Category Archives: Music Business

9 Things Kate Bush’s Recent Record Setting Album Sales Can Teach You About The Music Industry

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Kate Bush is on a roll.

Her recent 22 date sold out series (which marked her first return to performing her music live in 35 years!) is by all accounts and artistic and financial triumph.  But it did something even more remarkable:

Last Sunday she was the first woman to have EIGHT albums chart at the same time.

(You can read the full story here).

Even more impressive give that all of the charted discography was more than 25 years old (with the exception of 2011’s 50 Words for Snow)!

#6 – The Whole Story (1986)

#9 – The Hounds of Love (1985)

#20 – 50 Words For Snow (2011)

#24 – The Kick Inside (1978)

#26 – The Sensual World (1989)

#37 – The Dreaming (1982)
#38 – Never For Ever (1980)

#40 – Lionheart (1978)

The Take Aways

This story has everything you need to know about the music business, book business and any other business where you are creating something that other people buy.

1. Real fans take a LONG time to cultivate.  

2. Fans support artists not products.  

3.  People buy recordings (and go to shows) because of how they make them feel.

4. There is value in scarcity.

5. If you exceed fan’s expectations, those fans will become acolytes who will try to convert everyone around them.

6. Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful force on the planet.

7. There will never be another Kate Bush – Kate Bush was a unique combination of talent, songwriting and Major Label resources to market her product.

8. There will never be another YOU. Do YOU to the best of your ability. Be honest in your art. Make great art. Make great fans. Show the cavalcade of mediocre crap hiding on the charts how it’s really done.

9. Sometimes the good people do come out on top.

As I write this – every major label in the world is trying to reach Kate Bush. I hope she’s enjoying a fine wine and laughing as she says no.

Here’s a classic track of hers that is a great reminder to keep running up that hill and chasing whatever it is you need to do.

As always, thanks for reading!

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Due Versus Do

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Sign-colored

Korisoron

As I mentioned in the last post, I’m playing in a new acoustic duo called KoriSoron with an incredibly talented guitarist and artist form Iran named Farzad Golpeyagani. If you happen to be in the Capital District of New York, we’re having a soft launch of the project tomorrow evening with 2 sets in Schenectady, NY on Saturday, August 23rd.

Flyer - August 23 Moon and River Cafe001

I’m the Michael Chicklis stunt double on the left.

We’ll have a fully realized site on KoriSoron.com and https://www.facebook.com/korisoron in the weeks ahead.   For now – here’s an event page with some information.  https://www.facebook.com/events/1538544056367629/

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But what do the people on Craigslist think?

As an interesting aside, someone posted a rather pointed question on the Albany Musicians Craigslist page about a venue owned by the same owner of the one that we’re doing the soft launch at.

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“ArthursMarket; worth booking (Stockade Schenectady)

Have an offer to perform at Arthurs Market, the owner also runs Moon &River Cafe up the street.

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Anybody ever played at either? If so, how were tips? The owner does not pay so tips are the only compensation.

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Both places sort of worry me. Seem dingy, cluttered, unkept. Sort of like some hippy den instead of a real concert place. No phone, dim lights, no credit cards. Real dumps. But tips might be good anyway. Have you played there? Any advise?”

This was followed by a tirade of people weighing in on the necessity of musicians getting paid whenever they play a venue as a definition of professional.  Most of the following “re:” posts seemed to think it was a bar of some type (they’re both cafes with an emphasis on vegetarian food) and talked about how bars shouldn’t have bands if they don’t pay them directly.

I’ll come back to the professional aspect that was brought up but let me first answer this question with a question..

Have you paid your dues?

Do you have a local or regional audience?

Will you bring people to a club because they are there to see you?

And the answer to this question is no.

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Paying Dues

I can say that, because if you have a local audience then you can reasonably estimate how many people will show up at a gig in general and there should be little to no mystery in what you’d make in tips.  If you’re asking that question, it’s because you’re depending on the venue to provide the audience or depending on the other acts on the bill to provide an audience.

Most bands play for years without making a living wage.  That’s because building an audience takes nurturing and time.  It doesn’t happen overnight.

“But what about the unknown bands that play for thousands of people on bills with big bands?”

Did you know that many large bands that play outdoor sheds (i.e. large outdoor arenas) actually charge opening bands to play for them?  It’s because they don’t need an opening act.  The fans are coming there to see them and the opening act is just poaching their audience.

Do I agree with the ethics of charging an opening band and having them rely on whatever merch or tour support they have to keep them on the road?  No I don’t agree with it.  I think it’s disgusting.  But it’s also a power dynamic.  If you haven’t paid your dues by being on the circuit and having a draw then you need to pay your membership dues to the people who are allowing you to enter their club house and try to capitalize on their work.

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My Local / Regional Plan

When Farzad and I first talked about this.  I laid out my plan for this project with him and it’s a plan that might work for you if you’re looking to make a go of it in a regional market.  We plan on following through with everything, so even as an experiment in accountability you might find this interesting.  I’ll also tell you the secret about why this plan won’t work most people.

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1.  Play Open Mics (and/or play in front of people).

When you start a new venture (particularly when you’ve relocated) you can’t just pick up where you left off unless you’re a name recognized act on a major label (even then it’s still a step back.   For all of Audioslave’s hype – they never got to the level of success of either Soundgarden’s or Rage Against The Machine’s success and they still had to do all of the promotion that is associated with any new act on a major label.).  You have to build a local audience and start all over again.  That’s the bad news.

The good news is that once you’ve already put the work in, it takes much less time to build a following and get your platform built.  The fact that I’ve released eight books and that Farzad has six full length releases under his name opens doors for us.  On a professional level, when people see our bios, they’re more likely to check out what we’re doing or take a meeting with us.

All that does on a fan level though is potentially get people through the door.  At the end of the day both the music and the performance need to be strong enough to get people to stay and, ideally, to come back again.

So why play open mics?

  • Because testing your material in front of a live audience is worth more than months in a rehearsal space.  It’s just a completely different thing and you find out IMMEDIATELY what works and what doesn’t and how well you really know something.
  • Because the stakes are low at an open mic.  It’s a good place to experiment and try things and if they blow up it’s not a big deal.  This is a much better place to potentially fail at something than in front of a large crowd of people who paid to see you.
  • Because a lot of times – you end up with fans.  Particularly for the music I play, a lot of times other musicians are the first to pick up on some of the challenges with performing that material.  Some of them will come to the gigs that I play and possibly bring people.

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“But open mics don’t pay!  Professionals get paid for what they do!”

Did you know that Robin Williams would frequently show up at comedy clubs well after midnight unannounced and get on the stage to test out new material?  Did he get paid for that?  Is he a hobbyist for doing so?

Professionals do things pretty regularly without getting paid but they do it for a pay off down the road.  Think of the contractor that comes to your house to give you a free estimate on work that’s going to be done.  That estimate is only free as there’s a payoff on the back end if it goes through.  The band that plays the local TV station morning show at 7am?  They might be paid later on if they own the copyright on the song they’re performing – but they don’t get paid for the show.  They do it because it exposes them to a larger audience.  There’s a payoff on the back end.

When people talk about bars paying bands – they’re talking about a decades old performance model that has no basis in the current economy – unless you already have an audience that is specifically there to see you (i.e. you have a real draw).

So let’s take the same person who asked the question and apply it to the rock band bar model.

Your band wants to play bar X.  You send materials to the booking agent and start a lengthy dance for a night to play.  Eventually you get on a bill with 3 other local bands (HA!  I played a CBGB’s gig once where there were 12 other bands on the bill!).  You each bring 10 people paying a $5 cover.  You get a dollar a head for each person who comes in.  So assuming they don’t make you pay for the sound or light guy, someone in the band waits until 2 AM when the venue closes to collect the $10.

Let’s say it’s a duo for simple math.  Divided by 2 – that’s $5 a person.  Let’s hope you didn’t buy a beer or you lost money!  Good thing you waited 5 extra hours for that pay out!

Now let’s say you play a small venue where there’s no cover and it’s pass the hat (or you play a house concert – where it can be an expensive ticket for the same thing).  Let’s say there’s 10 people there to see you but it’s pass the hat and you make $40.  No pay out.  No waiting.  You collect the money and go.

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The exception to the rule.

If you’re playing a dinner club gig where you’re the entertainment for the evening and playing human jukebox for the night you should be making more (and guaranteed) money.  You’re playing longer than a single set and you’re doing a gig that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing, “I know you’re a jazz group but would you play ‘Piano Man’?  I love that song….”  As a side note, with alarming regularity I see people taking those gigs where they’re playing for 2-3 hours for no money and possibly getting  a meal during a break.  That is insane.

For that gig – or a gig where you’re a cover band in a bar and playing for 4 hours….the criticism above that you always get paid is, in my mind, a completely valid criticism.

I’m talking about groups that play original music and do so in 30 – 45 minute sets.

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2.  Play traditional and non-traditional venues.

One of the gigs we’re playing is a library.  I’ve done entire regional tours playing at libraries where I sold merch and added names to my e-mail list.  You capitalize on existing opportunities and create new ones where possible.

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3.  Develop marketing materials.

Promo shots.  Websites.  Social Media.  Performance videos.  Audio recordings.

Two words here: GET VISIBLE!  People can only support what they know about.

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4.  Network.

I’ve written a lot about this.  You need to develop legitimate friendships and relationships with other artists, musicians, movers and shakers in whatever community you’re in.  You do this by going to shows, playing out locally and introducing yourself to people.

You can do this online by reaching out to FB groups, forums, meet-up groups, etc., but without a local support network anything you do on a larger scale will fall apart.  This is what happens when you play some shows in Europe (to large audiences) and then come back and play to 2 people in a bar in Brooklyn that are there to see another band.

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5.  Record material.

With all that rehearsing and playing out playing out you should have some tunes very much under your belt.  I’ve been saying the LP was dead since we did the Visible Inc. Eps back in 2000 or so – so the goal here is multiple short releases over the year so that you have something to promote.

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6.  Build everything bigger and better.

So the basic steps here are:

  • Build an audience
  • develop your product
  • develop your support network
  • build off of the foundation you built and make everything better than it was.  Constant improvement.  Better performances.  Better songs.  Better venues.  Better connection to fans.

This goes back to the pay issue.

Yes – I’ll do a soft launch for no pay.

Yes – I’m a professional guitarist.

Yes – this is a good idea because I’m executing a plan that ultimately benefits me.

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Here’s the secret I’ve learned

It’s a big one.  It’s why outlining something like this won’t matter for most people.

Most people aren’t willing to do the work.

They’re not willing to put the time in and invest in themselves for the pay off later.

They’re too caught up in their own egos and thinking about what’s owed to them rather than what they work for.

What’s due to them rather than what they do.

So they sit at home not playing because the model that worked for them 20 years ago is not making them any money and they can’t get out of their comfort zone to start over or adapt to the current climate.  Instead they get online and complain about how the scene sucks, and people suck, and the venues suck….

An open mic is beneath some of these people.  They want the money now.  They want the audience now but they don’t want to put the work in to build one.  That takes a long time and a lot of playing.

You gotta put in the work.

I’ve had to re-teach myself to play three separate times.  From scratch.  It sucked.  The last time almost killed me.

It built character.  It taught me how to keep my eye on the prize over the long haul.

So when I sit there and say, “All we have to do is play to the best of our ability over and over again, build an audience and expand our visibility.”  I say that knowing it’s an easy plan to conceptualize and a hard plan to actualize because it requires endurance.

Endurance and Vision are symbiotic for long term execution.  Without both of them you don’t have anything.

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So why do a soft launch at that venue?

Because people listen there.

The thing that really struck me about the open mics at that venue is that people seemed to really listen to what musicians were saying with their music.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve played bars and the bartender balked at the idea of turning the sound off on the TV so we could play.  I get it.  The people sitting at that bar are the ones tipping him.  They certainly didn’t come to see any of the bands I play in.

If people are listening, it’s the first step to making a fan.  If they’re not listening (or if they stop listening), it’s really hard to get their attention again.

So the possibility of getting people who come to that show to come to another show is high,  Perhaps those people will bring other people with them.

Years ago – I got some great advice from someone who basically said, “Don’t bet on the lottery.  Bet on yourself instead.”

The work you do today sows the seeds for tomorrow.  Pay your dues through what you do, not what you’ve done.

I hope this helps and, as always, thanks for reading.

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Another Lesson From BuckMoon Part II – Opportunities Are Generally Made Not Found

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Another Lesson Learned From The BuckMoon Arts Festival

For those of you who tuned in last time, this is the next in a series of lessons I learned from my involvement as a moderator of a series of Artists Panels at the BuckMoon Arts Festival.  (For those of you who missed the previous post, you may want to read part 1 of this series if you haven’t already.)  You can read about the panel discussions and the festival here.

Opportunities Are Generally Made Not Found

The BuckMoon Arts Festival had a series of panel discussions that were intended to bring up issues related to monetizing one’s art.  The second panel in the series was this one:

“Promoting Your Art: Building An Audience and Building A Buzz”

Panelists: Bill Coffey, Mike Dimin, Yvonne Lieblein, Patrick Longo, Brian McElhiney and Mark Swain

 

Description: Online access to consumers has given artists more possibilities than ever, but how do you get your voice heard above the din?

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In the panels, I’d ask a series of questions which would then be answered and discussed by the panel members and then I’d try to keep the ball rolling with follow up questions, related anecdotes and other miscellany and then open it up for audience discussion.

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As part of this particular panel, we got into an extended discussion on the necessity of networking and making connections with other people working in your field and related fields.
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I’m going to stress that again.  A key focus of this discussion was NETWORKING.

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At the end of our time, the panel had an audience question.  The audience member was a costume designer who couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t get any work as a designer locally.  In response, every member of the panel spent about 2-5 minutes talking about strategies and options and trying to help this person.

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While this was happening, everyone on the panel was excited because one of the panelists, Patrick Longo, was there to talk about how he had successfully kickstarted a project for a stage production of his original material at Proctor’s Theatre that was premiering this September.   Before the panel started, Patrick had introduced himself to EVERYONE in the room and gave them a card promoting his event.  So, even after the panelists introduced themselves at the start of the panel everyone there was familliar with what he was doing.

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As panelists, we were all thinking some variation of, “This is great!  We’re actually going to be able to help somebody directly today!”  At the end of the panel I asked everyone to stick around for the last presentation and as we took a break between sessions the person who asked the question stood up, walked out the door and never came back.

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We were stunned.  Patrick came up to me and said, “I’m so confused.  What happened there?  I NEED a costume designer.  Why didn’t she come talk to me?”

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Unfortunately that response to that opportunity was the answer to that question .

In a profoundly over simplified math equation, opportunities are approximately 60% positioning yourself to be in the right place at the right time and about 40% having the skill set (and the wherewithal) to be able to capitalize on that.

You can practice in your bedroom forever, but you’re never going to meet other players / artists / likeminded people and/or people in a position to be able to help you advance until you go out into the world and meet them.

Related Story #2:

I was looking for a drummer.

Unless you already know talented players in your area or are in a position where you’re well known and making real touring money and can attract upper level professionals – this is always a nightmare proposition.

I reached out to a drummer’s group on Facebook, posted some video and audio and asked if anyone in the area was interested.  One person contacted me to say that he was interested but really busy and probably didn’t have time to play before he went back to the school for the summer. (I’m still baffled at the point of that correspondence).

Another second person messaged me with a contact information and I contacted him.  We played phone tag and finally talked about what I wanted to do and about getting together to play.  He wanted to hear more of my material (he didn’t have any recording of himself – which is always a bad sign) so I sent him some and then I never heard back from him.  So I sent a few followup emails that weren’t returned and about a week later, I called to see if he got the material.

Drummer (Sheepishly): “Oh yeah – I got the material….Uh you’re really good.  I didn’t know if I could play with those odd time signatures.”

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Me: “Oh…that’s too bad.  If we had gotten together we could have tried it out and if it didn’t work I would have just played easier material to see if there was a decent chemistry and see if there was something else we could do.”

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Drummer: “Oh!  Well I guess we could get together next week.”

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Me:  “Sorry.  If you can’t follow up now at this stage, it just tells me that you’re probably going to flake later, and I can’t spend my time hunting people down to find out where they are.  Good luck though.”

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That wasn’t said with any snark whatsoever.  I truly did wish him well, but I wasn’t willing to let him take up any more of my time.

A few takeaways

One thing that EVERY artist is guilty of at one (or many) points in his or her career is getting in their own way.  They’re often prone to second guessing themselves and being afraid to open the doors in front of them.

Here are two observations that I try to be mindful of myself

  • Opportunities are made not found. They are made by putting work into developing skill sets and positioning yourself (i.e. being conspicuous) so people can experience what you do.
  • Networking is based on sincere and legitimate connections to people.  I think of it as developing friendships instead trying to capitalize on something from the get go.  If you do have a internal question question when you meet people, make sure it’s  “What can I do for this person?” instead of “What can this person do for me?” and that’s because….
  • It’s more about who knows you than who you know.  My knowing other players won’t get me a gig.  Other players knowing me and knowing what I do (and more importantly what problems I can solve for them) is what will prompt any discussion between people that includes “oh hey let’s get that Scott Collins guy for this”

As always, I hope this helps!

Next time – I’ll talk about lessons I learned from mistakes that I made in setting up the panels!

Thanks for reading!

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Lessons From BuckMoon Part I – You Can’t Cross A Burned Bridge

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The Dread Return Of The Podcast

First a bit of housekeeping.  I’ve been cleaning up the audio from the panel discussions that I organized from the Buckmoon Arts Festival and I expect to kick off the podcast with a few of those over the rest of the summer.

First a huge thanks to all of the people who participated in the panels:

Bill Coffey
Mike Dimin
Jean Karutis
Yvonne Lieblein
Patrick Longo
Brian McElhiney
Mark Swain

As well as Mahmood Karimi-Hakak for the screening, Elahe Golpare and Afshin Katanchi for stills video and all the staff that pulled the event together.

You can read about the panel discussions and the festival here.

The following illustrative stories comes from those workshops.  Story #2 will be in a followup post.

Story #1:

There was a lot of back and forth with multiple people to try to get them on the panel discussions.  It was a big ask for everyone involved and I hope it set the groundwork for future collaborations, projects etc.

Trying to organize and run something like this with – what seems like an infinite number of variables (an unfamiliar room, an unfamiliar PA, no idea how many people are actually attending, coordinating with all the different people that need to be in place to make sure that panelists are relatively happy)  – is particularly stressful the day of the event.

The only way to manage that stress in any way, shape or form is to try to eliminate as many loose ends before the day of the show as possible and put extra work in well in advance of the event and communicate clearly to everyone involved.

In this case, managing one loose end involved contacting everyone on the panel and making sure that they would still be there and giving them a “one page” of day of event information – directions, food, etc.  Everyone confirmed they would be there but there were two panelists that indicated that they had prior commitments and would have to leave by 3 pm.  That was no problem.

The day of the event, after the opening presentation, I was helping set up the tables for the panel discussion and checked my phone and saw that an unfamiliar number had left me a voice mail a minute or two earlier.  It was one of the panelists who had confirmed attending earlier in the week but had a prior commitment later that day.  He was now calling to cancel his appearance 15 minutes before the start of the panel.  He said he’d gotten sick the night before and that he wanted to try to ride it out to see if he could make it in and now decided he couldn’t and that he didn’t want to get the other panelists sick.   He was sorry but ended the call with, “I hope you’ll keep me in mind for other events in the future and if you know anyone who needs PR services that you’ll send them my way.”

I remember looking at my phone and thinking, “What is this – high school?  I can’t go to class?  My dog ate my homework?”

Particularly for a person who works in Public Relations – I can’t imagine a way to handle that more poorly.

You can’t invite someone over a bridge you just burned.

For those of you starting your music business endeavors, here are some takeaway points:

1.  Communicate early and frequently.  People get sick.  Things happen.  People generally will work with you for whatever problem you have, but you have to communicate early and not leave people in a lurch.  As an organizer, calling me 15 minutes before you’re supposed to be there is only marginally better than not showing.  Also when you’ve already told me that you have a family function later that day that you have to go to, the sick excuse seems spurious at best and doesn’t really cut it.

2.  If you do ever find yourself in that situation, follow up with people.  Had he contacted me the following week and said, “Hey I feel really bad that I couldn’t make it.  I’m sorry I wasn’t there.  How did the panel discussion go?” it would have been a completely different discussion and at the least it would have added more legitimacy to his story.

The fact that he couldn’t be bothered to make a simple followup call or email just told me that he didn’t want to be there.  But as the person runs a PR company, they should be acutely aware of how badly they just burned that bridge.  I don’t always want to do my own PR.  I need help sometimes with things.  But as a potential client, how can I contact you for my project if my experience with you is that you bailed out on a commitment at the last minute and then didn’t follow up?

When you’re a professional, your professionalism will be measured by your actions.  If you don’t conduct yourself in a professional way, you won’t be viewed as professional by others.    It doesn’t always mean that it’s fair.  But it’s how it is.

(The odd exception to this is that if you’re independently wealthy, you don’t necessarily have to be professional as you can pay people to take on those services for you.  But in those cases, people only work with you because they have money and when the money’s gone, typically so are they.)

If you operate in the public eye you need to act like someone is always watching you.  That doesn’t mean being paranoid but, for example, you need to assume that if you’re inebriated in a public place and making a loud fool out of yourself, that video footage will show up online somewhere.

Conduct your matters with honesty and integrity. If you act unprofessional, you can’t expect a professional reference.

In the next post, I’ll tell another story from the Festival that highlights almost everything that’s wrong about how musicians navigate the music business (and it has nothing to do with file sharing or spotify).

As always thanks for reading!

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Strong Opinions Are Like Strong Odors Or Speak Softly And Carry A Thick Skin

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Hi everyone! In keping up with a semi-regular output, I thought I’d share another excerpt from my Amazon Kindle book, Selling it Versus Selling Out which may have a perspective that’s helpful for you.
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If you’re a musician, it’s easy to forget that you probably listen to music differently than non-musicians (i.e. most people).  That’s not to say that other people don’t listen to music passionately. It’s more about the fact that the number of times you need to listen to a piece of music to learn it is substantially more than it takes to merely appreciate it.  Learning parts to a song (guitar parts, vocal parts, etc) and getting those parts right requires a learned type of obsessive attention to detail that is alien to many casual listeners.

Consequently, you may find that you have a number of strong opinions as a result of familiarity with the subject matter.  You might know why you like a particular act or musician that your friends can’t articulate.  If you’re the type of person to strongly focus on one thing, you may be prone to carrying that focus over into other areas.

  • If you do something a lot that you care about, you’re likely to have a strong opinion about it.
  • If you’ve studied something intensely, you might have a strong opinion about it.
  • If you have a certain code of conduct that you adhere to and other people tell you to chill out; you might have some terse words for them.

Strong opinions are like strong odors.  Your friends won’t tell you that you’re rank, but your phone won’t ring either.

People generally meet strong odors and opinions with strong reactions rather than indifference (particularly in regards to opinions as they often feel threatened by strong opinions that aren’t their own).

My advice is to start building some calluses.

The difference between strong opinions and odors is that getting rid of an odor is much easier than getting rid of your opinion.

The good news for artists is that people are looking for strong opinions.  Audiences are moved by people who have a need to express something so strong that they need to physically manifest it.  I have collected music for years.  I have 122 gigabytes of mp3s from CDs I converted.  The last I checked, this is about 3 months of continual music without repeats…and  I still look for new music.  Even though I could never mark out the time to continually listen to all the music I already have!  I still look to be excited by what other people are doing, and many other people do as well.

People searching for something new is generally the market you want to reach as an emerging artist.

One problem many symphonies face is the demographic that had traditionally supported them is older and shrinking.  On one hand, showcasing new music (like the video game live tours) brings symphonic textures to a new audience.  The problem is that audience doesn’t want to pay $100 to hear Bach in a concert hall (which is something the people who are willing to pay that kind of money often want to hear at a symphony).  The people with money who go to the symphony generally want to hear the tried and true pieces that moved them in that (or a very similar) symphonic hall years ago.

Symphonies have a real battle in balancing contemporary programs with safe gentle pieces that won’t rattle the dentures of anyone sitting in the expensive seats.  Given the astounding production costs of maintaining an orchestra and performance hall outside financing (underwriting, etc) becomes increasingly important.  Even with fundraising, many orchestras have to tighten the belt and turn to alternative revenue streams and more diverse programming to try to get the bodies in the seats.

And now a word from Mr. Ives

You’llll have to search to find a non-vhs copy, but I highly recommend that you see a film called, A good dissonance like a man, which is a biopic about Charles Ives.  In addition to some excellent acting, the script is based on accurate historical research and comes across as a telling view into the life of a true maverick (Before people scoff at the term “maverick” – real mavericks almost never refer to themselves that way and instead let history make that distinction for them. Charles Ives was a true maverick.)

Ives also had a lot to say both as an artist and as a human being.  His comments below regarding consonance (versus dissonance) predate some sentiments expressed in this essay.

“… Consonance is a relative thing (just a nice name for a nice habit). It is a natural enough part of music, but not the whole, or only one. The simplest ratios, often called perfect consonances, have been used so long and so constantly that not only music, but musicians and audiences, have become more or less soft. If they hear anything but doh-me-soh or a near cousin, they have to be carried out on a stretcher.” from Charles E. Ives: Memos

Artistically, there’s no value in being all things to all people

Everyone wants to be accepted, and some opinions and ideas are confrontational and polarizing by their very nature, but by watering down your opinion, you also water down your message.

Watering down your message

(to paraphrase another Ives quote);

disappoints the artist, it disappoints the art and ultimately it disappoints the audience.

This isn’t to say that you should never compromise.  While some amount of compromise is necessary just to be human (much less an artist) you should recognize the difference between compromising and selling out.

When that little voice in your head says that people are uncomfortable with what you’re doing, you should take a long look to see if you’re doing something wrong or if other people just need thicker skin.

That’s a really difficult conclusion to come to objectively, but it’s certainly one worth investigating.

If you like this post, you may like two of the Kindle e-books I currently have out, An Indie Musician Wake Up Call and Selling It Versus Selling Out.

Deciphering What’s Actually On The Page or Don’t Believe The Hype

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Sony Records sent out a press release today that will surely set the internet a flutter.  Here’s the AP (In this case – Alternative Press) Story Line:

Middle school metal trio sign $1.7 million record deal with Sony Music

Boy that sounds great!  Here everyone is talking about the record industry tanking and Sony steps up and signs Unlocking The Truth with a big-ass old school record deal!  $1.7 million huh?  Time to get those middle schoolers in your house some lessons and up on a stage so you can get that Middle School Metal Money.  (I’ll give credit where it’s due – I can’t come up with a better catch phrase than Middle School Metal.)

But the numbers here mean nothing.  Look at my underlined quotes from the AP article.

“Brooklyn, New York based middle school metal trio, Unlocking The Truth, have inked a record deal with Sony Music potentially worth $1.7 million, according to a report from the New York Daily News. The band are guaranteed two albums, with a $60,000 advance on the first, and up to $350,000 for the second. If the efforts prove fruitful, the band could reap the full benefits of the six-record, million dollar-plus contract. “

So here’s how I read this:

Unlocking the truth signed a record contract with an OPTION for 6 records.

I will bet dollars to donuts that they signed a 360 deal with Sony – which means that any revenue streams generated by the band will find a percentage going back to Sony.

That $60,000 advance will be recoupable – which means the band won’t make a dime of the record until they pay back the label for the money that the label spent on them.  You’ve seen the spotify stream articles.  How many digital plays and downloads does it take to pay back $60,000?  A lot more than any other band playing in this genre is getting right now.  Hell, probably more than EVERY other band in this genre is getting right now.

That’s IF the record comes in on budget – which it won’t – you’ll have to factor out the producer’s percentage, the lawyer’s percentage and anyone else getting a cut from this as well.

Oh..and then there’s the video.  IF the record gets released, the label will demand a video to help promote it.  That’s also recoupable against album sales so, again, the band won’t see any money from the record until that gets paid back as well.

They’ll have to tour to promote the record.  The label may offer tour support but if they do – it’s also recoupable.  That’s also problematic because if they signed a 360 deal (and I don’t think there’s any way the label would sign them and not demand a 360 deal) – the label is taking additional cuts on top of any money being made.

So in the past, tour support might be renting a tour bus and paying for the PA – but (in addition to whatever percentage of the door you got) whatever shirts or other merch you sold you got to keep.  In a 360 deal – your small percentage on shirts or ANYTHING else you have to sell – just got a lot smaller.

Note that the article says that the label will pay UP TO $350 K for the second release.  That also means that they could pay nothing and then the band is screwed because they won’t be able to record with anyone else until that release comes out.  That also means that the label could record the album and then just refuse to release it.

Guess who sits in limbo unable to do anything else with anyone else until that happens?

So:

  • IF the first record makes enough money to warrant making a second record that gets released and
  • IF the second record can be recorded and makes money

Then the label MIGHT pick up the rest of the releases with advances (i.e. money that mathematically can never be paid back) that MAY make up to 1.7 million.  Again –  IN ADVANCES – not in income.

So for the type of music the band plays –

I’m betting that this is solely a PR move.

It’s smoke and mirrors.

Sony’s gonna ride the publicity on this, record an album and then push the novelty aspect of that.  “Middle School Metal” is easier to get press on than “Middle Aged Metal”.  Then like every other novelty (“Pac Man Fever” comes to mind) it will fade.

This irritates me for two reasons:

1.  From the “news” angle – it’s irresponsible hype that sends the wrong message to people about the state of the industry.  People look at the headline and come to a conclusion that has no basis in reality for artists.

2.  Malcolm was a student of mine, very briefly, at a music summer camp I taught at.  If you see him sweep-picking something live –  it may well be a form I taught him.  He’s a nice kid and I dig his energy and enthusiasm.  I dig that he’s gotten the press and gigs that he has and I don’t want to see him get taken advantage of.

But is it a bad decision?
Oh, probably not.  But really it depends on what you think the outcome is going to be.

If approached as a money-making venture – yes, definitively it’s a colossally bad idea.

But if this is an exposure play…if this is just a springboard for them to do something else POST Sony – it might not a bad play because right now they’re 13 years old.  They don’t have to make money because they have a parent (or parents) who will make sure that they’re fed and have a roof over their head.

In other words, they’re in a radically different situation than the average band.  They might be able to afford to be indentured to a label for a couple of years.

But for the average band – the last sentence of this: which does a great job of breaking down real money for major label acts…. is where they’re really at.

Public Service Announcement:

Friends Don’t Let Friends Sign 360 Deals.

Is Music Dying?

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[Please note: This is a re-post from guitarchitecture.org]

(Before we start – a quick plug for the BuckMoon Arts Festival)

As a reminder to anyone who happens to be in the upstate NY area, I’ll be performing live accompaniment for a staged reading of The Exonerated as part of the BuckMoon Arts Festival on July 12-13, and leading a series of panel discussions with working artists and industry experts on how artists can monetize their art.  You can read about both of those here.

In doing some research for the panel discussions I was listening to the CD Baby podcasts this week and I caught up on two interesting, and somewhat related stories to the panel.

1.  Apple’s Eddie Cue announced that Apple bought Beats because “Music Is Dying”

2.  Indie artist Shannon Curtis came on to promote her new book, “No Booker, No Bouncer, No Bartender: How I Made $25K On A 2-Month House Concert Tour (And How You Can Too)”

Is Music Dying?

I’ve never seen anyone at Apple make any kind of negative statement about the music industry, which is why iTunes Eddie Cue’s quote is somewhat telling:

“Music is dying,” said Cue. “It hasn’t been growing. You see it in the number of artists. This past year in iTunes, it’s the smallest number of new releases we’ve had in years.”

As quoted from  http://readwrite.com/2014/05/28/apple-beats-eddy-cue-jimmy-iovine#awesm=~oHLbiOYNIxpYCB

My guess is that he’s talking about the smallest number of major label releases, as there is no shortage of independent music being released.  and that might be true. A recent Variety article entitled, Music Sales Continue to Plummet for Albums and Digital Downloads, brought up the following statistics comparing sales for the first 1/2 year of 2014 with sales from 2013.

  • Total album sales (any format) dropped nearly 15%.
  • Sales of individual digital tracks were down by 13%
  • Streaming was up 42% (but streaming revenues for music are almost nothing)
  • Vinyl sales were up 40%, with Jack White’s Lazaretto selling over 48,000 units.
  • The year’s best seller is the Frozen soundtrack which has sold over 2.6 million units.

As the article’s author, Christopher Morris put it:

“To put the steepness of the decline in perspective: Just 18 months ago, Adele’s Grammy-winning “21” – the bestselling album of 2011 and 2012 — finished the latter year with sales in excess of 10 million. It is conceivable that such a phenomenon will not be seen in the industry again.”

In contrast, check out the story about Indie Artist Shannon Curtis who went from playing clubs to making $25,000 on a 2-month tour of house concerts.

So, is music dying?

Well….music itself isn’t dying (that quote is just silly) but music making is being altered in a way that professional musicians are not able to make a living at it with traditional means. The traditional major label model has moved from a terminal status to life support and musicians are having to find ways to try to make money with more revenue streams than ever, that pay less money than ever, with more people competing in the market forever.

Shannon Curtis was able to bring in some money doing house concert shows to audiences who wanted to see her in a non-traditional venue (but I’m guessing she’ll make more money from her e-book from musicians looking for a new angle than she ever did from her concert tour!)  But the real problem most new artists face is that culturally we’ve created a Vine audience with a short attention span.  One that demands immediate gratification and doesn’t want to have to wait to experience something.

Having said that, people still want to connect with things on a deeper level, and the artists that can weather the storm and actually touch people – consistently in an honest emotional way, are the ones who will be building a career and those artists are going to face even bigger challenges over the next 10 years.  Perhaps that struggle will make some great art.

Back to the panel prep!  As always, thanks for reading!

Deciphering Apple’s Eddie Cue’s “Music Is Dying Quote”

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BuckMoon Arts Festival

As a reminder to anyone who happens to be in the upstate NY area, I’ll be performing live accompaniment for a staged reading of The Exonerated as part of the BuckMoon Arts Festival on July 12-13, and leading a series of panel discussions with working artists and industry experts on how artists can monetize their art.  You can read about both of those here.

In doing some research for the panel discussions I was listening to the CD Baby podcasts this week and I caught up on two interesting, and somewhat related stories to the panel.

1.  Apple’s Eddie Cue announced that Apple bought Beats because “Music Is Dying”

2.  Indie artist Shannon Curtis came on to promote her new book, “No Booker, No Bouncer, No Bartender: How I Made $25K On A 2-Month House Concert Tour (And How You Can Too)”

Is Music Dying?

I’ve never seen anyone at Apple make any kind of negative statement about the music industry, which is why iTunes Eddie Cue’s quote is somewhat telling:

“Music is dying,” said Cue. “It hasn’t been growing. You see it in the number of artists. This past year in iTunes, it’s the smallest number of new releases we’ve had in years.”

As quoted from  http://readwrite.com/2014/05/28/apple-beats-eddy-cue-jimmy-iovine#awesm=~oHLbiOYNIxpYCB

My guess is that he’s talking about the smallest number of major label releases, as there is no shortage of independent music being released.  and that might be true. A recent Variety article entitled, Music Sales Continue to Plummet for Albums and Digital Downloads, brought up the following statistics comparing sales for the first 1/2 year of 2014 with sales from 2013.

  • Total album sales (any format) dropped nearly 15%.
  • Sales of individual digital tracks were down by 13%
  • Streaming was up 42% (but streaming revenues for music are almost nothing)
  • Vinyl sales were up 40%, with Jack White’s Lazaretto selling over 48,000 units.
  • The year’s best seller is the Frozen soundtrack which has sold over 2.6 million units.

As the article’s author, Christopher Morris put it:

“To put the steepness of the decline in perspective: Just 18 months ago, Adele’s Grammy-winning “21” – the bestselling album of 2011 and 2012 — finished the latter year with sales in excess of 10 million. It is conceivable that such a phenomenon will not be seen in the industry again.”

In contrast, check out the story about Indie Artist Shannon Curtis who went from playing clubs to making $25,000 on a 2-month tour of house concerts.

So, is music dying?

Well….music itself isn’t dying (that quote is just silly) but music making is being altered in a way that professional musicians are not able to make a living at it with traditional means. The traditional major label model has moved from a terminal status to life support and musicians are having to find ways to try to make money with more revenue streams than ever, that pay less money than ever, with more people competing in the market forever.

Shannon Curtis was able to bring in some money doing house concert shows to audiences who wanted to see her in a non-traditional venue (but I’m guessing she’ll make more money from her e-book from musicians looking for a new angle than she ever did from her concert tour!)  But the real problem most new artists face is that culturally we’ve created a Vine audience with a short attention span.  One that demands immediate gratification and doesn’t want to have to wait to experience something.

Having said that, people still want to connect with things on a deeper level, and the artists that can weather the storm and actually touch people – consistently in an honest emotional way, are the ones who will be building a career and those artists are going to face even bigger challenges over the next 10 years.  Perhaps that struggle will make some great art.

Back to the panel prep!  As always, thanks for reading!

Be Yourself And Become The Curve

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Some Advice from Marty Friedman

Marty Friedman (ex-Cacophony, ex-Megadeth, current full time Guitar Hero) has a new album out (and a new signature PRS guitar) and so he’s making the promotional rounds with a number of interviews in American publications.  He had a great response to a question that really resonated with me.  When asked about advice he had for players who want to develop chops, he answered the question at a much deeper level

“The best piece of advice is this: Once you find something in your playing that sounds good to you, go head over heels in that direction.  Developing enough chops to play like me or Jeff Beck or anybody is not the goal.  The goal is to acquire chops to develop yourself to a point where you’re going in a direction that you like.  Once you do that, you’re halfway home because if you have your own unique direction than no one can touch you.  Ever since I started playing, I’ve gone completely in my own direction.  The flip side is, I could never be in a Led Zeppelin cover band or something because I would suck at copying Jimmy Page or anyone else.  The point is, if you really want to grow as a guitarist, find something that you dig about yourself, exploit the living hell out of it and continue developing that forever.”

– July 2014 Guitar Player interview

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Don’t Follow The Curve – Adapt To The Curve

One mistake I see some businesses (this includes musicians and any other entrepreneurs so yes – this applies to you dear reader) make is to try to capitalize on a popular trend.  Here’s the cycle (and thus the dilemma) with this approach.

  • The trend creator starts off with a disadvantage.  They have to get people to buy into something new.  Even if it’s something familiar, getting it in the hands of people (and getting the money out of those people’s hands) is time consuming and/or expensive.
  • If the trend creator becomes the trend setter, then the trend creator has a potential slam dunk because they’re in the position to fully capitalize on it.  But what often happens is that a previous trend creator (who is now an established trend setter) sees a new trend and is in a better position to capitalize on it than the trend creator.  If you ever watch Shark Tank, you’ll see investors wrestle with this idea with entrepreneurs fairly consistently, “There’s nothing proprietary about this.  What would stop (insert major industry player here) from taking this idea, mass producing it and crushing you?  Nothing.”
  • Years ago I heard a great piece of advice that I took to heart, “By the time you read about a hot new trend in any print publication – it’s no longer a hot trend.”   That was true 20 years ago – and it’s even more true now.

Trying to capitalize on a trend is a dead end because you are rarely in the position to make  it work for you.  In the 1980’s, Yngwie Malmsteen was a trend setter for neo-classical guitar.  There were a bajillion guitarists who tried to ape that style.  The ones that just played that style recorded one or two records and were never heard from again.

The one’s who took those technical ideas and applied them to other areas are among those who kept making music and developed audiences for what they did.  They adapted to the curve instead of following it and in doing so, became their own curves.

(Incidentally, the one neo-classical player from the 80’s who’s still consistently recording and on tour as a solo artist is Yngwie Malmsteen and people are still copying him.)

Trend creation is hard but trying to capitalize on someone else’s trend and make a living from it on the ground level is infinitely harder.  You may want to remember that the next time your fellow band mate comes to rehearsal and says, “Maybe we should write a Black Keys (or whoever else comes to mind) type of song.” ; )

As always, I hope this helps and thanks for reading!

-SC

The Trickle Down Theory In Action

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I was listening to the radio as I was driving home last night (I had finally caught up with all my pod casts on my iPhone) and the local classic rock radio station was playing a syndicated run of the Sixx Sense (Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue’s) radio show.  On the show, Nikki mentioned a statement Joey Kramer of Aerosmith made in an interview that Aerosmith wouldn’t likely be releasing any more full length recordings.

“It would be great to make another record, but it’s almost (like) ‘Why bother?’ Records don’t sell and they don’t do anything….There’s really no money per se to be made on records. We used to make a lot of money on records. Now all of our money is made on touring. Artistically, it would be fun to make another record and it would be a beautiful thing if we can put it together. But to what avail, I don’t know. There’s almost no reason to do it, you know, judging from the last one and how it went over.”

(This quote was taken from this article).  – http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=864585

Aerosmith’s 15th release, Music From Another Dimension sold “only” 63,100 copies during its first week U.S. release – a substantial downturn from previous efforts.

Sixx went on to talk about how no one buys albums anymore and about the business model for releasing singles going forward for both Aerosmith and for his band.

A completely unnecessary plug for Seth Godin

For those of you who have any interest in music as Business – I can’t recommend the completely free Seth Godin’s Start Up School podcast enough. (You may want to take a moment right now and go ahead and download the episodes.  Don’t worry this post is staying right here).  Mr. Godin talks about a number of great things that are applicable to making money in music in the podcasts, but one area in particular can be direct relation to this post.  In one episode, Mr. Godin said that people at the top are always the last to be affected by an economic downturn.  So, for example, Van Morrison will still have people go out and buy Moondance because it’s Van Morrison.  He might not be making the money he was making before file sharing, but he’s making more money than a new, unknown act would be making from music.

So, the fact that a large band is now coming to the same conclusion as every other working band on the planet this late in the game isn’t surprising.

But I think that their strategy is all wrong.

I think it’s all wrong because I’m guessing that they only learned half the lesson presented here and will execute the strategy in the wrong way.

The Dinosaur And Creating False Scarcity

The bands that get momentum from the “singles” models (and I put singles in quotes because I honestly think that only people over the age of 30 even remember what I single release it) get momentum from an aggressive release and touring schedule.  They might release 2-5 eps a year.  They have new tracks out constantly because it’s the new tracks that drive traffic and attention to them.

It’s an aggressive promotion strategy and one that requires a lot of flexibility.

Aerosmith is a large corporate dinosaur – even if they’re not signed to a label anymore.  They need to self-fund releases (and it will give them pause to output money before bringing more in) and, quite frankly, given that every past effort has involved spending years recording, mixing and promoting a new full length release – they’re not going to be able to strip it down and knock new releases out one after another in quick fashion.

But I also think they got it wrong.

Know Your Audience.

Yes, a number of people who are willing to buy music will buy a single rather than an album.

You know who buys albums, by and large?

I’ll give you a few groups off the top of my head.

Metalheads

Prog Rock fans

Jazzers

Those are some specific sub-genres that have fans who get behind bands rather than singles.  People who dig Animals as Leaders will buy whatever new release they have.  Ditto for King Crimson or Allan Holdsworth fans.  They’re not in it for the single.  They’re in it for the experience.

Aerosmith may look back at the ‘80s when 40,000 units sold might not even get you a top 40 release in a given week, but they don’t seem to realize that 60,000+ units is a LOT of units sold in the contemporary music market.

I’m guessing their fans will wait for a new album.

Will they wait for the same length of time for a new single?

There are a few related lessons I’m gathering from this extrapolation on a statement.

Know your audience

know what they expect from you

know your ability to meet those expectations.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens down the road for Aerosmith.  They might have enough backlog to be able to get things out quickly and prove me wrong, but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out for them in the future.

That’s it for now.  As always – I hope this helps in some way and thanks for reading!

-SC