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Archive for the ‘Severed Fifth’ Category


Posted on April 19, 2009 - by jono

Interviewed on FLOSSWeekly

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of doing an interview on the rather excellent FLOSSWeekly podcast with Leo Laporte and Randal Schwartz. On it I talk Community, Ubuntu, Art Of Community, Canonical, Severed Fifth and more. Check it out here.


Posted on October 23, 2008 - by jono

Denied By Reign: One Day Old

Well, Denied By Reign has released for about a day now, and I want to thank everyone for their kind comments and support behind the project.

I am pretty tickled-pink with the response so far. I have been trying to keep track of write-ups of the project and the album, and so far I have seen the following:

I also noticed some good Twitter and identi.ca action going on, and there has been lots of chatter on the Severed Fifth Forums and in the #severedfifth IRC Channel on Freenode.

In terms of downloads, I have been reliably informed by Neuro, king of the BitTorrents, that it is blazing pretty hard with over 500 BitTorrented downloads in the first day. I estimate that in terms of downloads from the Bytemark mirror that there have been about 280 downloads and I need to check with Adam about how well his mirror has done, but I think it is reasonable to suggest 1000 copies of the album have been shifted in its first day. Nice. :)

As I mentioned in my last post the next step of the project is to spread the word and build exposure. I am pleased to see that the Severed Fifth Street Team is growing and a bunch of street teamers are getting out into the trenches to spread the word. We have heard of people printing out posters to put up at schools/colleges/stores, contacting local radio stations, posting on discussion forums, sending messages on IM and various other activities. If you put up a poster, give out fliers or whatever else, do take a photo of it and send it over – I would love to feature some of these in the Severed Fifth News. :)

Another key element here us growing exposure of Severed Fifth and Free Culture in social networking websites. This is kicking off in earnest, and check the following:

More coming on MuseAmp (a rocking website by a friend of mine, Dan) and Jamendo. If you know of more which need attention, do let me know.

More later… :)


Posted on October 21, 2008 - by jono

Debut Severed Fifth Album Now Available

Digg The Release

I am proud to announce the final release of the debut Severed Fifth album Denied By Reign. You can go and download it in its entirety here. There are download links for both Ogg and MP3 as well as BitTorrent links. Thanks to Adam and Neuro for providing mirrors. The full album is available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license – you are free to copy, share, remix and sell the album if you like. :)

When I started working on Denied By Reign, I intended it to have two primary purpose. Firstly, I wanted it to be a good representation of my own creativity, as any musician would want. With this goal in mind, I have worked to produce a pretty thumping metal album, and I am really proud of it – I hope some necks ache out there. :) But the second purpose is more important – to explore what is possible when an independent artist releases their work in the new music economy.

Today the next phase of Severed Fifth begins and in this critical time, our focus shifts to exposure. To build success around Severed Fifth, we need to get Denied By Reign in the hands and ears of everyone. The goal here is to spread the word about the album and strongly celebrate its free culture foundation. I am hoping Denied By Reign will be an example of how a free culture album can gain critical exposure and success, and how this can open up other opportunities for artists.

With this in mind, we have the Severed Fifth Street Team – a collection of Severed Fifth fans around the world who are going to help with this goal of getting the album oodles of exposure. I have heard of people who are going to print out posters and put them in music shops, burn Denied By Reign to CD and play it in clubs and venues, and one guy even talked about taking a Denied By Reign CD, putting it in a boombox and walking down his town high street.

So now this critical phase kicks off. How can you help? Well a few ideas to start with:

  • Download Denied By Reign and review it. Put it on your blog, and talk about the project.
  • Join the Street Team and come and join us spread exposure behind the album. Put up posters, tell your friends, tell local music shops, show it to local bands, post on forums, send it to established artists that you may know and anything else that can help. :)
  • Come and join the Severed Fifth community. Check out our Forums and log onto #severedfifth on irc.freenode.net

With the focus shifting to the Street Team, I will be posting more about this soon. Thanks everyone for all of your support. :)


Posted on October 20, 2008 - by jono

Severed Fifth IRC Channel

Quick FYI, I have registrered #severedfifth on irc.freenode.net for IRC fanatics. Obviously, I will be there for the release of the album tomorrow. :)


Posted on October 20, 2008 - by jono

Final Denied By Reign Sneak Peeks

Well, after a weekend off of Sneak Peeks from Denied By Reign I want to give you the final three before I release the album tomorrow:

If you missed the others, here they are:

So, after months of writing, recording, production, mastering and development, the final album is released tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting Denied By Reign out there, and then the focus moves to the next big step – telling the world about it, and spreading a free culture message around an album. This will be the really large and difficult job – writing, recording and releasing an album is something I have done before both by myself and with Seraphidian, but the new ground being forged here will be in spreading the word around Severed Fifth and not only growing a culture and buzz around the music, but around the mechanics of a free culture album. This is when the real fun begins, and this is going to result in a lot of email, a lot of discussion, and importantly, trying to mobilise a world-wide street team. Fortunately, w already have a great bunch of people already involved, and I will focussing my own efforts on providing everything needed to ensure the street team can kick arse and take names. This includes help, guidance, only materials and whatever else.

I am also really, really keen to grow a community of listeners and fans around Severed Fifth, and you should all go and hang out in the wicked-cool Severed Fifth Forums. Lets get a party going over there.

One more day…one more day… :)

About Severed Fifth

Denied By Reign is released on Oct 21st from www.severedfifth.com and the entire album will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license with expressed aim of seeing how far an independent musician such as myself can push and promote an album under the new music economy of free culture. My aims are to help answer some of the questions that are unknown about the viability of a free culture music economy. For more details on the aims of the project, see the announcement.

Severed Fifth needs your help to be successful! Go and join our Discussion Forums and join the Street Team. We will need your help when the album is released to push it as far and wide as possible and just see how much juice we can squeeze out of a free culture album. If you have contacts in the music press, or you know established artists who may be interested in hearing it, do get in touch with me. I am preparing a press pack for the album which we can all send out when the album is released. Oh, and for you Facebook fanatics – go and join the Severed Fifth Facebook Group.

I just want to thank everyone for their support of the album and the project. Thanks also to the Creative Commons for their continued support. :)


Posted on October 17, 2008 - by jono

Denied By Reign Sneak Peeks 7 + 8

Another two sneak peeks from Denied By Reign building on the three previous days:

Today I want to highlight two rather cool quotes that have come in from some pretty notable people about Severed Fifth. First, I blogged about this yesterday, but Zak Tell from the legendary metal band Clawfinger said:

“Hi Jono, nice idea man & good announcement, it’s probably going to be the only way to do it in the near future unless someone comes up with a genius idea that guarantees artists get paid for the art they create however big or small they may be! You’re definitely on the right track as there’s no stopping the technical evolution, therefore the best thing you can do is use all the available tools to your advantage!”

Second, Mike Linksvayer, VP of the Creative Commons had the following to say about the project:

“The new music economy will be defined by those who push the envelope. Severed Fifth is pushing the envelope and taking names. Thank goodness they’re on our side.”

Thanks Zak and Mike. Also, in related news, Sam Dean from OSTATIC did a write-up of Severed Fifth called More From the Open Source Music Garage. In this he says:

“If Severed Fifth can simply create an enthusiastic community around an album, live performances might attract audiences and grow the community larger, though. It will be interesting to watch this effort”.

In other news, great to see people like earthdragon helping to give away CDs at his/her school and things are kicking off on the Street Team. Go and join the Street Team by clicking here. We certainly need your help – lets make this happen. :)

About Severed Fifth

Denied By Reign is released on Oct 21st from www.severedfifth.com and the entire album will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license with expressed aim of seeing how far an independent musician such as myself can push and promote an album under the new music economy of free culture. My aims are to help answer some of the questions that are unknown about the viability of a free culture music economy. For more details on the aims of the project, see the announcement.

Severed Fifth needs your help to be successful! Go and join our Discussion Forums and join the Street Team. We will need your help when the album is released to push it as far and wide as possible and just see how much juice we can squeeze out of a free culture album. If you have contacts in the music press, or you know established artists who may be interested in hearing it, do get in touch with me. I am preparing a press pack for the album which we can all send out when the album is released. Oh, and for you Facebook fanatics – go and join the Severed Fifth Facebook Group.

I just want to thank everyone for their support of the album and the project. Thanks also to the Creative Commons for their continued support. :)


Posted on October 16, 2008 - by jono

Zak Tell Of Clawfinger On Severed Fifth

One person who has picked up on the Severed Fifth train is Zak Tell, singer for rap-metal legends Clawfinger. Speaking about the project he said:

“Hi Jono, nice idea man & good announcement, it’s probably going to be the only way to do it in the near future unless someone comes up with a genius idea that guarantees artists get paid for the art they create however big or small they may be! You’re definitely on the right track as there’s no stopping the technical evolution, therefore the best thing you can do is use all the available tools to your advantage!”

Thanks Zak! I can’t tell how cool it is to hear one of my fave singers giving the thumbs up to the project. :)


Posted on October 16, 2008 - by jono

Denied By Reign Sneak Peeks 5 + 6

Two more sneak peeks for your delectation, building on two previous days:

I also want to say a big thanks to Matt Asay’s coverage of Severed Fifth on CNET. Thanks Matt! Big thanks also to Ryan Busch who is going out and about spreading the Severed Fifth word in Michigan. Keep up the great work Ryan!

I also wanted to show off a new information document about Severed Fifth:

Go and grab the PDF of the page, and you can also grab a PDF Poster which I showed a few days back.

About Severed Fifth

Denied By Reign is released on Oct 21st from www.severedfifth.com and the entire album will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license with expressed aim of seeing how far an independent musician such as myself can push and promote an album under the new music economy of free culture. My aims are to help answer some of the questions that are unknown about the viability of a free culture music economy. For more details on the aims of the project, see the announcement.

Severed Fifth needs your help to be successful! Go and join our Discussion Forums and join the Street Team. We will need your help when the album is released to push it as far and wide as possible and just see how much juice we can squeeze out of a free culture album. If you have contacts in the music press, or you know established artists who may be interested in hearing it, do get in touch with me. I am preparing a press pack for the album which we can all send out when the album is released. Oh, and for you Facebook fanatics – go and join the Severed Fifth Facebook Group.

I just want to thank everyone for their support of the album and the project. Thanks also to the Creative Commons for their continued support. :)


Posted on October 15, 2008 - by jono

Frets On Fire Transcribers Wanted!

One thing I am really keen to do as part of the release of Denied By Reign is to have the songs available for Frets On Fire; the excellent Open Source Guitar Hero clone. I would love to have these available for release if at all possible.

So, I am looking for some volutneers who would like to help transcribe the album to Frets On Fire ready for release. I know this is a lot to ask with a week to go before the release, but if anyone wants to do it, I will send you the full album and you can work on it. You will also recieve an unholy amount of gratification and respect from me and others in the Severed Fifth community. Surely that is worth it in itself? :P Rock on! :)

Any takers? If you can help – email me at jono –AT– severedfifth –DOT– com – thanks!


Posted on October 15, 2008 - by jono

Severed Fifth Sneak Peeks 3 + 4

Continuing the week of Denied By Reign sneak peeks, I have two more for you:

I am also proud to introduce the front and back covers of the album, and these images will be provided in large enough resolution to be printed at the correct size for a CD cover:

Front cover of Denied By Reign

Back cover of Denied By Reign

Thanks also to the following write-ups:

About The Project

Denied By Reign is released on Oct 21st from www.severedfifth.com and the entire album will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license with expressed aim of seeing how far an independent musician such as myself can push and promote an album under the new music economy of free culture. My aims are to help answer some of the questions that are unknown about the viability of a free culture music economy. For more details on the aims of the project, see the announcement.

Severed Fifth needs your help to be successful! Go and join our Discussion Forums and join the Street Team. We will need your help when the album is released to push it as far and wide as possible and just see how much juice we can squeeze out of a free culture album. If you have contacts in the music press, or you know established artists who may be interested in hearing it, do get in touch with me. I am preparing a press pack for the album which we can all send out when the album is released. Oh, and for you Facebook fanatics – go and join the Severed Fifth Facebook Group.