If you don’t know what Tuidang is visit this website:
http://quitccp.org/

Me and Jenny (who plays on the CD Music For Freedom) will play at an event arranged by Amnesty May 29, 2011 at 5:30 PM

Amnestys text in Swedish:

Röster från Kina

Sånger och texter om frihet och rätt: Anders Eriksson (singer songwriter), Rut Blomqvist (folk, indie, bluegrass). Lilly Wang berättar om mänskliga rättigheter i Kina. Utställning och berättelser som uppmärksammar situationen för kulturarbetare i Kina.

Plats: Café Hängmattan, Musikens Hus, Karl Johansgatan 16, gratis entré!
Tid: Söndagen 29 maj kl.17.30
Arrangörer: Grupp 175, Grupp 204, Grupp 100

Me and Marie Sköld will do our first gig together at a restaurant called “Mitt Andra Hem” (My Second Home).

We will do a few covers by well known artists as Sting, Cyndie Lauper, Sheryl Crowe, Bob Marley etc..

Marie sings and plays the piano. I will sing, play guitar and also some piano. We’ll also do a few of our own songs. We have actually turned the songs into duets.

I find this cooperation fun! Hope to see you there if you have the chance.

I will now have my blog at my site anderserikssonmusic.net

This blog may continue but in that case only in Swedish.

So, see you here from now on.

Music video of the song “Getting Closer” from the CD “Music For Freedom”. Words and music by Anders Eriksson.

Filmed and edited by Mathias Magnason (Magnason Film)
Filmed in Stockholm and areas in and around Vårberg (south of Stockholm), July 2-3, 2010.

Thanks Mathias for your positive energy, the encouragement and the great cooperation. We have talked about making a video to this song for many years, and finally it’s been done!

Thanks to Bilbo Lantto for trusting me to drive your Cadillac in the video (or was it a Hyundai?) and thanks for your filming consultation.

Music recorded in Gothenburg, Sweden at Marcus Music, spring 2009.

Anders Eriksson, vocals and guitar
Susanna Halden, violin
Tingting Jin, backing vocals
Janne Jonsson, steel guitar

Photos: Khosro Zahibi

Here I took a shot of Khosro a while ago.

Anyway, I’ll continue now to write down my “Music goals next 12 months”:

• I play the electric guitar on stage, and I my skills are above intermediate level
• On our shows we perform at least 15 songs that I have written
• We have well paid gigs at least twice a month
• I have original songs enough for a full length CD
• I am confident and relaxed on stage

I have some more goals to write down for longer periods and in other areas, but I don’t I’ll publish them here. It’s interesting with goal setting because it makes you a lot more focused and structured. With so many things to do and so many possibilities I think it’s crucial.

This is a preamp I bought on a night sale at Musikbörsen (a big music store in Goteborg) a couple of weeks ago. With this thing you don’t need a heavy amplifier for your electric guitar. Instead you connect this to the PA. What I particularly like about it is the simplicity. I used to have a Tonelab with thousands of possibilities and a thick book of instructions. That was too much for me.

On this thing there are a few knobs you can turn in different positions to get different sounds. When I play at home I connect it to a small amplifier and the sound is really nice. The brand is Damage Control in this model is called Womanizer (!), whatever that means…

I have web presence on several social network sites, but these are the most important:

1. Twitter
2. Facebook Page
3. WordPress blog (this site)
4. Facebook personal account
5. Flickr
6. ReverbNation
7. Myspace

Twitter
When I send a message from Twitter it also goes to:
1. My Facebook personal account (wall)
2. My widget on my main webpage, anderserikssonmusic.net
3. ReverbNation
4. Myspace.

Facebook Page
When I write on the wall it will also be updated to Twitter, and from Twitter it goes as mentioned above.

WordPress blog
When I write a blog post, a headline and link to the post is sent to Twitter, and from Twitter to the sites mentioned above. The entire post also appears on my ReverbNation page and Last.Fm.

Flickr
When I upload an image or a video to Flickr it will also appear in the blog widget (this site). If I want I can also tweet from Flickr so it goes to Twitter and then to the other sites connected to Twitter.

Actually, it’s good to write this down for myself as well, so I know what I am doing. I think this is a good system!

I can send tweets and updates to the Facebook Page from my mobile. And I can directly upload images and videos from my mobile to Flickr, but it’s not automatically sent to Twitter. I need to do it from the Flickr webpage. But since I have an iPhone I can of course do it on the spot as well.

And the fact that the Facebook Page updates goes to Twitter only, and not vice versa, means that all I am writing on the Facebook Page will be more about my music. If I write typical tweets (on Twitter) about what I am “doing right now” (which a music fan may not care about), it does not go to my Face book page, and that makes sense.

So the main activity from my side will be the Facebook page, my blog, Flickr and Twitter. The videos and images I upload to Flickr will be like video and photo blog.

Yesterday I also rehearsed with a female singer named Marie. We will do gigs singing duets (both covers and my and her songs). I heard her for the first time during the Stage Voice concert in december last year. Stage Voice is the company where I took singing lessons last fall. She performed at that concert but then she disappeared. But I was so impressed by her voice so asked Stage Voice to ask her to contact me. And she did after a few weeks and by now we have rehearsed twice.

She’s really has a good input to music, and seems to have similar taste as me (mostly), and she is also very nice, which is nice. So I am looking forward to play with all these guys in the near future.

I have never in my life been setting up goals but in week 1 of this promotion project I will do that. I have been thinking for a while and here are my goals right now for the near future:

• Perform at least twice a month
• Blog, read blogs, comment on other blogs 1 hour per day
• Practice on my electric guitar 30 minutes per day (working days) and 3 hours per weekend
• Increase my fanbase (mailing list and facebook) with 5 people per week
• Buy and study Tom Jackson DVD
• Complete one song per week

The last one may be hard, but I have a few ideas that need to be taken care of.

So this week is the first one and June 2o I will be done and reached success! (whatever that means)

Today I defined some focus areas:

• Branding – I may design a new logo with another font, and also a web-banner.
• Marketing – I may place a banner on some websites
• Videos – I hope to make two videos (They Can’t Make Me Waver and Getting Closer) during the spring and spread them on Youtube, Vimeo, local TV, etc.
• Online social media strategy – Blog more and read others blogs. I want to record simple cover videos and spread on Youtube, tweet more, get more Facebook fans
• Gigs – Get gigs in Goteborg and nearby cities on cafés, festivals, pubs etc. I could play alone, but I will probably be playing with other musicians,
• Practice – I need to practice more on my electric guitar, and I will also read a book I bought about songwriting to improve that craft (101 Songwritings Wrong And How To Right Them)
• Songs – Make songs out of some ideas I already have, and make demos of them
• Get more fans – Give offers, get more traffic to the websites, give out flyers, get more gigs
• Selling CD’s/downloads – 10 per month and 10 per gig
• Improve stage performance – get more experience, buy Tom Jackson DVD, etc