Chicago-based indie rockers OK Go caused a sensation with the video for their 2006 song “Here It Goes Again”. The video featured a choreographed treadmill dance routine, and reached nearly 50 million views on Youtube, and inspired scores of remakes. The band became the perfect example of viral marketing in the new music industry.

So, any follow-up would be a tough task, and would need to be a pretty impressive video. “This Too Shall Pass” premiered yesterday, and has received some great reviews so far. The latest project collaborated with Syyn Labs on a two-story Rube Goldberg machine. The machine, constructed in a warehouse in Echo Park, keeps perfect time with the band’s latest single “This Too Shall Pass,” thrashing TV sets, dropping pianos, launching paper airplanes, blasting paint, and much more in spectacular synchronicity with the song. Check it out here at US Music Jobs.

What do you think of the video? Do you see it being another hit for the band? How relevant are music videos in the internet age? This will definitely inspire a further music video post from me, and I would like to hear your views.

Lee Jarvis.

To celebrate the video release, OK Go will be taking part in a concert fundraiser for LACMA Muse. Friday, March 5, 2010, LACMA West Penthouse, 8 pm–12 am. More info here.

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I’m a fan of Berkleemusic, the online school of the esteemed Berklee College of Music, and often read many of the great blogs from David Kusek, Mike King and co.

Berklee recently launched their Winter 2010 term with two new music marketing courses available; Online Music Marketing with Topspin (co-authored by King and Topspin’s Shamal Ranasinghe), and Online Music Marketing: Campaign Strategies, Social Media, and Digital Distribution.

Having studied several of their courses, I know that the Berkleemusic system is a good one, and these new courses have inspired me to sign up again next term.

In the fast-moving, ever-evolving new music industry, I see digital marketing strategies being of huge importance. Artists need to do as much groundwork as possible themselves, and when they cannot, know the correct people and resources to help. Being efficient at selling your music online, and building your fan base with social networking communities is critical for bands and musicians looking to make a living from their music and music-related activities.

Here, Mike King explains some of the Online Music Marketing course details and how you can use analytics to drive your career decisions.

Also worth mentioning is the course textbook, which is a great read even if you aren’t studying at Berkleemusic. Music Marketing: Press, Promotion, Distribution, and Retail is also written by King, and you can sample a free chapter here…

If anyone is taking the course this term, please let me know how you are getting on. If you are signed up for Spring 2010, I may well see you there!

Lee Jarvis

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Apparently some of the record labels in the music industry may have actually figured it out and are becoming a part of the solution, rather than holding on for dear life. According to this article from Billboard:

Canadian band Metric announced a joint venture partnership between its label, Metric Music International (MMI), and Mom + Pop Records, which is part of QPrime management. The band self-released its latest album, “Fantasies,” which has sold 85,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

“To be clear, we are not signing with a label,” says Metric’s manager, Matt Drouin. “This is a joint venture deal between Mom + Pop and MMI. We retain our own masters, our own label, and have the ultimate control over decisions we make as a band.”

I think that the deal is quite a unique one as it actually promotes a band’s success. It doesn’t seek to bleed them dry of every possible penny that could be made – but rather joining forces to work towards mutual success. However, I do come from the school of thought that the major record labels are generally evil and greedy though…

It’s quite priceless that Metric will keep ownership of their masters and control over the decisions made for the group – that alone is huge. It would be interesting to see how their publishing will be broken down between the two… With this partnership, which actually for once seems to be a balanced partnership, they have no rules or unattainable standards to pretend to try to live up to. Essentially they can be themselves, follow through with their dream, and be the rock stars they want to be. Mom + Pop provide the band with the manpower to reach further than they have before, and continuing their development – not capitalizing on a finished product. This type of relationship looks promising – as the band and label can grow together. The band gains manpower and access from Mom + Pop, and the label gets a major artist for their roster and share the benefits of the band’s long-time future success. So far it seems like a win-win. Only time will tell though.

Weigh in – what are your thoughts on this deal setting a precedent throughout the industry?

T. Lynn

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I’ve always liked Apple. They may not have invented digital music, or the portable digital player, but they fine-tuned them and distributed them to mass markets to perfection. More music is being heard by more people in more places than ever before, and for that, we should be grateful. (Figuring out how to strategize and monetize these new markets is a different matter.)

It seems that iTunes has ruled the mp3 generation, but times and trends are moving ever faster, and there’s now a whole new generation of consumers that may never even own an mp3. Streaming is big business these days. Enter Lala, one of several successful (read: popular but not entirely profitable (yet?)) online music streaming services that has established itself with the non-owning and mobile music markets. Being able to listen to music through a web browser is something that gives music fans greater freedom, and access to their collection from any computer, smart phone or other mobile device, and is something that Apple lacks within iTunes.

Apple may well be looking at using the Lala team and functionality to enter into the streaming market, and with the way they have revolutionized similar parts of the music industry, who knows what may be in store.

One thing I hope Apple does figure out, is if they are paying $17m or $80m+ for Lala assets. Either way, it is a lot of money for a service that has et to find a profitable business model. Moving from CD-swapping to a (comparative to Pandora and Spotify) complicated streaming system has proved difficult, and investor Warner Music wrote down $11 million of the original $20 million it put down.

Lala had recently struck deals with both Google and Facebook, hoping to widen it’s user base with new search traffic and gift options. Apparently Google was also looking at acquiring Lala, and having narrowly missed out they may try and pursue other deals in the near future. Finding a way to tie it’s music search division in with either a download or freemium/ ad-funded streaming service seems inevitable, and well within Google’s scope. In fact, there have been several similar deals in recent months. Imeem was bought by Myspace, whom also previously acquired iLike.

Although Apple’s future movements may not be yet announced, I am certain they will continue to push the digital music industry forward (and outwards) with their services and reach new listeners across the globe.

Lee Jarvis.

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MySpace has recently completed a deal to acquire music streaming service Imeem, and is in the first phase of integrating certain assets into its Myspace Music network. Although the sum of the deal remains undisclosed, sources report a total deal worth around $8m. (CNET shares, “The News Corp.-owned MySpace has agreed to pay $1 million in cash, but the total figure also includes money for accounts receivable and employee earn outs”.) These figures fall wildly short of the $30m+ that had been invested in Imeem during it’s 6 year development, and point towards, essentially, a fire sale.

Imeem is one of several sites that have recently gone bust or sold for next to nothing. Pressure from both major labels and large indies in the form of ‘infringement payments’ have helped smother another promising start-up, although the Imeem team had the relatively simple choice of selling up or packing up.

What Myspace will do to connect with Imeem’s loyal following of 16 million users remains unclear. The Imeem blog says that ‘visitors to imeem.com will be guided to MySpace Music to find and play the music they want’… the only problem being that Myspace Music is cluttered, saturated by the popular market and not particularly user friendly. Searching for and discovering new music is a challenge and the sudden change-over has Imeem users up in arms.

Imeem had to respond to try and calm worries about playlists being lost, but Myspace will have a lot of people to try and win over, and they can only do so by improving their functionality and moving the Imeem user accounts over as soon as possible. Even then, people don’t like the Myspace brand. It served a function many years ago, but has fallen behind to Facebook and Twitter, not only in terms of regular traffic, but in the appeal to new web users. Buying up a rival music service and not maintaining it’s quality will only breed further dislike.

One area that Myspace will certainly benefit is from the knowledge and experience of Imeem CEO Dalton Caldwell, CTO Bryan Berg, COO Ali Aydar and VP of Sales David Wade, who are all joining the Myspace team as consultants to help with the transition.

Here’s to hoping that they will not only share some of the pitfalls to avoid, but aid with the smooth functionality that helped make Imeem so popular.

Lee Jarvis

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For many members searching for jobs in the music industry, each little bit of income helps, and streaming seemed to offer hope of another revenue source to help make a living from music. However, Spotify, the streaming application that is immensely popular in Europe (and due to launch in the US soon, has come under fire along with the performing rights societies about the minuscule amount that artists actually receive.

Hypebot recently reported that Spotify paid Lady Gaga just $167 For 1M Plays:
Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” was one of the most popular tracks for 5 months on Spotify; being played more than 1 million times. But according to reports this weekend, the Swedish Performing Rights Society only paid her $167. If true, it confirms other complaints from other artists like those of Swedish musican Magnus Uggla who pulled his music off Spotify declaring, “I’d prefer to be raped by Pirate Bay than played on Spotify”.

When an artist starts out with earning no income from their music, they are quite happy to give it away for the exposure it may create. Obviously it is easier for a small band to offer a free mp3 and say “we may have lost a potential $1000 in order to gain some new fans”, than it would be for Universal to do it with a Lady Gaga single and consider losing (potentially) a lot more.

However, the idea of exposure still remains. Streaming can be a way for people to try out new artists without committing to a $15 album (of which, Universal made many, many terrible ones). There are already reports saying that streaming is drawing consumers away from P2P sites, and with the Pirate Bay trial and Joel Tenebaum ruling gaining so much press this year, some users will be scared off using such sites in the future. The Pandoras, Spotifys and LastFMs of the new music industry are an essential part of artist promotion in my opinion, and so I would consider pulling your music away from them is a foolish move.

As there is no way to measure the direct income derived from a person who streams two tracks, then goes to buy them from iTunes, and then pays $40 to see the artist in concert, it can be hard to judge.

I would stick my neck out and say that it helps though.

We’d love to hear your response on this – comments around the Music Jobs office range from outrage at the royalty rates for artists to “that’s about $166 too much”! Feel free to comment below.

Lee Jarvis

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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