GarageSpin

Another one of my favorite authors, Seth Godin, wrote a fantabulous post today of music lessons for the music industry (i.e. for major labels).  Definitely a great read -- here's a lesson summary, but be sure to check out the full post:

0. The new thing is never as good as the old thing, at least right now
1. Past performance is no guarantee of future success
2. Copy protection in a digital age is a pipe dream
3. Interactivity can’t be copied
4. Permission is the asset of the future
5. A frightened consumer is not a happy consumer
6. This is a big one: The best time to change your business model is while you still have momentum.
7. Remember the Bob Dylan rule: it’s not just a record, it’s a movement
8. Don’t panic when the new business model isn’t as ‘clean’ as the old one
9. Read the writing on the wall
10. Don’t abandon the Long Tail
12. Celebrity is underrated
13. Value is created when you go from many to few, and vice versa
14. Whenever possible, sell subscriptions

#2, #3, #4, and #10 are especially relevant to any new, indie/unsigned artist.  How do your own music creation/promotion/distribution efforts stack up?  (I'm already re-thinking a few things...)

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Andrew Dubber's New Music Strategies blog is one of my favorite reads in the music space, especially when I need a philosophical infusion of online media ecology (his term, not mine). Well, he's decided to start 2008 by transforming the flow of a site into a gigantic "interactive ebook" (which is neither a fair nor accurate summary of the 2000+ word explanation Andrew offered for the project).

Anyway, it's the start of a great journey.  Check out what he's written so far:

• Introduction
• First Principals Part I: Music 

Funny, I was thinking of starting a "blog-post-series-becomes-a-free-ebook" project recently...but then remembered that I hadn't completed a song in almost a year.  Ouch!  No.  New.  Projects.

Speaking of which...my new music computer is almost set up, despite several "technical obstacles"...hopefully they'll be overcome soon. 

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If you can't be in a rock band, or your band just plain stinks, the game Rock Band is for you.  I had a chance to play it during the Christmas break, and it was totally awesome.

Harmonix, maker of Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II (Guitar Hero 3 was released by someone else), created a game where multiple people play drums, sing, and play guitar to wow a virtual audience.  If you suck, you get boo-ed off the stage.

As a singer/guitarist, I of course gravitated to the drum set all night.  AWESOME.  Play this game if you get the chance.

"We're gonna take the power back!!"

UPDATE:  Ok, this is somewhat related -- I just noticed these free offers for Guitar Hero...if interested, check 'em out:

• FREE Dual Gig Bag if you buy Guitar Hero Encore 2-Player Wireless Bundle
  
• FREE T-Shirt if you buy Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
• FREE GameFly 10-Day Trial by using the coupon code TENDAY here

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Brad Sucks is the man.  He recently launched a couple cool Christmas presents for indie artists everywhere:

• Give Me Some Money - This is sort of like a cooler, more interactive tip jar.  If you've seen the Give Me Some Candy widgets on Jonathan Coulton's or Ze Frank's websites, you'll get the idea.  Except, this one is open source, so you can do it yourself for free.
• Download Store - Brad's own download store now has its own shopping cart (so it will enable PayPal, Google Cart, or whatever), and also enables zero dollar downloads (i.e. free downloads), which is great.

Very cool.   Granted, I'm beginning to lean away from anything that requires me to code, since I stink at it, but hey, these are pretty cool apps.  Happy holidays!

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It's true, office Christmas parties CAN be a blast.  We held one of those Secret Santa anonymous gift-giving delios today...and apparently, my co-workers know me pretty well. 

First, I got a Tron DVD (20th Anniversary Collector's Edition). (The old Tron flick is an absolute classic.) Then I got a 56" Uncle Bob's Double Snow Tube for some fun in the snow. The actual tube is different from what's pictured here -- mine has funky blue flame details on it, and has two sets of handles, etc.

Girl Crusade and I will have to tear up the slopes with this puppy.  Jackpot!

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Normally, I hate getting unsolicited email that doesn't address me directly, and delete it.  An email today with the subject line, "New Release and special fighting Game" caught my attention, so I checked it out.

The band Neo Filigrante apparently created a Street Fighter-ish video game to help promote the release of their new EP release this month.  Basically, users play the game, bash thugs over the head with a Yamaha keyboard, then submit their score to potentially win a free EP copy.  Awesome interactive marketing idea; kudos.

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Let's talk about selling out, shall we?

Any starving musician or cubicle-bound musician-wannabe wouldn't mind extracting a little extra coinage for the old album fund.  If you're included in that group, four words:  Scalp Hannah Montana tickets.  Just kidding.  (Though apparently, some parents are shelling out up to $2,000 - $3,000 for a pair.  Insane.)

If scalping isn't your style, there's another option -- TicketMaster recently launched an affiliate program that will pay you a commission for any sales that occur through your site via banners, search boxes, and text links they provide you.  (See example below)  If you have a band/music blog, chances are, your readers are interested in music, and may very well be shopping for tickets. Here's the rub -- the commission rates suck: 1% - 1.5% on a ticket sale price, with a cap at $5.  To illustrate the suckiness, if you bought a ticket worth $20 through the search box below, I would earn a whopping $0.25; if you upgraded to a $500 ticket, I would get $5.

Why so Scrooge-like?  Ticket master's penny-pinching ways were explained to me by a friend thus (paraphrased by me):

ALL of the price of a ticket goes to the venue and artist.  Ticketmaster gets about 50% of the service charge.  (I hate service charges.)  So, say, on a $100 ticket with a $20 service charge, the artist and venue split the $100, the promoter/venue, and ticketmaster split the $20 service charge, and there's also the additional 3% CC charge on the whole sale of $3.  At the end of it all, poor old TM gets $7...so the 1% commission of the $100 is sort of 10% of their sales, in that case.

Interesting.   But it's still hard for affiliate marketers (and bands) to swallow when sites like StubHub (a great 'after market' site for buying and selling (er, scalping?) tickets) offers an 8% commission fee, for example.

So, a final word -- you'll do less work and earn more money towards that next guitar amp if you just go with my first tip: scalp Hannah Montana tickets.  ;) 

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Gibson's "Robot Guitar seems to be getting more and more popular.  If you haven't seen it in action, check out the demo video below.  If you have, skip that, and check out Gibson's 'Psycho' spoof...poor Fender. (I wonder if the robot is quite as screechy and noisy as the video depicts? That could be a bit painful. Nevertheless, if anyone that loves me is reading this, remember, Christmas is right around the corner. Thanks Mike)

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My frustration with my recording setup finally bore fruit this weekend, as I am now fully committed to upgrading my DAW (home recording PC).

While recording vocals for "Avalanche", my Dell kept crapping out in the middle of a recording, despite my turning off anything and everything that consumed RAM (disabling effects, archiving non-critical tracks, "freezing" permanent tracks, etc etc).  That was the final straw.

I'm opting to have a pro put together something customized.  Though geeky, I'm simply not geeky enough to trust myself with the task of tweaking and tinkering a DAW into a lean, mean, audio converting machine.

My current setup includes:

Dell Dimension 8200, Pentium 4 CPU 1.99 GHz, 1.99 GHz, 1GB RAM
C: ATA Controller: WDC WD800BB-75CAA0
F: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3160023A
M-Audio Delta 1010LT soundcard
M-Audio DMP3 preamp
M-Audio Studiophile BX5a monitors
Nvidea GeForce 6200 video card (with Dell 2005 FPW and Dell 1702FP monitors)
Sonar Producer 6
Reason 2.5

Everything above is solid for my needs...except the ancient Dell from 5 years ago (did MP3s even exist back then?).  Two words:  UP.  GRADE.  More soon...

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Gotta love da Apple, jabbing at Vista in its own ad space. Microsoft may be none too pleased with CNET after this... Check out the video ads before they're pulled here.

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There aren't many turkey songs in the world, let alone Thanksgiving songs.  You never hear about anyone going Thanksgiving caroling on T-Day eve.  But the Adam Sandler turkey song (i.e. the "Thanksgiving Song") is a classic of classics.

Though I couldn't find a Youtube clip of Adam's performance (law suit issues), I did find the decent home made video below.  Sit back with your family, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, and sing along (the lyrics are right under the video clip):

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Peter Rojas, founder of Engadget, Joystiq, and Gizmodo, launched a new biz called...er...RCRD LBL.  (Vowels?  We don't need no stinkin' vowels..!)  Imagine a cross between the mp3 blog Large Hearted Boy and editorially-leaning publication Pitchfork, then remove the unbiased commentary, add band blogs and listener profile pages, close label relationships, 100% free downloads, widgets, and a compensation system that shares advertising royalties with bands, and you have RCRD LBL.  Sort of.  You get the idea.

So yes.  Read about new bands, download their music, and hooray, bands actually get a cut of ad royalties.  It's almost like a SELECTIVE music site...not every band can join, but anyone can listen for free.  Worth checking out.  (Thanks, Taylor!)

WSJ wrote all about RCRD LBL as well (it must be nice having an Engadget founder backing you), within the frame of an ailing music industry looking for new ways to monetize music, etc etc.

HEY BANDS -- Note this questoin in the FAQ section:

Do you accept demo tapes/MP3s from signed and unsigned bands?

Yes, if you'd like to submit a LINK (please do not send full MP3s) to your music, you can send it to aandr [at] rcrdlbl [dot] com. If we dig what we hear, we'll be sure to drop you a line.

I would strongly recommend you submit your music now, while the site is still new, before it gets swamped with submissions from thousands of other bands. Cheers.

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Whether you love or hate acapella, you have to admit, this is a pretty solid rendition:

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I worked on my new song for the first time in months last Sunday, and recorded all the main verse and chorus vocals.  That is, after re-writing a good chunk of the song; it was sounding a tad too angry and accusatory (as I was angry at the time I wrote it).

It's not called "Take A Stand" anymore -- it's now called "Avalanche".  The chorus lyrics are:

Unclench your fists
Throw away your defenses
Let them all fall like an avalanche

There is still time
Fix the love, yours and mine
Let it rain down like an avalanche

That may sound a little strange out of context..?  The song is about cycles of abuse or pain that have involved multiple generations, and taking a stand to break those cycles.  (Unfortunately, I know too many examples of this happening (though not to me)...abuse being passed down from one person to another to another, often within the same family...it's really sad to see.  Some are able to stop the 'cycle' dead; others aren't so fortunate.)

Anyway, the song was a challenge -- I experimented with phrasings and rhythms I've not used before.  We'll see what you think, it may be a total flop.  But at least I tried, darnit!  Anyway, I'm getting close...and can't wait for you to hear it.   Maybe I'll post a preliminary demo...  (Actually, I still want to get all y'all to contribute to the end bridge, which I mentioned way back in...MAY???  Wow, I need to get this project done, peeps.)  Thanks for your unlimited patience.

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Are there any Nintendo veterans in the house?  (I'm talking the 8-bit old school version, not this Wii nonsense...which I dream about at night, by the way...)  If you shouted "Heck yeah!", then here's a follow-up question -- do you remember the game Mega Man 2?  Awesome game.

The Video Game Cover Band did an awesome medley of all the Mega Man 2 theme songs in this live concert.  They're so right on, I actually had flashbacks of myself getting swarmed by mechanical birds and getting crushed by huge, spikey masses. (Thanks, Noel!)  Ah...the good old days.

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Happy Halloween, y'all.  Here's little music video ditty I found while browsing the YouTubes...shot in the World of Warcraft with pumpkins 'n' bats 'n' stuff.  Enjoy.

So, did any of you actually wear a costume to work?  I brought my Pick-Up Artist "Mystery" hat, but haven't actually worn it yet.

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Accomplice: New York was a blast; I recently went with my family this last weekend. If you haven't heard of it already, it's a sort of show that's part game, part scavenger hunt, part theater.  You buy tickets to it not even knowing where it is.  That is, until you get a sketchy call from a mobsta-sounding dude tell you where to meet him.  Clues, puzzles, tasks, and 'scenes' then lead you all over lower Manhattan.  Good fun.

There are a couple shows in NY, and they're apparently adding more in DC, LA, and a 3rd city I don't recall.  If there's one near you, I highly recommend checking it out.

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So, you can download 25 indie tracks (or rap, classical, blues, whatever) from eMusic right now for free.  They're doing a 14-day free trial that lets you keep the music you download, whether you subscribe or not, with no obligation, and no DRM.  Nice.  You can check out the offer here.

I recently browsed emusic.com and I picked out a bunch tracks by indie and alternative bands:

Some of these are more mainstream indie than others, but whatever -- I'm not ashamed.  :)  If you do the trial and download some tracks from e music, share your picks with the rest of us in the comments below -- it's fun to know what everyone else is listening to..!

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I have and love Reason 2.5.  I'd love to have Propellerhead's latest version, Reason 4.0 even more.  But alas, it's normally not free, and is more often than not about $399 in stores.  Yowza!

Fortunately, for one lucky songwriter, audioMIDI is holding a little Reason 4 giveaway.  Go for it! (Thanks Eric)

(If you're not a Reason user, consider entering the contest and donating your winnings to GarageSpin.  :D)

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Kinda funny.  For the ultimate in pampered musicianship, Gibson released several guitars that basically tune themselves using something called the Tronical Powertune System.  That must be great for both 1) hard-working musicians that need to change tunings on the fly before/during/after gigs, and 2) lazy musicians who don't want to bother withthe whole process.  (via Wiser Rocker)

Hopefully, the 'System' will never become self-aware, begin writing music, and put musicians out of work. 

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Sigur Ros is a band from Iceland that's sold 2 million records of music that contains made-up, gibberish language.  (That's a story in and of itself, since it proves once and for all that lyrics don't matter.  Just kidding.  The music is beautiful and atmospheric, and must be any video producer's dream, since there aren't any actual words that may conflict with the premise of a video sequence.)  You may remember "Staralfur" from Life Aquatic, and other stuff from Vanilla Sky and other films.

Anyway,  it's no wonder these guys sing gibberish, they're not the best public speakers.  Taylor pointed out a recent and cringe-worthy NPR interview with the band.  I dare you to see how far through it you can get...

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Holy smokes -- look at all these free guitar give-aways.  Do ya feel lucky, punk?

While I love my 2nd hand Epiphone Les Paul Standard, some of these made me drool a bit, and I'm not normally a gear geek.  Most of the entry deadlines are in October.  If you win a new axe, think well of me.  (Thanks to Eric at EKA Hosting for the tip!):

• Gibson is holding a contest to win a Gibson Acoustic J-45 True Vintage
• Gibson's also raffling off a Flying V New Century 
• Guitar World is holding a Design-Your-Own-Custom-Peavy-Guitar contest
• Guitar World, in cahoots with Ozzy and Zakk, are giving away a signed Les paul guitar 
• Acoustic Guitar is giving away a 000C-28 Andy Summers Signature Edition Martin Guitar
• Guitar Center's holding a contest for a Les Paul signed by Hubert Sumlin 
• Modern Foods (wha?) is giving away Dwight Yoakam's Epiphone Guitar
• Elixir Strings (my FAVORITE acoustic strings in the world, btw) is giving away an Atom Guitar 
• RoadRunner Records is giving away an autographed Dave Mustaine Dean Guitar (who?)
• Family Christian Stores is giving away a Third Day Chronology Guitar

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It's Friday random fun time.  Check out this Raymond Crowe clip as he takes a "hands on" approach (I am sooo funny) to music video making for the song "What A Wonderful World"  by Louis Armstrong.  Genius. This is must be what Jun'ichirō Tanizaki had in mind when he wrote In Praise of Shadows. :) (Thanks, Tara)

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The company HighAndes in Dublin just launched their new audio, video, and photo loop creation and mixing tool, TrakAxPC.  It sort of reminds me of online music mixing/mashup applications JamGlue and SpliceMusic, but with photo and video mixing included, without the focus on community-based experience, and with downloadable software instead of online accessible software. 

TrakAx hopes to sell cheap loop bundles of 10 loops fo $2 a pop, which is probably why they haven't integrated some kind of Creative Commons media interfaced, or a community-based media upload option.  However, that doesn't mean you can upload Creative Commons media on your own, of course. 

Basic features include loop drag'n'dropping, beat matching, video and photo integration, video and audio effects, and microphone and webcam input.  Not bad at all for a free application. You can give it a test spin here. 

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Many of you know I've been searching for the penultimate band name to associate my music with in the near and distant future.

Thus far, I've narrowed down a list to 5 band names.  In conversations with friends, one name was a clear winner.  However, I recently stuck a PollDaddy poll on GarageSpin, and the results are a bit odd...and not nearly as conclusive.

What do YOU think?  Pick your favorite band name below:

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Radiohead just announced that they'll be making their new album "In Rainbows" available for free download under a choose-your-own-price pricing model.  In addition, they'll be selling the same album in the form of a uber-package including a CD, LPs, and a digital download for $80. 

Definitely a very interesting move.  They'll get a ton of free press, a bunch of new fans' ears, and will hopefully make out in the long run in concert and merch sales.  Good thoughts by Brad and Jonathan on the subject.

It'd be interesting to know how this kind of model works for big name vs. unsigned artists.  I'd love to give it a shot some day.

Update:  Some great discussion on this subject from readers at Marginal Revolution.  (thanks, Taylor)

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Didn't I just write about an artist recording a new album every month?  Ok, yes, I did. 

Funny coincidence.  Andrew at NewMusicStrategies just wrote about Tamara, the Calendar Girl, who has been recording a song every month, collecting remixes posted by her fans, and will be releasing a double album consisting of 1) her recordings and 2) other artists' remixes of her recordings.  Pretty cool idea.

There aren't many original "Recording-a-Song/Album-Every-[FILL IN A TIME PERIOD]" ideas left in the world.  Who will tackle a song a day?  A song an hour?

A verse a day?  A chorus every full moon?  A greatest hits album every presedential election?  A remix every time gas prices go up?  These ideas are GOLD people.

What ideas have you got?

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Cool -- Amazon just launched a public beta version of AmazonMP3, their new music download store selling DRM-free MP3s.  iTunes is great in terms of user experience, but all purchased music is iPod-bound.  Cool things about AmazonMP3:

• Launched with 2 million + songs
• MP3 tracks are encoded at 256 kbps (iTunes encodes at a lower quality level)
• No DRM (digital rights management), play on any phone or mp3 player (iTunes is iPod only)
• Tracks and albums cost as little as $.89 and $4.99 respectively (iTunes sells a few DRM-free tracks for $1.29)

Fun.  I'll be checking the big A for my tunes first.  Emusic also sells DRM-free stuff, btw.

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My band name search continues; there were a lot of great comments when I last posted a few ideas.  Here are a few more that popped into my head the other day while playing with words, thesauruses, and band name generators...does anything spark your interest or warrant attention?  Or, do any of them seem to suggest a theme/genre/characteristic?

• Radio Vine
  Cloud Surf
  Anvil Boy
  Sound Vine
  Radio Quake
  Vine Wave
  DreamSpin

I'm coming to terms with the fact that it's almost unfair of me to ask these questions...you've all only heard a single song of mine, which is tough to base judgement on.  Still, if you have any thoughts, I'd really love to hear them.  Thanks!

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Ok, so I was blown away when I first learned Jonathan Coulton was recording a new song every week during his "Thing A Week" project.  I just learned about artist Sean Wright who's been writing and recording an ALBUM a MONTH since April of this year.  That's insane in the membrane, to quote Cypris Hill.  Check him and his inner-muse-on-steroids out.

My breakneck speed of a song every...oh...6-12 months...is downright shameful.  I bow down to all, and flog myself in repentence.  And I still need that new band name...

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BlogRush is a free widget that can be plugged into a blog to 1) display posts that would be relevant to readers, and 2) help bloggers generate relevant traffic to their site.  I.e. a music site like GarageSpin would hopefully attract more readers interested in music, etc.  I can't help but feel there's something skethcy about it..? Here's what it looks like:

It works like this: the widget (see right) displays 4-5 titles of recent posts from related blogs.  For every impression the widget gets on your site, you gain one traffic 'credit' in the BlogRush content universe.  For each credit, a post from your blog is displayed in a widget on someone else's blog.  But wait (here's the ginsu knife offer), there's more.  If someone else clicks on the widget and ends up installing their own on another website, you get credit for page impressions they generate as well.

It's a pretty viral idea, kinda cool, a little pyramid scheme-ish, but not really since it doesn't require an investment of any kind.  I'm intrigued enough that I'll give it a shot -- so far, the posts are indeed music related, so that's good. I think I'll try it out for a week or two...if it sucks, I'll dump it.

If you're interested in trying BlogRush, you can sign up here, so I can get the credit.  :)

Or, wait 1-2 weeks for my update on how it's going -- I'll add the update to this same post.

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Mashable put a nice little list together of music widgets created specifically for FaceBook, the social networking site.  If you've got a profile there, check 'em out.  (Facebook kicks MySpace's butt, btw.)  Jukeboxes, song charts, lyrics games, "what-I'm-listening-to" widgets grace the list. 

(Mashable is all about these "toolbox" link bait posts, these days...and they work!)

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I'm checking out the new custom radio & social networking site, Jango.  (Currently listening to "Red" by Elbow, a band I'd never heard of, but which I'm currently digging.)

It's pretty sweet, sorta like a Pandora meets Last.fm.  I like the radio station creation tool that lets move a "music discovery control" slider between Popular Favorites, Happy Medium, and Wide Variety.  The social stuff is cool, though personally, I'm burnt out by all the social networks out there.  If you're not, you'll love it.

One small complaint -- I have the music discovery slider set to "wide variety," and yet I've heard of almost all of the first 8 songs I've listened to.  Pandora seems to have a deeper collection, for those of you beatnicks who want nothing to do with the masses.  Otherwise, I'm enjoying the experience of listening and poking about on the site.

I wonder if there's a way for artists to submit music to the catalog?

It's in private beta now, but you can sign up for an invite on the home page...it'll be in your inbox in about 10 seconds.  You can also invite 3 friends -- I'll send an invite to the first three folks who ask for one in the comments below.  Woohoo!

UPDATE:  Folks at Jango answered a few questions I had:  1) The full depth of their catalog is not in full effect yet...it will be once they go from private beta to public beta; and 2) Artists and Labels CAN submit music to Jango directly by emailing them directly (see the email address in the first comment below).  I've also been given 100 Jango invites -- click here to get your Jango Invite!  Thanks, Jango team.

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Friday miscellany time.  The Office Overlord, a good friend of mine, has some of the best HR stories I've ever heard.  Check out his "HR Nightmares:  You Make The Call!" post -- too funny.  These scenarios should absolutely be part of any Human Resources Director's boot camp.

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Hey GarageSpinners, you can now talk to everyone else here at GarageSpin whenever you feel like it -- and without having to comment on a specific post.

Just look for the little CBox tagboard (ie chat window) in the right hand column of this page (and not the graphic in this post)...and shout to the world about what's on your mind.  For example, did you:

• Hear a new band?
• Read some gossip?
• Finish a new song?
• Watch an episode of Pick-Up Artist?

Let us know!

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Check out this video clip about the famous Amen Break drum sample when you have 18 minutes to spare.  Despite Nate's monotone delivery, it's awesome:

This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

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