“Love is Love” by Jasmine Crowe is the perfect way to end your pride month this June. Filmed in Los Angeles, the music video highlights LGBTQ+ relationships with pure white clothing and hints of color–rainbow of course! We talked to Jasmine about Love is Love, how it came together and what it meant to her.

“‘Love is Love’ started as a poem I was writing one night about something personal I was going through and how love can be so many things…inspired by the realization that sometimes it can be such a gray area and there are so many dimensions to the feeling – in relation to yourself, with your partner, with your family, with self discovery and the changes you grow through in life…Love can be so simple and yet so complex with how you feel in your heart, but every aspect of it can still be so beautiful even when it feels like you’re going through something really dark and painful. Once you shine the light on how you’re truly feeling you can open up and it can be so freeing like you can suddenly see everything within yourself like the colors of a rainbow. People are not one dimensional and love is not black and white and that’s why the rainbow flag is such a powerful symbol that truly encompasses and represents inclusivity, diversity, authenticity, beauty and love within the LGBTQ community.

Writing this with one of my best friends Keith Weidner as our first time collaborating on a song together was such a joyful and cathartic experience and in the process of producing the record, being from Hawaii, ‘Love is Love’ brought up some inspiration and influences from my youth growing up there. One of our sayings in the islands is “Where I live there are rainbows” so having Brittni Paiva, an internationally renowned and award winning ukulele instrumentalist, one of my childhood friends from back home bringing her unique feeling into the track and experiences within the LGBTQ community into the video was a dream collaboration for this song.

It’s amazing how far we’ve come with representation in the media, with culture, and being fortunate enough to be able to celebrate equality today with pride has not been an easy journey throughout history. There’s still a lot of work to do and that’s why being vocal about it is so important. I’ve learned from the experiences of my amazing friends that sometimes it’s not safe in certain situations to come out to those around you and that’s ok. Make sure you’re safe first. Sometimes coming out to yourself can be the first step in the journey of finding out who you are and who you want to be, and you don’t have to have everything figured out right now. One day at a time. I want anyone who hears this song to know that being true to who you are is such a beautiful thing and even though sometimes it can be scary to show your true colors, there is a community out there that’s in support of you that loves and accepts you.”

Listen to “Love Is Love” by Jasmine Crowe on Spotify

With so many gifted artists in the Gigmor Pro community, we want to highlight some of your new releases, videos, artwork and collaborations. If you have a new release that you’d like us to feature, send an email to info@gigmor.com and we’ll be in touch!

Over 1.5 million records were sold during the week of the first scheduled Record Store Day this year, titled “First Drop.” This marked the second best week in record sales since tracking began in 1991 and the best week for RSD since it started.

Record Store Day was originally conceived by a group of independent record retailers in 2007 and has grown to global scale. Despite the event’s independent roots, major labels and major label artists participate by releasing unique, colorful vinyl and either hard to find or unreleased material from their archives. According to the RSD organization, 60% of releases come from indie artists and labels (as of 2015). Sales figures, however, tell a different story. In fact, 22 of the top 25 selling albums on June 12’s Record Store Day were from a major label or major label subsidiary.

Critics of Record Store Day claim that major labels have co-opted the event as yet another marketing tool and that the costs of pressing vinyl and promoting limited releases are prohibitively high for truly independent labels and artists.

What do you think? Drop a comment below or find us on social @gigmor

P.S. Here are the indie releases that made it into the top 25:

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Pinata on Madlib Invazion

Al Green – Give Me More Love: The Orchestral Greatest Hits on Fat Possum Records

Fela Ransome-Kuti & The Africa 70, Open & Close on Knitting Factory Records

From the archive: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard reschedule tour

Gigmor takes the pain and frustration out of the booking process. Our platform is designed to automate the workflow of a talent buyer or anyone seeking to find and book talent.

Discovery

We know you get a ton of unsolicited emails and texts from bands. But there’s no easy way to separate the ones who will bring a room full of cheering fans from the rest. Our artist database is designed to make the discovery and evaluation process faster and easier. You can search over 65K artist profiles on Gigmor based on genre, location and other criteria. You can sort them by Rating, Newest, Nearest and alphabetically. In all cases Gigmor Pro artists appear at the top—they’re usually the most serious and best-qualified artists.

Search results have links to artists’ music and videos with a quick snapshot of their fanbase size and their average rating. You can add a Note using the icon in the top right or add them to a List so you can find them again easily. Clicking on the Book Now button displays a booking offer form where you can select a date and add other booking criteria like payment terms, start time, etc. that will be sent directly to that artist.

Clicking on the artist name in Search Results brings up the full profile. This has everything you need to evaluate them, including links to their social media accounts.

In both cases you can click on the pen icon to add a Note (that only you will see) to the profile or click on the list icon to add it to a new or pre-existing list.

One-Click Booking

Calendar

The booking dashboard menu on the left allows you to navigate to your booking calendar, current and past bookings, your Lists and other features. Let’s walk through it, starting with the Calendar.

Each date on the calendar allows you to add a note (the pen icon) or send a booking offer (the + icon).  Clicking on the + icon displays a booking offer form where you can select a date and add other booking criteria like payment terms, start time, etc. When you start typing under Booking Contact, Gigmor artist names will appear. Then click on the right artist link. You can also send a booking offer to any artist not currently on Gigmor by typing any letter and clicking on Add New Contact at the bottom of the list. You can then enter their name and email address. Click on Add New Contact and they’ll appear in the list when you start typing after that.

When you send a booking offer the artist’s name will appear on the calendar in grey. When they accept the offer, the text turns to orange.

Booking

Clicking on Bookings launches the list of your booking activity. You can use the dropdown at the top to toggle between All, Past, Confirmed and Future bookings.

Each booking in the list shows key information about the gig and the Status column shows Pending, Confirmed or the artist rating you give them after they’ve performed.

Add docs is Immediately to the left of the Status column. Click on the + sign and you can send the artist a contract, load-in information or any other info in pdf or doc format. You will see when they’ve viewed it and you can request an online signature.

Under Book Again or Avails, you can click on the calendar icon to rebook an artist or the Avail icon to request artist’s availability on one or more specific dates.

Avails

Avails, as the name suggests, allows you to send a message to one or more artists requesting their potential availability on a specific date. Avails show up as blue in the calendar.

Gigs

Gigs is a list of your gig posts. (To publish a gig post, click on Create Gig in the top right of the Nav bar.) You can view a list of all the artist submissions by clicking on the number of responses. From there, you can review their music and social media and click Book Now to send them a booking request. You can also Duplicate a post, which allows you to create a new post with, for example, a different date, quickly and easily.

Lists

Lists allow you to save artist profiles to view or book later. Two lists are automatically created for you: profiles with Notes and profiles you’ve recently viewed. You can create as many new lists as you like by clicking on the + sign in the top right.

Settings

Settings allows you to change account or profile settings, including email, profile name, links to social media, etc.

Access

Access allows you to add team members to your account so they can log in and access the calendar and booking features.

Tutorial

Our online tutorial walks you through many of the features described above.