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  • Kid Rock a Whole New Ball Game

    A recent article on CNN.com reports that although music sales in general might be on the decline, there is one genre of music that is boasting a rise in sales and popularity: kiddie rock. As an increasing number of parents started to express interest in music that would be appealing to both children and adults…

  • Public Radio Not Dictated by the Public

    Have you noticed lately that no matter what station you tune your radio to, you just keep hearing the same songs over and over again? There is a great and looming danger that America is losing any appreciation for quality music. These days, it seems everything is mass-produced under the direction of a very small…

  • iTunes finds success in online market

    Created in 2003 to prevent the music industry from losing money on illegal downloading, iTunes has since sold one billion songs on its online music store. It offers individual songs for 99 cents, and, curiously, after paying off its partners, like the music labels, Apple just about breaks even. (The real big bucks come through…

  • Craigslist as an unhelpful (?) tool for music promotion

    You can find a lot of things on a lot of websites. In fact, there’s unlikely to be anything you can think of that doesn’t already have information about it on the web. (Give it a try, if you have the time.) And Craigslist is just one site that has a ton of info on…

  • Music-sharing servers not serving much

    Reuters UK reported last Wednesday that Swiss and Belgian police shut down part of the eDonkey file-sharing network, a move which elicited a great deal of praise from Hollywood. The network, which makes movies and music available for free downloading, is said to have had 3 million users as of last year. After arguments that…

  • Paying tribute

    One of the important aspects we must remember as followers of the Indie scene is that often, people glaze over Indie music in search of the more mainstream stuff; in doing so, sometimes people and breakthroughs get lost in the shuffle and never get the recognition they might merit. Take John Fahey, for instance. Does…

  • You vs. Simon Cowell

    If you think you have what it takes to become America’s next big superstar, I’m not about to suggest that you try out for American Idol. Instead, check out American Idol Underground, a website that provides an online community that caters to emerging artists and their new music. You can submit your music to this…

  • A digital divide

    I remember the days of record players. Then there were cassette tapes, and then CDs. And now, it seems, everything has gone digital. Has everyone gone digital, too? When you download songs off of the Internet, do you tend to rent them for a month or buy them forever? The rental option allows people to…

  • Celebrating Independent Music

    On Feb. 2, NYC played host to the Plug Awards — an awards ceremony that recognizes Indie bands and singers and celebrates Indie music as a whole. The Plug Awards, only a few years old, “seeks to create an awards show that escapes all of the evils of other awards shows that focus on sales,…

  • Amazon and Google in talks to break iTunes’ grip on music downloads

    Apple’s iTunes service, which currently has a 70-80 percent share of legal digital music sales, might not be in the lead for long. Separately, Amazon and Google are talking with industry executives to come up with alternate downloading services that people can use instead of iTunes. Apparently, Amazon is farther ahead in its plans than…

  • More on the online music debate

    First, there was Napster. Then, there were lawsuits. What’s your take on the downloading debate? Should there be anti-piracy software on CDs to prevent people from burning CDs more than a certain number of times? Some people think that such software is a good idea, to give artists what they deserve and not cheat them…

  • For $13,000, a shotgun-guitar can be yours

    After a Bogota, Colombia, bombing three years ago that killed 36 people and injured more than 100, Colombian musician Cesar Lopez conceived the idea of this shotgun-guitar to protest violence. Lopez has handmade five shotgun-guitars so far, and the Colombian government is even using the product in its campaign to end “41 years of armed…

  • A genre of hatecore music? (Unfortunately, not a typo.)

    Technically, it could fall under the category of “freedom of expression,â€?? but music whose sole purpose is to attract their fans to hate groups? “Uprise 2006,â€?? a concert bringing people together to support the superiority of the white race, was held on January 28, and welcomed about 150 fans. According to one article in Delaware…

  • Independent labels just a bit more Independent than before

    With technology’s turn toward making everything digital, there are many laws and regulations that all labels have to follow. But one organization – VUT, the German association for Independent Labels – has recently launched a campaign to “ Respect the Music – Copy Protection Freeâ€?? in an attempt to “disassociate itself from the music industry’s…

  • Oh baby! CD Baby at a store near you…

    From now on, you’ll be able to buy CD Baby albums through BestBuy.com or in the store itself. For those of you unfamiliar with CD Baby, it’s an online record store based out of Oregon that sells CDs by independent musicians. An organization that sells CDs that come only from the musicians themselves, they pay…

  • Indie retailer announces March 31 closing

    A Houston Chronicle article on Saturday, February 4, 2006, announced that Cactus Music & Video, a large Indie music retailer run by brothers Bud and Don Daily for the last 31 years, will close for good on March 31. With a decrease of 21 percent in CD sales nationwide in 2005, and the rising popularity…

  • If She Wants 2 B Gone…

    she can keep rejecting the people who brought her into the limelight. (I’ll let her keep the credit for her Grammy nominations.) With the 5th season of American Idol under way, Kelly Clarkson, the winner of the first season, has stirred up a bit of trouble, which, after a strong response from the public, she…

  • Cashing in

    Rosanne Cash, daughter of Johnny Cash and Vivian Liberto Distin, just came out with a new album, called “Black Cadillac.�? After having lost her father, mother, and stepmother, June Carter Cash, in a period of 24 months, she has released an album with twelve “fearlessly unsentimental songs.�?

  • MySpace? Or Your Space?

    For those of you who keep up in the Friendster/Facebook/LiveJournal communities (and for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about), MySpace is a site that anyone can use, fans and musicians alike. Although MySpace wasn’t necessarily designed to cater to a particular type of audience – like college students or music…

  • Help musicians help themselves

    Help musicians help themselves $10 can help. $5 can help. Any contribution can help. The folks at GiveMeaning.com are trying to raise $4,000 to fund one month of counseling for 40 musicians and artists. They recognize that depressed musicians often cannot pay for the help they need and end up with nowhere to go but…

  • Class Action Lawsuit Against Indie Label Owner

    If you wait by the phone for the day that someone calls you and tells you that with a $5,000+ deposit, they’ll make you famous and distribute your music on radio stations worldwide, do your research before signing over the money. Courtland Tyler, CEO of the Indie label Jetspeed Records, has been targeted in a…

  • Can’t beat piracy? Work with it, instead!

    There’s no way to compete with people who are downloading music illegally, so why not team up with the system so the songs that people download could be yours? Indie distributor Jeff Price, who started TuneCore, uses digital distribution to “[level] the playing field between major label and independent content.â€?? Maybe using the downloading system…

  • Praise Canada!

    Honestly, I think one line in this article sums it up pretty well: Seneca College is the first Canadian post-secondary institution to take part in a first-of-its-kind initiative in Canada to highlight independent music and get it heard by the public in a revolutionary way. Now, I’m not saying that you should completely uproot yourself…

  • Raise the roof, not the volume

    Ever hear that iPods and other mp3 players are dangerous ? Well, they are. Or, they *can be* if you don’t know how to use them appropriately. In the news these days: the kinds of headphones that often come with these sound players require placement deeper in the ear than the old headphones that you…

  • Playing for good isn’t all bad

    Think playing for “a good causeâ€?? means no one signs at the dotted line? Think again. Going the benefit route could be one of the best techniques you got. Check out this piece from the October 2005 Music Edition of the Festival Network Online Newsletter. Especially if you haven’t necessarily made a name for yourself…

  • Playing the subway: a hot new ticket

    Well, well, well! It’s great to be back (it’s like my very own Saturday Night Live intro!). I’m excited to be back on board with the spinme.com site, and I hope you all can work with me so that Scott, Joe, and I can continue to bring in good, effective techniques, resources, and ideas to…