Stephen C. Shapiro's shared items in Google Reader

Tweet of the Day: Astute. Redditor jillzor adds:...

(author unknown) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:54:10 PDT

Tweet of the Day: Astute.

Redditor jillzor adds: “Don’t forget all the bad acting.”

Songwriting Tips: Create Psychological Distance

Todd Thomas — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:08:24 PDT

When approaching a song, sometimes it can be difficult to confront some of the emotional issue you are trying to write about. A new study posted in Scientific American found that creativity is boosted in situations where there is “psychological distance”. What does this mean for your songwriting? Try and write a song from someone else’s perspective so you can really dig in to the character without focusing on yourself and how people will perceive you. You’re likely to find that when telling someone else’s story, you’re really telling a more intimate story about yourself.

Or perhaps it means creating a situation in your song that is unreal, unlikely and completely fantastical (usually what concept albums are all about). Often, the more you can let yourself sink into the fantasy world, the more creative you can be. Psychological distance can also mean giving something more time. If you’re trying to write about something tragic that happened to you, it often helps to give it time so that you have proper perspective and can survey the damage after the wound has healed a bit. Either method you chose, tuning out to go inward is a good way to open up the flow of creative juices.

Picking a studio, engineer or producer - discount the silly list of names.

Loren Weisman — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:19:47 PDT

How many of you have read a resume or bio from someone in the music industry such as a studio, an engineer or a producer and run into a strange list of names. You know, “I work with This Person who worked with That Person.” While this impresses a few fans and friends, it actually makes you look worse to the industry. The name dropping doesn’t fool anyone….anyone = the people who matter. Yeah, I’m talking to you, studios and producers. Instead of just appearing strong, why not funnel that energy into actually being strong?

There is referencing that is beneficial and then there is just outright bragging. Like I said, come off strong, but let’s clearly define that. Ego, bragging and arrogance are overdone. In a way, by going over the top, instead of standing out, you are just dropping yourself in to the bag with a truck load of other mediocre studios, engineers and producers. Instead, showcase what you have really done and how you really do things.

Too many musicians are presented such a line of crap when it comes to booking a studio or hiring a producer or an engineer. They spend the time, the money and the effort and then find out they were not able to get what they wanted or what they thought they would get for their recording.

It is the responsibility of the studio, producer and engineer to showcase what they have done. It is the responsibility of the artist to find out exactly what has been done at the studio and the reliability of the resume that the producers and engineers offer. Market yourself and/or your studio to its strengths. Be up front about what you are bringing to the table so when someone checks up on you, you still look honorable.

How does it really work in your favor to lie or exaggerate?

Studios talk about how so and so recorded there twenty years ago. Should that really be something that compels someone to want to use that studio? Was it the same engineer, the same producer, the same budget or the same session players? A lot more should go into the decision for someone who is choosing a studio. It comes down to what is happening now. People brag about recording in the same studio as this musician or that musician, but this really doesn’t help the musician.

It is basically the equivalent of someone saying, hey, I pitched two innings of baseball at Fenway Park in Boston for a little league championship. Now, while it is cool to be in the same room, that is nowhere near the caliber of the Red Sox pitchers that play professional baseball. It is like giddy-happy joy that “I recorded where Personal Musical Hero of Mine recorded!” Which is great, but doesn’t really do much for someone who isn’t them.

Instead

Listen to the most recent stuff from that studio. Find out who is engineering there now and their abilities. Find out what the budget was for the recordings and demos you hear.

I have done a great deal of over-produced and excessively budgeted albums that I do not use as samples these days. I play people the samples from the studio I use now, the team I work with now and under the budgets that I work with now. Hearing a two-hundred thousand dollar recording when you’re after a budget that is ten percent of that or less is the equivalent of a car salesman saying, “Hey, I know your price range is a Hyundai but let’s test drive the BMW to give you a sense of it.”

That makes no sense does it? Would you test drive the BMW? Hell, no. You’d find a salesman who actually listened to what you wanted and could afford.

When a studio says that this band or that band recorded there, make sure you know the details. Just because someone has recorded in a room or a studio or worked with a producer or engineer does not mean they that particular artist liked it. I have been credited with working in studios that I went in to as a favor for someone else or was paid to do a session in that I would personally never choose to return to. I know there are people I have worked with where I didn’t click with them and they didn’t click with me, so in turn, I don’t reference them as I am sure they don’t reference me.

The point is make calls, send emails, ask questions and make sure you know what you are getting into before you invest into it. Make sure you can find out all the information you can to secure the right choice.

Conclusion: Replace the soft BS with the hard facts.

Find out the facts about the rooms, the engineers, the producers. Find out what has been recorded there and find out the details, like what kind of budget was involved, how many days, what other aspects played a part of the recording. In the end, your recording is a key part of presenting your sound, your songs and music. Make sure you are doing it right, and with the right people and in the right places.

© Loren Weisman 2009

www.braingrenademusic.com

What’s So Strange About It?

Eric Beall — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:50:51 PDT

I’ll admit it– being caught up in the NY music business game, it’s a little bit surprising to find out that the industry is being reinvented somewhere in Kansas City.

Luckily, I have those of you who regularly read this blog, one of whom was able to clue me into the Tech N9ne phenomenon, which frankly, I had completely missed. In a response to one of the blogs, Arthur Fischer had cited TechN9ne as an example of a massively successful independent artist who had escaped the need for radio play and expensive promotion. Interestingly, only a month or two later, I opened Billboard to find a full article about TechN9ne’s groundbreaking business model. It’s worthwhile reading for any independent musician in any style…

Check out the Billboard , July 4, 2009 issue.

The interesting thing is that there’s really nothing that groundbreaking at all in Tech N9ne’s operation. It’s Business 101. Only in the fantasy land that is the entertainment industry could the ideas of “every dollar invested needs to make two dollars” and “everything is driven from the fan’s point of view” be considered innovative. In fact, the beauty of TechN9ne’s operation is that it’s rooted in the basic ethos of hard work and common sense. And most importantly, they actually execute it.

In general, Strange Music, which is the company controlled by Tech N9ne and his business partner Travis O’Guin, is the model of a 360 entertainment venture, which is housed in a 18,000 square foot facility in Kansas City, and includes a label, publishing, merchandising, booking and touring business. All of it is built upon the music and touring that have made Tech N9ne one of the least exposed, but most profitable rappers. The Billboard article revealed that in 2008, Strange Music earned more than $11 million dollars.

How does he do it? Touring is certainly the cornerstone– he does more than 200 dates a year. Just the way the textbook outline says it should, the touring drives the record sales– which are significant, with over 1 million sold on 2008’s “Killer”. Then there’s the merch, the licensing, and the publishing on top of all that. Sure– it’s impressive. But not exactly something that’s never been done before. By now, most of the independent artists out there are probably asking themselves “What has he got that I don’t?” Here are four things that Tech N9ne has learned, that many artist/entrepreneurs have not:

1. Patience
This is not a fast road to success. The journey of a successful independent artist is a very long and winding one. Tech N9ne survived two major label deals, numerous failed independent ventures and abandoned business partners. Not many businesses get their plan right on the first try. You have to be willing to come back again and again, learn from failure, reinvent the model and keep moving forward. Tech N9ne is 37 years old, and just hitting the prime of his career. Pretty unusual for a rapper.

2. The Ability to Get Reactions
As a self-described “weird rock alternative warlock with crazy hair, a painted face, who raps backwards”, Tech N9ne makes a strong impression– and that’s something you can build a business on. You can not build an independent business on music, performances or artist identities that are passive– to which audiences have no great emotional reaction, either positive or negative. There are thousands of bands that play 200 anonymous dates a year, and have for twenty years. And every night, the audience applauds politely, and immediately forgets about them. The only way the indie model works is when the music and imaging are so dynamic, or at least so perfectly in tune with a very particular audience (”jam bands” being a good example), that they inspire a passionate response. If you’re playing 200 dates a year, but your myspace site has 200 friends and you’re selling 1000 records, you’re not reactive.

3. A Place To Call Home
Tech N9ne’s success is strongly rooted in his core market within the Midwest. Very wisely, he built his following in a place where the competition was less challenging, and where he could get a foothold in the larger marketplace. His strength in one part of the country allowed him to bring a success story to other, more difficult markets. Too many artists think that being outside of a major market means they need to relocate. In fact, that small local market may be the best asset they have, provided that they are able to build a strong core audience there. Likewise, too many major labels spend a fortune in promotion costs trying to take an unknown artist and break him or her nationally, in every territory at once. Find one region that works, and then spread it out slowly.

4. An Ability to Control Costs
The other advantage to basing a business in a place like Kansas City is that the costs are a fraction of what they would be in a major market. Eleven million dollars a year in earnings is very impressive, but it doesn’t pay for the Universal Music office in midtown Manhattan. One of the major problems of the music industry is not that lack of earnings, but the fact that the costs are outrageously, and unnecessarily high. There is no inherent need for major labels to be housed in the center of the most expensive cities in the world. But that’s where they are, and consequently, they find it almost impossible to make money.

In the same way, many independent artists are seduced by the idea of trying to give the impression of power and success, and wind up wasting alot of money on unnecessary offices, too many employees, or inflated production costs. Tech N9ne’s business runs on inexpensive office space, interns, street team promotion, and careful control of the finances. If the music is reactive and you’re building on a solid local following, there shouldn’t be a need for huge expenditures. All it takes is patience and follow-through.

The growing DYI approach to the music industry is not for everyone. Many artists try it, only to find that it’s more work than they ever thought or that they simply don’t have any of the skills they need to run their own business. Without a doubt, it is extremely labor intensive, challenging, slow and decidedly lacking in show biz glamor.

But it’s not a mystery. There’s no secret method that Tech N9ne used to build a successful business. It all comes down to making smart decisions instead of self-indulgent ones, caring for the customer rather than the corporation, and pulling in fans, one by one, show by show, every time you play. “We’re Wal-Mart”, Tech N9ne has been quoted as saying. “There’s no Warner Bros., Def Jam or Sony in the Midwest, so we had to build our own.” Good thing he did.

PluralEyes- Help for that Syncing Feeling

Oliver Peters — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:45:06 PDT

If you’ve ever edited multi-cam shows where the production crew’s attitude seemed to have been, “Sync! We don’t need any stinkin’ sync!” – then this software is for you. Without a doubt, every editor friend I ran into at NAB that happened to pass by Singular Software’s booth raved about this product. “You have GOT [...]

Collaborate, Record, and Mix in Your Browser with Indaba Music

Brian Casel — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:32:48 PDT

Still scrolling through craigslist in search of potential bandmates in your area? Can’t find anyone who shares your musical influences? Thanks to Indaba Music, now you can branch out and connect with other musicians in ways never before seen.

Indaba Music is an online community of musicians all connected to a highly advanced browser-based music production console. As of today, you can join a “session”, import your audio and mix everyone’s musical contributions using a super cool mixing console. Volume, panning, mute, solo… it’s all there. But that’s just the beginning.

The Indaba Music Mixing Console

Indaba Music is gearing up to release the Session Console 2.0, which will introduce complete browser-based recording capabilities. That means you can literally fire up the session console in your browser, plug in your instrument, and hit record. Add your creative touch to the community-based recording session. I will post a followup review with Indaba 2.0 launches.

Online Musical Collaboration

It’s truly amazing where this technology is going. I mean, the thought of collaborating with musicians from across the globe so effortlessly is astounding. Just from browsing through some active mixes on the site today, you can immediately get a feel for the true variety of styles and diversity of cultures represented - all within the same sessions!

There are loads of cool ways this online tool can fit into the lifestyle of musicians.

Collaboration takes practice. This is a great way to hone your skills as a musical collaborator when you’re just starting out on your instrument, or if you’re picking up a new primary instrument.
Maybe you don’t have the time to dedicate to a real, in-person band. Indaba gives you the opportunity to keep the excitement of jamming with others on your free time and you still keep your day job, spend time with the fam, etc.
Real-world bands can collaborate with virtual online bands through Indaba. Spread you’re band’s influence by injecting it into the sessions of your fans. Lots of directions to take that idea.
Expand your creative musical pallet by producing music and interacting with others from across the globe. You’re now in touch with a world of musical cultures, backgrounds, influences, genres, styles…

Where is This Going?

Beyond the creative and technological capabilities here, I’m interested to see how this type of community can evolve. Will there be internet-based “bands”, gaining popularity with fans, recording and releasing music all online? This type of new technology certainly brings an interesting twist to our centuries-old craft of songwriting.

Have any of you collaborated on Indaba Music yet?

What’s In A Bridge?

Andrea Stolpe — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:25:48 PDT

I remember a time when I’d scrub the shower rather than try to write a bridge for a song. Bridges are those pesky sections so late in the game we can avoid writing them for months at a time, and sometimes avoid them altogether with a cleverly placed instrumental. But, in many situations they are a wonderful way to harness a final transformation for the tune, and so to avoid them forever would be a missed opportunity.

So, what is a bridge? How do we figure out what to write after it seems like everything’s been said?

A bridge is the section that follows the second chorus in this common song structure:

Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus

It is also the section that follows the second verse-refrain in a verse-refrain structure, or AABA structure:

Verse/refrain
Verse/refrain
Bridge
Verse/refrain

If we define the verse as the section that sets up the story (the what, when, who, and where), and the chorus as the section that delivers the main message (the why), then we might say that the bridge delivers the (what now?). Musically and lyrically speaking, the bridge is a section that provides stark contrast to the rest of the song. We might hear chords not yet played in the tune so far, melodic pitches higher than any other in the song, new rhythms, and a lyric that takes our story one large leap forward. Sometimes I like to look at the bridge as the place where our character undergoes that final transformation. The guy who realizes he misses his old girlfriend vows to get her back. The woman working a dead-end job decides she can and will do better. The alcoholic recognizes that getting sober will be a challenge, but to not try is to lose the battle before it’s even waged. In these scenarios, the bridge makes that final statement of why the story matters at all.

Another handy technique is to look at the bridge in terms of the future. Think about your characters and that main message. What will the future look like? What kinds of struggles must the characters overcome to step into that future? Is it all worth it? Why?

These are just a few of the questions you might ask yourself to conjure up some good bridge material. Don’t hesitate to listen to many of your favorite tunes and summarize the content of those bridges. Listen to the harmonic movement as well, and transcribe the chords you hear – especially the first chord of the bridge that is pivotal in moving our ears away from that familiar chorus sound. Take note of the melody and where it launches and lands at the end of the bridge. The key is contrast, and a bridge that can give our ears several seconds of fresh chords, pitches and rhythms allows the last chorus to shine even more brightly.

For more in-depth study and practice writing bridges, I recommend the berkleemusic.com songwriting course ‘Commercial Songwriting Techniques’ and companion book Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling.

Happy writing,
Andrea Stolpe

Copyright Your Music for Picture Compositions

Brian Casel — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:34:11 PDT

Follow me on Twitter: @Casjam

photo by Craig-Photography

The next step in the series on making money with production music libraries is copyrighting your compositions. Securing your work with proper music copyrights is an important part of building your music for picture catalog. This article will offer a simple explanation of music copyrights, and show you how to register your copyright.

Stay up on this article series by subscribing to free email updates or the RSS feed! The series covers:

Introduction / What are production music libraries?
Producing tracks that sell
Copyrighting your music
Registering with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
Submitting your songs to production music libraries
Collecting performance royalties / understanding your royalty statement
Leveraging your music placements to gain future music for picture work

What is Music Copyright?

From Wikipedia:

“Copyright gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright has been internationally standardized, lasting between fifty to a hundred years from the author’s death, or a shorter period for anonymous or corporate authorship.”

Why Register Copyrights?

Legally, as the author and creator a musical work, you automatically own the copyright to your music as soon as you write and record the song. However, you should still take the necessary steps to officially register your copyright. This will offer you additional protection should anyone attempt to steal and use your music without your permission.

From the US copyright.gov FAQ:

Registration is recommended for a number of reasons. Many choose to register their works because they wish to have the facts of their copyright on the public record and have a certificate of registration. Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees in successful litigation. Finally, if registration occurs within 5 years of publication, it is considered prima facie evidence in a court of law. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration” and Circular 38b, Highlights of Copyright Amendments Contained in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), on non-U.S. works.

Sounds complicated, I know. But since registering your copyrights is a cheap and easy process, you’re clearly much better off protecting yourself than putting your potentially lucrative work at risk of being stolen.

How to Register Music Copyrights

You can easily register your music online by going to www.copyright.gov. It’s a complete online system, which guides you through the process of registering your works with the United States library of congress. You can find detailed documentation and FAQs covering all the information you need in regards to copyrights, procedures, and the online system.

Start by registering for an account at the electronic copyright office at copyright.gov. Once logged in, you can proceed with your online registration of works. It’s a three step process:

Application
Payment
Works submission

All three steps can be completed online. This is the easiest and cheapest way to do it.

The cost is $35 for online registration ($45 for paper registration). You can register multiple songs together as a collection in a single registration. That’s right, you can register 20 songs all at once for $35.

A copy of your music is held on file at the library of congress. You can submit your music online without the hassle of mailing the CD. The online registration system allows you to upload a variety of audio formats including .mp3, .aiff, and .wav.

When your registration process is complete, you will receive a certificate of copyright registration in the mail. Generally the process is completed within five months. But don’t worry about waiting that long to get your music out there. Your registration is effective from time you submit your application.

Then what?

Once you complete your online copyright registration, the next step is to register with a performing rights organization (PRO) so that you can collect your performance royalties when your music is played in broadcast. The next article in this series will cover everything you need to know about performing rights organizations.

Top 7 Music Licensing Sites

Bruce Houghton — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:56:00 PDT

Here in no particular order is a list of seven companies that help artists place their music in film, television, commercials, games, etc.

Rumblefish - Licensing for television, film, advertisements, websites, videos, games, podcasts, and sonic branding - e.g. your music inside your local Gap.
Gamecues - Licensing for the gaming industry.
YouLicense - Music licensing marketplace - essentially, their system enables artists and those seeking music to conduct business directly with each other.
Pump Audio - Artists can license their music in television and advertising without giving up any ownership.
BeatPick - Music licensing provider.
Ricall - Music licensing marketplace, connecting users wanting to license music directly with the relevant copyright owners.
SoundReef - In private beta, this service exchanging music for promotion in television, film, advertising, etc.

This list comes courtesy of Duncan Freeman and his Indie Music Tech blog. What music licensing sites and services are missing from the list?

PayPal MicroPayments May Help Make Direct To Fan Sales Dream A Reality

Bruce Houghton — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:21:12 PDT

The artist to fan relationship is the mantra of music 2.0 and direct to fan sales are touted as the most effective monetization strategy. But two roadblocks have kept this dream from becoming a reality for most indie musicians: consumer trust and transaction costs. Now PayPal's MicroPayments system offers a solution to both problems.

Selling tracks direct to fans makes sense. Providers like Nimbit make it easy and some like Bandcamp turn tracks into viral promo tools. Certainly fans want to support artists rather than fill the coffers of "the man". Unfortunately, it turns out that a dirty little secret of the online music business is that even bigger players like Rhapsody have a hard time getting consumers to enter their credit card info. It's one of the reasons that Amazon MP3 is so successful. Millions trust Amazon and already have their card on file. Apply the trust test to leaving your credit card info on the site of that death metal band that just came through town and you start to see the problem.

The other roadblock facing artists has been the high price of small transactions.

Major credit card providers have no interest in collecting and paying pennies from low volume sellers Previous PayPal options charged a minimum transaction fee of 30 cents plus 2.9%. Add those two together and you are almost better off sending track sales to iTunes. Price a track at less at $.50 or less and you might as well give it away free.

PayPal's Mircopayment option raises the percentage to 5% but lowers the fee to just 5 cents . That changes the net profit on a $.99 cent direct sale to $.89 cents vs. $.66 under the old PayPal option. Sell just one hundred two or three song bundles and the total PayPal transaction costs drop from $36 to $15.

Add lower transaction costs to the familiarity that particularly younger fans have with PayPal and the promise offered by direct to fans sales just got a lot closer to reality.

Where will the money come from? The Fans.

Dave Kusek — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:56:32 PDT

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. Things have a way of cycling around, and if they are effective, becoming novel again when more recent methods of making progress fade away. Fan financing is picking up steam as a way of raising money to support artists in the face of falling label support. Like the patron model of old, artists are reaching out to their fans, offering incentives and various forms of access for fans that donate money in support of their artist’s work.

This model is not new, but is gaining steam once again. And why not, it works. In the 70’s Cris Williamson, who just spent a week in residence at Berklee used fan financing to raise money for her album projects which helped to start the women’s music movement. She started the first women’s music label, Olivia Records using fan financing as a strategy to fund numerous projects including the label itself. Now lots of artists are returning to this strategy to fund their careers. James Reed has a new story in the Boston Globe on the subject. Enjoy.

Lighters down, checkbooks up
A growing number of musicians are looking to fans, not record labels, to help fund their albums and tours. And giving has its perks.

By James Reed, Globe Staff | April 12, 2009

Ellis Paul, a veteran singer-songwriter who first made his name in New England’s folk clubs in the 1990s, found himself in a disconcerting position last year. He had decided not to renew his contract with Rounder Records, his longtime label, but wanted to make a new album.

With no immediate ideas for funding, Paul took a novel approach: He enlisted his fans, posting a letter on his website asking for donations. Since July they’ve surprised him by contributing more than $90,000 through a Framingham-based online service called Nimbit, along with checks sent in the mail.

“When you’re only selling 20,000 or 30,000 records, you don’t really need a label,” he says. “We figured we could do this in-house, but we just needed the money, and where was the money going to come from?”

In a growing trend reminiscent of the old-fashioned ways of artists and patrons, musicians around the country - including local singers Mieka Pauley, Mark Erelli, Kris Delmhorst, and former Throwing Muses singer-guitarist Kristin Hersh - are depending on their fans for unprecedented financial support. And it’s not just limited to American artists. In France, singer-songwriter Grégoire channeled fan funding through the website MyMajorCompany.com and released “Toi + Moi,” which peaked at No. 2 spot on the French album charts.

Even as the economy deflates and the record industry continues its downward spiral, indie artists are finding that their supporters are eager to help. In a sense, the fans are replacing - or at least augmenting - the traditional role of a label, which previously would have financed the album with a monetary advance and then taken care of the promotion and distribution.

Piano-playing songwriter Seth Glier, who lives in Western Massachusetts, is only 20 but has already built a fan base that supported him on a recent monthlong tour. Through online efforts, Glier raised $2,500, which came in handy as he and a bandmate zigzagged across the Northeast and had to pay for gas, tolls, and the occasional hotel room.

The initial goal was to raise $500, which Glier accomplished within two hours and then kept going. Glier admits it takes a certain caliber of artist to ask fans outright for money. “It was an idea I had a couple of years ago, but I have a really hard time asking for help,” he says. “When I was able to unclench my fist, it was great to realize how many people were there for me.”

The fans aren’t technically just giving money to these artists: They’re buying services.

To fund “The Day After Everything Changed,” his new album out in the fall, Paul allowed fans to buy different tiers of sponsorship, ranging from $100 (the “Antje Duvekot Level,” named after the local singer-songwriter) up to $10,000 (”the Woody Guthrie Level”).

The higher the contribution, the greater the goods. For $100, you got an advance copy of the album with a bonus disc of demos and outtakes, along with tickets to one of Paul’s shows. For the top-level contributions, of which Paul received a few, fans got several perks - everything from a one-year membership to Club Passim to a signed acoustic guitar to a credit as an executive producer of the album.

One $10,000 contributor, a Boston-based fan who wished to remain anonymous (”People are losing their jobs and homes right now. I don’t think it feels sensitive,” she explains), says she and her husband couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have him write a song for them, one of the perks at their donation level. They even visited Paul in the studio.

“We left feeling that our donation - as well as everybody else’s - is in very good hands,” she says. “In this day and age, to pull out your pocketbook, it’s got to be something pretty compelling.”

Karen Zundel, a librarian in Pennsylvania who’s been a devoted Ellis Paul fan for 12 years, says she even saved up for her contribution because it held more importance than your typical splurge. “The arts are what sustain us and bring individuals and communities together and help us to connect with our innermost beings,” Zundel says. “A new car won’t do that. When you buy a new car or a new outfit, you get that little thrill that lasts very temporarily, and then it’s gone. But I think art really sustains me. It lasts.”

But the way that art gets to the consumer is changing. Dave Kusek, vice president of Berklee College of Music who co-authored the book “The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution,” says the role of record labels is declining.

“I personally think unless you need massive radio airplay, there’s very little reason for record labels to engage with artists anymore,” he says. “It’s a relic of the past in that artists today can find other ways to get to the market, to get money, to distribute their product in a way where they have a lot more control.”

Kusek acknowledges there are pitfalls to blazing a new trail with fan funding, though. “I do think there’s some risk if you don’t deliver,” he says. “Essentially, you are relying on people’s trust in you. They’re effectively loaning you money in the hopes that they’ll get something in return. So if you don’t come through, you’re running the risk of alienating your fans and eliminating those relationships.”

Jill Sobule, who rose to fame in the mid-1990s with the ubiquitous hit “I Kissed a Girl” (long before Katy Perry swiped the topic), recorded “California Years,” set for release on Tuesday, with the help of $80,000 from fans after establishing a website, www.jillsnextrecord.com, specifically for the project.

“I know some people say that’s a lot to record a record,” she says, “but it’s also for everything a big label is supposed to do: publicists, marketing, promotions, distribution. I’ve pretty much used all of it.”

Like Paul, Sobule offered various services at different price points. For $10,000 one lucky contributor got to sing on a new song. Sobule says she vetted the idea with her fans first. “That’s really important: You leave out the middleman and go directly to the fans and talk to them,” she says.

The one thing she hadn’t counted on was the level of freedom fan funding brought her, both financially and creatively. “In the old model, you’d have to sell 150,000 albums for people to think you were successful,” she says, “and now you don’t have to.”

“It definitely is humbling,” she says of asking fans for money. “I feel like I better do the job for my fans. I better bow down to them more than a record label. They’re the ones in control now, in a way.”

James Reed can be reached at jreed@globe.com.

Power Twittering with TweetDeck

Brian Casel — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:03:59 PDT

Follow me on Twitter: @Casjam

Twitter is quickly becoming a hugely powerful tool for connecting on the social web. Songwriters and musicians around the world have embraced the twittersphere to connect with fans and spread their music. Today I’d like to offer a review of my official twitter weapon of choice: TweetDeck.

It’s one of the most feature-packed Twitter clients out there, and it’s geared towards the power-Twitter user. TweetDeck is the perfect solution for songwriters and bands who need to manage a very large Twitter following, while connecting with lots of new like-minded fans. TweetDeck is still considered to be in “beta”, but they just released the latest version, TweetDeck 0.25, which brings a handful of cool features on-top of all the gems it already had.

Multiple Twitter Streams with TweetDeck

While the overcrowded lot of Twitter clients out there stick to the traditional single stream of tweets - TweetDeck goes much farther. You can set up an unlimited amount of streams (columns), each filtered for a specific purpose. One could be for your favorite twitter followers, one could be for a search term, one could be for your facebook friends (yup, facebook is now integrated… more on this below), and one to view everyone.

Here’s a screen shot of my TweetDeck. As you can see, I keep about 4-5 columns open most of the day:

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Information overload! I thought twitter was supposed to be simple!” Let me make some sense of all this.

Twitter Groupies!

OK, not exactly. With TweetDeck, you could separate the people you follow on Twitter into groups. This is perfect for those who follow hundreds or thousands of people and want to be sure they’re keeping track of the ones they’re most interested in. For example, you might want to create a group for your real-world friends on Twitter, or a group for those who are based in the same region as you.

As of this writing, I’m currently following 871 people on Twitter. I created a group called “My Favs” which contains roughly 30 of my favorite people on Twitter. It’s a combination of some real-world friends, folks who I’ve been in frequent @reply conversations with, interesting people in my industries (music and web design), and people that regularly post hilarious or super-interesting tweets.

That’s not to say I’m ignoring the rest the 830 people I follow on Twitter. My next column contains my entire Twitter network.

“This One Goes to 11″ or Power Twitter Search

As I’ve written about previously in the article, Grow Your Band’s Following with Twitter, Twitter search is the key to expanding your reach on Twitter and creating meaningful relationships with those who matter to you - people who have share the same interests… Those who are most likely to follow you on Twitter, dig your music, and become a fan of your band.

In TweetDeck, you could create a column which feeds you tweets from across the twittersphere based on a search term. I like to keep one search column open at all times. This week, my search term is “composing music”. This allows me to find, follow, and connect with anyone who is tweeting about composing music - something I’m personally very interested in. Other search terms I often use are “Reason 4.0″, “Pro Tools”, “studio recording”, and of course “The Mets”.

Now with Facebook!

The latest version of TweetDeck nicely incorporates Facebook into the mix. You could create a column which contains all of your Facebook friends status updates. It also allows you to choose to send tweets to Twitter, Facebook, or both simultaneously. Pretty sweet.

I have found this feature has already rejouvenated my interest in Facebook and brought about connections with old friends.

The Rest…

Those are the things that truly set TweetDeck apart from your common Twitter app. As if that wasn’t enough, here’s a list of the other cool features they packed into this tweeting-beast:

URL shortening with several shortening services (including the new digg.com shortening service)
TwitPic integration
Language translation of tweets
Ability to “favorite” tweets
Twitter tag cloud (they call it “TwitScoop”)
Integration with 12seconds.tv for video tweets (haven’t checked this out yet. Sounds interesting)
StockTwits integration (Lets face it. Musicians don’t care about the stock market)
Super-easy follow, reply, re-tweet, direct message functionality
Custom colors

What’s your TweetDeck Set up?

As you can see, TweetDeck is highly customizable with various groups, search, and columns options. If you’re a TweetDeck user, what’s your set up, and how do you use TweetDeck to enhance your musical / songwriting efforts?

Daily DIY: Improving Your Live Show

Bruce Houghton — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:25:00 PDT

In this last in the series of excerpts from his new book called “How To Make Your Band Sound Great,” producer and author Bobby Owsinski shares his view of why some shows are amateur while others leave the crowd begging for more.

Your Show - It’s More Than A Collection Of Songs
It’s not enough to be a good band anymore, you’ve got to have your show down too. Here are a number of items that you must be aware of in order to make your show as good as it can be. It doesn’t mater what kind of band you are and what kind of music you play, these items are all generic and if my advice is followed, will guarantee that you’re better received by your audience.

So what is a Show exactly? It’s much more than just a collection of songs. It's a performance designed to entertain the crowd. While the world is full of performers that have seemingly no stage show, there’s a lot more that goes on than meets the eye.

Everyone can name a great performer who just stands there playing and singing and still gets rave reviews. While that can be you too, today’s audiences are a lot more sophisticated and require a certain level of professionalism from a performer, even with a minimal show. Let’s look at some typical shows and spot the differences.

An Amateur Show
In an amateur show you’ll typically find the following traits:

- The band doesn’t know what song to play next
- The band tunes up loudly in-between songs
- The band has mindless banter with audience
- The band has inside-jokes that only the band or a few people around the band understand
- The band takes too much time between songs
- The band keeps the audience waiting while changing guitars, clothes, etc
- The band doesn’t acknowledge the audience, or worse, disrespects the audience

A Tight, Professional Show
Likewise, in a tight, professional show you’ll typically find the following traits:

- The band has a set list and knows exactly what they’ll be playing and how much time it will take
- The band knows exactly what will happen in-between songs
- The band knows exactly when, where and how the audience will be addressed
- The band has as little time possible between songs, or has something predetermined that will entertain in those spaces
- The band plays to the room

A Big Production Show
Not only observes all of the above, but has the entire show planned

- The band designs the set for maximum audience impact
- The band works out sound and music cues beforehand
- The band works out lighting cues beforehand
- The band works out wardrobe, guitar changes, etc. beforehand

Sometimes all it takes to change an amateur show to one that’s tight and professional is awareness. Now that you read this article, you’re aware. Go make the changes!

About Bobby
A long-time veteran of the music industry, Bobby Owsinski has produced and composed for records, motion pictures and television shows along the way. Bobby has also has authored several books that are now staples in recording programs in colleges around the world including "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook", "The Recording Engineer's Handbook", "The Audio Mastering Handbook", "The Drum Recording Handbook", “The Studio Musician’s Handbook,” and "How To Make Your Band Sound Great".

Visit Bobby's Blog at http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/ and his website at http://bobbyowsinski.com.

Is a Last.fm Powerplay campaign right for you?

Brian Hazard — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 PDT

In my previous post on Last.fm, I promised to follow up with the results of my Powerplay campaigns, which target a set number of radio plays to a particular group of users. Four packages are currently offered: $20 for 100 plays, $100 for 500 plays, $200 for 1,000 plays, and $400 for 2,000 plays. Since the per-play price is the same ($0.20), I opted for the cheapest.

I record electronic pop with hints of classical piano under the name Color Theory. To help determine my target demographic, I created three Powerplay campaigns, staggered over three weeks. The first was aimed at fans of The Postal Service (the electronic side project of Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard). I also included two indie electronic bands with young audiences: PlayRadioPlay! and Owl City. I chose my song "We're Not Getting Any Younger," which had already proven itself by winning #1 in the Electronic category at Ourstage.

Color Theory - We're Not Getting Any Younger

Campaign #1 Results: The Postal Service, PlayRadioPlay!, Owl City
77 Users listened to the whole track, and of those Users, 1 Loved the track
23 Users skipped the track or did not listen to it to the end, and of those Users, 0 Banned the track

Next, I targeted the same song to fans of Depeche Mode, which tend to be closer to my age (or to put it in music industry terms, "old").

Campaign #2 Results: Depeche Mode
68 Users listened to the whole track, and of those Users, 2 Loved the track
29 Users skipped the track or did not listen to it to the end, and of those Users, 0 Banned the track

Finally, I targeted "If It's My Time to Go" to fans of Yazoo, who haven't put out an album since 1983. The song was named Grand Prize Winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, so I believe it's at least as strong a track as "We're Not Getting Any Younger." Yazoo fans appear to disagree. One even banned the song (cat sound!).

Color Theory - If It's My Time to Go

Campaign #3 Results: Yazoo
62 Users listened to the whole track, and of those Users, 2 Loved the track
38 Users skipped the track or did not listen to it to the end, and of those Users, 1 Banned the track

While the three sets of results aren't dramatically different from each other, it's probably safe to say that college kids are at least as enthusiastic about my music as their parents are. Still, would it be smarter to target my efforts at the generation of fans who still buy CDs? Since Last.fm users can stream almost anything for free, do they even pay for music anymore? Should I worry about selling at all, or position myself for a stream-on-demand future? You ask a lot of questions!

OK, so a Powerplay campaign can help you choose which songs to promote to which audiences, but will it generate more unpaid plays? Is there any hope of recouping the cost in sales down the line? Based on the numbers I've seen so far, the answer to both questions is no.

My new album was released in November, but didn't reach iTunes until the end of the year. From the beginning of the year through the first campaign launch on March 2, I averaged 150 unique listeners per week. In the four weeks since, I averaged 225. 75 extra listeners per week times four weeks equals 300, which is exactly what the three campaigns paid for.

Factoring in other stats muddies the waters. Radio plays are up, but on-demand plays are down. Plays scrobbled is way up, but I've been consistently scrobbling the album overnight. What I can say for sure is this: I can't trace a single sale, e-mail, or friend request on any network to my promotion efforts at Last.fm.

So is a Last.fm Powerplay campaign right for you? That depends. If you're an established artist, paid promotion might not make a dent in your numbers. If you haven't released anything yet, you should probably wait to launch the promotion as part of a broader effort. If you've got an album or two under your belt, but low numbers on the site, it might be worth paying to jump start the process. Still, you'll get more bang-for-your buck at Jango, where you can buy radio plays at one-tenth the price. Details of my 5,000 play campaign coming soon!

I’m Not Dead Yet

Eric Beall — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:14:29 PDT

Now that the dust has settled from a week at South By Southwest, and for the truly hardcore weasels, a following week at Winter Music Conference in Miami, not much is clear, but one thing is evident:

Music is not dead yet.

Not sure I can say the same thing about the record business which continues to slide further into the abyss. Now, even the publishing industry is starting to feel the pain, as mechanical income, the money earned from record sales (and downloads) is plummeting, with Harry Fox Agency announcing a shocking 22 percent drop in mechanicals over the past year. Of course, the retail side of the music business (remember when there were stores and they sold music in them?) has become a historical relic overnight, and the shuttering of the Virgin chain is only the last swing of the wrecking ball to that particular side of the industry. And come to think of it, the radio business doesn’t look so good either. So what’s keeping the old girl alive? What particular life-support device is keeping the music industry from flat-lining all together?

Well, actually, it seems to be music itself. Shocking as it may seem to many of the weasels that work in the business everyday, people still appear to be quite fond of those old standbys of rhythm, melody, harmony, and lyrics.

Clearly, they like to listen to it. In fact, that’s one of the most perplexing parts of the whole music business demise. One rides the subway to work, observes every person on the subway car listening to their fully-loaded iPod, takes a taxi and listens to the inescapable musical selections of the cab driver, then sees everyone in the street still listening to their iPod, then gets in the elevator and listens to someone else’s ringtone of their favorite song as their cell phone sounds off, and then arrives at the office to learn that no one is selling any music. It would be a bit less painful to watch the industry disappear if we saw the whole world happily dwelling in silence. But it’s very hard to see a world inundated with music at every level, only to see the income of those in the music business drying up. It’s like dying of thirst while you’re drowning.

People also appear to enjoy making music. Perhaps a little too much. But when you consider that 2000 bands played at SXSW this year alone, and probably an equal number of aspiring DJs, producers and remixers showed up at the Winter Music Conference, and another several hundred songwriters will converge upon the ASCAP I Create Music Expo in April, it’s clear that the joy of making music is not fading out anytime soon. And of course, thanks to businesses like Myspace and YouTube, now all of those joyous music-makers can share their creativity with the world– for better or worse. It’s probably worth recalling that this is how music began– not as a spectator sport (so to speak), but as a means of having fun, entertaining yourself and others.

In fact, that just might be the lesson behind festivals like SXSW and WMC. Despite the economic downturn, attendance was reported to be solid at SXSW, with strong sales in the festival passes, and a healthy level of bookings at the hotels. The lesson is that music-centered events, which include opportunities for a wide variety of people to participate, and allow audiences to listen to a wide cross-section of music, are taking the business back to its roots– which just might be a good thing. We’ve built up a massive industrial complex that needs to be fed, but somehow we’ve lost sight of what the real appeal of music actually is. The success of these festivals and conferences may be guiding us back to where we belong. A couple of obvious principles:

1.People like to choose what they listen to. This may explain why radio ratings are sliding, even as all of those people on the subway are happily grooving to their iPods. In the old days, local radio stations at least had enough freedom to try to cater to regional tastes and styles, and in general, respond to the listening preferences of their community. Now, with the likes of Clear Channel pioneering a system in which one or two programmers can control the song selections for radio stations across the entire country, people are tuning out, and making their own playlists for the daily commute. If it wants to survive, radio is going to have to begin to respond to their audience and offer some variety, rather than dictating to it with increasingly restrictive playlists.

2. People like to gather together and hear music. This goes back quite a ways– like to the days of the campfire and cavemen. Music is ultimately a live, communal experience, and the music industry needs to support and foster that spirit. One great example of this is the Ultra Music Festival, which follows the Winter Music Conference, and features a wild array of the top talents in electronic and dance music. The event is sponsored by the music label and publishing company, Ultra Records. It’s a perfect illustration of a label investing in the live experience, which will inevitably spur sales in the genre, while offering a perfect branding opportunity for the label. From huge festivals to small club events, record labels and publishers need to start investing in live events that engage their audience and allow music to bring people together.

3. People like to play along. Music is not just for listening, and ours is not a culture used to sitting on the sidelines. From the popularity of Guitar Hero to the explosion of home-made videos on YouTube to the continuing popularity of karaoke, it’s obvious that making music is part of the fun. A trip to SXSW will quickly show you that music is not divided between those who play and those who purchase– those who play music are more likely to be the ones who also purchase music. NARAS is on the right track with its Grammys In the Schools program, but we need to do more. Publishers need to revitalize the sheet music industry and find a way to monetize the thousands of lyric sites on the internet. We need to support the “re-mix” culture that wants to re-imagine the music they love, while still respecting and protecting the rights of copyright holders.

It is probably safe to say that music will never really die. But it’s also worth noting that it can certainly slip to the margins of popularity, where it may continue to exist but not necessarily be one of the dominant forces in our artistic culture. All art forms have their peaks and valleys in respect to cultural influence, and music did not really become a dominant part of popular entertainment in America until the late 1800’s. If we want to continue to remain relevant, and solvent in the 21 century, we may have to re-focus, or we risk losing our place at the center of popular culture. If two weeks of partying, carousing, listening to bands, and dancing to DJs taught us anything, it might be that it’s time to get back to basics. If music be the food of love, then play on…

Bandcamp: Super Sweet (and Free) Features for Bands

Brian Casel — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:05:29 PDT

Follow me on Twitter: @Casjam

Sola Rosa on bandcamp

I came across a super-awesome service for bands and recording artists called Bandcamp. It’s free, and it lets you host your band’s music and discography, sell it or give it away, and it provides a smooth and clean website presence for your band. It takes music hosting to the next level and can really improve your band’s web presence. This review from bandcamp user, Mike Ventimiglia of the The Mississippi Kings, covers all of the features in depth.

I won’t re-hash all of features that make this free service great for bands, but there are few gems that really struck me about bandcamp. From a web guru’s perspective, these are the things that separates the run-of-the-mill website from the innovative and super-useful web 2.0 applications.

Every Flavor of Audio Formats

The first thing that jumped out at me about bandcamp is the ability to post every type of audio format imaginable. It even makes all of the conversions for you. Just start by uploading the highest quality version you have - a lossless .wav or .aiff - and bandcamp will convert down to AAC, Ogg (not even sure what that is), and a variety of mp3 qualities. By the way - here’s a video screencast about converting to mp3s yourself… but with bandcamp, you don’t need to.

Offering a variety of sound quality options is a very cool idea, which sets your band apart from many others who simply give you the most compressed mp3 audio possible. Audiofiles will dig you as well as casual listeners looking for a bit more punch in their listening experience. Nine Inch Nails has been mindful of sound quality by giving away various audio options of their albums as well.

Oh, and you can choose to set a price (any price) for certain versions of each song, while giving others away free. For example, you may want to give out your mp3 version for nothing, but charge a little something for the lossless AIFF version. Bandcamp makes these options are totally flexible. Here’s an article weighing the pro’s and con’s of giving away your music.

Your own URL or Domain

The other super sweet feature from bandcamp is the ability to use your own domain for your bandcamp page! That’s right, you can make your bandcamp page www.myband.com or something like music.myband.com. This allows you to make it a totally legit extension of your band’s website. Use bandcamp as the “music” area of your website by linking to it in your site’s navigation.

You don’t have complete control of the page layout and design, however you can certainly customize the colors, and add your bands graphics to the top. You will also notice that album art is a major focus of your bandcamp page, which I think is great. I’m all for promoting great design in music.

Over to you

Anybody out there using bandcamp already? Promote your band’s music page here. Lets see how you integrated it with your website. I’m interested to see if their feature-packed service has had an impact on growing your fanbase and music sales.

Have You Thought About Buying Some New Fans?

Greg Rollett — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:36:04 PDT

Follow me on Twitter: @Casjam

photo by Cayusa

This post was written by Greg Rollett from Gen-Y Rock Stars, a music marketing resource and community for indie musicians. Check out their free Gen-Y Rock Star Tool Kit or email Greg for more information.

Social media is beyond the craze of the day. You can’t turn a corner online without hearing the latest social media trend, craze, site, testimonial or campaign. Everything from the beloved Twitter to Facebook to Wikis to blogs to Social Networks, everyone wants to have this conversation with their fans, customers and viewers.

And they should.

Conversation and word of mouth is one of, if not the, best way to increase sales and conversions for your products, your music, live shows or other endeavors. The problem for smaller bands, start-ups, bedroom songwriters and first time producers, who may have extreme talent, is that no one wants to talk to them because no one knows who they are.

How do you find these fans?

Essentially there are 2 ways to find fans online these days. You push hard for the free way, friending everyone in sight, commenting on blogs, walls, forums, etc, producing content in exchange for emails, use of sites like Digg, entering contests and other strategies for finding fans. This is very effective, yet time consuming to create media and build relationships.

What about buying some fans?

The second way is to leverage traffic from an existing site and find the exact people that would love your music and get it in front of them. This is also called advertising! Social network profiles allow for extreme demographic breakdowns and that can be a blessing for advertisers. In the music marketing world, it opens even more doors as most people on these networks are very open about their favorite artists, albums, movies and songs. This is advantageous because you can now place ads on the very pages of the people like like either a) your music or b) music that is similar.

Myspace and Facebook both offer this form of advertising and will only charge you when someone clicks on your ad. Myspace MyAds were designed for indie musicians to connect with fans on the service. Facebook’s platform is even more robust, offering targeting options for age, location and profile keywords.

The Future of Indie Artist Music Advertising

While the afore mentioned ad options are great, due to the sheer number of people on the networks, the best place for someone to learn about your music is when they are actually listening to music! Sounds simple right.

Think about it. You are listening to a station on radio, be it an FM station, Sirius, Pandora, whatever. You are hearing songs that you are familiar with and like, which makes since because you chose to listen to that station for a reason. When a new song comes on, one that you have never heard before, you become curious. You might look to see who the artist is and keep that artist on your mind, becoming more familiar with them every time you hear their music.

There are 2 services taking advantage of this scenario today. Jango and Grooveshark are taking the music discovery from the radio and adding in elements of Pay-Per-Click and demographic advertising together to create opportunities for indie artists to build their fan base.

With both services indie artists choose music and other artists that their own music would flow together with. When a listener on Jango or Grooveshark is jamming out to one of those artists, pay per play tracks will be added to their station giving indie the same opportunities to have their music heard on these stations. Listeners can instantly learn more about the artist in question and even buy tracks or support the band from inside the network, allowing for an instant increase in new fans with which to have conversations with, build trust and invite to shows.

Grooveshark estimates that from a 2,000 song pay-per play you can grab around 250 new fans. Not a bad trade off for $250. That’s about $1/per fan.

So the next time you think about finding some new fans, don’t be scared to buy some. These fans will be more interested in your music, your blog, your videos and attending your shows than those who get your SPAM messages and requests.

If you have used advertising for your band, tell us about it. What was cool, what wasn’t and what helped you on your quest to become a Gen-Y Rock Star.

Fan-Funding & Donation Sites: 9 Ways to Raise Money for Your Next Music Project

Bob Baker — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:27:13 PDT

Are you ready to record a new album, produce a video, or take on an ambitious new music project? But you don't have the cash on hand to make it happen now?

Do what a growing number of smart artists have done in recent years: ask your fans to contribute!

The band Marillion reportedly raised $725,000 by pre-selling its Anoraknophobia double-CD album before it was ever recorded. Jill Sobule raised more than $80,000 from about 500 fans to record her California Years album, due out in 2009.

But even lesser known artists have had success with this fan-funded business model. Take a look at what these indie acts have done to involve their fans in music fundraising:

Mia Kim
http://www.sukeyrose.com/

Christine Kane
http://www.bemyrecordlabel.com

Scott Andrew
http://saveyoufromyourself.com/

Kristin Hersh
http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/

Great, your sold on the concept. Now how do you set up a system to collect funds from your fans?

Well, a number of new sites have sprung up to provide this service to musicians. The most prominent ones are:

SellaBand
http://www.sellaband.com/

Slicethepie
http://www.slicethepie.com/

ArtistShare
http://www.artistshare.com/

CASH Music
http://www.cashmusic.org/

Bandstocks
http://www.bandstocks.com/

Each of the sites above have different structures and fees, so look over the details closely before committing to using any of them.

But you don't have to use a music-specific site to do this. Here are four more easy ways to ask your fans to support you financially:

Chipin

PayPal Buttons for donations

Amazon Simple Pay Donations

Justgiving

You don't have to wait until you have a big music project to ask your fans for help. Just put a donation or "tip jar" button or widget on a page where you offer free downloads.

For instance, here's the request on Kristin Hersh's download page:

"The music here is yours to download. Please consider making a one-time contribution using the form below (not tax deductable)."

Bottom line: Don't become a "I don't have the money now" victim. Ask the people who can really help you the most: your fans!

-Bob

www.TheBuzzFactor.com
www.MusicPromotionBlog.com

10 Highly Effective Ways to Market like an Asshole

Justin Boland — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:06:43 PDT

I am not a hater. I would like to thank the Universe for the challenges and opportunities, and I would like to thank the people who made this article possible. I didn’t write this: dozens of anonymous correspondents, most of whom I’m dealing with the for the first time, wrote this for me. Without your shining example of Prime Stupid, I would have had to make this shit up and that’s hard work for any writer.

And as always, to the critics: I agree with you, you’re completely right, please, keep doing what you’re doing exactly how you’ve been doing it.

1. Comment and message spam.

The best part about the music business isn’t the music—it’s the unintentional humor. Like when people talk about their “Myspace marketing plan,” I always get a huge kick out of that one. I have a Myspace marketing plan, too, and although I’ve been making good money licensing it to Universal and Def Jam, I’m willing to share it for free here on Audible Hype:

Yo, [generic greeting]. I like what I hear! We’re [insert name] an up-and-coming artist and we just [meaningless local achievement]!!! Check out our mixtape, this shit is hot right now, featuring [famous artists we’re stealing a track from] and [dude you’ve never heard of] and [insert name]. Check out [album name] dropping [release date] on [your label] presented by [drug dealer friend who actually paid for this].

Except...quantity is no replacement for quality. No matter how many times you post your spam comments, it’s still a net loss.

This is even more true for email. It seems sensible that you should send out as many promotional emails to as many people as possible, but in reality, that just means you’re pissing off more people and working hard to make sure people have bad associations with your name. Just because I sent you an email doesn’t mean I want to be on your promo list. Just because I’m on the promo list of someone you know doesn’t mean I want to be included on yours. The foundation of any working, effective email promo campaign is this: respect your audience’s intelligence, their privacy and their attention span.

BONUS INSIGHT: TYPING IN CAPS LOCK DOESN’T ACTUALLY MAKE YOU ANY LOUDER, HOMEY!!!

2. Mass invitations to social networks and membership sites.

This is a tricky one. What I’m trying to say might go over the heads of the audience that actually needs to hear this, so should I actually include it? Let’s give it a shot…

My point is this: the future of social networks is in aggregation, not innovation. Social Network systems theory is pretty solid now, folks: you have a profile, you connect to other profiles, you communicate. You decide which prisoners you want to deal with, and you get to decorate your cell however you like. And if someone is already doing that, you’ll be hard pressed to sell them with a sales pitch of “come do that same thing over again, somewhere else.”

This leads directly into the next dipshit move…

3. Creating Your Own Social Network.

Bottom line: if you announce the launch of your new social network, how many of your fans will sign up in the first week? If the answer is less than 1000, you’re out of your mind type stupid. If it’s less than 10,000, you’re still just wasting your time. If you are trying to build a fanbase with a new social network, you’re missing the point.

Contrary to what we see on TV, mostly in beer ads, you don’t make a dope party happen by pulling in attractive, well-dressed people off the streets. I’ve tried that many times—not only does it not work but some of them will make a lot of noise about “unlawful restraint” and “kidnapping.”

Nah, you make a dope party happen by knowing a large, mutual network of dope people who like to party and inviting them in advance. You make sure you incentivize it by offering something awesome—my suggestion to promoters: FREE WHISKEY NIGHT—and you advertise. (The second you pull it off, you book the sequel, start a website, and hire someone to make a better logo.)

You build a fanbase on existing social networks. If you’ve got 10,000 friends on myspace, that probably reflects about 2 - 3 thousand actual fans. Keep using myspace. (If you didn’t hear about this, Facebook is actually larger and faster-growing than myspace, which is rotting from the inside thanks to pop-up ads and shitty code and database architecture.)

4. Getting Angry at Media For Not Promoting You.

I seriously got this email:

I don’t know why I’m even bothering, but for real you need some clarity about where you stand. You talk the talk about hip hop and promotion and supporting the Underground but we been out here longer than you dog point blank, grinding putting out mixtapes, doing the free music thing, and you’re interviewing clowns like Icon cuz the white kids like him and cuz he knocked the fuck out of Copywrite and that’s it. You’re just chasing celebrities like anyone else.

It goes on, obviously, but the really remarkable thing about this email was the context: it was from someone who has never contacted me before. My general policy is to chalk up all hate mail to good people having bad days, and I’m sure this dude was no exception. Still, I’m not interested in interviewing him and I’m not even gonna name the dude here.

Remember: nobody anywhere owes you anything. (Not even “the white kids.")

5. Make Deals With Anything That Moves

Here’s another real-life example:

I WANT TO GET AT YOU ABOUT CO-BRANDING WITH YOUR SITES I LIKE YOUR STYLE AND WE GOT THAT AUDIENCE THAT YOU WANT. I REPRESENT [like I’d put you on] CLOTHING AND WE SHOULD BE HAVING A CONVERSATION!!!

*We offer 25% for affiliate sales and we offer full online support and digital distribution to music artists

The list goes on, but the funniest part about this message was the link he provided to learn more about their “digital distribution”—yeah, I was curious enough to click it—and it turned out to be his personal eBay account. Audible Hype is interested in doing interviews with anyone in the business who’s willing to talk details, but I’m not going to waste anyone’s time selling clothing, or energy drinks (actual offer), or your anti-drug breakdancing musical (sad but true).

6. Begging vs. Networking

My name is Justin Boland, I’m 27 and despite having a large digital footprint, I’ve got very little real-world power. For no money, I provide publicity to artists who I think are creating dope and meaningful music—like The Loyalists, Stink Tank, That Handsome Devil, S. Maharba, Witness, The Aztext, or Inverse. All those people are very diverse, but they’ve got two things in common.

First, they all make really damn good music. Second, none of them ask me for it. None of them expect me to help—because they’re already working hard and taking full responsibility for their own hustle.

In closing, here’s a simple question: is J. Dilla famous for his promotion and marketing, or his music? Which do you think he spent his time on? Building a solid foundation that attracts talented and powerful people is the original zero-maintenance networking plan.

7. Email Fellatio

I’m guessing this is true for most people, based on personal experience: most of us get uncomfortable when they’re getting praised. Although I feel like we’re pretty much kicking ass with the World-Around Records project, I’m also very aware of the fact we’re learning through full-contact trial and error. (We’re fortunate enough to have really dedicated, unusually artistic and intelligent fans.) Remember, Audible Hype is a learning process, not a set of answers. I don’t take this nearly as seriously as Andrew Dubber or Steve Gordon, and treating me like a guru will only tempt me to fuck with you.

8. Too Much Literature: or, Don’t Hand Me a Bible

If I’m just asking you a simple question, and you give me 3 pages worth of cut’n’paste html promotional code, I just overdosed on your bullshit. There are biological limits to how much any human being can take in. Honestly, three paragraphs is almost too much.

How your group formed is irrelevant. Who you’ve worked with in the past doesn’t really matter. Your future plans are a fairy tale, just like anyone else’s.

Most of all: a list of who you’ve opened for isn’t as impressive as you think. Getting an opening gig is usually a reflection of your relationships with local club owners and promoters, not actual talent. Those of us who actually do gigs know all too well that 90% of the time, you’re barely even speaking to the headliner. It’s dope that you got free drink tickets, but opening for Immortal Technique really doesn’t imply that he’s down with your crew. He still doesn’t even know you, and he never listened to that CD you handed him, either.

10. Don’t Be This Guy

So real I had to commemorate this for Internets history:

Obvious lesson: don’t fuckin lose your fuckin temper online. It’s just words on a screen, do it with class, do it with style.

11. ...You Tell Me.

I’m sure there’s a couple dozen forms of herd animal behavior I forgot to include here. For the sake of all humanity, please add to this list so that future generations can be slightly less stupid than those who came before them.

More importantly, don’t get too discouraged if you recognized yourself on this list. This is a learning process and we’re all in it together—every single day gives you a prime opportunity to change your ways and start running a smarter, tighter operation.

“The best time to plant a tree is 100 years ago. The second best time is today.”—Chinese Proverb

Extra Income Ideas For Songwriters

Brian Casel — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:27:38 PST

Follow me on Twitter: @Casjam

Photo by tristanbrand

Times are tough. Unemployment is rising, pay cuts are everywhere, and it’s becoming harder and harder to pay the bills. Everyone is looking for ways to supplement their income in 2009. For songwriters and musicians, there are many different ways to make money making music. Here are some ideas to help you leverage your music and songwriting skills to earn extra income this year.

Music For Picture Royalties

There is money in composing music for picture. Lots of money in fact. If you’re lucky enough to make a name for yourself as a composer of music for television, advertisers will pay big bucks for commercial jingles and background music. But as an unknown composer, there are ways to get your music on television where it can earn cash from performance royalties.

Check out this article, 7 sites to promote your production music and earn cash. These are websites where composers can upload their tracks, and television producers and film makers download and use them as background music in their productions. When your music hits the airwaves, you are paid performance royalties. I’ll go into further detail on the mechanics of this in a future article.

Composing music for picture can be a very effective source of income. When your music is made available on an non-exclusive basis (as is the case in the sites I listed above), they have the potential to be placed over and over as time goes on. So you might spend a day or so laying down simple instrumental track, and find that it continues to earn royalties for years to come. You can’t ask for a sweeter deal than that!

Earn Money as a Session Musician

In a rough economic climate like this one, you must be thinking about how to use your skills to keep the pay checks coming in. Consider promoting yourself as a skilled session musician. Provide a couple hours or days of your chops to recording artists, producers, jingle houses, and performances. Hit the classifieds and network it up to make a name for yourself.

Dedicate some time each week to improving and diversifying your playing skills. If you’re a seasoned pro in jazz guitar, try improving your blues rock riffs. If you’re a classical pianist, take some time to learn other styles of playing. It’s all about adding value to the musical package you bring to the table.

Earn Weekly Income Giving Music Lessons

If you have the ability to schedule a few hours every week to teaching music, this is a great way to earn extra cash. It’s also nice to have a steady source of weekly income. There are always people looking to take that first step into the world of music and that first step is to find a teacher. Promote your services on craigslist and post fliers in local music stores (any local storefront really).

Cover Bands Make Money

I know, I know. Most original songwriters can’t digest the idea of playing in a covers only band. But the truth is there is money to be made playing top forty songs to crowded bars on the weekends. If your original band is not getting off the ground as quickly as you’d like (is this ever a quick process?), you might want to consider splitting your time with your original band, and a gigging cover band. Just throwing the idea out there. Let’s hope it doesn’t actually come to that. No offense to all of you tapping into the lucrative cover band scene.

Over to You

Have you had success with any of these ideas? Please share any other ideas to help songwriters and musicians stay afloat in these tough times.