In Defense of Streaming

Lately, it seems like the discussion relative to streaming services has been all ‘doom and gloom’. With all the talk of lowballed, undelivered, nonexistent royalties, streaming has become synonymous with the infamous artist exploitation of the 50s and 60s. However, ‘scam’ or not, these services still provide a powerful platform for emerging artists, even if they don’t provide powerful income.

First of all, even if you are not taking advantage of the services, your potential fans are. The best way to gain new fans is to meet them 95% of the way, since they are not likely to go looking for you.

They also provide an avenue to work around the stranglehold that major label have (or used to have) on distribution. Additionally, streaming analytic features provide information invaluable to future decision-making.

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'Search & Employ'

If you’re a songwriter who, for whatever reason, find yourself without a band, you might be uncertain of how to advance your career. Maybe you have a hard time working with others, maybe you live inside a tree deep in the woods of Montana, maybe you had a band but slept with somebody’s girlfriend/boyfriend, or maybe you’re just not interested in the band concept. Nonetheless, you probably want your music to have a fuller sound than it does at the open-mics you frequent, but aren’t sure how to accomplish this. The answer to this is simple; session (or ‘studio’) musicians.

If you’re adequate and comfortable with all of the instruments you want represented on your demo, it may be tempting to play all of the parts yourself. Some musicians have definitely had significant success with this (sound-wise, not necessarily financially). If you really want to do this, a home recording might be the best format for experimentation. But if you’re paying for studio time, session musicians are probably the way to go. The simplest reason is because they’re more experienced. They can work faster, take direction better than your friends ever would, and may even have something crucial to add to your song(s). To read more, click the link below:   

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'OK Computer', Let's Get Famous

It’s no secret that the landscape of the music industry is changing drastically. Case and point; I have probably already started several entries in the past month or so with an almost identical sentence. The change that’s probably most beneficial to musicians is the development of home recording technology. It’s easy to get excited about this technology when you first obtain a program but there are a number of steps you should take to make the most of your time and the money you spent on the program or legal risk you took by downloading it.

A great place to start is with a good microphone. It doesn’t need to be the one Radiohead uses but it helps to think about it like your audience. If the audience is good, attentive and interested, you’ll have a good show and make a good impression. If the audience is drunk and have ears full of who-knows-what, the results will be discouraging. Other details to concern your self with in this vein are microphone placement and eliminating background noise.

Another good tip is not to be sloppy. Make sure you’re in tune, the recording levels are right and mind your mistakes. Not everything can be ‘fixed later’ (during mixing/post-production) stage. In fact, most things can’t. Mixing and post-production can make what you’ve recorded sound as good as possible but it can’t change what you’ve recorded. For more tips, click the link below:

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"Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad"…But One Of Three Is Enough

Although the recent financial success of DIY artists is cause for hope in the record industry (or something like it), there is no set formula for achieving this. This is because though there are many outlets at your disposal, the reality is that most of them aren’t going to work. Three of the most popular platforms are YouTube, touring and syncing placements.

YouTube is probably the cheapest form of music distribution around with costs ranging from none to almost none, an ideal spectrum for any musician who stands nothing to lose but seems to be gaining even less. Life on the road can be hard but the contemporary benefits of this approach include the ease of promotion through social networking and the rise of ‘house shows’ who generally won’t take a cut and are much more accepting of unknown artists, cutting out the cost and frustration of dealing with club owners who have profit margins on the brain rather than music. Syncing placements can be pricey as it often involves paying professionals make it happen and market properly, but the gains can be much more substantial.

There are plenty examples of artists who have succeeded at all three, but if you’re not there yet the odds are against you. The best advice if you’re a truly DIY artist (i.e., broke) is to pick the one you feel most comfortable in and focus your efforts there. For a comprehensive guide to these platforms and making this choice, click the link below:

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'A Walk On The Wild Side' Earns A Click On Your Website

Have you ever been to a music festival like Coachella or South By Southwest? Try to think about how many bands played and how many you actually saw. Maybe you went into the festival with a comprehensive list of what bands you wanted to see, when they were playing, where and so forth. I’m willing to bet you didn’t cover much more than half of your list. Why? There are a lot of f****** bands out there. Maybe you wore yourself out watching The Walkmen and Andrew Bird just wasn’t appealing enough. Is there anything Andrew Bird could have done to command your attention? Yes! But this isn’t just good advice for Andrew Bird, it’s a good strategy for you too. 

If established musicians have a hard time commanding attention, imagine how many bands out there are in the same boat as you. If you want to make it to the next level, it is absolutely imperative that you take action to set yourself apart from the crowd. One way is with impressive visuals. The bridges between the five senses are exceptionally powerful. Have you ever smelled something in your fridge and spent an hours to figure out what it is? The same can work here. If someone is captivated by an image, they will be curious to know where it’s coming from and hopefully, they won’t just throw you out like expired yogurt. Another good way is by giving people what they already want, but in a way they didn’t know they wanted it. Record a cover of a popular song but do something to make it your own. Anything you can think of really, different arrangement, different instrumentation, different genre. It will make people curious about what else you can do. A third way to stand out is to make a statement, preferably something controversial. You’re not going to win over everyone so don’t waste your energy. Get excited about an issue, a school of thought, something. Like minded people will be drawn to you and they’re excitement for what they believe will translate to excitement for your songs. To read more, click the link below.  

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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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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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"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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"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 **** 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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Music Industry Metrics And You

Very few musicians are able to make it to the career level without the eventual help of a record label. This is perhaps the most intuitive fact in the history of the record industry. When you are contacting a record label, it is important to at least appear modest and polite. Record labels don’t want to deal with someone they have never heard of, who is expecting superstar-treatment. Artist who act out and boastfully talk trash to and about their record label have already their label millions of dollars.  You are yet to make them a dime so don’t get any big ideas about what you’re entitled to.

But possibly the MOST important things is to remember to keep trying! 

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How To Make Shirts Without Losing Your Own

Investing in merch products such as t-shirts is a great way to generate a little extra income and help with promotion simultaneously. However it is only a good idea if you follow a model that allows you to make money. This means keeping your costs as low as possible. While it is good to offer high quality shirts (in terms of the fabric) with engaging designs, you don’t want to get carried away. There are several ways to cut costs: Don’t get married to the idea of a two-sided shirt, they are literally twice as expensive. Black t-shirts are more expensive to print on than white or lighter colors and the more colors you use in a design, the more expensive they will be. None of this is to say that you should settle for a design that you hate, but it will be very hard to make any money if you have to sell shirt for $30 or $40 just to make a few bucks. 

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Facebook Vs. Website

When musicians scrounge money together to give their career a financial jumpstart, sometimes they'll make a list of priorities (that cost money), do some simple math and find out what they can afford. This list often includes things like amps, drum mics, money to have stickers printed and until about a little more than a decade ago, that list usually included a website. Now, most will just set up a Bandcamp, a Facebook page and have it done in almost no time at, and for even less money. But when you think of how many people are doing that, it seems like it just may be one of those situations when it's worth to spend a little more than you want to. A well design and well marketed website will set you apart, and allow to keep ALL of the money from the sales of your music. For more reason to invest in  a website, follow the link below:

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