Godsend Timesaving Sites for Musicians

I've talked to many musicians and managers of musicians about which social media sites they should be on: Twitter? Facebook? Myspace? YouTube? etc.

The answer of course is all of them. Each of these sites have millions of users and, when you are promoting yourself, anytime you can reach millions of people for free you really should do your best to do it.

Now there is a tool that makes it all much, much easier. Artistdata is a new site (still in beta mode) that lets you update all of your sites at once - so you send a update to artistdata and it updates Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, LastFM and a dozen or so other sites for you. So instead of going to all of these sites to update your info you do one simple update on artistdata and artistdata updates everything for you. (Thanks to Artists House Music for the heads up on this!)

Also, in case you don't already know about it there is another site you should check out that does the same for video. Tubemogul takes your video and puts it on YouTube, Myspace, Yahoo Video, Vimeo, Blip.tv, and about 20 other video sites.

So, now you can be everywhere while investing the same time it would take you to only be on Myspace!

cross posted to NxEW

There Are No Shortcuts Kids

I remember when Rock Star INXS was on people were all giddy because the winner, J.D. Fortune, was from Mississauga. There was a story this past weekend in the Toronto Star and it turns out that the tour is over, Fortune is out of the band and was (at the time of the story) unemployed and homeless. Now no one wishes that on anyone but it goes to show that there are no shortcuts. No one, not a record label, not a tv show, is going to swoop in and hand you fame and fortune.

The reality of the situation, unfortunately, is that reality-TV shows aren't a guarantor of a performer's success once the vested viewer interest of voting a favourite singer on or off the series dies away.

Canadian Idol hasn't exactly proven a hit factory, either, offering little but fast fadeouts for the likes of Ryan Malcolm and Melissa O'Neil. Most people can't even recall last season's winner, Theo Tams.

The real proof of whether J.D. Fortune can hang on to his rock-star status or will revert back to being the anonymous Jason Dean Bennison will come when his solo album, rather cleverly titled The Death of a Motivational Speaker, is finally released. Somewhere.

"The only thing that can actually save someone from that disaster is actually having talent," says Rossi. "If you don't have talent, you get 12 months on tour and some airtime. But that doesn't mean sh--."

So forget Canadian Idol, American Idol, or Rock Star Whatever. Practice, play when you can and build your audience 'one fan at a time'. If you're good and what you do resonates you'll be ok, but there are no shortcuts.

Now on Selling Out or Not

Back on January 7 I wrote a post specifically about Feist but more generally about the outdated notion of "selling out". Selling out is still definitely possible, but it's about the integrity of your work - not about who signs the cheques. In an age when fewer and fewer people are buying music recording artists need to find other ways of paying the bills and advertisements generally do more for the artist than the do for the advertiser. The artist gets a big, fat paycheque and greater exposure for their music. This is important since neither MTV nor Much Music are really about music anymore.

I'm happy to report that others are beginning to see the light as well. There is an excellent little piece by Benjamin Boles in Now today that you should give a read.

"The mantra of the pro-filesharing scene has long been that musicians who are pissed off about not being able to sell albums should just refocus their attention on making their living off of tours. What they forget is that tours can be very expensive for larger bands especially, which is one of the reasons why we’ve seen this explosion of duos and one-man-bands in recent years.  Taking a 10 person band on tour is prohibitively expensive for all but the biggest acts, but you can stick a duo in a tiny sub-compact and hit the road with very little overhead. "

Who you are doing ads for is also somewhat important - is it a product you use? is it a product you would let your kids use? Beyond that it's just a paycheque. Take the money and run.

New Feeds Added

Band Blogs

$100

Violent Kin

Music Blogs

Sixeyes: by Alan Williamson

Music Business

Audio Blood

News

Another Point of View

Grumpy Voter

New Feeds

I have a long list of stuff to look at, but for now these are the newest feeds added. More will be coming soon and, as always, suggestions are welcome.

Music Business

Down By the Point Records

Endearing Records

Grumpy Cloud Records

Out of Touch Records

Band Blogs

Cam Malcolm and the Owls

News

April Reign

BigCityLib Strikes Back

GrannyRantsOn

Progressive Economics Forum

Thwap's Schoolyard

Music Business Aggregator

I've added a new page to pulicbroadcasting.ca - the Music Business page is brand new and I'm just getting started in adding everyone to it but it will have aggregated blogs from Canadian music labels, festivals, live venues and more. So far the list contains

Blocks Recording Club

Burnt Oak Records

Coalition Entertainment

Fuzzy Logic Recordings

Horseshoe Tavern

In the Dead of Winter Festival

Kelp Records

Mint Records

Paper Bag Records

Phog Lounge

Saved By Vinyl

(weewerk) recordings

On Edit: Still lots more to come, but I've added

All Caps!

Arts and Crafts Records

Canadian Music Week

Collagen Rock Records

Maple Music Recordings

No Shame

North by North East (NXNE)

Polaris Music Prize

Sappy Records

Six Shooter Records

Two Way Monologues

Tranzac

Wavelength

West Coast Music Awards

How Much Do You Have to Give Back Before It's Not Selling Out?

Canadians tend to have a bit of the tall poppy syndrome to begin with and it's much worse for musicians. The whole 'indie' thing says, essentially, that anyone who is even modestly successful is a sellout and therefore should no longer be taken seriously. Never mind the fact that no one could ever properly define indie (there is a whole movie devoted to the question and it doesn't provide answers.) Also never mind that pretty much every musician in the world is 'independent' now except for Madonna and Bono. The accusations keep coming.

After years of paying her dues in music and waiting tables to pay the rent things finally turned. In the last few years she won nearly every award available except NHL Rookie of the Year (she came in second in that one) appeared on Sesame Street and yes even did some commercials. Predictably the daggers-came-out.

It's a rough world, to retain your 'indie credibility' you're not allowed to let your music be used for ads, but when you release an album that is also supposed to be free. In my humble opinion there is no such thing as 'selling out' anymore. If you manage to make a living in music good for you, it's not easy.

Anyway all of this has been a long, long lead up to pointing out that while Feist could easily have just laughed at it all, cashed the cheques and ignored the 'indie kids.' Instead she cashed the cheques and gave all of the money from merchandise sales on tour or on her website back to the community:

"We've tallied the numbers, connected the dots, and are delighted to report that over $200,000 has been donated to various excellent organizations.

These organizations include MSF Canada, CARE Canada, War Child Canada and The Salvation Army (for Dr. Paul Thistle, Howard Hospital, Zimbabwe). All of these
agencies will continue to do immeasurably positive things, like: build
schools, dig wells, educate communities and—in general—do piles of good
well beyond the reach of rock and roll. We also undertook an incredible
food drive! Near $20,000 was donated to food banks across Canada, not
including the incredible 17,000 pounds of food that was delivered to
tables across Canada during the November tour. 


As much as we're tallying last year's efforts, this is only the
beginning. It's January, again. Please continue to think of the food
bank through these next cold months and beyond, and if you make a
donation, let us know below. Let the giving continueth and floweth and
giveth back. If you'd like to volunteer at a food bank near you, click here. Let's all enjoy 2009 on a full stomach."

If you ask me, Canada could use a few more 'sellouts' like that. Personally I'll looking forward to the next album.

Juicebox.com: PWYC Record Label Launches

On Saturday, December 20 Toronto's newest record label and the first (as far as I know) Pay What You Can (PWYC) record label ever launched at juicebox.com. It's first release JuiceBoxDotComp includes tracks from Gravity Wave, Saint Alvia, the Wooden Sky, Spooky Ruben, PDF Format and more than a dozen others. It is available for download for an (optional) donation (hence PWYC).

Visit Juicebox.com for details. You can also find them on Facebook, MySpace, and a nice writeup on chartattack.com.

Ding Dong The Witch is Dead

Which old witch? How about RIAA lawsuits over Peer to Peer file sharing. From the Wall Street Journal via Michael Geist comes word that the RIAA, which has sued more than 35,000 people since 2003 has decided to abandon it's strategy of suing their best customers. This doesn't mean that they are gone, or that they have decided to be nice:

"Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether."

But a new ISP is less expensive than legal fees! It is also unlikely that most of the RIAA's major clients will survive the current economic crisis.

Piracy is Good For You

Another new study out today, which looked at audience reaction to Radiohead's most recent album, confirms what every independent study on the subject has shown: Illegal downloads are actually good for artists and that, even if that were not the case, there is nothing that can be done about them.

“Rights-holders should be aware that these non-traditional venues are stubbornly entrenched, incredibly popular and will never go away,” said Eric Garland, co-author of the study, which concluded there was strong brand loyalty to controversial “torrent” and peer-to-peer services.

The study was done by MCPS-PRS Alliance which represents music rights holders and Big Champagne, an online media measurement company. The study found that despite the bands offering up the album on it's website for free or very little there were still 2.3 million illegal downloads in the first 25 days of it's release.

"Record companies should ask themselves: “What are the costs and benefits of control versus the costs and benefits of scale?” said Mr Page.

He also challenged the assumption that no other band could achieve the same benefits, saying Radiohead’s experiment had reduced the marginal cost and risk for those following their lead.

He described the launch of In Rainbows as “stunt marketing at its best”."

While it's true that most independent artists could not achieve the same numbers as Radiohead it is also true that the more people that hear your music the more people will buy it (as well as attending your live shows and buying your merch.) It is also true that the more available the music is the more people will hear it.

More information on the study can be found here.

2 New Canadian Labels

Canadian Music is stronger than it has ever been. I don't even add 'arguably' to that statement anymore. Yet every time there is a big 'industry' event like NXNE or a new piece of legislation like the new Copyright Bill recording industry brass rush to their nearest podium to lament the impending death of the 'music industry'. At the same time all over Canada new labels are cropping up. According to CBC Radio 3 both Joel Plaskett and Two Hours Traffic have recently launched new record labels.

Halifax rocker Joel Plaskett announced today the launch of his very own New Scotland Records. The first release will be the debut solo album by his good friend Dave Marsh, drummer for the Joel Plaskett Emergency and Super Friendz. The True Love Rules will be released on July 29. Other releases on New Scotland will likely be on both CD and 7" vinyl, and will include other Plaskett pals like Peter Elkas and Al Tuck.

Across the Northumberland Strait on Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown band Two Hours Traffic have also launched their own label called Collagen Rock Records. The label roster so far features bands only from Maritime islands: PEI's Two Hours Traffic, the Danks and Smothered in Hugs, and from Cape Breton, Mardeen.

This comes hot on the heels of Sloan relaunching Murder Records. You would think that if the industry was dying, that people wouldn't be rushing in to join it. Do you ever think that maybe, just maybe artists and fans know something that the MBAs of the world haven't figured out yet?

CBC, Copyright and Candy Bars

CBC Radio 3 did a show on the Conservative Copyright Bill today. You can read the comments here at that link you can also listen to an interview with Jeremy de Beer (University of Ottawa Law Professor). You'll be happy to know that 94% of respondents to Radio 3 oppose the bill, though the vast majority also said they bought alot of music and believed in supporting artists.

One of my personal comments to the blog was mentioned on the air, but misunderstood. I pointed out that according to the Toronto Star:

"In 2007 more than 750,000 albums were released worldwide (by mostly independent artists via the Internet), compared to 38,000 in 2002."

That means that almost 20x the number of (different) CDs were produced in 2007 as in 2002 and I made the following analogy.

"Now let's say you have the only store in town that sells candy bars and, even though you have some problems with shoplifters, you sell 100% of the candy bars sold in town.

5 Years later there are 20 stores selling candy bars (roughly the same as 38,000 compeared to 75,000) - chances are you are selling substantially less than 100% of the Candy Bars. But since you can't think of a way to force the other 19 stores to stop selling candy bars you go after the shoplifters with a vengaence - trying to recoup all of the money you lost from them (even though they are not really the problem). "

In 2008 comsumers have 20 times the choice that they did in 2002. Even though the major labels are producing fewer CDs every year small labels and independent artists are producing far, far more. So I would hold that it is not downloading that is killing the 'music industry' - by which I mean the huge mega labels. It is simply that their share of the market is declining every year. For example, sales of Canadian music in Canada are exploding - for most of the 2000s Canada has enjoyed what I believe is the most diverse, vibrant and talented music scene on the planet. This is a sharp contrast to a few decades ago when most of the music purchased in Canada came from the U.S. or U.K. In fact many independent Canadian acts are selling well around the world. Does anyone really imagine that the big labels (who have few Canadian acts on their rosters) don't feel that?

File sharing, after all, has been around for decades (at least since the invention of the cassette tape). It was only with the creation of inexpensive recording technology, technology that allowed virtually anyone who wanted to, to record their own music that the big labels started to falter.

But they can't come up with a way to convince the government to stop independent artists and small labels from producing music, so instead they are going after the fans - trying to 'recoup' money that they lost - not to downloading but to an inability to compete in an open market.

Speaking of Radio 3, check out Gravity Wave on this week's Radio 3 "School of Rock" podcast. (Don't worry, it's still safe - you won't get arrested.)

Copyright Backlash Begins

Michael Geist has another great post today on the Conservative's proposed U.S. sponsored Copyright bill:

"The events of the past six months have demonstrated conclusively that Canadians care about balanced copyright even if the Industry Minister does not.  Over the coming months, I firmly believe that we will see the fair copyright movement expand well beyond what has been just built.  We will see Canadian musicians, songwriters, artists, and filmmakers speak out against this legislation.  We will see companies of all sizes and all sectors speak out against this legislation.  We will see the privacy groups, education groups, and consumer rights groups speak out against this legislation.  We will see the NDP speak out against this legislation.  We will see the Liberals - who are already focusing on the lack of consultation and the prospect of a police state - ultimately identify their Bill C-60 as a better approach and speak out against this legislation.  We will see Conservative MPs from coast to coast (including the Conservative candidate from the forthcoming Guelph by-election) wonder why their party has introduced a bill that runs counter to their own policies and (quietly) speak out against this legislation."

Geist also has links to numerous editorials out today against this bill from newspapers across the country as well as the Canadian Library Assocation, Canadian Music Creators Coalition, Documentary Organization of Canada, and many, many others.

Also with a good blog post (last night) CBC Radio 3's Lisa Christiansen on some of the other reasons why the 'Music Industry' is losing money..:

"Now that you're filled up with talk of the best music in Canada, it's time to remind you that the future of the music business is 15 pop band ... and none of them made the Polaris long list."..."This last point is just to prove that good music will eventually prevail, no matter what the strange people running large companies think. But then they march to the beat of dollar signs, and that really doesn't move me at all."

Finally there is one (also from Radio 3) from Grant Lawrence about the industry's collective tantrum last night.

"Like many of these discussions, it quickly devolved into a bitch-fest of "when I was young" pontificating, most bemoaning being held hostage by music fans taking it for free, and wondering how on earth they'll earn their next paycheque. At one point, a very angry panelist (who is a Toronto punk promoter) grabbed the mic and screamed at the rest of the panel "you people make me wanna puke!" then ranted for five minutes about exactly what everyone else was bitching about."

Imagine if you will a football game, with seconds to go your team is down by 5 points. Your quarterback's pass is intercepted but the guy on the other team who intercepted it starts running the wrong way. With his own baffled teammates looking on and unable to catch him, he is nearing your end zone, about to give your team a free touchdown and the win. Then one of your wide receivers comes out of nowhere and tackles him at the one yard line just as the clock hits 00:00.

That wide receiver is symbolic of the way that large media has handled the internet. They took what should have been the best, easiest business model in the history of business and turned it into one of the great shipwrecks in business history.

The approach being proposed by the Conservatives in Canada is almost identical to the approach taken in the U.S. (no surprise there, it was the US that told the Conservatives to do it.) But the approach in the US has failed. In the States, while pursuing policies that have turned their customers and fans into enemies and resulted in countless lawsuits that the US industry has ultimately lost money on - illegal downloads in the US haven't changed. If anything it's more prevalent than it was when these laws were first enacted. This is no doubt one of the consequences of establishing an adversarial relationship with your customers.

While I urge everyone to keep speaking up, and yelling and screaming and shouting about this - given the almost universal nationwide opposition I am confident that this bill can be defeated. However, if it were to pass Canadian media would almost certainly be in worse shape for it - not only for the reasons listed above but because there would be no more reason to have levies on media (CDs, DVDs etc., etc.,) - they were put in place originally to compensate content creators for piracy. If these new copyright laws (complete with their large fines) were to pass those levies would certainly have to be done away with.

Love Music? Join the (Mint) Team!

Into Canadian indie music? Ready to stop just listening and become an active participant? Vancouver's Mint Records home of Immaculate Machine, the Pack A.D., Neko Case, Young and Sexy, Hot Panda, Bella, the Evaporators, the Choir Practice, Kellarissa, the Awkward Stage, Carolyn Mark, the Buttless Chaps, Cub and many, many more..needs your help.

Here are the details, straight from the Mint Press:

Do you love music? Do you love Mint Records? Do you love getting free CDs and getting on guest lists? How about postering, handing out flyers for shows and distributing fancy treasures to the good citizens of your hometown?

Since we do not have a Mint Records magic carpet (yet), we need a little help spreading some Minty joy through Team Mint. Should you choose to join this elite bunch, we'll send you on secret missions that may or may not involve putting up posters, loitering in record shops and taking goodies to your favourite venues, stores, cafes etc. Heck, when they're in the neighbourhood, a band might even need help selling merch.

And, to reward you for your noble efforts, you shall be rewarded with free CDs (often before your friends get 'em), guestlist spots for the occasional show and other fanciful treasures.

Some cities we're looking for helpers in (but not limited to):

- Seattle
- Portland
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
- New York
- Boston
- Austin

And in Canada:

- Victoria
- Calgary
- Edmonton
- Saskatoon
- Regina
- Winnipeg
- Ottawa
- Quebec
- Montreal
- Halifax

Interested in joining this choice club? Just let me know (click here) and I'll pass your info along!

Cub - My Chinchilla

One More for Record Store Day

One more for Record Store Day, because I can't think of a more fitting song, at the moment, for record stores and the artists who fill their shelves (and sometimes stock their shelves too).

Happy Record Store Day




For those of you who don't know, today is Record Store day. CBC Radio 3 did a whole contest to find the "Best Record Store In Canada". The award, surprisingly, went to Meow Records of Prince George, British Columbia.

Record Store Day was started to celebrate the Record Store as a musical community center, as well as bring people in to their local record store (where they may not have been in awhile.) Stores across the US, UK and Canada participated in the event with in store performances, special sales and other events.

From CMJ

Organizers hope to thwart the notion that the record store has gone or is going the way of the buffalo, as well as call attention to the nefarious ways of corporate big box stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy.

"Independent anything gets my vote," says Eric Levin from Criminal Records in Atlanta. "As long as I'm kicking against the corporate pricks I'm deliriously happy. There's been a strange misconception that the record store was an endangered species, which is very far from the truth. It doesn't matter if the New York Times reports the end of music retail, if it isn't true. We just wanted to shine a light on that fact."

Sadly I fear that far more record stores will fall off the map before all is said and done. Although my personal favorite is Soundscapes I still recommend that people buy from Zunior.com as often as possible because, quite simply, it's the best way to get the most money to the artists themselves.

Today I went to Sunrise Records, on Yonge Street in Toronto for Laura Barret's instore performance. I didn't miss the irony of attending a "Record Store Day" event across the street from "Sam the Record Man" whose signs still dominate that part of Yonge Street.

Laura, as always, was brilliant - sadly it was not her crowd. Most of the crowd was made up of teenagers, of the particular variety that is already swallowed whole by the Matrix, who had come to see Ill Scarlet (peforming later in the evening). Still, I think Laura won a few new fans and it is important to rescue those who can still be rescued.

The Cheap Speakers Need a Female Rythm Guitar

Toronto band the Cheap Speakers is looking for someone to play rhythm guitar for the summer (and maybe longer): Natalia Manzocco is departing the band, at least for a bit and they need someone who can fill in on 'Rhythm Guitar, Vocals and Hand Claps': The basic job description reads like this:

"Our ideal candidate for a our new guitar player would be female (for the vocals) and more importantly full of energy and enthusiasm.  There are no Debbie Downers in The Cheap Speakers.  We have two, long, fun-filled, focused rehearsals a week that we hold with near religious regularity (for musicians that is) on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons.  That is in addition to whatever shows we have booked.  So there is definitely a significant investment of time involved.  We play meat and potatoes, unpretentious, garagesque rock and roll."

You can read more about the band, and hear a few of their tunes on their Myspace myspace.com/thecheapspeakers. If you're interested in the job you can contact them through myspace or drop me a note at publicbroadcasting.ca/contact.html and I'll pass it along.

Photo shamelessly ripped off from Beth Hamill / rockpaperpixels.com. Thanks Beth!

Will Currie and the Country French Sign to Murder Records

Just for background purposes Will Currie and the Country French have been on my favourites list for a few years now. They were one of the first bands to be included in the podsafe downloads part of publicbroadcasting.ca. I never understood why it was taking so long for people to take an interest in the band. Will is, in my opinion, the closest thing Canada has to Ben Folds (except for when Ben is here on tour).

So today I'm listening to the CBC Radio 3 podcast and I find out, not only that Sloan has relaunched Murder Records but that the first people that they signed (other than themselves) were Will Currie and the Country French (and Pony da Look).

So to the Country French: Congradulations! You absolutely deserve it. To everyone else (I've been saying this for a few years now but) seriously, go see them while you can still get tickets (and see them in a small venue).

Will Currie and the Country French - Surprising Me

Tour Vans Targeted: The Gear Theft Epidemic

In case you didn't know bands having their touring vans (or other vehicles) broken into is epidemic. I remember the epic search for Patrick Krief's Fender last year. Just today there were reports from both the the Blood Lines and Born Ruffians both reported break-ins. I seem to hear about such crimes regularly enough that I did a search for "Band van broken into" on google to see how bad the problem was. The search netted an ugly 2,710,000 results including StonlenGear.Org whose tagline is "Get Your Stuff Back".

If you thought that downloaders were "stealing from musicians", at least downloaders aren't walking off with their gear. If you're in a band and thinking about touring - seriously get a good alarm system, keep a big dog in the van or both.

Anyone Looking for a Band Name?

People in the entertainment business (in virtually every field) have long practiced the art of taking things out of context. Say, for example, you have a film that is reviewed in the Globe and Mail and the review says something like:

The film was terrible in every respect, I cannot find a single good thing to say about it, never before have I seen audience members walk out during the opening credits. I should mention though that the catering at the premiere was fantastic.

From that the people who create the posters for the film and the DVD artwork would print:

"Fantastic"
-Globe and Mail

In contemplating this I think I've come up with the ultimate band name: "The Troops"! Make that the name of your band and then have a logo that looks something like this:



After that all you have to do is take things out of context and boom - all the free publicity materials and endorsements you could wish for. Just searching "Support the Troops" on Google yields 1.2 Million results.

Just think of the fun you can have with this clip from This Hour Has 22 Minutes alone.



Isn't this shallow and opportunistic? Sure it is. But there are alot of people in entertainment (not to mention politics and virtually every field of business) who have made a fortune by being shallow and opportunistic.