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Alison Wenham cordially invites you to a flame war.
Welcome to spinme.com, where we help working musicians make more money making music. If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or our weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting!Writing for The Independent, Ms. Wenham finds it ludicrous that anyone would be insulted by the British music industry’s proposal to require a [...]
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Dig deeper into our live links, recent articles, tweets, and resources for independent musicians and music marketing professionals.
About the Author
Joe Taylor Jr. has worked with independent musicians since 1990. First as a recording engineer, then as a radio producer and as a marketing consultant, Joe has studied the rapid changes in the music business over the past two decades.
Since 1999, Joe has chronicled the best practices of independent musicians at spinme.com. With four books on music marketing and more on the way, Joe continues to post new thoughts and research for independent musicians every week.
Indie Music Resources
Nick Lea sings “Several Thousand” by Jim Boggia on “Men in Trees”
Just one of those neat things... You know how when you hear a song you love so often that it ...
American Idol Songwriting Competition Back for 2008
This week's sponsor: With not a whole lot of rumor or speculation, the fate of the American Idol Songwriter contest for ...
Music at SXSW is just the afterparty for tech bloggers on their way out of Austin.
It's tough enough to be a record executive these days. Your budget's shrinking, your staff keep leaving to join tech ...
Are we so transparent about marketing these days that it's okay for NBC to just slap a box on their ...
Ann Powers writes longingly of the "wave of Eva-mania" in the late 1990s, and I remember it well. So it ...
This week's sponsor: Seems like everyone's on the free bandwagon this week. I don't know if this was on the site ...
Growing Your Audience
LazyWeb: Gig To-Do Macros + Gig MatcherScott Andrew and Bill Wilson are riffing on some tools that we could use in the independent music community to get more meaningful artist promotion work done. I like Scott’s idea of automating gig swaps — the kinds of things that used to be organized by booking agents and by clever managers could easily be [...]
Hosting Concerts
Did a Single Noise Complaint Shut Down Your Favorite Venue?Probably not, but twenty complaints from the same resident just might.
In many cities and towns, noise ordinances are written in such a way that venues can be fined or shut down over as little as one or two complaints. While so many local lawmakers squeal about the need to lure “creative class” residents to their [...]
Making Money
Bebo Sale Spotlights Online Music Licensing ControversyTwo years ago, as Billy Bragg tells it, the founder of British social networking site Bebo came to him for advice about avoiding the same music licensing pitfalls that Bragg had railed about during the evolution of MySpace. As I wrote previously, Bragg’s lobbying resulted in MySpace clarifying its terms of service so artists could [...]
Interviews
5 Questions With Mary McFaul, artist management, McFaul Live MusicMary McFaul has directed the music career of songstress Laura Love since 1991 and has 30 years of experience in artist management, publishing and licensing, booking, tour management and more. In addition to Love, Mary’s consulted for artists such as Catie Curtis and Tim O’Brien, and her current roster includes up-and-comers Vicci Martinez and Jo [...]
Songwriting
American Idol Songwriting Competition Back for 2008This week’s sponsor:
With not a whole lot of rumor or speculation, the fate of the American Idol Songwriter contest for 2008 was up in the air until this week, when officials reopened the contest site to the public.
By all accounts, this year’s contest is just like last year’s contest. Key points:
You have just under ten [...]
Editorial
Free $25 for spinme.com readers [sponsored]For two years running, the American Idol Songwriter competition has brought a HUGE traffic spike to the site.
Here’s an easy way to help us pay the bills and earn $25 for about three minutes’ work.
Steve Case, who once helped launch AOL, is starting up a PayPal competitor. He’s offering $25 for each new member that [...]
