The Inc. (formerly Murder, Inc.) fights allegations of money laundering, shady accounting, hidden files… and one guy that was found in a vacant lot “embedded with nails.” We knew that keeping margins high in the record label business was tough,…
Archive
October 2005
Hanson Wants You to Stay Independent
If you had told me ten years ago that the country’s biggest proponent for an aggressive independent music community would be Hanson… I can’t even think of what I’d do. Yes, it’s true. The boys are back, they sound great,…
UK Government Support for Independent Music on the Way?
Even though some of my British clients don’t always see it that way, I love to point out that the ravenous appetite in the UK for singles (and the relatively small number of sales it takes to get on the…
Columbia House Closes Its Doors
And good riddance. What most consumers didn’t know is that artists have to take an even bigger hurting on sales from “record clubs” than they do on regular retail sales. Ostensibly, being included in a record club was considered a…
What price integrity?
We’ve talked a lot on our conference call about how placement in commercials not only means some short term financial gain for a songwriter, but an important alternate mode of reaching large audiences for relatively unknown bands. Jason Gross from…
Yes, R.E.M. Really Did Reunite Last Weekend
Proof that if you’re a really good guitar tech, your work pays off. And people ask me why I moved to Athens.
Harvey Danger Explain Their Free Music Download Strategy
They’re eager for folks to enjoy the record, and confident that audiences will support them at shows. [ link via Howard ] Track these topics:
Touring = Revenue
As usual, Lefsetz speaks only truth. “The ship is leaking at the bottom” is one great quote, plus the refrain that my clients are used to hearing: audience is built on touring, where you can overcome in merch sales what…
Covers
Gerd has picked up on an interesting thread… Using the coversproject database as your jumping-off point, you cover a song by someone. Then, someone’s got to cover one of your songs. And so on. As hard as you work on…
Pale Beneath the Blue is on FIRE, y’all*.
For everybody that gripes at me about how long it takes to make a recording for an EP or for a full length, check out the session log that Pale Beneath the Blue racked up this weekend. That’s thirteen songs…
The New Tastemakers
Web sites like Pitchfork, Tiny Mix Tapes, and cokemachineglow have made being a passive indie fan that much easier. Track these topics:
Are your street teams doing more harm than good?
I’m almost ready to post the recording of our first Street Team 101 call to the members area, but I want to reiterate something I mentioned on the call: A lot of folks are using the term “street team” to…