WHEELS 2.0: DO YOU HEAR A BUZZ?

For those who missed last week’s edition, we urge you to check out Sandra Di Amante, who is simply amazing. Also, peep my interview with Brenden Mulligan, the creator of Onesheet.com, a cool new tool for artists. And frequent Wheels contributor Erica Ramon pops in to make everyone aware of an intriguing new duo that has been signed to a newly revitalized major. Keep feedin’ my inbox: [email protected]

SPOTLIGHT
Sandra Di Amante (http://www.myspace.com/sandradiamante): Who's Fooling Who, the full-length debut of this Swedish singer/songwriter, is a powerful and emotional experience that engulfs the listener and invites them into her world of poetry and music. Most of the songs deal with highly personal subject matter but with a sense of irony and a healthy self-distance. The texture of her soulful voice possesses an edgy urgency that never fails to draw the listener in. She recently wrote the winning song for this year's Eurovision 2011 contest—and that’s essentially the European version of winning the Grammy for Song of the Year. We’re also hearing she’s just signed a publishing deal with BMG Rights Management. For more info, contact Shauna Krikorian: [email protected]

BUZZIN’
Karmin: BMI spotlights musical trendsetters with the Next Fresh Thing showcase series, dedicated to the most talented up-and-coming songwriters. Thursday night’s showcase featured the fresh duo Karmin, in their first L.A. appearance since signing to Epic under the stalwart L.A. Reid. Making music in its purest form, Karmin draws on Nick’s classic rock upbringing and jazz education and Amy’s pop and R&B sensibilities, with guitar and keys woven into their blend of percussion and vocals. What began as a school project in their days at Berklee has evolved into a pairing that brings us back to music that is genuine at its core. They exploded on our radar, via YouTube, with their brilliant covers, and now we’re waiting to see where the major label world will lead them. Stay tuned for updates and information on this rising talent.

ON DECK
The Gallery: an unsigned indie rock band from Western Massachusetts. The group has been in both Rolling Stone (as part of the "Choose the Cover" contest) and Alternative Press ("AP&R"). In addition, their latest EP, Come Alive, charted on CMJ on both the Radio 200 and Top Adds charts. One track, "Catalyst," was also selected as a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition. Check out the video for their song “Ballroom of Broken Hearts”; reminds us of Tom Petty.

BAND UPDATE
Audiodax: We featured this Midwestern duo earlier in the year, and they’ve just released a new EP, which you can download for free at www.audiodax.com. In other news, the band recently signed with Chris Allen at The Collective for management, and sold out their July 21 show at the Highline Ballroom in N.Y.

EMAIL Q&A WITH BRENDEN MULLIGAN
How did you get your start in the music business?
In college, I put on a music festival that brought about 50 acts to campus over three days while interning fulltime at Creative Artists Agency. After college, I moved to Chicago to work for Aware Records/ Asquared Management. After Aware, I consulted for an online music retailer and spent time tour managing. At the same time, I was founding ArtistData, a syndication platform for musicians to publish content across all of their web presences, concert databases and local media. Sonicbids acquired ArtistData in 2010, where I helped run product strategy until earlier this year.

Before you started Onesheet, i know you were a big part of ArtistData which helped bands link all their social networks to one place to update concert info, can you talk briefly about that?
When I was at Aware/Asquared, part of my day-to-day was to keep information consistent across an ever growing number of marketing channels. At first it was just MySpace, but as more and more social networks, concert databases, artist services, etc emerged, it seemed like information consistency was going to be a problem. The goal was to build one central dashboard artists, managers, and labels could enter their information into, and ArtistData would take care of getting to where it needed to go, and to keep it consistent everywhere so fans wouldn't be reading different information in different places. It worked out well, and there are tens of thousands of artists using it daily.

Can you tell everyone about your new company onesheet.com?
My goal with Onesheet is to give all musicians an opportunity to build a beautiful, maintenance-free web presence in under two minutes. Instead of building another spot for them to keep information up-to-date, Onesheet is built to hook into all the other existing websites and services artists already use. It's super-simple. They just connect their account from Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Sonicbids, Reverbnation, ArtistData (and a whole lot more), and within seconds, Onesheet pulls the content into a simple, maintenance free web presence. Then they upload a big background image, make a few quick customizations and they're done. An example of the whole process is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUbq_3id-Wc

For bands who have their own website, EPK, what would you tell them the main reason to sign up with your service is?
Honestly, I haven't found a reason for artists NOT to sign up for Onesheet. It always stays up-to-date, takes two minutes to set up, is visually attractive and improves their search engine results for all the other services. For artists who don't have the resources to set up their own homepage, this is a great alternative. For artists that DO have their own homepage, this can serve as a great supplement, or a great landing page when releasing a new single/video, etc.

It's fascinating to watch how different sized artists are using Onesheet so far. Some are using it as a landing page to highlight a new single and then redirect users to their more cluttered homepage. Some are using it as their main homepage. Some are using it to shop a record to labels/radio. Some are just setting it up and will decide how to use it later. Everyone is finding a use that's making their lives easier, and that's the goal.

Final Question: Favorite candy and why?
Favorite candy? Bacon. Why? Because it's better than candy. :)