It’s tough enough to be a record executive these days. Your budget’s shrinking, your staff keep leaving to join tech startups, and you keep having to figure out which one of your interns is the one who’s leaking your biggest…
If the pile of mail in my inbox is any indication, regular readers of my blog are wondering where I have been for the past few weeks!Believe it or not, Lori and I treated ourselves to an honest-to-goodness vacation, our…
In researching an upcoming article on music booking agencies, I keep running into a trend that’s got me thinking about how musicians really get paid for live performance in a web-enabled music industry. When Coldplay offered concert tickets via an online auction…
I was talking with a musician the other day about why it’s so hard to find places to play lately. We’re in another real estate surge nationwide, which means that all the cheap spaces and run-down buildings that are great…
In general, this story about a favorite Irish pub in Boston is inspiring. For every club owner that moans about how hard it is to grow a following and stay in business, this should be mandatory reading. These guys lost…
With all the internet radio and YouTube stuff happening this week, this news nugget nearly slipped by me: The EFF managed to get a patent revoked that prevented many artists and clubs from offering quick-turnaround CD recordings of live performances.…
In Host Your Own Concerts, I wrote about churches as a viable type of venue for concerts you can stage on your own. The trend’s really taking off, with more megachurches hosting evening entertainment. While most of the events are…
Tom Hespos writes from the point of view of a music fan, frustrated that he feels left out when his favorite bands come to town and he doesn’t know about it until it’s too late. For too long, record labels…
Instead of selling every seat in the house for $30, INXS recently staged an auction on Ticketmaster. The highest priced ticket sold for $500, the lowest for $3. Nine Inch Nails used a similar model, and watched online scalping drop…
Readers of Host Your Own Concerts know how I advocate advance ticket sales as a great way to guarantee attendance at your next gig. eTickets.to is a new UK-based service that’s offering flat-rate ticketing, and seems to offer the same…
Coran Capshaw was on to something when he founded Musictoday as a connector between fans, artists, and venues. Taking what he learned from the successful fan club he built for Dave Matthews, he and his team have been building solid…
A friend and I did a show last week at a coffeeshop and forgot to put out a tip jar. I mean, we completely forgot. I was pretty upset because I’d violated one of my own personal Rules Of Performing:…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has new figures that should send a chill down the spine of folks that want to start making more money as working musicians. 22% of Americans’ “entertainment budget” now goes to cable and satellite TV,…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Ahem. Check, one two…check… ::thump thump:: Hi. I’m Scott Andrew, singer-songwriter guy from Seattle, and as Joe already mentioned, I’ll be a guest blogger on spinme.com for the next few weeks. I’ve never been a “guest blogger” before, so this…
For years, I have harped on clients to aggressively sell advance tickets to shows. PayPal makes it easy to collect a few bucks for low (or no) fee, but one of my clients mentioned that it was still tough to…
We talk a lot on our member calls about improving stage peformance, especially when you’re a solo act or you just lost a band member. Here’s how Keane dealt with losing their guitarist — they assigned one person to play…
Turns out, one of the biggest search phrases that land folks on this site is “what is the difference between gross and net,” which I answered flippantly before. For the benefit of newbies, here’s a quick primer in record label…
…when you can hit 66 cities in one stop? Expect to see more major labels and movie chains teaming up — it’s a very inexpensive way to build audience.