Why Your Band Needs Booking and PR Before Management

Posted on 21. May, 2009 by refe.

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I am all about the do it yourself approach. Artists who are also jack of all trades will be much more successful in the early stages of their careers than those who wait for others to come along and handle the ‘business side’ for them. With that said, there does come a point where all bands [...]

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The Unlikely Prince of Indie

Posted on 20. May, 2009 by refe.

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Greg Kot, in his new book Ripped, focuses on the story of an unlikely but high profile independent artist – Prince. While the diminutive 80’s pop star and his music may not seem relevant to many of you, it turns out he is actually an interesting example of an artist bucking the traditional system [...]

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Is Music’s Long Tail Really Dead?

Posted on 19. May, 2009 by refe.

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There has been a lot of noise across the internet recently about a new study by UK licensing organization PRS that seems to question the validity of the Long Tail theory. You’ve probably seen all sorts of catchy blog headlines declaring the ‘Long Tail’ deceased – the topic has quickly become the music industry’s Ivy [...]

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Danger Mouse Releases ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ As Blank CD-R

Posted on 16. May, 2009 by refe.

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Danger Mouse – real name Brian Burton – was a relative unknown until he produced the Grey Album, which took the vocal tracks of Jay-Z’s a capella Black Album and laid them over beats that he created using samples of the Beatles’ White Album. The Grey Album couldn’t be sold commercially, but quickly spread across the [...]

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Can’t Live With the Major Labels, Can’t Seem to Get Around Them

Posted on 13. May, 2009 by refe.

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Right now the whole music industry is caught in a Catch-22. The major record labels are bleeding money and lack the capital to invest in real talent. Real talent is usually risky, and right now the majors can’t absorb any risk. Yet, the ones who would rise up and bring the creative deconstruction have their [...]

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Seth Godin and the New Free

Posted on 12. May, 2009 by refe.

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Free markets are cyclical. Economic trends will start out slow, pick up speed, boom, plateau, BUST. Take our current recession – three years ago even someone like me could afford a McMansion and a four car garage (boom,) and now we’re losing sixty-thousand jobs a month (bust.) The same can cycles can be found in the cost of goods and services. [...]

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Spain Says File Sharing is Legal – Obama Says “Your Wrong”

Posted on 12. May, 2009 by refe.

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Now Obama’s transformation from free-culture savior to copyright lobbyist bulldog appears to be complete. A few months ago the Spanish government ruled that personal use file-sharing is legal and that the sites that host file sharing are protected as long as they don’t directly profit from copyright infringment. The Obama Whitehouse is not happy about this.

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Amazon to Torrent Site: Stop Letting Your Users Buy Our Music

Posted on 11. May, 2009 by refe.

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Amazon.com looks to be the latest example of a major music retailer missing out on a huge opportunity to profit from file sharing – and this one was practically handed to them!

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MySpace Music Not the Silver Bullet Labels Hoped For

Posted on 11. May, 2009 by refe.

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Hypebot reported late last week that although the Major Labels partners who co-own MySpace Music are happy about the amount of traffic the service is generating, they are concerned that they are not seeing the revenue to go along with it. Their disappointment was voiced during a recent closed door meeting and confirmed afterward by [...]