There Are No Short Cuts

Oh I’m sorry – you mean you joined a band ‘cos it looked cool: sex, drugs & rock and roll – win the label lottery and get a lifestyle in your twenties that other people never see in a lifetime.  Well go borrow a time machine and go back to the 70’s and 80’s because you’re fucked.

If you hadn’t noticed there are big changes happening in the world – the tsunami of optimism that Obama rode into the white house turned out to be a mild swell crashing into the entrenched self interests of the establishment.  Things haven’t gotten better – there are no new jobs, labels aren’t making money – A&R people don’t have coke budgets – aside from the Cola type and even the chicks are better educated and have greater self-esteem than you do.

Unless you happen to be “receiving” from a label exec that still has money – that dream is dead and gone – buried under two decades of excess and the same lack of foresight and responsibility that means that no-one I know has healthcare.

Excuse me – what’s that?  Oh – you’re a musician – what – you’ve studied your instrument – you’ve been writing poetry and song lyrics since you were 4.  You were borrowing dad’s old video camera and have been the family’s home movie maker since you first learned how to edit an audio track.  You and your mates practice 4 times a week and you already have 50 friends who will swear that you really do ROCK!

Then step right up – you couldn’t have been born at a better time.  Everything you need to create a life sustained by music is now in your grasp.  I’m sorry – but we don’t have the shotgun approach that will accelerate your career forward 20 years and have you playing to stadiums by the time you’re 25 – but – if you’re prepared to work at it – play and practice, tour constantly and love the hell out of what you do – then maybe, just maybe you’ll stand on stage and play for 500,000 people.  Wouldn’t that be absolutely fucking amazing! ;-)

Marketing New Music Artists

A couple of stories have popped up this week that has me reaching for my keyboard – the one with letters not notes.   Alex commented about Suzanne Vega’s move to Direct to Fan Marketing and DMN noted that Sade just moved half a million units, going gold in her first week.

Now I love both of these artists – The Queen & The Soldier & Your Love Is King are up there on my top 50 songs of all time (well – for this week anyway) – but there is a HUGE difference between these two legends and a new artist – say like Jody Schneider – who is just starting out.

Suzanne Vega and Sade had years of label development, marketing and promotion in order to establish a fan base.  Their music was introduced to the world decades ago in a record industry that looks nothing like the current music business.  The scarcity model makes huge sense if you’re Prince or Bowie or the above two artists, but at the beginning of your career the only person who notices that you’re not producing is your Mom.

As the music business becomes more and more tech dependant with artists getting involved in website design, digital audio, tweets and blog posts - let’s not forget the lessons of the last 10 years of online business.  Just because the big guys are set up in a certain way doesn’t mean you have to emulate them, in fact oftentimes adopting the same strategy can be detrimental. 

The beauty of the web and of being your own boss is that you can change your approach fairly quickly, you can use different strategies to reflect where you are in your career,  change the layout of your website, try different approaches to marketing and distribution.  Unlike traditional bricks and mortar businesses you don’t need a mason every time you want to change how you express yourself.

So – I’m stoked for Sade that a 10 year break from releasing music resulted in her existing fans picking up half a million copies, but – if you’re an Indie artist and you haven’t broken yet – I’d advise against this strategy.  If you want to keep quiet for the next decade – you go for it – the challenge of connecting to people who might dig your masterpiece will still be here waiting for you on your return.  

Monsters Are Not Myths Kill Valentine's Day Lameness

Monsters Are Not Myths are at it again – our favorite San Fran Indie band are spreading the love this Valentine’s day with more personalized songs for that special person in your life.  From their website:

Monsters are not Myths, beloved Bay Area band and all-around funny people, will call your loved one or crush and sing them a customized song for FREE! (plus, we'll even send you a mp3 of the call)

We don't sign you up for any mailing lists or try to sell you things...all we'll do is ask that you check out our music.

Check them out performing calls on Mother's Day:

In a world full of lameness how cool is this?

We wrote a while back about Tim Halperin who was running a competition along similar lines but we have to hand it to MANM who’ve been doing this approach for a while, and unlike Tim you can contact MANM right now and still give your main squeeze something unique this year.

They have a simple sign up form that asks a few questions so that they can personalize the song – and if you’re digging the service – why not drop them a small donation – you don’t have to but hell – isn’t this worth more than hallmark card and sad looking stuffed puppy you were thinking of? Here's a little more MANM for you:

Finally – if you dig MANM – you should enter the#FREECHAOS website and hosting competition for them – or for any band that you dig – free site, free hosting and free ecommerce! – Wow – that’s a Valentine’s gift any band would be happy with.

RCRDLBL

It used to be that you only listened to one kind of music – your whole identity was wrapped up in a couple of bands that would shape your clothes, your hair who you hung out with and who you made out with. 

From what I can tell – this is all pretty much in the past.  With terrestrial radio being nothing but Prozac for the masses – people are getting their music from satellite or the internet; when you control who you listen to, the choices are endless.

Over on music2work2 I have been actively listening to beat makers – I'm looking to incorporate more beats into the music and there is no better way to do this than listening to different artists.  The site that I use for this is RCRDLBL.  To quote from their about page:

RCRD LBL is an online record label releasing exclusive and completely free music from emerging and established artists. In addition to our in-house label, the RCRD LBL network includes a curated roster of independent record labels offering free MP3 downloads and multimedia content in blog format.

Which sounds groovy and all – but in reality it means that every day I get an email from them with one, sometimes two tracks which I can listen to and if I like – download.  The music is predominately dance, hip hop, club music with the odd Indie band thrown in for fun – if I dig the track I can add the band to my RCRD LBL and download the Free MP3. They also make it super easy to embed the track on your site - which is something I really like and is why you're currently grooving to Whatevr u Want right now!

As a music delivery service it’s great and I love the write ups about the artist – although they often seem to be pulled from the artist’ bio page.  What I don’t like about the site is how long it takes to log in – it takes for-freakin-ever.  Also the layout of the site is really blocky and chunky – kind of like they did a wireframe and then forgot to actually take it to the next level.

Still – at the end of the day this is about the music and if you’re interested in new beats I can thoroughly recommend RCRDLBL.

*** Last week to enter the #FREECHAOS competition and win a free website and hosting for a year ***

Don't Call Me A Fan

You know – I’m as much of hipster dude as the next guy (especially if the next guy is Alex!) – although I’ve never done Bikram, I could pop a couple of polos and have been known to drink the odd PBR here and there – however – one thing that I struggle with is the idea of being a Fan.

Having grown up in the seventies – when the world was still reeling from the Beatles phenomenon – a fan was typically portrayed as a teenage girl, head thrown back, eyes closed and mouth opened wide enough to allow her adoration out in a blood curdling yelp.  If that’s what a fan was – then I wasn’t ever going to be a fan of anything.

Now don’t get me wrong – I am a huge supporter of music and bands – I’ve put plenty of money into the pockets of people like Bowie, The Stranglers, the Pretenders etc, and I’m stoked to give money in return for tracks from bands like Company of Thieves or The Hold steady – but have I ever joined a Fan Club? – No.

But I do want to be in the club – I do want to be in the cool hipster club – I want to get the music early, I want to know the inside gen on the drummer, I want to hear them working out new tracks and I want to know how to see them.  I want to know when they’re coming to my town and where they’re playing and how much it’ll be, but more than that – I’d love to connect with them – even if it’s just once – I’d like them to know I exist. 

I’ve never wanted to be part of the “VIP” selected guests who buy their way backstage and force a bullshit session on the bands before or after they’ve played – that just reeks of crap to me and I’d much rather it happened organically.  But – I would love it if my favorite artist retweeted something of mine or commented on my blog or wrote something about me or my family.  How cool would that be?  I’d be stoked if my photo of the latest gig made it up to the front page of the band’s website – hell – I might even create something totally cool - totally cool based on the band - something that other people like me – supporters of the band would dig – and if that got on the front page I’d be even more stoked and then and then…

I don’t want to be a fan – I don’t want to be in someone else’s club – I don’t want to be treated like a screaming teenager - I don’t want to be part of some lame online community – I don’t need a card or a signed photo – I want access and connection – and I have the dough to pay for that.

If you know a band that needs a new website - which is a really good place to develop such a connection - enter the FREECHAOS competition here - only 1 more week to go!"

Digital Music News

If you’re thinking of your band as a business – (which we sincerely hope you are by now) then there is another read that you might want to incorporate into your daily routine: Digital Music News.  Written by Scion of the business Paul Resnikoff and his team out of Los Angeles, the Daily Snapshot is delivered to 20,000 subscribers every morning around 5 AM and has everything you need to negotiate that fat 360 deal with the label.

I met Paul at the 2nd Bandwidth conference in San Francisco a few years back; for a journalist who operates in such a turbulent market he was one of the most positive and enthusiastic guys there – you can tell that he eats, sleeps and breathes the music world.  I’ve been reading DMN for 4 years now and if I had to choose one industry publication over all others – this would be it.

Aimed at Industry executives – the snapshot’s content tends to be data driven (which is reassuring!) backed up with thoughtful analysis in digestible bite size paragraphs.  Relevant ads from companies whose services you might actually want to use as well as the latest conference dates and industry jobs makes it a great top level start to the day.