3 posts tagged “diy”
I spent about an hour yesterday writing one of those proper industry type posts that'd generate a few comments. Then my PC conked out on me and I lost the lot. Bum. Really p'd off about that. Took two dark chocolate KitKat's to sort that one.
Sorry for the delay in posts, I've been pulled in all sorts of directions.
The biggest thing I'm on at the moment is an act that came to me through one of the online scouts that Columbia is coming to see. I've booked a local rehearsal room to showcase them to the label head. It can be really frustrating getting an act, A&R and label head in the same place at the same time. I guess the better a band get the more busy they are so I can't complain. Anyhow, it's booked now, I've cleared the time with the boss's PA and the band are up for doing it. I've been asked to suggest what I'd think is their 'best of' set. Which is a big responsibility. Do I think what I would want to hear? Or maybe try to guess what the label head would want to hear? Or maybe all the tracks I'd see as 'radio tracks'? It's a toughy. But I think I will go for what I think is great live rather than gunning simply for the three and a half min belters that would get played everywhere on radio. Hmm, quite excited about that.
I've spent the past few days listening to Sparrow and the Workshop. Think I've mentioned them before but I really love her voice and the overall feeling of the tracks. There's a real charm and sensitivity to the vocal and style to the song. They're based in Scotland but the singer is from the US and has a wonderful twang to her accent which gives the songwriting an authenticity which I think is lacking in a lot of female songwriters of the moment. Check out 'The Gun', which is a great track.
Spent the weekend painting a bedroom, I think I'm turning into my dad. I found the process of filling gaps with lightweight filler most satisfying and kept standing back with my hands on my hips to admire my work. I was thinking about doing some kind of mural but stuck with sanitorium white instead. The better option methinks. Ended up listening to Anchorman three times as a result. I love that film, I had the urge to hone my guns afterwards. ;-)
I didn't have any internet access or mobile phone this weekend. I went into a panic. After much pacing and Woody Allen-esque monologues I decided to think back to 1996, when the internet was a new thing you used in college to look at Gillian Anderson and mobile phones were huge, pay as you go brick-like things. When I used mine it looked more like I was calling in an air strike than talking to mum. So I didn't really bother with mobiles. How did I cope. I decided to buy cider and chocolate before heading to the park in the end. Who needs Facebook anyway?
Been speaking to a colleague of mine about formalising an online scouting process. Currently I have a few scouts dotted about who regularly send me great stuff because they love music and want to see the acts they love become successful, which is great. But rare.
There are some great filter platforms out there such as slicethepie, which really do a great job. I do find limitations in their effecacy because of their reactive nature. The acts you tend to find on there are the sort of act that register with all online platforms and spend a lot of time marketing, which is great. But what about those acts who feel that simply having a myspace (or vox ;-) is enough? You end up getting the best of one type of artist demographic (ooh check my terminology). You need to work both ends and have a function which is hunting out talent. This is pretty much the tao of traditional A&R. I'm thinking the future of this is a hybrid of both methods. Open door for submissions, whist at the same time having an educated, targeted filter network in place who's job it is to seek out the best stuff. The higher up the chain it goes the more it's filtered. You can't depend on artists to champion other artists as they're too busy with their own careers, as so they should be.
With that in mind I've just got the info I need of Vox to skin and update the pages of the A&R platform. I wont bore you with the details of the new platform structure, I'd rather just do it and explain afterwards.
So what it gwanning out there, anything good. Haven't got much in the way of interesting messages recently. Just the usual "You don't know me but..." or "CHECK THIS OUT!!!xxxx" sort of thing. Come say hello.
Hope all is well with you.
A couple of weeks back I went to the Covstock Festival to see some great acts. Managed to film some of it too. I will do a proper posts of it once I get the video together (same old story, waiting on video stuff I know).
For you Oscar fans out there I'm sure you're familiar with the film 'Once', which is an indipendent production, filmed for about 100k which has subsequently gained recognition and support from just about everywhere. It's not just the story of the film that appeals to me but the stories behind the film. Such as Cillian Murphy was originally meant to play the lead but pulled out, apparently due to the nature/difficulty(?) of the songs he had to sing in the film. I think the storyline is actually based around the chap who ended up playing the lead. Also the story of the on-screen/off-screen romance of the leads and the fact that neither of the leads have any interest in acting again I find really charming. I've got my DVD ordered and will have a very rare night-in to watch it. Have a read about it here.
So as an entertainment industry are we for want of a better expression 'buggered' (still)? Should I go sell my soul and get a job at Foxton's now? We've got artists running around with handicams making their own films getting investment from here and there, placing their own music and getting international recognition without massive massive M&P costs. Then I hear about an artist I really liked (and pursued) having his album funded entirely by donation, soon to be distributed this week.
For me, someone who spends about 80% of their life infront of this screen and the rest (bar 2% sleeping) at gigs, film and music to me are basically the same thing, which is content. As are blogs, great sites (and crappy ones), viral apps etc. What I think I'm witnessing is a renaissance of artists who exist in several mediums with great ideas and the motivation to follow them through. About a year ago I was giving a talk at the Apple Shop on Regent St. about the industry as it is today. I had some rather irate guy in the audience tearing me a new behind about how the record industry was dead and in the hands of the artists. I retorted by asking him to name 5 truely landmark, critically acclaimed albums that had stood the test of time that were DIY projects. This was a little unfair as I knew he'd struggle. Looking back, if I'd said name 5 truely landmark pieces of content that were produced indipendently, I probably would have shot myself in the foot.
So, where's the money? Show me the money. Where in this huge d-list party is the money being made and where can I get some? Everywhere, absolutely everywhere in small amounts, here and there, on this site, that site, under the sofa at that gig, via that youtube channel. As an artist, or a label, I think the trick is to tie together and centralise the dozens, maybe even hundreds of channels of potential revenue. Pair this with not spending colossal sums of money. I'm talking about artists rather than labels on that one. Why spend £10k on what essentially is a 14 track demo (saw this recently) when you could spend £5k on a great EP with video and the remainder on promo? If I was still a recording artist I'd set up the following as the most basic set of tools.
Myspace - obvious but inclusive of
Online radio - get your music on LastFM and Pandora, befriend specialist stations and podcasts, really get to know them and get your stuff played, a kind of digiplugging I guess.
- Snocap, CD baby, Magnatune and any other distrubutors you'd care to involve
- Youtube channel - you need video content all the time, rehearsals, vidblogs, inspirations etc and get subscribers
- Tight analytics - you need to be identifying who is interested an where - getting lots of hits for Australia? Get linked on triple J's website etc etc.
- Top eight friends of bands very similar to you who yeild more than 1000 hits a day (it's not that difficult)
- 'Blidget' of your blog - go to widgetbox.com, they've got a great one that you can stick in Facebook aswell. Blogs are essential and the myspace one is fairly crappy.
- Merch - You need this, as simple as badges and t-shirts but you'd be amazed at how much you can make.
Blog - This isn't simply an endorsement of this platform (though it is pretty good). Everything you do should be syndicatable and very very easy to find, plus associated with stuff similar to what you're doing. Have your main 'this is us' blog which brings the fans closer to you. But also have blogs on all the major platforms with all your content on, heavily tagged in a way which doesn't have to compete with other popular tags. Get your lyrics up there, and tagged. If someone hears a line from your tune and google's it. You want your track, to appear, and from that page links to your other content and somewhere to spend some cash or re-direction to a site where you're making ad revenue.
Youtube channel - for me this is becoming as essential as myspace. More and more people use youtube as a method of discovering new music simply because you can search for that track you want easily and it ranks highly in google when you type a track title in. Even if you have no video's do an iMovie montage or something that promotes your track like I did for Dark Room Notes.
I-Tunes/Amazon - consider this your premium content host. This is where the people prepared to part with cash for what you've got. So make it feel special, exclusive mixes, access to content as a result of purchase etc etc.
Links Links Links - You need to be found easily by people who've either heard of you or are interested in the sort of thing you are doing. Myspace friends is the most obvious example of this, but new music blogs (such as mine ;-) are
great because search engines pick up the tags and links plus the posts themselves drive traffic.
Regular content - plus the means to distribute it. You want to be RSS'ed as much as possible and as interesting as you can be. Simply because public memory is short and the closer people feel to you as an artist the more involved they'll be and support you in many ways.
Anyhow, I've really rambled now about not a great deal. New showcase this Saturday which I'm sorting this afternoon, be sure to get yourselves down and tell people about the acts you see there.
Hope all is well with you.
IB
I guess it depends on who you're speaking to.
I was thinking a lot over the weekend about where we're currently at in the music industry. What the roles of record labels are, should be and how music is going to be consumed over the next few years. This biggest change I've seen since getting into music (which wasn't long ago) is the shift in earning power through distribution and lower costs.
If you want to make your living, or at least some cash from being an artist, you need three things a product, market and a vehicle to get one to the other. Previously to do this required a fair amount of investment, not only in cash but in expertise and time. Also, when I say product I don't just mean an album. You've got your touring, merchandise, publishing revenues and any other way you can think of to make some cash.
Traditionally, and still today, artists get 'signed' you get an advance against future earnings to record your album and live on for a while so you can concentrate on being an artist. Once mixed and mastered promotion starts in anticipation of the release after it's inclusion into the label's release schedule. A successful campaign primes the market for the product release which includes radio, online campaign, sometimes TV, press etc etc. The product is released through various retail and online channels and the artist/band support the album through touring and other promo activities.
However, in recent months especially, I have seen some interesting examples of changes in this model. There's one guy I know who's been playing for years. I rate him highly and have presented his work to the labels in the past. However, rather than gunning for a deal, he's been playing several times a week for ages. He has a reasonable online fanbase but not huge.
What he has done though is ask for people to invest in his album. A nominal investment gets you the album once it's finished, larger investment get's a profit share with an agreed return dependent on the products success. Through the quality of his music he has won over several radio DJ's. So once the product is out he will get radio support as well as his online marketing activities. Great stuff, so where does that leave the labels?
Radiohead's recent 'honesty box' model is nothing new either. I've heard of artists selling singles online asking their market to pay what they can for the track. Magnatune has been doing this since 2003 and is a model that works for a lot of new artists. So with music practically being given away and hefty cash being made elsewhere how are labels to make money?
With the first example I think the first thing to consider is who is running the project and creatively in control. It's a lovely concept to think of an artist in complete control of every aspect of their product from beginning to end, however it's not necessarily best for the end product or the artist. What would Blood Sugar Sex Magik have sounded like without Rick Ruben, or who would have the album got to without Warner Bros marketing activities and distribution? Obviously the world is a very different place since 1991 but the principles of making a great product are still the same.
Good A&R people have an idea for the direction of an album from the very beginning and work closely with the artist for those concepts to manifest. They know the right producers, studios and mastering engineers to make it happen. They also spend hours listening and deciding on mixes straight from the studio. Plus they work on the track order to help create a feeling of continuity/journey through the album.
Distribution is also easier than ever. You could set up a SnoCap or indiestore widget in your Vox blog and distribute but again could you create enough of a market with the time you have available to make it really pay? I know artists who spend 80% of their time online promoting rather than writing, recording, gigging etc. Is this the right balance? It has to be if you want to continually build your online profile but what is the end result of your creative output? I can't remember who said one in ten tunes your write is any good and one in a hundred might be a hit, so would you have time to work the odds?
Up until fairly recently I was very much pro-artist, DIY etc. But for truly great albums and for artists to develop from album to album I think they need the right people around them. Great marketeers, producers, A&R, graphic designers, film-makers etc. Those who all work together as a catalyst to the artist's creativity and allow them to be an artist, rather than an online campaign specialist.So how is the industry going to be making money? The term 'record company' for me reflects a time that is now passing us by. Where a company's only or main revenue is generated from selling recordings. I think the term 'music company' would be closer to the mark.
For a label to be desirable to an artist they need to be able to offer services beyond what they can manage on their own, as described above. Publishing, touring and merchandise are hugely important to an artist and a valuable source of income. To participate in these areas of an artist's career labels need to offer them a valuable service and strike up a share of the revenues that is fair to both parties, or the artist can simply take these rights elsewhere.
For the industry it's time to stop trying to patch a leaky bath and go straight for where the tap is. Money is still being generated from music, in different ways, areas and on a different scale/timescale. The key is balance of investments and strategy. The indsutry needs to be wary of reactionary, knee-jerk strategies which can be costly and shift the focus/resource from their core purpose. However, in the past record companies have shown their skills for creativity, development and responses to market trends. They simply need to concentrate on evolving rather than trying to hunker down, fortify and defend older models of business. I think rather than the industry being in its death throws we're about to be pushed into a period of diverse creativity not seen in music for decades.
Though I could be wrong. :-)
What do you think?
