Just a quick update on how NxEW is doing: in a word - Fantastic! Before I get to the details: You can grab the latest podcast (#3) here: http://www.nxew.ca/2009/04/nxew-mixtape-3.html

Now, if we keep going at our current pace we will soon be THE Canadian Music Blog. We now have over 70 writers, in addition to music bloggers, journalists, university radio volunteers, promoters and fans some of the people who currently write for, or have signed up to write for NxEW include Paul Banwatt (Woodhands, Rural Alberta Advantage, We're Scared), Daps Duo (April and Dan of Hooded Fang, Tonka and Puma, Hut), Patterson Hodgson (Olenka and the Autumn Lovers), Michael Dawson (Library Voices), Scott Birke (Craft Economy), Naomi Kavka (the Arbitraries), and Gareth Willimas (Lonely Hunters).

To date (we're 5 weeks old tomorrow) we've had

Nearly 10,000 Unique Visitors (9,767 at the moment)

Almost 1,000 twitter followers (968 at the moment) - Chart has 876, Exclaim  has 493 (and they're offering Thunderheist tickets for following them http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=844&fid1=38180 ). Also MOG ( http://www.mog.com ) recently waived their normal 3 month waiting period and added us to their network. 

Now if you have been thinking about contributing to the site I've written a little bit about who should contribute to NxEW.ca entitled "Who Should Write For NxEW.ca". 

http://www.nxew.ca/2009/04/who-should-write-for-nxewca.html

For those of you who just want to follow: I have, in the past, with blogs sent out weekly headlines and links to the articles. I can't do that with this blog and you don't want me to. Nearly 300 articles have been posted to the site in under 5 weeks and the pace is accelerating. But, I've made it as easy as I know how to follow the blog. 

You can follow by:

Subscribing to the RSS Feed: feed://feeds2.feedburner.com/nxew

Subscribing via email (and getting a daily email of everything): http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=nxew&loc=en_US

By following us on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nxew

or

By adding our Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/people/Northby-EastWest/1700505146 (for as long as FB lets us get away with it.)

You can also add us on Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/nxew (although that's not very useful for following along). 

NxEW is an attempt to bring together Canada's various local and regional music communities to share information with one another and the world. Most sources of music related news and information are concentrated in a few major cities, or provide only local news and information for local people. Many of the national sources are also, although Canadian, apparently more interested in non-Canadian artists. NxEW hopes to break that mold in a variety of ways. 

First of all we want all of Canada's regions, big cities and small towns represented. So far we're not doing badly - Not everyone has submitted a bio for the page yet but we have over 60 writers representing more than 20 cities in 10 provinces and 1 territory. That is not nearly enough though. Even in large cities like Toronto and Vancouver where we already have several people we still want more, the large the city the more people are needed to keep an eye on everything. 

Second of all we are a news organization but not a journalistic organization. The writers here contribute out of enthusiasm. Alot of the contributors know some of the people they write about. Some of the contributors are in bands themselves. We're fine with that. Conflict of interest doesn't really play into it. The closer you are to the music the better the information you will have. We're not selling stock or electing governments - if you're writing about your own band, or your friend's band, or the band you manage that's cool. 

Third, there are probably 1,000 music blogs (or blogs that frequently talk about music) in Canada plus just about every band and solo artist has their own blog (sometimes more than one). No one can possibly keep up with them all. So we're trying to create one stop shopping - a site about Canadian music that includes national stuff as well as local stuff. So people in Vancouver know what's going on in Halifax and people in Ottawa know what's going on in Guelph and all of this is shared with people well beyond Canada. 

NxEW.ca was born on March 20, 2009 - since that time (about 40 days) the site has seen 265 posts and over 9,000 'unique visitors' to the site. The Facebook Group has over 400 members, the Myspace page has over 400 friends and the Twitter account has over 900 followers. The site has taken off so quickly that MOG recently waived their normal 3 month wait period and accepted NxEW into their network - this should result in significantly increased traffic for us and the artists we talk about outside of Canada. 

So, to sum up:

Who Should Write for NxEW.ca

People who are passionate about Canadian music and want to share that passion with other music lovers across Canada and around the world as well as people in their local community. 

NxEW has almost no rules. There are no assignments (no one tells you who or what to write about), no deadlines (no one tells you when to write), no editors (no one tells you what to say), no minimums or maximums - you write what you want, about what you want, when you have time. There are no 'standards and practices' and no style guide the only rule is don't do anything that is going to get us sued. (For example don't copy and paste someone else's article in it's entirety - quoting it is fine though and don't post people's music without their permission.)

As I've said bands, djs, music journalists, promoters, managers, etc., are all welcome.

Who Shouldn't Write for NxEW.ca

First of all people who are overly negative, if you like a handful of bands or a certain style of music exclusively and want to bash and ridicule everything else, we don't need you. You're welcome to share your thoughts about the music you love, but spare us the hate, we're not haters here. 

Also, if you're in a band you are welcome to join us, but if your band is all you know and you want to post daily updates about every show, every rehearsal and every personal anecdote about your band and the people in it - that's probably overkill. If, on the other hand you want to post occasionally about your band and/or reflections on the music industry, info about other bands and performers you know and work with, then come on board. We'd love to have you.

Finally, people who are looking for jobs or want to get rich. At the moment NxEW has no revenue, we can't pay you - we hope to and plan to change that and eventually have money, we have smart people with good ideas but we're not there yet. So for now think of it as a hobby - something you do for fun and to share your passion for music, it's not a job.