Longing for the day ...

In Philadelphia now

and attending the IMC07. Last night was the pre-conference party and setup thing, which was fairly low-key. Not many people there and we had a good jam at the sound-check. Met a heap of really nice people and song a few tunes, drank a few beers ...

Today it all gets serious and tonight I make my international debut ...

Nashville via LA

Well, I'm in Nashville right now. Arrived yesterday via LA the day before and am struggling somewhat with a lack of sleep ...

But Nashville is an amazing place. The people are so friendly (especially compared to LA) and the environment is so different - plenty of space and greenery. Seems a different pace to LA - drivers give way to pedestrians here.

yesterday I interviewed the incredible Janis Ian. she was so obliging and forthcoming it was a relief. She gave me plenty of useful info, hints, tips and great quotes. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a photo. I will post a podcast of the interview after I have edited it, compressed it and turned it into a more useful format.

Last night I visited the Bluebird Cafe. I had hoped to play a song or two at the Monday Open Mic session but left it too late to register (I fell asleep). Still, it was great to get down there and check the place out. It was packed, and about 30 people played one song each on a little stage. I must confess to having been a bit intimidated when I first went there, but the people are so supportive and the standard is quite variable. there were some exceptional songs but also some ordinary ones. As a nice guy I met there said - "You never know what you're going to get. That's why I keep coming back". I think I'll have no hesitation playing there when I return.

Today I'm interviewing David Hooper about the independent music environment. Then I'm gonna try to have a BIIIIG sleep. Dad wants to check out some of the local churches ... ??? there's lots of them.

I'm in L.A.!

Over here for a series of interviews with prominent and not-so-prominent independent musicians. Just one night here (hoping to catch up with Winjow) and then off to Nashville for two days and then Philadelphia for the IMC07 ...

Stay tuned ...

Going to go to sleep now ...

The slow decay of MySpace?

Just read an interesting but revealing article about the different fortunes of MySpace and Facebook. Now, the article is framed as a discussion of how the two sites compare from the point of view of growth and total numbers, but there was another figure the writer ignored that is very revealing indeed.

The article lists the unique visitation of MySpace in July 2007 as 61.3 million, which sounds pretty impressive, especially when you consider that it's up 33.3% on last year. Great! But when I logged on this morning, my "Network" was 197,539,132 - more than three times the number of unique visitors. Even allowing for rounding of that network down to, say 180 million, that still means that 2/3 of account holders don't visit MySpace each month!

For a site whose purpose is social networking, I'd say that's pretty sick ... especially when you consider that I, personally, have three MySpace accounts and I know I'm not the only one.

I'm going to launch a campaign called "MythSpace" to combat the excessive hype that News Limited has generated around this site. I don't have a problem with the site, its purpose or its members (I'm one of them). It just pisses me when the hype is uncritically thrown about and people like Uncle Rupert make truckloads of money out of other people's dreams and aspirations .... watch out for the MythSpace logo when I get my ftp program back up and running ...

This space left deliberately blank ...

... for the victims of the Peru earthquake, their families and their communities.

When It's Over

This song is testimony to how hard it is to occupy two headspaces at once. For the past two weeks I have been trying to write a theory paper for my PhD, which is quite complex and difficult to get my head around, while simultaneously rehearsing for some acoustic solo shows. I'm not sure which task is more difficult, but I know which is more appealing.

Last Friday morning I picked up the guitar just to have a play while avoiding writing the paper, and this rhythm and tune popped into my head. I made up some nonsense words to fill the spaces and they slowly turned into the chorus. I guess I was reflecting on the ups and downs of relationships, and this is what emerged. I added the middle 8 over the next week and will post a recording ASAP ... still not quite happy with it, and I have no idea what the title should be. Thoughts? Suggestions?

It's in C and played with a capo on the 5th fret.

When It's Over

So I say where you going
And you say limousine
And I say where it takes us tomorrow
And you want to know where we’ve been.

And we’re done
And it’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
And we start all over again
It’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
Then we start all over again

So I go where I want to
And you go out in the rain
And I go to a place you can’t follow
And you go slowly insane

And we’re done
And it’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
And we start all over again
It’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
Then we start all over again

Talk to me now, now
Let the silence tell you how
There’s so much to say

Hold me close now, now
We can turn it around
Don’t walk away

And we’re done
And it’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
And we start all over again
It’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
Then we start all over again
And it’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
And we start all over again
It’s over
And we see what it isn’t
And we’re done
And it’s over
Then we start all over again
Then we start all over again
Then we start all over again

*****************************************

Here's a very rough video of me performing it at the Fretfest semi-final in 2007 at QPAC:

*****************************************

Please note: This song is APRA registered: Work ID GW35676116. You can copy, reproduce and distribute any part of these lyrics and chords for any non-commercial purpose as long as you acknowledge its source. I'm interested in your feedback, comments, suggestions. If you make something good out of it, let me know and I'll consider adding it to this site.

If you perform it or broadcast it for any purpose, please let APRA know.





License this music for commercial use through Pump Audio









This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

The value of your brand

Found a great article about the David Lee Roth reunion with Van Halen. Gotta say I'm a huge Van Halen fan and all three singers worked for me - although the Cherone things is not my favourite album. Perhaps that's because I'm a drummer and came to VH via an appreciation of Alex, who's been one of the constants of the band ...

Anyway, the article is called "The David Lee Roth Guide to Legendary Marketing" and it's about how DLR has been able to create a relationship with is fans by being larger than life. While that hasn't always worked for everyone, it's always worked for DLR and his fans, who love him for his outspoken ways and respect him for being unrelentingly him.

The point I want to make about this is the point I have made in several music discussions lately, and this is a prime example of it that the article touches on and Bob Baker makes more explicit in his coverage of the article: being a musician is not about making music, it's about creating cultural meaning for people. That's why recordings and acts that are (arguably) not very musical, like, say, Bob Dylan's singing, or hardcore punk, or industrial thrash, can find a fan base that loves it. It's not about the "music" - the sounds that stimulate the eardrum, it's about the meaning people derive from their experience of that music.

That meaning derives from the circumstances of people's lives and the feelings it evoked in them when they first heard it: their age, their class, their attitudes ... all sorts of factors. It's this meaning that makes fans want to make the music and/or the band part of their identity, buy the t-shirts and ringtones and tell others about it.

For that reason, a band's non-musical output is just as important as the music; their image, their behaviour in interviews, their reputation for delivering in live performances, and so on. It's also why giving the recordings away is not such a bad thing - if you can derive income from the increased value this gives you. It also explains Brad's observation that people will buy the CDs and support the artist even though the digital files are given away. The relationship is more important than the artefact.

There's no prescription for what that relationship has to be - that's why niches are growing to the detriment of "mainstream" (whatever that means) acts, as has been noticed in the Long Tail theory. But, of course, throwaway pop is defined by the lack of a relationship. Leftsetz is big on this when he says that the key to a long-term future is to build a relationship with your fans. And, of course, you must NEVER let them down ... unless that's part of the act ...

I sure hope DLR gets to bring some of that early Van Halen culture Down Under on this tour ...

Business approaches for indies

This post arose out of a discussion on the [MusicThoughts] e-mail list. We were pulling apart the benefits and weaknesses of using Tunecore or CDBaby as your service of choice to digitally distribute your music - at least that's roughly how it started. I thought I'd better spell out my reasoning in a little more detail here because e-mail posts are very hard to follow on an issue like this.

First, a primer. Tunecore and CDBaby are NOT the only companies that provide this service, but they are two of the best and biggest, and their pricing structure exemplifies the point I want to make. These observations apply much more widely than just these two, even though I will refer only to them.

As far as their appropriateness to Indie music releases goes, the difference is both simple and complex. The simple part is the way you pay them. CDBaby asks for a once-off up-front fee to process your hard-copy CD and then takes a 9% cut of whatever proceeds you get from digital sales (the amount depends on the retailer). Tunecore asks for a smaller up-front fee, allows you to upload single digital tracks (so you don't need to wait until you have a full album - you can release one song at a time) and gives you all of the proceeds of your sales. BUT, they charge you an annual fee for ongoing service and storage of your account.

So, the appeal of the Tunecore approach is twofold: they allow you distribute your recording immediately, and they take no cut of your sales - you get to keep all of your sales ... UNLESS your sales amount to less than the annual fee ... in which case you go backwards. For the sake of simplicity, let's call the Tunecore fee $20 (it's actually slightly less, but I like round numbers).

Here's where it gets more complex. Tunecore make is possible to release one track at a time - but charge you the same fees for that as for an album - in other words, you have to get more value from your single release than from any single release in a package. So you have to earn $20 a year from your single just to cover costs. BUT the Tunecore package also works on time-limited contract, so you have to make $20 in the first year, the second year and the final year. If that song doesn't end up being some sort of hit, you go backwards on it. And when you realise that the song isn't pulling its weight and cancel your unprofitable Tunecore account, it is also removed from iTunes and all the other outlets that were selling your few copies, so it earns you nothing unless you get another service to distribute it for you ...

Now CDBaby. They charge $35 to process your album and $20 for a UPC barcode (if you don't already have one, but this is the cheapest place I've found for getting one). So you incur an up-front fee of US$55 (+postage) to distribute your tunes digitally and open up a CD-selling account. For that you get both digital and hard-copy sales, but my experience is that digital sales dwarf hard-copy. But here's thing - you get income as soon as your stuff sells, so once your costs are met (it's never taken me more than 6 months, and I've released 4 CDs like this) you're gong forward with every sale or listen.

Now, if you have a hit, and your digital sales are more than $20/0.09=$223 a year, you would be better off paying $20 a year to Tunecore rather than 9% to CDBaby - until your sales decline again. But if you've released two CDs, one earns more and one earns less, the combined total is not quite enough to cover both ... well, with CDBaby you're still ahead, with Tunecore you're going backwards. Personally, if I were to have a release that earns some serious money, I'm quite happy to pay CDBaby their 9% - partly out of loyalty to their efforts when i earned nothing and partly because I think this kind of thinking is more appropriate in a networked environment where we have to sink or swim together. That that's an ethical decision for me, not a business decision.

Economically speaking, the Long Tail environment implies that the best approach is to charge people a percentage of income for services rendered, and provide a lot of low-cost services forever. For small Indies, it is always going to work better to go with percentage-fee, perpetual contracts than fixed-fee, fixed-term contracts. Early growth of your business requires that you move ahead as much as possible, so avoid the fixed-fees. Of course, once you've built up a market presence and generated some serious digital sales income, you need to re-think, but if Gerd Leonhard is correct (and I don't think he is, quite), recordings sales revenue is going to be shrinking for the foreseeable future.

Incidentally, this is yet another demonstration of why the Album is NOT dead. It may not be the sales force it once was, but the economics of production and distribution still very much favour a collection of songs rather than single releases.

For the record, by approach is to give away the beta-releases of singles and offer the finished product as an album, from which people can take whatever singles they like ...

What I would have written

The other day I bought Ty Cohen's book "The New Music Industry: How to Use the Power of the Internet to Multiply Your Industry Exposure, Fan Base and Income Potential Online!"

Despite its technical flaws and marketing-at-all-cost philosophy, I have to say, it's absolutely spot on as far as its advice goes. It's a cheaply produced and very short book - really just a collection of points to consider. It needs a good sub-edit and a desktop publishing cleanup, but that's not part of Cohen's approach. He seems to want to get these things out a cheaply as possible, maximise his profit on them and revise/update/re-release them as often as possible. It seems to be a winning approach for him. (It's despicable to me)

Nonetheless, his advice in this book as absolutely great. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's the book I would have written if I felt like writing this book. Inevitably, however, it falls down on the details. In keeping with the quick-n-dirty approach, lots of what-to-dos and not many how-to-dos. But that's inevitable, given the subject matter. For the price, it's a good introduction to the subject - but don;t believe the reviews you read n Amazon.com - part of this marketing approach is to talk yourself up at all cost ... which is a pity ...

Another word of caution on Cohen - if you buy his stuff you WILL be bombarded with promotions for all his other stuff - and they're hyped beyond all semblance of credibility. They may well be as good as this one - I'm resisting the urge to buy them all - but I find this market-beyond reason approach very alienating. Still, it obviously works for Ty, David Hooper, Bob Baker, Dec Cluskey and their ilk. (See if you can spot the pattern ...)

BTW - all clear

Got the results of my mole scan yesterday and all's well. No cancer in the bit they cut out ... next checkup in about a year ...

The GBs on iTunes

The Genre Benders' I am leaving! I am leaving!" is now available on iTunes:

Enjoy!

Technical difficulties

I'm offline right now because I bought a new PC (the old one was bought in 2001) and for some reason it won't connect via ethernet to my old router ... though the laptop still connects wirelessly.

Weird.

Back soon ...

Congratulations, Iraq!

It's a stupendous achievement to win any international sporting event, but to win an intenational football event is one of the toughest, and to come from the mess that is Iraq and win the Asia cup is even more extraordinary.

Well done, boys. You are a credit to your country, your game and your respective faiths. If only all people could see the unifying virtues of international sport, put aside their differences and work towards common goals ...