Iowa-based Electronic Music Podcaster Gets Worldwide Exposure

Nearly a year and over 15,000 downloads after starting to podcast his original music, Mark Rushton is sold on the merits of promotion via podcasting.

"Compared to the traditional methods of promoting music, podcasting works!" says Rushton, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

In December of 2004, Rushton read about podcasting, which as a movement had starting a few months before and was championed early on by ex-MTV VJ Adam Curry. Very quickly, it made a splash.

In 2005, Apple's iTunes and internet portal Yahoo, along with numerous smaller startups, provided additional support for the cataloging of podcasts so that listeners could find and select shows they wanted to hear.

"I've seen 40% to 50% growth every month in my subscriber base," says Rushton. "Podcasts that got a few hundred downloads in a month over the summer of 2005 now get well over a thousand in the same time frame."

Rushton's monthly podcasts used to contain a lot of his original music, which falls in the ambient / electronic / download vein, but recently he's had success with shows featuring music by a side project called Ambient Matyk.

Ambient Matyk got started in February of 2005 in the New Bohemia section of downtown Cedar Rapids. "The Matyk Building is owned by Michael Richards, owner of the soy Candleworks. He lives on the second floor and is generous to allow people and groups to use the space on the first floor for meetings or creative endeavors," noted Rushton.

Rushton records every musical session, held on the third Saturday of the month, and later edits the recordings into pieces that are played during the podcasts. Other people who play with Rushton include bassist and trumpet sensation Jon Harnish and multi-instrumentalist wizard Duke Lancaster.

The next Ambient Matyk recordings will be done on November 19th and December 17th of 2005, and January 21, 2006. Rushton will also be appearing at the Very Cherry Open House (329 10th Ave SE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa) on December 3, 2005, as well as an appearance at the Cedar Rapids Public Library on January 25, 2006.

For more about Mark Rushton's music, podcasts, CDs, MP3s, and original fine art, visit http://www.markrushton.com