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Recent new adds to the Online Folk Festival, February 18-March 26, in no particular order:

Artist - Album

• Small Potatoes - Small Potatoes Alive! at WVBR's Bound for Glory
• Pam Tillis - Rhinestoned
• John Batdorf - Home Again
• Jed Marum - Lonestar Stout
• Jay Einhorn - Start Over
• Jan Seides - Family Album
• The Sevens - Valiant
• Susan Werner - The Gospel Truth
• Steven Gellman - Love, Loss, Longing
• Jerimoth Hill - The Halfway Ground
• Gina Villalobos - Miles Away
• The Innocence Mission - We Walked in Song
• John Gorka - Writing in the Margins
• Ellis Paul - Essentials
• Tamara Lewis - Long Time No See

Labels: New Adds, Online Folk Festival

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, and so has the Online Folk Festival's Celtapalooza Celtic music extravaganzorama blowout. Thanks to all who listened, and for those of you who like Celtic music in smaller, more scattered doses - you can come back now. We're back to the freeform mix of Celtic, folk, singer/songwriter, bluegrass, cajun/zydeoc, world folk, technofolk, etc. that we play 51 weeks a year.

Labels: Online Folk Festival

It's Saint Patrick's Day, so of course this week's video is Irish. And who could represent Irish music better than the Chieftains? Performing here for some sort of benefit with The Corrs. Featuring some step dancing by people and a couple surreal costumed creatures. Slainte!

Labels: Folk Video of the Week

Eddi Reader, live with an all-star band (John McCusker, Michael McGoldrick and others) at the Cambridge Folk Festival, 2006, performing "Willie Stewart" from her album of Roberts Burns tunes.

Labels: Folk Video of the Week

Celtapalooza! is on the air.

For St. Patrick's Day, The Online F0lk Festival is wearin' green and takin' names. A wide variety of Celtic music will be on the air, from traditional (Altan) to PaddyPunk (Flogging Molly) to Celtic world fusion (Afro Celt Sound System) to new agey (Enya) to progressive (Iona) and Irish pop masters (Van the Man).

This week, it's easy being green!

Labels: Online Folk Festival

Received this via e-mail today:

Hi Greg

Just a quick note to say a big thank you to you and your
listeners for voting our track "The Black Dog" into the February Top 40 at No.
17! We're thrilled that people are enjoying our stuff and thanks once again for
all of your support, it is priceless. Hopefully we can get higher in the charts
in the future!

We will be entering the studios in June to start
work on the follow up to 'The Black Dog and Other Stories' - due out in January
2008, again on Fellside Recordings. Hope all is well with you, we often call by
and listen in to your show and find it thoroughly enjoyable on each occasion -
Keep it up.

All the best to you and yours

Gary
The Queensberry Rules
Stoke-on-Trent, England

Getting exposure for talented bands like The Queensberry Rules that would otherwise fall through the cracks is one of the rewards of this job. And, for those of you who subscribe to emusic, I noticed that The Black Dog and Other Stories is now available for download there.

Labels: Online Folk Festival, Top 40

I am amazed by the number of artists who contact me who have no idea that they are sabotaging their own chances to get airplay on my station, or on folk radio in general. Here are some mistakes I see artists making all the time.

1. Failure to do research or read submission guidelines. Every station has a different submission policy. Mine is very clearly stated on my website at http://www.onlinefolkfestival.com/submissions.html. If you follow the guidelines, I will follow through by listening to your CD. If not, I won't, and to be honest, I've stopped feeling bad about that.
   
2. Failure to provide professional level product. The folk radio world is very competitive because it is a relatively limited format. Most radio hosts have only two or three hours a week to fill, and unless you give them reason to include you, they will fill those slots with professionally produced, high-quality records they get from labels such as Rounder, Compass, Appleseed, and Signature Sounds. You may be able to connect with a local DJ in your area, but DJs in other areas won't give you the time of day unless your record sounds professional. You might be able to send a demo you cut in your basement to your local DJ whom you know from hanging out at the local folk club, but the vast majority of DJs with which you have not established a relationship are going to use it as a coaster. The wide availability of home recording equipment has led to the rise of people recording who are, frankly, getting a lot of bad advice regarding their talent level.
   
3. Believing that an e-mail referring a DJ to a website where they can download a track will entice the DJ to play your music. Since most folk DJs do it as a side gig (in other words, they have a day job), many barely have time to keep up with the actual CDs they get in the mail from established labels who have good quality control standards and sign excellent, talented acts. I wish I had the time to visit every artist website and preview their tracks online. I don't. Some DJs do, and more power to them. If Christine Lavin or Tom Paxton puts a topical mp3 on their website, I might download that, if I read about it on the Folk DJ list. But, chances are, you're not Christine Lavin or Tom Paxton, and don't merit the same consideration. I know that sending out CDs can be expensive, but hey, if you don't believe in yourself that much, then I won't either.
   
4. Failure to remember that you need us more than we need you. I recently sent an address change to the Indie Bible people, who have graciously listed my radio station, and then was overwhelmed by emails from artists asking me to check out their website. I replied, graciously, I thought, to each one pointing out my submissions guidelines page and asking them to send me a CD for consideration. One artist responded to me, quite rudely, I thought, that if I didn't go to his website and listen to his samples, then I wasn't going to get a CD. You know what? That's fine with me. I don't need his CD. I have plenty of quality programming that I can put on it its place. I'll be happy to add another Woody Guthrie tune to the playlist if you don't want to play by my rules. If you can't be polite to me, I'm not going to give your CD the time of day.
   
5. Failure to provide a quality one-sheet. Tell me something about yourself that will make me want to really listen to your music. Where do you come from? Who have you opened for? Who produced your album? Send your CD to every name artist you every opened for and solicit their comments and then add their quote prominently to your one-sheet. You may think it crass, but it separates you from the artists recording bad demos in their basement. If you don't "hitch your wagon to the stars," nobody else will.
6. Failure to remove the shrink wrap. All the major folk labels do. It's a courtesy, really. Just one more hassle that must be overcome to get to your disk.
   
7. Failure to submit the CD to freedb. Internet radio stations use ripping software to generate the files for airplay. I use CDex, which uses the freedb lookup to generate track information. If you've not submitted your CD to freedb, then I need to type in the information myself. It's another hassle. If your CD is good enough, I'm happy to do it, but sometimes, I'll let a CD sit in the ripping pile for a week or two because I don't have enough time to input the tracks. It's in your best interest to submit to freedb and cddb (Gracenote) as soon as you have a physical copy of your CD so you can control what it looks like when people put that CD in their computer to play or rip, and then you can add all the pertinent track and label information. Otherwise, someone else will do it for you and the information may be incomplete or inaccurate.

To summarize - Play by the rules and provide professional-level product on CD, be polite, and promote yourself and most folk DJs will give your CD consideration. If you are rude, amateurish, and unable to follow the rules, even if your talent is massive then your CD will likely end up as somebody's coaster and your mp3s will go undownloaded and unplayed on the radio.

Labels: Folk Radio, Online Folk Festival

This video is from Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest" showon PBS in NYC, from 1965 and features Seeger and Tom Paxton duetting on "Ramblin' Boy" and then discussing the art of songwriting. Enjoy!

Labels: Folk Video of the Week

Online Folk Festival Top 40
February 2007
Based on listener ratings

Artist - Song - Album
1. Cara Dillon - Garden Valley - After the Morning
2. Karen Ashbrook & Paul Oorts - Breton Dance/Star of Munster - Celtic Cafe
3. Victoria Williams - Train Song (Demise Of The Caboose) - Musings of a Creek Dipper
4. Patty Griffin - Heavenly Day - Children Running Through
5. Iain Campbell Smith - Maryanne - Ballads and Barsongs
6. Switchback - Falling Water River - Falling Water River
7. Enoch Kent - The Calton Weaver (Nancy Whiskey) - I'm a Rover
8. Iris Dement - Walking Home - The Way I Should
9. Paul Brady - The Lakes of Pontchartrain (New Recording) - Nobody Knows
10. Mary Fahl - In the Great Unknown - The Other Side of Time
11. Gina Forsyth - Talking Hurricane Refugee Blues - Waterbug Anthology Eight: Born into the Whisper
12. Ana Moura - Hoje Rudo Me Entristece - Aconteceu
13. Solas with Mindy Smith - Reasonland - Hands Across the Water: A Benefit For the Children of the Tsunami
14. Kate Rusby - The Wild Goose - 10
15. Fiamma Fumanda - Mariuleina - Onda
16. Chuck Brodsky - Come Heres and the Been Heres - Radio
17. The Queensberry Rules - The Black Dog - The Black Dog and Other Stories
18. The Lost Dogs - Lord, Protect My Child - Scenic Routes
19. The Foremen - Workin' on an MBA - The Best of the Foremen
20. Rodrigo Y Gabriela - Diablo Rojo - Rodrigo Y Gabriela
21. John Parkes - This Tonight - Faithlessnessless
22. Francis Dunnery - My old friend love - The Gulley Flats Boys
23. Devon Sproule - Plea for a Good Night's Rest - Waterbug Anthology Eight: Born into the Whisper
24. David Mallett - Somewhere in Time - Midnight on the Water (Live)
25. Buddy Miller - Worry Too Much - Universal United House of Prayer
26. Steve Earle - Fearless Heart - Austin City Limits: Live From Austin, TX: Steve Earle
27. Nathan - The Wind - Key Principles
28. Eva Tree - Heavy Load - Sail Away
29. Carbon Leaf - Grey Sky Eyes - Indian Summer
30. Bruce Cockburn - This Is Baghdad - Life Short Call Now
31. Al Petteway - Maggie's Reel - Caledon Wood
32. John Flynn - Trust The Rope - Two Wolves
33. Dougie MacLean - Ready For The Storm - The Dougie MacLean Collection
34. Rodrigo Y Gabriela - Ixtapa - Rodrigo Y Gabriela
35. Terence Martin - Sleeper on a Westbound Train - Sleeper
36. Joyce Andersen - You Were the One - Love and Thirst
37. Jeff Daniels - If I Weren't so Stupid, You Wouldn't be so Smart - Live and Unplugged To Benefit The Purple Rose Theatre
38. Mark Erelli - Seeds Of Peace - Hope & Other Casualties
39. The Byrds - My Back Pages - Greatest Hits
40. John Cowan Band - In Bristol Town - New Tattoo

Labels: Online Folk Festival, Top 40