Twitter DJ

I've made the jump and started using Twitter in earnest in the last few weeks. I wasn't sure about it at first, I thought it seemed like it might maybe be just a fad for tech bloggers, desperate politicians, and luvvie radio/tv celebrities keen to show their tech credentials. I suppose I failed to understand its potential usefulness as part of a general online presence - until I started using it, that is.

Twitter is a service that lets you post sms-length 140 character messages ("tweets") to your so-called "followers", people who subscribe to your little missives. As a follower, you get a stream of headlines as people go about their day. People share everything - links, what they had for lunch, philosophical musings, political feelings, literary quotes, where they're going for a drink etc. You'd think this would just give you a load of chatter and noise, but what you get is surprisingly interesting and relevant (I'm wondering if I will feel the same once the novelty has worn off, but for now I'm enthusiastic.)

There are people who twitter well, and people who do it badly. The major mistake seems to be to fill your Tweets with purely marketing-oriented babble. Of course I know you want to sell me stuff, but please at least give me some interesting factoids in between your shameless commercial plugs. For DJs this translates into you not only telling me about your forthcoming gigs or your various Beatport releases. Sure that's all very cool, and honestly I wish you the best of luck, but by the tenth subsequent Tweet on the same subject I've actually given up caring and stopped following you (let's face it you probably already spam me enough via email/Facebook/Myspace already!) I won't mention any names, but I will definitely like you more if you Tweet about other things :-)

As for those who do it well, check out Funkagenda, Dave Seaman and Imogen Heap for starters. What works for me is they don't just talk about their current CD release, but about their general interests, food, travels, studio processes, jokes, favourite bands, whatever - and they sound like human beings (which seems to be an important point to bear in mind whenever you indulge in online conversation, or indeed any kind of conversation). So go ahead, tweet about that Sunday Roast you're cooking - I might even go and buy your next single.

I also dig the fact that you can integrate Twitter with Facebook and Myspace (and other networks) via Ping.Fm or via dedicated applications within FB/MySp. This is really cool since it enables you to automatically synch your updates across Twitter/Facebook/Wherever. I've found that since I've been using Twitter, I've been updating far more often, which translates into more interactivity and stickiness on my Facebook/Myspace pages. Yes of course, I could have been doing that anyway, but the fact is I wasn't, and Twitter woke me up to that. My Facebook profile in particular is far more lively as a result.

So what of it's actual usefulness? Even though I've only just started using it, I can see that it can be integral part of anyone's online presence and personal professional brand, whether you work in music, advertising, or whatever. Used in conjunction with Facebook, Myspace and whatever other social networks you're on, it's another great way to make yourself heard online...

PS: Here are some useful links about Twitter, online music marketing, and online marketing in general:

How to Twitter: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638550095558381.html
Some suggestions on how to behave in the Twitterverse.

Personal Branding: http://mashable.com/2009/02/05/personal-branding-101/
Mashable on setting up your online personal brand.

What Would Google Do?: http://www.buzzmachine.com/what-would-google-do/
Very zeitgeisty book on applying Google's business ethics to absolutely everything.

New Music Strategies: http://www.newmusicstrategies.com/
Andrew Dubber's blog about the music biz in the internet age. Essential reading.

And finally you can find me Twittering on about fine cuisine, airport experiences, books, and, yes, gig dates, at:
http://www.twitter.com/moussaclarke

Videos from Freestyle in Almetyevsk and Neon in Kirov on Youtube

Last month, I was back in Russia again, and had the pleasure of playing in Almetyevsk on the 14th February, and in Kirov on the 28th February. Both gigs and cities were interesting in their own right!

The party in Almetyevsk was A LOT bigger than I expected - I had imagined some small scale club, but walked into a rollerdome filled with stack speakers and what looked like about 4,000 people having it. Check out a little clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0AXoMao5To

Kirov was great too, a fine city with very friendly and relaxed people. The gig at Neon Club was for the local branch of STS, a TV channel, and we were followed around all day by a TV crew. I'll post a video of the TV newspiece at a later date, but in the meantime here's some clips from the club:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckfZFQ2Gq_I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPbuQc4GuXg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gmhLUPhEfA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdTJc3TN23w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWBehPljqR0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XHr55qif0A

An Englishman in Russia Part 1 of 10

It's no secret that I've got a bit of an ongoing fascination with Russia and other countries in the CIS. I've been visiting regularly since 2001, and I've made many, many friends there. I love the energy of the people and the clubs there, and I find it culturally extremely interesting.

The country is vast, a sprawling mass of contradictions. On the one hand you have the impossibly rich elite of Moscow and the major cities, fat from the spoils of the 1990s and Russia's huge wealth of natural resources, and the shamelessly wannabe rich, who have embraced US-style materialism like no tomorrow, sporting a kind of ultra-capitalism which sits rather uncomfortably with my European liberal mores. (Although as I'm reminded by well-to-do Russians, this is because twenty years ago, they had nothing, and maybe tomorrow, they will have nothing, so they're making sure they're enjoying the present). On the other hand, you have relative deprivation in the countryside - living in a "quaint" village is absolutely not an aspiration for well-heeled middle-class city folk like it is, say, in the UK. Strong individualism coupled with collectivism and a huge generosity of spirit; rampant inward-looking conservatism, but an ultra-liberal open-ness amongst many to everything that is new or foreign; extreme beauty and desolate ugliness; unbearably chaotic yet tightly regimented (the trains and metro are cheap and run on time! amazing for a Brit!); traditional values and decadent moral relativism (Russians tell me that when the Communist system was in action, they were essentially told how to think and behave, and since it broke down, and during the turbulent 1990's, there was a sense, that, hey, maybe anything is permitted); genius/talented/creative/destructive/violent/fatalistic; all or nothing.

Contradictions - Russia is all of these things and more, once you put your finger on any characteristic, it surprises you, morphs, and eludes you. I have a lot of affection for it, and particularly (and this is the main thing) for the many fantastic people I've met there. The famous "Russkaya Dusha", the Russian soul, at once hard, dry and pragmatic, and vodka-soaked and sentimentally romantic...

In the second half of 2008, Russia.Ru (Russia's biggest Internet TV website) asked me if I would be interested in taking part in a documentary series where a camera crew would follow me discovering the "real" Russia. I immediately agreed, of course.

This is the intro to "An Englishman in Russia", the first of an initial 10 episodes, filmed over the space of a few days in the Caucasus, the colourful multi-faceted and multi-ethnic South-Western region of Russia, on my way to a gig in the city of Stavropol. Directed by the acclaimed Russian documentary maker Alexander Rastorguev. Enjoy!

http://www.russia.ru/video/moussa_clarke_in_russia_p1/