"Thank God It's Not Christmas"...But Get To Work Until It Is

The act of licensing your music is quite possibly the most lucrative way to monetize your song(s)…other than being Coldplay. The hardest parts about trying to pick or write songs specifically for licensing are anticipating what the recipient might and as always, getting it heard. There is a (roughly) 75% solution to these combined problems. HINT: It just passed you by. That’s right, Christmas! It’s not just for begging your parents to donate to your Kickstarter campaign anymore. Obviously you have at least a couple hundred days to think about it and get ready, but when that time of year rolls around again, every licensing company will be interested in original Christmas music or original versions of classic Christmas music. So flip your calendar to August, make a note and when next December comes around; embrace the sweaters.

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"...You Ain't a Beauty But Hey You're Alright"

One of the oldest mythos of the struggling artist in any creative field (including music of course) is the concept of the “Big Break”. Some imagine it as a spot on a sought after bill, some imagine it as getting their music heard by the right person, others just imagine it without any specific expectations or premonitions. You may choose to find the plethora of opportunities that present themselves via the Internet to be encouraging or dismal, due to the fact that your thousands upon thousands of competitors have the same access. Either way, they are opportunities nonetheless. Platforms such as Spotify, iTunes and so forth, offer minuet compensation and low budget efforts to consolidate within a local scene (i.e., compilations) offer little promise of widespread recognition. You could be forgiven (sort of) for thinking of these as being ‘below you’. But the truth is that if you’re a local band and your only channel for exposure is for someone to know you personally, there is NOTHING below you. Even that friend from high school who you don’t really like anymore and still lives with his parents, but shows up at every one of your shows to stand up front and creeps you out…he is better than you. The reality of catching a “Big Break” and what one might look like is becoming more and more obscure. If you want to “Make-It” in any sense of the word; you need all of the help you can get.

http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2013/12/im-freakin-angry-right-now-write-email-seth-jackson/

Can't Buy Me "Likes"

One of the current trends appealing to struggling bands is the growing industry of services who promise a certain number of "Likes" or YouTube views for a certain amount of money. While this is an appealing avenue to go down and a theoretical solution to an inability to get promoters interested in your music, there is just too much that can go wrong. First off, you're not the only ones who has heard of these services and promoters might just notice if you "Likes" roster is full of names they can't pronounce. Also; supposing this does work and you get booked at one of the biggest venues or get picked up by the biggest promoter in town, what are you going to tell them when not even your keyboard player shows up? Let alone the audience you promised them by the transitive properties of Facebook. Not only will you be playing for an even emptier room than usual, it will be hard to get anyone who matters to be interested in your band when/if you finally reach the same level the old fashioned way.

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The Road Even Less Travelled

This blog has given plenty of notice to independent musicians as to the difficulty (futility) of their endeavors. What we haven't discussed is the even more treacherous path of a independent producer. Partially because many of them are already on the former path. A producer stands more to gain with success for a variety of reasons. One of them being that they get paid...pretty much no matter how well the record does. However, the major obstacles are that there's a huge investment because if you don't have the best equipment ($$$) you might as well stick to doing karaoke night at the nursing home. But even that and the need for truly inspired talent don't necessarily add to much more than a Facebook "Like" compared to the intensive networking you'll have to do. Producer don't become house hold names unless they murder someone or know someone who was murder, which is a bit redundant. For obvious reasons it's safe to say that buzz about producers doesn't spread nearly as fast is it can about bands, if it spreads at all.

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"Don't Look Back In Anger"

Riddle: What do your life in the music industry and your personal life have in common? At some point, you’re going to **** up. 

In order to maintain a forward progression as a career-hopeful musician, you can’t dwell on past mistakes, failings, etc. A mediocre (or worse) album or show early in your career is far, far less damaging than any you might have as an established artist and it’s just plain not worth it to let drag you down. What you have to do is become a doctor (temporarily, don’t get your parents too excited); separate yourself from the event, get and analytical in your diagnosis of what went wrong and surgical in your efforts to fix it and prevent future catastrophes.

One of the reasons is that it is too easy to fall into a cynical/paranoid trap. When Oasis scored a major hit with their sophomore album “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” in 1995, it boggled lead guitarist and primary songwriter Noel Gallagher’s mind that people didn’t also buy their debut, “Definitely Maybe”. So much so that almost two decades later, he can be seen still complaining about it in a documentary on their rivalry with Blur. He says something along the lines of :

“I don’t know why, if they liked “…Morning Glory?” so much, why didn’t they pickup ‘Definitely Maybe” while they were in the store?....It doesn’t make any sense….was it something I did that made them want to fuck with me? “

It’s lines of thought like that which answer the question, “Whatever happened to that band?” This probably had something to do with her substance abuse problem…but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? The fact is that carrying around your failures with you will only lead to more of the same failures - mostly because you’re still carrying them. When something goes wrong or just isn’t going right, empty your pockets and move on.  

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"Seen Your Video"

It’s no secret that the best way for a virtually unknown band to get exposure (that is most likely to turn into money) these days is produce a video that goes viral. Unfortunately, very few seem to know how it actually happens. You may be putting stuff up on YouTube everyday and wondering why it’s the same people watching them every time. Or maybe you’ve put a lot of time, energy, thought and money into producing one video with a high production value. This isn’t how it works either. There are a number of elements that need to be in play for a video to have viral potential. Since luck is certainly a factor, knowing what they are is only half the battle (…much less than that actually) but at the very least, you can use the knowledge to “play chess backwards” and take a more strategic approach next time you sit down with a video camera or whatever device you use that it also a video camera (i.e., phone, computer, twisty straw). To learn more, follow the link below:

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"(Rock) Just Like a Woman"

At Rock Report, we realize that many of our posts take on a masculine tone, most likely because I am male. However, it should not be misunderstood that this advice is for everyone. So every once in a while, I like to post something specifically for the lady-rockers out there. The role of women in the music industry has come a long way, just in the past decade. It's no great revelation to say that for a many years they were essentially center pieces, groomed to look and sound pretty. Now, not only are they making achievements based on their own talent and merits, but many are becoming serious movers-and-shakers on the business side of the industry. Here is a list of 49 pieces of advice from women musicians and women who have carved out successful niches for themselves in the music industry.

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"Can You Take Me Higher?"

In an industry landscape where an artist can get their record released by someone with a fair amount of ease or easier yet, release their own album as simply as setting up a Bandcamp account, artist development is more important than ever. This essentially means identifying and following through on an often uniquely tailored series of measures to best increase the likelihood of the artist becoming profitable. The basic strategy should involve cultivating exposure through YouTube, an aggressive booking strategy (heavy on lying), and getting publishing and licensing jobs writing music for video games or other products. To learn more, follow the link below:

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