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| StreetJelly BLOG: Community News, Video Streaming, Online Busking, and more… |
It’s very easy to use a USB Mixer with StreetJelly.com. Anna Laube shows how it’s done in the video with her Behringer XENYX Q802 USB mixer on her Mac.
That’s it. The StreetJelly player will see the mixer as the default sound device and use it when broadcasting.
Many thanks to Anna Laube for making the video. Check out her music, it’s fantastic! www.AnnaLaube.com
Special guest blog about twin brother’s amazing reunion over StreetJelly!
Chico (left) and Merv (right)
We hear this phrase so often in our day to day lives. Recently, Merv, a.k.a. Image, and his twin brother, Chico, were reminded of just what a truism it really is. After almost nine years apart, these two brothers have reconnected through the magic that is StreetJelly.com, and I have been lucky enough to bear witness to this wonderful family reunion.
Wednesday, May 14th, 2014 started off like any other day. Image was buzzing around StreetJelly, like he always does (lol), little did he know that he was about to get a huge surprise. Completely out of the blue his twin brother, Chico, just happened to come across StreetJelly and he stopped to check it out. The two of them ended up in the same show. They both were shocked to be looking at a picture of themselves in the chat while someone else was talking.
So with the help of Skype, the two of them got talking and even arranged a visit that happened earlier this week. Our home was full of the sounds of music and reminiscing as the two of them shared their stories and filled each other in on their lives now.
It was an amazing experience for all of us to be able to welcome Chico into our home and our family. ☺ We look forward to seeing much more of him. Keep your eyes posted to the Jelly and you just might see him pop up in one of our shows or us in his.
Thanks once again goes to Frankie for providing us with the amazing site that is StreetJelly.com. A site that really does go to show that anything is possible with the power of music behind it.
An Online Venue is still a Venue
The Internet has become a big part of our lives and is often viewed as one big entity. In reality it is an enormous collection of services, businesses and venues. Frequently it is free to users, but it is not free to those who decide to make it their medium of choice to conduct business or offer a service. Instead of paying rent for a physical location, virtual venues pay for bandwidth and hosting. As soon as an individual logs on to a website this person enters a space very much like a physical location. When someone walks into a concert hall or store, it is widely accepted to conduct oneself in a respectful manner and comply with a few rules. Everyone understands a customer walking into a restaurant cannot simply go up to someone’s table and scream insults at a stranger. Online venues are not really that different from conventional locations especially if they offer live video and the opportunity to chat. Live communication among participants closely resembles an actual gathering place. StreetJelly falls into this category.
We are a small company created by music lovers and musicians who pour our hearts, time and financial resources into this undertaking with the intention of making StreetJelly a pleasant, welcoming and fun entertainment venue for musicians and viewers. It is our mission to be all about the music. The musical performance is our focus of attention and the chat was predominantly designed to offer a way of communication between the artist and audience.
We would like to thank our musicians, viewers and all the volunteers behind the scenes from the bottom of our heart and are grateful for all your support and feedback. Constructive criticism and suggestions are always considered and taken seriously. However, no matter how hard we try it is impossible to please everybody and meet the entertainment needs of every single person visiting the website. We are all individuals with varying likes and dislikes and no venue on this planet will be able to satisfy 100% of the population. Over the course of the last year our staff was repeatedly confronted with some extremely rude and disrespectful treatment behind the scenes simply because we did not accommodate the personal entertainment needs of a very small group of our users. We are doing our very best 24/7 and personally go out of our way to be polite and respectful to our musicians and viewers. StreetJelly offers musicians the opportunity to showcase their music and earn some money. We do not charge for broadcasting and pay the fees to songwriter associations to enable musicians to play covers. For those of you who believe StreetJelly is not the right place, be assured we understand. We appreciate the time you spent to give us a try and sincerely wish you the best of luck in finding a venue fit for you. It neither helps us nor does it help the few who spend a vast majority of every day on the website simply to inform us over and over how much you dislike our business model. 
How many people would frequent a restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner which serves a type of food they don’t enjoy just to tell the cook every time how much they disliked their meal?
I can’t mention enough how much we appreciate the vast majority of wonderful musicians and viewers. Many of us have even made cherished friends. For those of you we can’t accommodate it is time to move on and search for your perfect place to spend your time.
Thanks again to everyone who shares our vision of creating an online space of mutual respect and extending this respect to our staff and team of monitors who have a very ungrateful job. Hope to see you on StreetJelly very soon. This is not just a business to us, but also a labor of love.
Larger audiences . . . am I doing my share to “Put Butts In Da Seats?”
I ask this question as while StreetJelly is no doubt a wonderful site for musicians and songwriters to showcase their talent the fact remains for ultimate success, for performers anyway, we as a group must do all we can to boost the “civilian members” of our audiences. This is of prime importance if indeed you truly want to get compensated i.e. tips from your performances.
For you “true” buskers out there, I’d be willing to bet when you stake out a setup location you are looking for the highest traffic and target music demographic audience you can reach. Well on SJ while we have a built in audience, they are like family, and while I love my “real” family as much as the next guy they are the last group I would ever expect to support my living, especially as a musician. With this said, if we want to grow our tips and audience size we simply must get more music fans to visit SJ.
As a group we can instantly start bringing in more audience members. Look, we all have email accounts, 99% of us have FB pages or websites. I urge you to take a little time, say once a month or so to do some blitz emails campaigns, FB sharing promotions and website links and yes “blatantly plug” your future performances. It’s numbers game guys, the more we “all” tell the story to our contacts and get them to tell it to their contacts the larger the “civilian” audiences will be. And every new music lover we drive to our performance will eventually check out other performers. In fact I encourage you to point out the diversity of music they can hear on SJ in your campaigns. I learned long ago you only gain by plugging other acts as you highlight yours.
Frankie and Martina have a wonderful website built with the musician and music lover in mind, and I like many of you are very thankful for the platform they have given us to showcase our music. But, IMHO, the time has come for “us” to do something to grow SJ. We as musicians just can’t sit back, plug in and expect for our popularity and tips to grow. We owe it to ourselves to do something with this platform they have afforded us to insure it does, as the saying goes the ball is in our courts.
Bottom-line . . . How often do we hear lines like, man we can’t get squat for a 3 hour gig in my town, and the next thing you learn is that very often some cat is playing a gig for “nadda” just so he/she can get “the exposure”. Well we can’t do much about that but we do have the ability and means to help build our SJ “civilian” audiences. My bet is that not only will your tips increase but the more local audience members you bring in the more audience members you will have supporting you in your live events around your town . . . therefore your number of live paid gigs should also increase.
Fellow SJ family members please take this for what it is and no more, a personal opinion offered with the hope that if some of you agree you will get on board with trying to build civilian audiences. Either way, I thank you for your time to read it.
Now let’s count off the next tune 1 ana 2 ana 3 . . .
Best Regards,
Danny C.
Breaking News!
Interpol is on the lookout for the global distributor of a new but highly addictive substance called STREETJELLY. The mastermind appears to be a deceptively congenial programmer named Frank Podlaha ( AKA “Frankie” or “The King” by his minions on the STREET)
He has single-handedly constructed an elaborate system which enables performers to connect with audiences ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET! At first look, this seems innocent enough… but now, health care providers around the world are reporting an epidemic of symptoms that indicate a new addictive substance has been unleashed.
Symptoms include the following:
If you have any of these symptoms, don’t bother reporting it because there is no cure. Your best bet is to surrender and enjoy the euphoria.
PS: it’s not illegal (YET)… but federal agents say it’s more fun than a lot of things that ARE illegal. Your call.
Heckling
Heckling is generally defined as trying to…
”…to embarrass and annoy (someone speaking or performing in public) by questions, gibes, or objections; badger.”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/heckling
However, it is also a more subtle problem. I would further define it as intentional and unintentional acts that cause breaks, gaps, disruption, and interruption of the performance.
Most of the performers here on StreetJelly are not technological wizards freshly instilled with a degree in sound engineering or computer programming. It is their intention to share a passion and love with you. Many of them are in fact singular musicians who have only begun to perform publicly online.
Please remember that as an audience member you have a job. You came for a great performance. Here’s how you get one.
Now for the hard pill to swallow. If you are not going to pay for production, or transportation for tutelage, and/or are not Simon Cowell; then it is probably not helping if you critique the performer’s style, ability, prowess, set-list, or looks. These things stall the performance at the least and completely decimate an artist’s timing at most. Think about it! They are remembering the chord progression, the lyrics, the pitch, the tempo, and the punch line introduction to their next song. As they answer a question about how they are, read a side joke between Image and Clifty that makes no sense what-so-ever, and quiet their friend who has just barged in; you say, “raise the bass a little.” It is completely disarming! Worse still, when a musician has a connection problem or a sound problem that is not readily repairable, he or she is constantly attacked.
Look out folks, I am just getting wound up. Making a request from an artist usually involves having an understanding of the artist. However, you have to remember that you are trying to make the show better. If you ask Image and Family to play Pantera, you are unequivocally heckling with malicious intent. As funny as it would be, we should remember that our job as an audience is to enjoy the show. For the Image and Family show, a good request may be Drunken Sailor by Great Big Sea. Continuing on with this particular vent, there are people who understand this. Ever notice that when someone is barraging the request-o-meter with impossibles that a Don Gaynor or a Damian will come in and request a song they are sure the artist is good at. They are a practical participating audience.
Important and most obvious: not every performer is for you. If you don’t like a show or performer, just leave the show. Everyone has something to offer, but maybe not to you. Be polite, too. An explicit comment may work sometimes, but not other times. Remember that your chat is visible to not only those here but those who will join in a moment. If you know you are derailing the show, pull back and encourage. You are the audience, not the heckler.
Also, a certain persistent problems frequently arise from a free to use site of this nature. Please be kind and courteous. Smoking weed, swearing, illicit sexual content, vulgarity are not always appropriate in the conversation and/or the performance. Many of us are here for pure music and art. We are all of different values, culture, and political opinion. Going into a family performance such as Image and Family’s show with illicit sexual rhetoric is more than a social faux pas: it is blatantly rude. Would you act like that at the White House, church, grandma’s house? I bet not. Could you drop a licidious comment at Molotov Colostomy’s show? Sure, they are a different sort of musicians all together. But you shouldn’t go there and try to pull a sermon off, either. Very honestly, you are not anonymous and it is not your chat. It is the artists’ show, and all viewers are entitled to hear and enjoy that performer without the rudeness and distractions from a few jerks. Make sure you know the performers and their sense of propriety before you try to shout out the familiar…. or you will really be a heckler.
Likewise, performers need to remember to be cognizant of the camera personally seeing boogie sleeve wipes, a crotch torn out of a pair of jeans, a funny cigarette, a nose pick, (special woman note: don’t bend down in front of a desktop cam), and pay attention to what you have in the frame around you since you are also live to the world.
Last, most performers here are willing to play for free, and we do. But your tipping shows us that we have value. Want preferential request treatment, familiarity, and kinship, then give compliments that come from the heart. You will know if it’s good if it builds friendship, and makes it more enjoyable for the listener and the performer.
P.S. Believe me, some of this is learned from personal mistakes. Our personal accountability will keep StreetJelly.com a wonderful and rare respite on the internet.
Finger Picking Madness By Damian Trujillo
Introduction: Thanks to Frank Podlaha, creator of Street Jelly. This live streaming music site has been an inspiration to myself on many different levels. Oh, let me count the ways …although there are too many ways to count: Jayro from Dublin inspired my version of Black Magic Woman by Santana, Remy de Larouque from New York inspired my version of Skinny Love by Bon Iver, Quint Williams from NY does a great version of June Apple, Ben Brady sings classic country from the heart, others make me want to sing better, Image and Family (Merv, Amanda, Robert) bring light hearted sailors songs with a splash of pirates from the past to life, Kurt Van Hook kills it with great lyrics and heartfelt melody, Sue Rarick with folksy voice and great guitar. The list can go on and on, so be sure take a listen for many great artists on Street Jelly.
Now on with the Finger Picking Madness. When I started playing guitar at the ripe old age of 22 (1992), I was convinced that a guitar pick was the way to go. So my training began. I was able to control the pick after about 5 years of practice. Yes 5 years, I did not have a natural gift for music other then I liked it. So I started playing local clubs, weddings, churches, funerals, on the street, dude ranches, etc. Even though I pretty much sucked, I was able to make enough money to at least keep this serious hobby alive.
I was a cover tune king, garage band junkie, but quietly and always in the back room out of site, I was writing my own tunes and lyrics. In 1998, I finally recorded my own acoustic CD – Shining Through in Alamosa Colorado. You can give it a listen sometime at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/trujillo . At this time I was still using a guitar pick and I thought I was pretty good at it, yes delusional, but sooner or later you manifest what you think. So be careful of what you think.
From 1998 to 2008, I worked on several musical projects, started a recording studio, lost a lot of money and time, and then everything came to a screeching halt. I actually sold all my musical equipment and stopped playing music until October 2012. I lost all my direction and I forgot why I was doing music in the first place. Oh, but this is not the end of this journey. During this hiatus I did build a custom Stratocaster, and to this date I have never plugged it in. I started the build in January of 2012 and finished it in December 2012. Crazy I know.
In October of 2012 my brother invites me down Colorado to play in the Colgate Country Showdown. At this time, I do not own even an acoustic guitar, just a custom electric guitar and a ukulele I bought for one of my kids. I went down to Colorado and my brother had an acoustic guitar for me to play. Now this guitar was hard to play, like a fence post with piano strings. My fingers were screaming for mercy since I haven’t even played a guitar in years. Ouch.
While I was in Colorado practicing for the country showdown I was able to listen to a few bands in the area. One particular was a bluegrass band from the east coast, do not recall their name, but they were great and they gave me an idea to start a new project. This project is called Two Roads.
I get back to Wyoming at the end of October 2012, by the first week of November 2012 I have written 12 bluegrass tunes on the ukulele. I need to buy an acoustic guitar to move my project forward. I am brain storming at this time, my mind is in a musical flurry. I hear music around every corner, I think music, I feel music. Now I have to spend money to restock my equipment to play music again. At the same time I am surfing the web, looking for online musical outlets. I was led to Street Jelly and joined the site around the end of November 2012. During this flurry I am thinking hard, that is where the finger picking madness begins. I have never been a finger picker but I need to try.
I start researching vids online about finger picking. Oh mercy! I try and I try to no avail. My fingers will not work and I cannot understand the concept of the Travis pick. I am feeling musically retarded (lack of better words). I watch and listen to hundreds of videos online closely without result. I feel sad and hopeless, like I am an old dog that cannot be taught new tricks. I need to finger pick. I actually give up after several hundred hours of trying. High expectations indeed. Yes, I live this way.
Damian – Two Roads
By the first of December I am done with finger picking madness. I quit. Two days go by since I came to the conclusion that I cannot finger pick. Then, I sit down quietly with my guitar in my hands and BAM! I start finger picking without even thinking about it. It is almost as if I have been doing it all my life. Almost natural. In the meanwhile, I begin playing some music on Street Jelly which is a great venue for me to get this current project out to the public. I struggle with online sound for a bit (about 40 shows) and still do from time to time, but Street Jelly inspires me to press on and to never give up. My finger picking skills are developed with new music and Street Jelly shows in real time, live and online. To boldly go where no man has gone before, to seek out brave new humans to listen to music, and live with fellow artists on the wonderful world of Street Jelly. A little dramatic to say the least, but so very true in my mind.
So here I am today. I have received many compliments from listeners and viewers via Street Jelly on my finger picking skills. Several folks have been inspired by my Two Roads musical project in many ways. Inspired in ways hard to imagine. Some inspired by the musical content, some inspired by the sound, some inspired by my finger picking madness. I thank you all because I am also inspired – by you. The moral of this story: never ever give up, you can do whatever you put your mind to no matter your age. Be well on your fantastical journey and I will see you on the Street Jelly. Damian
Landon With a Cold
As fall descends on StreetJelly I am reminded of the now infamous article about the legendary Frank Sinatra. “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” in Esquire Magazine April, 1966 written by Gay Talese. It’s not really the article I am citing though, just that wonderful title.
The incomparable Random Landon was playing live via our StreetJelly internet stream with the rattley scratchy throat of a man with a serious sinus infection. It is an addiction, a compulsive narcissistic driven desire to play that one song that will get the listener off the couch and clicking clappies in the chat.
I, too, have played the StreetJelly show with a hoarse and raw throat, and have even witnessed the newest “Big Deal” pin awardee singing show tunes on the edge of laryngitis. Oh to reminisce into the days of last December as “bumS_lie” coughs out a few songs to keep his one hundred midnight show streak alive.
If Picasso had no paint, or Samuel Langhorne Clemens had no pen, would they still perform? I think so. They, being driven by that desire to reach out and touch someone else, ever so briefly, would be compelled to paint with eggs. Perhaps even write with charcoal. The art endows the artist to a point of total obedience to the art. I am a StreetJelly performer.
With a box of decongestant in one hand and a package of Kleenex in the other, I set up the webcam. While plugging in the microphone and adjusting levels, I stop by the mirror to make sure my mustache is free and clear. Finally, I take one last moment to survey the degree of my sinus headache. Deciding it was Ibuprofen worthy, I have a pill and a glass of water and push the broadcast button.
But, be cautious my StreetJelly Friends, a sinus problem can make your singing life miserable. Conditions like allergies and sinus infections cause the tissue in the throat and larynx to swell. This condition will eventually lead to hoarseness. If severe symptoms are present, it is time for a medical professional. Treating with mild antihistamines and / or decongestant can help. You made need to use anti-drying medications with an antihistamine, such as Entex. Hydrating medications may also help to combat dry atmospheric conditions. Please don’t abuse your throat. Constant misuse of the Larynx may cause laryngitis short term and polyps long term. Just take care of yourselves, tips are waiting to be had. No worries, www.StreetJelly.com is not going anywhere.
For some more information you could consult this article.
http://www.voiceteacher.com/mathis.html
Just like Old Frankie Blue-eyes and the guys at the Lucky Strike, the show will go on. Be safe and be Super Great.
Clifton Printy’s energetic noir phantasmagoria, the winner of this year’s Street Jelly Fiction Award, crackles with original ideas.
The title refers to a young prisoner of war, who finds himself possessed of boatloads of magical power, or sciant, which may or may not allow him to bed (scare off) a beautiful, super-model-slash-witch, and save (destroy) the world in the process.
Following an unexplained underground event, a trio of doomed immortals emerges from their subterranean crypt to find out what’s been doing on the surface for the last millennium. The reader is then taken on a whirlwind tour of nightmarish dungeons, cult circles and herb farms.
Without giving too much away, let this reviewer simply suggest that the ending roughly parallels one that would emerge should, let’s say, there were to be a head on collision between cars driven by the lead characters of Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” , Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” and Heller’s “Catch-22”. Then, imagine that the survivors of that horrific crash were to somehow pilot a plane to a deserted island and were soon joined by the cast and crew of “Game of Thrones”. After a marathon, double-elimination bocce tournament, and a tequila fueled, all-night, blow-out of a party celebrating the bocce champion, everybody suddenly stops what they are doing at precisely 7:00am and quietly reflect with gratitude on all that has transpired in the past year. Everybody, that is, except the guy who plays Robb Stark, who is still blindly pissed off and angry that his character was killed off at the fucking “red” fucking “wedding”.
Jarimi Hugaerm is required reading for all denizens of the Jelly Street. Be put on notice, SJ’ers, you will be tested. Available on amazon.com.