Communion has roots as a London club-night founded by Ben Lovett (Mumford and Sons), Kevin Jones (Cherbourg) and producer Ian Grimble.

The website was designed by Franz Jeitz of Fudgegraphics, who has worked on the Communion brand identity for well over a year.

My task was to convert the Photoshop design into a working Wordpress theme. Once the design was in place I enhanced the site with a custom plugin to display the event flyers. The live page and next shows widget are controlled by a php script that ensures the flyers are automatically displayed as upcoming or past shows.

The label’s mailing list is managed through phplist and an iframe widget to allow signups without leaving the current page.

To promote the release of “Communion”, a compilation of nu-folk talent, I integrated a streaming flash player to be placed on the artists page. The mp3 player is modelled on the album artwork rather than using a generic flash player.

John McKeown’s online presence required an overhaul to prepare for the release of his official debut album. The brief for the new website was to keep it simple, strong and bold. With the existing content in place, I developed a new custom Wordpress theme based around the new press pictures.

The site uses a few custom plugins and widgets. I developed a simple facebook fan box widget that can be configured from the Wordpress dashboard making it simple to change the widget size and number of fans displayed.

The “listen” page uses an adapted version of the Tierra Audio Playlist Manager plugin, making it easy to add and edit the playlist.

Adding new live shows is made easier by integrating data from artistdata.com. Artistdata submits event information to numerous sites, including the official John McKeown website.

The new site is configured to display correctly across browsers and monitor sizes. The background image even resizes dynamically to fit larger monitors (see this screenshot of the site on a 27inch iMac).

Thanks to Songkick, I heard that We Are Scientists were rumoured to be the surprise guests at a Barfly gig as part of the NME Shockwaves Tour. The rumours were true and the show was brilliant.

The Chapman family were the official headline act with support from Bicycle Thieves (and another band we missed). Bicycle Thieves were good but it felt like we were watching them through one-way glass. Aside from mumbling, “We’re Bicycle Thieves” at the start, they didn’t interact with the crowd at all. It’s a pity because their songs deserve more than that.

I previewed The Chapman Family on Spotify earlier in the weekend and the songs made me apprehensive about the show but they certainly sounded better live. My lazy description would be, “White Lies with a lot more noise”. The noise was immense, plenty of distortion that would jump out and bitchslap you when you least expect it. The band seems to take their art very seriously, with the vocalist turning his mic cable against himself in an act of auto-asphyxiation during their final song. It was a bit surreal but I think I’ve out-grown that kind of musical darkness.

The not-so-secret headliners seemed very out of place in this line-up of generally depressing music – I don’t say depressing as a criticism, but rather a style or genre. So the crowd was fairly glum by the time We Are Scientists took to the stage. It was such a great contrast to be treated to some energetic sing-along songs broken up by hilarious stage banter. It was great to see the band in such an intimate venue. I even managed to get a few photos by shooting over people’s heads or squeezing in between those kind enough to let me.

I put together a list of 30 songs we’ve seen live in the past twelve months. This playlist doesn’t cover all the bands we’ve seen, it’s just the highlights package. I don’t own music by all the support acts or bands we saw at Reading Festival. I also left off Limp Bizkit, because Ana-Paula really didn’t like them. It was quite a task to try and remember all the shows, fortunately I use a site called Songkick to get gig updates, so it was easy to track my gigography. If you’re interested you can listen to a variation of this playlist on Spotify. We already have some great shows planned for the next few months, so hopefully next year’s playlist will be even better!

1. Dear Reader – Bend
2. Gentlemen – Sending cards
3. People In Planes – Pretty Buildings
4. Jukebox The Ghost – Hold It In
5. Nightmare of You – The Studded Cinctures
6. Nine Inch Nails – Hurt
7. The Used – I Caught Fire
8. Manchester Orchestra – I’ve Got Friends
9. Bloc Party – Hunting For Witches
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Pin
11. Kaiser Chiefs – Oh My God
12. Metric – Help I’m Alive (Acoustic)
13. Deftones – Change (In The House Of Flies)
14. Maximo Park – Girls Who Play Guitars
15. Billy Talent – Red Flag
16. Jamie T – Sheila
17. The Gossip – Standing In The Way Of Control
18. Jack Peñate – Run For Your Life
19. Vampire Weekend – A-Punk
20. Radiohead – Karma Police
21. The Rumble Strips – Alarm Clock
22. The Pixies – Gigantic
23. Green Day – Basket Case
24. Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch
25. Placebo – Every You Every Me (Live)
26. Them Crooked Vultures – New Fang
27. OK Go – Invincible
28. Finley Quaye – Sunday Shining
29. The Parlotones – Dragonflies and astronauts
30. Lostprophets – Last Train Home

The first release from Communion Records is a compilation featuring indie-folk’s finest new talent. The initial release strategy meant that each vinyl copy of ‘Communion’ would include a unique code providing access to a free digital copy of the album. I developed a download system to check a user’s code and ensure that it expires after each song is downloaded. The urls of the files are also protected so that the songs can only be downloaded with an access code. I built the system using PHP and MySQL to function within the existing Wordpress site.
The label decided on a different delivery route for the album so unfortunately this system never made it into the public domain.

Charly Coombes & the New Breed live at the Monto Water Rats (London, United Kingdom). Supported by John McKeown, Nicole Fermie, Dixie and Radio Riot.
19 January 2010.

You can listen to the interview segment below.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

In November 2009 Musketeer Records licensed the Native Noise brand for the release of ‘Native Noise Collection Vol.1 – The Seether Sessions’. The first in a series of planned releases to promote South African artists features the country’s most successful rock band. The Native Noise Collection includes acoustic versions of Seether’s biggest hits as well as interviews with the band. The album artwork features a number of my Seether photographs from various South African tours.

I launched a mini-site to promote the album and give fans access to additional content, like photographs, wallpapers and a desktop screensaver. The website is a very simple Wordpress system with a custom built theme based on the album artwork.

Head over to www.nativenoisecollection.com/desktop-wallpapers to download your favourites.

Tune into South Africa’s national radio station this Saturday to hear tracks off The Native Noise Collection Vol.1 – The Seether Sessions. (Live)⁵ showcases top quality live recordings and in-studio performances. Your host, Catherine, is 5fm’s biggest supporter of rock music and a true asset to the South African music industry. This Saturday (the 16th January 2010), Catherine will be playing Seether songs from the Native Noise Collection. If you haven’t got your hands on the album yet, then tune in from 5pm to 6pm and hear why it is an integral part of any Seether fan’s collection.

Click here to read the blog and view photos

My first Christmas since moving to the UK was bound to be different. It would be my first Christmas without my family and my first during Winter (aside from a family holiday in 1994). I got a very different one indeed. We’d planned a trip to Scotland to celebrate the holidays with Ana-Paula’s family (her sister is married with two kids).

A few days before the office closed we had our first snow. Snow in London is beautiful for a few hours but quickly turns into muddy slush. The novelty was still very exciting for me but it doesn’t come without problems.

The snow caused serious travel problems that saw many people spend Christmas in the airport. We replaced a cancelled train to Luton by sharing a cab with a more prepared traveller. Our short flight to Edinburgh included 5 hours on the runway before take-off and another hour after landing for crew to clear a walkway for us. I thought Scotland was closer than a 12 hour journey.

Every cloud has a silver lining and our travel disruptions were worth it when we saw how beautiful Scotland was. I was treated to a real White Christmas. We had snowball fights, poor attempts to make a snowman, sledging into hedges, snow angels and the excitement of Santa bringing gifts for two young children.

Our Christmas Day ended in a Karaoke session at the neighbour’s house. They had a decent selection of songs to choose from. Ana-Paula and I totally rocked ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’, ‘Fight For Your Right’ and ‘Living on a Prayer’ (any song that involved shouting rather than singing). I must say it was a little bit disturbing to hear the kids singing, “Yooooour, Yoooour sex is on fire!”

It really was a lovely Christmas and made up for missing a warm Indian Ocean swim after stuffing myself with Mum’s cooking.

I do need to have my say as an angry customer. I was very disappointed that Ana-Paula’s gift didn’t arrive in time. The snow made deliveries difficult for most companies and impossible for the highly incompetent UK Mail courier service. As I write this (3rd January), we’re still waiting for the order I placed on the 10th December. So I advise you to avoid buying anything that will be delivered via UK Mail.

I’m very impressed with the pics I got using my Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. It is an amazing little lens.

Go to the download page to get your copy of the Native Noise Collection Seether screensaver.
http://www.nativenoisecollection.com/screensaver/

I used Adobe Flash to create an animated swf file and then two great pieces of free software to convert the animation into screensavers.
Instant Storm Screensaver Creator for Windows
SWF Screensaver for Mac

I’m really excited that The Native Noise Collection Vol.1 – The Seether Sessions is now available from all good music stores across South Africa.

You can order the album online from the following retailers:

The album has only been released in South Africa but OneWorld.co.za and Kalahari.net usually do international deliveries.

To celebrate the release I have created a brand new website dedicated to The Native Noise Collection at http://www.nativenoisecollection.com. The website is fairly basic at the moment but keep checking back as I’ll be adding lots of cool stuff in the weeks to come.

I have also created a Native Noise Page on Facebook, become a fan and stay in the loop with all the latest news about The Seether Sessions.

During my recent holiday visiting friends and family in South Africa I had one night to go out in Jozi. Fortunately two of my favourite bands (Heroes Wear Red and New Academics) were both playing at the same venue.

Heroes Wear Red, New Academics and Broadway Screamer live at the launch of HWR’s music video for ‘Am I’.
Back 2 Basix (Johannesburg, South Africa).
27 November 2009.

This show had some very odd lighting. The entire stage was lit up by bright blue lights that created a very difficult environment to shoot photos. I Photoshopped the hell out of these pictures to try and compensate for the blue haze that covered them all. I always process my RAW image files in Photoshop, but I don’t like to mess with them too much. This was an interesting experiment for me.

Plush / Rory Eliot
Plush Website
Plush on Myspace
Rory Eliot on Myspace
Plush Facebook Fan Page

Stuart Dooley
Stuart Dooley on Myspace
Stuart Dooley Facebook Fan Page

Back in 2002, Paul Seele launched a radio show on the University of Cape Town’s campus station. Native Noise focused on promoting South African music with an ethos of ‘thinking globally by support locally’. During a two year run, Paul interviewed over 165 local artists, promoting the country’s top acts as well as showcasing upcoming talent. The Native Noise radio show ended on a high note with the release of The Native Noise Acoustic Collection, a free MP3 album featuring some of the best songs performed live on the show.

In November 2009 Native Noise partnered with Musketeer Records for the release of ‘Native Noise Collection Vol. 1 – The Seether Sessions’. The album features a collection of rarities by South Africa’s most successful rock band on a 2CD set available exclusively in South Africa.

Disc 1 of ‘The Seether Sessions’ kicks off with the new song, ‘No Shelter’, a b-side from the gold selling hit album ‘Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces’. The disc continues with recordings from the band’s iTunes Originals sessions, previously unavailable in South Africa. Seether discusses their career from 1999 to 2008 alongside rare acoustic versions of songs including the hits ‘Fake It’, ‘Broken’ and ‘Rise Above This’. Fans will also be treated to covers of The Beatles’ ‘Across the Universe’ and Cole Porter’s ’I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ (made famous by Frank Sinatra) performed in Seether’s unique style.

A second disc captures the band’s live acoustic performance at the Grape Street Club, as featured in the 2006 release ‘One Cold Night’. The session includes hit singles ’The Gift’, ‘Truth’ and ‘Gasoline’ as well as a cover of Pearl Jam’s ‘Immortality’, fan favourite ‘Sympathetic’ and the early Saron Gas song, ‘Tied My Hands’.

No band could be more apt for the launch of The Native Noise Collection. Seether redefined the way people perceive South African rock and thanks to local support they went on to achieve global greatness. This exclusively South African release will be a valued asset to any Seether fan’s collection.

Mike Dignam Myspace
Gabrielle Aplin Myspace
John McKeown Myspace
John McKeown Official Website

Having successfully sold 2000 pre-order copies of her debut album, Verity was looking for a way to reward the fans that supported her in the journey. The limited edition release of ‘Journey’ included two bonus tracks as well as an interactive CD-ROM as a second disc. I developed the CD-ROM in Adobe Flash to showcase Verity’s music and present fans with bonus videos, photographs and information about the difference the artist has made through her Live Your Dreams Foundation as well as other charities.

The CD-ROM was packaged with 2000 limited edition copies of Journey and shipped to fans across the world.

To aid the promotion of Fevertree’s sophomore album, ‘Under a New Regime’, I developed an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) that would be sent out as an interactive CD-ROM. The Multimedia presentation was built using Adobe Flash. It proved to be an effective way to showcase the band’s music – with a selection of songs playing throughout the showcase. The EPK also includes dynamically loaded music videos and photographs.

The official John McKeown website is built on a Wordpress back-end. I created a custom theme to represent the album artwork for ‘Things Worth Fighting For’ and have used and adapted a number of powerful plugins to enhance the website’s appearance and usability. The website is content-rich, including photo galleries, music videos, lyrics, a gig guide and an integrated streaming mp3 player. The site includes a password protected press area for high resolution images and full album streaming.

A VIP Area also exists to provide exclusive content for fans that become members of the site. The sign-up process has been customized and enhanced to automatically add members to the mailing list. This VIP area was used for an exclusive online broadcast of John McKeown’s album launch showcase.

The John McKeown myspace page is an ever-changing project. The site has been created with various CSS modifications. The page header changes depending on the marketing strategy. It is used to stream videos, promote releases or photos. The header can include regular HTML and images or Adobe Flash animations.

I designed the Beatroute Records myspace page to mirror the label’s official website. I had to write custom CSS and HTML to update the page and include all the new elements of the design.

When I started working at Beatroute Records the company had just been resurrected, so I was given a blank canvas to start with. We went with a clean white design with a sketch theme. The site is built on a Wordpress back-end with a bespoke theme.

The site includes a customized online store, powered by the WP E-commerce Plugin. I enhanced the site’s functionality by editing plugins and writing custom code for widgets and sidebars. The website is optimized to streamline the process of adding or updating news, artist pages, links, digital releases etc.