the dotmatrix project

One of the many reasons I love visiting NYC is that I know I’ll most likely discover an inspiring indie film that has zero chance of reaching theaters back in Greensboro. Aside from the art house section within Carousel Cinemas, there just aren’t many theaters in the area that cater to such a niche.

Persepolis is a beautifully told and engaging, animated story of a young Iranian girl growing up during the Islamic Revolution and experiencing the changes that Islamic Law brought to her sense of freedom. Music is a huge element of the story, as she finds punk and metal to be the antithesis of acceptable forms of expression and a vehicle for rebellion — a similar post-puberty approach to rebellion by millions of kids back in the states, except this form of rebellion could get you hung… or worse.

The film is a tad bit long, but the story cries for details as it’s far more expansive than a coming of age story. Persepolis paints a vivid picture of life in Iran — how the Shah both entered and exited the scene, presenting a position on the United State’s role in the Iran/Iraq war and expressing day-to-day life in a country where freedom is more cherished by its people than oxygen — a complex situation often painted in broad strokes by Western media and history books.

The animation’s art direction is spot on and highly original. There were a few short war and protest scenes where the imagery seemed to be loosely referencing elements of The Wall, but much more as an ode to than a straight bite.

Persepolis is one of those films that really should be seen.

Along the lines of historical knowledge being dropped through art; if you’re looking for a song to provide factual, historical context to the situation in the middle east, I highly recommend Head (Of State) by The Coup.

 
A few things crossed my mind as I watched this:

1. Raise your own flag and then conform to its freshly minted principles, which will eventually lead to your children’s children desire to Declare Independence!
2. With the right (or wrong) lighting, Bjork’s profile looks very much like Michael Jackson circa 75% on his way to becoming white
3. Isn’t she signed to Atlantic? What exactly is she declaring?
4. Rock!

(via VBS.TV)

(originally uploaded by factoryjoe)

Trent Reznor just posted the results of the internet-only release of Niggy Tardust:

[...] Saul’s previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.

As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul’s new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay.

Of those paying, 3220 chose 192kbps MP3
19,764 chose 320kbps MP3
5338 chose FLAC

Keep in mind not one cent was spent on marketing this record. The only marketing was Saul and myself talking as loudly as we could to anybody that would listen.

If 33,897 people went out and bought Saul’s last record 3 years ago (when more people bought CDs) and over 150K - five times as many - sought out this new record, that’s great - right?

I have to assume the people knowing about this project must either be primarily Saul or NIN fans, as there was very little media coverage outside our direct influence. If that assumption is correct - that most of the people that chose to download Saul’s record came from his or my own fan-base - is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I’m not sure what I was expecting but that percentage - primarily from fans - seems disheartening.

Add to that: we spent too much (correction, I spent too much) making the record utilizing an A-list team and studio, Musicane fees, an old publishing deal, sample clearance fees, paying to give the record away (bandwidth costs), and nobody’s getting rich off this project.

But… Saul’s music is in more peoples’ iPods than ever before and people are interested in him. He’ll be touring throughout the year and we will continue to get the word out however we can.

So - if you’re an artist looking to utilize this method of distribution, make of these figures what you will and hopefully this info is enlightening.

So, in two short months, Saul Williams was able to sell 84% of the total number of albums he’s sold through traditional channels over 42 months or so?

I’d call that a success. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt to work with a talent like Reznor who has a huge, loyal fan base.

I’ll guarantee you that Williams made considerably more per album this time around than he did with his last release through a label. Based on David Byrne’s Wired interview with Thom Yorke after the release of In Rainbows, I’d bet that it’s a pretty decent haul in comparison:

[...] Byrne: Are you making money on the download of In Rainbows?

Yorke: In terms of digital income, we’ve made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that’s nuts. It’s partly due to the fact that EMI wasn’t giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff. [...]

Reznor’s rich enough to not care about personal profit or loss, so that probably affects this as an experiment for other acts to leverage. But regarding Saul Williams’ success, Reznor hit it on the head; more people are now walking around with Saul Williams blasting out of their iPod earbuds than ever before. All things being equal, that should equate with both increased ticket and merchandise sales.

I still can’t help but to wonder where the tipping point lies for this model to become successful for indie artists.

Don’t get that pondering twisted, though. I advise Molly to give away her album at most shows and certain places online in order to get the same result of more people listening to her music.

It’s the most successful form of marketing for a musician — aside from touching someone’s soul during a live show, of course — and all synthetic marketing has a cost. In our case, it’s the straight cost of producing mass quantities of CDs.

But the question remains: Can a free/donate internet download model ever provide a decent amount of a cold hard cash return for an up and coming act? Or is this world just too big and decentralized for small acts to be able to cash in without traditional channels?

We’re only six months into our grass roots pimping of Molly’s debut solo album, Girl with Slingshot, and I have to say that we’ve received nothing but wonderful feedback and support from music lovers, both online and off. One tidbit of coolness that I’d like to share is Molly’s album being named the #30 Best Album of the Year at Amie Street.

That happened in only five months since it was made available on Amie Street, so a big thanks goes out to those of you that not only bought her album, but recommended it to others.

You guys are the ones that make indie music possible.

Molly will be performing some cool, jazzy, collaborative sets locally in the new year, so to her Greensboro peeps: Tuesday nights at 9pm in the upstairs bar at M’Coul’s Pub. It’s on.

Thanks again and have a great 2008.

(originally uploaded by michele pedrolli)

We’re not yet living in a completely digital world, but to say that the heyday of brick and mortar music stores is in the rear view mirror would be the understatement of the decade. Distribution has moved squarely online, with digital downloads and music subscriptions consistently marginalized CD sales profits, which has caused music stores / chains of all shapes and sizes to fold left and right.

While shopping online is a huge advancement from the good old days, the amazing thing about today’s internet isn’t its capability to support e-commerce ventures (we’re now a decade deep into that angle). What’s amazing is that for every major music “store” experience you find online these days (iTunes, Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc.), numerous innovative hybrid services have found their own markets to provide supportive elements (online radio, SEO event listings, artist social networks, etc.) that help all musicians — particularly independent and small label artists — become exposed to potential fans and customers around the world.

You know, the types of support services that once made music labels invaluable to an artist.

So, in my never-ending quest to deconstruct the music industry, I’ve decided that I’m going to profile each and every music service found online today, focusing on the user experience from both the customer/fan and artist’s perspective. And instead of waiting to publish a cumulative findings post, I decided that I’m going to use this particular post to:

• Add newly discovered services to the review list
• Iterate the service categories (store, radio, etc.)
• Establish the review criteria for individual categories
• Add links, one at a time, to each full-post service review
• Construct a succinct, at-a-glance comparison list to expose my findings

What I ask of you — whether you’re a long-time reader or you’ve just stumbled upon this post two years from now — is for your help in crafting the approach to this long-term focus. I’m open to all types of feedback for how I should structure this review to make it the most useful it can be. So, whether you know of a service that I’ve overlooked or you simply think that I should re-categorize a particular service or you’d just like to share your own experience using one of the services that I plan on covering, please let it all drop in the comments.

If your suggestion impacts this evolving post in any way, I’ll link back to your blog in the body of the post. And if you don’t blog, well, I’ll be greatly appreciative nonetheless.

Here’s the current list of services that I plan on reviewing:

Amazon MP3
Amazon Music
Amie Street - Review score: 8 out of 10
BroadJam
BuyMusic
CD Baby
CreateSpace
eMusic
Fiesta (mp3fiesta.com)
iLike - Review score: 8 out of 10
iTunes Music Store
IndieMusic
KnowTheMuiscBiz.com
Lala
Last.fm - Review score: 7 out of 10
Live365
Lulu
Magnatune
MOG
MP3tunes
Musicovery
MySpace Music
Napster
Pandora
Payplay.fm
Radio Indie
Rhapsody
SeeqPod
Social.FM
Songza - Review score: 3 out of 10
thesixtyone.com
ThePirateBay
Virb
Virgin Digital
Walmart
Yahoo! Music

Eric Fink on the RIAA

I hate the RIAA so much that I won’t even use their standard EQ curve when making my home recordings! [...]

I feel you, Eric. I was so pissed about the occupation of Iraq a few years back that I dropped red and blue from my wardrobe color choices to match my mental model of modern day America. Sure, it didn’t do much to change the overall situation — I did my best along those lines — but it did make me feel like I had gained some degree of control.

Following in the “label darlings gone independent” heals of Radiohead, Trent Reznor is releasing his latest project — the production of Saul Williams’ album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, straight to the internet tonight, sans the middlemen label people clogging up the mix and taking their cut.

To that particular end, here’s Saul Williams message to the people:

My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder.

The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways.

The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer…

NiggyTardust!

love,
Saul

No doubt a creative and eloquent way to pitch the download of an album while riding the wave of the anti-label froth that has developed in the mouths of music lovers everywhere. The last line is a bit overstated at this point in time — middlemen will continue to find their nut to squirrel away — but the optimism is fresh and well taken.

Here’s the jist of the release approach:

• Download the album for free and receive it in 192Kbps MP3 format
• Download the album for a $5 donation and receive it in one of multiple formats — 192Kbps MP3, 320Kbps MP3, FLAC lossless audio
• All versions include a PDF with artwork and lyrics
• All files are 100% DRM free, and can be played on any device. MP3s are encoded with LAME v3.97

I heard Saul Williams first drop his style in a track called Ohm on Lyricist Lounge, Vol. 1 in 1998 and his Buddhist / kung-fu inspired cut stuck with me for years. I rediscovered him in my iTunes catalog this past week, so I was already planning on supporting this release before Reznor “leaked” three tracks from the NiggyTardust album.

Check them out for yourself:

Ohm (Lyricist Lounge Vol 1)

Tr(n)igger (NiggyTardust)

Break (NiggyTardust)

Banged And Blown Through (NiggyTardust)

While I’m psyched to see artists use the guts of the internet to promote and distribute their craft, this model isn’t necessarily the savior for indie artists everywhere. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt for any artist to develop a site like the NiggyTardust site — chock full of free and donation driven download options, embedded widgets for viral promotion, etc. — but Trent Reznor is already Trent Reznor.

Would this work for him (and Saul Williams) if Reznor hadn’t gone the label route first?

As I see it, the future of independent music isn’t relying on massive shifts in the online distribution model. If Amazon.com and iTunes were as lax as Amie Street regarding entry into their catalog, distribution success would then be simply a question of the right price point — and that’ll work itself out through competition over time as the average kid’s perception of a music track moves farther and farther away from something one pays money to own.

The RIAA is doing their best to fight that losing battle.

So the question that’s popping off in my noggin’ is: What exactly is the draw for an artist or band to sign their lives away with a traditional label?

• Their hold on distribution has slipped away
• Online promotion is open to all with a clue
• Radio is no longer a huge draw to potential fans
• Music videos are probably watched more on YouTube than the reality show driven MTV

What’s the “sell your soul” pitch from a big label in 2007? Seriously, what angles of distribution and promotion do they still have a death grasp on? Big media connections?

How are successful smaller labels working with artists and differentiating themselves from the machine?

What are successful independent bands doing (aside from making great music) that can be replicated by other independents?

Will services like Facebook Music be the answer? Or can a walled garden truly provide that degree of change?

Anyone?