DreamGaze Worldwide: Call for Submissions

Not exactly a secret: these are difficult days for all of us. Fans, bands, everyone is looking for some uplift right about now. Something to smile about, something to celebrate. We have an idea we’ve been working on.

We’ve seen multiple platforms trying to do quality things for live performance video streaming. But there’s always a stumbling block, one piece of the puzzle missing, to do a true “festival” type of presentation. Chatting with station staffers, live streamers, even Gabriel Lewis of Lowtide, we haven’t found a live platform that allows multiple bands to jump in on a preset schedule to take over webcast performance slots. We’re not big on Twitch, and Instagram Live is great if you like vertical video and poor audio on a phone speaker. We think we all deserve better.

With band performances recorded for just this purpose, we’re building an online festival interface via Facebook Watch. We’re calling it DreamGaze Worldwide. It’s an opportunity for artists and bands in our sonic segment to reach out to a global fan base, whether it be a three-song performance, or a one-minute encouragement of hope and solidarity. We’ve already got several high-quality performances “in the can” from around the world, waiting to be unleashed to shoegaze and dream pop fans. What’s missing? Maybe you.

Do we play you on the station? Do you live on planet Earth? Here’s what we’re looking for.

Full-band performances, 12-20 minutes in length
Stripped-down living room sets, one or two performers, 7-10 minutes in length
Artist greetings from quarantine, one to two minutes in length

As Facebook Watch is an HD platform available on AppleTV and others, we’re looking for HD video, horizontal, with the best audio you can capture in a live setting. Most modern phones (and even iPads) can capture HD video. Static frame or multi-camera, we’ll stitch them together into one-hour blocks (Facebook Watch limitation), and invite everyone to our global virtual festival, intercut with personal messages from DJs and artists on our platform. We’ll roll them out individually as we stitch the packages together.

Can you use the video later for your own purposes, on YouTube, Facespace, wherever? Absolutely. It’s yours. We’ll make the biggest impact sharing with a captive audience worldwide, but you absolutely can use your own footage after to amplify your brand. You own it, you built it, you should continue to celebrate what you’ve accomplished.

Want to be a part of this celebration? Test out your equipment, try a dry run of live performance capture, experiment with lighting (candles? spotlights?) and upload the finalized product to WeTransfer, Dropbox, or your favored large-file transfer platform. And email us: dkfm@decayfm.com for consideration and inclusion. We’ll get a wide variety of quality levels, that’s understood. We’ll try to do the best we can with the material we receive, as we get it. And we’ll run these live-captured video programs until the wheels fall off. It’s the thing our audience needs, and our bands need, while they’re forced off the road by an invisible viral threat. If you get the community vibe, and you understand the importance of the outreach, this is your chance to make a lasting impact.

We look forward to hearing from you. Even if it’s just to throw out a virtual festival idea that uplifts our community, our inbox is open. Let’s make some magic.

Greg (DJ Heretic), Station Manager, DKFM

Among the artists slated to perform, Tokyo Japan’s For Tracy Hyde.