ArtistData is an innovative tool for the independent musician and can certainly help music job members seeking to make the most of their time and efforts. They build solutions to help an artist save time with the “monotonous updating” of their online music profiles, Myspace calendars, Facebook and Twitter updates, and the endless stream of concert calendars and gig websites. Being able to enter the data once, to the ArtistData website, then allows more time for being creative – something that is at the core of every musician.

Named a “Top 10 Indie Marketing Tool” by Hypebot, the Chicago-based ArtistData has created a lot of buzz recently. Rian Rochford of Universal Motown / Universal Republic says “ArtistData has provided a priceless tool enabling us to provide accurate and up to date artist info in the most efficient way possible”, and the site has also been awarded a Chicago Innovations People’s Choice Award.

Founder Brenden Mulligan was interviewed by Tim Jahn for part iof his Beyond the Pedway creative businesses series. Here he speaks about the about starting of the company, and also how artists and startups are alike.

Having only recently discovered ArtistData, I am still learning how to best use it for my music career, but can already see the possibilities of being far more efficient, and also being able to reach new markets and create new opportunities with the tools offered. It is always exciting to see new companies emerge in this ever-changing new music industry, and I feel that ArtistData is sure to be a part of that.

If anyone has any use of the website, please contribute! Post your comments here in the music jobs blog.

Lee Jarvis.

Looking for something to help you find Music Jobs in LA? Want to learn new skills to help get more out of your music?

Top artists and producers share their secrets at The Producers Conference, a broad set of creative clinics and interactive classes for computer musicians. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to get the inside track on advanced production techniques, song writing, mixing methods and more.

The Producers Conference, Los Angeles, USA
November 14th, 2009. 1 PM to 6 PM. Doors open at 12:30 PM.
King King
6555 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028 (map)

Get Your Ticket Now!
Tickets are $30.00.

Conference Schedule

1:00-1:10pm – Gerry Bassermann
Record: Design Concept and Interface – Creating with ‘flow’
Gerry Bassermann lays out the why, what and how behind the development of Propellerhead’s recently released Record software. Discover what makes Record so powerful yet transparent.

1:15-2:00pm – Matt Piper
Unleashing Creativity with Record
Line 6’s Propellerhead Product Specialist Matt Piper will demonstrate how he stream-lines his creative workflow while offering arrangement tips-n-tricks; covering Record’s arrange window contextual tools and navigation, comping editor, groundbreaking tempo control, multiple racks, new devices, Line 6 technology, Reason integration and enhancements, file and audio formats, new authorization paradigm, and more.

2:00-2:50 – Artist Discussion
The presenters discuss topics like: maintaining creativity during production, careers and roles in the music biz, and answer questions from the audience.

3:00-3:50 pm – Kurt Kurasaki (aka Peff)
Signal Flow and Effects in Record
Peff discusses his development work on Record, especially the creation of many of the insert effect combinators and the design concepts behind this part of the Record Sound Bank. He’ll demonstrate the processing power of the mixer channel strip in combination with these insert effects and show how to clarify and enhance music tracks.

4:00-6:00 pm – Artist Presentations

About The Presenters

Gerry Bassermann
Gerry Bassermann is Propellerheads Director of North American Markets and an accomplished musician. He holds several degrees in music composition and performance and currently owns and operates OpusNine ( a project studio in the Los Angeles Bay area). For over twenty years, he has worked for many prominent music companies, as a product designer, demonstrator and musical consultant.

Matt Piper
Matt Piper, author of Reason 4 Ignite, is Line 6’s Propellerhead Product Specialist. Piper is an accomplished musician who makes innovative use of Propellerhead software for music production as well as for live performances with improvisational groups and DJ’s in the thriving underground electronic music scene in Los Angeles.

Peff (aka Kurt Kurasaki)
Kurt Kurasaki, author of Power Tools for Reason 3.0, is a noted Reason user with credits in Keyboard and Computer Music Magazines. He also works with Propellerhead Software as a sound designer and tutorial developer. Known as Peff throughout the Online ReBirth and Reason Communities, Kurt is one of the originators of ReBirth Mods.

Joe Solo
Joe Solo is a composer, producer, and songwriter for his own company Solo Productions, Inc. Previously he served as a composer for BMG’s Killer Tracks, Fox Sports, and worked as a songwriter/composer for Paramount’s Famous Music Publishing. Solo also co-wrote two hit songs, Sweet baby and Glad You’re Here, with Grammy Award winning artist Macy Gray and is currently working on a song for her new album, to be released in 2010.

Michael Elsner
Michael Elsner’s professional career began in 1998 when he moved to Nashville,TN. He began working on projects with such artists as Michael McDonald, Sixpence None The Richer, and Jon Anderson from YES to name just a few. During the four and a half years spent in Nashville, Elsner toured with various artists and in the studio producing and/or playing on countless sessions.

Since June of 2003, Michael Elsner has been living in Los Angeles, CA, where he have played on sessions for Miramax Films, Chrysalis Music Publishing, and various television, album and film projects. Select examples of these include the Ella Enchanted soundtrack, The Ex List, The Young & The Restless, and The Bold & the Beautiful. He have signed publishing deals with a number production music libraries and Elsner’s songs have been placed in various television shows and commercials, including High School Musical 2, Hannah Montana, CBS’s Cold Case, Beyond the Break, ABC’s ‘TV’s All-Time Funniest,’ History Channel’s ‘Modern Marvels,’ Baywatch, ESPN, as well as commercials for Audi, Mazda and Rent Way.

I hope that some Music Jobs Blog readers will be interested in this event. Please report back here if you attend!

Lee Jarvis.

Dubspot and Ableton present the LA stop of their “Live 8 U.S. Sessions Tour”
Workshops & Panel Discussions Featuring World-Class Artists
@ King King in Hollywood – Saturday, Nov. 7 and Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009 (daytime)

Dubspot, New York’s premier DJ and electronic music production institute, announces the Los Angeles stop of their Ableton Live 8 U.S. Sessions Tour. This unique series of interactive workshops, Q&As and panel discussions features a diverse pool of world-class artists as well as Dubspot’s top-notch instructors sharing methods for the studio and the stage, centered around the powerful music software Ableton Live 8. Special guest workshop presenters for the Los Angeles weekend include Scientist, Daedelus, Kid Beyond, Justin Boreta, Christopher Willits, Thavius Beck, and Peter Kirn, along with the Dubspot crew. The LA session will be held at King King in Hollywood (6553 Hollywood Blvd / map) on Saturday November 7 (11:00am – 7:00pm) and Sunday November 8 (noon – 8:00pm), 2009. For details and registration please visit www.live8tour.com.

Check out their previous tour stop in NYC, and hear one heck of an endorsement from legendary DJ and producer Richie Hawtin.

This truly unique educational experience is intended to help both aspiring as well as established artists. Each day is organized into five “sessions” designed to develop a diverse range of production and performance skills, while enhancing creative abilities. Saturday sessions focus on production. Sunday sessions focus on performance. Tour workshops showcase how far-reaching the capabilities of Ableton Live 8 are by covering a wide variety of compositional, programming, mixing, and mastering issues. Topics include drum-programming, instrument and effect rack management, sequencing, automation, creating melody, harmonic awareness, mixing and mastering principles, sound stage management, synth programming, PA/DJ hybrid setups, controllers, live instruments in Ableton, efficient set management, looping, routing, licensing, and much more.

The tour involves pioneers of electronic music, along with new blood, to provide a more complete experience and perspective of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In addition to the special guests lined up in each city, expert Dubspot instructors will present personally developed production and performance strategies in a dynamic interactive workshop environment.

The Los Angeles event is the third stop in a series of Ableton workshops that Dubspot is presenting in 8 U.S. cities. Next up on the tour is Austin, with the event to be held at The Parish Room on November 14th and 15th. Presenters and performers at the Austin event include Francis Preve (Different Pieces, Fap 7), Christopher Willits (Ghostly International, Overlap.org), Daniel Wyatt (Sonica Media Group, Atlantic), Jon Margulies (Heatercore, Hobotech), Barry Cole (Spot Music & Blue Mountain Music Publishing), and Michael Hatsis (Track Team Audio).

Again, the LA session will be held at King King in Hollywood (6553 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028; 323-960-5765 (map)) on Saturday November 7 (11:00am – 7:00pm) and Sunday November 8 (noon – 8:00pm), 2009. A weekend pass costs $195; a Saturday or Sunday day-pass costs $110. For details and registration please visit www.live8tour.com.

For more information on Dubspot, please check out www.dubspot.com

Lee Jarvis.

The New Music Seminar is about “seeing the music business and your opportunities a new way”. The event was originally held from 1980 – 1995, and after a long hiatus, was revived this July in New York, featuring speakers and panelists from a variety of music companies, websites, institutions and backgrounds.

The Chicago event on October 6th was attended by artists, managers, label owners, and other individuals wanting to learn about the new evolving industry, and hoping to hear advice from inventive young music companies and long-time veterans who can acknowledge the recent changes and struggles of emerging artists and indie labels. Contributors such as Lou Plaia, the co-founder of Reverbnation, Michael Spiegelman, head of Yahoo! Music, Paul Resnikoff, founder and editor of Digital Music News, and Martin Atkins, author of Tour:Smart. Certainly enough interesting people and ideas for me to attend and report back here for our Music Jobs members.

Founder Tommy Silverman started the day with some shocking statistics. Although, he did point out that they should only concern you if you are on the board at one of the majors. The fact that only 110 albums released in 2008 sold over 250,000 copies that year is not an issue for a new independent artist. What it does enforce is something I’ve tried to help people with for some time, and that is re-evaluating your idea of success. You are not going to get scooped up by a label and go platinum. You CAN work hard and earn a living form your music, and if we are all in it for the love of the art, shouldn’t that be a more than reasonable level to consider success?

However, one statistic that you should pay attention to, is that of the 105,575 albums released in 2008, only 5945 sold more than 1,000 copies that year. This is the line of obscurity that you want to vault over. With a good strategy and understanding of the new music industry, you will sell enough albums and earn many valuable fans for you to reach this newly defined success.

Michael Spiegelman delivered a keynote focused on the tools that Yahoo and other services can provide to help an artist publish, market, engage, sell and monetise effectively. He emphasised the need to find relevant tools and fans, and how you can pull this information from the internet via different traffic sources, and how to act upon it using analytics. When asked by the audience what he saw as the latest in disruptive technologies, he replied that the cycle has moved from the initial surge of new ideas to a ‘maturity’ time, where we figure out what is sustainable and build a business model on top of that. In other words, the abundance of new websites and technologies over the last few years will slow, and some lesser ones will be brushed aside, as stronger ideas are built upon and emerge into a key part of the future industry.

The fist panel session was probably my favourite, for the fact that they shared some great advice, stayed focused on the topics at hand and made sure what they were saying was relevant given the audience. Emily White, of Whitesmith Entertainment pointed out the importance of communicating directly with your fans, and how you can do that with the help of Google Alerts and social networking tools such as Twitter. I couldn’t agree more with this, and Lou Plaia backed this up by saying that the more you do now and try to generate your own attention the more power you have further down the line – not just for bargaining with labels but the awareness of how this all works is healthy and will help propel you further by maximising any opportunities you come across.

The panel discussed the idea that 1000 “super fans” are something of a milestone to aim for, as these super fans are the people who are likely to spend around $100 a year on your work. This would give you a total income of $100,000 per year, and lead you to making a living from your music.

David Hazan, Chief Marketing Officer at The Bizmo encouraged artists to be creative in terms of merchandise offerings, as one ticket, one T-shirt and one album doesn’t equal $100 bucks. He offered that one band had handwritten lyrics and notes, which they uploaded as PDF, and their “super fans” paid for access to that premium content. This idea had the added bonus of no distribution costs, therefore earning the band good money.

To be honest, the next two panels lost the vibe a bit, as a result of lacking direction. Several long rants from panel members about their own achievements did not help. Some of the saviors were Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR and Corey Denis of Reapandsow, both sharing great advice on social networking for musicians. DJ veterans Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley and Bad Boy Bill had some interesting points, sharing a different angle having been in electronic music, and therefore seen a different market for singles, EPs and mixtapes over the years. If only they could have fit in more comments instead of a majorly ill-fitting (and misguided) panel member spouting not only incredulous ideas, but contradicting himself, often within the same poorly structured sentence.

The final session was where Martin Atkins stole the show. Impervious and humble advice, shared with clear and concise translations for the entire audience, and demonstrated with a sense of humour produced great effect. I’m a Martin Atkins fan anyway, and if you ever choose to buy any music industry book at all (which you should), it should be his Tour:Smart masterpiece.

Overall, the seminar was interesting, and it was great for me to hear some speakers that I respect for the first time, but overall it was lacking something. I would prefer a closer connection with the industry experts, more interaction from them with the audience, and a working Wi-Fi network

I look forward to the event evolving in the future.

Lee Jarvis

A few weeks back, I attended a Tour Smart crash course weekend (please do read that post after – lots of great info!), and at the end of the last day we were treated to an acoustic set by Chicago based The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.

The name doesn’t really give anything away; no British police force themed-costumes, and certainly no gospel choir in sight as they were setting up. The band were a great mix of rock n roll sound and great lyrical content, from melancholy to laugh-out-loud funny, and they topped off a great weekend. Here is a short video for a song called Wicker Park, which was written by members Mary Ralph and engineered by Mark Yoshizumi.

Opportunity School – Wicker Park from sygc_love on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, last week the exciting young artists were involved in a bad road accident, resulting in most of the members being hospitalised and their van and all equipment destroyed. It was announced yesterday that all 2009 tour dates have been cancelled, and that the Halloween show at Sub-T is now a benefit for the band. We’ll have details on more benefits next week.

From the press release: “Alison Hinderliter, Jay Santana, and Ethan Adelsman were all released from the hospital last night with minor injuries. Elia Einhorn was held overnight with injuries to his head and neck, and is expected to be released tomorrow. Mary Ralph has a broken pelvis and collarbone, and will probably be moved to a hospital closer to home. Mark Yoshizumi was airlifted to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn last night with injuries to his head, back, and neck. He is in serious condition, but making progress.”

If you want to help the band with the extensive costs of this accident, you can donate simply via paypal – follow this link this link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=8469029, or if you would like to purchase any of their music, all the info you need is here http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/and-horse-you-rode. You can also help by passing the news on to friends / contacts.

Regular updates will be posted at the band’s label blog Bloodshot Records

The Music Jobs team send our best wishes to the whole band.

Lee Jarvis

We offer many ways to showcase and interact here at US Music Jobs, and I thought I’d cover a little about sharing your music around the website, as well as featuring recent music added by some of our most active members.

As well as from appearing on your profile, recently added mp3s are also featured on our front page and all the key US Music Jobs site pages – if you contribute regularly you are more likely to attract attention and earn new fans.

The members I have featured below are all fine examples of the value of keeping your profile up to date – adding mp3s, photos, videos, press cuttings and more will make your profile easy to search and attractive to other users and employers to read. Regularly adding info and media means that I am more likely to find you in our network – next time it could be your music shared here and across the US Music Jobs online profiles!

US Music Jobs member: Silvia Pratesi

Recommended Listening: You can do the impossible (Musical Theatre)
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US Music Jobs member: John Runowicz

Recommended Listening: Running From The Blues (Blues)
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US Music Jobs member: Lucy Blanco

Recommended Listening: Bye Bye Blackbird (Jazz)
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US Music Jobs member: Gene Townsel

Recommended Listening: Chrissy/From Album (Pop)
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US Music Jobs member: Paul Mills

Recommended Listening: The Painter (Contemporary)
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US Music Jobs member: Daniel Tortoledo

Recommended Listening: Throughout These Years (Pop)
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US Music Jobs member: Ulysses Salett

Recommended Listening: Come on Home (Contemporary)
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US Music Jobs member: Kremena Lyutskanova

Recommended Listening: Beauty Girl (Classical)
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If you would like to be featured in future US Music Jobs blog posts, then update your profile regularly and leave a message on my profile wall (another feature that you should use for networking – look out for a future blog post!)

Lee Jarvis.

Tour:Smart is the brainchild of Martin Atkins. The ex- Public Image Ltd / Nine Inch Nails and Pigface drummer has applied his decades of experience and educated vision of the new music industry to a book, a DVD, and a series of crash-courses / seminars / discussions / school-events designed to aid musicians on their journey through the industry.

I don’t know how to describe the latest offering, Tour:Smart PLUS!, it is essentially a four year long educational course crammed into one 48-hour whirlwind weekend. It was intense, energising, humbling and motivating. Starting with learning from other band’s mistakes of touring, to learning to print your own merchandise, to filming and editing your own videos, and then what to do with them in the crazy online world of social media. This is as complete a course as you could find, without all the fodder of the ways the industry used to work or hiring other people who then get in your way (and cause you costly mistakes). It is the nitty-gritty of what YOU need to do to propel YOUR career forward; it is about taking responsibility, creating plans and leaping into action.

There is no magical guide to make you famous in six weeks, the music business is a long and dirty road, but with a hand from Tour Smart you will have all you need to prepare and inspire you to take this road, and start eating up the miles.

As I said, I could not even begin to regurgitate the learnings of last weekend, but here are just a few key snippets that were delivered by Martin in his own passionate way, and how they resonated with myself.

“The Music Business is Participatory…”
As a musician, you have to not only practice and record your music, but promote, network, hack, sell, distribute, tweak, market, deliver and everything else in order to create your own success. Sitting back and waiting to be ‘discovered’? (LINK) I’ll tell you now that it is not going to happen.

“Beware of Smokescreens…”
Hardware or soft synths? Cubase or Logic? MP3, CD, Vinyl or cassette tapes? Getting caught up in these arguments is a waste of time. Use what works for you, make your music, get it out there. Using your music wisely is far more important that the software involved.

“Free is the New Black…”
Giving your music away is pretty much essential. However, you shouldn’t be doing it just because other artists are, but because there is a lot to be gained. Collecting emails in return is often the simplest idea, but so much more can be created and retained, from remix competitions to treasure hunts, all in the name of promoting awareness of your music and your brand. Which leads nicely into…

“Sell the Space Around Your Music…”
If fans like your (free) music, how else would they like to relate to you and how can you monetise that? Live shows? T-shirts? DVDs? Skateboards? Coffee Cups? Music fans often want to be part of a community, and anything that they can wear as a badge to say that they are part of your support will appeal to them. Of course, the individual items or events will depend on your (sub-sub-sub-) genre of music.

“Data Driven Decisions…”
This is not about trial and error. There is something to be said for going whole-heartedly into a project, but you use the data you have to make smart decisions, and then commit yourself. Fanbase details can be collected and dissected in ever-more inventive ways, such as Google Analytics, Youtube Insights, mailing list tracking and good old at-the-venue discussing with fans.

Although just the tip of the iceberg, each of these points should give you and your career something to think about, and for further elaboration, I can’t recommend enough getting in touch with the Tour Smart Team.

Lee Jarvis.

Class photos (c) Lee Jarvis 2009.

It’s my first summer in Chicago, and so my first chance to experience the legendary Lollapalooza. Having recently come back from Glastonbury in the UK, I wasn’t to be daunted by the size and scale of the site, but really like the way they maximised the time and space of Grant Park by having two stages at either end, so as soon as one band finishes, the next one has already sound checked and can start immediately after. You could simply shuffle around, turn and face the other stage and not break from the music for a moment if you so wished.

Friday began… well, wet. Crystal Castles were my first point of call for some electronic-vocoded-rock, and the only reason I left a good set from them was to go and check Fleet Foxes. I’m glad I did, as they put in a great performances, including acoustic numbers and their popular hit ‘Mykonos’. After grabbing a few friends, we headed to Thievery Corporation, and the rainy Chicago sky couldn’t dampen the electric atmosphere and carnival spirit from them and their guest vocalists, including the gorgeous Lou Lou. Beer next, and then a strange performance on the Vitamin Water stage inspired us to get over to the headliners early for a good spot. Kings of Leon were my choice, having been a big fan for a while now. Their ‘Only By the Night’ album shows so much growth within the band, their sound richening and judging by the sales, reaching more diverse crowds and truly breaking them into ‘worthy festival headliner’ territory. A great performance from the whole band, with Caleb’s voice sounding as amazingly gravely as the studio recordings. Although not the official Lolla afterparty, Smart Bar was hosting Dave Pezzner and Mark Farina as part of OM records’ 15 year anniversary celebrations, and so it was our choice of late night haunt. It was also the cause of my late start on Saturday morning, having overdosed on amazing house music til 4am.

I did arrive just in time for the Arctic Monkeys, and just as they were stepping it up a gear, thrashing through their chart successes and getting the (now dry and humid) crowd jumping around nicely. Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair was playing a DJ set in the Perry’s garden area. I’ve always been a fan of theirs, and his musical selection was right on the money, with disco rhythms and lush vocals enlivening my tired feet for a while. More friends and more beer led to a sample of Lykke Li and, being a little unimpressed by her, onto Diplo. Diplo blew us away, with his mix of… well, whatever it is people describe Diplo, Switch, Herve and co. as these days. Bass-heavy Fidget, Ragga, Baile Funk, Classic House and more were all thrown into the melting pot to devastating effect on the crowd. With such an epic set, I was ready to head off for a live act, when Bassnectar stepped up to the decks. Within minutes I was blown away yet again, even with the bar set so high by Diplo, the OM Records artist dealt a mixture of rib-cracking Dubstep, Drum and Bass and House to the audience, who were packed in until the very end. The URB warehouse afterparty provided yet more of the same until the wee small hours for all ages of bass-hungry party people.

Sunday saw the sun finally break through, and then beat down on the (estimated) 150,000 Lollapaloozers. The festival organisers responded by handing out thousands of bottles of free cold water, setting up giant fans spraying a fine mist onto public walkways, and the local fire department spraying a not-so-fine mist into the air near the North stages. Top marks for that, and also for the selection of Chicago food available, of which I sampled Connie’s Pizza and Adobo’s Tacos. A great change from the usual greasy fodder offered at shows, and a nice tip-of-the-hat to such a food-loving city. The morning began with the Kaiser Chiefs, followed by a friend’s recommendation of Dan Deacon. Not knowing what to expect was a good thing, as the 30-or-so-piece party orchestra of tubas, guitars, trombones, bongos, laptops and more was a pleasant surprise! Encouraging party games in the crowd during the set was genius too. After getting down to Vampire Weekend, we stayed in the area for a good place at one of my personal highlights, Snoop Dogg. Playing a lot of material from his first album was unexpected, but fantastic for me, being a long-running fan. Getting down gangsta-style with Bert and Ernie was a highlight too. A outstanding hour or so of MSTRKRFT led us into to the headliners of Jane’s Addiction. Being Perry Farrell’s festival, he has played several times over the years, and fully deserves too. He is a great frontman, and Jane’s put on a superb show, each of the band members being talented in their own right. To see them all perform on their ‘home turf’ (they are actually from LA) was a fantastic finale to a blockbuster of a weekend.

Lee Jarvis.

Feel free to check out some Lollapalooza videos at the Lee Jarvis Youtube channel

All photos (c) Lee Jarvis 2009.

Hey everyone,

We at US Music Jobs are excited to start up a new promotion. If you are an unpaid registered member of Music Jobs and own a blog or website, you can get one month of paid membership for FREE. Don’t have an account yet? Sign up, and get your profile running for free, here!

How does it work?

If you are a registered US Music Jobs member and you have a personal blog, this will be quite easy for you. Simply write in your blog about US Music Jobs and include a link to our site. A couple of possible blog post ideas include a short or detailed description of the site, how Music Jobs has helped you in your job hunt, an informative wiki-like profile of our site, or you can write a review about US Music Jobs.

If you don’t have a blog yet, there are plenty of free blog providers that you can join, including Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad, LiveJournal, and many more.

Have a website, but no blog? No problem! Just write about us on one of your pages, refer people back to us, and link back to our site.

You can link to the US Music Jobs Homepage (us.music-jobs.com) , but it may be more useful for your readers if you linked to the jobs board page at http://us.music-jobs.com/jobsboard.php. But, if you feel we have a page on our site more relevant to your readers, feel free to link back to that page instead (ie, the “About Us page“). (Remember, the link has to be clickable. To do this on most blogging platforms, highlight the text you want to make a link, click the icon that looks like a globe with a chain link in front of it, then press OK or DONE).

Once you have your blog post up, send us the following to usmj_promo@music-jobs.com:

1. Your Name and US Music Jobs username (click here to sign up for free)
2. Your website or blog’s URL with the posting about US Music Jobs

Also, if you know any artists or anyone in the music industry that is not with Music Jobs currently, why not tell them about this promotion? It’s a great opportunity for non members to try out our service at no cost. Just have them sign up for a free account at the freelancer registration page to get started!

This promotion will last from today, August 6, 2009 until , September 6, 2009. Members who qualify for the free one month’s subscription will be contacted by email.

Thanks, everyone!
US Music Jobs

Conditions and terms: URLs and links to US Music Jobs must be clickable. Links with the “no-follow” tag in the HTML are not considered eligible for the promotion. Please allow up to three business days for approval. Link and info must be posted outside of US Music Jobs. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other sites that use “no-folow” and framed browsing do not qualify. Only one free month subscription per member. Free month contingent on Music Jobs’s link presence for a minimum of 1 month on members’ blog/website.

The music streaming app that is currently taking the UK and Europe by storm is looking to set-up in the US in the very near future. (This may well help create music industry jobs in the USA, so keep checking the Jobs Board!)

Founded by two Swedish entrepreneurs, Spotify has over six million tracks available to stream, and gives users the ability to create, save and share playlists, offering greater interaction and discovery. They are working with US music publishers and labels to evolve a deal to enable them to offer the same service here. Having dealt with many of the key companies regarding European licenses, it’s a very real possibility that they will be operating here soon.

The relatively new start-up (October ’08) is hoping to launch it’s desktop application in the US by the end of this year. However, even greater potential could be reached if they are approved as an iPhone app. The issue there? It could be so good as to make Apple’s iTunes virtually redundant to millions of music consumers.

Spotify derives revenue from a number of audio commercials during playback (current EU advertisers include Nike, Ikea, H&M and more), or a monthly fee for a premium service with no commercials, greater audio quality and extra premium-only content. The monthly fee is currently £9.99 in the UK (approx $15), and word is that the mobile app would only be available to those who subscribe to this.

People are becoming excited about the possibility of a real contender to iTunes, and as a fan of aiding music discovery, I really hope that Spotify will push forward with the licensing deals. They provide a great service, and user word-of-mouth will ensure a global success.

Lee Jarvis.