Last May, Orient Lodge entered into an agreement with Sonicbids to use Sonicbids’ platform for handling electronic press kits (EPK) for review. Musicians wishing to present their music to Orient Lodge have submitted their EPKs for review to Orient Lodge Music Review Page on Sonicbids.

I took submissions between May 4 and Aug 4, with an agreement to select everyone I would by Sept 4.

Over the past four months, I received 71 submissions. I have reviewed 13 already, selected four more that I plan on reviewing over the next several weeks, and have six more that are in the 'Maybe' category, depending on time and other considerations.

Generally speaking, I do one review a week on Mondays which goes up on the Music Review section of my blog. Some Mondays I review other things, or perhaps even take the Monday off. Some Mondays I combine a few different musicians into a single review.

What I try to do is promote the the performer I've selected wherever possible. If they have a Twitter account, I add them to my Twitter Music List . If they have a Facebook account, I friend/like, etc the account on Facebook. If I am feeling energetic, I also try to follow the performer on sites like ReverbNation, etc.

To the extent that they have music that is available for download, I download it and listen to the music again, usually while I am writing the review. By downloading the music and using my regular music player, I end up posting messages on Last.fm about listening to the music.

When I write my blog posts, it is usually about why I like the music, what touches me about it. To the extent that there are events coming up that I can promote, or a new CD out, I try to do that as well. I tell the performer about the review and then invite them to call in as a guest to my eight year old daughter's Internet radio show. She's been doing the show for over two years now and has started interviewing musicians as well as politicians and writers. For an example, check out Fiona's interview with Jill Cagney.

Since today is Labor Day, which typically gets less traffic and I don't want to work hard on Labor Day anyway, I am simply posting my notes about how the process has worked over the past few months. At this point, all of the performers have been notified whether they have been reviewed, will be reviewed, or might be reviewed in the next few months. I've had a couple good email discussions with a few of the performers and I look forward to my upcoming reviews. I've also had some good discussions with some of my regular readers who were glad to discover new musicians from my reviews.

This first round has gone quite well, so once I review my last batch of performers, I expect that I'll do another round, probably starting in the fall or the winter.