FRETMONKEY NATION LAUNCHES INNOVATIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM FOR MUSICIANS

What started as an innovative guitar record label founded by 23 solo artists across the world has expanded its mission to include all musicians by launching a first-of-its-kind social media platform. The artist-ran record label, FRETMONKEY RECORDS, debuts FRETMONKEY NATION, a musician-centered social media platform designed to potentially increase artists’ YouTube subscribers, arguably one of the most predominant metrics used in the music industry for everything from bookings to label offers. The record label states, “It’s our contribution to help solving multiple challenges musicians encounter. We wanted to bring musicians together as a global community across musical genres in a social-media environment that allowed them to share great music to a very specific target audience – fellow musicians and music fans. It is our hope that FRETMONKEY NATION will also increase musicians’ fan base and subscribers on platforms that are important to them.”

Among other things, fans and users can easily subscribe to artists’ YouTube channels directly from social media posts. Additional features such as commenting, sharing posts to Facebook and Twitter, rating posts, and filtering posts by popularity (views, likes, etc) are also found on the site. The platform is free to users and offers additional options for musicians wanting to aggressively advertise their music, events, album releases, and related works. The community-oriented record label goes on to state, “FRETMONKEY NATION forwards our vision to be ‘the most progressive record label in the guitar world.’”

Who is FRETMONKEY RECORDS?

Although FRETMONKEY RECORDS™ formed in late 2015 as an audio and music video production studio by Kevin Blake Goodwin and his family, it was an inspired vision of uniting independent, talented musicians across the globe under one collaborative record label that led to the unique formation of FRETMONKEY™ RECORDS – the record label. What Goodwin found were 22 other award-winning and notable musicians spanning 10 countries who felt exactly the same way. The concept evolved and their efforts resulted in a one-of-a-kind, innovative artist-ran record label where the artists inform the decision-making and day-to-day operations of the label.

The record label represents award winning artists like Don Alder (winner of many top acoustic guitar competitions in the world), Gary Lutton (winner of the UK-based televised competition Guitar Star), Jake Hertzog (winner of the Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition), Manan Gupta (winner of the prestigious international Lee Reitner’s Six String Theory Competition), Travis Bowman (winner of the national Ernie Ball Acoustic Prodigy contest and the Arkansas Fingerstyle Guitar Competition), Kevin Blake Goodwin, Justin St- Pierre and Jamie Dupuis (winners of the international Canadian Fingerstyle Guitar Competition), and Ali Deniz Kardelen (Indiana Fingerstyle Guitar champion). The label also represents acclaimed musicians like Adrian Bellue, Adam Crossman, Aaron Edward, Haythem Mohammed, Raf Qu, Oscar Mendez, Geordie Little, Anthony Troy, Joseph Lyle, Dana Merritt, Jacob Quistgaard (Quist), Kris Schulz, and singer-songwriter pop sensation Tyler Sellers.

In addition to recording studio and record label, FRETMONKEY RECORDS produces a weekly syndicated guitar internet radio show, "Slap Nutz," that airs in the United States, Canada, South Africa, and the UK. The record label also hosts a popular 24/7 FRETMONKEY Radio Playlist which can be accessed on apps like iTunes and Google Play. The label has also recently expanded into China and sponsors events such as the Belfast Guitar Night, Berlin Acoustic Guitar Night, and the Alchemy Singer-Songwriter Competition.