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For 15 minutes each day our virtual team — three people in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, one in London, one in Knoxville and myself in Greensboro — gets together to report what we’ve finished, what we’re working on and list the obstacles in our way to getting things done.
Reggie “Planet Progress” Valentine, our kick-ass PM takes it from there.
The conference call is over Skype, with video and desk sharing over Adobe Acrobat Connect.
And yes, video meetings bring out the craziness in folks.
(originally uploaded by maria flash)
Blogs will be Record Labels, and Bloggers will be the new Music Moguls - BlogJs anyone?
Within 2 years, the leading music blogs will become what used to be called ‘Record Labels’. The people running them will be those sharp, tuned-in, hyper-networked and resourceful BlogJs formerly known as bloggers. They will use their blogs as the primary attention channel (yes - attention really is the new distribution) and will dish up a complete, interactive and highly relevant multi-media experience that will include TV shows, chats, webcasts and games. Forget about ‘websites’ and browsers - the BlogJs will do it on all platforms and devices.
The future brings 1000s of micro-music-channels that will literally broadcast - or rather, ‘narrow-cast’ their longtailing creations — be it text, audio, images or videos — to their hungry subscribers using MediaRSS feeds and customized my-stuff-pages such as [fiction alert] imoogli, beatwibes amd muflakes that will ‘live’ on any connected device, e.g. your mobile, your TV, your computer, your interactive bathroom screen, your wrist watch, your wimax-ing car radio, or your new P2P global gaming network. Widgets will continue to become instant, ubiquitous mini-site modules that will allow anyone to re-distribute any kind of content, to any device and any platform, anywhere. Most marketing will be done through and with the users - and some of them will get paid for it, too.
[…]
n less than 2 years from now, ubiquitous and fully legal yet ‘feels like free’ music offerings will bring us music bloggers that will become bigger than the biggest radio DJs we’ve ever had. And just like a lot of successful radio personalities before them they will move on to become A&R people and label owners, too. The difference is, of course, that they will have powerful, direct, zero - friction distribution channels at their disposal, and a loyal global audience, built-in and ready to go. All they have to do is keep on earning and retaining the attention of their users.
[…]
It’s a bit choppy and reaching, but Gerd Leonhard’s full article is a must read.
Along the lines of the article, a major part of what I’m trying to do in this spot is build an attention economy around the dotmatrix project; not just to spread the word of what we’re doing, but to help evolve what we’re doing.
I’ve been jumping between pimping local music, exposing instances of music impacting culture and delving into thinking about the business of music — from where we were to how the industry is folding to where we might go. As guest bloggers begin to post here with similar but varied opinions, drivers, experiences, the dotmatrix project’s direction will undoubtedly be influenced.
[insight] The genesis of the dotmatrix brand name is this crazy idea that while we’re all individuals, when we come together over a similar interest and build community, a position becomes apparent. And with a position, comes opportunities to interact… to build… to exchange… to create. [/insight]
Another angle of our approach is participating in the live music scene with a recurring event in downtown Greensboro — we’re putting on our first show this Friday night at The Green Burro. Where that leads or how it folds into this site is still up in the air, which is exciting.
If anything, that notion is the future of music — having fun enjoying a personalized experience with artists that you directly support. From a “label” perspective, the money will come based on how open you are and how committed you are to the careers of artists you assist.
Or not. Fuck it. Either way, we revel in music.
(via KOAR)
Obviously, we’re not going to go to the, uh, you know, superstars and say, “We want a percentage of your…” They’d be like (makes a dumbfounded face)
It must suck to watch your industry fall apart at the seems. Hell, I experienced it in 2001 working in Silicon Alley. Too bad for the music biz that their problem isn’t as simple as the net bubble burst with overzealous investors saturating an immature market.
That’s a correction at worst, not a complete redefinition of industry.
Is the 360 deal the silver bullet? I doubt it. It reads as a way to stop the bleeding, not the necessary organ transplant of the business model. One Golden Goose (record sales) dies, so Flom and company pilfer the remaining geese — that’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, not changing the foundational approach of what it means to be a music label in 2008.
They’re not getting to the heart of the matter.
The music industry’s problem is that too many people can make, find, enjoy, experience and share music without ever needing to step foot in their marketplace. They can sign bands to 360 deals until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve moved away from a world of massive record sales and sold-out stadium shows to a world where free music online leads to well attended, yet cozy venues and small festivals.
We are living a more personalized, fun and affordable music experience.
Of course there will always be superstars, and they’ll demand a higher price point across the board, but marketing teams won’t be the genesis of their popularity moving forward. The web enables decentralized power through the aggregate of individuals — whether the individuals are musicians or fans — so our “chock full of choice” world is now aligning along the edges, not within the artificial heart of where the music industry dictates.
The 360 deal is a short-term play for industry executives to keep making coin, not a long-term solution to evolve their business.
Labels, in the business to serve musicians, need to do more with less because the ratio of revenue delivering superstars to nominally successful acts is becoming a smaller integer as each day passes. Indie labels without aspirations of world dominance can swing that transition because they’ve been working smart, sleek and forward-thinking all along.
How does a major label — with all of its bloated, corporate structure — compete in this dynamic environment?
They don’t.
(via KOAR)
(originally uploaded by stublog)
Bob Lefsetz
Apple Buys Universal
April 1, 2008
[…] With the Net ablaze with talk of Jim Griffin’s P2P licensing scheme, Steve Jobs has worked in secret to pull off the staggering, mind-bending, game-changing acquisition of Universal Music.
[…]
And starting April 15th, all Universal tracks at the iTunes Store will be fifteen cents. Steve wanted the price to be lower, rumor has it as low as nine cents, but he couldn’t convince Marty Bandier and the rest of the publishers to lower their share, so fifteen cents it is. […]
I’m holding on as if this is a huge prank. Not that I disagree with a similar move, though:
Me
Jermaine Dupri’s Shuck ‘N Jive
November 21, 2007
[…] If Universal and Warner both pulled out of iTunes tomorrow, Jobs could shift his focus to the relatively untapped, global long tail market of unsigned and small label acts in the wild. If he made it easier for such acts to upload music to his arena, he could pocket the cut (53%) that once went to labels like Universal and Warner, turn off DRM (the only reason he’s using it is because the big labels insist upon using it) and start a price war that even four gas stations at an intersection haven’t seen before.
You think labels are struggling now? That kind of a move would truly revolutionize the industry. And Jobs wouldn’t have too much to lose as it’s the iPod — not iTunes music sales — that is Apple’s revenue darling.
Who needs whom?
[…]
I’d bet my bank that an indie artist would jump at the opportunity to have their album/tracks available in as prime of a spot as iTunes with a $.29 price point per song. If I have $10 to spend on music, I have $10 to spend on music. Set a market-friendly price and watch sales jump through the roof while illegal downloads decrease, overnight. […]
If this were true, it’d be game on.
UPDATE: Alas…
UPDATE II: The best April Fool’s Day post in 2008 has to go to Davey D (Myspace blog):
[…] “New York City being the center of the cultural universe is a myth. It’s one big urban legend that in many ways is harmful”, Rochester stated. “One of the biggest falsehoods is that New York City is the birthplace of the music phenomenon called Hip Hop. For almost three decades we have been led to believe that a bunch kids from public housing projects went out and created one of the most vibrant and certainly one of the most popular art forms in the 21st century. It sounds good on TV. It reads well in newspaper. It tugs at our heart strings”, Rochester grimaced, “But the truth of the matter is this cultural expression is rooted in Texas sharecropping and cowboy culture.” […]
Oh man, his flock of sycophant Hip Hop heads ate that shit up! Bravo, D.
Michael Arrington at TechCrunch breaks news of a $5 “tax” that Warner Music is cooking up to impose on ISP’s — per individual customer — to guarantee protection from future liability caused by their customers downloading music, regardless of the fact that only a minuscule fraction illegally download music, let alone download music through proper channels at all.
Admittedly, this degree of hubris reaches a new level for the Industry, but dying business models will be dying business models.
The important question to focus on is: What’s going to replace these dinosaurs?
Cause there’s no way this scheme will ever fly.
In the comment thread, Dennis Ramirez makes a few good points:
[…] no, a band does not need a manager nor a label to play a local coffeeshop nor VFW hall. sometimes, they may even be able to organize a small tour for themselves.
if they are content with that, fine. more power to them.
but the majority of artists themselves are not, and there are only 24 hours in a day, so it is much more efficient if a band can hire someone to route touring, get them P.R., reviews, solicit labels or investors, etc., so the band can find time to write songs and record them.
a couple can do it, like Ani DiFranco, but they are overwhelmingly teh excpetion, not the rule.
and the manager needs to be paid (i dont know where you get the 25 manager thing from, bands only have 1), as does the booking agent, the recording engineer, the producer, the artist who designed the cover artwork, the web designer, their rent, their bills, etc. etc.
and that’s if they distribute everything themselves.
a music label can help a great deal with that, just like a VC helps a great deal in getting a startup off the ground. it’s not hard to understand that.
Ramirez names at least eight disparate communities that must be involved in an artists world to assist them in their quest for exposure and compensation. Right now, that’s what the label offers. So what could take its place?
Sounds like the perfect storm necessary for creating an industry-specific social network.
Sketching…
(originally uploaded by Ben Brown)
Can an unsigned band get noticed? And, do we even bother to use that term anymore, “unsigned”. Do you want to get signed?
I mean what are the chances that the cognoscenti are going to care about your band when R.E.M. and even Van Morrison are shilling for attention. Oh, it makes you feel good, to rent a U-Haul, sleep four to a room and perform a set no one cares about. The same way it makes you feel good to send a CD to me! It’s amazing what people will do to make themselves feel good, make them believe they’re making progress.
[…]
Don’t worry about the short term money. If your music is good, if you play well live, the money will come. But sending me a CD or schlepping your equipment to SXSW isn’t going to make your music any better. If it’s good, put it on the Web, energize your fans, they’ll spread the word. But you probably suck and are looking for the easy way out. And crying that you just can’t make any money. Boofuckinghoo.
As much as I dig Lefsetz’s perspective on the realities of the music business, this no skin-having, binary, pessimistic position he pins on musicians trying to make a living while gaining exposure is BULLSHIT.
If You Love Music, Then Love The Music
Yes, Bob, you’re right about the labels. We get it. We know it through and through — signing on the dotted line doesn’t mean shit anymore. But only a fucking lawyer, one who NEVER MADE A DIME creating or building something born in their soul, would shit on such people who send him a CD for a listen.
You can’t have it both ways, Bob. If you’re so fucking into the music, if life is all about the music…
You know, the music, man
The thing that reaches into your heart
Past the Boss suit and fake tan
And sets your soul on restart
…then you must take CDs being sent to you as a SIGN that people want to connect with you because they think your taste in music MEANS SOMETHING. Quite possibly, they’re so caught up in the possibilities of this decentralized world that you so often rant about that they view YOU as a beacon of light, an avenue for advice or even exposure on some level.
Don’t sing the merits of music being at the soul of everything, reveal in detail the type of music that speaks to you and then SHIT on artists who expose their sound to you.
The people who feel like they’re MAKING PROGRESS when they post their music to the internet in an attempt to build community are probably the same type of people who would send music to an industry visionary they feel a connection with.
This attitude you’re conveying is as guarded and old school as any crap dropped by the head of a major label. That’s not too surprising since your blog is as closed of an experience as MTV proper, but I gotta say, man, the last few lines of your post are fucking reprehensible.
Should A Band Not Try To Make A Living?
There are probably acts that fit such a description to a tee — I’m referring to Lefsetz’s reference of weak acts looking to cut corners and then bitch about not making money — but such a gross generalization of PEOPLE shines a light on him that isn’t even becoming of a fucking DEFENSE LAWYER.
“Don’t worry about short-term money” has no relevance WHATSOEVER to an artist’s conception of “short-term money.” Lefsetz is talking to musicians about compensation with a label’s definition of ROI in his mouth.
$35k a year to pay the rent, eat decently and fill up the gas tank is “short-term money” to a vast majority of musicians. What do you call that, Bob?
If musicians need to build community in this world driven by the internet — that is your position, right? — then why SHIT on people who travel across the country to a music festival to expose their craft to a new audience WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE SAME INTERNET?
Great, unknown acts all over the world play their hearts out live, upload music to Last.fm, Amie Street, iLike and/or MySpace and still struggle to pay their rent. New connections and avenues of exposure in the meat space matter JUST AS MUCH in this brave new world of interconnectedness, ESPECIALLY for bands with a great sound.
SXSW isn’t about the back room dealings of major label A&R folks anymore. Do you realize how many bloggers converge on SXSW each year? How is getting a gig at SXSW these days not in line with your approach to building community online around the music?
Bands have always juggled their local and regional touring strategies with long-distance gig opportunities. In these days that decision is even more relevant to building a diverse following online. They’re working whatever channels they can find, particularly ones that expose them to people who publish intra-day, like yourself, and that’s a problem for you to watch or participate in?
WTF?
UPDATE: Bob’s blog minion moderates trackbacks, so this post isn’t appearing on his SXSW post. None of my past posts referring Bob’s letters had a problem getting through the moderation queue. I guess they only make it through when people agree with him.
So much for understanding online communities.
As I popped around town yesterday, looking to knock a few errands off my seemingly never-ending list of shit to get done, I caught a NPR segment about a relatively new book publisher making waves in his industry.
The grand idea behind Jonathan Karp’s TWELVE is actually quite elegant:
TWELVE was established in August 2005 with the objective of publishing no more than one book per month. We strive to publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority. Works that explain our culture; that illuminate, inspire, provoke, and entertain. We seek to establish communities of conversation surrounding our books. Talented authors deserve attention not only from publishers, but from readers as well. To sell the book is only the beginning of our mission. To build avid audiences of readers who are enriched by these works – that is our ultimate purpose.
Karp spent 16 years at Random House Publishing Group prior to founding TWELVE, beginning in 1989 as an editorial assistant, working his way up to Editor-in-Chief. I’m guessing that during his run, he probably noticed something peculiar about the structure of a major publishing firm that interfered with the creative process.
From a 2005 BusinessWeek interview, Cutting Through The Noise:
[…] I’m going to personally edit every book. I’ve learned that you have the most fun and you can have the most impact when you work directly with the authors. I think I’ll have better publishing ideas because I’m also editing the book. I’ll be close enough to the content and spirit of the book that I’ll be able to communicate what’s special about it to audiences […]
Sound familiar?
Well, it sounds familiar to me.
Over the last few years — after making a huge life change leaving NYC to setup camp in Greensboro — I’ve slowly altered the definition of dotmatrix from strictly being an online design and strategy consultancy to include what I now like to refer to as a “next-gen music label.” Forget the consultancy aspect of the equation for this particular conversation (to my current and potential clients: I’m still in the game); I’ve been stressing about what I should call my work with promoting shows, local musicians and, in particular, Molly’s career.
And the term label just doesn’t sit right with me.
Why?
My mental model of what a “label” represents has been corrupted over the years to be squarely centered around the business of making money, much more so than the business of enabling the growth of musicians. That said, I’m not about trying to create some kind of old school, micro-managed, opaque, middle-management, tired ass A&R tiered nightmare organization to pull down a buck while skimming over artist development and promotion. Hell, I don’t want to “sign” artists to anything even closely resembling the notion of a contract; I want to empower them to make it happen for themselves.
Bob Lefsetz weighs in on the future of the label:
Will there be labels in the future? Sure. But they won’t look like and won’t have the same names as the big four companies today. Because the new labels will be about building acts and maximizing revenue in all areas of exploitation. They’ll be about transparency. They’ll be run by geeks as opposed to mini-mafiosi. There will be a level of trust between performer and businessman. All things today’s majors abhor, which will contribute to their marginalization.
Lefsetz is on the right path here — transparency, non-mafioso business types, trust — but there’s still a degree of traditional thought buried in his perceptive noggin’; the percept that an artist needs a businessman to make shit come together.
See, I’m thinking that what replaces the traditional label will most likely be more of a service — something that brings together and overlaps all communities of the current industry in a way that enables artists, producers, engineers, venues, merchandisers, lawyers and fans to self-connect, collaborate and/or support one another — rather than a business model where non-musicians represent the artist simply to play matchmaker, get muddled up in the creative process or push avenues of exposure on artists that might be more about their own agenda.
Jonathan Karp experienced the craziness within his industry and created TWELVE as an answer for dealing with the insanity. As a relative outsider to the “music industry,” I don’t have the muscle memory of 15 years within the business, but my goal isn’t to replicate this diseased model locally or to arrogantly focus on a new angle based purely on assumptions derived from creating information architectures for the live web over the past 10 years.
Over the next year I’ll be digging in locally to promote shows, expose artists, book acts, learn how to both mix sound for a show and a live recording, read up on copyright & revenue sharing and push the edge as far as possible in freeing up music and media in order to build community.
In other words, I’ll be asking questions, listening, supporting, learning, getting my hands dirty, modeling, designing… then building.
If you live in the Triad and you don’t want your local bar, restaurant or club venue to morph into a Donutland and shut down overnight, do yourself a favor and read this announcement I received from the venerable Kathy Clark:
Some of you may have heard that the City of Winston-Salem is trying to pass a “Night Club Ordinance” that would severely impact a lot of venues financially, ultimately forcing them to close down. The story is long and involved, but basically in response to the shooting of a police officer at a night club, the City proposes to make all night club owners hire off duty police officers as security guards at a rate of $25 an hour. The number of officers would be based on the capacity of the club. For a club the size of The Garage, four officers would need to be hired.
There is more to the ordinance than just this. City officials would ultimately have the final say on who can perform in Winston and where they are allowed to perform. All this is designed to reduce violence in Winston-Salem.
The ordinance does not address such issues as the fact that Winston-Salem has a higher percentage of rape than the national average. Shootings occur in apartment complexes, at shopping centers, not just night clubs. And domestic violence is a much larger problem than night club violence.
Very soon, we could have a totally different nightlife - one devoid of new and interesting music.
Your support matters. Please help. And please forward this to anyone that may care: a music lover looking for great live music, a musician looking for venues in which to play, people interested in downtown revitalization. This will impact us all.
I’ve been to The Garage. It’s not very big. I can’t imagine how they’d be able to pay acts to perform with $100 flying out the window each hour. Do the cops also perform doorman duties at that rate? How about bar back?
It’s a ridiculous broad stroke proposal to thwart the potential repeat of a terrible, yet isolated incident.
You don’t even need to live in Winston-Salem to help. Here’s what you can do:
Thanks.
