This will be my first year attending the South By South West Music and Media Conference (SXSW). I’ll be heading down to Austin to represent Music Jobs and network with a heap of other musicians, small businesses and music industry visionaries. 2010 saw over 13,000 conference participants from 49 different countries, and nearly 20,000 attending the trade show. Then you have the thousands of workshops, film screenings, and unofficial parties. It all became rather daunting, and so I turned to Martin Atkins, a SXSW regular and author of Tour:smart for some advice, tips, and general positive vibes.

How many times have you attended SXSW, and how many times have you spoken / held events?

I’ve been for the last 4 years straight and presented each time for SXSW – embroidering around the event with other stuff like DJing at the Red Bull party or doing something with the Austin Music Foundation.

What kind of people attend SXSW?

Everyone goes – from new aspiring bands to agents managers labels and lots and lots of companies that want to sell stuff to you….it’s the full spectrum of plant life – it’s a great place to see all of the layers of the multicolored shit cake that is the music business.

What are your plans for this year?

The night before it all starts i’m doing Party:Smart with Austin Music Foundation and Memphis Music Foundation – some advice and some great bands – Asleep have a 15′ robot, One Eyed Doll are tremendously inspiring from all angles, and I’m going to be all over the place this time; offering free advice, hanging out, seeing some bands, seeing who is doing interesting stuff. My event (Welcome to the Music Business – You’re Fucked) is early on the Wednesday morning – 11am at the convention center. Then there is a book signing and a panel with an attorney and me (Getting Band Business Done Smart) – kind of duelling opinions about the viability of the legal position vs the street level down and dirty version (thats me!) on Friday at noon and 3:30pm respectively.

What is your favorite SXSW story / memory?

Meeting Kimberly from One Eyed Doll – she had bought Tour:Smart right when it came out and implemeted a bunch of strategies from it – making her own shirts one at a time with spray bleach! inspiring stuff for any business – it was terrific and unforgettable.

What is the biggest mistake that first-timers make?

Thinking that it is going to make a huge difference – it IS, but not immediately, and its a cumulative effect – the second time will be better than the first, the third better than the second, etc. It’s a baptism of fire and you see very very quickly just what and how much you are really up against. It’s easy on the road to think that there are three other bands at the venue you are playing at, and maybe a few other shows in town that night that you are competing with, but at SXSW there are 5,000 or 6,000 bands performing many shows – it either pushes you faster and further OR back into bed to hibernate.

Which bands / musicians are you going to try and see perform this year?

I have NO idea who is going to be there, I haven’t managed to plan ANYTHING other than a stop in Memphis on the way down. I was in a nasty car accident a couple of weeks ago and its kind of f*cked me up a little.

What are your top 3 SXSW tips?

1 – This might run absolutely contrary to anything that you really WANT to do…but, drink in extreme moderation. Things happen from 10 am- including open bars – and, unless you are English, you won’t be able to pace yourself. Or, if you can, you will totally FAIL at day 2,3,4,or 5……. it’s too important to miss half of it puking in a toilet or some lovely girl’s hair.

3 – Pay attention to the streets and everyone else’s stuff. I think it’s a much better way of making an impression, or a contact, or a friend, than trying to impress someone with your really great songs – even if they are really great you aren’t getting a soundcheck and the bass player will swallow a wasp or something ……so, yeah and dont be an asshole.

If any of our members are attending this year, or thinking of going, then let us know! We are happy to meet / mingle / share advice / talk music in general.

by 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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