Derek Slater’s doing a great job boiling down key moments into bullet points and podcasts over on PaidContent’s music page… So far, it’s sounding like not much real dialogue is happening — the big playas want to prevent the TiVo’ing…
Maybe it’s because I just took a sick day of my own, but I’m hyper-sensitive to the fact that so many musicians get sick on the road. It’s a rough cocktail: lots of driving, sleep deprivation, contact with fans that…
A few folks have asked me why I haven’t mentioned the recent anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death. Personally, I have always preferred to celebrate birthdays instead. However, it’s important to reflect on the life of someone that impacted so many…
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…
Josh Love wonders aloud if we sometimes take ourselves way too seriously…
Personal rant: Yes, MySpace is a pretty efficient way to quickly build a web presence. Many talent buyers still have a problem with the way that bands over-rely on it for draw, but if you don’t have a web guru…
Sometimes, you have a track on a disc that you spend the rest of your career living down. Just keep plugging away. It gets better.
On Critics, Criticism and Remarkability: Do we prevent ourselves from creating truly great music because we’re afraid of what people are going to say? Seth notes that great art and culture seeks out criticism.
Anita’s 13-year-old explains why radio doesn’t matter to a new generation of music listeners.
Brad Hill notes that the Long Tail appeals to the content creator in all of us. (You like me! You really like me!)
Lori and I were psyched to get to SXSW this year, but we can’t make it (for obvious reasons). So we’ll let our good friend David Hooper chronicle the event. I spent a bunch of sessions with my coaching clients…
Curt Rosengren frames up nicely the kind of conversation I have with artists almost every day. Stop assuming you won’t succeed. Stop assuming you don’t deserve it. Open yourself up to what’s out there, and you’ll be delighted.
Barry at IPac blogs about the "leaked" Fiona Apple record. This will turn out to be one of the most brilliant and — possibly — unrepeatable marketing events in the music industry. It’s entirely plausible that someone at Sony said,…
One of the musicians in a coaching session this week wanted to know why he couldn’t expect to “get huge” in the next thirty days before his unemployment ran out. He got a little upset when I suggested he might have…
The folks over at Downhill Battle are understandably excited about Spitzer’s investigation. For their part, labels are a little excited and a lot relieved at the prospect of removing some of the promotion bulk from their budgets. (It’s not like…
Scott Andrew frames up filesharing and throws down the gauntlet for other emerging artists…
What are you doing to affect your fans this way when you finally retire?
The other day, over at IndieBiz.com, I spoke with artist Trevor Levine about avoiding mediocrity without alientating a mainstream audience. It turned out to be one of the most compelling conversations I’ve had in recent months, so I thought I’d…
Mark Cuban, of broadcast.com, Dallas Mavericks, and The Benefactor, tears off an almost Albini-esque rant about using P2P to generate cash.
Music’s what the folks at Trendwatching would call a Daily Lubricant. If you’re working on your Perfect Audience exercise from Grow Your Band’s Audience, check out this slideshow for some folks who might be listening to you on those headphones…
If folks are saying “no” to you again and again, join the crowd: the inventors of the cell phone, the Dyson Vacuum and even the Beatles heard “no” quite often…
Most of the folks I meet at music conferences or career workshops focus on the Big Issue: making enough money from music that they can give up their day job. And a big issue for some folks who have cool…
I didn’t even know if I was going to post anything about this deliberately leading Washington Post piece. It’s designed to push your buttons if your a female guitarist, but I think there’s an opportunity to debate. What I understand…
Phyllis Stark of Billboard takes a look at the A & R system in Nashville. Ms. Stark interviewed Brad Cotter, last year’s winner of “Nashville Star;” Buddy Jewell, 1st “Nashville Star;” and A & R from Universal and Capitol Records.…
Warner had a good idea in promoting the Secret Machines through weblogs, but the project went off the rails when somebody tried the good-old “lots of fans love this song at the same IP address” trick…
Tom Leu, of the The Musicians Corner, gives his opinion regarding “covers or originals.â€?? Should your band play covers of other artist’s music or should you write and play your own original music? Covers, or “headlinersâ€?? as one enlightened gentleman…
A number of our clients have been asking what’s been going on with bookings this summer. Is it always this hard? The answer is, “no.” Sure, getting bookings is one of the toughest things for an emerging artist to deal…
We’ve been referencing the U.K.’s Sanctuary Group as the model of a strong music business keiratsu — management, booking and label under one roof. In the old school of business, you’d never want to trust one company with all three…
How labels are gaming the playlist system to affect sales…
Originally scheduled as a chat with Talent2K owner Carlo Oddo, our featured guest declined to appear. With help from Fox Chicago’s consumer reporter Danielle Serino, we led a group discussion about avoiding scams and learning to understand the difference between…
Carlo Oddo protests his company’s poor reputation in a post to MI2N this morning (which is odd, since Carlo is writing a letter and MI2N is a press release wire). I can buy the idea that an overzealous salesperson overcommitted…
I loved this review of Phish’s farewell NYC performance, because their runaway success does not seem to conform with the Grey Lady’s definition. Which is to say that, until bands like Phish, bands were only successful when the NYT said…
From BoingBoing, another compelling case for file sharing… if you know you’re not getting paid for your songs, like the singer from Sister Machine Gun, why not encourage file sharing?
…and rock on.
Linda Ronstadt tells the Daily News that we’re glutted with singers who work harder at looking good than sounding good… “If you are someone like Beyonce who happens to be gorgeous and talented, well great. But there are a lot…
Good old rock & roll lives on forever because of reissue. With labels able to turn a profit with only 2,000 units sold, see why the majors are learning to mine their vaults…
The Financial Times declares Atlanta the center of the hip hop world. Michael Maudlin, chief executive of the Artistic Control Group, estimates that Atlanta artists and producers could account for as many as one in five US chart acts. Further,…
According to Jeanne Anne Naujeck at The Tennessean, you can hear a new heart beat on Music Row. Corporate mergers and downward spiraling sales has resulted in new record labels, operating under a lower-cost model, smarter in their strategies. One…
While my workstation’s churning out the audio file from the excellent IndieBiz Coaching Call we just wrapped up, I wanted to answer a question that folks have asked a lot in the last few days. Why did we change the…
Before it disappears, hit McSweeney’s front page for Nick Hornby’s list of places he heard Norah Jones and “marks out of ten for how she sounded.” This is how listeners make use of your music when you’re not thinking about…
While major record companies continue to struggle–racked by downloading teens, a creative drought and a bloated cost structure–independents such as Or Music are setting an example for the big boys. “Companies like Or Music are really showing the way the…
Smaller independent labels, which often have a different mission entirely and, unburdened by heavy corporate machinery, have adjusted and even prospered. While the five major labels (Universal, BMG, Sony, Warner, EMI) and their subsidiaries have been shrinking staffs and dropping…
According to staff writer, JEANNE ANNE NAUJECK, of the Tennessean, Music Row’s twenty- and thirtysomethings have plenty of opinions, poise and savvy. They’re the generation that broke down the old music business model, and they’re confident they can build up…
A column from the most recent Flagpole Magazine has the best title I’ve read in forever.
In USA TODAY, Edna Gunderson tells us why young teens are flocking to the old rock n roll of the 60’s and early 70’s. Here are some excerpts from the article: The complaint about many modern albums is that many…
Music and radio veteran Gerry Cagle writes today about how major labels stopped caring about good music and made themselves stop mattering to millions of their customers. And radio, Cagle says, is about to find itself in an even worse…
According to Bobby Borg’s article in Music Connection Magazine Vol. XXVII, No. 03, you probably are too old for a typical mainstream recording career. Major labels tend to favor artists in the 18-25 age groups. Why? Because as one A…
Curt Rosengren, whose weblog has become a daily must-read for me, highlights an article about factors that can inhibit your creativity. Two big a-ha’s: to be creative, you must tell yourself you are creative; you must also give yourself the…
Diane Rappaport has posted an article at Just Plain Folks that’s essential reading. “There are two parallel music universes, one imploding, the other growing healthier. Growing numbers of major label business professionals that are finding themselves out of work in…
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