Answering some important questions about my career in the music business

One of the more useful blogs out there, MusicMarketing.Com, recently issued a survey that I found to be really interesting. I usually find surveys to be stupid, mush filled enterprises of multiple choice. But this one was a 9 question blank field survey that asked a few very thoughtful questions that got me thinking. So I answered them and discovered a few things about myself along the way. I thought I'd post the answers here for those that might find the answers useful or insightful for themselves as well... it's a bit personally revealing, but i suppose that's what the internet is all about these days

WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER ONE MUSIC INDUSTRY GOAL?
To find a manager / team to run my music businesses and find funding for my works so that I can focus on being creative.

WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE IF YOU FULFILLED THIS GOAL?
This team would help my band and sell 10,000 albums a year. And release at least 1 album a year.
Book shows to tour and have it be lucrative enough that we can afford to keep doing it and make money from it.
Enable resources to draw in outside collaborators to help realize any creative / marketing / entrepeneurial vision that I have (video, online, musical, merchandise) and find ways to fund it

Ideally this team would also help in my other work as a producer of artists and help setup collaborations with my studio and allow me to work as an A&R role with artists I produce.

WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO YOU IF YOU ACHIEVED THIS GOAL?
It would mean that I can spend my time doing what I do best and quit focusing on peripheral issues that don't move me along. It means that the incredibly talented but seriously broke artists that I produce would be able to make their albums much more quickly. It would mean I could spend more time being creative and less time trying to figure out how to be successful as a marketing person. It would mean I could be what I've always wanted to be rather than feeling like I need to be 10 different people to do the few things that make me happy.

My life would only be different in the sense that the way I spend my time now would be much more artistically and creatively focused instead of market and promotion focused (which I can only do when I have the time because my day job is to be creatively focused after all).

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU
Because I know what makes me happy. I like creating and collaborating with people. I like helping new artists reach their potential. I like writing and co-writing songs. I like to be able to perform and record and produce. My work is only limited by the fact that there is no one other than me to promote it. If I had someone who could make the work I do bigger, then I could focus on making bigger and more work.

WHY HAVE YOU NOT ACHIEVED YOUR GOAL
I have not met the right person or team yet and feel at a loss on how to meet this team. It is not really a lack of connections. I know lots of people in the business and am told I'm very well "connected". I go to SXSW, CMJ every year. I am the secretary of my chapter of the Recording Academy. I write a blog and occasionally comment on other blogs but finding the right person to manage any part of your business is a huge leap of faith and trust and requires finding a very specific match, particularly since my business encompasses so many areas.
On a more personal, deeper level, I am also afraid of changing elements of my life (I have a bit of a fear of success and a fear of rejection). I don't like cold calling people and I don't like having to "sell" myself. I am afraid of asking for things for myself because it makes me feel very shallow. I would rather have people see what I do and then make an offer if they would like to. I realize much of this is self-defeating and simply answering the question puts a few ideas in my head...

WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER ONE MUSIC INDUSTRY FRUSTRATION?
Trying to bring quality products to people that might like them. I have an assumption (born of experience) that most busy people that you want to reach, really don't have time for new things, even if they are good. It is really hard to get the right type of meeting with the right person and you have to have both to make any new connection successful. This applies to fans as well as to managers and labels. It probably applies to life.
The other is just not having enough funding to achieve the goals I have. And finding the time to put together plans to make these goals happen, which again goes back to not having a team in place to multiply time for me.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST MOTIVATION TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL AND HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH YOUR FRUSTRATION IN NOT ACHIEVING IT?
I keep progressing as an artist and I love to learn. I study things that I can't get done and then figure out ways to do them.
I love to be creative both as a writer, a producer or a business person. I enjoy coming up with solutions to problems. This is a double edged sword because sometimes I don't follow through with my solutions and then come up with a new one before the last one has time to become successful... yet another reason why having a disciplined manager would help...

THE KIND OF HELP YOU NEED IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN YOUR MUSIC CAREER...
I need to find opportunities to meet managers / music business people / promoters in my area (meaning genre and work style, not necessarily geographically, but that would be nice and helpful) and have those meetings be personal enough to actual facilitate a connection that will lead to future work, not just exchanging cards. Or else I need to gather a team of competent young interns and figure things for them to do that will help accomplish these goals. And I need funding. I produce lots of new artists and finding funding for their projects is something I have zero experience with.
Also figure out how to make myself attractive to a manager type of person so that they end up coming to me.


So that's the spilling of the guts, so to speak...
To sum it up, too much to do, not enough time...slow down and make time... i'm working on that part.

Exciting vs Important

I love my job. Actually I should make that plural. I love my jobs.

I run a few different businesses and projects to which I allot varying degrees of attention depending on my mood, enthusiasm, circumstances and the schedule of the various partners I work with on those projects.

Over the years I have slowly begun to focus on the ones that make me happiest and now I can say that I really have 2 main businesses. One involves my work in the studio as a producer, engineer, session musician, consultant or manager. The other is my work as an artist wherein I create more, this includes my band

The band is the project I usually feel the most passion for. I love writing, performing, working on new weird ideas for videos and whatever else we come up with. At the moment it's more like a hobby with potential than it is a job.


There are numerous elements of both businesses that are really fun. But then there are a few elements that have to be done, but which are just plain drudgery.

• Booking shows
• Website design and updating
• Remembering to send regular promotion emails
• Preparing for a release and planning the promotional elements of distribution
• Preparing taxes and keeping the books straight

These are just a few off the top of my head.
I know that the rage these days is to outsource everything, but the problem with outsourcing is that you have to find someone, tell them how to do what needs doing and then make sure that they do it well. By the time you outsource, you could do it just as well yourself. And as long as you don't procrastinate, you'll do it more quickly.

It is possible to hire people to do these things well. And if you can afford it, that's great. But the problem I keep coming back to is, "where do i find these people?"

Cannons and Clouds video

Cannons and Clouds, a band I've been producing for the last year or so was recently featured in a documentary for Universal Audio that was filmed at Broken Radio this month. Check it...

10 reasons Why the album is not dead

I was just reading New Music Strategies (one of my favorite blogs written by the very astute Andrew Dubber) in which he asked "Is the album dead?"...

I think there are several reasons that the album is not dead. Here goes my top ten.

1. Reviewers and bloggers are critical to generating attention about an artist. It is much easier to get someone to review or talk about an album than it is to get them to talk about a collection of singles or a video you just released. It gives context.
2. For some artists, it is actually a lot more financially wise to record
   a cluster of songs in a studio to save on setup costs and time. Hiring
   and rehearsing musicians for only one song doesn't cost much less than
   hiring them to record 3 or 4 songs. And you will often catch a break on
   cost when it's a whole album involved. It may be a bigger pill to
   swallow at first, but albums have a far longer shelf life than a
   single.
   
   
3. An album also defines a certainly level of credibility and
   seriousness for an artist. If you go to the trouble of pressing 1000
   cd's it means you take your work seriously enough to go to the expense
   of recording that many songs and to then have them duplicated. That
   doesn't mean it's good, but in a very crowded marketplace full of
   infinite product, a physical one stands out a little further than a
   purely digital one (sometimes at least)
4. 4. It's much easier to get airplay on college radio and specialty formats when you have a
   CD. Not many radio people want to download a song to play it on the
   air.
   
5. It's much easier to tour around an album for a variety of reasons. It
   gives you something to sell at the merch table. Download cards don't
   sell quite as well and not too many fans really want an artist to sign
   the disposable download card.
   
6. It gives the artist an organizing principle for marketing efforts. This
   can be hugely important. It's like creating a brand for a specified
   time period. You can create a line of merchandise that relates to the
   album. A website. A storyline using flickr regarding the making of.
7. While people may hit shuffle all they want, the option exists for the
   listener to enjoy an album in the order that the artist intended. That
   shows that an album can have many purposes for the listener / fan /
   consumer too. It's more versatile than a single or an EP with only 4
   songs on it.
   
8. The album can be viewed as a work of art. It's a collection of work
   that will be defined, however loosely by some sort of theme that helps
   define what an artist is (or is not) trying to be.
9. The artwork, posters, postcards, and physical marketing materials
   generated by an album are important to fans of a band. They allow
   people to badge themselves with a particular time in the life cycle of
   an artist. That's not as likely to stick with a single or even a digital only release
10. Lastly, perhaps most importantly, there are segments of the music
    buying public that simply prefer buying albums. These are the people
    that LOVE music. They don't go buy the latest top 10 hits. They obsess
    over all kinds of new music and talk about it with friends. An album is
    still a rallying point for this type of music fan. And this type of
    music fan will recommend their new favorite ALBUM to their friends in a
    way that people who dance to the latest hit single do not. It's
    demographic that is hugely important to the launching of new artists
    and it's not filled with just old people. Even teenagers like albums.
    This demographic may not sell platinum, but they do help discover and
    launch the careers of many talented artists.
    
    
    
    Just because digital is an easy way for people to get music does not
    mean that it's the only way, nor is it the only way that serious music
    lovers will want to get their music. For these people who often shape
    the taste of what music is discovered, the album is still king.
    

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The Hits Keep on Coming

The ability to sell your music online and distribute it widely without the help of a label is a rallying point for many independent and do it yourself artists.

A lot of artists and online label start-ups all seem to say the same thing: "Now that distribution costs are practically zero and the cost of making a record is practically nothing, major labels will wither away and have no reason to exist, all thanks to the glorious rise of the internet." Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Nevermind that making a good record still costs money...I could go on for days about that...

But my curiosity was piqued when I read a recent Harvard Business study that confirmed something rather obvious: people still gravitate towards hits. Audiences might be able to buy all the tiny bits along the long tail, but they don't necessarily want to. And just because you CAN put your music up on a website, doesn't mean anyone will want to buy it or listen to it. Most people who buy entertainment, buy things that their friends have bought and that are relevant to popular culture.

The most powerful weapon in the marketing arsenal is perceived success. If you can sell your album to a lot of people, then you can sell more albums to a lot of people. Conversely, if no one has heard of you and a potential buyer doesn't believe that anyone else they trust likes you, they are unlikely to spend money on your music.

Why do people like hits so much?

I think it has a lot do with culture. People congregate around a small number of ideas. These may vary locally and within subcultures, but to have conversations, we all need to be talking about the same thing. Teenagers in high school don't define their cliques by how unique each person's taste is, they all love a certain band together. People like to talk about the same TV show they watched, the same movies and the same books. We may not like them all, but we all have an opinion and these items become part of popular culture.


SO, the next question is, what makes a hit?

There's more than one music business

I don't really care much for super-pop. I can identify a few artists from this genre of music to make it easier to understand what I'm talking about...
Usher, Kelis, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Jay-Z... etc.
I looked at the top 50 songs on imeem last week and did not recognize any of them, but I recognized the names of the artists. Most of them were signing high profile branding agreements or 360 deals with mammoth corporations in the last few months

CD sales for this type of music have gone monumentally down the toilet.

Meanwhile, I have several new bands that I have discovered over the last year or so while reading the top 100 albums chart of eMusic.
This would include,
The National, Andrew Bird, Chris Letcher, Cold War Kids, Spoon, Thomas Dybdahl and a great many other artists that you may or may not be familiar with.

The point is, that I think these artists are not losing millions of dollars (they probably didn't have them to begin with) and they are most likely making more money from their music than ever before. And they are selling ALBUMS. They are selling collections of songs to customers like me because I don't really buy singles. The album is not a dead format. The CD is not a dead format. At least not for independent songwriters who write from the heart and take the time (or have the luck) to make really great sounding records.