Indie Brew – Featured Artist – Drunken Logic If you haven’t heard of Drunken Logic you are missing out. Period.
Indie Brew – Featured Artist – Drunken Logic If you haven’t heard of Drunken Logic you are missing out. Period.
via Drunken Logic – Indie Brew – Featured Artist.
In his end-of-year press conference today, President Barack Obama called the decision by Sony Pictures Entertainment to cancel the release of its film The Interview a “mistake.”“I am sympathetic to the threats they face,” Obama said. “Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake….“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” Obama said. “Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they will start doing when they see a documentary they don’t like or news reports they don’t like? Or, even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended.”
via Obama's Bold Sony Statement: Canceling The Interview Was a 'Mistake' | WIRED.
It’s almost a rite of passage every artist goes through in the modern music industry. The moment he accepts that he will not be able to rely on music sales to sustain his career. That people are not buying music like they used to. And never will again.
Just a few years ago it seemed like every artist was passing around articles chastising fans for illegally downloading music. How it hurts the bands. The producers. The session musicians. The labels (well no fan cares about them). The songwriters. And the industry as a whole. We all remember the “illegally downloading music is the same as stealing a microwave from a store” argument. We all bought it. Well, musicians and the industry that is. Fans? Not so much.
The RIAA sued over 35,000 fans for illegally downloading music back in the mid 2000s. We heard of 12 year olds being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Grandmas whose grandsons downloaded music on their computers were taken to court and forced to go bankrupt. A grandfather actually died while in litigation and the RIAA told his family they had 60 days to grieve and then they better pay up!
Really great way to win over music’s biggest fans. Sue them. That’ll teach em!
But it didn’t. Sales never went back up. And now it’s reported that iTunes song downloads will drop 39% in five years.
The jury is still out if it will in the long run. But, unfortunately, unlike sales, streaming revenue requires massive numbers to see significant income.
Previously, if an artist had 10,000 fans, she could rely on $70,000 ($10 album less iTunes 30% cut) in sales when a new album was released. However now, even if each fan listens to her (10 song) album on Spotify 10 times in the first few months (1,000,000 plays – impressive!), that would only earn her about $5,000 (and much much less if those plays were on YouTube). Even if she has 50,000 other fans who listen to the album only twice, that’s just an additional $5,000.
No matter how you slice it, a small to mid level artist is not going to get by with streaming income the way the numbers work out currently. If we were talking about 5 cents a play versus a half a penny, then maybe.
I’ve been a strong supporter of streaming since its inception. I love that it rewards artist for creating great music that fans want to play over and over. There’s much more potential for the long tail. The more someone likes your album, the more she will play it. And you will get paid for every play. Over time, sure, this could earn the artist much MORE money than sales.
+Why Withholding Your Music From Spotify Only Hurts You
Only the artists getting millions of plays are seeing significant, livable income solely from streaming. And most of them are with labels who take the majority (to all) of that income.
+How To Steal An Artist’s Streaming Money In 3 Easy Steps
You could scream about streaming and piracy until you’re red in the face while fans and technology ignore the noise and move forward (this seems like a legitimate solution for quite a few). OR artists could look to diversify their income stream.
Companies are popping up every day that help artists make more money than ever before.
If 1,000 “true fans” previously spent $100 a year on an artist through CD/download sales, concert tickets and t-shirts and earned the artist $100,000 a year, what if, with new models, artists could get their “die hard” fans to spend $500 a year on them? What if it was a sliding scale? 200 fans at $500, 300 fans at $250, 500 fans at $100? Instead of artists earning about $100,000 a year on 1,000 fans, they could earn $225,000.
It may not be that fans didn’t want to spend more than $100 a year on their favorite artist, it’s just that they didn’t have any attractive options to do so.
Kickstarter, PledgeMusic, Indiegogo and Patreon have allowed artists to offer high priced rewards/exclusives to die hard fans. Patreon’s model allows artists to monetize these fans on an ongoing basis. BandPage offers experiences enabling artists to monetize their most die hard fans in creative ways while on tour. BandCamp and Loudr allow fans to ‘name your price’ for lossless (or mp3) downloads. Fanswell allows artists to easily setup house concert tours to make the most money from a small, but dedicated fanbase.
Licensing companies are helping independent artists get high paying syncs on TV and in film and independent admin publishing companies like SongTrust, CD Baby and TuneCore are collecting royalties previously only available to those with publishing deals.
+CD Baby Pro vs. TuneCore Publishing (The Full Report) (Ari’s Take)
YouTube is now offering a tip feature on channel pages and Spotify has integrated merch to artist profiles (without taking a cut).
We need a new mindset. It’s a new era. People ARE valuing artists – but in the way that makes sense to them (not you). What’s wrong with a 23 year old who loves a band paying $250 for a PledgeMusic exclusive, $5 per video released on Patreon, an $18 ticket for their concert, a $25 t-shirt and a backstage “experience” for $50, but never download an album or buy a CD? What’s wrong with that?
The album gets the fan in the door. Gets her hooked. The album is only the introduction. No longer the end game. The album is the gateway. And the album is found on Spotify, YouTube or ThePirateBay with a couple clicks.
They always had to rely on alternative sources of income (like touring and merch) to offset what their labels didn’t pay them in royalties. Lyle Lovett admitted that after selling over 4.6 million records he has received $0 in record royalties from his label. But he’s had a very successful career. Why are people silent when record companies (legally) steal from artists, but raise hell when fans do it?
“I’ve never made a dime from a record sale in the history of my record deal. I’ve been very happy with my sales, and certainly my audience has been very supportive. I make a living going out and playing shows.” – Lyle Lovett
So, your options. You can either bitch about the “decline of the music industry”, exclaim that fans aren’t true fans if they don’t pay for recorded music, OR you can get creative, embrace the new technologies that build on the artist-fan relationship, and lead the pack in this beautiful new world full of alternative revenue sources. Your choice.
Ari Herstand is a Los Angeles based musician and the creator of the music biz advice blog Ari’s Take. Follow him on Twitter: @aristake
We just launched a new feature at IndieBew.NET: Check out Indie Brew Radio, now in Beta!
Tune in now and let us know what you think. Be a little patient, as the stream may be unavailable from time to time during the beta, but our goal is to have 100% Indie Music flowing 100% of the time. Yup ALL the time. That’s the goal anyway.
There’s no plugin or player needed. Just go to the site and hit play from any browser:
http://indiebrew.net/brewpress/indie-brew-radio/
It even works from your phone’s web browser (tested so far on iPhone/Safari and Android/Chrome)! We’ve got some great artisit already signed up, with more on the way really soon! (If you are an Indie Musician, be sure to submit your music to be played on the air)!
Click the link…you know you want to: Indie Brew Radio BETA – indieBrew.Net.
Lockn Festival 2014 | Fifteen Most Memorable Sets on JamBase.
Words by: Stu Kelly
Images by: Ian Rawn
The 2014 Lockn’ Music and Arts Festival was packed full of highlights featuring some of the most well respected and artistically creative bands touring the circuit today. With two main stages adjacent to one another, festival attendees were treated to the luxury of not missing a note of music in the main festival area. Two other stages were used for early morning sets and late night after-parties and everything was scheduled around the main stages, giving fans a chance to begin seeing music as early as 11 a.m. and staying up past 4 a.m.
The entire culture and atmosphere can only be described as something majestic and intrinsically beautiful. Approximately 30,000 people constructed this utopian society fueled by love and the desire to explore and preserve the festival culture. Stepping into this society, even for the weekend, felt like experiencing another world where anything is possible and there’s nothing to worry about.
The entire weekend was full of interesting collaborations and inspiring covers as this year’s lineup featured everything from local bands who had to fight for their spot on the main stage, through the Rockn’ to Lockn’ contest, to the other side of the spectrum of rock and roll royalty. This particular environment worked so well not only due to the caliber of talent booked but also the schedule of the events as they were set to unfold. It was especially interesting to see String Cheese Incident sandwich their sets with Umphrey’s McGee as well as former members of the Grateful Dead the following day. The same fluidity could be felt as Widespread Panic traded sets with Phil Lesh, Tom Petty and the Allman Brothers.
Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi Acoustic Set: 12:00 a.m. Triangle Stage 9/5 
Are Low Music Sales Simply Due To Bad Music? – hypebot.
That’s been my guess for A LONG time. A LOT of bad music, empty of innovation and creative spark, filled with studio enhancement tricks to make talentless singers sound adequate, being shoved down our throats by the major labels, who then turn around and blame the bands and their fans for the piracy that is OBVIOUSLY killing music sales…
How about this…Indie Artists are producing and publishing volumes of great music everyday, and people are spending their consumer dollars ELSEWHERE. Yes, that’s right Sony, people are choosing to buy REAL MUSIC directly from REAL MUSICIANS and artist friendly music services, and it’s cutting into your sales and profits.
Like they say on Shark Tank…if you’re selling a crappy product, your sales are going to suck. OK, they don’t actually say that, but tell me it isn’t true?
Maybe if the record labels stop exploiting artists and fans, and start finding new, innovative, and inspired acts that are creating new and imaginative art, they can get back on track. Or, they can keep doing what they’re doing…exploiting crap for profit while shunning any semblance of true inspiration, and carving thier niche in history with the dinosaurs and 8 track tape decks in the car.
Anyhoo, check out the article that I sorta read before going off on this rant. Are Low Music Sales Simply Due To Bad Music?
First, this is just pure speculation. Opinion. Based on zero facts.
Second, there is no evidence to backup the assumptions that this un-armed man…let’s not forget that however he was acting, he was not armed…was acting “in a crazy way”, and in fact the majority of witness accounts say just the opposite. Only the shooter/cop seems to think the Michael Brown was a threat, and this quack is inserting his professional…but wholly scientifically inaccurate OPINION into this issue, as an obviously desperate attempted diversion to obscure the truth and blame it on marijuana. Same as they did with Trayvon. Same as they always do.
The only “crazy” or “erratic” behavior most marijuana users experience is the munchies and/or uncontrollable laughter. Without other drugs added into the mix (which the good doc here, when you listen to the garble coming out of his mouth, seems to be trying to imply were also involved, although no official evidence to supports this) the likelihood of drug-induced violence is essentially nil, since pot on it’s own has never been shown to induce violence.
By and large, this is just exactly what it seems…a big fat attempt to divert attention from the shooter/cop and place blame on the victim. I mean, he’s black so he must be a violent drug crazed criminal now, right? Shame on you for reporting this idiot’s opinion Fox News, and shame on you, “creepy Fox Newsbot Greta Van Susteren”, for being who a tool of the polarized political playground we call governance.
