And in these early days of August, the light is changing. We're experiencing the last throes of summer. The vegetation has fully bloomed. From here, it's all downhill. You think of dark nights and those who are no longer with us. Who we used to tell our stories to, who used to listen to us.

There are only so many summers and so many falls and then you reach the end. Usually in some ignominious way you couldn't foresee. With your body failing or the big bang of an accident. But before expiration occurs, and if it's not the only thing you think about after fifty, it's always present in the back of your mind, you keep on living, looking to savor more exquisite moments of life.

And that's what this weekend has been. One of those unforeseen perfect epochs that you wish could go on forever. But don't. Some of these people you'll never see again. But their memories will live on. "For my wedding, I will dress in black And never again will I look back"

John and I lived through our divorces. When he counseled me through mine, his was unforeseen. He didn't reel as much as me, but the disconnection takes a toll. When you can finally stand up straight you look for someone to fit the pocket, but your glove feels strange, it's hard to find a ball that you can snap into that well-oiled appendage. If you're lucky, you eventually do. John did.

An old friend fixed him up with Cristie. It was an instant romance. I think it's going to last. Because when you're older, it's more about the person than your dreams. Your dreams rarely become realities. John stood up in Sonoma last night in a black coat from Afghanistan and a white shirt from India. You could see the teenage Cristie in her gown, the glint in her eyes had not died.

And while the ceremony is taking place, all I can hear in my brain is Don Henley's "For My Wedding". He didn't write it. But he made it his own on his 2000 album "Inside Job", released in the same year Napster gained critical mass and rendered all the new material by classic artists irrelevant. No one's interested in the work of legends, everybody's hunkering down and trying to survive, trying to find a bit of happiness in their lives.

And what truly makes you happy is a song. Now playing in your ears via Steve Jobs' magical device. We take our music everywhere, it consoles us. "So what makes us any different from all the others Who have tried and failed before us" Plenty. We're baby boomers. We dealt with the world like it and we would survive intact no matter how much abuse we inflicted.

But just like the planet is suffering, we've suffered too. We've done too many drugs, spent too much money. We thought the good times would go on forever. We didn't truly believe the Mark Zuckerbergs could inherit the world. But they have. And we've been pushed aside, we're no longer the caretakers of the world. If we're lucky, we can be caretakers of ourselves.

I think John and Cristie are going to make it. Because they don't deny the past, it's embedded in their memories. They're living in the moment, seeing that fall always comes, and at a point that will seem too soon, you might make it to winter, but you won't make it until spring.

"To want what we have. To take what we're given with grace. For these things I pray. On my wedding day. On my wedding day."

"Beck employs a guitar, but the sound that emanates from the speakers sounds like no other. His left hand is moving up the neck, the fingers on his right hand are plucking the notes. And unlike Edward Van Halen, Clapton or Hendrix, he doesn't miss one fucking note. It's like watching Nadia Comaneci, a legendary Olympic athlete, scoring all 10's."

"I stared in awe. I got that tingle that made me go to the show in the seventies. I needed more of this religion."

"Do yourself a favor. Go see Jeff Beck. Because he's not going to be here forever, and when he kicks it'll be over. You'll be kicking yourself. That you had a chance to see the greatest guitarist of all time and you blew it."-Bob Lefsetz

Read Bob's USC night here.

If you're a music fan and not on Bob's email list I highly suggest joining. He often opens the mailbag of the emails people send him and today was from Widespread Panic's Dave Schools.

"It's funny, but for the last few nights Jimmy Herring and I (well, most of the band actually) have been wearing out a dvd a friend passed along of Jeff Beck's performance at Clapton's '07 Crossroads festival. And when I say wearing it out I mean it! We watch it every night, wishing that we had more footage of the man.

I have never passed up an opportunity to see Jeff Beck and I have seen him with a few different bands. His incredibly emotive playing always manages to get it's SOUL around the sound of the different musicians sharing the stage. Because Beck has matured to the point where he is talking with his guitar. Without even thinking about WHAT to play pure thought seems to ring out of that Strat: beauty, sadness, humor, and even primitive grunts and squonks are all part of his vocabulary.

And we are amazed....some of the rocking tunes have been part of our musical lives: Led Boots, Blue Wind, Freeway Jam...but it's the newer ones that really get us: Nadia, Angel Footsteps, Big Block, Behind The Veil, and like you mentioned, his emotional rendering of A Day In The Life. Heck, last time I saw him live he encored with a duet version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and it damn near made me cry.

But the real reason I felt the need to respond to your blog was because of a point you often bring up: when you really FEEL what a musician is trying to say you feel compelled to tell EVERYBODY you know about it. Even if it is something as wonderfully simple as rediscovering an old flame like Jeff Beck.

My point being that last Sunday we played at The All Good Festival in West Virginia and there we were, asking EVERYBODY we saw if they had heard Jeff Beck lately. And if they hadn't we told them that they damn sure needed to! Oh to have been a fly on the wall when Jimmy Herring asked Derek Trucks if he had heard Jeff Beck lately. I mean these are two of the greatest and most expressive modern day guitarists talking about how NO ONE has the range of expression that Beck does.

So it was really pretty funny when your email blast came through late Sunday night. Sometimes things just happen at the right time."

TRUTHfully,

Dave Schools

"But! Here's a nice surprise: Normally at this point in the story, we take out the Pollstar list and point out how many of the top acts use walkers, or will be doing so soon. But take a look: Many of this year's top performers are still making music that people listen to - in the present tense:"

As always Bob Lefsetz has a lively perspective on the issue here.

During the past week, Bob Lefsetz, an entertainment attorney and music label consultant who writes an inside perspective music industry blog, wrote a post about a once well-known Southern California band called Honk. He addressed many points in the blog, but I think this was one of the central ones...

"You might have thought the most famous surf movie of all time was "Endless Summer". That’s only if you lived outside of California. In California, it was "5 Summer Stories".

Not that I knew. I experienced the legendary "5 Summer Stories" in its audio format, synched to ski movies in a living room in Sandy, Utah. What was this magical music? That both exhilarated and set one free? 5 SUMMER STORIES! The Californians all exclaimed in unison, and looked at me incredulous.

I had no idea. I thought the name of the band was "5 Summer Stories". That was untrue. That was the name of the soundtrack album, the band was called Honk.

The record had been out for years. It was a SoCal staple. But it was new to me. Everything’s new to you when you haven’t heard it before."

No matter how much you try and keep up on the music scene, band will constantly slip by you and become popular without you having been in on the ground floor. This happens to the best of 'em each and every day. Just yesterday, developer friend Jim (who's happy where he is, but thanks) pointed out a band to me called Buddy. I was having trouble with their MySpace page, but I went to their core site and found their song-of-the-month, which I really liked.

People spend so much time trying to keep up, that sometimes I think they forget to look back, and in so doing, miss a tremendous amount of truly ground-breaking music from the past - some of which holds up great today!

One more point from Lefsetz in that post that is worth mentioning...

"Turns out tastes are not narrow. People don’t like only hip-hop, only country, but anything that touches them. "5 Summer Stories" touched SoCal. And the track that contains all the hope, all the exuberance, all the thrill of the experience, is "Blue Of Your Backdrop". You feel it in the track, the rising and falling of the music, like a wave."

This is another founding principle for NewTunes. That's why we think it so valuable to search by song. A band and an album of songs are a multi-dimensional concept. But a song is the moment. In the context of an album, it is a part of the sum, but alone, it stands alone. It defines itself. It is the core of an idea.

That's why we think the best music search is by song, not by album. If a particular song moves you, you want to find other similar songs. In just a few short months, we want to help.

By the way, here's "Westgate" from Buddy...

westgate.mp3

...and here's the Honk "Pipeline Sequence" portion of 5 Summer Stories...

P. S. If I missed any, leave me a comment and let me know! If I didn't miss any, leave me a comment and let me know!

MADRID.- ¿No es hora de que la música venga con la entrada del concierto? Al menos algunas canciones. Cuando la música grabada cada vez vale menos y los conciertos crecen como nunca una de las posibilidades de reinventar la industria musical puede ser vender entradas a los conciertos con derecho a descarga (legal, por supuesto).

Kylie Minogue, en Zúrich (WALTER BIERI, EFE)

.

Los datos son cada vez más tozudos, pero muchos se niegan a menudo a entenderlos. Según el último informe de la SGAE, el año pasado los conciertos de música pop crecieron un 21,6%. Incluso aumentaron los de música clásica un 1,1%.

Pero no fueron los únicos. Las artes escénicas crecieron un 14,4% en 2007. Conclusión: además del éxito de las producciones del año pasado, a la gente le gusta salir y ver en directo a sus artistas preferidos.

Promusicae (Productores de Música de España) se queja de que los jóvenes españoles "valoran la música como uno de los elementos más importantes de su tiempo libre, pero sólo unos pocos, los más fans, contemplan la necesidad de pagar por las obras".

Y en el mismo informe surge una solución: "Los demás sólo sopesan la posibilidad de pagar por asistir a conciertos y se conforman con descargar las canciones a través de las redes P2P".

Pues eso. No es mala idea. Ah, ya, que entonces cambia el negocio y esos productores y discográficas que son asociadas de Promusicae están en peligro.

Bienvenidos a la realidad. Imparable, por cierto, por mucho que reclamen al gobierno leyes persecutorias más duras.

Los jóvenes consideran en ese estudio la asistencia a los conciertos como una forma de "colaborar directamente con el artista". Y no les falta razón.

El último informe de ingresos de la MCPS-PRS, la SGAE británica, registra un aumento en 2007 del 20% en los ingresos de los músicos por conciertos y actuaciones (168,2 millones de euros) mientras los ingresos por ventas de CD y soportes físicos bajaron un 11% para quedarse en 191,1 millones de euros, superados por los 195,7 millones de los derechos por reproducción en radio y televisión.

Steve Porter, director ejecutivo del gestor de derechos británico, aseguró que "la bajada de un 11,1% de los ingresos por productos físicos fue más que compensada por la innovación y el crecimiento en las licencias de música y en casi todas las otras áreas de nuestro negocio".

¡Qué diferente a las sempiternas quejas españolas!

La industria musical no tiene más futuro, como tantas, que innovar.

Si la música es uno de los mejores contenidos de marketing para otros negocios y el problema es la saturación, ¿por qué no usar esos conciertos tan deseados tanto para que el público seleccione a sus artistas preferidos como para promover su trabajo?

Especialistas en la industria musical como Bob Lefsetz se hacen eco ya de una idea que no es nueva, pero que cobra mayor sentido cuando el coste de la distribución y la copia es casi cero.

¿Y qué pasa si ya la tienen? Nada, es gratis. A lo mejor hay suerte y son versiones diferentes y, por tanto, las dos tienen valor. Pero ¿después comprarán más música de ese artista? Claro. Música como promoción de más música. Está dando resultado en las redes sociales y en iniciativas como las de Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails o R.E.M, por no hablar de tantos grupos que existen porque se han hecho un hueco con MySpace al margen de las discográficas.

Pero Promusicae lo tiene claro. Cuando el negocio crece con los conciertos, "nadie repara en los otros profesionales involucrados en una grabación, como productores artísticos, compañías discográficas, técnicos o diseñadores", dice en su nota sobre el último informe sobre hábitos y motivaciones entre los jóvenes consumidores de música que ha realizado.

¡Tate!

Está claro que cambia el negocio y su estructura. Pero entonces cuando se pide "cortar las libertades", como ha dicho su presidente, Antonio Gisasola, aunque reconociendo que "siempre es molesto", lo que se está haciendo no es "proteger la cultura", sino a algunas personas y empresas que viven de un negocio en reconversión.

¿Y para eso se pueden recortar libertades?

Para, total, al final ganar sólo un poco de tiempo.

El negocio ha cambiado. Y ya no está en la comercialización de soportes físicos ni en un modelo de venta que los usuarios consideran obsoleto porque "no quieren disponer de más cedés en casa (...), prefieren pasarse los archivos directamente al ordenador y de ahí a un reproductor portátil".

Si la industria musical quiere sobrevivir ya puede ir cambiando. Y cuando se paga por un concierto 30 euros o más, como sucede tan a menudo, no cuesta mucho distribuir algunas canciones con la entrada digital o en soporte físico que, además, puede ir patrocinado y sumar ingresos publicitarios. Y más cuando además el 39% de los asistentes a conciertos compran todavía música grabada, según la encuesta de hábitos culturales del Ministerio de Cultura.

El precio de la música enlatada se aproxima a cero, pero su valor aún es alto para sus fans. Nuevos modelos de negocio permitirán a los músicos disfrutar de sus derechos y crear nuevas redes y medios de comercialización para seguir viviendo de su obra.

.....

If you're into technology, your first stop is TechCrunch. They break most of the tech stories, so their readership is loyal and huge, which in turn encourages companies to give TechCrunch the exclusive on their story, and the cycle continues. Brilliant.

If you're into marketing, you must read Seth Godin. He somehow manages to offer truly remarkable insights on a daily basis. If you're a student of marketing, toss out your textbooks and read Seth (or check out one my favorite videos at TED).

And if you're into the music industry, the best insider blog hands down is written by Bob Lefsetz. He's quintessentially what blogging is all about. He's on top of current news, he picks a point of view, and he articulates his argument. He's polarizing in that he often takes a side and pisses off several people in the process. Half of the fun is reading the comments and responses.

Hopefully there's a new nugget in there for my four or five readers. Peace.

The climate of the music business is changing and I love it...and I work for a label. I think it is good for everyone to be shook up a bit....get back to the reason we started into this whole thing....for the love of it! I jumped on the road for $50 bucks a night doing everything from setting up/tearing down merch to running live sound....and I LOVED IT! (until tax time..hahah)

I felt like I needed to post this article from Bob Lefsetz, it doesn't matter if you don't agree with everything he says because when it comes to this type of thought...he is spot on. You can read the full article HERE. Be Well.

This is what MAKING IT in the music business looks like today.

"The radio station? You have to ask yourself, do YOU listen to the radio? Do your FRIENDS listen to the radio? Chances are, the answer is no. So, if your demo is not listening, what difference does it make if you’re getting airplay there. If you are garnering fans, chances are they’re not the ones you want. And Top Forty fans, the only format that truly means anything anymore, are notoriously fickle. A number one radio record is akin to being the star magician at the old folks home. A minor figure in a dying world that most people want no part of."

"The label? Everybody hates the major labels. They’re the ones suing their customers, right? The ones who tell you what to record and when. Your mother might be impressed that you’ve got a lawyer and a record company, but the public still has no idea who you are, and chances are, never will.

And without the mainstream media attention, the record company push, that breakthrough gig…that can’t happen anymore either.

In other words, if you’re playing with the old scorecard, you must be mightily confused, because that’s for the old game.

The new scorecard is all about fans. How can you make more fans, and make them stick!"

1. Being able to give up your day job. Used to be, you got signed, you thought you’d made it, you were just a year or so from going back to McDonald’s, behind the counter. Today, since you’ve invested in yourself, built everything yourself, if you can shitcan your day job and make it playing music, kick back and have a drink, congratulate yourself, you’ve truly made it. Carly Smithson had a record deal and national TV exposure and she’s still pulling drinks in a bar in San Diego, or will be again soon. That’s the first hurdle, earning your freedom from the everyday grind.

2. Which may come before 1, getting an agent. It’s hard to book yourself. The road is where you make money. If someone’s interested in booking you, they think they can make money on you, they want their 10%. This is a good sign. This is more important than getting a record deal.

3. Owning something besides an amp and your instrument. Maybe it’s a car, maybe it’s real property. But once your musical enterprise is generating enough extra cash that you can acquire extraneous items, you’ve truly made it.

4. And this can happen anywhere in the food chain, really. An act YOU respect says it likes YOUR music.

5. You play larger and larger venues and your merch numbers grow.

And that’s about it. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if there’s even a rainbow. It’s just you, playing music, for people who love it. There’s no awards show, no instant cash, no front page story, nothing that you can show to your relatives that will make them finally realize you’ve made it.

It’s now about being a musician, not a star. Savor the little victories, because that’s all you’re going to get, that’s all that’s out there. The night you were in the zone playing for 3,500 adoring fans. It’s not about the coverage in "Rolling Stone", they’re putting bimbos on the cover. It’s about what you feel inside, the self-satisfaction. You’re not only a player, you now own the game. It’s a big responsibility, are you up to it?

Bob Lefsetz

New albums are being released all the time and here in Melbourne gigs are happening all the time. So maybe things are looking a little worse for wear but there's still music out there, even if CD sales are dropping.

Apparently radio is dying as well. Do you listen to the radio? do any of your friends? When was the last time you heard the latest pop hit besides being at work and having it on? I don't even know what's on the radio since I don't work in a kitchen anymore. So if radio and CD sales are dying, does that mean you can't be a musician and dream of making it big? Hell no.

It just means that if your an up and coming musician, with a demo in hand, then record companies and the radio aren't the way to go. Then what is?

This is the question that's foremost on a lot of musicians minds? Where do we go from here. If you've written something that you honestly think is good, then don't you think it deserves to be heard. You could try myspace, or facebook. There's a million websites on the internet that can help you get your music out there, like LastFm, Reverbnation and Ilike. Then gig, get out there and play your heart out, give it everything you've got. The music industry may be floudering but that doesn't mean you can't still be a musician. Look up useful resources like lefsetz.com or kurb.co.nz and do your homework if you want to start making some money of of it. All it takes is a little innovative thinking.

www.azumuth.com

www.myspace.com/azumuthmusic

KC Shoen: CEO and Artist

ShoenTeL Music

Letter One On Gene's Site

Letter Two On Gene's Site

These two links amounts to the discussion I had with Gene about the industry back in November of ’07 on his website. It is important to read as to understand my angle, and why I stand by my contention about him:

Gene Simmons doesn’t know shit about today’s music industry.

I now understand why Bob Lefsetz comes after him on his blogsite with such accentuated vitriol, and, to be honest, I have withheld criticizing the very man whose business acumen I highly respect.

But I don't respect the manner in which Gene actively engage me in the aforementioned discussion, only to withdraw in silence after I called him to task about his ignorance, and his indirect assumption that my label, ShoEnTeL Music, equates to running a 'charity', not a business.

And as a musician, the music of Kiss itself I have always found to be rather overly-wrought with simple chord delineations, garage-style antics, adolescent anthems, and preaching the repetitive theme of Rockin’, Rollin, and Fuckin’. Substance was never a priority: money and sex were. The nuance in this is I still love AC/DC, and their themes are consistent in that same vein. The difference, however, is ‘DC has an important element that is wholly lacking from The Simmons/ Kiss’ repertoire of pyrotechnics, demoniac make-up and vaudevillian showmanship:

They have actual talent.

And the many decades that have passed since both bands have been in existence, AC/DC holds another talisman over the heads of Gene Simmons/ Kiss Inc.: Relevance. Nearly 35 years since “Jailbreak ‘74”, AC/DC is still putting out new material to this day, and still garnering new fans, continuously augmenting the original, aging core.

Kiss, however, hasn’t managed to muster material of any new heat since 1983. Animalize was the last album that brought any new fans onboard to "discover" them. Since then, it’s been an entire rehashing of old catalog familiarity to keep that machine going, alongside the touring in full costume regalia that has been in regularity since 1996. Even at the time of this article, they are currently on a world tour (May 2008), as the fully made-up version that dominated the rock scene during the 1970’s.

This alone speaks volumes as to the mind and culture of Simmons himself: Kiss is but a product, much like Coca-Cola and Frito Lay. Unchanging. The rabid fancore is reflective of this, as there seems to be the need recapture the old ‘glory’ that was in vogue during those formative years. And they don’t want their band to tamper with the legacy by releasing anything new or evolved that would in any way stray from that sentimentality. It would wreak havoc to the senses to accept anything outside of “Kiss Alive”, “Destroyer”, or “Double Platinum”: progression be damned

Gene Simmons in the past has complained to various media outlets that “I can’t sell a million copies anymore in today’s music market”, and he's right. He can’t..but it is not due to illegal downloading nor the depreciative value of the music itself as he has surreptitiously and repetitively contends . It is because Gene himself can’t do it. And beyond the expansive catalog, nor could Kiss. Why? Because of one other element alongside talent is needed to achieve such ends:

Relevance.

And musically, he and Kiss possess zero of that.

Gene’s last solo release is evidence of this, when, in 2004, he, alongside his new protégé, BAG, dropped his first solo effort since 1978, called ‘Asshole’. Though the production was tight, and the music somewhat affable, the critics killed it, (the worst rebuke was AllMusic, stating ,."Everyone else who is merely curious should wait till it hits the cutout bins, get the edited version for the sheep bleats, and be happy that Kim Deal and Shannon Tweed are getting paid.") It bombed straight out the gate. Failure is something the egocentric Chaim Witz is not accustomed to, and since then, Simmons has not really broke out commercially with anything new, lest you count his seemingly sheepish attempt at marketing a two-song CD enclosed in his "Money, Sex, Kiss" book as a proper ‘commercial’ release.

Gene’s not an idiot, however, but he is in complete denial about the New Reality of the Music Industry: unwilling to see past the illegal filesharing which he seems to think culminates it entirely. It doesn’t. Gene’s problem is not that the industry’s dead, it has merely changed, and he is ‘dead’ to it.

He is not the only cronky aging Baby Boomer that has this latitude. Legendary producer and musician Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, and Kiss as well) has echoed similar sentiments. I have personally, in my own business dealings, seen this up-close and personal with such archetypes. It’s what I like to call ‘The Bitter Old Codger’ syndrome: the dis-allowance of change they can’t understand, and bitter that they, in their elderly state, can’t ‘play the game’ in the same manner at which they were accustomed to in their more successful younger years. Change has left them behind, as it is easier to rest on what you have done, than to attack it in a new way and take the risk in re-entering the music market when you’ve been out of circulation.

Change is harder when your old, especially when you get too comfortable with the way things were.

This is the last correspondence I sent him which was in response to ‘Letter 2’:

"Well written, but misguided. In simple terms, IF YOU want to put YOUR STUFF (and that means music you own) on the internet for free. You have that right. Ideally and legally, no one else has the right to: share files, copy songs or send them to anyone without (a) getting approval of the owner of the material and/or (b) paying for that privilege. Last time I checked, it was called the MUSIC BUSINESS...not the MUSIC FOR FREE BUSINESS. And, it's not a charity. It's an enterprise."

Hey Gene,

Please pardon my brazenness and confusion, but what the fuck are you on about? Amazing how you have colluded my business with 'giving music away'. Let’s review briefly my points that I have previously stated, because it's obvious you've missed it...

"(music)file-sharing, .... is illegal. Period."

" Truthfully, the real damage to the recording industry brought about by' person-to-person' file sharing is to Artist's catalogs."

“As far as mp3 downloads, I'd rather pay .69 -.99 cents for a quality track I know will sound good, then illegally download the same track that might sound shitty, atop of possibly containing a virus that will bugger my already-terminally-ill PC”

"... As an unknown Artist, I'd rather offer a decent 'giveaway' that fans could have for their own. I also want to offer them little 'perks' now and again for their loyalty..."

" I don't have any misalignment with you about illegal downloads"

".... And I choose to be at the forefront..much like you have done..but in my OWN way...."

And I did state that filesharing will remain a part of The New Reality. But this doesn't imply that I wholly sanction it, nor that I am going to turn over my entire catalog for free. I would be a complete moron to be in the business of music only to give it all away just to gain traction. It not necessary and is counterproductive. And, through all my correspondence, I never once suggested that this is what I am doing. My exact stance, in as far as my progress was this:

"..This internet label I own IS gaining TRACTION. It's still early, but the momentum is there. My music is gaining interest..and sales. Again, it is STILL early."

From any of this, where did you get the impression that what I am doing is connotative to 'charity'? Would I allow a free download on occasion for free as a means of promotion? You bet. Particularly, if fans have been proactive in BUYING and SUPPORTING what I'm doing. It’s much similar, in many respects, to giving free merch away at a concert.

I have gathered two dynamics with you in as far as the subject is concerned

1) Beyond your definitive stance on internet piracy (which I concur), you are overwhelming ignorant about the current status of the music business in cyberspace.

2) As ignorance does breed contempt, you are also unwillingly to absorb the nuances of this subject beyond what you ‘see’. There is no presence of a ‘360’ view, for you have not researched. Hence why your response is so categorically out of context.

….which I have found incredibly irritating about your recent comments. Since you haven’t looked into any of the information I’ve offered to you, lemme fill you in on what you DON”T know…

1) LEGALLY downloaded music files (i.e. PURCHASED), exceeded “plastic” CD sales for the first time in music history, in 2006. As of September this year, it is estimated this trend will possibly double by the close of 2007, according to SoundScan.

2) “Independent’ music labels garnered 28.4% of world-wide revenue in sales in 2005. It is the first time in industry history that the ‘independent’ outpaced the ‘Big 4’ (SonyBMG, WMG, Universal, and EMI) on a one-to-one per capita basis. It has been projected by various business analysts that the ‘independent’ sector’s portion could crest to 40% by 2010. Mergers/Acquisitions, changing consumer tastes in music, the advantage of personal music catalog customization utilizing the popular iPod mp3 player, as well as illegal filesharing, are the indicated factors.

3) The recent multi-million dollar 10-year contractual agreement between Madonna and Live Nation inked in Oct of this year, is this first time an Artist with that level of ‘brand recognition’ in the music marketplace has waived their ongoing contract with a ‘major’ (Warner Bros. since 1982), in favor of a more lucrative, independent contract that involves multi-level merchandising and digital distribution of both live and studio-recorded material exclusively through the internet. It sets the possibility of lesser-known, emerging talent to enjoy a broader level of exposure not seen previously, and that live events now take on a greater roll than ever before.

As far as being ‘misguided’ is concerned, your lack of insight and vision has made YOU more intolerant of change, and has caused you (at least with me), to appear trapped by ‘tunnel vision’. You seem to despise what you can not fully understand. Maybe this time, even if you disagree, you can keep it IN CONTEXT. Piracy is only ONE dynamic of MANY that are currently driving the continuous change in the industry. Not the ONLY one

I have also the proof that you don’t know shit about what I’m doing, for if you had investigated it, you would’ve found I have a fully operating digital store on my website, and the fact that that my company logo contains the FULL name of the label:

“ShoEnTeL Music ENTERPRISES”

His response? Nothing.

I am one who likes to engage people on such issues, and I myself don't mind standing corrected, especially if I come away learning something I hadn't known before. My biggest peave in regards to 'WhutDoYaMean Gene' was his obvious withdrawal from the discussion, which he willfully took part. And in the following months since then, I have tried to re-engage him, and he has since not posted ANYTHING of my multiple correspondences since.

It is an obvious snub.

It is also obvious he has nothing of any value to offer to this, and does not like being cornered, in particular, when he's made to look an ass on his own website.

And for all his success with product endorsement, the merchandising of the Kiss franchise, and reality television, Old Man Simmons is a stodgy old codger when it comes to the very industry that made him. An industry that has gone through some miraculous changes. Of which I'll close this article with a line quote from Ben Folds:

"The 'WizMan' will never fit you like like the 'wizkid' did/
So why you gotta act like you know when don't know?/
It's O.K. if you don't know everything..."

And the title of the song from which this quote comes from, encapsulates this whole sordid mess of ignorance, assumption, and egocentrics in regards to this elderly yutz.

'Old Bastard'

]]> http://mrlk.wordpress.com/?p=289 Mon, 12 May 2008 23:54:24 +0000 mrlk http://mrlk.wordpress.com/?p=289 some of what bob says i agree with - some of what he says i dont agree with

i was talking to a friend the other day and i pointed out that 10 years ago bob lefsetz would never been able to say what he says now unless he was working for a tabloid and had a load of stuff on various editors of those same tabloids - if he wasnt an employee of a label then he had to be a journo who knew employees of said labels... one of these days i'll google bob and find out why he's so opinionated

anyway here's bob's daily/weekly rant on the music biz as it is now

its very u.s. centric - apparently the music industry only happens in the u.s.

I've got some great new posts coming up, though. Three upcoming ones deal with:

• A look at the present day feasibility of Gerd Leonhard's Music Like Water theory
• Another argument for a new anti-piracy policy (or "new tactics for the war on share-erism")
• A break from the music scene with a forecast for arthouse cinema's future

There's also a bunch of other things in the works, but I've felt bad leaving you all hanging for four days now!

In return, I give you a couple of links I only wish I had the time to expand upon these past few days:

• Tom Waits' skin-and-bones site revision  launched with possibly the best press conference footage I've ever seen
• According to Notcot, the new NIN album (released online for free on Monday) has individual album art for every song
• Gerd Leonhard on the importance of social media (specifically blogs) in the new music landscape
• A unique new radio design with an analog social media twist
• Bob Lefsetz's unique and no-holds-barred rant on the music industry's failures at combatting piracy
• Qtrax has another major label signed on for free and legal P2P music (that makes 3 in total)
• The labels are starting to release "long tail music" (aka hard-to-find, low demand, niche market material) through Amazon

I really do wish I could have written more about any of these... Expect a new post before Friday.

"You’re better off releasing a handful of EXQUISITE tracks than an hour-long album."

Yes, artists these days tend to be more concerned with the flash-in-a-pan success of a single (on a totally unrelated aside, do you remember OMC?) than an album that takes listeners on a "musical journey," and, as depressing as I find that, I've got to admit that it's true. That's not to say that they only need to release their best material: somebody out there will definitely enjoy a track that others think of as filler, and that fan's evangelism may be worth more than all of the airplay they could buy. Hell, that's how "My Humps," became a hit!

Meanwhile, when it comes to media, people aren't as ADD-rattled as they're made out to be; Lefsetz even points out that kids "play the same video games for twelve hours straight." We're all begging to be taken away, to be told a story.

And the album is to the single what the novel is to the paragraph.

The solution to the whole "albums vs. singles" debate might lie in compilations -- more specifically, series of them. We've all heard about how the radio can be revived if people start trusting that they're listening to what they want, and nothing else; can albums be revived if people start trusting the tastes of the brand (or, better yet, person) that curates the album for them?

One thing's for sure: the album is being faced with a unique opportunity to evolve. Perhaps albums will be more successful if the artistry behind them is taken up by someone other than the music creators, who instead busy themselves by writing their next big single.

Only time -- and natural selection -- can tell us for sure.

http://www.pollstar.com/news/viewnews.pl?NewsID=9942

For an interesting narrative on the situation as well as some history, check out 

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2008/04/17/clives-demise/

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few of the acts that built Clive's career. Or whose career's were built by him. Depending on opinion; popular, or his.

Janis Joplin - Cry Baby (1970) 

Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road (1976)

Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You (1992)

Voy al nuevo blog Dosis Musical, y leo acerca del fichaje de Douglas Merril, ex de Google, por EMI Music. Alguien en EMI ha dado un paso más adelante que simplemente admitir que la industria musical ha cambiado. Ahora toca cambiar equipo en la empresa, e incorporar personal que entiende internet como medio eficaz para distribuir música, porque los cambios en una empresa los hacen las personas que saben del negocio.  Han dado el primer paso, y recortado su personal por 2000 personas, reduciendo la plantilla hasta un 60%.

Camino por la blogoesfera, y me encuentro con otras dos noticias.  La última eclipsará la lectura, así que mencionemos la menos sonada por delantado. IanCR abandona Yahoo Music y se mete de lleno en un proyecto startup cuya finalidad es ayudar a los artistas independientes a difundir su música por la red. Se llama TopSpinMedia, pero de momento no ofrece mucha información, y sí muchos puestos de trabajo en EEUU. Buenas oficinas de trabajo, eso sí - foto superior-.

Apple compra Universal Music o_O, anunciaba Bob Lefsetz ayer. El artículo no tiene desperdicio. Steve Jobs, CEO de Apple estaba harto de verse obligado a tener que ceder a la presión de las discográficas, que imponían un precio final al consumidor de 0,99€ por canción, a sabiendas de que el negocio jamás progresaría de este modo. Steve, persona nacida para dar la vuelta a este mundo, llevaba tiempo buscando una salida a esta situación, y elige Universal Music - subsidiaria de Vivendi Universal - por tener el disponer del mayor catálogo musical. A partir del 15 de abril, éste catálogo costará 0,15€ por canción. EMI, destino de Douglas Merril, venderá al mismo precio.

El artículo de Mr. Lefsetz no tiene ni desperdicio ni fondo en todo lo que se cuece en la industria. Augura fracaso para la nueva relación Madonna/Live Nation, y señala a Steve Jobs como sabedor de que los grandes directos no tienen futuro, simplemente porque no habrá quien financie producciones de tal calibre. Augura buen futuro para el artista independiente, que vende exclusivamente gracias a su música, y no una producción artificial.

"I'm not angry; I'm just passionate about music and trying to speak the truth about it," says Lefsetz, who once worked in the music industry.

The Washington Post profiles the infamous music blogger behind Lefsetz Letter.

Read the whole article here.