Are You a Beggar or a Rockstar?

What I’m going to write about is what I consider to be the biggest fundamental difference between artists who thrive and artists who struggle to survive. It’s a mindset, a paradigm, a way to view the world. Most bands out there are looking for support. They want you to help them out. Vote for them in a contest. Go to their show. Buy their CD. By you contributing to their cause you will get them far enough to get their big break. When they get their big break then they will have made it and other people will be there to give them all the resources they need and they’ll live happily ever after. There’s just one small problem with that model: It’s an illusion that will keep you trapped until long after all of your dreams are gone. It’s a fundamental misinterpretation of the way that money and value work. This strategy will no sooner make you successful then it will a beggar….

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DATE CHANGED- The Rights Workshop Presents: Make Music, Make Money: Get Paid To Write Music

Rights Workshop founder Brooke Wentz, who has 25 years of experience licensing music and hiring composers for films, television shows and brand campaigns, will deliver a crash course on music business basics for composers and songwriters. Guest speakers Marc Capelle and Monte Vallier, who have written music for brands like Macy’s, Adobe and Odwalla, and television networks like HBO/Cinemax and The Food Network, will speak about how to get gigs and successfully break into the business.

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CMJ 2009 Music Marathon & Film Festival

For almost 30 years CMJ Music Marathon has played host to a countless number of indie bands (often catapulting them to major label status) and music industry panelists from around the globe. The 4 day conference + live performance festival is always held during the month of October in NYC, and promises to be a hot bed of progressive ideas and music discovery.

This year I will be covering the event for Music Think Tank and would like to give you a chance to attend from your laptop. I’ve posted my tentative conference schedule below. Take some time over the next few days to review the available panels and live performance happening on Thursday, October 23rd and Friday October 24th. Let me know which ones you would like me to attend and write about here in the comment section.

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Eleventh Sun

Chances are you haven’t yet heard of Eleventh Sun, but we’re pretty sure you’re going to be hearing a lot more from these 2 Canadian brothers in the future.

The Eleventh Sun, hailing out of Toronto, have been quietly setting the Neurofunk world on fire.From pounding Nu-skool breaks to rolling minimalist drops, combined with pure dancefloor energy driven by dirty basslines and crisp cutting beats, these boys have it all.

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Behold the power of free

The counter-intuitive upshot is simple: charging money for the game client was a loser.  Making the game play free, but being good at commercializing the space around the game, was the winning strategy.  The analogy for the music industry is pretty obvious: digital music has zero monetary value by itself.  Digital music, as a tribal flag, has as much value as the tribe is willing to claim for itself, and the monetary future belongs to those who can reach far beyond the mere musical realm and organize (and monetize) a larger cultural phenomenon.  And of course this is precisely the thesis of the MTT article The End of the Music Album as an Organizing Principle.

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Marketing is Everything – Let Me Show You How?

Today’s music producers and content creators must focus on getting fans ‘attention’ and keeping it for as long as possible. You need to energize that fan base and one of the best ways to do this is to feed them a continuous stream of stimulating content. It takes time but the benefits………

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Music Without Labels & Beat-Play Interview with IndepenDRUM

Give us some background. Where are you from originally, where are you now, how did you get there? To take you all the way back, I was born and raised in a town northwest of Boston. My family is pretty musical. My grandfather was a musician, and my father is a multi-instrumentalist  musician and comedian. My younger brother is also a musician. I was very fortunate that my parents were very supportive in music growing up. I mean my father was always having guys over to play and I would be sitting in at a young age. 

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Music Without Labels & Beat-Play Interview with Soi Dissant

Give us some background. Where are you from originally, where are you now, how did you get there? 

My name is Soi Disant. And I am part of The Blue Roof Group that has been blue for the past four or five years since I left my past life behind. The Blue Roof is a cumulative and diverse group that incorporates my, that is Soi Disant, creative surges into one file as it were. It’s a whole other personality almost to the other me. I am predominantly a musician. But I also write poetry. I have published one poetry book independently and have created a series of short stories too. They can be accessed at lulu.com. I am also a fine artist and actor too.

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Music Without Labels & Beat-Play Interview with Silvercord

Give us some background. Where are you from originally, where are you now, how did you get there?

I am originally from Caro, Michigan USA but moved to Seoul after graduating from a degree in music at Eastern Michigan University. I have been living and writing, producing and performing music in South Korea for the last seven years.

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Is Physical Distribution Worth It for Indies?

Updated on October 7, 2009 by Scott Olson

The slow death of record stores and the increased opportunity afforded to emerging artists are two stories that we have all become familiar with. Distributors of CD’s have no doubt fallen on hard times as well. Given the cost of distribution, and the fact that record stores are disappearing from the map, does it make sense for Indie artists and labels to consider getting a traditional distribution deal as a major goal? 

Existing retailers are getting more exclusive. Rising “music retailers” Wal-Mart and Best Buy only stock that which they know will sell millions.  And in place of an increasingly bland music retail scene, artists are making it easier to get their music from them directly (or at least by buying their CD of amazon).

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Why I've Given Up on the Compact Disc

In an effort to look ahead of the trends happening in the music industry, I’m advising all independent artist to give up on the Compact Disc from here on out. Chances are, by the time you put the finishing touches on a new project, it will be like handing over an 8 track tape to a potential fan. Not sexy.

For the naysayers I’ve created this post to show you all of the different ways you can measure your success with a digital release. You can read Part 1 of this post here.  

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we used to pay half a million dollar to be able to give away music

In the mid 90’s i had been lucky to be involved with some major rap band releases. As radios were very slow to react, we use to manufacture few hundred thousands of promo CDs, stickers etc for street marketing campaigns. Means that we used to pay almost half a million dollar to be able to give away music, just to get our new band heard by the kids ….

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5 tips to not look like a starving artist :

5 tips to not look like a starving artist :

1-Dont spam comments and message boards asking to check ur music

2-Dont spam comments and message boards with Autoplay players

3-Find out who might be interested by your music, create your own network

4- Be interesting, dont be too pushy

5-And first of all, be creative & radical, dont be another copycat. Internet is killing the formated artists in case you dont know.

originaly posted
on my blog here http://highsnobiety.com/columns/olivierrosset/

Interview with Das Racist

On the eighth anniversary of the World Trade Center bombings, I found myself chatting with Himanshu and Victor of the controversial new rap duo, Das Racist. Unlike most days in recent history, these bohemian Brooklyn’ites, recalled exactly what they were doing.

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