Our buddy C.C. Chapman has once again shared his love of Lovespirals with his loyal audience in this “snowy afternoon” chillout session, Accident Hash style. If you’ve somehow been under a podcasting rock and haven’t heard his award winning show yet, check it out today! C.C.’s good humor, positivity, and love of music shines through in every podcast and never fails to bring a smile…
Lovespirals Chillin’ in their SecondLife Beach Cottage
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“The Sexiest Voice in Podcasting” Anji Bee of the Chillcast talks about the show and her double life as both podcaster and musician.
TREVOR: How did the Chillcast get its start?
ANJI: I guess you could say The Chillcast got its start with college radio DJ’ing. After 3 years of doing various shows and working in management at a college radio station, I was pretty well hooked. Then I discovered Internet radio, and started creating both live and prerecorded Internet radio content – including interviews with indie bands like Hungry Lucy and Sunburn in Cyprus. Eventually podcasts were invented, and I put 2 and 2 together. Podcasting was better than radio because listeners could tune in whenever was most convenient for them – which seemed really revolutionary! My first podcast was actually Chillin’ with Lovespirals, which Ryan and I launched to help promote our 2nd album, Free & Easy. Shortly after, I started getting permissions from indie band friends to create a weekly music show podcast – because you have to understand that at this time the podsafe music movement was barely getting started! Adam Curry had just begun his Podsafe Music Network — which is actually how he and I met and became friends, when Lovespirals joined the site. Adam played us on the Daily Source Code, and then we started talking back and forth on his podcast about Creative Commons vs BMI and all those kinds of things. To make a long story a bit shorter, I put together a few fledgling episodes of The Chillcast, hosting them on the Internet Archive site and C.C. Chapman, who was really active with PodShow at the time, pitched the show to Adam and PodShow management, and I was signed as one of the first group of podcasters to the new PodShow Podcast Network.
TREVOR: What have you learned from operating on both sides of the broadcasting world, as a podcaster and as a musician?
ANJI: Good question. Podcasting is a great way to communicate with your fans, to give them a sense of who you are as a person, as well as to inform them of your latest projects. You can really build a sense of brethrenship, not only with your fans, but fellow indie musicians and fellow podcasters. Podcasts are more intimate than a newsletter, less time consuming than a forum, and both more immediate and long lasting than a personal appearance. I’m surprised more bands aren’t doing podcasts, actually.
TREVOR: Chillin’ with the Lovespirals was one of the earliest band podcasts, what was the impetus behind such inspiration and foresight?
ANJI: Well I mentioned this briefly in your earlier question, but the idea was to share information about the new album we were releasing, and what better way to promote an album than with the music itself? We had shared audio interviews we’d done with radio stations in mp3 format on music sites for years, so I knew people liked to listen to us talk about our music and band experiences. We have all the recording gear here at our disposal, so it just seemed logical to produce our own audio content and make it available via our site. We had fun doing it, too. At that time, iTunes was just launching their podcast directory, so getting listed on that was a real thrill.
TREVOR: Why should a band be PodSafe?
ANJI: Podcasts are a very low cost promotional tool. Unlike radio, it’s very easy to break into the podcasting world. There are still relatively few bands vying for attention on podcasts. If your music is good, you’re bound to get noticed. And podcast subscribers are truly interested in music. These are the cutting edge people who have sought out an alternative form of entertainment; they’re serious. If they like something they hear on a show, they actually go out and buy it. I get email and comments all the time about buying music from my shows — in fact, I got one this week from a guy who was sad that Sun Dula Amen wasn’t on iTunes yet, because he wanted to buy it! And of course, I know for a fact that I sell my own CDs from podcasts, I see the proof from orders on the Lovespirals Webstore.
The latest “indie edition” of the legendary Coverville podcast includes Lovespirals’ rendition of the classic American Spiritual, “Motherless Child.” We met Brian Ibbott at the Podcast and New Media Expo last year, where Anji was accepting an award for her work with the ShowGirls podcast. We slipped him a pre-release copy of our Long Way From Home CD, which he was very enthusiastic about, but what with one holiday after the other these past few months… well you know how these things go. We’re just stoked to make our 2nd appearance on this seminal music podcast!
Auralgams Radio — one of the coolest indie Internet stations out there — has added “Caught in the Groove” and “Treading the Water” from Lovespirals’ new CD, Long Way From Home, to their playlist. The band would love to have you request Lovespirals on Auralgasms Radio using their handy online request page.
It’s that time of the year again! The holidays means holiday music, and you can download the classic Lovespirals’ cover of John Denver’s “Aspen Glow” gratis from the fine folks at Losing Today. This song is special to us, as it was the first ever officially released Lovespirals song, recorded in 2001 for the Projekt holiday compilation, Excelsis Vol 3. You can still buy this CD, in fact, its currently on the Projekt Top 10. “Aspen Glow” was also included on the 2002 limited edition of A Dark Noel: The Very Best of Excelsis release created for Hot Topic stores.
In this special extended episode, Anji and Ryan play each song from their new album Long Way From Home as they discuss how the album was created. In this behind-the-scenes podcast, the duo talk about the album’s influences, song writing, production secrets, and personal anecdotes. This features gives you great peek into the album!
Lovespirals’ live acoustic version of “This Truth” from their recent Second Life concert ranks as the #1 most played song of the month on the Podsafe Music Network Acoustic Top 10. Historically, Lovespirals have ruled the PMN Downtempo Top 10, where “Love Survives” from Lovespirals’ 2005 CD, Free and Easy, still holds the #1 position for most played song of all-time, followed by “Walk Away (Bitstream Dream Remix)” in the #2 position, and “Ecstatic (Podsafe Edit)” the #7 spot. Anji Bee’s 2004 collaboration with Bitstream Dream, “Phantasma,” holds the #3 position. Podcasters can find these and other podsafe Lovespirals songs at lovespirals.com/podsafe and lovespirals.com/podsaferemix. Please be sure to report your podcast plays to the Podsafe Music Network to help Lovespirals rise in the charts!
Lovespirals vocalist/lyricist, Anji Bee, was interviewed by GD about the band’s new album, performing in Second Life, and more on Bite Size Episode #509. To hear this podcast, you must sign up for a free subscription to the BsB Members Only Podcast. BTW, GD holds the honor of being the UK’s first podcaster, and he has long been a supporter of Lovespirals podsafe music.