Editorial

2003 was a challenging year for a lot of us. I know it was for me. I watched a business I founded in 1994 crumble under the weight of the struggling economy. I had to make some hard choices involving…

Invariably, in my classes and seminars, someone will ask me about distribution. It’s part of the Dream — if you can get distribution, you’re guaranteed success, right? No. All distribution means is that you’ll get a few copies of your…

24 hours before it goes dark, and not a peep on the public site about the announcement.

Thousands of readers who visit this site every week to learn how to play a bigger game in our field. Hundreds of musicians who carry dog-eared copies of Grow Your Band’s Audience. Dozens of clients who are prepared to build…

Jason Kottke’s weblog usually focuses on media design and production, but there’s a post in there this week that I think applies just as well to bands. If the “average” band has a life span of a few years and…

MSNBC’s Carolyn Brown examines that question in a recent commentary. Because you get what you measure, the current audience measurement systems used at mainstream radio force programmers to over-spin proven SALES hits, rather than spend any effort on breaking new…

This crosstalk on Fark got me thinking… in seminars and group calls, I talk a lot about making it easy for your audience to talk about your music. But relying on (cliche?) microclassifications can actually turn OFF a potential fan…

An interesting discussion at Velvet Rope today, around the idea that one of the major problems in the mainstream music industry today is a glut of artistic sense and a LACK of business sense. Many independent projects are bottom-line profitable…

In the NYT today, an article outlining TicketMaster’s expansion into auctions and brokerage. We’ve already seen them restrict “pre-sales” this year, and it looks like the long term model is to move to a completely dynamic price structure for tickets.…

Two more clever ideas for a file-sharing system… Jazzio could be the next evolution of ClearChannel, and/or a permutation of Cringely’s Snapster idea, based on the public library model of sharing licenses for media.

Okay. I understand the complexity of running a huge national tour. And I feel sad for the techs that have to clean up the mess that an Atlantic City venue made of Justin and Xtina’s stage when the ceiling collapsed.…

Today at the store, I saw something astonishing. The Reese’s Big Cup. My wife, my friends and my casual acquaintances all acknowledge my love for the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. And someone in Hershey, PA clearly believes that if folks…