Good Energy from Geetan

Enigmatic, energetic Manchester (UK) based artist Geetan has posted a page about Independent Artist Aid on his website, Geetan.com.

A friend made through the pages of the DIY musicians' resource MWS Media (check it out) and at Garageband.com, we're proud to list Geetan among the friends of IAA. Thanks!!

New Earthquake in Tsunami region

A massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia has killed hundreds of people and triggered tsunami alerts around the Indian Ocean.


picture from BBCi
Read BBCi news story

Mercy Corps, which responded quickly to aid survivors of December’s tsunami, has over 200 staff in the region ready to provide rapid assistance. The organization has offices in Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, two cities on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Mercy Corps is monitoring the situation, and is prepared to act quickly to deliver lifesaving aid, if needed.

Mercy Corps prepared to take immediate action... (read more)

Did you hear it?

If you missed the Radio Six International special just now, all is not lost.

Don't forget you can stream the whole of Hope Never Dies from Indienetunes.com.

Most importantly, don't forget to buy a copy while you're there.

There's an update on WHY at the Mercy Corps site.

International Artist Aid

Don't forget to tune into Radio Six International's special programme on Hope Never Dies which starts very shortly...



Radio Six International is a private (not for profit) experimental Internet and shortwave station run from Scotland by radio enthusiasts (some of whom moonlight for the BBC on their days off from Radio 6. That's how much they love radio - they just can't get enough...). Tune in and you will hear an interesting mixture of easy listening, lounge, exotica, oldies and contemporary music with a little light music, classical, country, and jazz. With a loyal and vocal listenership in around 100 countries, the station has a policy of championing new and unsigned acts alongside seasoned stars such as Janis Ian, The Electric Prunes, Thunderclap Newman and Tony Hatch.

A special full-length feature programme on Independent Artist Aid airs at 0250 British Summertime....0150 GMT on Easter Sunday, March 27 (that's 2050 EST/1750 PST Saturday March 26 in the USA, 0350 CEST Easter Sunday in Vienna, 0950 Easter Sunday in Hong Kong and 1150 Easter Sunday in Melbourne). In about half an hour from now, in other words.

Enjoy!!

Radio playlist

Dear all, well in fact this is a very old news hehe :P

My IAA-HND track Neptune Retrograde was featured in a radio playlist quite a while ago before we got this CD going, just would love to share with you too!

The station is called Sounds Like Radio which is run by another GB member. My track was featured in the Fresh #2 playlist. Actually quite a lot of the tracks featured in this station's playlists are written by GB artists.

Frankie

Banners

If you scroll down the Media Resources page at Independentartistaid.tk you will find all manner of buttons, flyers and banners, in numerous shapes and sizes, to help us spread the word about Hope Never Dies, as well as help with how to post images in case you need it.

This one, which measures 400x80px, was designed by Frank of Aussie band isenho (song #12... Shining Star).



New stuff gets added to that page from time to time, so it's worth checking every now and then.

The story so far...

Indienetunes.com sent off the first cheque - for $752.00 - from profits on sales of Independent Artist Aid - Hope Never Dies to Mercy Corps this week.

The quest to promote Hope Never Dies continues apace with a lot of action taking place behind the scenes right now, which will be reported here as soon as we are able to do so.

In the UK we had a very nice plug on BBC Radio Scotland on Wednesday at the end of the Iain Anderson show (this can be heard till Wednesday April 23 by clicking on the "Wed" link on this page). Still in Scotland, the Tollcross Channel at myEdinburgh.org has added a link to us, and next Saturday at 0150 GMT (0250 British Summertime) Glasgow-based internet station Radio Six International will broadcast a full length feature programme on Independent Artist Aid.

Still online, talent scouts LoadPuller have selected Happening (song #6 on the CD) for this week's playlist on Hidden Radio. Full previews of all tracks have been playlisted on Planet of Sound TK Radio on Live 365.

We now have a spanking new URL address - independentartistaid.tk - to house all the various sections of the IAA project: one click away from the order page, streaming audio and all the background information you could possibly desire.

The major media spotlight has moved away from the tsunami-affected regions now, with governments advising people to give to other causes and many charities pulling out of the trickier areas.

BUT:
The death toll is still rising. It's likely that more may die from diseases spreading due to contaminated water supplies and the breakdown of public health and sanitation systems. Aid agencies face difficult logistical issues in distributing clean water, food and medical supplies. More than 5 million people were made homeless. Many have lost their families, their communities and livelihoods. The task of rebuilding the lives of survivors will take years. The knock-on effect of the psychological damage inflicted by the tsunami shouldn't be underestimated either.

All these issues are being addressed by Mercy Corps, who are in for the long haul, dealing with all the less glamorous aspects of the aftermath that others have left behind for a multitude of reasons. We're hanging in there too - a very small drop in a large and turbulent ocean - and every penny counts.

Thanks to all who have bought copies of our CD already - if you haven't, what are you waiting for? This is a REALLY GOOD ALBUM with some CRACKING TUNES on it and it's for a GOOD CAUSE. What more do you need?

Easy Access (3)

Well the problems with the short URLs seem to have abated for the moment, and we are now connected up via the long address hosted at cupparecords.com.

Just because I discovered we can, I've also signed up for our own domain name -

http://independentartistaid.tk

which takes you to the same place.

It's free and will stay online as long as we get a miniumum of third-party traffic (this means you) stopping by the site.

IAA song playlisted

Woodstock Taylor's track Happening (song #6 on Hope Never Dies) will be playlisted on Hidden Radio from March 19.

To find out more about Hidden Radio, check out their site, view their blog and most importantly, listen to the music!!

Until Further Notice...

In the light of recent server problems with our redirect host, I've put up a new page which links to all the different public elements of our compilation CD project.

http://cupparecords.com/iaa

It's all at cupparecords.com - at the above link.

Easy Access (2)

The bad news - There have been some problems accessing the servers hosting our re-direct URLs at iaa.does.it and iaa.says.it over the past few days. This means that people using those addresses to reach the main order page and background information will have seen an error page instead of what they were looking for.

The good news - IAA is alive and well and open for business.

Click here to listen to full audio previews of the album Independent Artist Aid - Hope Never Dies

Click here to order the CD

Click here to learn more about Independent Artist Aid and to download media resources.

Click here to contact Independent Artist Aid.

Servers back online

Our custom URL addresses at http://iaa.does.it/ and http://iaa.says.it/ were offline for a short while but normal service has now been resumed.

The redirect URLs come from a great free service operating out of Sweden - http://has.it - it's been terrific for a project like this, which is operating completely on goodwill and without a budget, to be able to get short, memorable URL addresses to help people remember where we are on the Web.

However we don't have any control over server outages at their end, so it's worth encouraging people to check here if it happens again - there will always be a visible direct link both to the main iaa.does.it order page at Indienetunes.com and to the Electronic Information Kit and media resources at iaa.says.it.

Easy access

In case you have been trying to access either the main Independent Artist Aid page at http://iaa.does.it or the electronic information kit at http://iaa.says.it and failed to reach the required pages, it appears the servers hosting our short web addresses have been experiencing some down time.

So please feel free to use these links to reach your destination.

Independent Artist Aid - Hope Never Dies:

LISTEN AND BUY

LEARN MORE

A Date For Your Diary

Cult radio station Radio Six International has scheduled a special full-length feature programme on Independent Artist Aid - Hope Never Dies over the Easter weekend.



One of the true veterans of the indie broadcasting scene, Radio Six has been on the go for over 40 years and is currently bringing in an enthusiastic and loyal listenership from close to 100 countries, including areas affected by the Tsunami last Christmas.

Radio Six International is a private (not for profit) experimental Internet and shortwave station operating from Scotland and playing an interesting mixture of easy listening, lounge, exotica, oldies and contemporary music with a little light music, classical, country, and jazz. The station has a policy of championing new and unsigned acts alongside seasoned stars such as Janis Ian, The Electric Prunes, Thunderclap Newman and Tony Hatch.

You can hear the special on Hope Never Dies at 0150 GMT on Easter Sunday, March 27 (that's 2050 EST/1750 PST Saturday March 26 in the USA, 0250 Easter Sunday in Vienna, 0950 Easter Sunday in Hong Kong and 1150 Easter Sunday in Melbourne). Enjoy!!

Vagabond - The Musical

Hey this is the trailer of the upcoming musical I am working on. I know it's all Chinese but well.... :)

www.dramagallery.com/trailer3min.wmv

I am working on getting an ad in the house programme for the IAA CD... well it won't be open till the end of April but I hope that still helps. Anyway will let you know when they approve it (well the theatre company has no control on the contents of the house programme so we need to wait till the approval of the Arts Development Council or whatever that thing is called!)

Frankie

Hope Never Dies - it's official

We are now an official Mercy Corps fundraising venture, with the announcement of Independent Artist Aid - Hope Never Dies on the Mercy Corps' own site:

'Hope Never Dies'
March 1, 2005


A consortium of independent recording artists has joined with online distributor IndieNetunes to raise money for Mercy Corps' tsunami-relief efforts.

Musicians from seven countries banded together as "Independent Artist Aid" and contributed 17 tracks to a benefit CD entitled "Hope Never Dies." read more...

Sales of the CD have been increasing steadily, with an extra boost thanks to this latest acknowledgement, supplemented by promotional efforts from musicians and the staff at Indienetunes.com, who have been hard at work canvassing support through website postings and mass mailouts. Some donors have given well over the asking price for the album - great news for the long task ahead for Mercy Corps as they work with survivors of the Tsunami to rebuild economically productive lives out of the shattered ruins.