Are you into music and also business-oriented?
Do you have a lot of musician friends, and find that you are spending some of your free time assisting them to promote their music?
Are you interested in helping musicians make more money from their talent?
If so, Volume 11 is looking for people who are [...]

[Read more →]

What a great event last week! Just wanted to thank SF Music Tech for putting together another productive event. As always, it was a pleasure meeting so many new folks in the industry.

And to the panelists on Getting to Popular, and especially Francis Ten of West Indian Girl, I think we did a great job of *starting* to get the discussion going. Looking forward to more….

For those that missed it, check out java.net’s notes, or listen to the video.

As for the Volume 11 website, as you may have seen, we have updated the layout to better express what Volume 11 has become – a music business news site for independent musicians (and their business partners). Dan calls this Volume 11 1.0.

In the future we will be adding some diversity to the writing, through new and guest writers. Should be educational!

Until then, have a great rest of 2009… and remember to thank all those that have helped you get to where you are!

[Read more →]

London’s The Independent published an interesting interview with Tony Wadsworth, former EMI chief when Radiohead left EMI.  His view of the industry is worth a read.
An excerpt:
“The industry is moving from a transaction based business to a usage and licensing business,” says Wadsworth. He cites the interactive computer games Guitar Hero and Rock Band as [...]

[Read more →]

MTV recently accounced that they will enable any artist-unsigned emerging act, indie cult fave or major-label superstar-to submit songs for possible inclusion in the Rock Band game.

The plan isn’t as simple as uploading a song to iTunes or anything like that. Rather, artists and labels will submit songs to a community of trained freelance game developers and other interested programmers who will prepare the tracks for Rock Band. Additionally, labels can either hire trained developers or school their existing employees to do the work in-house.

Songs submitted through this process must then be reviewed by other developers to check for playability, inappropriate lyrics, copyright infringement and so on. Then approved tracks will be posted to an in-game download store separate from its existing “Rock Band” store where creators can set their own price (50 cents to $3 per song) and receive 30% of any resulting sales. Gamers will also be able to demo 30-second samples of each track.

If this process works and allows for any musician to have a fair chance of getting their music uploaded for games, it could obviously be a great way to attract new fans, as well as allow fans to add some individuality to their game playing experience.

[Read more →]

I was reading Spin Magazine’s April article on U2 (What Makes U2 Run?) and came across this quote from U2′S bassist Adam Clayton:

“Think about the big bands, the big orchestras that used to tour,” he says. “Then the stock market crash came and they slimmed down to quartets, because that was cheaper.”

His comment was in response to a discussion about music’s relationship to outside economic forces as a constantly mutating cycle.

So if at some point big bands had to reduce their numbers from 20+ to 4 to become financially sustainable, then are we now seeing a time when 4-6 member bands will need to be reduced to solo musicians to make touring financially viable?

After all, pay split between one is certainly much better than when split between five. So, is one > five?

[Read more →]

Some interesting tidbits from a recent LA Times Interview with Napster founder Shawn Fanning:
Since Napster came out in 1999, the music industry has undergone a seismic shift. How do you think that industry is doing now?
I definitely think it’s in rough shape. The margins for digital music are awful for everyone other than the record [...]

[Read more →]

Bob Baker’s recent post should provide that extra incentive to go out there, appreciate what the Internet has to offer, and work harder at self-promotion.
Some excerpts for the lazy folks:
* … the most effective artists are hands-on with many aspects of their promotion. It’s something they accept and embrace and make the time for.
* It [...]

[Read more →]

We all know self-promotion is neither fun nor easy, but in this day and age you need to do what you can. This post has some good examples to motivate musicians to try even harder at self-promotion during their gigs.

Good luck!

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/04/topspin.html

[Read more →]