Remember just two days ago when we were all jumping for joy that the major labels were going to let Pandora and the rest of Internet radio a reasonable royalty fee? Well now comes the bad news. Pandora announced on their blog that they will have to limit users to 40 hours per month unless you pay $.99. Considering how amazing this service is I don't think that is much to ask!
TechCrunch just leaked the word that Facebook has a new App in town and it is looking to make a move on Myspace's kingdom of bands. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with their terible, terible navigation or retarded music interface. It is simply a widget you can place on your websites with a newstream and a button to become a fan. This is good news for all of you wondering how you are going to keep your fans up to date since no one is going on Myspace anymore and reading the buletins you post with stupid headlines to get people to open them. Get yours here and start making more Facebook fans.
BTW Just tried to install it on a Myspace profile and of course it is a no go.
BTW Just tried to install it on a Myspace profile and of course it is a no go.
A Looking In View - Music Video
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Jackson Fans Offering Memorial Tickets for Sex on Craigslist
- Maynard from Tool opened a wine tasting room
- Ryan Gosling's Band Signs to Anti
- MGMT's Time To Pretend gets re-release treatment
- Beck Launches Website Interview Series With Tom Waits' Help
- Stream Zune Songs to Your iPhone
- Michael Jackson memorial concert: the digital stats
Does your band have a name people constantly misspell? Does your name have an alias such as it's initals or something that people call your band non-stop? If so, it is very important to own the SEO on these names.
You may have no idea what I am talking about but it is easy to explain. People constantly think the name of this site is either museformation or musinformation. If you go to Museformation.com or Musinformation.com they all redirect to Musformation.com so that you find our site. I bought these names after realizing people were constantly making those errors. It cost me $14 and 15 minutes of my very web retarded brain to set this up. It ends up giving us tons of traffic and if someone goes to Google and types in Museformation or Musinformation they now find our site since I made this post and one other.
Years ago the band Brand New used to make shirts that said Brand Nizzle as influenced by Snoop Dog's lingo. These shirts were so popular I can remember a kid in a band asking, "Who is Brand Nizzle?" If he had went to Google he would only come up with some links for a shirt and a Urban Dictionary name (another good way to own your aliases is to add them as a definition here). This would have led to him not finding a band he ended up loving.
Every time someone type in your name wrong and doesn't find your band you may miss out on a new fan. It is cheap and easy to have this not happen make sure you have your bases covered.
You may have no idea what I am talking about but it is easy to explain. People constantly think the name of this site is either museformation or musinformation. If you go to Museformation.com or Musinformation.com they all redirect to Musformation.com so that you find our site. I bought these names after realizing people were constantly making those errors. It cost me $14 and 15 minutes of my very web retarded brain to set this up. It ends up giving us tons of traffic and if someone goes to Google and types in Museformation or Musinformation they now find our site since I made this post and one other.
Years ago the band Brand New used to make shirts that said Brand Nizzle as influenced by Snoop Dog's lingo. These shirts were so popular I can remember a kid in a band asking, "Who is Brand Nizzle?" If he had went to Google he would only come up with some links for a shirt and a Urban Dictionary name (another good way to own your aliases is to add them as a definition here). This would have led to him not finding a band he ended up loving.
Every time someone type in your name wrong and doesn't find your band you may miss out on a new fan. It is cheap and easy to have this not happen make sure you have your bases covered.
PayPal recently introduced micropayments which will help to be one of the biggest ways bands can sell music directly to their fans resulting in greater profits. It seems they are going to take this a step further now and have developed an API so developers can integrate PayPal's system into all sorts of web Apps. While many services offer ways for bands to cheaply sell music to their fans the revolution that PayPal brings is their accountability. Many people trust PayPal and are scared to buy from a band using a system they have never tried. This could be great news for some of the already existing online music distributors since they can incorporate PayPal's reputable name into the legitimacy of their sales. Great news! More at TechCrunch.
I guess no one has hipped the guys to the term webisode? Anyway Slayer do a great job of getting the hype up about their new record. After their last release (or 3 if you ask some fans) left many fans disappointed they do a great job of showing their fans that things will be different this time and should tune in to see if they have re-lit the fire. Great job on their part for a band that needs to turn their reputation around for their next release to be successful.
Yep, the author of The Long Tail that book of ideas that didn't really work out the way he hoped has a new one about to come out. Free: the Future of a Radical Price
is one of those books everyone will be talking about for the next few months and those of us who like to stay informed will unfortunately have to read it like we did The Long Tail only to find that it was poorly thought out. Malcom Gladwell trashed the book pretty bad a few weeks ago and most of the other reviews are looking pretty bad. The bad news is many people are going to take the book as gospel, so reading it is part of keeping a well informed opinion. Luckily you can read it for free after the jump! Isn't that nice?
Note: Before the flaming starts I don't think Free is a bad thing (in fact we think it is a great thing in many ways) I am just still bitter I had to sit through The Long Tail and don't always find Anderson's writing to be as well thought out as I would like and know that this book could very well be an improvement on past endeavors and would be stupid for us to assume it is as full on retarded as his previous work.
is one of those books everyone will be talking about for the next few months and those of us who like to stay informed will unfortunately have to read it like we did The Long Tail only to find that it was poorly thought out. Malcom Gladwell trashed the book pretty bad a few weeks ago and most of the other reviews are looking pretty bad. The bad news is many people are going to take the book as gospel, so reading it is part of keeping a well informed opinion. Luckily you can read it for free after the jump! Isn't that nice?
Note: Before the flaming starts I don't think Free is a bad thing (in fact we think it is a great thing in many ways) I am just still bitter I had to sit through The Long Tail and don't always find Anderson's writing to be as well thought out as I would like and know that this book could very well be an improvement on past endeavors and would be stupid for us to assume it is as full on retarded as his previous work.
Country act Sons Of Maxwell were recently wronged by United Airlines when one of their guitars were broken by the airline company. United didn't seem to care that they broke it in another of the usual They retaliated by creating this YouTube and are spreading it across the net in hopes that United will change their mind.
Our earlier speculation turned out to be true! Lumberjack/Mordam is shutting down all operations. Earlier we concluded that this will be a symptom of people buying less records and going more digital based. We had an astute commentor who gave the following insight:
"I run one of the labels involved. It's not the digital that did them under, over the years since Dirk Hemsath took over the company things have gone downhill, and labels have not been getting paid at all (with very few exceptions)Their digital sales, they also never paid to their labels.
Their phones/E mails etc, have been turned off since late June.
Anyway, I just don't agree at all, that it has anything to do with digital music, but more to do with simple accounting and morality, (as their digital sales of labels material were very rarely ever paid to the labels either)"
Yikes! We won't be surprised if a few labels go belly up from these shady dealings! Below is Lumberjack/Mordams reply to Punknews.org below:
"I want to give everyone an idea of where things stand with LMMG as of now and where things will be in the future. At this point LMMG will not be able to continue to provide distribution services for labels. We had hopes for the last several months that we'd be able to find a way to move forward but the triple hits of an expensive merger, a dying business and a bad economy have made it impossible. We are hoping to be able to get some money to labels, but I'm not sure how much or when as we have to try and collect money from customers. If you have not yet moved your distribution to another company, please make arrangements to do so as soon as possible."
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Do Record Labels Matter? NPR pretends to discuss it
- Hear an Almighty Defenders (Black Lips/King Khan/BBQ) Track
- RIAA opposes defendant's motion objecting to admissibility of MediaSentry materials in SONY v Tenenbaum
- More Buddyhead Gossip
- RIAA Seeks Web Removal of 'Illegal' Court Recordings
- HelloGoodbye are no longer on Drive-Thru Records
After two years of bickering online radio should be able to now be more popular and become more profitable. The major labels finally gave in to a lower royalty rate for streaming audio. This is a big win for Pandora, Jango, and Last.FM. It is also a big win for indie artists since this will help more people turn to as opposed to the major label stacked mainstream radio stations. For more head to the NY Times.
(via Alex Still of The Walk Ons)
(via Alex Still of The Walk Ons)
A producer and a mastering engineer is more then just a choice you make because of locality or availability. Most good producers develop a relationship with their mastering engineer that is crucial to their sound. The two of them learn from each other on how to achieve an optimal sound. Unfortunately many times record labels, managers, etc. will try to get in the way of this relationship for a variety of reasons. This is where I have seen many records go wrong and run into problems. Choosing a mastering engineer based on quick turnaround or "having the hookup" can be weak link in your recording chain. Just as important as a mastering engineers talent in their ability to get your producers vision. This often takes times and some relationship building. Your record producer is always thinking about how to get your sound to be the best it can be and most often is obsessed with it. The business guys are often thinking about budgets and schedules. If you are really trying to make an exceptional record, it seems obvious who you should trust.
Awesome blog Hit Singularity has done an awesome feature entitled How A Buzz Band Became A Buzz Band: A Rural Alberta Advantage Case Study. It is a great well written look at what goes into a band getting some hype. Don't miss it.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
It amazes me that some of my friends who still use Myspace don't know a simple trick to make using it not a living hell of typing in words you can't read. Anyone who has sent multiple messages or made a lot of friends on Myspace has experienced the hell of typing in a blurry illegible CAPTCHA. Thankfully you don't have to anymore! Simply click your "My Account" button and you will see the above menu where you can click "No More CAPTCHAs". Once you do this simply enter in your cell number and you will get a text. In less then a minute you can get back hours of your life by just typing in a quick code that they send you. So much easier!
The Wall Street Journal Of Free Market Propaganda has a great article on some tips for buying your own health insurance. Obviously this is a big problem for musicians since we are usually self employed. Check this article out if you are thinking about getting yourself some health insurance soon.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a conference where a bunch of
record-industry types gave some advice that seemed to contradict the
way the industry works. They said not to imitate what's big now, just
be yourself.
Any musician who has ever followed this advice has also received plenty of very nice rejection calls, letters and e-mails to the effect of "You guys sound great, you're just not what's in right now."
So why were all these people reminding us not to imitate? Because they were talking about greatness, not flash-in-the-pan success.
Any musician who has ever followed this advice has also received plenty of very nice rejection calls, letters and e-mails to the effect of "You guys sound great, you're just not what's in right now."
So why were all these people reminding us not to imitate? Because they were talking about greatness, not flash-in-the-pan success.
When starting out if you find the right internship it can lead you to an amazing career. If you find the wrong one you can waste lots of your time. Cnet has a great roundup of a few websites that list internships. If you are looking to make your move check out this article first!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
Punknews.org (and their commentors) are reporting from a few sources that popular punk/indie distributor Mordam/Lumberjack is out of business. Phone and email are not being returned as well as allegations of unpaid bills. Whether or not this ends up being a long holiday weekend, this rumor is a tale of what will soon be the inevitable collapse of the record store system. While many people have envisioned widespread record store closings within the year, bills will be unpaid to distributors and record labels making it very difficult for both of these institutions to stay in business. As we see people stop buying CDs and go digital record stores will not be the only casualty, many record labels and distributors will be forced to scale back or go out of business entirely. We will keep up on this issue to confirm or disprove it.
The Telegraph is reporting Brian Message has received 20 million in funding for a new record label. For details hit the Telegraph.
We are taking it easy today. We are going to post a few things on the site today but we are going to take a day away from a lot content so that we can make some improvements to the site. Instead we are going to point you to some great articles from other sites you should read. The Problem With Music by Steve Albini - One of the best indictments of the music industry I have ever seen and remains timeless. If you haven't read this nearly 20 year old article you are missing out on an amazing point of view on music that is still relevant to this day.
Why Don't Performers Get Paid for Radio Airplay? - A great article from the Future Of Music Coalition.
An Article On Radical Honesty - The second you get used to radical honesty your life as a creative person becomes so much easier. Especially if you can practice it.
This weekend most of us were busy having fun and spitting our beer all over something when we heard Sarah Palin quit her job. While we were enjoying ourselves a meme went around the Interwebz like lightening about a NYC pizza showdown between some record label executives and Limewire's suits. A good read for sure and a story you are never going to stop hearing the end of. At least until we hear it was all an exaggeration. TechCrunch as always, has the goods.
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