I’d love to see someone do a formal study of this (not that the RIAA would fund it, or anything), but it’s always been my personal belief that direct links to MP3’s in places like blogs and bulletin boards ultimately…
Keeping Independent Record Stores Alive
Putting the gloom and doom of the Tower Records post behind us, there are still opportunities for indie record stores to stay alive and stake a claim for relevance in their customers’ lives. To survive, a good record store should:…
How to get a guitar on an airplane. (Or any other musical instrument, for that matter.)
I know that we’ve covered this topic in passing over the past few months, but with today’s news of a foiled airplane bomb plot in the U.K., airport security’s going to be on condition red for at least the next…
CD Baby Ripping Off Artists?
Either someone’s out astroturfing for a competitor of CD Baby, or somebody must have had a freakishly screwed up order. Someone calling themselves John Miller is sending e-mail and posting forum and blog comments to just about every independent music…
Music Business Radio: Street Teams and Growing Audiences
In all the commotion around our move, I fear I neglected to highlight the episode of Music Business Radio that I did with David Hooper at the studios of Lightning 100 over in Nashville. We ended up spending most of…
CBGB: Punk’s First Theme Park
[Thanks to a Stereogum commenter for a great headline.] In my books, I’ve written about the ways that baby bands would push hard to get a date at a venue like CBGB, then complain when a talent buyer would insist…
Mapping Indie Music Around the World
Jennifer Layton posted a great article at Indie-Music.com about the challenges that independent musicians face when playing outside the U.S.A. She covers more than the usual territory about stringing together some pickup dates in Europe and Asia — she digs…
5 Questions With Mary McFaul, artist management, McFaul Live Music
Mary McFaul has directed the music career of songstress Laura Love since 1991 and has 30 years of experience in artist management, publishing and licensing, booking, tour management and more. In addition to Love, Mary’s consulted for artists such as…
How to Stay Healthy on the Road
Erika Luckett’s got an excellent article in the new issue of Stave Magazine. She shares “Five Rules for the Healthy Musician,” and she couldn’t be more right. If you’re working the zone strategy now and you can’t wait until you…
Nobody Here Is Hating on Burnlounge. Yet.
Despite my intention to not stir up debate, a whole mess of folks are rolling through the site looking to defend Burnlounge. Judging by some of the e-mail I have received, some readers might have confused my opinion with what…
How to take your own publicity photos (that will look good in the newspaper).
Joan Stewart passes along advice against “execution at dawn” photos, and suggests that you take some publicity photos at angles other than eye level. Here are some other tried and true tips to create a photo that won’t get your…
What would you do if your to-do list was empty?
A great prompt this morning from Jason Womack: If (and I think this is the big if) everything were up to date, your workstation were organized, your projects were identified, and you had a strong/complete/total inventory of “hi-po*” activities…I have…