Moozikoo: A Personal Virtual Music Shopper At Your Fingertips
Think back to your first musical mentor, that first person who began to expose you to music that you hadn’t yet heard but almost instantaneously loved. If you were lucky, this person had a wide selection of musical interests which pointed you in the right direction for discovering your own preferences. Having Moozikoo in the virtual world is like having such a mentor right at your fingertips. This virtual storefront and online radio station provides listeners with a location for purchasing new music which has been carefully selected by the site.
Moozikoo is the brain child of Anthony Bates. While working at RTV-1, a Russian-language television station based in New York City, Anthony was regularly exposed to programming in which Russian-language artists performed English-language songs. This gave him a hint of suggestion that a fan base existed for development of the type of music which interested him personally. This suggestion was expanded by his personal and educational experiences which revealed more and more that Eastern Europeans were developing a growing interest in English-language music with a specific emphasis on blues, jazz, bluegrass and folk music.
Anthony made it his mission to create a virtual location where this already-existing fan base could obtain the means to develop and grow their interests in such music. Together with Bohdan Burmich, a graphic artist co-worker at RTV-1, Anthony began to build the Moozikoo site in a process which took the better part of two years to get off the ground. In late 2003, Moozikoo was officially launched, acting as a virtual storefront for supporting the fan base of the music rhythmically felt in Anthony’s heart. The store also sells some clothing, merchandise and promotional gifts.
The virtual world offers a panoply of musical selection; it is easy to go online and find the exact song or CD that you want and order it instantly. So why is there a need for Moozikoo’s site? Using Moozikoo is like having your own personal music shopper. It is distinct from the big name companies online which offer almost everything by everybody. Instead, Moozikoo relies on careful selection of artist inclusion, catering not to the artists but to the fans of the music, building their brand based on the discerning ear of those selecting music for the company.
The company only accepts the music of approximately one third of the bands which submit to them, but those which are accepted benefit greatly. Moozikoo is willing to listen to quality music from unsigned artists and, when it strikes the right chord, the company is an asset to artists in terms of marketing and promotion. Expansion of the site in terms of both inventory and options available to artists (such as bio and tour posting features) is geared towards improving this area over the next year. The radio and website act hand-in-hand to expose artists to A&R as well as to expose consumers to new artists. The goal of the company is to become the heart and pulse of the indie music scene, a goal which the business is already well on its way to achieving.
2012 Update
Since I originally wrote this Hub, Moozikoo has changed a little bit. The website now redirects to their Facebook page. Their about explains that they are: "A Socially Conscious Music Merch, Pop Art, & Hipster Apparel Company." Their description further says:
