November 2008
45 posts
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Weekly Wrap-up
Here is a run down of some of the best stuff on the blog this week (in case you missed it): Will Labels Control The Music You Store Online? http://artistshousemusic.tumblr.com/post/56617512/will-record-labels-control-the-music-you-store Take The Extra Step In Promoting Your Art http://artistshousemusic.tumblr.com/post/56787351/take-the-extra-step-in-promoting-your-art Lessons To Learn From Digg...
October 2008
32 posts
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“Clearly, the future is not the ongoing debate on control and ownership of...”
– via Knowthemusicbiz.com
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WatchWhen to get a manager: Kevin Coogan of Stella Management gives some great advice for when to actually get a manager if you are an artist. “My general thinking these days is that the artist should do as much as possible for as long as possible…” Check it out at Artists House.
iPhone Apps For Music Distribution
Everybody knows that songs on the iTunes music store cost 99 cents without exception (apart from the brief “iTunes +” experiment a while back that is). However, Apple may now be facing some challenges in this area thanks to its recently released App store for the iPhone.
Apple receives approximately 30% of the revenue from music sold in iTunes, a percentage that is carried across...
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Alternative Revenue Streams - Songbooks
Publish your own songbooks:
I played in a decently successful band in high school (we had a lot of fun) and often had people send us emails and instant messages asking how to play the songs. Even Nat (our bass player) would pester us about the guitar riffs and chords because he’d get bored with his bass parts at home. So to keep everyone happy, Danny (guitar player) would tab out most of...
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An Argument for MTV Music
There’s been a bit of controversey over the launch of MTV’s latest endeavor, MTV Music, a site that offers a large collection of streaming music videos.
I’m not a fan of MTV, never have been, but the arguments against MTV Music have irked me such that I feel a need to defend them. It’s too easy to hop on the popular “I HATE EVERYTHING MTV!!!” bandwagon.
The...
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Lessons To Learn From Digg
Kevin Rose is on the cover of this month’s INC. magazine, discussing the phenomena of Digg (aka the anti-Google) and why he is a poster child for the new kind of media mogul. Besides making me wonder whether or not killing Rose will let me become him (a la Tom Waits), the article described four easy steps to becoming an Internet mogul:
1) Get a platform
2) Own a platform
3) Leverage the...
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On Strategy and SEO
Carla Lynn Hall of Rock Star Life Lessons has two excellent blog posts regarding how to approach SEO (which by now you know is search engine optimization).
She talks about the importance of using niche keywords to help define your market and to help your market find you.
This dovetails nicely with a lot of what I’ve been writing about recently. Don’t just perform random acts of...
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Take The Extra Step in Promoting Your Art
Debbie Cavalier, Artists House contributor, wrote a great article here about how musicians can leverage a social media site like Flickr as part of their viral marketing.
In the same way that artists shouldn’t see themselves to be “above” business cards as Brandbits talked about in our last post, artists shouldn’t be scared away by the idea of having a marketing plan. Your...
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Business Cards
Wired has a great How-To wiki on Sprucing up Your Business Card. But what happens if you don’t already have one?
Get on it and make one.
These days, you MUST put in extra effort to stand out from the crowd, and business cards can help you do that. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and the fact that you’re a student, musician, artist, or barista shouldn’t prevent you from...
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“The Web site can now be your album… an ongoing ever changing one that...”
– Stephen Jenkins, Third Eye Blind @ SanFran MusicTech
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“RE: TWITTER:
The opportunity for musicians is huge. If an ordinary person...”
– From a fantastic post on Music Think Tank about why everybody should be using twitter, especially musicians.
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“Will record labels control the music you store online digital lockers? ...”
– VIA: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/10/will-labels-con.html
What are your thoughts and feelings on this?
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WatchLawrence Lessig’s recent piece in the WSJ, entitled, “In Defense of Piracy” has only stoked the already raging fires of the ongoing copyright debates.
It’s an important issue, and it’s not going to be resolved any time soon.
One of the purposes of this blog is to highlight some of the amazing content that Artists House offers that relates to these pressing issues.
...
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BONO to write for the NYT
Bono has inked an OP-ED deal with the New York Times. Apparently, he will write between 6 and 11 pieces for the NYT next year.
This is a great example of alternative revenue streams.
I know, I know… there can only be ONE Bono, but if you’re a musician or artist, you should consider using your expertise and experience to contribute to the community via a local paper or magazine.
Not...
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Frustrating News From One of the Major Labels
I thought today was going to be beautiful.
I was wrong.
There was some exciting news announced in the music industry from one of the major labels. Ready? Universal has teamed up with Dell computers (this already sounds exciting) to offer…
…wait for it…
…Here it is: Bundles of pre-installed music on Dell computers from a “curated” selection that will be...
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Friendonomics
WIRED contributor Scott Brown has written an interesting editorial about the implications of the current state of what he terms “friendonomics” in the Facebook era. While the article is intended as a tongue in cheek observation on the absurd tendency of people to hoard their social contacts until they lose all meaning, there are some serious lessons to be learned from it for those...
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“Under an agreement with SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, customers of the...”
– -Press Release
What do you guys think? Is this really a compelling business model?
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Get Your Fans To Your Website (S.E.O. 101)
This post is simply meant to be an introduction to search engine optimization (SEO) for artists. By no means is this a comprehensive explanation or analysis; it is simply a place to begin thinking. It’s important to understand the logic behind SEO before you begin trying to implement it.
For some reason, SEO sounds far more technical and complicated than it really is. It was probably coined...
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WatchLawrence Lessig’s recent piece in the WSJ, entitled, “In Defense of Piracy” has only stoked the already raging fires of the ongoing copyright debates.
It’s an important issue, and it’s not going to be resolved any time soon.
One of the purposes of this blog is to highlight some of the amazing content that Artists House offers that relates to these pressing...
9 tags
Bandcamp, the Whole Package?
Calling all independent artists!!! Bandcamp is here, have no fear! I think.
For those of y’all who have not checked out bandcamp.mu, you’re missing out. Not only is this the sexiest place that I’ve seen where independent artists can call their music’s home, but it looks as if its not all bells and whistles.
I’m not going to explain all of the fancy features in...
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“In 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited...”
– http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10498664
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Lala.com Lets You Steal Music (Basically)
Lala.com is aiming to change the way we buy music online by doing to the Mp3 what the Mp3 did to the CD. The company, which initially launched as a CD trading website and which once pioneered a way to place music directly on to your iPod from the internet (it isnt allowed to doesn’t do that anymore), has shifted to a new model built around “web songs” and a catalogue consisting...
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Record Labels and New Technologies
Record Labels and New Technologies
from the May 2008 SanFran MusicTech Summit
Panelists include:
David Katznelson (Birdman Records)
Dave Allen (Gang of Four/ Nemo Design)
Ted Kartzman (IODA)
Lars Murray (SonyBMG)
Matthew King Kaufman (Fun Fun Fun Recordings)
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Why Amazon Gets It
Amazon.com employs restrained product promotion techniques better than any other company on the internet, and I wanted to share one of the latest examples with you folks. I received a message about a promotion that is being run around Time music critic Tom Moon’s new book “1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die”. Amazon has set up a promotion site here, which lists every single...
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Don't Be Like Canned Food
Gone are the days when musicians had to create products that take the shape of the medium on which they are delivered. (latest release from The Cranberries?)
Albums had to be:
Cylinders = 2-4 min
78 = 3-5 min
LP = 30 min
CD = 80 min
radio friendly = 3-4 min
etc
Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind fame was the keynote speaker at the SanFran MusicTech conference this week. Jenkins proposed:...
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Artists House Music →
The best online resource for musicians and music entrepreneurs. Artists House Music has thousands of hours of video interviews with top music industry personnel and written articles geared to help…
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WatchThe BBC has an amazing series on the story of the guitar running right now that features interviews from past and current guitar greats. In the above video, The Edge showcases the differences between the sound of a clean guitar and that same guitar with an echo effect — the difference is phenomenal.
Also — I’ve gotta give props to BBC for the Spinal Tap reference — when...
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WatchDon VanCleave of the Coalition of Independent music stores and his take on a renewed interest in vinyl happening in the marketplace. More great interviews with Don here.
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U2 Sign $19 Million Deal With Live Nation
The upstart rock collective U2 will receive 1.56 million shares as a part of the 12 year contract they signed in March with touring megalith Live Nation earlier this year. For those who can’t assimilate information easily, that translates into near-as-makes-no-difference $19 million. The agreement includes rights to touring and merchandising worldwide, as well as the band’s website,...