We knew it would happen someday. Back in 1989, Andres Serrano busted open a simmering debate over whether it’s right (or even effective) for tax dollars to support arts. As a high school student at the time, I got worried about whether the theatre, films, and music I was absorbing like a sponge could ever […]
Making Money
Avoiding music business scams
I just posted dozens of “classic” coaching call recordings to our membership area, and even though some of them are over a decade old, many of those conversations hold up really well! (If you take some of the specific technology out of the equation—replace MySpace with Snapchat, for instance—a lot of this stuff hasn’t changed. […]
Should you release a CD or an EP?
Ever since attending last Saturday’s interview with John Oates, I’ve been talking to folks about the pros and cons of working on albums vs. EPs. There’s a school of thought among music promotion professionals right now that you might not even want to focus on EPs, choosing instead to release a steady stream of singles. […]
Gamification in reverse: a music business where charts mean less
Folks have been talking to me a lot lately about “gamification.” It’s a popular business trend that hopes to leverage the video game habits of recent generations into stronger workplace productivity. Take a set of tasks that would otherwise sound pretty boring: making phone calls or filing TPS reports. Then, turn it into a game. […]
Three essential qualities of a successful indie record label
When I ran Handwritten Records in the 90s with my friend Kristen, indie labels still had a clear role in the music business. I was a production geek with access to a studio and a mass CD duplication machine, and Kristen handled the A&R. It was pretty clear, back then, how we could add value […]
