A few weeks back, I attended a Tour Smart crash course weekend (please do read that post after – lots of great info!), and at the end of the last day we were treated to an acoustic set by Chicago based The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.

The name doesn’t really give anything away; no British police force themed-costumes, and certainly no gospel choir in sight as they were setting up. The band were a great mix of rock n roll sound and great lyrical content, from melancholy to laugh-out-loud funny, and they topped off a great weekend. Here is a short video for a song called Wicker Park, which was written by members Mary Ralph and engineered by Mark Yoshizumi.

Opportunity School – Wicker Park from sygc_love on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, last week the exciting young artists were involved in a bad road accident, resulting in most of the members being hospitalised and their van and all equipment destroyed. It was announced yesterday that all 2009 tour dates have been cancelled, and that the Halloween show at Sub-T is now a benefit for the band. We’ll have details on more benefits next week.

From the press release: “Alison Hinderliter, Jay Santana, and Ethan Adelsman were all released from the hospital last night with minor injuries. Elia Einhorn was held overnight with injuries to his head and neck, and is expected to be released tomorrow. Mary Ralph has a broken pelvis and collarbone, and will probably be moved to a hospital closer to home. Mark Yoshizumi was airlifted to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn last night with injuries to his head, back, and neck. He is in serious condition, but making progress.”

If you want to help the band with the extensive costs of this accident, you can donate simply via paypal – follow this link this link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=8469029, or if you would like to purchase any of their music, all the info you need is here http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/and-horse-you-rode. You can also help by passing the news on to friends / contacts.

Regular updates will be posted at the band’s label blog Bloodshot Records

The Music Jobs team send our best wishes to the whole band.

Lee Jarvis

Independent artists benefit from a more level playing field; MTV Networks creating opportunities in music.

MTV and Harmonix are to launch the Rock Band Network later this year. The Rock Band Network is a platform that will allow bands to upload their music for review by the Rock Band game creators, and possibly available as part of the game’s store, tapping into the wealth of publicity and revenue created for musicians by the Rock Band brand.

The system was devised in part to help expand the content available to the gamers, something which the limited staff was struggling to find the time to provide. And so recording artists will have the opportunity to add to the 700 tracks already part of the program by taking the stems from their original masters and creating MIDI tracks for each instrument, before sharing it with the Rock Band Network community.

Here is a short video from the people over at Joystiq, explaining the idea and the process.

There’s also a lot more detail at Billboard if you want to get into the bones of it all.

So, exciting times! Yet more ways for independent artists, studios, labels, bands, managers and many more music professionals to create their own successes, and find work in the music industry. Best of luck!

Lee Jarvis.