Colombia and raised in New York, has become part of a revolution in the music industry by becoming the first Latina to reach the goal imposed by the European consortium sellaband.com of collecting, with assistance from internet fans, $50,000 to produce her own CD. Pasin de Mujer will be released globally in iTunes, Amazon, sellaband.com/lily starting April 15th and in stores shortly thereafter. "Pasin de Mujer," the title of the CD is also Lily Vasquez's first promotional single in which she debuts as a composer. Included in her album are pop/ballads she has written. Volvamos a Empezar, an R&B type duet with Angel Lpez, who previously sang with "Son By Four

No one guessed that the piano, harp and other sounds came from a drum - but that's what the folks at Synesthesia (http://www.synesthesiacorp.com), the company behind the stealth What's That Sound? online contest, expected. "Synthesizer" was as close as anyone got, and Megan Hardman of Deer Creek, Oklahoma is the lucky winner among those who answered correctly. A self-taught pianist, Megan now gets to experiment with drums and dozens of other instruments with her new Mandala. She loves any kind of music - classical, rock, country, Christian - and says the Mandala 2.0 "sounds like a lot of fun." The only other thing she's ever won was a 4-foot Snoopy - back when she was just three feet tall. Megan and

by Mark Kirby, Whatever one could say about Hills Rolling, the moniker of one-man band Trey McGriff, you can't accuse him of having shallow roots. On his myspace page he lists as influences about one hundred or so bands and musicians. There are old schoolers (Otis Redding, The Beatles, Pink Floyd), new schoolers ( The Killers, My Morning Jacket), tweeners (Nirvana, Dinosaur, Jr.) electro types (The Cure, Depeche Mode) and eclecticians like him (Beastie Boys, Beck). No doubt this is in part a smart-ass commentary on the "what are your influences" question. It is also a list of people he has most likely listened to and is another way of saying that all the music he has heard, or for that matter, every

Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute Shatters Enrollment Projections, Introduces Proprietary Technology The Internet-based Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute (JBGI) announces that it has quadrupled in size, in just the last six months, to over 1350 paying students. Originally designed for 350 students, the JBGI has shattered all enrollment projections since opening in May 2007. "The growth has been phenomenal and gratifying", says Affiliated Artists CEO and JBGI co-founder David Butler. "Now that guitarists know Jimmy Bruno's unique and effective guitar method is available online, it has spread like wildfire." Jimmy Bruno's New Worldwide Reach Although never his intent, Jimmy Bruno may now be the most influential

MusicDish Network Brings The News To Waveform Media MusicDish LLC, publisher of leading music magazines MusicDish and Music Industry News Network (Mi2N), announced a partnership with Atlanta-based Waveform Media, a music business directory publisher that operates a resource music site for musicians. Under the partnership, MusicDish has developed a white label newswire for the Waveform Media site, featuring coverage of the indie music scene as well as search, news submission and RSS functionalities. In turn, MusicDish will gain valuable advertising through Waveform Media's website and monthly local print music business directories, available in Atlanta and slated for release this fall in Nashville, Los Ang

The Daily Vault Album Reviews: Random Thoughts (From A Paralyzed Mind) by Jason Warburg, The Daily Vault Here we go again. Halfway through the slush pile, tossing 'em aside like pancakes at a Little League fundraiser, and allofasudden whoooaaa Nellie. Hang on, we got us a keeper. Peter Bloom is a singer-songwriter who learned all the right lessons from John, George, Ringo and especially Paul - not to mention Elton John and John (Five For Fighting) Ondrasik. This is simply gorgeous piano/orchestral-based pop, carried to the next level by Bloom's insightful lyrics and full-bodied melodic sensibilities. "Let It Go" is a knockout opener, a mid-tempo plea for resolution whose jangly guitar, thrumming o

MusicDish LLC, publisher of leading music magazines MusicDish and Music Industry News Network (Mi2N), announced a partnership with Montreal-based TiBConcerts.com, an online concert listings site for underground, independent music. Under the partnership, both entities have created white label content solutions for their respective audiences. As part of the partnership, TiBConcerts has developed a white label concert listing for the Mi2N site (http://musicdish.tibconcerts.com/), publishing over 20,000 events from 33,000 venues across 7,000 cities. In the spirit of it's own 'open submission' policy, Mi2N will encourage artists and promoters to submit event listings to TiBConcerts.com, particularly throu

The 2008 USA Songwriting Competition deadline is fast approaching. Win a top prize of $50,000 worth of cash and merchandise such as cool gear from Sony, Ibanez Guitars, D'Addario Strings, Peavey, Audio-Technica and more. Also, have your winning songs played on radio! Enter in Pop, Rock/Alt, Folk, R&B, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Instrumental, etc. Since 1995, USA Songwriting Competition has been honoring songwriters from all over the world. Winners came from Australia, Japan, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, South Africa, USA, etc. Past winners have gotten recording contracts, getting their songs on film, TV as well as getting cuts with major artists. The 2005 Winner of the country category had his winning song cut b

. Minneapolis based music studio C-Sharp Productions is featured in an article in the April issue of More Magazine. The magazine is a national women's magazine and is on newsstands around the country now. "The magazine did a story on women who followed their dreams. One of the dreams they featured was recording a CD," Chad Sharp president of C-Sharp Productions explains. "They contacted me to find out what it costs to record a CD." Sharp has been producing and recording CD's with independent artists and bands since he started C-Sharp Productions in 1996. Sharp moved the company to Minneapolis from Mitchell, SD in 2007. He has worked on projects in many styles like pop, country, rock, dance and R&B. Shar

- To the rapidly changing and expanding universe of Indie pop music, a new website - Mike Cameo's Indies Top 10 (www.IndiesTop10.com) - brings a tool for music fans to easily find, download, and listen to the best of the Indie best. "Mike Cameo's Indies Top 10 constantly scans the web checking the Indie charts and each month selecting the most-listened-to artists and their music," says Edward Galt, chief executive officer of Graham Cracker Productions and producer of the Indies Top 10. "Great Indie music is being created from New Zealand and Australia to Japan, Sweden, and Spain - to name just a few places." We've watched the charts of Indie music websites around the world, invited the most active and so

. by Mark Kirby, Whether you call it praise music or New Jack gospel, this genre is most often a classic case of "preaching to the choir," with song lyrics lifted artlessly from the King James bible and histrionic music calculated to "reach out and touch somebody's hand." Dear god. Luckily, Charles Laster II and Silvia Pratesi don't make this mistake on their new record Journey of Life. Their songs reference salvation, heaven, and living the Christian life but, like secular soul music, have an uplifting universality. Those of us who aren't Christian - agnostics, Muslims, those whose spirituality can't be pigeonholed - can still understand the positive spirituality that is the wellspring of Laster and Pr

- LicenseQuote provides an easy to manage online solution that helps independent artists, labels, producers and music publishers to license their own songs, recordings and related assets directly from their own web sites. "Private beta testing has been completed and we've been getting excellent feedback from a sampling of independent artists and labels" said Doron Erblich, co-founder and CTO of LicenseQuote. The basic LicenseQuote (aka LQ) Music Licensing Calculator embed widget is free to all music artists, labels and publishers who have authority to license their various copyrighted music materials. LicenseQuote does not charge any sales commission percentage fee to the sellers and is also completely

- by Mark Kirby, The picture on the front of her CD Cover to Cover shows singer songwriter Julie Moffitt covered with a bed sheet and smiling unselfconsciously at the viewer. This image, in its simple honesty, is appropriate for her CD. In addition to recording original material, Moffitt decided to include songs by other artists that she loves and have inspired her. Indeed, all people learn by imitating others and for artists it is even more important. As the great Salvador Dali once said, "Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." The songs she chose to cover, and the way she plays them, with nuance and deep emotion that doesn't come in a can, shows that she has been around for

- by David Knight (Music Talk Sessions), Recording artists new to the Music Talks community, the session wrap up is an overview of previous sessions. In the wrap-ups I highlight what took place during the sessions along with initial information about the sessions. Video footage of the sessions will be released in the coming weeks. Let's jump into the wrap-ups! Listen 2 Ya Mix launched New York and Los Angeles February sessions. The recording engineers Peter Barker, Keith Wechsler and Drew Daniels really got into listening to the music and providing the creative and technical feedback to artists. All recording engineers in NY and LA got up from the dais and went to the back of the room to have a mor