Thursday afternoon got off to a great start, meeting up with a couple of people whom I’ve been in contact with but not met before in person. Putting faces to blogs and tweets is always a nice thing, and at a relatively small event like this, it is easy to go around and introduce yourself to new faces too.

The artist’s panel on Thursday afternoon was a lively one. The discussion seemed to start from building a buzz around your music / band / etc, touching on PR companies and if they offer value for independent artists. Cutting through the networking and get those CDs to the all-important ears of magazine and radio tastemakers is an crucial matter. Personally, I would say that if you are truly dedicated to your niche genre then you should already have been in touch with these people directly. You listen to the specialist podcasts and shows with similar sounding artists, go direct, send an mp3, send a CD, chase it up, meet the people at shows and events, build a relationship DIRECTLY with your industry peers and the job of PR companies is not only defunct , but you can do a better job by being genuine and approachable.

The topic of musicians ‘working’ for ‘nothing’ was brought up; in other words, free downloading. I have to say that I think a couple of the artists missed the point of how to reap not only useful information but also indirect revenue from free downloading, be that legal or otherwise. Some of the older artists (no offence, but there is a certain amount of generational differences relating to how to conduct your online strategies), were sticking to the old mantra of ‘if you don’t pay for the musician’s music then they will not / can not make any more music’; believing that you cannot build a successful project from giving your music away for free means that you should re-evaluate your ideas of ’success’. Success is not just about selling records anymore. If you do not consider other factors such as building extensive mailing list, concert ticket sales, a busy gig diary, steady merchandise sales and a strong online presence (be that youtube views, twitter followers etc), then you are missing out on great opportunities to build your reputation and career. As an independent artist, you should relish the fact that you can distribute 10,000 digital copies of your song for the same cost as distributing just 1. The tools and advice are all available online to help you promote your music to an immense audience, and you should try and learn to see success in the fact that if, after giving away 10,000 copies, some of those will pass onto friends, create further fans and so on, to the extent that your music can reach more people in more places than ever before. Just because you don’t receive a measly sum from a profitable record label in return doesn’t mean that you are not achieving results (many of them tangible, too). Following the artists panel, I stuck around for a few of the bands, chatted with the Un-convention Belfast contingent for a while, and then headed off for dinner.

On a side note, I didn’t quite expect so much swearing at the discussion – not that i’m adverse at all, but our venue for the discussion is The Sacred Trinity Church in Salford(!) Then again, I had been drinking beer throughout. Stay Tuned for Friday’s thoughts

Lee Jarvis.

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Culture, music, beer, sunshine. This weekend sees one of the ultimate offerings of all these elements under one roof. And by roof I mean ‘district’ of London. And when I say sunshine I mean more beer.

The Camden Crawl is a two day event spanning Friday 25th and Saturday 25th April, showcasing 150 bands, artists, poets and film pieces across 40 venues, ending up on Saturday Night at the Roundhouse with performances from Kasabian and Madness.

As a preview, the lovely people at The Londonist have compiled a collection of free, legal mp3s from the majority of the bands performing. There’s 65 free tracks to download, so you can select your favourites, share the love, and make sure you don’t miss out.

Before this starts to seem like a big promotional ploy or sponsorship for event or website, I’ve no affiliation with either. My reasoning is that music discovery has changed. You don’t hear ‘new’ bands on national radio anymore. Up and coming artists aren’t getting the support of CD sales that they used to, and so live events are becoming extremely important for both performer and punter. Yes, the internet is a great source of new music, but you need a very good filter or the patience of a saint to wade through the endless streams of average (and below) music.

Why the Camden Crawl? Why not? It’s today, you have nothing better to do, and the free download taster just tops it all off (oh, did I mention the beer?). Head over there now and buy your tickets before it’s too late.

Unfortunately I won’t be there this year, but you can certainly thank me at future events. I accept beer, in case you’re wondering.

Lee Jarvis.

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I’ve been thinking some more about my post last week, debating how much you actually earn from selling your music online these days. Coupled with the news that’s been finally weaned from Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ Album and the fact that the more forthcoming Trent Reznor’s figures on Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Ghosts I-IV’ album, I thought I’d blog further on the topic of what you can earn by giving your music away.

Regarding ‘In Rainbows’,”More than three million people acquired the album,” points out Warner Chappell Music senior vice president of International Legal & Business Affairs Jane Dyball, who admits “I had doubts there was money to be made online”. That figure includes downloads sold across various retailers, and physical packages sold online and through brick-n-mortar stores, and Dyball noted that 1.75 million copies of the physical, full-priced release were shifted. The band may have decided to not give out any specific figures on sales, but that hasn’t stopped people from estimating revenue ($10m in the first week?) and average price paid per album ($5? $8?). Other companies are saying that these figures don’t allow for those who paid $0 for the album (ComScore.com), and Radiohead’s representatives then reply that those figures are inaccurate but don’t give us anything solid to go on. Despite the option of a ‘$0’ price on the official website, between October 10 and November 3 2007, ‘In Rainbows’ was still downloaded from Torrent websites to the tune of 2.3m downloads. So just about no-one can figure it all out once the Torrent numbers are thrown into the mix.

So how about Nine Inch Nails? Front man Trent Reznor must have thought it a huge success. Not only having the respect of your loyal fans and the Music Futurists out there… not only giving the old major labels an e-middle-finger… but also pocketing $1.6 million dollars in revenue in the first week. It must have been a success, as they’ve made the follow-up album ‘The Slip’ available for free download in multiple formats, all DRM-free and encourage you to “remix it, post it on your blog, and share it with strangers”. What an amazing attitude; these will surely go down in history as all-embracing album experiments. It should be right there alongside Michael Jackson being the first black artist with a video on MTV (Billie Jean, 1983). (your random fact for the day )

It wasn’t that easy though – Reznor reported earlier this year that in the two months up to January 2nd, his previous collaboration with Saul Williams consisted of 154,449 people downloading a standard quality of ‘NiggyTardust’ and just 28,322 of them paying the $5 for the higher quality version. In his blog, Reznor suggested that he was “disheartened” by the results.

So, it wasn’t the quality which drove people to illegally download via torrents. Reznor went back to the drawing board and tried a slightly different approach. He now understood the need for a physical product to help launch the album, in fact he released several variations for both CD junkies and hard-core NIN fans (the $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition of Ghosts I-IV immediately sold out its run of 2500).

At 43 years old, technically on the upper end of Generation-Y (if not Generation-X). Reznor is refreshing, and a true pioneer in his actions. Major labels may be starting to offer 360 deals for some artists, but GIVING the music away? That must be a long way off (if at all).

What would you give to have a Reznor in charge of your career? Well, maybe you can… YOU. Maybe Indies are gaining more and more advantages over the majors and you want to choose this path. If so, then this is the place to subscribe – I’ll be talking a lot more about this over the coming months.

Lee.

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