Favorite Things:
Music: Found some great artists on Sonicbids this past year: Silver Seas, Koufax, slimpocket to name a few.
Books: Finally got around to reading Bill Graham’s autobiography as well as an interesting book called Stiffed about some shady dealings at MCA records during the 80s (similar to Hitmen).
Websites: The most interesting new music related website I’ve heard about over the past year has to be What.cd, an invite-only community for sharing music over bittorrent that sprung up after OiNK was shutdown. What makes What.cd interesting is that they call attention to bands that encourage P2P sharing of their music. According to TorrentFreak, the most active download on What.cd is a compilation cd featuring bands that posted albums to the site.
Music Films: Got myself a copy of Wattstax on DVD and it quickly became one of my favorite concert films of all time. See my top five here.
The Past and Future:
An unprecedented 60,000 gigs were booked last year by artists using Sonicbids for some really cool opportunities like Scarlet Sins opening for Motley Crue, and Vicki Genfan being selected by Steve Vai, and Joe Satriani, in Guitar Player Magazine's 2008 Guitar Superstar Competition to name a few.
We also launched an exciting new tool based on member feedback called the Submission Tracker to give artists more transparency and control with the submission process. Before the end of 2008 we should also have a new look for Gig Listing pages that will provide more detailed info about each gig. Check the Builder's Blog for an inside look into new features we're working on.
About You:
- Lou Paniccia
- Product Manager
- Sonicbids.com
When not rocking out on the drums in one of his bands, Lou is hard at work in the Product Team, helping to develop cool new features for Sonicbids members. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Lou puts his formal music training to good use as the drummer for the Frank Zappa cover band The Brain Police as well as several other Boston area bands. If you enjoy cyberstalking, feel free to follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SonicbidsLou.
