There’s an old saying in the music biz; “Must be present to win”. Back in the day, it meant that to make any type of headway, you had to move to L.A., New York or Nashville.

Is that still true?

One of the big promises of the digital world is; “You can do anything from anywhere”. Does that apply to the music game though? There are a ton of places, on the web, where you can upload your music and let your presence be known. It isn’t a new idea and, I really haven’t seen much evidence that this way of doing things has been effective.

But, you know, things change. I saw this in a press release this morning.

NEW ENGLISH BLUES… How did a Handyman from Upstate New York and a Heating Engineer from Maryland End Up on a Classic English Rock Album…

SYRACUSE, N.Y., April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire/ — Through the magic of the
Internet, that’s how. Mark Cloutier, a very talented Semi professional
Guitarist From Upstate New York, and Rob Grant, a Heating engineer from
Maryland, logged onto the SoundClick Musicians board last year they did not
know they would end up playing on a classic English concept album…

This is how it happened, JC Carroll, a London (England) based composer
musician and songwriter, was looking for people to play on his New Rock
Opera when he heard Mark’s guitar playing. “I was blown away as soon as I
heard him I wanted him on the album, even though I already had two really
brilliant guitarists. I wanted to bring Mark’s unique feel for guitar into
the mix.” Rob Grant, who coincidently had also worked with Cloutier, had a
piece of unfinished music that he thought might appeal to JC. That piece of
music went on to become “Caveman TV” one of the most outstanding tracks on the album.

SOURCE Stoppress PR

So, this guitar player, Mark Cloutier, put some of his stuff up on SoundClick, and a guy making a record, JC Caroll, found him.

Must be present to win.

Caroll is a known entity, he was a member of The Members and has done solo work and film/T.V. stuff. Cloutier, he’s a good guitar player, I listened to some of his stuff. It’s cool to see that a guy like this can get recognized. Good going, Mark.

You can hear a stream of the J.C. Caroll record “New English Blues”, that features Cloutier and Rob Grant’s song “Caveman TV” , here, for a limited time.

And if you have some music to upload, you might want to check out SoundClick.