ARONAS

I'm definitely way over due for an update, my apologies.

This year I have been based in beautiful Paris working with the French Slam Artist Abd Al Malik. It has been a great experience so far playing to wonderful crowds, incredible venues, fun out door festivals. And not to mention being completely lost in translation. One does not complain with such a delicious language to the ear. I've started to pick some up and hoping that by the 2nd part of this year with still more dates to come I'll will have a better understanding of the language.

Hi all

Well in brief, thanks to Facebook and its applications, here's what happened in status'

Yo yo yo, I'm a very wounded Scorpio!!!

November is well and truly kicking my ass. What a month its been so far. I've really had some incredible experiences. But right now packing again for a week in Paris until our next Aronas show in Normandy.

Made a mash up of everybody's starfish contributions to our facebook page. The music is Aronas live performance @Cargo in Shoreditch 5th November 2010.

Hi all

Its been one crazy weekend of party shenanigans once again. Thanks to Who?Who? and Muak for having us at there great night down at Cargo. It was a drunken after work club crowd and they wanted action. So found myself standing on my keyboard stool more then sitting. Sometimes these days just playing live instrumental music sitting down just doesn't do it for your typical anglo-saxon beer drinker. But that's cool, that's why we're ARONAS, punk jazz with dance floor grooves. Alexis on drums, Jon on bass, and the incredible steel pan Sam to help me to make a one hour adventure of groove music, so by the end we had the place going bonkers. Yes, all with a bit of help of from back stage Absinthe bottle. Sorry for the mess we left.

Here's a picture of our set up at Cargo in Shoreditch with the new Roland V piano. It was baaaaad. Got a live recording from the evening as well. SO look forward to posting this soon using the www.awdio.com/aronas site.

Skpoje Festival

Had another great couple of shows sunday and tuesday last week
first stop was Skopje Jazz Festival
http://www.skopjejazzfest.com.mk/
Here are some photos taken from the event, we had one of our best nights this year

yo yo yo
A lot just happened since last week. Been to Warsaw with Sarah Blasko to playback on TV and live on radio. Funny hey, you'd think it would be the other way round. Cause the audience can't see you, why don't you just play the tape...and if they can see you, prove you can play...ha! Well, it was such a fun time. Spent some good times in the Sofital swimming pool. A lot of sight seeing, vodka drinking, late night clubbing, all thanks to my lovely guide and dear friend Anna. She rocks. So yeah! I think Warsaw is like another Berlin, exciting city vibrant with characters and interesting conversations. Had some good laughs.

So I'm back with my blogging challenge...week 7 continuum. Here we have another serious chapter, really knuckling down on marketing strategy. Finding the ways you can make a small buck, and putting it to work. Obviously being in the music world the extra bucks are mainly made from merchandise, so I know this an area I need to get onto.
I have a few ideas being chucked around, like a private concert at my friends place with the amazing Steinway Grand. A boat party. A new youtube video with cool script. So its all about the funnel, what will draw peoples attention then when you got them what will make them cough up! aaahh...marketing, business. Anyway, I will try to do this in the nicest way... ; ) Special website, nudge nudge, wink wink! : ))) Yes, for special members only. join now for £1 and receive your secret invitation. ha ha h, yes, I get what Arial's saying. Can't wait to put it into practice

So in conclusion, yes this is where it gets really mportant as far as running a business. Look out cause I'm on it!

This week, I have a publishing deal to take care of, possible new management, and rest of year to plan.
 cheers for reading

Here a few quick shots taken at the Bath House....
Sorry, should have done more.

So, keeping up with my blogging challenge here. Arial gives some great insight/tips for making a network possible by honing in on your social skills. To be honest, I've found myself in all sorts of social environments from an early stage. Being put on a stage before reaching puberty, trying to make cheerful banter with New Zealand's Prime Minister Jim Bolger at the age of 12 - these examples of many highlights in my networking life. I guess I wish I had read this chapter a long time ago as being better/quicker in social situations would have maybe of made life a lot easier at some points. But I've just learned the hard way from making mistakes.
Being yourself is still very important, but when in the business of selling your art you really need to know your ABC's as Arial points out.
Right now I'm a little tired. Had a great photo shoot on the weekend. Very proud to have some amazing pictures to release soon with my 2nd Album. It resulted in a crazy party, speaking of social environments. On this occasion dancing on one's table resulting in major damage probably isn't the sort of thing you would like to do in networking sorts of situation. HEH! what you gonna do.
Ok, onto Chapter 8. Wow 2 weeks to go. Will be hard to complete considering I'm on tour in Poland till Sunday then major busy with Aronas rehearsals for OCT touring. Anyway, will do my best.
Nite Nite...

yo yo yo
I guess this would have to be the most valuable chapter so far. Gosh, I admit, my mailing list is and has always been a shambles. Something not good, maybe something to do with dropping out of school a year earlier then most people and that a lack of finishing homework back in the day is lurking in my professional field.
So I'm pleased to say with the help of the mailchimp site, which is costing me a few £££. But at least its going through 6000 emails and pulling out the ones that count.
I've requested for a complete fresh start asking anyone who has previously been on my mailing list to re register. It will be a slow process. But I'm hoping a rewarding one.

There's some good tips from Arial in regards to bringing people onto my list. I'll be using these at my shows coming up Late september/ October. Will aim to keep a regular mail out to people with give aways and also put 60-90 mins aside each week just to work on building this mailing list.

Some photos from Oloron Jazz July 2009
Nick Fyffe - Bass
Steel Pan Sam - Percussion
Paul Derricott - Drums

YO YO YO YO

So I was still finishing off week 4 and now spending loads of time working on what I reckon is the hardest week for me so hard as far as this blogging challenge is concerned. Week 4, I had to look for 50 favorite blogs, that were linked to what I do in some way. Yeah, there's loads of music out there but nothing really with music like what I'm doing. All the great artists who inspired in the 90's are really succuessful and don't bother all this blogging stuff. But i;m going to keep searching to see if theres any weirdos out there making tribal dance jazz shit for the masses.
Jazz sites  and more the urban types that stem off into the hip hop electronic dub, etc, etc worlds. Anyway. Just beginning to connect with them. Leave a comment or 2, with my SIG file of course.

This music business shit is starting to get real fiddly. Joining website after website. Te amount of times I've entered in my email address and password is tiring .Anyway, saying that, I'm quite excited about entering this blogging world. I've set up a RSS reader on my iphone with all my the blogs that have grabbed my attention so far.

SO!!! with WEEK 5 on the way. (I'm not sure if I'm doing this blogging challenge correctly anymore, just blogging whenever now, but thats the idea) SO!!!, as I was saying Week 5. Whats up with this chapter??? Arial!!! I need your attention. I'm finding it a bit confusing. Everything was going all cool up until this whole survey thing. And whats with the Newsletter list VS your email list?? DO I not email the newsletter to the same list. Or am I creating something a bit different. ummm, CONFUSED. Plus with this whole brainstorming my fan list thing is not that easy too, for instance, 

Are my fans male or female?
Um, both
Singles or couples?
Um, both
How old are they?
young, middle aged and old, i guess. Even have a few babies putting some tracks on repeat
How much money do they make in average?
what??? which ones, the ones in NZ, AUS, FR, UK....fuck knows, hey
How much do they make on average?
1 MILLION!
Is there any activities, hobbies?
yeah, sex, drugs, and rock and role, how the hell do I know?!?!

Anyway, you get the drift. So do i need to survey my fans or somethings. Arial, you're not clear enough for me here. Hey, I am a musician after all. I mean, yeah I'll send out a survey. Cause really I can't answer these questions. But at the end of the day, everyone is going to be different, aren't they? What am I going to do with all this information. Anyway, I'm sure you'll explain later in the book, or I'll just smarten up or something.

So to Sum up, my fans: they do anything, anywhere, any age, any time, any old place, an old tune, ----you get the drift.

Right now I'm cleaning up my mailing list, and getting ready to send my first NEWSLETTER to my mailing list which is just below 1000. Yeah, its shit hey. But this is definitely an area I've been super lazy in. So glad this bloggin challenge is forcing me to do so.
I can't afford the www.bandletter.com link just yet, so i googled similar sites for mailing lists and found www.mailchimp.com
hoping it does the same thing. Waiting for it tom import my mailing list right.
So get ready for the newsletter. I do have lots of news, thankfully. Like the touring coming in October is going to be great.

Right!, my Laptop is burning hot now, really gotta switch it off soon. This blogging challenge is really testing its fan cooling system.

Just spent some time learning a whole lot about the internet and all its amazing uses via simple general knowledge videos set up by Lee and Sachi LeFever.
I watched these ones recommended by Arial Hyatt. Fantastic videos on how amazing the internet is. But actually on www.commoncraft.com there seems to be loads of mentoring in many different areas. Can't wait to get right into this advice. I have Lee and Sachi have some really valuable advice to offer.

Social Networking in Plain English
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Wikis in Plain English
RSS in Plain English
Blogs in Plain English.

http://www.commoncraft.com

At first I was thinking how all these online gadgets just glue us to our screens then breaking down the physical communication between human beings. But then, actually what all this wiki, blogging, etc stuff does really well, is it bypasses all the time wasting of leaving the house only to be disappointed by the appointment arranged with lack of insight/info.  Ok, i'm starting to sound confusing. Yeah, just saying out aloud,  its awesome, wish I started all this stuff a long time ago. Going to be able to make choices in life a lot easier. And in some ways control what I'm confronted by in the big bad world. Yes blogging and this sort of thing can take a lot of the surprise out things but, I know me, I'm an adventurer.

Woooah woooah woooah....Carnival!!!!! Nottinghill, west London. Panorama....Ebony Steel Pan Champions.

Just to let you know I'm completely behind on my blogging challenge. My schedule has been jammed packed and at the moment I'm very really at my laptop. It is physically impossible. Carnival time in London means partying festivities, etc.

I had an extremely busy time rehearsing with Ebony and tomorrow I rehearse with Sarah Blasko for a gig in Denmark on Friday.

I have skim read the musicians web 2.0 guide and see that there is a lot of work to be done. But I have a few things covered like, keeping the twitter updated and setting up an account with Flickr.

So I gotta go compose some music now. I'll leave you a link of some iphone pictures setup on Flickr.

My apologies to the blogging challenge. I'll be back in full force next week once things quieten down.

Here is a video of me playing with EBONY STEEL PAN ORCHESTRA.
Yes we won Panorama. Champions of steel with incredible arrangement by Steel Pan Sam Dubois (Fireman Sam)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l44d7dDFhJU

PHOTOS Here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aronottignon/sets/72157624857726788/

ebony's reaction after winning

wow!!! its crazy at the moment...Just finding a little time to fit in this blog. Rehearsals for Panorama competition are everyday. I have a recording session with new orleans band the Coalminers tomorrow, and endless appointments & deadlines to make.
So week 3 of the Blogging Challenge. First of all I didn't have a bloody website. I've finally attempted to launch one on my own using BandZoogle.

I figured that if set it up here first for free, then I can slowly take advise and raise budget for me to have my own domain name and pay a proper web design artist to help make it uber cool.

So please check what I've done....JOIN THE MAILING LIST.

www.aronas.bandzoogle.com

 I wanna give away my whole album download for free for people signing to my mailing list. But I'm finding this a bit complicated...hopefully have it working soon. Trying to use fizzkicks to give away the album...anyone can help?? Its tricky.

you can listen to the whole album here...

 www.fizzkicks.com/aronas



you can also make a contribution on the mailing list page. Help me buy my domain name and web design.

Other Things

Played V Festival with Sarah Blasko on the weekend..it was real fun...heres some picks...
and can't wait for Panorama this weekend.