A Song A Day

A few months ago I was approached by an A&R who was interested in signing me to a new, supposedly ‘revolutionary’ digital-only record label called Red Skin Records. Dubious as always, I got on the phone to the label boss and picked his brains for about an hour, to try and work out what I […]

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Here’s the second part of my interview with Andrew Dubber from New Music Strategies:
Do you think subscription stream-on-demand models are the best option for the industry? If not, what would be your ideal model for the future of music consumption?
The answer here, as with most things to do with the online music environment is ‘Well, […]

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I interviewed Andrew Dubber of the excellent New Music Strategies last week, and received some fascinating and insightful responses to questions concerning online promotion for musicians, future distribution models - and how the RIAA could dig themselves out the hole they’ve got themselves into. Here’s the first part:
What would be your advice for new artists […]

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Check out this hilarious piece by Steven Adams from the Broken Family Band about why he’s proud to be a ‘weekend rockstar’ while holding down a day job. Actually quite sobering stuff for all of us dreaming of one day making music full time. I especially like the the line, “I wouldn’t let Johnny Borrell […]

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Slicethepie was launched today, another new site attempting to ‘revolutionize’ the ‘fan/artist relationship’ or something equally zeitgeist-y. Much like Sellaband, it provides bands with a chance to raise funds to record and release an album through the patronage of music enthusiasts. Essentially, a band’s fans become street teamers, pseudo-PRs and investors and can “gamble on, […]

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More evidence that the suits in the music industry are getting increasingly desperate in these times of file-sharing and free downloads: here we find one trying to bully a blogger into deleting a link he posted to a story about heavy-handed RIAA tactics.
I have to thank said industry suit, however, for helping me discover New […]

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Thanks to platforms like Indiestore and Snocap, it’s getting ever easier for unsigned bands to sell their own music via their websites, blogs or Myspace pages. But the vast majority of consumers still go to iTunes (and, lately, emusic; and, soon, the Amazon download store) to buy downloads. It’s vital for any unsigned artist to […]

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There’s no such thing as unsigned anymore. Musicians can now make a good living from music without signing over their souls to a record label, whether independent or – shudder – a major.
Record labels nowadays expect a band to have built up a sizeable fan base from gigging, working the social networks (Myspace, Bebo, etc) […]

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The story of Sandi Thom that the papers ran with back in 2006 was one that suggested she got noticed by webcasting gigs from her Tooting flat – she claimed to have had 70,000 viewers at one point, in fact. We now know, of course, that she already had a PR company behind her, and […]

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We all know that Facebook is the place to be these days when it comes to fulfilling your social networking needs. But it’s not a very good place to promote yourself as an artist – Myspace still remains the go-to destination for anyone wanting to hear a band’s music. Until that situation changes – and […]

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