You can be making incredible music, but if no one knows about it you probably won’t be making it for very long. Having a good project name is the first step to getting publicity and having your music heard by a large amount of people.

Don’t be difficult. It has to be easy to pronounce and say over the phone. Try to avoid using numbers for letters (leet speak) since it will confuse people. Yes, there are exceptions like “!!!,” μ-siq, and whatnot, but the object is to make it easy for the press to write about you and for people to talk about you. While you’re welcome to choose a difficult name, it’s only going to make the rest of your publicity efforts that much harder.

Steer clear of profanity. While James Fucking Friedman has a somewhat high profile, whenever he gets listed in local papers that don’t allow profanity they star out either the entire middle word or just use stars after the F. People will get confused–”Did they star out ‘Faggot,’ ‘Fucking,’ or ‘Fellatio’? Should I Google for James Star Star Star?” Also profanity limits the types of publications that will feature you. While XLR8R and URB are magazines that are pretty laid back about their language, you might one day discover that your music has an interesting crossover audience (be it mountain climbers or acoustic engineers) and you want to make it easy for those types of journalists to approach you and write about you and your music.

It sounds good. Pick three of your favorite names. Say them out loud. Ask some friends what they think and notice how they respond. Do they laugh out loud when you’re aiming for a super serious image (“Abfahrt Hinwil” might cause some giggling)? It may sound obvious, but electronic musicians who tend to work alone and communicate through their computers could use some IRL human feedback once in a while.

No one else has it. While I wouldn’t say you should register for a trademark just yet, you should research as best you can if anyone else is using your name. You don’t want to shell out money for a domain name and spend years growing your project and fan base just to be hit with a cease and desist or worse, a lawsuit (look at Dan Snaith’s Caribou (formerly Manitoba) debacle.) Do some web searches to see if you can determine if anyone’s using your name. The US Patent office has an online search engine called TESS where you can search for trademarks in use. Search for all the words in your desired name, and then search for each one alone and see if they return anything similar. If you’re considering trademarking your name, it’s a very good idea but it will cost you a few hundred bucks. You can file online and read more here: http://www.uspto.gov.

It can be you, as long as you’re not already in use. You can use your own name as long as it’s not in use already and you won’t be confused for someone else. Can you imagine being the second Derrick May in Detroit? You might get a huge turnout for your first gig but the promoter and venue will hate you after the riot of pissed off people who thought they bought tickets to see one of the godfathers of Detroit techno. This second Derrick May in question used his middle name instead to avoid confusion, resulting in Derrick Michael.

Webify it. Get a domain name when you’ve settled on your choice. Although you might just want to use Myspace as your website, Myspace is not press-friendly, and if you adopt that early-90s bad-website look with repeating graphic as the background or garish colors it’s going to be unreadable (and incredibly annoying). Plus, with your own website you have total control over your image and don’t have to worry about deleting comments and photos posted by jerks. Then check to see if your choice is a domain in use already. I got lucky because mine is a completely made up word (Quantazelle) so the domain was available. If it’s not, see if you can add “music” “sounds,” or something else to the end of it and then grab it. If not, you might consider finding a different name, but it’s not a deal killer. While you might want to opt for something clever as your domain name, you want to make it easy for people to find information about you. A web search for your project name should return your site as one of the first results because your name is in the domain itself.

Some ideas for generating project names:

Take a passage from a favorite work of literature or a poem,. For example, “Joy Division” is from The House of Dolls by Karol Cetinsky.

Use an anagram. Aphex Twin relied heavily on this to name many of his songs. “Acrid Avid Jam Shred” on I Care Because You Do is an anagram of “Richard D. James”. Here’s an online anagram generator to experiment with: wordsmith.org/anagram.

Try playing with this emo-band name generator: www.bandnamemaker.com

Check out this tool for generating band names: www.greatnameforaband.com. On my first try I got “Galacticide” which is actually really cool.

Here’s another one: www.bandlookup.com. I put in “bandpass’ and got such gems as “Bandpass Disorder” and “Half-Ass Bandpass.”

Create an alias by generating combinations of male or female names with last names: kleimo.com/random. An example of this in action is “Malcom Kipe” who is actually Nautilis aka Skyler McGlothlin.

Take a hint from the Dada-ist poetry methods of William S. Burrows and do a “cut-up.” Grab a newspaper or any other sliceable piece of literature and cut out a bunch of words from it. Then toss them on a flat surface and see what interesting combinations happen.

Make a portmanteau. “Devo” is a concatenation of “de-evolution.” “Quantazelle” is a combination of “Quantum and Gazelle.”

Create a phrase that congers up imagery of what your music sounds like, such as “Explosions in the Sky.” It’s a little difficult if you’re not a poetic or literary type, but you can ask other people for help. Just say “If you could think of an image that sounds like my music, what would it be?” Gathering a group of people in a room together along with some alcohol or other relaxing substance is a very conducive environment for name generating.

So now that you’re better equipped for the first part of your publicity efforts, why don’t you get started on that brainstorming? Good luck!

Personally, I rely almost entirely on friends (both web- and meatspace-based) for my musical enlightenment. Occasionally I’ll do the rounds of MP3 blogs, generally stopping at Aurgasm, 3hive, Stereogum and more recently The Hype Machine, but more often I let those more musically inquisitive than I do the filtering and feed me the best bits. Most of the artists I’ve “discovered myself” recently were through music video blogs such as No Fat Clips and Ticklebooth.

For music purchases I’m tending to use label sites much more than services such as iTunes Music Store. Having a seperate account for each niche-label isn’t the most friendly setup, but I feel like more of my money is making it to the artist, and the label sites and releases are definitely more fun and personable.

I enjoyed the leadup to Hybrid’s most recent release “I Choose Noise“. First came the single “Just For Today”, released for free download on the Hybrid Sound System site. Then came the “I Choose Noise EP“, containing 2 extra tracks as an MP3 single for £2, which was followed, finally, by the full album release for £8 as MP3 download or £8.50 for a “cd exclusive” including live DVD. All of the downloads are DRM free, format-shiftable, share-with-your-friends-able, 320KBit MP3 files. Lovely.

To get an idea of what other CDM readers and contributors are listening to, check out the CDM group on Last.fm (and join up if you haven’t done so already). There’s also the Today I have been mostly listening to… thread, which could do with some reanimating. That’s only a tiny cross-section of the CDM readership though, so I’d really love to hear from those who are making and releasing music. Sources of free legal tracks we can copy and share with friends are great too, of course.

Reason to Criticize iTunes: Okay, first, let’s get this out of the way: yes, while Apple has done a great job of supporting interoperable standards everywhere else, their iTunes/iPod combination is roughly as restrictive as the Windows Media platform. And that has caused it, rightfully, to be the target of criticism in recent weeks. I’m not sure why it took a few people dressing up in silly biohazard suits in San Francisco to get Business Week to notice, but Apple is using its DRM technology (FairPlay) to lock customers into the iPod and iTunes. Is this the record industry’s fault? No, say the people in silly suits, because Apple’s own legal team has said Apple will continue to use FairPlay with or without the record industry. (On that issue, I tend to agree with them. On wearing silly suits around San Francisco Apple stores, um, well, I can usually find more urgent issues to protest. Like wars and stuff. But it did get them into Business Week.) Is Apple worse, for locking its customers into a single store (iTunes) and refusing to license its DRM (FairPlay)? Is Microsoft worse, for reinventing the way music gadgets get connected (MTP) and building a single-platform software player (Windows Media Player)? Who cares? The best strategy is to avoid the bad technology and use the good.

Bend iTunes to Your Will: As many have observed, there’s no reason not to burn your iTunes purchases to CD, giving you an instant backup and the possibility of re-ripping minus DRM. (The former is allowed by your license; the latter isn’t, but tell them I said it’s okay. I’ll let my lawyers deal with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.) And many readers here are perfectly happy with iTunes using music ripped from their CD collection and bought from independent online sources like Bleep. Downsides: no FLAC or OGG support, and there’s no reliable way to add that, either. Upsides: Apple runs on Windows, Mac, and even (via WINE) Linux, and it’s still the best podcast player around. (I tried open source alternatives but was disappointed.)

Bend your iPod to Your Will: Not only is your iPod perfectly happy playing non-DRM’ed music, but it has some of the best support out there for the Rockbox open source alternative firmware. Rockbox can be dual-booted with the iPod’s native firmware, it adds support for other formats like OGG and FLAC (and many others), adds gapless audio playback, and generally makes the iPod a much better value. Downsides: the iPod still doesn’t support recording, which is why I like the Windows Media devices.

Use an iTunes alternative: With most of the world using iTunes or Windows Media Player, the alternative player market has been, sadly, largely stagnant. But there are some bright spots. Winamp remains the best Windows player, arguably the best player out there period, and thanks to rich community support has lots of extras (including iPod support). I’ve been using the superb open source VLC media player, which runs on just about everything (BeOS, for crying out loud), to listen to higher-quality radio streams like AAC. One example: the eclectic WFPK radio from my hometown of Louisville, KY. Weirdly, these streams don’t seem to work on iTunes, but VLC and Winamp handle them perfectly. Many of the Linux-native players seem a little too barebones to me (though you may prefer that), but Amorak on KDE is probably the most feature-rich player on any platform. Many of those features are overkill, but native last.fm support is nice, and the organization features are top-notch. (It runs just fine under Gnome, too.)

Songbird, the Mozilla Music Player: The most promising new entrant is Songbird, currently Windows-only but with a Mac release coming any day now and Linux later this year, based on the Mozilla web engine that drives Firefox. Songbird actually holds some benefits for musicians. Websites can publish playlists to this player, so instead of being locked into a single music store (hello, iTunes and Windows Media), you can go to any website you like and discover new music. It finally restores the “pull” nature of the Web as opposed to the “push” of podcasting, and it’s a feature I’ll be sure to support on CDM in the future. Progress now is pretty slow, but so is all software development; it’s fun to use on Windows at least as a secondary player. If the online music discovery isn’t enough reason for you, their roadmap for universal format support and universal cross-platform support should.

Songbird certainly has the right idea conceptually, too; see their musings on Tim Berners-Lee and why online media players, like Web browsers, should let you see the content you want.

Music on Sticks: With the ephemeral quality of online music distribution making people feel less and less like they own music, musicians may find new, creative ways of making their product tangible. I think the relative confusion over distribution formats could actually yield some new opportunities here. One thought: put music on sticks. Flash memory sticks, that is. Josh Spear this week looks at a design concept for flash memory distribution, as pictured at the top of this story; there’s no production model there, but I love the design. I’ll bet people could think of creative containers for the sticks, too. (Though, please, don’t use a decapitated bear.) One record label has even tried this out: net label Magnatune released their music on a flash drive in various sizes a couple of years ago. You could think of it as a flash drive with free music, or music with a free flash drive. I could even see some of these having players or speakers built-in. The bottom line here isn’t the specific idea, or even a single format: it’s about adding the perception of material value. In Japan, where commercial CDs have ballooned to prices around US$30, labels are smart enough to bundle exclusive extras like plush toys. Music + swag? Hey, why not. I’ll bet you sell more of your album at your next gig if you try something like that.

Going Creative Commons: Other musicians are responding to increasingly-restrictive DRM by releasing music that’s less restrictive, friendly for sharing, remixing, and incorporating into other people’s music. Part of the reason why I think this might work is that it’s an incredibly old idea. Ironically, in musical cultures like the folk music of Ireland performing rights organizations have been trying to talk musicians out of letting their songs be shared, despite the fact that sharing (and changing) other people’s music was how the tradition got started in the first place. There’s plenty to say about this issue, but I’m going to hope that people like reader / label owner Andrew Garton fill us in. (Andrew tells us he’s off to the Creative Commons iSummit, so, Andrew, I do expect a full report. Especially because Rio is infinitely cooler than the places I’ve had to attend conferences lately!)

Here are the rules: no more talk about why the RIAA, labels, iTunes, iPods, DRM, FairPlay, Windows Media, Windows, mean people, SUVs, fossil fuels, global warming, planet-killing asteroids, and other buzzkill topics suck. (Yeah, yeah, I know — I brought it up. I promise I’ll change the subject now, too.) I want to hear more creative ideas for sharing and distributing our music. I’m sure we can come up with something — and your ideas are definitely better than those from Microsoft, Apple, and the majors. (Big surprise.)

You may have heard a lot about the InterWeb, a new network that magically connects people around the world through their Compute-trons. You might have heard about its powers to promote music, perhaps by an ill-researched story yesterday where I stupidly pointed to a UK artist who will go unmentioned here. (As it turns out, which I would have known had I bothered to, um, read, all of the following did indeed happen: “girl produces webcast from basement,” “girl gets fan following,” “girl makes it big,” “girl signs record deal,” “girl hires publicist.” Just in the reverse order. It doesn’t explain why anyone listened to a publicist in the first place, or which “punk rockers”, exactly, wear “flowers in their hair”, or why Sandi losing her cellphone made her want to go back, inexplicably, to both 1977 and 1969. Plot of Back to the Future IV? Moving on.)

Surprisingly, though, the mainstream music press, fawning over faux-indie Scottish pop singers and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, have missed the Web’s one major success story. Here it is. I’ve tried to translate to the language of vacuous promoters, because I know as a journalist we can really never get enough of that. Ahem. (Let me get in character for a second.)

It was in the early years of the 21st Century when a bird of a different feather got to realize a dream. His name is Waldo. He’s a Congo African Grey parrot, with a rich, silky voice that has been compared by fans to “a jackhammer being ground in a compactor.” But, unlike some parrots, Waldo wanted to share that voice with the world.

He was lucky to have some friends. Bandmates Blake and Mark not only provided drums and guitar, but as seasoned studio engineers had the chops to sculpt the sound of Waldo into the signature sonic world of Hatebeak. Thanks to the power of modern digital recording technology, Waldo’s spontaneously-timed squawks and poetic lyrics could be captured and fine-tuned. Breaking open the traditional box of “melody”, Waldo created a new vocal language with roots in spoken word art. And the rest is history.

In the Amazonian warmth of 2004, the world first got to hear the magical sound of Hatebeak tunes like “God of Empty Nest”, pressed lovingly to vinyl. The album, Beak of Putrifaction, was an instant classic. A follow-up coupling Hatebeak with Caninus (with dog vocals) ensured Hatebeak a hallowed place in musical memory, thanks to favorites like “Bird Bites, Dog Cries” and “Bird Seeds of Vengeance.” You’ll hear influences from bands like Morbid Angel and Carcass, but blended effortlessly with catchy, popular appeal.

But getting the word out about the power of avian vocals was a challenge. Record stores generally don’t have a section for the animal kingdom, and many record company execs thought Hatebeak might be seen as having only niche appeal, or, worse yet, that a death metal band with a parrot front man was “gimmicky.” Some suggested Waldo could remake himself as a boy band, taking a cue from legendary acts like Menudo.

Enter the power of the Internet. As loyal listeners connected with the primordial animal power conveyed in Hatebeak’s raw but hummable tunes, buzz spread fast. Sites like Internet magazine Boing Boing and an upstart newsletter for musicians called Create Digital Music pointed to something called an “M-P-3 file”, a special way of formatting LPs that allows them to be transferred using computer modems, without the use of a phonograph. But most point to the turning point when the influential and powerful bird owners’ press caught on, and beloved publications like Parrot Chronicles posted lavish features showing the more personal side of Hatebeak.

Flash forward to 2006. As young audiences increasingly turn away from human vocalists, inspired by avian acts through the power of the Internet, and long for more of the ear-bleeding demonic powers of death metal, Hatebeak is ripe to make it big. Really big. Hatebeak has a new album due this year, and word from the studio is that this one could be the breakthrough crossover hit the band has been waiting for. Add to that a powerful new distribution medium for the band — laser-etched Compact Discs — and you’ll want to make sure you stay logged into the InterWeb with your eyes glued to Reptillian Records. Otherwise, Waldo might just peck your eyes out. Or, probably, just bite your finger.

The bird is the word, indeed.

Hatebeak at Reptilian Records (Think Jurassic Park, folks)

Hatebeak’s MySpace Page (fairly certain he beat Clap Your Hands Say Yeah et al to the punch)

Hatebeak’s MySpace friends page, proof positive that MySpace is the best way for parrot dudes to make lots of photogenic human female friends

Disclaimer: I’m not really Hatebeak’s publicist. Though, Blake and Mark, if you want to hire me, I can proudly say I’ve never handled Beyonce. If that gives me more of your kids’ “indie cred.” -PK

In 2001, everyone wanted to get rich on the Web. In 2006, everyone wants to be a rock star. There’s a musical gold rush now, filled with tales of artists who have made it big through non-traditional, online promotion, like the perpetually-hyped MySpace success story Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The challenge: separate real potential from fiction.

One-man DIY band Brad Sucks was a Web rock star before being a Web rock star was cool. Who else would title his album, brilliantly, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Last week, he was interviewed by GarageSpin, one of my favorite music blogs. He talks about how this got started in 2001, how the DIY spirit in his forums has built his fan base, and, most famously, how his creative commons approach (steal his music, make remixes) has helped spread his music. (For a label that has helped champion that approach, check out Magnatune.) My favorite quote, on his gear setup:

I try to hate all my gear equally at all times to keep the balance of power in my favor. Once gear detects weakness such as having favorites, it’ll break down and quit working right away.

At the other end of the spectrum, this week UK artist Sandi Thom released her first single on RCA, complete with music video. What makes Thom interesting is that she managed to snag a record deal by performing a “virtual tour” from her basement; RCA even signed her in front of her webcam, once they saw her audience rocket to six digits. The song is pretty good, though Sony BMG’s Website has pretty much killed any indie Web spirit. My suggestion: steal the idea, but skip the label. I’m also still working on the idea that her song “I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker”, filled with nostalgia for the good ‘ol days of hippies and writing letters in the mail before she was born (she’s 24), was inspired by losing her cell phone, but I’ll go with it. Fortunately, the boot-stomping rhythms are great, she has the right voice for this.

(Note: This whole thing sounded a bit like a publicist’s creation to me when I first read it, especially since Thom doesn’t have her own personally-crafted site like Brad Sucks. Sure enough, see comments: it sounds as though the whole “Sony BMG stumbled upon the site and signed a contract” a fake. That said, drop the gimmick, do a real webcast, be a real indie band, and please, sing about something other than your lost cell phone. Although, that could make a really great country song . . . hmmmm. Oh, and also, Create Digital Music doesn’t really exist, either. There is no Peter Kirn. Peter Kirn is the fictional creation of a group of interactive media moguls. When we get bought out by MTV tomorrow, that will all have been all staged, too.)

Anyway, the real bottom line: people didn’t tune in because it was a gimmick; they tuned it because it made the Web feel a little more like a live performance. So, sure, Rolling Stone and major labels might be honing in on the gimmicks in the brave new world of Web promotion. But the dynamics of potential fans reading the Web are what’s really powerful, and there are plenty of role models with good ideas, just waiting to be copied and improved upon. I’m holding out for the crazy, experimental artist who makes it big on the Web without an ounce of pop. (Hey, Sun Ra had a label deal. I wish I were an Arkastra member with flowers in my hair.) Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting back to Last.fm’s CreateDigitalMusic group radio station.

No, Microsoft isn't giving away free songs made in Apple GarageBand — that's the other Garageband, as in Garageband.com, a site with peer-reviewed music from unsigned artists. CNet reports
that MSN will distribute Garageband.com music.

UPDATED:

• MP3.com redux: All of the free songs acquired when
  Garageband.com absorbed the defunct site MP3.com will go on MSN Music unless a muscian has opted out
• Free or fee, everybody: Garageband artists will be able to submit
  songs to Garageband.com to be downloaded free or purchased on MSN. All current and future artists will be available for free or fee on MSN music, unless
  they opt out of the deal. This is a big difference between MSN's stance
  and Apple's iTunes; right now there's no simple way to get paid music
  on iTunes without a label and no way to get free music on iTunes
• Featured artists: MSN will
  be featuring links to top Garageband.com artists on their site, and on radio feeds
• Track record: Garageband does have an impressive track record: they've gotten many of their artists signed, and one even went double-platinum
• WMA vs. MP3: Only for-fee music will be offered as Windows Media files; the free music will be in MP3 format, just as on Garageband.com.
• Windows-only: Because MSN Music is powered by Windows
  Media Player and IE, other players, iPods, Macs, and even browsers like
  Firefox are all left out in the cold, even for MSN Music-hosted MP3s. Mac users and other browsers should stick to
  Garageband.com, where you can download normal MP3s or buy good,
  old-fashioned CDs published by cdbaby)

My current take: this is all good news for musicians, because
unless you're one of those featured artists, this deal is entirely
non-exclusive. It's a chance to promote or even sell your music on a
huge Website. If we're lucky, Apple will follow suit, and then our
music will be on both MSN and iTUnes.What's your take?

Hit comments and let us know!