My buddy Gray’s band, The Lodge On Regulus, played a few blocks from my place at the Whip In tonight and it was made a great scene by the cool vibes (Gray Parsons) and sax (Thomas van der Brook), drums (Donny Wynn) and bass (Tom Benton). I caught some nice audio on my recorder. Jody went with me, Derek met us there. This is why I moved to Austin.
Lodge-at-Whip-In-1.MP3
Lodge-at-Whip-In-2.MP3
If you really dig your artists and you love his or her songs, then my advice here is to seek out at least ten people that each have ten years of solid music industry / music making experience and then challenge each music industry professional to point out, describe and contrast similar songs. Judgments aside, similar song/artist analysis – produced by people that regularly traffic in music – is going to give you the essential, comparative marketplace information you need to make an informed investment decision.
I’m after that “comparative marketplace” information.
I found Music Map this afternoon as I was investigating ways of determining artists I sound like or may be somehow sonically related to. It’s pretty limited, but it helps for making some connection suggestions. Here’s the map for Stevie Wonder.
Here are the folks I listed as somehow sharing characteristics:
Any other artists come to mind?
Roundup of quotes from interesting articles.
It’s about recognizing that the music itself can enhance the value of everything else, whether it’s shows, access or merchandise, and that letting fans share music can help increase the market and create more fans willing to buy compelling offerings. It’s about recognizing that even when the music is shared freely, there are business models that work wonders, without copyright or licensing issues even coming into play.
– The Future Of Music Business Models (And Those Who Are Already There)
The first “leveling” came with ProTools. Then came non-label distribution. Now social media has emerged and…
We now arrive at a place where musicians/artists are comparable to chefs. All chefs, within reason, have access to the same ingredients…
Being an “artist†today means coming to terms with this leveling. How will you put your ingredients together in a manner that creates attraction and retention. These ingredients go beyond the musical notes, obviously, and relate to all facets of your work: your relationship with your market, your “brand,†etc.
What I think I’m most looking forward to, beyond the emergence of music/art that never would have emerged prior to this Leveling, is the lack of excuses that will exist… Since forever the artists’ fingers have wagged at: the label, the distributor, the publicist, the radio person, the web designer, the booking agent, the management … pretty much everyone but themselves.
The future belongs to those like Thomas Keller, David Chang, Ferran Adrià , Chris Bianco. Artists who use the ingredients that are available to everyone else, but combine them – in an alchemical manner – to create something truly remarkable and unique.
So…no excuses, right?
George, of 9 Giant Steps also thinks VRM is where it’s at:
My hope is that content holders will make it even easier for their customers to engage with their content… VRM is that “Customers are born free and independent of vendors.†Another is, “Customers can assert their own terms of engagement and service.†It would behoove all of us on the supply-side to remember these things.
Tom Asacker warns against outdated concepts of branding:
So what’s next? Certainly not “branding;” at least not in the conventional sense. The notion that a marketplace offering is a static, transactional thing that needs the right injection of cosmetics and communication to bring it to life is flawed thinking in today’s environment…
Ours is an era of purpose and action. What’s next are ideas and creative execution.
