Longing for the day ...

How to form and run a rock band

Just found this resource via an e-mail list. It looks like a pretty cool heads-up for the muso who wants to get started in playing in a band, or whose wondering (as we all do) what went wrong in their last attempt to play in a band.

I'm not sure I endorse everything that's in it - I haven't read it all, either - but it looks like it's pretty comprehensive.I'd like to see more stuff about thing things that can cause problems later - song-writing credits and income splits, that sort of thing. Not that these issues necessarily cause problems, but when they do, it all gets very ugly and a little thought in that direction early in the piece can save a lot of heartache later ...

Maybe a sample band agreement would be cool. Or at least some more points for discussion/agreement among band members at the point of "getting serious".

Fergie/The Police

Caught this show at Suncorp Stadium last night. WOW!

Unfortunately, the guys I went with were more interested in boozing it up than catching the show so I missed the first act and the start of Fergie's set. Also, we had crappy seats a football field away from the band (literally) and hence the sound was muddy. Still, it was an amazing show - the big screens help a lot at that point.

Fergie was pretty much how I thought she'd be. I'm really not much into a lot of her music but the girl is a performer. She went through (at least) three incarnations (with a support crew of impressive dancers and musicians to cover for her absence): the Black Eyed Peas Fergie, serious-cred-rock-chick Fergie and then Duchess Fergie. In the middle section she did covers of the Stones, Zepplin and Heart and showed off how incredible her pipes are. She hit all but the very top of "Barracuda" cleanly. Very impressive. BUT note to Fergie: rolling around on the stage and being cutsie doesn't work when the closest audience member is 10m in front of you and most of the crowd loses sight of you - there's no intimacy in stadiums. Her rendition of "Big Girls Don't Cry" (best song of her set) also confirmed that she struggles for pitch on the soft notes at the start - you can hear the Autotune on the recording! Alas, she's not perfect.

The Police showed all of their experience. Very tight, incredible musicality and just enough showmanship to keep the plebs happy - the massive light-show thing helped there, too. With their back-catalog there was never a dull moment in their 1:45 set. They skated across songs and segued others together, extending some of the groovier stuff with instrumentals and crowd call-and-response stuff. The sound was a bummer as some of those classic riffs were rendered almost unrecognisable. The show lacked a little energy to my taste - but then, they are all over 50 ...

Sting was cool and in control for the whole show. Totally polished and professional and didn't miss a note. He wandered all over the stage during the extensive instrumental breaks and made sure the crowd got a great view of what he can do. Not much Jagger-style energy, though.

Andy Summers was much better than any of The Police's recordings reveal. The guy can play and loves to get into the show. Shame the sound muddied his best efforts. Also totally cool.

Stewart Copeland was mind-boggling. One of the great drummers, he played with (somewhat dorky-looking) animal intensity and great finesse on the percussive numbers, leaping from the percussion set-up to his drum kit in a big hurry at one point. Absolutely made the show for this drummer ...

Was it worth $99? I think if it had been a bit more intimate and I could have heard it better it would have been, but the empty seats showed that the promoter over-priced this one, IMHO. I'd have rather seen them at the Boondall Entertainment Centre for the same price ...

Music Market=share market for labels

I apologise for my absence - been busy.

This morning I fielded a question from Jon David Francys via MySpace mail. He asked a very good question about the future for independent labels in the new environment and I thought I'd share my answer on this blog. I've adapted it a bit to suit this medium:

Jon,

A simple but important lesson from history:

Wherever there is turmoil, there is opportunity. Wherever there is opportunity, there is money to be made ...

Of course "independent labels" can make a good living. But they won't do it by churning out mass-marketed pap at great expense and hoping to strike gold (if that's not a hopelessly fucked-up metaphor).

They'll do it by, as you say, diversifying in the same way share traders do - try to spread the risk far enough that you don't go backwards, but not so far that you join the pack. How much do you know about the share market? I view it as a great analogue of the music market right now.

(This is my dad's trading philosophy, BTW, not mine, but he's used it to double his share portfolio in the past 5 years).

In the share market, there are two main types of traders. There are the "index traders" who are usually large financial bodies whose job it is primarily to not lose other people's money (insurance funds, superannuation funds, banks, etc). They know that the trend of the index (the average of all shares traded) is inevitably upwards. On any given day some companies will improve, some will lose, but overall the market will win more than it loses so they try to invest in as broad a chunk of the market as they can - it's the safest option - and they're so big they can get pretty close. The catch is that they don't pay a great deal of attention to any of the companies they invest in (they don't have time to do their homework) - they pretty much follow "the herd".

Then there are the individual investors - smaller, often individuals - who can't take that approach because they're only dealing with, say a couple of hundred thou - maybe a couple of Mill - in capital. Waaaayyy too small to get near the index, so they have to take more of a risk and try to pick winners. But they can still spread their risk (diversify) across, say, a dozen companies. These guys MUST do their homework on each company they choose, and if they do too much buying and selling, they churn through the broker fees, so they will lose money. Hence, the best ones know their companies really well and invest for the LONG TERM. The best companies to buy into aren't necessarily the General Motors' and the General Electrics, they might be smaller companies with vision operating efficiently in a niche market (like Google c1996). That's where profit (as opposed to scale) lies.

Now, I'd have put the Majors in the first category (and the market is going through a Great Depression-type downturn), and the successful future labels (like NETTWERK) in the latter.

To continue the analogy, "homework" in share trading means studying the companies via the brokers reports, the daily share performance data, the CVs of the company directors, the market in which the company is trading and, if necessary, a little about the technology the company is selling. Doing so requires a "network" of data sources - no single source will do it for you. If you invest too much into one company, you "expose" yourself to it's failure. If you neglect one, to might miss out on its wins ...

"Homework" with music means knowing the band members, their niche, the market for their niche, etc and having a network of venues, promoters, marketers, etc that can assist. It also means tapping all of the available revenue streams for each act and paying very close attention to - building and developing - each one.

I was fascinated by Guy Hands's comments about EMI having signed acts that have never released a record. That's an old tactic that the Majors used to control bands that might be a competitor to the one they are most interested in. They'd see another one who might operate in the same bit of market and "stitch them up" so no other company could drive them out of that market. Highly predatory, anti-competitive behaviour. But they can't afford to do that any more ... there' nothing stopping the rival bands from entering the market.

The labels who "win" in the 21st century will be the ones with the deepest catalog of acts that can turn in a long-term profit ... with probably a few big winners and a few small losers ...

The "musical middle class"

Over at Hypebot there's been an interesting discussion going on about the idea of a musical middle class. This is the idea that more acts, bands and/or artists are now making a living from music than ever before. They may not not be Rolling Stones-type "rock royalty" but at least they're getting by.

I think this is a really nifty concept for understanding what's happening in the music business. Previously, a lack of access to capital has prevented most acts from even entering the musical marketplace - most were limited to cottage industry, if that. But the new media have reduced the barriers to entry and a growing group has been able to derive income in the market. Some have added a few bucks to their kick and some have been able to make a living from their efforts. Some have even gone on to become "upper class" stars.

But the important thing is that more people have a higher level of participation in the industry, and I think that's a clear analogue to the middle class that grew in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries and is emerging in nascent third-world democracies around the world. Of course, the existing upper classes are doing their utmost to block this progress, and that's in keeping with the analogy as well.

Of course, not everyone agrees. The Copyright Alliance posted this piece, which to me misses the point completely and misunderstands what the Long Tail is all about. But it's worth noting ...

It's a good thing and I intend to do my bit help out ...

Another great summary

Seth Godin has been raking over the entrails of the music industry figures from 2007 and has come up with some lessons from recent experience. I'm not convinced about some of them or the order in which they're placed ... but, like Ian Rogers' comments, they're not pitched at me. For example, Seth's 0th and 1st lessons are contradictory from my perspective (but not wrong) and must be weighed each other one a case-by-case basis.

I'm most in favour of lessons 3 and 4 from an indie perspective. Particularly the second paragraph of lesson 3 - that's what I've staked my project on. Openly and transparently ... obviously ... if you want to grow your music within the "0-150,000" range, as Hank Shocklee talks about, then these two factors are the keys to success. In keeping with Ian's observations, I'd put numbers 3 and 4 at the top of an indie's business plan. The rest are things that largely can't be affected by an indie - they're too big and beyond control - but they still must be understood as part of the landscape.

The other thing I'd add is that, for an indie, ubiquity can be approximated in the marketplace, if not in the attention of potential fans. All you need to do is spend hours and hours uploading your recordings to as many online outlets as you can. That's cheap marketing but it has two main benefits: 1) it makes you appear ubiquitous, as people will find you in multiple places; and 2) it increases the likelihood that people will find you in the places THEY are looking, not just the places you want to be found. Those are small things but when you're striving for economic survival they can make the difference ...

A great summary ...

Just found this post by Ian Rogers about how new technologies have changed the music industry. It's a fantastic summary of the impact (or not) of the new environment. Complete, thoughtful, insightful. You have to read it and understand it if you want to build a music career in the 21st century.

But it was written and delivered to a Big Music conference in Aspen. To that extent, it's pitched squarely at the Majors and their efforts and ignores its own implications for market entrants and smaller players. For example, it sets up the notion that attention scarcity is the new creator of value, but then skips right over how to overcome this (because majors have budgets to do so) and even postulates that there's a diminishing return on marketing spend (there almost certainly is, but I and all of the indies I have met, have never reached that point :-).

I've asked in the comments for some guidance on how indies might gain from this understanding, and I'll be very interested in the response (if any). I'll keep you posted.