This was a post to the independent radio producers’ mailing list:
….He mentions musicians giving away their music so that they get more people at their concerts…
That has been a successful model for a great number of musicians in the “jamband” (ugh) scene that I’m part of.
It’s also true that the vast majority of CDs sold by most of the musicians I know are not sold in stores, but in person at gigs. That’s certainly true for me. You play a set at a festival and then you go over to the merch table and sell and sign and schmooze.
That’s not news in the country/bluegrass world – that’s the way it’s always been done at bluegrass festivals, etc.
I post excerpts from my live shows and I have an online storefront on several of my web pages.
My producer and I recently decided we aren’t even going to bother trying to find a record label to release the album we just completed. There has NEVER been any money in record deals; in recent years, an artist has made money from his record on the retail side w/ direct sales. The value of a record deal has been whatever you could get the label to spend on promotion and publicity, and to a lesser extent the visibility of being in stores. I’m funding the release myself (largely by selling off some collectibles!) and putting my energy into exploring the new online marketing channels.
The CD is dying. The quality of master recordings is vastly superior at the studio end of the path – I recorded and mixed this project at 88.2/24 bit – and to a large extent inferior at the consumer end (MP3 etc.). I am giving serious consideration to the idea of putting my record out in two formats: a CD, with a nice booklet and all that, and a data DVD with a CD image, MP3s, and high-res audio for those who have the equipment to play it back that way.
I had an amusing conversation with a friend in New York a couple of months ago. Considering that the way to develop a following these days includes a lot of “meet and greet” schmoozes with fans, the whole notion of the artist’s persona has been stood on its head. It used to be that an artist cultivated some mystery – “he knows something you don’t,” as someone put it somewhere – and was to a great extent inaccessible and unknowable. So when that band came to pay in Oklahoma City, all you know about ’em was the promo shot, the album art/text, and the sound in the grooves.
MTV blew the first big hole in the state of that art, as another associate of mine pointed out. From the early ’80s, recording artists also had to learn how to behave in front of a camera, and their songs were forever married to someone’s idea of a visual narrative. And MTV refused from Day One to allow live performance video, so it wasn’t possible for an artist to just shut up and play.
And now it’s even harder to let the music speak for itself.
Imagine, say, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker promoting the music of Steely Dan in today’s music scene.
I have no clue about how to promote things. The whole idea of promotion scares the hell out of me and kinda makes me sick, except when I know it is coming from a reputable source.. like you, or other well respected outlets.
We all see a lot of promotion and hype, and in my case it kinda rolls off of my back, like yeah yeah yeah. I mean here in my town I get all these things coming into my email and all the bands are so great but they really are just like all the ones that came last month, and last year etc.
We live in strange and compelling times where there aren’t easy answers to many of the questions for us aspiring musicians. In the end maybe it is best to sit out on the porch, dust off a D18 or something and do it because we love it, and to keep doing it. Perseverance is probably the greatest single thing any of us can do. Just keep doing it. Keep trying. Keep meeting people. Keep loving, and living and sharing!
Maybe the music does have to speak for itself in the end though. After all, after everything is said and done isn’t it what remains?
Well anyway back to lurk mode, I so badly wanted to fly to see you guys play at the Fillmore this past weekend. And if Steely Dan and slew of other great acts would have hardly no chance coming up in these times without a load of luck, and hard work.
Is this the record you made with the guys from RRE?
Yes.
I like the idea of the data DVD. Could put some cool photos on it too..