How many of you are like me and have/had a local rock station that had a “rock report” or “rock minute” or some other blurb on rock news that had absolutely no relevance to rock music whatsoever?  Personally, I got tired of hearing a certain DC station’s rock report everyday that was something just absolutely stupid, like “Miley Cyrus disses STP” or whatever band it was.  They seemed to be really reaching everyday, and they’d talk about things that weren’t relevant to the target audience of a rock radio station.

As far as news content on the radio stations’ websites, a lot do their own and just seem to copy and paste what they can find, or re-hash old stuff just because they have to.  Others use syndicated content from companies that provide it on a daily or weekly basis, and it’s also never really relevant, or it’s just plain boring like a CNN article.  A lot of times that syndicated content references TuneLab as a source, which got me thinking “Why don’t they just use us as a source in the first place?”  Some radio stations do… they syndicate our news usually alongside another site to cover all the bases, like Rock 94.5 and B-Rock 93.7.

But what if there was a service that provided these radio stations actual relevant, customized content on a constant, as-it-happens basis?  That’s what we’ll be providing with TuneLab Radio Services.  We’ll be providing completely customized news feeds for rock stations across the US, with relevant content based on that station’s format or playlist, as focused or as broad as they desire.  If they want something edgier, we’ll include rumors and small news items that we normally wouldn’t post on TuneLab.  We’ll also be providing customized daily “rock reports” or whatever the stations would like them named of varying length for on-air use that also will be relevant, current, and interesting.  Or, we can just provide scripts.  Essentially, we can do your show prep for you.

So for the stations that are paying (and paying a lot) for news content that reads the same across every site, why do it?  For the stations that have various news feeds to cover all the bases, why not just have one that matters?  For those struggling to come up with content and having to waste time recording and re-recording rock reports, why not let somebody else worry about it?

TuneLab Radio Services starts out at the low price of FREE.  For more info, contact radio(at)tunelab.com (or call us using the widget on the Contact page) and be sure to include your station’s call letters and website address.

To kick off 2010 the right way, we are proud to announce the launch of TuneLab Label Services.  It’s not a record label, but offers many things a label does, and hopefully does them better.  Here’s what we’re doing:

Selling Digital Music
TuneLab will feature a “store” where you can purchase and immediately download tracks and albums from the unsigned bands that we’ve “signed”.
* Price: Whatever the artist chooses per track/album
* Setup: Stream it first. Why would you buy it if you don’t know if you like it or not?
* Quality: Many options ranging from 128kbps MP3 all the way up to Lossless .wav, .aiff, or FLAC (no price difference)
* Artist’s Take: The artist will get more money per 99 cent download than any other service in existence

Artist Promotion
This is the big one.  We’re going to promote these unsigned artists the same way major labels do with their artists, except better.  If there’s one thing we do know, it’s how these PR agencies work, and while there are some good ones, as a base average they’re just not very good at it.  And since we’re the people they work directly with, who better to know how to do it better?  And of course the music will be for sale right here on TuneLab.
* Cost to the Artist: Nothing

Exclusivity
One of the things labels do wrong is signing too many bands than they can properly promote.  The same thing happens with PR agencies who take on too many clients.  Artists get lost in the mix and don’t get the attention they deserve.  We won’t make that mistake, and we’re starting this off with a very limited number of bands.

Freedom
“Signing” to TuneLab Label Services will in no way whatsoever be limiting to the artist’s career.  Don’t want to participate anymore?  You’re free to go at any time.  For any reason.  With no obligation to TuneLab at all.  If you get discovered by a major label and become rich and famous as a direct result of being a part of this, it’d be cool if you’d throw us concert tickets to giveaway, but there’s no obligation at all.

Why are We Doing This?
We’re getting back to what this site started out with the aim to do.  We want to help and promote unsigned artists.  We’re dedicated and passionate about it, and because that comes first, we’ll be great at it.  At traditional labels, money or the bottom line comes first, and that’s what hurts so many of them.  These unsigned artists have great music, and it deserves to be heard by the world.

The Future?
Looking down the road we’ll be putting together some tours, servicing singles to radio, and doing some other more “traditional” label stuff, but we’re leaving that in the future for now.

How Does Your Band Get Signed?
To be considered, send an email to unsigned(at)tunelab(dot)com.  For any other info, use the Contact tab.

Lately we’ve been bringing you lots of great album streams here on TuneLab.com. In the past few months we’ve done several pre-release album streams, as well as a lot of streams of already released albums or EPs with artists or music you might not have known about. One thing that separates TuneLab’s streams from those on myspace, AOL, or other sites is that ours are actual high quality and you can hear them clearly. Well, that’s going to change… kinda.

We do everything in our power to protect the source files of our streams from piracy. We use a flash player, encrypted html, and other protection mechanisms built-in to the player. That keeps people from getting to the actual mp3s, but when you get right down to it, if you can listen to it through your computer’s speakers, you can record it digitally in identical quality. Some pirates have caught onto that, and the fact that TuneLab’s streams are in high quality, and we’ve seen a direct correlation between us putting an album stream up and the album suddenly being available for illegal download.

This greatly disturbs us, and we need to do something to combat that in order for us to continue streaming albums. Our first choice would be to hope people wouldn’t steal music, particularly when we go to such great lengths to provide it, but unfortunately there’s a few people out there who’d rather ruin it for everybody else. From now on, album streams will be changed in one of two ways:

1. The album streams will be a much lower quality 96kbps mp3 source,

or

2. The stream will continue to be in high quality, but with a voiceover at some point during each track stating where you can buy said album.

The choice of how this will be done will be up to the label, management, or band itself. When we do the voiceover, we will make it rather short, and try to do it at a point in the song where it is less obstructive. Obviously it will be obstructive no matter where it is, but we won’t put it during a solo or something like that. Our preference is to do the voiceover so that listeners can still experience the streams in a high quality and truly get a feel for the music, but again we won’t be making that decision. Either way, it should help to combat piracy by making any potential webrip either really poor quality or by “ruining” the tracks with a voiceover. It’s unfortunate that we have to change anything at all, but that’s the nature of the Internet today.

TuneLab has been reviewing albums for years now. Sometimes these albums are those that we have purchased, most of the time the albums have been sent to us in physical or digital form. The review is NEVER affected by the manner in which we receive said album.

The Federal Trade Commission just voted that as of December 1st, bloggers (which we fall under technically) must “clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.” (emphasis ours)

That’s kind of a tricky way of saying it. TuneLab does not get albums “for” reviewing an album. Well, it depends on which way you take it. We believe that the language is intended to mean getting albums as payment for, or as a thank you for, reviewing an album. In that case, we’re in the clear, because we do not accept gifts in exchange for album reviews. Obviously, we get sent the album “for a review, as in “in order to do a”. But again, it doesn’t impact its rating or manner of review.

On average, we probably review about 10% of the albums sent to us. They are sent unsolicited, and honestly about half don’t even fall under “rock”.

Whether or not we have to put a disclaimer on every review that came from an album sent to us as of December 1st is up for a lawyer to decide, but we have no problem coming right out with a preemptive disclaimer anyway. So yes, we get [some] albums for free, but not as a gift or payment, and it does not affect the review in any way.

So a lot of you know we’ve had something cooking in the background here at TuneLab, and that it involved unsigned bands. Well, we still can’t say exactly what we’re doing, but we do think it will have an impact on the industry. If you’re in an unsigned band and want to know more and be involved, please use this form. If you’re not in a band and want to know what we’re up to, you can use the same form to sign up for our mailing list.

Bands must be completely unsigned, perform rock music of the type we cover here on the site, and be motivated to actively work on making the band a success. That last part is important, if you aren’t 100% committed (as a whole band) to put your musical careers first, please don’t email. Obviously, there is no obligation whatsoever when just emailing us to find out more.

A new blog posting monthly will contain a summary of the previous month for those interested. (+) indicates an increase over the previous month, and (-) indicates a decrease compared to the previous month.

September 2009:
Total Hits: 12,176,433 (+)
Total Files: 9,989,281 (+)
Total Pages: 1,023,221 (+)
Total Bandwidth: 380 GB (+)

Top 5 Most Popular Individual Pages (excludes homepage/message board):
Muse Refusing to Lip Sync Story/Video
Release Dates Page
Five Finger Death Punch Album Stream
Three Days Grace ‘Life Starts Now’ Review
Breaking Benjamin Track Listing

Once again, September 2009 produced record daily, weekly, and monthly traffic. Traffic was 2.7 times the traffic of September 2008 (almost tripled!) and 2.1 times the traffic of April 2009, meaning we’ve more than doubled in just the last 6 months. Thanks to everybody who visits the site. Tell a friend!

Jim Morrison visited me in a dream last night and said the purpose of my life was to put on a concert.  Then this morning, Nick got his Sports Illustrated football phone in the mail.  Obviously, this is a sign.

In all seriousness, we’re not going into too much detail, but a festival is in the earliest stages of planning for the East Coast.  Where exactly is still in the works.  Which bands?  Still in the works.  When?  2010.  That’s all the details we have right now.  More to follow.

TuneLab.com has posted yet another record month of unique visitor traffic, it’s 15th such record in just 20 months.  While TuneLab.com has always prided itself on its rapid growth, the growth rate of recent times has far exceeded the expectations and predictions of the site’s staff.  This comes despite other industry front-running sites seeing declining traffic and a decrease in interest.  The largest testament to the increase in growth rate is the last year in TuneLab.com history… June 2009’s traffic was an increase of 109.3% over June of 2008, meaning the site has more than doubled in just that 13-month period! (A graph of which is visible in the sidebar →)

Last month, TuneLab.com introduced social networking features to the website that allow users to make themselves a little more involved with the site and connect with other rock music fans much easier.  Users can now have an actual profile where they fill out information about themselves, upload a custom avatar, send private mail to each other, add friends, join groups, and more.  Just recently, a new utility was also added to the site to allow users to simply enter their Facebook or Twitter information into a field, and then invite their friends to TuneLab simply by selecting them on the respective website.  The social networking element is still fairly new, and we expect that to continue to grow at a rapid pace, especially as new features are added.

The growth has taken place without a single advertising dollar being spent, and a MySpace page and Facebook group that were created, maintained briefly, and remain stagnant since.  Our growth is unique in that it can be directly contributed to our members and the artists we cover, and there’s no better way to do it.  We hope that continues.

So where does that leave us now?  Honestly, we see no reason it won’t continue growing at this pace or faster.  As we add new features, people continue spreading the word, and our great coverage of everything rock continues, we will grow.  Plus, we’ve got something else up our sleeve…

When I first heard that rock hero Chris Cornell was teaming up with the company of Timbaland and the Pharell Brothers on his new solo effort, I felt the same emotions running through me as you probably did. I was stunned, disappointed, enraged, bitter, humored, and intrigued all at once, gravitating more toward terrified of what was to come than anxious to explore Cornell’s new direction.

So here arrives ‘Scream’, the third installment of Chris Cornell’s solo endeavor, and eleven tracks later I don’t know what to say. W-O-W, really Chris? Who is this guy and what has he done with the real Chris Cornell?

‘Scream’ will most certainly make you do just that. I can hear it now, the echo of a sea of shrill, gut-wrenching “Why, why, why!” cries from disheartened fans worldwide, just like the brutal wails of Nancy Kerrigan following her 1994 attack. Chris Cornell shamefully careens from one third-world song to the next, painstakingly forcing his vocals into this pop-savvy alter-ego which he has adopted. Cornell further turncoats his intrinsic gift by flooding his pipes with waves of synthetic, dead-end effects, colorings, and trickery that do nothing other than make you cringe a little bit more.

As if Chris Cornell’s vocal performance wasn’t disgraceful enough alone, the cheap Casio loops and beats he sings overtop of only add to the wasteland. Cornell must have shopped the B-sides catalogues of acts such as Maroon 5, Girltalk, Ricky Martin, Akon, and even the late schizo-loco Wesley Willis, making some fine purchases that would become the begging-to-be-ridiculed ‘Scream’.

Look, I understand good and well and respect Chris Cornell’s intentions with ‘Scream’. Consider for a moment that Chris Cornell’s journey through music has been like having a hot hand at Monopoly and conquering each space on the board with houses, hotels, and, in Cornell’s case, skyscrapers. The man cemented himself a grunge legend in his Soundgarden days, took us for a whimsical, spacious ride with Audioslave, and got down on some up-tempo blues for two solo affairs. By owning so many properties (yeah, he’s even got the railroads and the pair of utilities to his name), Cornell has been able to dominate the music world for more than two decades. But as he keeps passing GO and keeps collecting his purse, and like many of us can relate, there’s always that one property that seems to elude Cornell, the nurtured for top 40 disco-pop serving as his Park Place or Boardwalk.

In some weird, twisted way, ‘Scream’ is Cornell’s own piece of personal justice; be it is steered by the desire to complete a repertoire or the desire to purchase a few more European homes. ‘Scream’ is horrific, you know it, and I know it. But in the end, Chris Cornell is unquestionably entitled to all the carte blanche he wants, whether we choose to keep listening or not.

Below is a list of upcoming rock festivals around the nation this year. If you have any additions or new information please leave a comment so it can be added.

View Festival Map