Music Industry News

Better Than the Van Co-Founder Todd Hansen on How to Tour Smarter

Source: We All Make Music
July 12, 2010

Better Than The Van's Founders, Scott Miller & Todd Hansen

Have you ever played a show to ten people somewhere in the hostile uncivilized territories of the midwest, slept in this very same van, freezing your ass off, curled up somewhere between an amp and a herniated disc?

Better Than the Van co-founder Todd Hansen has. He's also slept in worse places on tour. “My first or second tour, we landed in a machine shop sleeping on concrete in ...

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Ladies First

Source: Indaba Music Artist in Residence with Greg Osby
July 12, 2010

Where are the Ladies?

I've been on a personal campaign for several months focusing on one subject in particular but not limited to that one subject exclusively. It's a common topic of discussion that I have with my students and friends which concerns an issue that plagues the music, not necessarily from the perspective of the performers (but then, again, perhaps it does...) and sometimes influences the choices that the musicians make in performance and programming. However, unlike many issues ...

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Now You Can Buy Twitter Followers, but Will Any Become True Fans?

Source: HypeBot
July 12, 2010

Several services including Twitter1K and Followers For Sale have begun selling new Twitter fans by the thousands an at least one experienced internet marketer Jonathan Volk claims to have increased his Twitter following after buying just 1000 followers.

“Before ordering this service, I had a negative trend in followers. After ordering I gained the followers that I paid for pretty quickly!" says Volk. “The way I understand the service to work is that these real people are paid a small ...

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Baym: Changing Relationships, Changing Industries

Source: HypeBot
July 12, 2010

Communication scholar Nancy Baym, who has been interviewed on here before, recently gave a great talk at Harvard's Berkman Center.  In it, she talks about how the music industries, in advent of the Internet and social web, have been forced to rethink how they work and relate to their audiences. She argues that the music industries have been increasingly pushed toward models of engagement with audiences that integrate both  social and economic (market) exchange, where there had previously only ...

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MySpace Music is Burning Money, Possible Subcription Service in the Works

Source: HypeBot
July 12, 2010

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The End of Bertie Big Balls, and the Rise of Independent A&R

Source: We All Make Music
July 12, 2010

For the last 30 years, the A&R rep has been an enigma: What do they do? What don't they do?

Today, with the entire industry in flux, there are even more questions: Are they still relevant these days? Were they ever?

A&R reps are most certainly still relevant. What they do and don't do, however, is rapidly evolving.

As Gian Fiero points out in this posting for the blog Business Industry, ...

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Music Publicity 101 and then Some...

Source: Sound Visions Media
July 10, 2010

I just read this very good short piece on music publicity. These are some of the things I tell my own artists and thought I'd share them with you.The article is from the DIY musician blog written by Mike King of Berklee College of Music.

For those of us out in the world doing music publicity I appreciate his concise information on some important items. A press kit is very important and how it is constructed.To ...

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Killola: How to Create Merch That Keeps On Giving

Source: HypeBot
July 8, 2010

Garage-pop rockers Killola, joining forces with Aderra, a digital distributor of live concert recordings, have created USB Dogtags--that not only serve as a unique merch item to sell to their fans, but also provide the group with a another way to instantly connect with them.  Fans who purchase a receive not only the band's new album, but also their two previous ones. 

In addition, when fans plug the USB drive into their computer, they also receive exclusive updates from the ...

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