I’ve been involved with DIY musicians. Some can pull it off and some can’t. And it doesn’t come down to musical skill because all of them excel at writing and performing songs. But not all of them want to deal with the other stuff, or even deal with other people who deal with the other stuff.

Even if you have someone else doing the booking, PR, fan management, bookkeeping, etc., you need to be involved at some level. Yet I find some artists who want someone else to do everything, hand them a check, and let them play. They want nothing to do with any part of the process that doesn’t involve writing, recording, or performing music. To them I usually say, “Get a day job for your money and do music for a creative outlet.”

Here’s a good piece about the Flobots, their background, and their motivation for signing their deal.

http://www.westword.com/content/printVersion/867457

Both of these bands have a world view of what they want to accomplish, so label deals have just been a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

A major label deal may open doors, but the majors can be profoundly fickle. Sales start to slip and you might find all those doors closing just as quickly as they opened.

What I hope is that the surge of successful DIY artists that we’ve begun to see will force the big labels to embrace a more cooperative partnership-based approach to the artists they sign. Some have already begun to experiment with different ways to do that, which is encouraging.

I’m glad your friends have found a deal that’s working out for them, I wouldn’t mind picking their brains to hear more details about what that deal looks like.

Amanda Palmer (who Matt is referring to in the above comment for those who don’t know) recently wrote this:

“i started making the music in the first place not because i wanted music, but because i wanted human connection.
music was the bridge there… connection = primary.
music/art = secondary.”

I wasn’t surprised at all to read that – I think it has always been very obvious in the way that she conducts and markets herself. I don’t have a problem with it either – but I think that to trumpet her model as THE music business model (which many have lately) is nonsense. That’s not what she’s doing. Her priorities are different than the priorities of many who consider music to be primary.

Again, that’s fine – but we need to call it like it is.