Back Online Jan 1st 2011

We appreciate everyones patience while we enjoy this holiday break.
For all of you who celebrated we hope yours was as enjoyable as ours.
Happy New Year!

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

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Happy Holidays All Over Globe

Enjoy your Hanukkah, kwanza, Christmas, etc..... Time for family and
deliciously sugary foods.

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Jingle all the way....

I've started to put more thought into the jingle/song for our new
clients safety video. Based on the sample we were provided the
approach will be for us to develop our theme (safety) for the actual
video and build the song around it. The exciting yet potentially
challenging part of this is that there has been zero footage shot for
this video.

Ultimately the end result will be decided by the client. As we go
along we will provide updates to make certain our creative directions
are parallel. We should be starting this project with in the next
couple of weeks. Our deadline is June of 2011 but we are looking to
get it done by the end of February pending other higher priority
projects that come up. Getting a client a project early is always
good for business.

As always... Thanks for reading.

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

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Scrabbled Wine & Champagne

A fireplace, game of scrabble, snow covered mountains, and friends
with Wine & Champagne playing in the background.....

It's interesting when you play your music for a group of
friends/people hoping they compliment your work.

It's actually pretty great when they don't say anything at all and
still really enjoy what their doing (scrabble).

Compliments in the form of silence are just as great as verbal flattery.

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

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Adele - Feb 22nd

For all of you who are into soulful and lyrically moving music you
should check out Adele. Her last album "19" dropped in January 2008
and was a hit in the States and all over Europe. Her new album "21"
will be out in February 2011.

You can get "19" on iTunes now and I highly recommend buying the
"iTunes Live From SoHo."

"Hometown Glory" is a moving masterpiece.

Check out a brief bio:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_(singer)?wasRedirected=true

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

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Local Food Music

There is a local restaurant chain in the D.C. area we go to every couple of weeks for dinner.  We went over to the spot in South East D.C. this past Monday and had a 30 minute wait.  A 30 minute wait is impressive for a Monday evening and likely because the food is always excellent. 

 I have always noticed the music being played and that it is extremely similar to what I have produced.  I sparked a conversation with the hostess and waitress about the music.  I asked if its a set play-list or a random search on iTunes.  Come to find out it is a random process of music selection, according to the waitress.  I asked for the managers business card and will be reaching out to him early next week about putting some of our music on their play-list.  It seems like it will be an easy sell because the music currently played is not restricted/licensed and all I am asking for is exposure.   

It would be pretty awesome to go out to dinner on a Friday night and hear one of our songs being played while sipping on a Bacardi and Coke (with lime).  I will update on this next week or as soon as we get a response.        

Enjoy your Thursday night

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

In The Lobby on Valentine's Day

  I remember a few months ago thinking about asking the leasing manager of our building to play my music in the lobby.  I thought it would be a great resource for exposure considering at least 100 people come through the lobby each day.  I also thought it would be pretty awesome to come home after a long day of work and hear my own music when I walk in the door.

I came home this evening after a long days work and guess what?  I was asked by the front desk to play my music in the lobby.  He said it would be great laid back music to play in the evening.  It may be something minuscule to some but to me it is another step in the right direction.  Each step up counts as a step towards success.  I believe in my music but it is always nice to hear someone else say the same.

February - I was asked today by the leasing manager to put music together for a Valentines Day building party/social event in February.  I don't know exactly what I am going to put together for this event but I have a few weeks to plan.  Your ideas are always appreciated.....

For those of you outside of the U.S. who are not familiar with Valentine's Day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day 


Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG 

Pure Imagination

"Come with me
And you'll be
In a world of
Pure imagination
Take a look
And you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation
What we'll see
Will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There's nothing
To it."

Above are a portion of the lyrics to "Pure Imagination" sung by Gene Wilder in the 1971 classic "Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory."  It truly is a majestic and timeless song. It is also a part of my all time favorite sound track.  It was made specifically for this movie.  Check it out on iTunes

Wine & Champagne

  If you have been reading our blog over the past couple of weeks you will know that we put together a CD to sell at a local fundraiser.  The fundraiser went really well and we sold several CD's.

I never did mention the name of the CD.  It is titled "Wine & Champagne."  The name came to me randomly when I completed mixing all of the songs with their own title but didn't have one for the CD.  There is an eclectic batch of musical genres on this CD ranging from mild Classical, Jazz, R&B, to Funk.

The idea behind the CD title is that some songs call for celebration and others call for relaxation.  The first thing I could think of was, "What comes to mind when your at an event and you're drinking wine or champagne?"  It really just made sense and flowed with the concept of the CD from beginning to end.

Earlier today I received call from a friend of a friend who attended the fundraiser and purchased one of our CD's.  She asked me if she could buy 2 copies.  I am flattered and very much appreciative she called me in support of my work verses burning a copy of her friends CD.  We charged $8.00 per CD during the event and will likely stick to that for now.  It is less than an iTunes CD but not so cheap it seems sketchy.
Our goal is to have this CD on iTunes by mid January of next year (next month).  Once we put it out we will be sure to say (blog) loud and proud....  We really appreciate everyone's support from the start.  We have received nothing but positive feedback.

Talk to you tomorrow

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

P.S.  We received more info on the Safety video jingle.  He sent us a sample and it looks like it's going to be a fun challenge.  More to come on this in the coming weeks.  

Jingle Safety & Networking

Last night we went to a retirement for Eric's uncle. A family member was at the retirement party who works for a large electrical company. A part of his job is Safety and training all personnel what not to do and how not to do it. He approached Eric and I about creating a jingle for a safety video he was putting together for work. He plans to send me a sample video sometime this week to give us an idea of what he is looking for. It sounds like it could be a new and exciting experience.

Since this was a party there of course was a DJ. Of course the best thing about having business cards is giving them away. BSMG is not so much into DJ'ing but of course music is universal and if I can help him out he can help me out. After the party was over I went up on the stage and talked with him for about 10 mins. We discussed what the other does, how long we've been doing music, and we are looking to do in the future. He is based out of Maryland and is completing a recording studio build sometime early 2011. We exchanged information and it felt like a mutually beneficial conversation.

Networking is the easiest and one of the most affective (and free) ways of expanding a business. From a self-confidence perspective it can be challenging to walk up to someone you don't know and spark up a conversation. I have certainly do not lack self-confidence but even I can hesitate at times depending on the situation. The options for me are to approach an opportunity or walk away wondering what I missed.

On comes Monday!

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

Classical tracks

Jackie Gleason (mood music)
Montivonio
Brahms
Franck
Tchaikovsky

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CD's and Compliments

Last night went really well. We received tons of compliments and sold
9 CD's. That's not bad considering we did no promotion prior to (no
time) and there was 50-75 people there. It was also a fundraiser for
DC Child and Family Services making it inappropriate to promote our CD
during and prior to the event. Towards the end of the event A
couple of people who purchased the CD started talking to others in the
room and it blew up from there. We had a few folks approach us to
create music for thier work events and the manager of our building
wants us to create/play our music at all future events. Incredibly
and quite surreal for me, I was asked to autograph our CD by several
folks who bought it. That's something I didn't expect at this point
with us really just now starting to put our music out on display.
That was definatly the highlight of the event for me. It was
fantastic to have such great support and reinforced that all the
handwork we put in for preparation paid off.

For our first real event we are more than pleased and excited about
the outcome. Stay tuned!

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

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A Good Cause and an Autograph

The event has officially ended for the night. Money was raised for
Child and Family Services (CFS) everyone had a great time.

I was asked 4 separate times to autograph our CD for people who bought
it. Crazy! Stay tuned for more tomorrow.....I'm beat.

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I'm tired

I'm tired. It's been a long week. Tomorrows the big day and I've got
3.5 songs left to mix. Sleepless nights and early mornings....

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Mixing & 12 Tracks

I have been spending a lot of time this week mixing all of the music for our CD. We have a name for the CD and have selected 12 songs to be on the CD. Eric, BSMG CEO, did a fantastic job creating the CD cover. Once we unveil our CD on Friday I will give you all the details. We're pretty excited (even though we have no idea what to expect.)

Good Night
Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

Perfection?

I mentioned yesterday that we will be attending an auction this Friday to showcase and sell our music. I have spent the last couple of nights perfecting my music until my ears started to fall inside-out. It seems no matter how much I work on each song I always hear something I want to change. I am learning when to call it quits without compromising quality. It's been a long day/night. Check out tomorrow.

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG

CD's For Everyone....

 This Friday, December 10th, we will be attending an auction to raise money for Child and Family Services here in D.C.  The host of the event heard my music and loved it.  She asked if we could bring more music to play during the auction to have people listen and buy our CD.  Of course I said yes.  We will be playing 12 lounge/down-tempo house tracks.  We have not sorted out how much we will charge per CD but it will be a reasonable price. 

Now the difficult part...

Being this is the first time we have attempted to sell physical CD's this will be an interesting process.
(I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a CD in a store.) We have no interest in selling CD's with our name written on it in marker.   I know that we are not a major distributor or publisher but amateur is not the perception we want to portray. 

Eric, BSMG COO, did hours of research on CD cover art, design, and printing.  We have ordered all of the materials and should have them in by Tuesday.  We created the CD cover design and I invented a new word in the process.  (I will be happy to share the word with you when it has been trademarked.)  I am putting together a play-list of 12 songs from our current music catalog.  Tweaking the audio on each for the most crisp sound has been a perfectionist headache.  This week we will be spending lots of hours getting ourselves prepared for the 10th.   

Yes, you can trademark a word but there are stipulations.  See trademark website if you're interested in learning more. http://www.uspto.gov/

Stay tuned for updates and enjoy your week.

Chuck Anderson
CEO, BSMG   

PS - We decided not to go with Taxi.com for now.  Not for negative reasons, we just prefer to keep that resource on the shelf until we are fully interested.    

 

Oppurtunity Knocks

This afternoon we were given an oppurtunity to showcase my music at an
upcoming event. The event will take place here in our building on the
10th of Dec. Now all we have to do is print CD covers and figure out
how much to charge per CD. Or do we give them out for exposure
purposes? This will be fun.

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