May 31 2010
So far, Alan is confirmed for two festivals this summer.
Tambor World Music Festival, June 26th, Gent, Belgium
Fiesta City Festival, August 27th, Verviers, Belgium
Festivals, Promoters!!!
If you still have a slot open at your festival for the most original act of 2010, hit us up!
bookings@alansteward.com
Aug 01 2009
Music Journalist Ray White sits down with electronica artist and record producer Alan Steward for an in-depth interview. Alan talks to Ray about his music, his views on the music industry and what it means being a Global Citizen.
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R.W.: You seem to be somewhat of an Enimga and very little is known about where you really come from. You call yourself a Global Citizen and your residence is listed as the US on one web site, the Caribbean somewhere else and other sources mention that you are European. So, where exactly are you from?
Alan Steward: Well, I can tell you that I don’t mind a little bit of mystery surrounding me at all. After all, my first album had the title “the groove enigma”. One of the things that is happening with the internet I guess is that just about anything about an artist can be found somewhere on the net these days. Where you went to school, what hardware store you worked at during your summer vacation. There are no more secrets. Somebody out there will report what Britney Spears had for lunch today, and I personally don’t really need to know that. I think that kind of exposure just takes a lot of the glamour and mystery that was once associated with an actor, musician or singer away and it’s really a shame that it has come to the point where we feel we need to know where your favourite star went shopping this morning.
As it comes to me, yes, I am a Global citizen. I was born into an international family, part Russian and part American and yes, I did grow up in the Netherlands. In the 1980s, I moved to the Caribbean and I spent a good amount of time in the Bahamas and later in Trinidad, where I now own a recording studio. The US will always be my official headquarters though, that’s where my record label offices are located. However, the reality is that I am always ‘on the road’
I do like the term of a Global Citizen because music is very much a global thing these days. In today’s world, somebody can be a star in Japan without ever having set foot in Japan. This whole thing about showing your birth certificate at every occasion, needing a different set of paperwork for everything you do in every single country is to me total nonsense. Forget about borders, we don’t need them.
The Groove Enigma speaks out
R.W.: You have worked with a good amount of famous artists as a producer. So, why did you yourself never signed with a major label?
Alan Steward: The major labels these days are taking less chances than ever before. They sign what they consider a safe bet, the non threatening rock band with the boy next door looks or the good looking dance act with the 3 chord song and mindless lyrics. And the endless amount of guys with the initials DJ in front of their name making sound-alike music that can be a hit on the dance floor for the next two weeks. You could make the most incredible music but if you don’t fit the majors profile of what they think they can sell, they won’t sign you.
Besides that, there’s the financial dark side of signing with a major. When you sign with such a label, you may not really be set for life at all. On the contrary, your chances that you end up broke are actually quite large. Yes, the labels have the deep pockets to promote you and your music properly but their deep pockets are really your deep pockets and you have to pay most of that promo money back from record sales. Look at the highly successful rap trio TLC. They ended up bankrupt. Even Michael Jackson ended up forced to attempt another moonwalk at age 50 just to satisfy the debtors.
No, thank you. I am quite happy with my own small label and the money I am making from record sales all over the world, from Japan to Germany, from the UK to the US.
I don’t mind working with another small label, signing compilation deals or even signing a distribution deal with a major label but selling your soul outright to a label, no thanks. Just ask Prince about that one…
R.W.: When I listen to your albums, I hear Hindi and Arabic vocals but you are not Arabic or Indian? What made you decide to incorporate those elements into your music?
Alan Steward: (laughs) You are right. I am 100% NOT Indian or Arabic. White boy all the way. But I am a Global citizen and I don’t think you have to be from a certain region of the world to make a certain kind of music.
I admit that I am outright fascinated by the phrasing and delivery of Eastern vocalists. It’s just so different and something that we just can’t duplicate.
To me it’s a little like when I heard Jimi Hendrix play guitar for the first time. To hear an instrument used like you never heard it used before. And the human voice is an instrument. I love those exotic voicings and I realize that my listeners love it too. There was one song with a Hindi vocal on the “Pop Icon” album, that was “Global Warning”. “Licensed to Chill” has six songs with Eastern vocals. You don’t have to understand a word of Hindi or be from India to get into that sound and to feel the magic.
I got turned on to those exotic voicings quite a while back by a fellow musician and producer from the UK called Bally Sagoo. I met him at MIDEM, and he gave me a copy of his album and it simply blew me away. The mix of different styles from rap to dub and electronica mixed with ethnic voices. I was immediately into that.
That was also the same time when I moved my recording studio to Trinidad in the Caribbean. In Trinidad, the population is so mixed up with all the religions and races, you’ll hear Bollywood music from one person’s radio and Beenie Man or Kanye West from the next. That mix is in the air everywhere in Trinidad and living there helped me shape my sound into what it is now.
We get a lot of Indian music videos on TV in Trinidad and I think that Bollywood is very much going in the right direction. The new crop of Indian music videos is great. Well produced, high energy, very easily digested even by Western tastes, no more hokey dance steps and over the top costumes, just a lot of fusion of all kinds of different styles very well and skillfully mixed together. Rap, Rock, Techno, mixed in with the exotic aspect of Asian music. I would not be surprised if the ‘next big thing’ in music may not come from the US or UK this time around but from Bollywood or maybe another Eastern country. The success of “Slumdog Millionaire” and the subsequent #1 song by the Pussycat Dolls and A.R. Rahman point to that already.
R.W.: Do you fell that you are mainly a “studio musician” like Micheal Cretu of Enigma or do you like playing live?
Alan Steward: You may think that I like hiding away in the studio creating my music but the truth is, I love being on stage and being able to do something that totally blows people away.
I was hooked on being on stage since age 13. I played in front of over 25,000 people and I don’t even know what stage fright is.
This is actually another thing that bothers me about today’s music scene. Where are the stage acts that really blow you away these days? Every band I hear at the major festivals is at best mediocre.
When you see Alan Steward on stage, I want you to be blown away. I think one of the major difference with me compared to the hundreds of electronic acts out there is that I am a musician. You’ll see me on stage jamming out a solo on my guitar instead of watching a DJ spinning discs for an hour and waving his hands in the air every once in while. How interesting is that really to watch? I want people to get chills when they’re in the audience or I’m not doing my job. I want them to see and hear something on stage that they’ll be talking about for weeks to come. If it isn’t that good, I may as well stay home. Yes, I love playing live, I love being on stage and you’ll get to see at lot of that happening real soon. My first target is Europe because Europe has always been the place for new music to emerge.
R.W.: You’ve been quoted as saying that there aren’t any rock stars anymore. What do you mean by that?
Alan Steward: Years back you could see Pink Floyd on stage and the lighting and stage design alone would make your jaw drop open, or you could see a group like the Tubes bring an entire theatre production to the stage complete with a dozen costume changes, motorcycles on stage, exploding TVs, dancing Robots and then some. Bruce Springsteen or George Clinton could hit a stage and keep you spellbound for five hours.
Now you see a bunch of guys on headlining major festivals that look and dress like the guy who bags your groceries or pumps your gas. Tell me honestly, who did you see on stage somewhere this year that totally blew your mind? No, there aren’t any rock stars anymore.
R.W.: One final question. What can we expect from Alan Steward in the near future? What are you working on?
Alan Steward: My main focus right now is on my live performances. I’m stepping away from being the “Enigma” and I’ll be right in your face from now on with a live show that will leave you breathless. You may consider my music chillout but if it hits you with 40,000 watts of sound and lights, the thing takes on quite a different dimension.
Wherever I am able to, I will bring my group, the Underdog Corporation with me on stage. The Underdog Corporation is a varied group of vocalists, dancers and performers from all corners of the world. We will show the world where the future of music is heading, trust me.
Also, I hope to have a new album out in 2010, entitled “Black Magic” that will be the ultimate step in the direction I feel my music is heading and should be heading. I don’t think anybody will call it chillout anymore because it will be a lot ‘heavier’ than “Licensed to Chill”. However, what the new album will have still have plenty of is that ‘magic’, that spiritual feel, that global spirit, that mystery, but with a whole new attitude.
People who come to see my live show in the coming months will get a preview of taste of that hew attitude in a song called “Swing of the Pendulum.” The song is also available as a free download for all my fans at www.alansteward.com
I’m coming out in full force with a tour through the UK and the rest of Europe at the end of this year and the plan is to bring a new attitude and musical flavour to the music scene. Shake things up a little, well, a lot.
R.W.: Thank you for taking time out to talk to me today. Do you have any final words for our readers?
Alan Steward: I would love to thank everybody who bought my music over the past two years. It is totally mindblowing that without any major promotion and without much airplay, so many people have found my music somehow and found it worthwhile adding to their collection. It tells me that I am doing something right. I hope that I get to meet some of you in person during my concerts and I’ll always be grateful.
(c)2009 Ray White – You can reprint this article on your web site, blog or magazine provided that proper credit is given to the author.
Jul 06 2009
This is my third and last installment of the “Rock Star” blog, dealing with the state of the music industry today.
Social Networking (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, etc.) has generally been hailed as the new way to promote music, especially for indie musicians so I decided to put this to the test. What can MySpace really do for you?
The first thing you see on all of these sites are those annoying posts “Check out my Music”. Very often, they are coupled with giant size poster graphics and many artists feel that they just need to rack up 100,000 friends as quickly as possible and then fire up these “Check me Out” messages.
In my opinion, that’s the wrong way to use social networking. I followed a few smaller artists on last.fm that posted that kind of “Check me out…” messages and from their stats I could quickly gather that hardly anybody “checked them out”. Their listener numbers really didn’t increase at all, even after posting messages all over the place.
To me, MySpace and similar sites are for real networking, building one on one relationships with managers, DJs, other musicians that you may end up touring with together or collaborating on a song with. That does work.
Here is a prime example of such a successful hook up on My Space. A rapper from the UK, Phonetix and his produceer, Hitz connected via MySpace with a Rock Band from Canada, Glam Daddy. They exchanged audio and video recordings and created a “long distance” music video that has been extremely well received on YouTube, MySpace and many other places. You can see the result of that collaboration for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJGMtzCj3F8
This video is a prime example on how to use Social Networking the right way. So, everybody, stop the annoying check me out messages, pasting entire YouTube clips into somebody’s comment box and whatever else you can do to annoy people. On the other hand, do use the net to inform people that are already your fans or friends, they actually want to hear from you.
While on the subject of MySpace, another thing that musician’s don’t seem to realize is the fact that if you put half a dozen YouTube videos and some MP3s into your MySpace jukebox, they all will want to auto start and play at the same time. What a mess that makes and I’ve seen this over and over on MySpace pages. Put up one video and if you have many, put up links and a thumbnail to the other videos so visitors to your page don’t get bombarded with videos that you can’t easily stop. And of course there are some of us who don’t have very fast internet connection and then, a busy MySpace page becomes totally unmanageble.
So, yes, Social Networking is a good thing, it has created some unique opportunities for artists but we have to realize its limits and use it right. Put your music up, let people hear and see what you are all about but don’t overload people with information, bite size bits are best. That’s why Twitter seems to work well for people with their 140 character limit and no music, no videos, no pictures.
In closing, one thing we have to talk about is the ‘take over’ of the social networking sites by the major labels. A few months back, I got a MySpace friend invitation from, I think it was Ashanti. I said, “cool, Ashanti wants to be my friend”. When I clicked through the link, there was nothing there about her being my friend, I just become her friend. A major label ploy to gather 10,000 users to send Spam to. Sort of like George Carlin’s definition of “68″: It’s like 69 but you do me and I owe you. Needless to say, I didn’t let Ashanti (or was it Universal?) “do me”. So, we have to deal with the fact that the majors have a firm foothold on MySpace and everywhere else because (if they don’t own the site already) they can bribe a site with “exclusive video” and other goodies to get top billing. When it the last time you saw the video of a indie artist on the MySpace front page?
So, as I suggested before, Indies have to band together and become a “major label” themselves and start negotiating deals for “exclusive videos” on the networking sites. Unfortunately, as soon as an indie artist racks up some major sales, the labels will sign him within the week and he is no longer an “indie force” to be reckoned with. Two examples of that are Drake and Never Shout Never. Both artists racked up major sales on iTunes and both were signed within one week.
Yes, everybody is just waiting to be signed. But whether they actually end up with lots of money in the pocket after the major label expenses are paid back, that’s a whole different story. (you didn’t know? you pay for everything, all the bling bling, promos, expensive parties… etc.) I guess that’s a topic for Rockstar Part 4.
Jul 05 2009
If you haven’t checked out the music video for Alan Steward’s song “Underdog” yet, stop on by on YouTube and have a look and a listen. We re-designed the Slim Chance Recordings YouTube Channel with a bold look and some flashy color choices.
You can find our YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/user/slimchancerecords
We still have a downloadable version for your computer or phone:
Download Hi Res Version – 33 meg Zip File
Stay tuned for two new music videos coming this summer. The video for “Buddha Bar Fly” and a music video for “Sax on the Beach”. Make sure to follow our RSS Feed and sign up for our VIP list to get all the latest news first.
Jun 14 2009
I was watching some rock festival from Spain last week on TV and what I saw there (and some of the things I’ve been discovering on the net) prompted me to write this little report on the state of affairs in the music industry today. So here it is:
When watching this festival, the thing that struck me that all those headline acts at the festival had one thing in common, they were simply not all that good. Boring, most of them actually. And that made me wonder. In what state is our music industry in that this is the best we can come up with to headline a major festival.
Look at Amy Winehouse, one of the headline acts at that festival. People were so clamouring for something new and different that she got showered with Grammys when she first came on the scene. Her performance of ‘Rehab’ was so tired and uninspiring at that festival that I’m sure that there will never be another Grammy for Ms. Winehouse. The same happened with Gnarls Barkley the year before. Wow, finally something new and different. Bring out the Grammys! And where are they now?
Things have changed seriously in the music industry. The major labels are acting like wounded animals and are protecting their turf at any cost. They continue buying up every web site that was once a haven for independent music. From last.fm to MySpace, the major labels either bought it outright or took a major stake in it.
So now we are bombarded with a heavy dose of mediocrity. Nescafe Instant stars with blue hair and songs that hardly have more than a basic beat and a few synth riffs in it. You know who I am talking about. These ‘instant’ acts get the majority of airplay, reviews, articles and attention in general. And once the one or two hits are dead and gone, you may find these ’stars’ ending up on the next reality show on E or VH1
In the days of the vinyl single, it was commonplace to put a instrumental version of the hit on the B Side. A quick and easy way to fill both sides of the record. Try doing that with many of today’s ‘quick hits’ In most cases, there isn’t enough ‘music’ left once you take the vocals out.
Unless there is some change in the major labels’ attitude and strategies, we may never see an album pop up that simply blows you away. Like say, a Pink Floyd album like Dark Side of the Moon or a Cross of Changes by Enigma did. And that is not to say that there are not artists out there right now, creating music at that quality level. But their music is drowned out by the new breed of quick pop and boring rock bands ‘borrowed’ from the college circuit. When I watched this festival on TV, most bands sounded like slightly different versions of the band that was on before. Different guys in different shirts with different colors of light flickering in the background.
Besides the ladies with the blue hair, the ‘rock stars’ don’t even bother looking like rock stars anymore. Half of the guys on stage at that rock festival looked like the guy at the gas station that changes my oil. Sorry, call me old fashioned but I expect a little bit of “show” in show business. Dazzle me, please! When last you saw a band that had a show that kept you spellbound from the first note to the last. When last you saw something spectacular like Pink Floyd live on stage. (Or even the Tubes, P Funk, Alice Cooper…. the list goes on and on….)
It looks like the labels are more comfortable with lip syncers or the hundreds of guys who’s stage name starts with the letters DJ that come on stage and press the start button and then wave to the crowd for an hour. “Let’s dance everybody.”
The record labels may think that’s what the audience really wants but I feel the people do want something more, they are just not getting it.
When you want to look deeper into what people are really buying, what music they are really into, just delve into iTunes’ download charts. Pick a genre like Jazz and you will find that 70% of the top ten downloads for any given week are songs that are 10, 20 even 50 years old. Bad example? Well, pick Electronica and you will still find songs from ten years ago consistently topping the iTunes charts. While the blue hair people or DJ XYZ may show up on top for a few weeks, some acts like Daft Punk (who have not released a song in ten years) are consistently in the Top 10.
The labels seem to be picking up on this and are starting to recycle acts from the 70s and 80s and re-packaging them. Well, the Pet Shop Boys are not really boys anymore and if it saves the major labels a few million bucks to re-market somebody rather than taking a chance on somebody new, they will do it. You must have noticed how many of these ‘old acts’ suddenly bring out new albums. Just another sign that the major labels are not dead, they just smell funny.
So yes, the people do want better music, they want more and the labels keep giving us new ‘one hit wonders’ or recycle old ones while their back catalogue still brings in large amounts of money without any investment because the music was simply better.
But is there hope that things will get better and creativity will once again take over? It will depend on a whole lot of things. It will depend on music magazines and reviewers taking their time to find the next big thing and don’t have it dictated to them by their advertisers (I mean, the big labels) It will depend on festival and concert promoters to look beyond the same 10 acts that dominate the scene and make room for what could be the next big thing if given a chance. It will depend on the individual record buyer to dig a little deeper to discover their next favorite new artist. Dig a little deeper when searching iTunes, demand more variety from your radio station, demand more variety when you go to the next big festival.
If the song you hear on the radio isn’t good enough that you feel you’ll still like it and want to listen to it ten years from now, don’t bother buying it.
Be the change…….
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Jun 03 2009
Are you a Club DJ, Radio DJ, Mobile Disco, Internet Broadcaster? You can get on our DJ list and get all of our latest releases for airplay. Just Click Here and sign up for our airplay list.
Alan’s song “Buddha Bar Fly” is about to enter the iTunes download charts in the UK. Help make it happen. DJs, we need your support!
Alan will be on tour in Europe later this year. Know of a great venue? Let us know.
Jun 01 2009
Alan Steward’s song “Buddha Bar Fly” from his new album “Licensed to Chill” is getting popular on iTunes UK. The song sold more copies last week than all other Alan Steward songs combined. Any radio or club DJs in the UK who need the song for airplay, please email us at info@slimchancerecordings.com to get your copy.
We are also working on a music video for Buddha Bar Fly. Watch out for a supercharged “Bollywood meets Trinidad Carnival” performance and some ultra sexy Indian dancers in that one. Stay tuned…..
May 22 2009
This music video for this song was long overdue but we hoped to come up with something original for the video concept instead of something predictable like a talking dog or something that looks like half a million other music videos.
The video was shot in four different countries and the idea is to show in the video how our “Underdog” may feel ‘out of sync’ with the rest of the world. Check it out and we hope you enjoy it.
Stay tuned for two new music videos coming this summer. The video for “Buddha Bar Fly” and a music video for “Sax on the Beach”. Make sure to follow our RSS Feed and sign up for our VIP list to get all the latest news first.
Apr 13 2009
Underdog Video Shoot in Europe
Alan just returned from his promotional trip to Europe. The trip took him to London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Brussels and a few other places. A lot of new connections have been made, a lot of new radio airplay was added and with all this activity, Alan still found the time to shoot footage for his music video for the song “Underdog” The video was shot in four different countries and has a very original concept. Well, you have to see it to believe it.
The video is in the editing stages and should be out by the first week of May.
