Have I mentioned lately that I love subscribing to the Wall Street Journal, if only because it subsidizes Speakeasy? It’s my favorite pop culture blog of the moment, because it’s got such a wry sensibility while filtering the insanity of…
Author
Joe Taylor Jr.
British gospel artists prepare to take on the USA
In Grow Your Band’s Audience, I wrote about the subtle differences between the US and the UK markets for independent musicians. In a nutshell: US audiences crave familiarity. It’s hard to break in to the music business, but you can…
Creating a positive culture for your music management agency.
It’s easy for music management agencies to fall into a stereotype when it comes to corporate culture. Managers often get called cutthroat, rude, angry, or worse. That doesn’t have to be the case. Angela Haines from the Huffington Post…
Find cheap crash pads for your next tour.
I’m usually the only voice in a room full of musicians and music managers telling folks to slow down touring until you’ve saturated all of the zones in your region. (Understand the Zone Booking Strategy I’m talking about by checking…
Keeping your audience safe.
Depending on who you talk to, SXSW may have hit its own critical mass sometime in the past few years. From talking to folks who went this year, some of the best stuff was actually happening at many of the…
Where’s your hustle?
Fred Wilson shares the story behind Airbnb (a great startup that I’ll write a full post about soon), especially the strategy the founders used to raise $25,000 in emergency funds to keep their business afloat. Whenever someone tells me that…
It takes six months to convince Baltimore officials to stage an acoustic set in a coffeehouse.
Now that the 2011 editions of Music Management for the Rest of Us and More Gigs Now are off to the printer, I’ve started working on the revisions for Host Your Own Concerts. And it seems like some neighborhoods could…
The Concert Photographer’s Manifesto
A recent post about concert photography on Australian website The Vine resulted in feedback from an anonymous concert photographer who left a so-called manifesto in the article’s comments. The Vine republished the photographer’s manifesto on its own page, in which…
Sharing sacrifice with your fans.
Al Lewis launched into a Wall Street Journal essay on the economy with the phrase: Shared sacrifice follows every disaster. It’s only a matter of deciding who shares it. Thinking about some of the choices Lori and I have been…
Grow Your Band’s Audience on Kindle! (SPONSORED POST)
[At the start and end of every week, I’ll reserve one post for a product, service, or sponsor that’s paying to keep the lights on at spinme.com.] Even though I’ve offered a version of Grow Your Band’s Audience as a…
Nimbit uses venture capital to fund band-to-fan e-commerce platform
Techcrunch profiled Nimbit, a “band-to-fan” e-commerce platform that seems to roll up all the services from CDBaby, HostBaby, and Fanbridge into a single service. According to Rip Empson, the service has already rolled up $5 million in venture capital it…
Coconut man, moon heads, and pee?
Ways to make me feel like an old geezer, #142. What is Jessie J talking about at the top of “Price Tag?” Are these shout outs to people? Is this part of some Illuminati code? Has a sleeper cell been…