New York – Actress and singer, Cynthia Basinet petitions the United Nations Sixty-second General Assembly Fourth Committee on behalf of issues facing the Western Sahara.

From the UN official site:

CYNTHIA BASINET, singer and actress, said that the international community had a moral responsibility as steward of the Saharawi people, and that a shift in heart and not just policy was required. Anemia, diabetes, tuberculosis, stunting and acute malnutrition were plaguing the Saharawi population, and yet 90 per cent of the population had attended school and were literate, according to a 1998 study.

She expressed deep concern over land mine explosions, such as that which had claimed the life of 8 year-old Fatima Bent Ibrahim this past year. Food prices rivaled those of Europe, with camel meat costing about €4 and the price of potatoes and milk equally prohibitive. Finally, refugees living abroad were unable to bring relatives with them because Western Sahara was not recognized by the United Nations, nor were documents and passports.

It took all facets to make the world a diamond, she said, and the international community must look beyond traditional methods of aid to consider public-private partnerships and microlending, among other forms of assistance, so that Saharawis were not “slowly delineated from the human map of the world”.

Cynthia visited the W. Sahara in ‘01 in efforts to raise awareness for the Saharwian refugees living in self-determination.

She was later nominated for a shared Nobel Peace Prize as part of the “1000 PeaceWomen Across the Globe”.

The singer is best known for hits “Santa Baby” and “Tea For Two” .

For more visit:
www.cynthiabasinet.com

Boston, MA — If you’re riding the wave of the indie music revolution you’re about to get a huge boost. Music career coach Peter Spellman has just released the second edition of Indie Marketing Power: THE Resource Guide for Maximizing Your Music Marketing – a 388-page resource-rich handbook designed to help all music entrepreneurs navigate through the hundreds of marketing and promotional opportunities available today.

“This is a guide you can refer to again and again because it is full of easy-to-apply best marketing practices any music company can benefit from,” says Spellman. “Just put this Indie Marketing Power on your desktop and you’ll have a reliable marketing tool kit to refer to for all your promo and marketing needs.”

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby has this to say about this new book: “INDIE MARKETING POWER is the most helpful book for musicians promoting their music that I have ever seen. I’m considering this not just essential reading, but REQUIRED reading for every musician I know!”

Indie Marketing Power delivers market intelligence, smart strategies and fresh perspectives on essential music marketing ideas and practices. It covers everything from discovering your unique market niche and assessing your current marketing practices, to tapping the power of your audience, securing profitable license deals and expanding your music overseas. In between you’ll discover the best promotional practices for live performance, selling merchandise, working the media, using ecommerce, building your mailing lists, securing radio airplay, finding the right distributors, attracting sponsors, and much, much more. The final chapter walks you through the process of writing a results-driven marketing plan, and three glossaries and a 38-page Further Resource Guide top it off.

Indie Marketing Power sells for $24.95 (eBook) and $34.95 (print) respectively and is available exclusively from Music Business Solutions (mbsolutions.com/books).

Additional MBS Guides include “Plan Your Band!,” “Your Successful CD Release” and “Indie Power: A Business-Building Guide for Record Labels, Music Production Houses, and Merchant Musicians.”

Author Peter Spellman is Director of Career Development at Berklee College of Music, Boston, and a recognized expert on music business development and grass roots music marketing. He is featured in the documentary film, “What is Indie?” and his Guides are used in universities across the country and in over twenty-five countries around the world.

All MBS Guides can be purchased at http://www.mbsolutions.com/books

Emerging from Montreal, Anyma burst onto the ambient scene in 2004 with his debut album, Volume 1. The band’s latest album, Volume 2, blends Ghislain chilling mood with thunderous atmospherics to generate a disc overflowing with spine-tingling classics.

With standout tracks like “Messages” or “Emotional Senses” look for Anyma to be a major force in the ambient landscape for years to come.

You can listen to all the tracks at iTunes

Enjoy the listening !

Ghislain

http://www.anymaworld.com

London, UK — Kerchoonz, the UK-based social networking site that pays musicians for the use of their music and videos, announced today that they will be the first site to use age certification and rating system for videos content streamed on the site.

The announcement conforms with recommendations made last month by Parliament’s Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. The panel determined that videos posted on sharing sites like YouTube should carry age certificates and those containing adult content or violence should be subject to TV-style ratings commonly used today to safeguard children.

“We want to comply as much as possible with the recommendations of policy makers while not stifling the free speech of our registered content creators,” noted Christian Ulf Hansen, former Director of Writer / Publisher Relations BMI Europe. “Unlike sites like YouTube which simply use an adult block, we’ve developed a complex rating system that protects youngsters from unsuitable content while providing conditional access to our registered users.”

Although pornographic material will be barred from the Kerchoonz site, videos uploaded to the site will be subject to a rating system based on nudity, violence or explicit language. The system includes ‘universal’, over-15 or over-18 ratings.

In meeting the panels recommendations, Kerchoonz’ rating system will block adult content from public viewing on the site prior to 9:00 PM. In addition, content rated “15″ and “18″ will only be accessible to logged-in adult users. The rating system will operate using Geo IP address location technology that recognizes time differences world-wide by logging the IP location of the user.

Slated for launch this month and backed by a $490,000 investment from the Scottish Co-investment Fund, social media platform Kerchoonz lets registered artists and songwriters share their music and videos with fans while getting paid for every stream and download.

Fans, musicians and music industry professionals are invited to sign up in this pre-beta stage at http://www.kerchoonz.com

Artist development and marketing firm MusicDish announced that four new acts have signed on to its roster over the last month, including 2008 GMA Dove Award winning Ryan Farish, gospel singer Desmond Pringle, jazz fusion artist Gary Paul Bryant, and NY rocker Tim Young.

Each artist will be supported by a customized mutli-pronged marketing campaign incorporating a mix of PR, syndication, online street and viral distribution. Marketing will be coordinated a variety of platforms, from its business music portals and syndicated network to MP3 blogs, webradio and groups/forums. For more information, visit http://www.musicdish.net/marketing/

Ryan Farish
Grammy nominated, 2008 GMA Dove Award winning songwriter/producer/composer Ryan Farish, first launched his music career on the first generation mp3.com, where his music quickly took to the masses obtaining a whopping 1,800,000+ downloads of his trademark, electronic-jazz-world music.
http://www.ryanfarish.com

Desmond Pringle
Tommy Boy Gospel artist Desmond Pringle is a passionate vocalist with a unique brand of balladry — and one of the most talented songwriter/producers in gospel music today. Whether delivering his signature-smooth ballads, thought provoking lyrics or energetic choir songs, Desmond has already taken his place among the ranks of great gospel artists of his generation.
http://www.desmondpringle.com

Gary Paul Bryant
Veteran jazz fusion artist Gary Paul Bryant has released his latest (10th) album “WildLife.” Applying the rock energy of artists like Joel, John and Keith Emerson with lighter touches of Jazz and New Age artists like David Arkenstone and David Lanz, Bryant creates a unique blend of rock, pop jazz and world music that’s very unique and appealing.
http://www.wildlifethecd.com
http://www.garypaulbryant.com

Tim Young
Rocker Tim Young, veteran to the New York music scene, has been performing in Manhattan for years. Tim Young’s third CD The Cost features twelve new songs and a brand new version of his own tune “Renegade” from RED. On the album, Tim takes guitar, bass and drums and puts them together in a classy classic kind of way to create music that envelopes not only rock, but also country and folk influences woven into the fabric of rock ‘n roll.
http://www.timrocksweb.com

MusicDish, LLC has been at the forefront of the digital music sector, publishing some of the industry’s leading music magazine, including MusicDish.com and Mi2N.com, as well as dynamic white label content solutions. MusicDish also offers artist development and label management support, combining saturated online marketing with business networking and consulting.
http://www.musicdish.net

For more about Nadia and her music, visit www.nadiaworld.com.

For those who are just hopelessly “out of the loop” { } and still have no clue what the “Music and Spirit” blog is, read on!

I have been running an interesting blog on MySpace now for the last nine months or so, at www.myspace.com/musicandspirit. There are currently 40 AMAZING artists in my Top Friends who are all very much worth supporting. In addition, there are many more in my modest friend space which is currently at 150+, most of them musicians.

The blog itself consists of about 35 entries, some extensive, showcasing artists’ lyrics and additional material provided by the artists themselves, in addition to several reviews by myself. The word “spirit” in its title is NOT a reference to dogmatic spirituality. I consider a good love song to be “spiritual.”

This site and blog are open to any songwriter who wishes to message me and send a friend request. I reserve the right to decide on the suitability of the material– please review my profile page, listen to the artists, and look at the blog itself. You will see that there is a wide variety of styles represented, and you will be able to judge for yourself if this is a place where you’d like to have your music “found.” It is free, and will remain free, forever.

And be sure to read the top blog entry, my interview with the “Awesome Artist of the Month”, who is currently Annika Fehling from Sweden! The profile song, which you hear before you go to the blog, or after you go back to the profile page, is one of hers.

Currently, I am receiving spontaneous friend requests from really good artists, EVERYWHERE! Germany, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Britain, and of course, the USA. It is good, free exposure for any artist who has “the right stuff.”

Be Well–
Blogger Van
http://www.myspace.com/musicandspirit

MusicianPromote.com, an Internet music promotion and press release site, announced the launch of MusicianPromote Newswire at http://musicianpromote.mi2n.com. Featuring daily news stories focused on today’s emerging indie music community, the newswire will significantly increase website stickiness while providing a press release distribution service to its growing artists membership.

MusicianPromote is the latest website to join MusicDish’s PR Service Platform, supported by leading music news publisher Mi2N (Music Industry News Network). The PR Service Platform provides fully functional white label solutions to websites seeking more content for their audience as well as a means to better monetize their traffic. By white labeling its PR marketing services to meet the needs of specific website, MusicDish provides them with an additional revenue stream to advertising.

“In the current economic conditions, partnerships with company’s such as MusicianPromote will be key in better serving the independent music community while developing new business opportunities,” said MusicDish founder Eric de Fontenay. “This partnership is a clear win-win for everyone.

MusicianPromote.com joins a growing network of music websites supported by the MusicDish PR Service Platform, including:
- Berlin-based music conference Popkomm;
- communities such as Music Gorilla and Indie-Music;
- digital distributors BFM Digital and UK-based Kerascene Music;
- social network site AMG Live; to name a few. For more information on MusicDish PR Service Platform, visit http://musicdish.net/net/newswire/

MusicDish, LLC has been at the forefront of the digital music sector, publishing some of the industry’s leading music magazine, including MusicDish.com and Mi2N.com, as well as dynamic white label content solutions. MusicDish also offers artist development and label management support, combining saturated online marketing with business networking and consulting.
http://www.musicdish.net

The JUNE edition of Bandit has just been published to my strictly limited number of subscribers world-wide.

Another brand new batch of world-wide labels, publishers, managers, producers, etc all eager to get involved with new music and artists. This month we have a top producer looking for a female singer for a major label project, a studio based label looking for a band that plays “real” music, more labels looking to sign acts in the PUNK, ROCK, SOUL, DANCE, POP and HIP HOP areas and some managers and publishers looking to discover brand new talent – and more, All kinds of stuff!!

Look through this latest issue by clicking through to
http://www.banditnewsletter.com
and see all those people in there who want to review your type of music. Send them your demo and who knows, they may be knocked out by it!

Get to the front of the queue by starting to proactively interact with people ready to invest in you!

Try Bandit’s great service for just $2 / 1 ukp and get the current JUNE issue, the JULY issue, the 3 latest back issues, PLUS 2 FREE REPORTS – “The Bandit Guide to sending demos” AND ” How to get noticed by the Music Business”, by signing up for the intro subscription deal at

http://www.banditnewsletter.com

If you agree that Bandit will bring you solid, useful, up to the minute information for you to use to get your music heard by the right people, do nothing more and enjoy your monthly issues,
If not just cancel in the next 30 days and pay nothing more!!

Regards
John Waterman Editor

411 On The Independent Music Movement DVD series offers detailed instruction for independent artists on how to promote and sell music in the US and internationally. Music industry experts come together to offer guidance in the 6 hour, 3 disc series.

Aneel Robinson is the man behind the “411″ DVD. As a performing artist on tour, other musicians asked how he succeeded in the music industry himself. Aneel did encounter obstacles getting his own career up and running, producing CDs and organizing national tours. His experiences, good and bad, led him to produce the DVD series over the past 2 years.

The “411″ DVD provides insider knowledge on the music industry, enabling artists to get their music heard. There are more self-made artists today than ever before, and the competition is fierce. This DVD series gives the emerging musician a leg up on the competition. The DVD series offers instruction on music distribution, retailing and airplay, marketing, copywriting and how to set up your own business. Listen to the music industry experts’ advice and practical suggestions including Music Distributors such as Derek Sivers, of CDBaby.com, and International Distributors such as D.J. John Dean in the UK.

Look for the “411″ DVD through music distributors such as Midwest Tape, www.filmbaby.com , and Aneel’s web site at www.411onmusic.com.

Included in the DVD package are 3 discs, each with over 2 instruction hours, a music industry database including more than 9,000 contacts, and over 50 articles on music industry topics. The DVD series retail price is $49.95. For the next month, it is available at a discounted price of $29.95.

Aneel Robinson, of Music 4 Da Soul Records, is the creator and director of the “411″ DVD Series. You may know him from the Gavin Charts and winning the ‘Best R&B Album’ at the NORTHWEST MUSIC AWARDS. He has also produced 3 other CDs, with sales over 50,000, under the same label. You can also find Aneel on UK Solar Radio, where he hosts “The Juice”, featuring only independent artists.

www.411onmusic.com