Tag: hockey bloggers

 
TunedQuest: How the Radio Music Submissuib Resource Got Started

TunedQuest: How the Radio Music Submissuib Resource Got Started

TunedQuest: How the Radio Music Submissuib Resource Got Started

No one has asked me why. Why has a traditional sports blogger with a reputation for covering hockey (and making typos… I still pull that off really damn well, thank you) published a list of radio stations? Why in God’s name (and Wayne Gretzky’s… Or Gordie Howe? Maybe Martin St. Louis is more appropriate? I’m a Lightning fan after all and Marty was oh my God!)  have I spent so much time building on that list? Radio’s dead, Spotify Uber Ales and my vocal other reasons to wonder, doubt, and put down the post of 150+ radio and streaming stations that accept submissions. Why have I done it?

The short answer is the same reason I started hockey blogging in February  2004: Ir I don’t do it, who will?

The longer answer is tied to my own want to get into music and get out there… and how it failed, like it has for so many others. Don’t conclude I’m a musician/recording artist who didn’t know how to get out there. No, I’m just a writer, a poet, a would-be lyricist. For various reasons, I can’t do more than that.

I still got close to having lyrics put to the song; I paired up with an artist who started talking extended-play album with me. This had been back in the spring of 2018. I was thisclose to being within the realm of music, all the while knowing the next step was to get the would-be songs out there through airplay. So, what I did was throw a few inside music stations I knew (by way of me helping the Pretty Voices get their 201t album, Jangulaar out into the radio world)  into a simple text file. I added a few more stations that I found in web searching, and I saved it to my Windows desktop.

Then nothing happened. Life drew the artist away from music, I moved on, and the file stayed on my desktop.

In July of 2019, a long time friend of mine filled me in on her upcoming debut single. I was surprised and thrilled I’ve known Antheia Jayne since the fall of 1997. I’d known she had a music touch for quite some time. I also know she’s an educated woman (to say the least), earning a Masters’s degree. I didn’t know her plans for the music, or how much time she was to invest in promoting the tune and herself in the music field now (her Masters is not in Music by the way).

I wanted to help with promotion, I didn’t know how I could be involved… up until I remembered the list. The text file was raw, so I threw together an excel spreadsheet (in a unique, sloppy, and raw fo4emat) and sent it to Antheia Jayne. I was left hoping success would come for her with the publication of Beta Life.

With the excel file and not much else going on. I’m not involved in hockey like I used to be, no one’s courted me to resume the practice (in a respectable, serious manner), my hands aren’t quite cooperating anyway. I also knew that I’ve crossed too many indie musicians (by way of radio, Spotify, and Reddit) who don’t seem to try to achieve or push themselves down the traditional broadcast avenue. It’s either playlists, forums, or a single music stream that they’ll take a chance on. How many artists (who have music published online through a distributor) know there are so many places to try to push their art? So, I took my little list, added a few more options I discovered on a casual web search or two, and put together a blog post. That was the start…

I keep going with that thing – researching station submission options has become my hobby. I rarely have musicians remark about it, but the rare remarks that do happen drive me to find and list more options.

Why is there a list of 150+ stations? There are other articles on the web that promote music submission options. The catch is, they provide limited numbers or just station-name and an email address. While my post doesn’t provide for every listing, there is more context (including experience in some cases) with the sites/stations. There’s also no “this is the best sire to try with” declaration because the music business is a busy and complex place and the best avenues for some turn into a dead-end for others. It’s important to know there are more options out there… That, and to always keep going and not wait for success/fails with one single submission at one station. That kind of practice will work against you if you want to go far.

While submission options for musicians is whar the radio/streaming post was created for, it also can serve as a music discovery tool for listeners (and free advertising for stations). While it’s tough to find some of the listed sites, listeners aren’t necessarily going to find the music those stations air on Spotify, Apple Music, or elsewhere.playlist

So, why did I do the list? Because the option was there, so why not? Because some people could use it and might find success through the chance the broadcast options provide. Or just because. Take your pick.

“Where are they now?” of hockey blogging?

It’s on my mind as something that should be done but I don’t think I’m the one who should do it:

Someone should do a feature on members of the hockey blogosphere of the 2000s that helped bring media into the current state it’s in (hello, James Mirtle!_.

While we’re at it, someone ought to explore what happened to SB Nation hockey site founders and key staff members on certain sites. Some who came into the network in 2008-09 are still there while others have disappeared into the cosmos or onto rinky-dink personal blog sites that don’t have much exposure or notoriety. Like myself. Hi. ?

Three noteworth Reddit groups for hockey and sports fans

Reddit isn’t just a message board. It’s also not a dump-all marketing destination either. As a long time blogger, I didn’t deliberately try to mine traffic from Reddit because I didn’t want to be the one who posted any of my written-content from my days at Raw Charge on major subreddits. That’s ethics, though. I’ve turned that around in my time moderating on a subreddit devoted to hockey blogs. The subreddit /r/HockeyWriters is devoted to what is basically blog content and hockey authors. I’ve been the one (by way of content submissions from around the hockey blogosphere) to give the group some life.

Yet I can’t do it all. By that I mean I can’t be expected to post everything on the group. Read More

A hockey blogger Q and A with Lyle Richardson of Spectors Hockey

One of the routine areas that draws fans to the web to find out what they can are rumors. Some are made up, some are hearsay, some are those casually expressed “I’m hearing…” remarks that you see on Twitter from major members of hockey coverage.

The man at the blogging level who made a name for himself and found a firm niche in covering reports on potential player movement in the NHL is Lyle Richardson of Spectors Hockey, who you likely have also seen on such sources as Fox Sports and Bleacher Report among others.

Richadson is another one of the forefathers of the hockey blogosphere, starting around 2003. Want proof? I reposted this article for him during the NHL lockout of 2005, having originally run in November 2003.

While there are a lot of questions still to be had about player movement and eery franchise in the league, the questions are a mix about the man,  blogging, and guys named “Joe” and “Jaromir”.

Read More

A place on Reddit to promote your hockey writing

As one of the longest tenured bloggers tied to the sport of hockey (well, at least up until a few days ago when I stopped for the most part), I’d like to take a moment to try to make mention of a category on Reddit where you can have feature content from your blog posted.

If you’re a fan of the NHL or the sport of ice hockey in general, you’re going to go with the no-brainer of /r/hockey, which is the top spot for hockey coverage on Reddit…. and it gets bogged down with at-the-moment coverage, chatter, videos, etc.

Promoting feature writing, though? There’s a subreddit aimed specifically for doing that (though few people are posting within the group) called /r/hockeywriters.  Yeah, the name makes you think that this is specifically for The Hockey Writers authors, but it’s not specifically for them (unless I missed a memo).  It’s to help promote content from hockey bloggers who do feature write-ups on just about any network.

If you’re looking just for feedbavck (and that’s the last post done on the group), it’s probably wiser to post the request on a different group.  If you’re looking to promote a specific write-up you’ve done? Or promote a featured article written that you enjoy (not news — feature article) that sellsyou on the author of the piece, then /r/hockeywriters may be the place to go.

Downside: Only 100 subscribers at this point. That can be remedied, can’t it?