She's mentally ill.
That's what they don't tell you about so many of your heroes, the rock stars of yore, their hold on reality is very tenuous. I'm not saying that Shocked should be forgiven, that her comments were either valid or the right thing to say, but you must look at them through the prism of the person. And that person is...someone I found it impossible to connect with in my one sit-down meeting with her at a boba shop on Western Avenue about a decade ago.
Psychiatrists call it "tracking." Can someone tell a story and stay on point. Can you have a dialog that is linear. I'm not saying that everyone has to agree with me, but when we can't communicate, that's an issue. And I found that the most basic of discussions was difficult with Ms. Shocked.
Now I'm not a doctor. And let's dismiss the online reference to Ms. Shocked's mother committing her to a mental hospital. Let's just say there's background here, just like there is in the banking crisis in Cyprus. What appears one way on the surface might be completely different when you investigate the underlying facts, like Cyprus banks were a haven for the money of Russian oligarchs, who received a return there that was impossible to find in the United States, never mind other financially-challenged nations.
We think these artists are two-dimensional. We want them to open wounds and reveal all, but we want to treat them like cardboard cut-outs, without feelings, without dimensions. Actually, I'll posit the greater the artist, the looser their grip on reality. There's no more talented artist than Joni Mitchell, but conversation with her is extremely difficult. It's hard to get to the meat of the matter for Joni challenging and interrupting your premise, however irrelevant.
Not that I speak with Joni all the time. But I've had a few interactions. Not that she's crazy, but I will say she's difficult. Then again, she made the best self-confessional music of all time. Furthermore, she can play and sing and write. Do you think a normal person can do this?
OF COURSE NOT!
A normal person plays it close to the vest, is manipulative, whereas an artist is out there completely, warts and all. Artists need representation because they can't fathom the manipulation of business, they need protection.
And so does Michelle Shocked.
At this point in her career, the handlers have evaporated. It's just her against the world. Whatever she's doing to keep herself together, even if it's religion, is fine by me. It's a hard life, you do what you can to get through.
As for her comments... Inexcusable.
But she deserves another chance.
And help.
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Thursday, 28 March 2013
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Research
My mother went to Radio Shack.
Can someone please explain why this chain exists? To sell substandard items to the ignorant? To be a reseller of perpetually behind the times Sprint wireless? Back in the sixties, when a storefront was everything, you went to Radio Shack as a hobbyist, to buy stuff to build stuff, or for odds and ends that no one seemed to stock (sometimes the same thing), and to get a free battery. Yes, they had a club, with a card, you got one free battery a month. Remember when people wanted D's? Now everybody wants double or triple A's!
No, I'm not talking about bra size, but you know that's coming. Remember when big lips were offensive? Now you've got everybody in pursuit of Lisa Rinna, ruining their face to obtain a paragon of beauty no one from the opposite sex adores. As for big rear ends... This is still flummoxing women throughout America. Do you want to be J. Lo or Kim K. or should you have a tush as tiny and flat as a boy's? Looks are fashion. But they don't sell fashion at Radio Shack.
Then again, they do. The inventory is completely different every time you go there. Well, not quite. I go there once a decade, to buy something in person that just doesn't make sense on the web. Then again, I never buy anything, because the help is so ignorant I already know more than they do and it seems that whatever I'm looking at doesn't fit my bill.
Ah, the problem of inventory. How do you stock what everybody wants without going out of business from the carrying charges?
So my phone rings. Just as I walk in the door. And I'm in a rush. I've got a lot to accomplish in very little time and I'm leaving on a jet plane tomorrow, but it's my MOTHER! Get old enough, and you never blow your mom off. Or let me say that THEY get old enough and you realize they're not here forever and you're worried that the one time you don't take their call, the next one is that they've passed and you're forever haunted by your decision to put yourself first, instead of them, that last interaction, or lack thereof, haunts you forever.
So, I take the call. Since now we always know who's calling, since we can see the name on the screen. Hell, if I see digits only on my cell phone, I don't pick up. It's like Seth Godin says, we live in a permission society. If I don't know you, if we don't have a preexisting relationship, my door is closed.
But it's my mom. And she wants a phone.
Now I already bought her a three handset Panasonic last year. But now she wants a handset for her bathroom. And this might sound like luxury to you, but my mother uses a walker, not that you'd know this if you had her on the phone, she's the most vibrant 86 year old you'll ever meet, and she still loves to travel, she's treated like royalty at the airport, schlepped around in a wheelchair, but if the phone rings and she's in the loo...she's never gonna reach it. Ergo, the desire for a phone in the bathroom.
And I'm of two minds. Either I handle things immediately, or almost never. And since it's my mom, I decide to jump right on this.
And boy is it confusing.
I go to the Panasonic site, that's where you start your research, at the manufacturer's page, to get the lay of the land. And I'm the kind of customer who needs the best, and the best phones are not that expensive, so I click on the DECT 6.0 Plus. Makes me crazy when people are cheap. Buy an inexpensive phone and then no one can hear you for years, but you saved ten bucks! Kind of like iPhones, my mother's got one of those, she's hip, you buy it and you can use it. Buy an Android and unless you're a geek, you can do very little. Save the hate mail, statistics are on my side. Bottom line, I'm looking for the best phone.
But it's only a satellite. An outpost in the condominium. Do I really need the absolute best? After all, my mother started off at RADIO SHACK! A DECT 6.0 is probably good enough.
And all these major companies have bad websites. They should just hire the guy who did Apple's and be done with it. Comparing products is a nightmare. Not the chart you get after you click through, but finding where the buttons are, learning after the fact that you can only compare three items at a time. Huh?
But I finally nail it down.
And I call my mother. She said she wanted white. There is no white. Silver or black?
SILVER!
Easy.
But you've got to know me. The odds of me buying something on the first pass through are essentially nil. I can't make a mistake. So I decide to pull up the original invoice, from a year ago, to check compatibility.
THANK GOD! Turns out the original phones are DECT 6.0 Plus, and I've got to start all over again. And there is no silver. And do I pay five bucks extra for a bigger white screen? After all, my mother's eyesight is not so good, and the old phones are white.
So I call my mother back. Hell, I'm talking to her more in one day than I did in months in college.
And I whittle it down, I go for the expensive item, with the big screen, and then I go to buy it on Amazon.
The pictures and model numbers don't match.
Huh?
This is my mother. She's not tech-savvy. She's not going to return, hell, she doesn't even drive anymore, she's not going to the post office. And we're only talking about forty bucks anyway.
And all the prices are different on Amazon. And I might as well get free shipping, but if you buy direct from Amazon...they don't have the identical model.
So I decide to buy from Panasonic's site. Hell, the prices are the same. What a win for the Japanese company, they're cutting out the middle man! If you're selling, make sure people can buy from your site, at a fair price...
But I've got to go through the rigmarole of entering all my information, my address and my credit card, and I don't understand why it ships in 1-3 days, either they have it or they don't, Amazon ships right away, but I click through and I'm done.
Forty minutes later.
Which seems like a waste of time.
But if I'd bought an incompatible item, that truly would have been a waste of time!
And I'm thinking how it's every man for himself these days. How you have to do all the work.
Then again, the prices are cheap and the expert at the store, like at the aforementioned Radio Shack, usually is not.
Still, it's amazing what's at our fingertips these days. It's hard to succeed with smoke and mirrors. Hell, that's what killed the album, not piracy, but the bad value proposition, thirteen bucks for one good song?
So everyone laments the passage of the good old days.
And in some respects they were so damn good.
But I like today better. Because our society is run on information. And it's all on your screen. Want to win? Stop tweeting and Facebooking and read. Everything you want to know about how the world works is right in front of your face, for free. You can win. If you put in the time.
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Can someone please explain why this chain exists? To sell substandard items to the ignorant? To be a reseller of perpetually behind the times Sprint wireless? Back in the sixties, when a storefront was everything, you went to Radio Shack as a hobbyist, to buy stuff to build stuff, or for odds and ends that no one seemed to stock (sometimes the same thing), and to get a free battery. Yes, they had a club, with a card, you got one free battery a month. Remember when people wanted D's? Now everybody wants double or triple A's!
No, I'm not talking about bra size, but you know that's coming. Remember when big lips were offensive? Now you've got everybody in pursuit of Lisa Rinna, ruining their face to obtain a paragon of beauty no one from the opposite sex adores. As for big rear ends... This is still flummoxing women throughout America. Do you want to be J. Lo or Kim K. or should you have a tush as tiny and flat as a boy's? Looks are fashion. But they don't sell fashion at Radio Shack.
Then again, they do. The inventory is completely different every time you go there. Well, not quite. I go there once a decade, to buy something in person that just doesn't make sense on the web. Then again, I never buy anything, because the help is so ignorant I already know more than they do and it seems that whatever I'm looking at doesn't fit my bill.
Ah, the problem of inventory. How do you stock what everybody wants without going out of business from the carrying charges?
So my phone rings. Just as I walk in the door. And I'm in a rush. I've got a lot to accomplish in very little time and I'm leaving on a jet plane tomorrow, but it's my MOTHER! Get old enough, and you never blow your mom off. Or let me say that THEY get old enough and you realize they're not here forever and you're worried that the one time you don't take their call, the next one is that they've passed and you're forever haunted by your decision to put yourself first, instead of them, that last interaction, or lack thereof, haunts you forever.
So, I take the call. Since now we always know who's calling, since we can see the name on the screen. Hell, if I see digits only on my cell phone, I don't pick up. It's like Seth Godin says, we live in a permission society. If I don't know you, if we don't have a preexisting relationship, my door is closed.
But it's my mom. And she wants a phone.
Now I already bought her a three handset Panasonic last year. But now she wants a handset for her bathroom. And this might sound like luxury to you, but my mother uses a walker, not that you'd know this if you had her on the phone, she's the most vibrant 86 year old you'll ever meet, and she still loves to travel, she's treated like royalty at the airport, schlepped around in a wheelchair, but if the phone rings and she's in the loo...she's never gonna reach it. Ergo, the desire for a phone in the bathroom.
And I'm of two minds. Either I handle things immediately, or almost never. And since it's my mom, I decide to jump right on this.
And boy is it confusing.
I go to the Panasonic site, that's where you start your research, at the manufacturer's page, to get the lay of the land. And I'm the kind of customer who needs the best, and the best phones are not that expensive, so I click on the DECT 6.0 Plus. Makes me crazy when people are cheap. Buy an inexpensive phone and then no one can hear you for years, but you saved ten bucks! Kind of like iPhones, my mother's got one of those, she's hip, you buy it and you can use it. Buy an Android and unless you're a geek, you can do very little. Save the hate mail, statistics are on my side. Bottom line, I'm looking for the best phone.
But it's only a satellite. An outpost in the condominium. Do I really need the absolute best? After all, my mother started off at RADIO SHACK! A DECT 6.0 is probably good enough.
And all these major companies have bad websites. They should just hire the guy who did Apple's and be done with it. Comparing products is a nightmare. Not the chart you get after you click through, but finding where the buttons are, learning after the fact that you can only compare three items at a time. Huh?
But I finally nail it down.
And I call my mother. She said she wanted white. There is no white. Silver or black?
SILVER!
Easy.
But you've got to know me. The odds of me buying something on the first pass through are essentially nil. I can't make a mistake. So I decide to pull up the original invoice, from a year ago, to check compatibility.
THANK GOD! Turns out the original phones are DECT 6.0 Plus, and I've got to start all over again. And there is no silver. And do I pay five bucks extra for a bigger white screen? After all, my mother's eyesight is not so good, and the old phones are white.
So I call my mother back. Hell, I'm talking to her more in one day than I did in months in college.
And I whittle it down, I go for the expensive item, with the big screen, and then I go to buy it on Amazon.
The pictures and model numbers don't match.
Huh?
This is my mother. She's not tech-savvy. She's not going to return, hell, she doesn't even drive anymore, she's not going to the post office. And we're only talking about forty bucks anyway.
And all the prices are different on Amazon. And I might as well get free shipping, but if you buy direct from Amazon...they don't have the identical model.
So I decide to buy from Panasonic's site. Hell, the prices are the same. What a win for the Japanese company, they're cutting out the middle man! If you're selling, make sure people can buy from your site, at a fair price...
But I've got to go through the rigmarole of entering all my information, my address and my credit card, and I don't understand why it ships in 1-3 days, either they have it or they don't, Amazon ships right away, but I click through and I'm done.
Forty minutes later.
Which seems like a waste of time.
But if I'd bought an incompatible item, that truly would have been a waste of time!
And I'm thinking how it's every man for himself these days. How you have to do all the work.
Then again, the prices are cheap and the expert at the store, like at the aforementioned Radio Shack, usually is not.
Still, it's amazing what's at our fingertips these days. It's hard to succeed with smoke and mirrors. Hell, that's what killed the album, not piracy, but the bad value proposition, thirteen bucks for one good song?
So everyone laments the passage of the good old days.
And in some respects they were so damn good.
But I like today better. Because our society is run on information. And it's all on your screen. Want to win? Stop tweeting and Facebooking and read. Everything you want to know about how the world works is right in front of your face, for free. You can win. If you put in the time.
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Summly
So you're fifteen years old. You haven't got a driver's license, but you've got a computer, an iPad and an iPhone. Your parents insist you do well in school, you're on the advanced placement track. Worldly in a way your parents, no generation was at your age previously, you see that we live in a society of winners and losers, and you don't want the short end of the stick. So what do you do in your limited free time? Play the guitar? Sing in a band? Those odds are horrendous, almost no one succeeds, you're dependent on too many others, and success never lasts. No, you develop an app, you pursue your tech dreams.
People in the music business don't like this. They want you to believe the tunes are as good as they ever were, and if you challenge them, they say you're too old, you listened to crap too, like the Beatles, the Stones, Elton John... They want you to believe that Justin Timberlake is a national star. That what's on Top Forty is universal. That Justin Bieber is forever. They're delusional. The game has changed.
Once upon a time Top Forty radio was everything. It was your best friend. Want to know why it burgeoned? TRANSISTOR RADIOS! That was your heart's desire in the sixties, not an iPod, computers were something incomprehensible that filled whole rooms, you just wanted the tiny box that streamed your music via your best friend, the deejay. And when the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, all cheeky, having honed their wares for years, the whole nation went nuts, everybody picked up a guitar to get some of what they had, fame, riches, and sex. There are a lot easier ways to be rich, famous and get laid today, which is why the best and the brightest don't go into music.
The baby boomers sustained the business during the classic rock era, the early seventies, with FM and arena and stadium shows, but then the whole thing collapsed and was resuscitated by MTV and then the Internet blew a hole in the music business so wide that those still in it can't see it. The center is gone. The glue has melted away. Nothing SCALES!
Let's start with this week's big music business story. Justin Timberlake's sale of almost a million albums. At wholesale, that's not quite ten million dollars. David Bowie debuts with 85,000 albums, but this week he only sold 23,000, everybody who truly cares bought it, there's no virality. Bon Jovi's new album dropped by nearly 70% in its second week. If you think Bowie or Bon Jovi or even Justin Timberlake is going up from here, you're delusional.
Hell, the only person who went up from here was Adele. Whose album sold purely on its music, she disdained almost all hype, the audience embraced it, everybody knows it, it scaled.
The reason Summly sold for $30 million is because the potential audience is EVERYBODY! That's what musicians just don't get. They're still living in an antique universe wherein if you're anointed, you sell tonnage and get rich. Where exactly is that vehicle again? Radio is moribund and MTV plays no videos. There is no space program. Your only hope is to be the next Beatles, i.e. Adele, to create something undeniable, but all we've got is made by committee fads. Want to hear the next PSY record? NO, OF COURSE NOT! "Suit & Tie" was a radio stiff, like the initial Justin Bieber track from his new album, until the label muscled it up the chart. Justin Bieber is already over, he just doesn't know it yet. As for Mr. Timberlake... Do you expect multiple singles over the course of a year? Could happen, but reviews have been positively mediocre. Mr. Timberlake's success seems due to marketing prowess and likability. And that'll get you in the door, but it won't sustain you.
So we've got a disconnect. An industry that says piracy is bringing it to its knees when nothing could be further from the truth. Piracy is history in the music business. Why bother to steal when you can hear everything on YouTube for free? Sales suck because most people don't need the product, or want to spend their cash on something more desirable, like a data plan for their iPhone.
What we've got to confront is the old days are gone and may never come back. The reason "American Idol" worked is because it SCALED! You could reach the masses with something new, you could break...two acts. Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. After that, it was all about television, drama as opposed to music. Will there be another paradigm that blasts music to the top?
Possibly.
But where's the audience? The audience respects innovation and excellence, which is delivered constantly in tech, but is rare in music.
And where's the music?
We've got Adele at ten million, and then just about nobody else. Taylor Swift used to lead with her music, but now she's lost control of her career, it's about the tabloids as opposed to the tunes. And we all know soon Kim Kardashian will wake up with Kanye's kid and nobody will care, hell, her TV show's ratings are already tanking.
I'm not saying there are no good acts. I'm not saying you're not entitled to love new music. But I am saying that most acts playing today are clueless. They want to enter the space program, not realizing it's been dismantled. If you can't sing and your tunes are crummy, or esoteric, do you think everybody's gonna care?
OF COURSE NOT!
Festivals are the new radio. And festivals are bigger than any acts that appear. Festivals have scaled, but the acts have not. Isn't that interesting... It's more about the vibe at the show as opposed to any of the individual music. And what do we know about festivals? They're whored out to sponsors. Just like the acts. Everybody in the music business is a second class citizen. And the public knows it. Which undercuts the ability to scale.
So what you've got is a teenage Englander who sits at home and changes the world.
Isn't that what musicians used to do?
"He Has Millions and a New Job at Yahoo. Soon, He’ll Be 18.": http://nyti.ms/XCFm5G
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People in the music business don't like this. They want you to believe the tunes are as good as they ever were, and if you challenge them, they say you're too old, you listened to crap too, like the Beatles, the Stones, Elton John... They want you to believe that Justin Timberlake is a national star. That what's on Top Forty is universal. That Justin Bieber is forever. They're delusional. The game has changed.
Once upon a time Top Forty radio was everything. It was your best friend. Want to know why it burgeoned? TRANSISTOR RADIOS! That was your heart's desire in the sixties, not an iPod, computers were something incomprehensible that filled whole rooms, you just wanted the tiny box that streamed your music via your best friend, the deejay. And when the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, all cheeky, having honed their wares for years, the whole nation went nuts, everybody picked up a guitar to get some of what they had, fame, riches, and sex. There are a lot easier ways to be rich, famous and get laid today, which is why the best and the brightest don't go into music.
The baby boomers sustained the business during the classic rock era, the early seventies, with FM and arena and stadium shows, but then the whole thing collapsed and was resuscitated by MTV and then the Internet blew a hole in the music business so wide that those still in it can't see it. The center is gone. The glue has melted away. Nothing SCALES!
Let's start with this week's big music business story. Justin Timberlake's sale of almost a million albums. At wholesale, that's not quite ten million dollars. David Bowie debuts with 85,000 albums, but this week he only sold 23,000, everybody who truly cares bought it, there's no virality. Bon Jovi's new album dropped by nearly 70% in its second week. If you think Bowie or Bon Jovi or even Justin Timberlake is going up from here, you're delusional.
Hell, the only person who went up from here was Adele. Whose album sold purely on its music, she disdained almost all hype, the audience embraced it, everybody knows it, it scaled.
The reason Summly sold for $30 million is because the potential audience is EVERYBODY! That's what musicians just don't get. They're still living in an antique universe wherein if you're anointed, you sell tonnage and get rich. Where exactly is that vehicle again? Radio is moribund and MTV plays no videos. There is no space program. Your only hope is to be the next Beatles, i.e. Adele, to create something undeniable, but all we've got is made by committee fads. Want to hear the next PSY record? NO, OF COURSE NOT! "Suit & Tie" was a radio stiff, like the initial Justin Bieber track from his new album, until the label muscled it up the chart. Justin Bieber is already over, he just doesn't know it yet. As for Mr. Timberlake... Do you expect multiple singles over the course of a year? Could happen, but reviews have been positively mediocre. Mr. Timberlake's success seems due to marketing prowess and likability. And that'll get you in the door, but it won't sustain you.
So we've got a disconnect. An industry that says piracy is bringing it to its knees when nothing could be further from the truth. Piracy is history in the music business. Why bother to steal when you can hear everything on YouTube for free? Sales suck because most people don't need the product, or want to spend their cash on something more desirable, like a data plan for their iPhone.
What we've got to confront is the old days are gone and may never come back. The reason "American Idol" worked is because it SCALED! You could reach the masses with something new, you could break...two acts. Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. After that, it was all about television, drama as opposed to music. Will there be another paradigm that blasts music to the top?
Possibly.
But where's the audience? The audience respects innovation and excellence, which is delivered constantly in tech, but is rare in music.
And where's the music?
We've got Adele at ten million, and then just about nobody else. Taylor Swift used to lead with her music, but now she's lost control of her career, it's about the tabloids as opposed to the tunes. And we all know soon Kim Kardashian will wake up with Kanye's kid and nobody will care, hell, her TV show's ratings are already tanking.
I'm not saying there are no good acts. I'm not saying you're not entitled to love new music. But I am saying that most acts playing today are clueless. They want to enter the space program, not realizing it's been dismantled. If you can't sing and your tunes are crummy, or esoteric, do you think everybody's gonna care?
OF COURSE NOT!
Festivals are the new radio. And festivals are bigger than any acts that appear. Festivals have scaled, but the acts have not. Isn't that interesting... It's more about the vibe at the show as opposed to any of the individual music. And what do we know about festivals? They're whored out to sponsors. Just like the acts. Everybody in the music business is a second class citizen. And the public knows it. Which undercuts the ability to scale.
So what you've got is a teenage Englander who sits at home and changes the world.
Isn't that what musicians used to do?
"He Has Millions and a New Job at Yahoo. Soon, He’ll Be 18.": http://nyti.ms/XCFm5G
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Monday, 25 March 2013
Mailbag
From: Steve Lukather
Re: Rhinofy-I Won't Hold You Back
Gotta love ya Bob. haha
Thanks and I don't wince at the name Toto like that. Well not in a long time. We Used to get our asses kicked daily.. now people either like you or they don't. That's cool.
I am proud of us old f**ks hangin and taking the beating for 35 + years and we STILL get together in the summers and tour and still play arenas and headline festivals outside of the USA. Going to play a bit in the USA this summer.
We all LOVED the Fallon- JT bit on Africa, the Family Guy episode on Africa was classic, hell I was a South Park character. HOW much cooler is THAT. We GET the joke man.. no bad vibe at ALL.
I am lucky to get paid to play music after all these years..
The Timothy B. Schmitt thing is right on. It's my tune but when Timothy sang the BG's it was more than that. He has an amazing voice. We HAD to feature it. James Newton Howard helped with the strings on that tune and we recorded at Abbey Road with Martyn Ford and the London Symphony orchestra guys. Huge section...back when we spent a ton of money on records cause we WANTED it to be great and that's how the Beatles did it and we LOVE all those records, Elton and all the BIG production of the records back then.
Thanks for the shout out and I send ya my best from Denmark.
Luke
P.S. I failed to say was JEFF PORCARO was THE greatest groove player on planet earth! HE is what made Toto swing. We always followed what Jeff did and when Jeff said ' Thats the take" he was always right. He got me to play some of my best stuff. He knew how to communicate like no other person I have ever known.
Paich and him were like one. It was awesome to be a part of that.
Oh there ARE some most awesome world-class drummers and I love them all and have played with most of the greats.. but just ask anyone who ever had the honor of playing with Jeff or even just got to hang with him.
He always made EVERYONE sound better. He helped SO many players get started.
Countless hit records from the 70's till his WAY too early passing Aug 5th 1992.
Everyone wanted to steal him for their own bands or tours.
I love him and I miss him everyday.
He gave SO much to so many musicians. Most times they didn't even know it.
Jeff was one of a kind.
He was magic and I miss him so much..
We all do.
_____________________________________________
From: David Paich
Subject: TOTO
thanks for rememberin....
:D
_____________________________________________
From: Eric Carmen
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-I Won't Hold You Back
Re: Luke, Toto, "I Won't Hold You Back"
Hi Bob,
"I Won't Hold You Back" is my favorite Toto track. I love the sincerity of Luke's vocal, and, as anyone who sings on records knows, it's all about convincing the listener you MEAN IT. It's believability that makes a track monumental, or not.
You can sing a sharp note, or a flat note here and there, and no one is going to say that ruined the record for them. It's the performance that counts. It's Paul McCartney's voice recorded and mixed so that when you hear "Hey Jude" on the radio it feels like Paul is sitting next to you, in the passenger seat, singing in your ear, while the rest of the band is coming out of your radio speakers (the magic of Sir George Martin). Same thing for all of James Taylor's records.
Listen to "Save The Best For Last" by Vanessa Williams and you can "hear" the smile on her face when she sings certain lines. That's a performance.
At any rate, having played in a band that similarly got no respect, (until now, 30 years too late) I often ask myself at what point did a great melody become anathema to popular music? And why?
When did "beats" replace great songwriting, and why would any rock critic think someone rapping over a computer generated track was somehow superior to a singer who could actually sing and write a terrific, melodic, memorable song? I actually believe I have the answer. It's that songs with beautiful melodies, sung with sensitivity by a male singer, make Alpha males uncomfortable. Men are supposed to be tough. We're not supposed to HAVE feelings. If we do, it's a sign of weakness. This is why AC/DC and Metallica are huge, popular big selling bands. Guys don't want to like the same records their sisters like. It's much safer to like "Highway To Hell" than to admit you like "I Won't Hold You Back" or (God forbid) "All By Myself." If I had a dime for every time that song has been referred to as "Eric Carmen's cheesy, self-flagellating ballad" in print, I'd never have to work again. There seems to be something empowering about guys removing themselves from any emotional availability. It's just more "manly" to put those songs down.
In any case, I guess that's a problem for psychologists to ponder. I, for one, loved "I Won't Hold You Back." But then, you could have pretty much expected that, couldn't you? I loved the songs J.D. Souther wrote for Linda Ronstadt, too. And I love "Somewhere" from "West Side Story" and "Some Enchanted Evening" from "South Pacific" and "Someone To Watch Over Me", and "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" by Sinatra.
Maybe it's just the times we live in.
And so it goes.
Eric
_____________________________________________
From: Michael Hardy
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-I Won't Hold You Back
Hey Bob,
I love Toto. Saw them in Tulsa back in 82 I think. If I remember
correctly, Timothy Schmit was wearing a cast on his leg. The show must
go on!
Get this: Roger Sanchez had a huge dance hit in Europe in the early
2000s with a sample from "I won't hold you back." All these years, I
knew it sounded familiar but couldn't put my finger on it until now.
http://spoti.fi/XCvatV
Ciao from Austin,
Michael Hardy
_____________________________________________
From: Steve Lillywhite
Subject: Re: CMW Day One
Hi Bob , first off , thank you for the shout out from CMW and I must agree with you about the current state of rock music. Technology has always led the definition of our musical times, right from the time drummers were allowed to play louder to compete with electric guitars. The current recording technology
of pro tools etc is not conducive to the "traditional" rock sound and in fact makes it predictable and BORING ! I am not of the belief however that we should return to the talibanic world of Dave Grohl to make make records although the past definitely gives us pointers to the future ... Having just worked with Jared Leto on the new Thirty Seconds to Mars album I believe a new standard has been set ..
Steve Lillywhite
Ps. Please read Stone Free by Andrew Loog Oldham . Spectacular book!
Pps. I never thought of U2 as a rock band , more Frank Sinatra with electric guitars ...
Badly dictated by Siri
_____________________________________________
From: Wendy Waldman
Subject: Full Circle
Turns out that Lee's Traveling Song was prophetic for me. When we did that track, and that album, I was dreaming of music that I didn't think I'd heard anywhere: as the blues dropout in a family of erudite, extraordinary, deeply classically educated people, I wanted to write folk and roots style songs with rich sounding orchestras and interesting arrangements--I always said of this dream, "imagine if George Gershwin met the Rolling Stones at Skip James' house, and Ravel dropped by...." or, what if Bartok jammed with Doc Boggs...."
Kenny Edwards and I loved music that howled, and the music that howls is of course, true American folk music, American mountain music, Delta blues, gospel music, early country, all found in those killer field recordings we got to hear when we prowled through the record bins at the Ash Grove and McCabe's--and that we were so lucky to hear when those very folks came through town to play for 6 nights straight in the clubs, as people did in those days. Or like the day the "Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues" was released on Columbia and I wore it out for years thereafter...I still have the lp.
But I had grown up hearing chamber music coming from the living room being played live by my folks and their friends, and also, the magnificent, sweeping scores of the film and television composers who were my father's colleagues-- as well as his own astonishing and quietly groundbreaking work. Consequently, on the first album, not only did my dad write three arrangements--and conduct them--but my producer Chuck Plotkin pushed ME to write strings and horns as well, claiming that it was in my blood...
So Lee's Traveling Song became a compass not only for me musically, but for me personally. The elements in that song, that album, those experiments, that joy I felt making music--these, along with Stephen Holden's life changing review--have been enough not only to sustain me for all these years, but to propel me, to push me to keep trying to grow and explore--and the older I get, the MORE I dig this, the MORE excited I am about music and working at it, and the MORE I know I have yet to learn. And this was, I see now, always my real dream.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the release of my first album for Warner Brothers, "Love Has Got Me," the one about which you wrote. I never thought it would really happen--that in a million years I would turn out to be not only such a restless seeker after music, but someone who has had the profound privilege of working with fantastic musicians, writers, technicians, friends--all around the world. How lucky am I? You're right, man, I never "broke through.." in the way that many of my LA colleagues did in their 20s---and the bios of me always point that out. But you know I made a different bed--and yes there were times when I was younger that I didn't understand how blessed I was to have this life and work in so many ways with so many people who have taught me so much.
Now I know. I am so thankful for the bed I made, or that was made for me--and from Nashville, to Japan, to Poland, to Russia, to Halifax, from LA to New York to Muscle Shoals, from Artie Traum to George Winston to Linda Ronstadt to Mietek to Kenny Edwards, Aaron Neville, Alison Krauss, New Grass Revival, the Ozark Mtn Daredevils, HB Barnum, Andrew Gold, John Cowan, Karla Bonoff to Vanessa Williams to Robert Smith, from being a producer to a folk musician to a (sometimes) hit writer to a piano playing singer songwriter to a background singer on Hee Haw and tons of pop and country records, fronting a rock band opening for Dan Fogelberg, playing back to back with Randy Newman and Ry Cooder to the Refugees with Deborah Holland and Cidny Bullens, to film, to television, to producing Christian records (as a Jew), country records, rock, folk, European pop records--what a ride--the list alone would be the length of this letter!! Brilliant studio and live musicians, producers, engineers, a few great publishers, a lot of amazing songwriters, all wonderful each in their own way, have taught me more than I ever could have imagined, and made my life so rich. I've had really awful financial years and really great ones, a bunch of broken hearts, but I've never regretted a single day of this life I chose as a musician.
I still love music that howls, I am back to writing for strings and dobros, horns and pianos, electric guitars and dulcimers. I listen to classical music all day long, and then go into my studio and cut blues influenced country tracks or piano songs with strange chords and cellos. I'm trying all kinds of new musical ideas and having a blast. I've learned from every single musician and writer I've known that music is a road, a language indeed that goes way beyond how we communicate with words. At root, we are all the same.
The great masters who went before us, guys like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, Ravel, Brahms, Verdi, Rogers and Hammerstein, the Gershwins, Bartok, Duke Ellington, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joe Strummer, Coltrane, Doc Boggs, Laura Nyro, Mississippi John Hurt, Harlan Howard, Ella Fitzgerald, countless geniuses--they all worked until the end of their days, and I hope I get to make music to the end of my days too.
Thanks man, for everything.
XW
_____________________________________________
From: Rob Deutsche
Subject: Re: Justin Timberlake
You couldn't be more dead on here. I was at Fingerprints in Long Beach yesterday buying some used LPs, and they were playing the new JT on the store loudspeaker, and all the dyed hair punker employees were wearing JT buttons on their shirts (When was the last time you saw artists getting promoted via buttons!!??). Fingerprints isn't the sort of place that sells JT albums, nor is the typical customer there the sort of person who would care about his new album, but the label is so worried that they don't care anymore and are throwing this crap up anywhere there is a ceiling, spending god knows how much money to tell a bunch of people that never cared that there is an album coming out from some artist that simply isn't relevant to them.
_____________________________________________
From: Bob Chiappardi
Subject: Re: Justin Timberlake
this ties in with a question i have for you about the new Spotify "terms" i signed off on without reading at 1 am last night. it came after i clicked through on an email i got from Spotify inviting me to check out the new JT release. i checked out a couple songs and went to bed. as of this morning i must have gotten 2 dozen banner pop ups, no matter where i go pushing the JT record on me. and twice today, while playing one of my Spodify playlists, i got pushed back to the JT page after i paused and let my computer sit for 30 minutes. i don't remember this happening in the past.
i have never had anything forced on me lik e this ever. is the the future play? i have Spotify premium. if this is what i can expect, i am going to cancel it now. you have any insights on what Spodify is up to?
_____________________________________________
From: peteadams81
Subject: RE: Then/Now-Media Edition
This makes me wonder how much of the negativity surrounding the high-ish ticket events-concerts, sports, hell even a trip to an amusement park or a movie- how much of that negativity is a side effect of the fact that we are ever more engaged in a tacit agreement with the venue, ticketmaster, Budweiser, etc, to be overcharged and underserved and constantly advertised to? "Tonight's urinal cakes brought to you by Adam Sandler's latest masterpiece "PeePee Boy"-nobody likes to be reminded that they let themselves get f**k*d over, but everything about these events seems to be designed to remind us-from your first contact with the event at a ticketseller where you are charged $29 in service charges, to the night of the show where parking sucks and is still $20, the security at the door are a**holes, service is slow and usually rude and always overpriced.
I'm 41 and still love to go to concerts- more often for theatre level acts- The Avetts, David Gray, etc- if the venue is on top of its game logistically, I will tell everybody I know what a great time I had and how they were efficient, friendly, reasonable- these things matter to a significant number of potential money spenders- they are still f**k*ng me over for the most part, but I don't mind nearly as much. Of course everybodys got a chip on their shoulder- all parties involved are whoring themselves in some way or another and I would say that the pissyness that seems more prevalent in recent decades is our anxiety over that fact coming out sideways. How could we NOT be twitchy with all the b.s. that we're all continually and completely and complicitly buried in?
_____________________________________________
From: Tom Garnsey
Subject: TOTO et al
Bob,
I know I still owe you a copy of Shawn, Jackson and Mary Chapin from Yellowstone Club- it's safe to send it now. We've had quite a week up here. I sat here listening to Bill Payne who is playing and producing a record with my band as well as becoming a songwriting partner and friend. He was telling me Toto, James Taylor, Valerie Carter and all sorts of other 70's tales of rock and roll craziness…This was after my company produced this year's benefit fundraiser at YC - Shawn and James Taylor giving a songwriting workshop for twenty kids in Big Sky and performing the next night for 250 people. Sublime. The workshop stories were over the top- James got his record deal by playing "Something in the Way She Moves" for George Harrison and McCartney. He had written it after copping the idea from " I Feel Fine" and then George went home and wrote "Something". Circles. One of James' better quotes, " You can make a lot of money in the music business if you're willing to be lonely for your whole life." On Friday, Bill Payne, my bass player and I did a set in the dining room up there with Shawn and JT in the audience. The point here is that in Bozeman we're still having those "moments" and it's about music and community- Nobody gives a f**k about the money.
t
_____________________________________________
Subject: Re: Leno/Fallon
good luck to the major networks. i like binge viewing on my apple tv via hulu and netflix and i watch on my tablet what i want when i want and so does everyone else i know; that's what people talk about at the restaurant. my 4 year old looked at me the other day and said, "mommy i want apple tv." nuff said for me. the girl watches what she wants when she wants with no commercials. AND for a fraction of the price of cable.
as far as leno goes; shame on NBC... don't go against a guy who's worked his a** off and delivered. it's just wrong.
people are going to start getting what they want and what they're willing to fight for. House of Cards is amazing; ABC cancelled their two biggest soaps All My Children and One Life to Live which are now coming online; Veronica Mars coming online; Arrested Development. The people have spoken; I'm glad someone is listening.
On other thing - "The Good Wife" which is an awesome show is failing in the ratings... not available on hulu or netflix. All the other shows that are just getting bigger and bigger because people can catch up to the hype on their digital delivery systems. I think it's all awesome. Bring on the revolution.
Anonymous.
_____________________________________________
Subject: RE: Michael Cohl At CMW
If you use this please do so anonymously. As much as I'd love to publicly
sound off I gotta make a living in this biz.
Amen
I could go on and on and on and on about this but there's a whole crop of
agents and managers who've either never actually dealt with or very rarely
even deal with promoters.
Oh sure they get their gigs booked, but the great majority of people they
call/deal with are "Talent Buyers"
A talent buyer is someone who sits in an office with a spreadsheet and
spends someone else's money and generally has a whole support staff of
people whose job it is to "stick it in the strip ad" or "buy a facebook ad"
or "produce the show".
Agents and Talent buyers argue all day about other people's money and then
go to sxsw and pollstar live and jerk each other off all ALSO on other
people's money.
I'm not saying that "Talent buyers" aren't necessarily good at what they do
but not a one of them has ever had to go the ATM machine at the end of the
night and pull out money from their bank account to pay an act.
If he gets fired, they'll just hire his assistant to take his place.
The average Talent Buyer, along with $3.50 is about what a cup of coffee at
Starbucks is worth.
And this is why Livenation in its what 7 or 8 years as a public company has
yet to make a nickel in profit because they have an army of talent buyers
and no promoters.
_____________________________________________
Re: Crowdfunding
"The goal is not transparent. Unlike Kickstarter, which shows the pledgers that "X" is trying to raise a certain dollar amount, Pledge just shows a "percentage of goal reached". Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to know how ambitious the project is to start."
This person is comparing us to what we aren't. i.e. a Crowd Funding company. We are a way of releasing music, direct-to-fan.
Re the target and showing it publicly only a hand full of people have ever asked. Some artists can choose to tell them. Others don't. It's their choice. But again it's just not what we do.
"The "charity" component seemed to me to be a bit of a gimmick to compete with Kickstarter…"
"Artists, Fans & Charities." This is what I saw in my head the night that Pledge popped in there. It's at the core of what we do. It's at the core of what I do. It's not a gimmick. I tried to help refugees in the middle east in 2004 and events there changed my life forever. I determined that what ever I did moving forward would do something to make the world a better place in some small way.
We're not trying to compete with Kickstarter. I have immense respect for Yancey who I have met a few times and he's a brilliant guy. For Kendal also.
We launched within a few months of each other with two different missions. Though I do not know the other founders personally I know that they are doing what they do for all of the right reasons. I know that they care about the community that they have built and that they are working hard "to make a dent in the Universe." We just took different paths.
Cheers
Benj
Benji Rogers
CEO & Founder
PledgeMusic New York
_____________________________________________
From: Rafael Atijas
Subject: Re: Re-Crowdfunding
bob,
lot's of b.s. in some of the replies you got:
kickstarter does give you the full customers' data: email, everything. so that jacob tell guy has it completely wrong.
and amazon payment fees are NEVER more than 5%, so that jeremy cee guys also has it wrong.
i know it because i ran a successful campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340845022/the-loog-guitar
in any event, those things are so easy to check too its suspicious those guys are so mistaken.
cheers; enjoy your emails,
rafa
_____________________________________________
From: "Matt E. Earley - Gotta Groove Vinyl Record Pressing"
Subject: RE: CMW Crowdfunding Panel
Hi Bob
I strongly believe that crowdfunding is going to continue to become a more dominant tool in the music business.
We are a vinyl record manufacturer, and although it is not widely discussed, the vast majority of the vinyl records sold in the United States are done by bands and/or small labels releasing their own music vs records sold by the dominant labels/distributors. As such, we have seen many crowdfunded projects over the past few years, with one consistent issue -- the campaign manager's inability to set and manage expectations. This issue is not typically due to his/her own fault, but just the lack of information and adequate tools.
For example - we have received several orders funded by a crowdfunding platform, where specific vinyl colors were offered as perks in the campaign - but, without first confirming with any pressing plant if those colors were actually doable. (Mixing plastic is not like mixing paint - so not all colors are attainable on a pressed record). Further, since most folks using the platforms are not paying for any part of their pressing project out of pocket, they typically have to wait until the campaign successfully funds (and then wait for funds to clear) before even being able to place an order with a pressing plant. This causes huge delays in delivery of the final product, and can alienate fans toward the bands/labels involved with the campaign.
We launched our own pre-order/crowdfunding platform earlier this year to solve these issues. Since we are a vinyl pressing plant, the focus of the platform is making vinyl projects easier for intellectual property owners. However, we recognize that vinyl is a small part of most release campaigns, and therefore open the platform to all music-related projects. (We also open the platform to people pressing vinyl through other manufacturers).
In its short lifespan since initial launch, we have been able to coach several people in their campaigns to create releases that are realistic in terms of both manufacturing limitations and release timeframe. I expect this vertically-integrated model of funding-manufacturing-selling to grow not only with us, but also with other non-music industries in the next few years.
Matt Earley
V.P. Sales & Marketing
Gotta Groove Records, Inc.
Pre-Order/CrowdFunding: www.gottagroovebot.com
Vinyl Manufacturing: www.gottagrooverecords.com
_____________________________________________
Subject: Re: Re-Crowdfunding
Bob--
Just an additional thought regarding crowd funding. I do think a band's additional campaign for each consecutive recording project will raise less and less from repeat customers. They give a thousand the first time, five hundred the next, for example. You have to change the perks to keep people satisfied. Also--- most of my fans have been turned on to other artists that work with me or my manager somehow--- and many of my fans end up funding those artist's campaigns as well--- spreading the love but diluting source of the funds somewhat. I have fans that have contributed to people who open for me, tour with me, or are part of my managers stable of artists. As this has become the new paradigm for all bands, less money has become available.
A couple that gave $10,000 in the first campaign, have contributed to many additional artists in the family of artists around me. They wanted to contribute to my new campaign in a different way and asked if purchasing any studio equipment for the actual project would help instead. It felt more tangible to them that way--- and the mikes and preamps will be used on everything i do forever. I want people to be feel like they are getting something of value and a sense of satisfaction for them is important, so I'm open to their ideas. I sent them a wish list for my home studio, where i am doing vocals and guitars. They picked a couple items and bought them, and had them shipped to me. This worked great, and will help me out with everything I record from here on. They got perks at the level of the cost of the equipment-- art, free tix, hand written lyrics, a coffee table book.
Another example-- I was approached by someone recently who asked to buy into the publishing rights to a song as a contribution to an album. It might be something I'd consider--- giving someone a piece of a song they particularly are attached to (it would have to be 10% publishing say for $10,000 or something along those lines) might be a way to help make some of the contributor's money back and bring some pride in ownership that dinner with the band and the other perks don't. (I assume they would also get additional perks for that amount, but the prize of the level would be some publishing rights).
Most of my songs wouldn't return the $10,000. Other perks would have to be included-- life time pass to shows, original artwork, etc. However-- a few of my songs have brought in over $100,000 in publishing over years and years, which would be the break even point for the donors 10% payback.
It would be like speculating for them--- the guy that brought this up was a stockbroker. The contributor picks the money maker song on the cd. If it lands in a movie or an ad campaign or becomes a hit somehow, or a classic like Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" the investment not only returns, it rolls into quarterly profits.
If I could own 10% of "This Land is Your Land" not only would I love having it--- The income return from the initial investment would be quite high on an annual basis.
I haven't decided on incorporating this idea, but it could be part of a future campaign.
Something to mull...
Thanks!
Ellis Paul
Www.ellispaul.com
_____________________________________________
From: Phil Bonanno
Subject: relevant
Hi Bob - this got passed to me and I immediately thought of you. Apologies if this is the 10,000th copy of it you've received.
http://www.infographicsonly.com/music-just-isnt-what-it-used-to-be-like/
_____________________________________________
From: Alan Cohen
Subject: Best Doughnut in the World...
...is at a food truck in Austin, TX. Made to order. THIS ONE:
http://www.gourdoughs.com/doughnuts/flying-pig/
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Re: Rhinofy-I Won't Hold You Back
Gotta love ya Bob. haha
Thanks and I don't wince at the name Toto like that. Well not in a long time. We Used to get our asses kicked daily.. now people either like you or they don't. That's cool.
I am proud of us old f**ks hangin and taking the beating for 35 + years and we STILL get together in the summers and tour and still play arenas and headline festivals outside of the USA. Going to play a bit in the USA this summer.
We all LOVED the Fallon- JT bit on Africa, the Family Guy episode on Africa was classic, hell I was a South Park character. HOW much cooler is THAT. We GET the joke man.. no bad vibe at ALL.
I am lucky to get paid to play music after all these years..
The Timothy B. Schmitt thing is right on. It's my tune but when Timothy sang the BG's it was more than that. He has an amazing voice. We HAD to feature it. James Newton Howard helped with the strings on that tune and we recorded at Abbey Road with Martyn Ford and the London Symphony orchestra guys. Huge section...back when we spent a ton of money on records cause we WANTED it to be great and that's how the Beatles did it and we LOVE all those records, Elton and all the BIG production of the records back then.
Thanks for the shout out and I send ya my best from Denmark.
Luke
P.S. I failed to say was JEFF PORCARO was THE greatest groove player on planet earth! HE is what made Toto swing. We always followed what Jeff did and when Jeff said ' Thats the take" he was always right. He got me to play some of my best stuff. He knew how to communicate like no other person I have ever known.
Paich and him were like one. It was awesome to be a part of that.
Oh there ARE some most awesome world-class drummers and I love them all and have played with most of the greats.. but just ask anyone who ever had the honor of playing with Jeff or even just got to hang with him.
He always made EVERYONE sound better. He helped SO many players get started.
Countless hit records from the 70's till his WAY too early passing Aug 5th 1992.
Everyone wanted to steal him for their own bands or tours.
I love him and I miss him everyday.
He gave SO much to so many musicians. Most times they didn't even know it.
Jeff was one of a kind.
He was magic and I miss him so much..
We all do.
_____________________________________________
From: David Paich
Subject: TOTO
thanks for rememberin....
:D
_____________________________________________
From: Eric Carmen
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-I Won't Hold You Back
Re: Luke, Toto, "I Won't Hold You Back"
Hi Bob,
"I Won't Hold You Back" is my favorite Toto track. I love the sincerity of Luke's vocal, and, as anyone who sings on records knows, it's all about convincing the listener you MEAN IT. It's believability that makes a track monumental, or not.
You can sing a sharp note, or a flat note here and there, and no one is going to say that ruined the record for them. It's the performance that counts. It's Paul McCartney's voice recorded and mixed so that when you hear "Hey Jude" on the radio it feels like Paul is sitting next to you, in the passenger seat, singing in your ear, while the rest of the band is coming out of your radio speakers (the magic of Sir George Martin). Same thing for all of James Taylor's records.
Listen to "Save The Best For Last" by Vanessa Williams and you can "hear" the smile on her face when she sings certain lines. That's a performance.
At any rate, having played in a band that similarly got no respect, (until now, 30 years too late) I often ask myself at what point did a great melody become anathema to popular music? And why?
When did "beats" replace great songwriting, and why would any rock critic think someone rapping over a computer generated track was somehow superior to a singer who could actually sing and write a terrific, melodic, memorable song? I actually believe I have the answer. It's that songs with beautiful melodies, sung with sensitivity by a male singer, make Alpha males uncomfortable. Men are supposed to be tough. We're not supposed to HAVE feelings. If we do, it's a sign of weakness. This is why AC/DC and Metallica are huge, popular big selling bands. Guys don't want to like the same records their sisters like. It's much safer to like "Highway To Hell" than to admit you like "I Won't Hold You Back" or (God forbid) "All By Myself." If I had a dime for every time that song has been referred to as "Eric Carmen's cheesy, self-flagellating ballad" in print, I'd never have to work again. There seems to be something empowering about guys removing themselves from any emotional availability. It's just more "manly" to put those songs down.
In any case, I guess that's a problem for psychologists to ponder. I, for one, loved "I Won't Hold You Back." But then, you could have pretty much expected that, couldn't you? I loved the songs J.D. Souther wrote for Linda Ronstadt, too. And I love "Somewhere" from "West Side Story" and "Some Enchanted Evening" from "South Pacific" and "Someone To Watch Over Me", and "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" by Sinatra.
Maybe it's just the times we live in.
And so it goes.
Eric
_____________________________________________
From: Michael Hardy
Subject: Re: Rhinofy-I Won't Hold You Back
Hey Bob,
I love Toto. Saw them in Tulsa back in 82 I think. If I remember
correctly, Timothy Schmit was wearing a cast on his leg. The show must
go on!
Get this: Roger Sanchez had a huge dance hit in Europe in the early
2000s with a sample from "I won't hold you back." All these years, I
knew it sounded familiar but couldn't put my finger on it until now.
http://spoti.fi/XCvatV
Ciao from Austin,
Michael Hardy
_____________________________________________
From: Steve Lillywhite
Subject: Re: CMW Day One
Hi Bob , first off , thank you for the shout out from CMW and I must agree with you about the current state of rock music. Technology has always led the definition of our musical times, right from the time drummers were allowed to play louder to compete with electric guitars. The current recording technology
of pro tools etc is not conducive to the "traditional" rock sound and in fact makes it predictable and BORING ! I am not of the belief however that we should return to the talibanic world of Dave Grohl to make make records although the past definitely gives us pointers to the future ... Having just worked with Jared Leto on the new Thirty Seconds to Mars album I believe a new standard has been set ..
Steve Lillywhite
Ps. Please read Stone Free by Andrew Loog Oldham . Spectacular book!
Pps. I never thought of U2 as a rock band , more Frank Sinatra with electric guitars ...
Badly dictated by Siri
_____________________________________________
From: Wendy Waldman
Subject: Full Circle
Turns out that Lee's Traveling Song was prophetic for me. When we did that track, and that album, I was dreaming of music that I didn't think I'd heard anywhere: as the blues dropout in a family of erudite, extraordinary, deeply classically educated people, I wanted to write folk and roots style songs with rich sounding orchestras and interesting arrangements--I always said of this dream, "imagine if George Gershwin met the Rolling Stones at Skip James' house, and Ravel dropped by...." or, what if Bartok jammed with Doc Boggs...."
Kenny Edwards and I loved music that howled, and the music that howls is of course, true American folk music, American mountain music, Delta blues, gospel music, early country, all found in those killer field recordings we got to hear when we prowled through the record bins at the Ash Grove and McCabe's--and that we were so lucky to hear when those very folks came through town to play for 6 nights straight in the clubs, as people did in those days. Or like the day the "Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues" was released on Columbia and I wore it out for years thereafter...I still have the lp.
But I had grown up hearing chamber music coming from the living room being played live by my folks and their friends, and also, the magnificent, sweeping scores of the film and television composers who were my father's colleagues-- as well as his own astonishing and quietly groundbreaking work. Consequently, on the first album, not only did my dad write three arrangements--and conduct them--but my producer Chuck Plotkin pushed ME to write strings and horns as well, claiming that it was in my blood...
So Lee's Traveling Song became a compass not only for me musically, but for me personally. The elements in that song, that album, those experiments, that joy I felt making music--these, along with Stephen Holden's life changing review--have been enough not only to sustain me for all these years, but to propel me, to push me to keep trying to grow and explore--and the older I get, the MORE I dig this, the MORE excited I am about music and working at it, and the MORE I know I have yet to learn. And this was, I see now, always my real dream.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the release of my first album for Warner Brothers, "Love Has Got Me," the one about which you wrote. I never thought it would really happen--that in a million years I would turn out to be not only such a restless seeker after music, but someone who has had the profound privilege of working with fantastic musicians, writers, technicians, friends--all around the world. How lucky am I? You're right, man, I never "broke through.." in the way that many of my LA colleagues did in their 20s---and the bios of me always point that out. But you know I made a different bed--and yes there were times when I was younger that I didn't understand how blessed I was to have this life and work in so many ways with so many people who have taught me so much.
Now I know. I am so thankful for the bed I made, or that was made for me--and from Nashville, to Japan, to Poland, to Russia, to Halifax, from LA to New York to Muscle Shoals, from Artie Traum to George Winston to Linda Ronstadt to Mietek to Kenny Edwards, Aaron Neville, Alison Krauss, New Grass Revival, the Ozark Mtn Daredevils, HB Barnum, Andrew Gold, John Cowan, Karla Bonoff to Vanessa Williams to Robert Smith, from being a producer to a folk musician to a (sometimes) hit writer to a piano playing singer songwriter to a background singer on Hee Haw and tons of pop and country records, fronting a rock band opening for Dan Fogelberg, playing back to back with Randy Newman and Ry Cooder to the Refugees with Deborah Holland and Cidny Bullens, to film, to television, to producing Christian records (as a Jew), country records, rock, folk, European pop records--what a ride--the list alone would be the length of this letter!! Brilliant studio and live musicians, producers, engineers, a few great publishers, a lot of amazing songwriters, all wonderful each in their own way, have taught me more than I ever could have imagined, and made my life so rich. I've had really awful financial years and really great ones, a bunch of broken hearts, but I've never regretted a single day of this life I chose as a musician.
I still love music that howls, I am back to writing for strings and dobros, horns and pianos, electric guitars and dulcimers. I listen to classical music all day long, and then go into my studio and cut blues influenced country tracks or piano songs with strange chords and cellos. I'm trying all kinds of new musical ideas and having a blast. I've learned from every single musician and writer I've known that music is a road, a language indeed that goes way beyond how we communicate with words. At root, we are all the same.
The great masters who went before us, guys like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, Ravel, Brahms, Verdi, Rogers and Hammerstein, the Gershwins, Bartok, Duke Ellington, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joe Strummer, Coltrane, Doc Boggs, Laura Nyro, Mississippi John Hurt, Harlan Howard, Ella Fitzgerald, countless geniuses--they all worked until the end of their days, and I hope I get to make music to the end of my days too.
Thanks man, for everything.
XW
_____________________________________________
From: Rob Deutsche
Subject: Re: Justin Timberlake
You couldn't be more dead on here. I was at Fingerprints in Long Beach yesterday buying some used LPs, and they were playing the new JT on the store loudspeaker, and all the dyed hair punker employees were wearing JT buttons on their shirts (When was the last time you saw artists getting promoted via buttons!!??). Fingerprints isn't the sort of place that sells JT albums, nor is the typical customer there the sort of person who would care about his new album, but the label is so worried that they don't care anymore and are throwing this crap up anywhere there is a ceiling, spending god knows how much money to tell a bunch of people that never cared that there is an album coming out from some artist that simply isn't relevant to them.
_____________________________________________
From: Bob Chiappardi
Subject: Re: Justin Timberlake
this ties in with a question i have for you about the new Spotify "terms" i signed off on without reading at 1 am last night. it came after i clicked through on an email i got from Spotify inviting me to check out the new JT release. i checked out a couple songs and went to bed. as of this morning i must have gotten 2 dozen banner pop ups, no matter where i go pushing the JT record on me. and twice today, while playing one of my Spodify playlists, i got pushed back to the JT page after i paused and let my computer sit for 30 minutes. i don't remember this happening in the past.
i have never had anything forced on me lik e this ever. is the the future play? i have Spotify premium. if this is what i can expect, i am going to cancel it now. you have any insights on what Spodify is up to?
_____________________________________________
From: peteadams81
Subject: RE: Then/Now-Media Edition
This makes me wonder how much of the negativity surrounding the high-ish ticket events-concerts, sports, hell even a trip to an amusement park or a movie- how much of that negativity is a side effect of the fact that we are ever more engaged in a tacit agreement with the venue, ticketmaster, Budweiser, etc, to be overcharged and underserved and constantly advertised to? "Tonight's urinal cakes brought to you by Adam Sandler's latest masterpiece "PeePee Boy"-nobody likes to be reminded that they let themselves get f**k*d over, but everything about these events seems to be designed to remind us-from your first contact with the event at a ticketseller where you are charged $29 in service charges, to the night of the show where parking sucks and is still $20, the security at the door are a**holes, service is slow and usually rude and always overpriced.
I'm 41 and still love to go to concerts- more often for theatre level acts- The Avetts, David Gray, etc- if the venue is on top of its game logistically, I will tell everybody I know what a great time I had and how they were efficient, friendly, reasonable- these things matter to a significant number of potential money spenders- they are still f**k*ng me over for the most part, but I don't mind nearly as much. Of course everybodys got a chip on their shoulder- all parties involved are whoring themselves in some way or another and I would say that the pissyness that seems more prevalent in recent decades is our anxiety over that fact coming out sideways. How could we NOT be twitchy with all the b.s. that we're all continually and completely and complicitly buried in?
_____________________________________________
From: Tom Garnsey
Subject: TOTO et al
Bob,
I know I still owe you a copy of Shawn, Jackson and Mary Chapin from Yellowstone Club- it's safe to send it now. We've had quite a week up here. I sat here listening to Bill Payne who is playing and producing a record with my band as well as becoming a songwriting partner and friend. He was telling me Toto, James Taylor, Valerie Carter and all sorts of other 70's tales of rock and roll craziness…This was after my company produced this year's benefit fundraiser at YC - Shawn and James Taylor giving a songwriting workshop for twenty kids in Big Sky and performing the next night for 250 people. Sublime. The workshop stories were over the top- James got his record deal by playing "Something in the Way She Moves" for George Harrison and McCartney. He had written it after copping the idea from " I Feel Fine" and then George went home and wrote "Something". Circles. One of James' better quotes, " You can make a lot of money in the music business if you're willing to be lonely for your whole life." On Friday, Bill Payne, my bass player and I did a set in the dining room up there with Shawn and JT in the audience. The point here is that in Bozeman we're still having those "moments" and it's about music and community- Nobody gives a f**k about the money.
t
_____________________________________________
Subject: Re: Leno/Fallon
good luck to the major networks. i like binge viewing on my apple tv via hulu and netflix and i watch on my tablet what i want when i want and so does everyone else i know; that's what people talk about at the restaurant. my 4 year old looked at me the other day and said, "mommy i want apple tv." nuff said for me. the girl watches what she wants when she wants with no commercials. AND for a fraction of the price of cable.
as far as leno goes; shame on NBC... don't go against a guy who's worked his a** off and delivered. it's just wrong.
people are going to start getting what they want and what they're willing to fight for. House of Cards is amazing; ABC cancelled their two biggest soaps All My Children and One Life to Live which are now coming online; Veronica Mars coming online; Arrested Development. The people have spoken; I'm glad someone is listening.
On other thing - "The Good Wife" which is an awesome show is failing in the ratings... not available on hulu or netflix. All the other shows that are just getting bigger and bigger because people can catch up to the hype on their digital delivery systems. I think it's all awesome. Bring on the revolution.
Anonymous.
_____________________________________________
Subject: RE: Michael Cohl At CMW
If you use this please do so anonymously. As much as I'd love to publicly
sound off I gotta make a living in this biz.
Amen
I could go on and on and on and on about this but there's a whole crop of
agents and managers who've either never actually dealt with or very rarely
even deal with promoters.
Oh sure they get their gigs booked, but the great majority of people they
call/deal with are "Talent Buyers"
A talent buyer is someone who sits in an office with a spreadsheet and
spends someone else's money and generally has a whole support staff of
people whose job it is to "stick it in the strip ad" or "buy a facebook ad"
or "produce the show".
Agents and Talent buyers argue all day about other people's money and then
go to sxsw and pollstar live and jerk each other off all ALSO on other
people's money.
I'm not saying that "Talent buyers" aren't necessarily good at what they do
but not a one of them has ever had to go the ATM machine at the end of the
night and pull out money from their bank account to pay an act.
If he gets fired, they'll just hire his assistant to take his place.
The average Talent Buyer, along with $3.50 is about what a cup of coffee at
Starbucks is worth.
And this is why Livenation in its what 7 or 8 years as a public company has
yet to make a nickel in profit because they have an army of talent buyers
and no promoters.
_____________________________________________
Re: Crowdfunding
"The goal is not transparent. Unlike Kickstarter, which shows the pledgers that "X" is trying to raise a certain dollar amount, Pledge just shows a "percentage of goal reached". Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to know how ambitious the project is to start."
This person is comparing us to what we aren't. i.e. a Crowd Funding company. We are a way of releasing music, direct-to-fan.
Re the target and showing it publicly only a hand full of people have ever asked. Some artists can choose to tell them. Others don't. It's their choice. But again it's just not what we do.
"The "charity" component seemed to me to be a bit of a gimmick to compete with Kickstarter…"
"Artists, Fans & Charities." This is what I saw in my head the night that Pledge popped in there. It's at the core of what we do. It's at the core of what I do. It's not a gimmick. I tried to help refugees in the middle east in 2004 and events there changed my life forever. I determined that what ever I did moving forward would do something to make the world a better place in some small way.
We're not trying to compete with Kickstarter. I have immense respect for Yancey who I have met a few times and he's a brilliant guy. For Kendal also.
We launched within a few months of each other with two different missions. Though I do not know the other founders personally I know that they are doing what they do for all of the right reasons. I know that they care about the community that they have built and that they are working hard "to make a dent in the Universe." We just took different paths.
Cheers
Benj
Benji Rogers
CEO & Founder
PledgeMusic New York
_____________________________________________
From: Rafael Atijas
Subject: Re: Re-Crowdfunding
bob,
lot's of b.s. in some of the replies you got:
kickstarter does give you the full customers' data: email, everything. so that jacob tell guy has it completely wrong.
and amazon payment fees are NEVER more than 5%, so that jeremy cee guys also has it wrong.
i know it because i ran a successful campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340845022/the-loog-guitar
in any event, those things are so easy to check too its suspicious those guys are so mistaken.
cheers; enjoy your emails,
rafa
_____________________________________________
From: "Matt E. Earley - Gotta Groove Vinyl Record Pressing"
Subject: RE: CMW Crowdfunding Panel
Hi Bob
I strongly believe that crowdfunding is going to continue to become a more dominant tool in the music business.
We are a vinyl record manufacturer, and although it is not widely discussed, the vast majority of the vinyl records sold in the United States are done by bands and/or small labels releasing their own music vs records sold by the dominant labels/distributors. As such, we have seen many crowdfunded projects over the past few years, with one consistent issue -- the campaign manager's inability to set and manage expectations. This issue is not typically due to his/her own fault, but just the lack of information and adequate tools.
For example - we have received several orders funded by a crowdfunding platform, where specific vinyl colors were offered as perks in the campaign - but, without first confirming with any pressing plant if those colors were actually doable. (Mixing plastic is not like mixing paint - so not all colors are attainable on a pressed record). Further, since most folks using the platforms are not paying for any part of their pressing project out of pocket, they typically have to wait until the campaign successfully funds (and then wait for funds to clear) before even being able to place an order with a pressing plant. This causes huge delays in delivery of the final product, and can alienate fans toward the bands/labels involved with the campaign.
We launched our own pre-order/crowdfunding platform earlier this year to solve these issues. Since we are a vinyl pressing plant, the focus of the platform is making vinyl projects easier for intellectual property owners. However, we recognize that vinyl is a small part of most release campaigns, and therefore open the platform to all music-related projects. (We also open the platform to people pressing vinyl through other manufacturers).
In its short lifespan since initial launch, we have been able to coach several people in their campaigns to create releases that are realistic in terms of both manufacturing limitations and release timeframe. I expect this vertically-integrated model of funding-manufacturing-selling to grow not only with us, but also with other non-music industries in the next few years.
Matt Earley
V.P. Sales & Marketing
Gotta Groove Records, Inc.
Pre-Order/CrowdFunding: www.gottagroovebot.com
Vinyl Manufacturing: www.gottagrooverecords.com
_____________________________________________
Subject: Re: Re-Crowdfunding
Bob--
Just an additional thought regarding crowd funding. I do think a band's additional campaign for each consecutive recording project will raise less and less from repeat customers. They give a thousand the first time, five hundred the next, for example. You have to change the perks to keep people satisfied. Also--- most of my fans have been turned on to other artists that work with me or my manager somehow--- and many of my fans end up funding those artist's campaigns as well--- spreading the love but diluting source of the funds somewhat. I have fans that have contributed to people who open for me, tour with me, or are part of my managers stable of artists. As this has become the new paradigm for all bands, less money has become available.
A couple that gave $10,000 in the first campaign, have contributed to many additional artists in the family of artists around me. They wanted to contribute to my new campaign in a different way and asked if purchasing any studio equipment for the actual project would help instead. It felt more tangible to them that way--- and the mikes and preamps will be used on everything i do forever. I want people to be feel like they are getting something of value and a sense of satisfaction for them is important, so I'm open to their ideas. I sent them a wish list for my home studio, where i am doing vocals and guitars. They picked a couple items and bought them, and had them shipped to me. This worked great, and will help me out with everything I record from here on. They got perks at the level of the cost of the equipment-- art, free tix, hand written lyrics, a coffee table book.
Another example-- I was approached by someone recently who asked to buy into the publishing rights to a song as a contribution to an album. It might be something I'd consider--- giving someone a piece of a song they particularly are attached to (it would have to be 10% publishing say for $10,000 or something along those lines) might be a way to help make some of the contributor's money back and bring some pride in ownership that dinner with the band and the other perks don't. (I assume they would also get additional perks for that amount, but the prize of the level would be some publishing rights).
Most of my songs wouldn't return the $10,000. Other perks would have to be included-- life time pass to shows, original artwork, etc. However-- a few of my songs have brought in over $100,000 in publishing over years and years, which would be the break even point for the donors 10% payback.
It would be like speculating for them--- the guy that brought this up was a stockbroker. The contributor picks the money maker song on the cd. If it lands in a movie or an ad campaign or becomes a hit somehow, or a classic like Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" the investment not only returns, it rolls into quarterly profits.
If I could own 10% of "This Land is Your Land" not only would I love having it--- The income return from the initial investment would be quite high on an annual basis.
I haven't decided on incorporating this idea, but it could be part of a future campaign.
Something to mull...
Thanks!
Ellis Paul
Www.ellispaul.com
_____________________________________________
From: Phil Bonanno
Subject: relevant
Hi Bob - this got passed to me and I immediately thought of you. Apologies if this is the 10,000th copy of it you've received.
http://www.infographicsonly.com/music-just-isnt-what-it-used-to-be-like/
_____________________________________________
From: Alan Cohen
Subject: Best Doughnut in the World...
...is at a food truck in Austin, TX. Made to order. THIS ONE:
http://www.gourdoughs.com/doughnuts/flying-pig/
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Sunday, 24 March 2013
Re-Crowdfunding
I'm tired of getting kickstarter campaigns for singer songwriters saying they need $10k+ for a CD. Who buys CDs anymore? Just record your 3 best songs! I know lots of professional studios in San Diego and top notch session musicians. You need about $500 per song MAX to get a killer recording done. If these musicians were paying with their own money they'd spend the money smarter.
regards
Cliff Keller
_________________________________________
Benji is an incredible person and businessman. We sell PledgeMusic campaigns to our clients as a Phase 1 (pre-order, funding), then build their web presence with Topspin as a Phase 2 (direct to fan e-commerce).
The beauty of PledgeMusic over Kickstarter is that Pledge actually gives customers their data (email addresses) so we can directly import to Topspin and continue marketing to the same folks who funded the first campaign. F**k Kickstarter for keeping their customer's data.
Jacob
Jacob Tell - CEO, Creative Lead
Oniracom Corp.
_________________________________________
Just a small FYI ... Kickstarter forces you to run through Amazon Payments ... so it's not just "credit card fees" (usually 2-5%) ... it's actually Amazon Payments fees ... and it's like 6-8% ... so that makes it about parity vs this other 15% option.
Just saying.
The first campaign I ran for Panacea's "12 Step Program" was pretty much a WASH once all the payment fees and shipping totaled up. In fact, K-Murdock might have even had to dish money out of his pocket for FedEx'ing vinyl master/plates back and forth for approvals when it was all said and done. But obviously there was still a LOT of value in building that relationship, for no significant "dollar" cost, wish the most dedicated fans that wanted their music on vinyl (and the other cool backer awards).
@JeremyCee
http://about.me/JeremyCee
_________________________________________
IndieGoGo seems to be run by hucksters. I funded a smartphone case last Spring that I believed in and was IMMEDIATELY inundated with emails to fund other, dissimilar, projects from IndieGoGo. Spammed because I believed in something? With no way to opt out? When I blasted IndieGoGo via email and asked to be removed from their spam list, they did, but they also removed me from the email list for the project I supported before passing the list onto the folks I invested in (by adding "donotemail" to my email address on the email list causing bounce backs). This left me in ex-communicated limbo for 6 months after giving them $500... all because I complained about them spamming me with other non-sensical projects. I had to research and find the original company I supported via google and reach out directly to the smartphone case owner. I got what I invested in last month, but every time I think of IndieGoGo I spit up in my mouth a little.
Summary: IndieGoGo is a douchebag company.
Wendy Day
_________________________________________
Bob,I am the manager of protest the hero and I was at your panel yesterday.a few points:while I agree that only existing fans contributed,the press coverage and word of mouth was incredible and probably made non fans of the band aware of protest the hero.time will tell if they convert to real fans.regarding fulfillment,we set up a system before the program commenced to guarantee 100 percent fulfillment.getting people what they paid for in a timely manner is our #1 priority.also you mention the pizza party,that was one of 15 perks that were offered for donations.the bigger issue I have is with your opening statement yesterday that crowdfunding was in its final days.on that you are 100 percent wrong.here is where it is going.in the next few years,every label will be offering joint venture deals with bands and will be using these platforms to raise every dime of recording costs,promotion and marketing costs,video and tour support.its already starting.once again the system will co opt a great idea and use it as a way to reduce their overheads.during the protest campaign,numerous labels called me asking questions and I could see the wheels turning in their heads.this is the door that amanda palmer,protest the hero and others have opened.watch every label run right in.
entserv
_________________________________________
Benji Rogers is the real deal.
Two years ago Benji and Pledge Music were working with a band called Madina Lake from Chicago. Matthew Leone, the bass player of the band had been severely beaten while coming to the aid of a woman being assaulted. His injuries were horrific and Matthew required multiple cranial surgeries and a lengthy rehab.
Benji contacted me, connected us with Matthew's family, manager, band and a dozen other key people to coordinate an emergency health fund (Matthew , like many musicians was uninsured). Over $200,000 was raised to cover medical expenses, living expenses and other urgent items. I was amazed at the time and energy Benji Rogers gave to help his artist. There was no business to this and he had only just started their Pledge Campaign. I can't say enough about Benji's heart and character. We need more like him in the music biz.
Regards,
Rob
Rob Max
Executive Director
Sweet Relief Musicians Fund
_________________________________________
Thanks, Bob, for your review of Benji Rogers' Pledge Music vis-a-vis the other crowdfunding sites.
Dawn Mitschele, whom I manage, chose Pledge Music to fund her next EP for precisely the same reasons you state - they're music specific, they walk you through the process, and if you don't make your goal, the money goes back, which seemed like the fair thing to do. These reasons to go with the Pledge campaign far outweighed the 15% in her mind. And when you go over your goal, a percentage of the extra goes to the charity or non-profit of your choice. Dawn chose the Matt Wadleigh LoVE Foundation, an organization she has supported from its inception.
Dawn's Pledge campaign just went up last week and it's already close to half of her goal figure. She's now out on a tour of the Northeast and Midwest performing her new songs live and encouraging her audience to participate in her Pledge outreach. She has no doubt that this will be successful and allow her to record her songs the way she hears them and release them independently so that she, as you point out, keeps her copyrights.
And thanks once again for cutting through the jibberish and getting to the reality of the music biz today.
Larry Butler
_________________________________________
Hi Bob
I have been writing, recording and performing music with my band for the last 15 years or so and we have managed to fund all of our endeavors with our own money. It pisses me off when my twitter feed/FB timeline/email box is full of other bands asking me for $!!!! The main writing core of the band pays for our s**t the old fashion way. We gig and we run an interior/exterior painting company. My advice to everyone who thinks they are entitled to free money is go get a gig or a job. We have all put in way over our 10,000 hours and there is no end in sight. Since we run our own company we make our own schedule, pay our own bills and support our selves. We are living the dream. No one controls our music and we keep getting better. At this point we are on a mission to make some classic recordings and let them shine for the ages. It's not about whether we ever "break" or not, it's about making art.
Andy Salge
_________________________________________
I manage Autumn Owls from Dublin, Ireland and we were approached by PledgeMusic A&R Mike Fordham when we were working on their debut LP with Brian Deck in Chicago last year. He made a strong case for why we should work with them instead of their competition and most importantly, we knew that because he approached us we would probably have a lot of support. And we were right. They were amazing to work with and really helped us finish the album and press it to vinyl. They also offered plenty of motivation to communicate with fans and keep momentum moving forward. Mike even came out and saw us at CMJ and last week at SXSW - months after the campaign was over and checks were cashed. Not sure anyone else would give us that kind of personal attention.
www.autumnowls.bandcamp.com
Cheers!
Brian
Brian McKinney
Crooked House Management
_________________________________________
Just today I saw on my Facebook that George Benson is using PledgeMusic. So my business friends tell me it is just a vehicle to raise awareness and reward his fans. Various percs include a Skype guitar lesson.
Jonathan Schneider
_________________________________________
Bob--
I'm in the middle of my second crowd source funding campaign. My first, done privately through my website fan base raised about $100,000 in 2009. This was before kickstarter and pledgemusic existed. I am currently doing my second campaign thru Nimbit, who simply records purchases and processes cc accounts for a small percentage. I also use my management for follow up and donor support. A lot of new bands don't have that luxury.
I chose not to use kickstarter and pledgemusic because their platform was limiting to me as an already established artist. First of all, the time constraints. It takes me eight months to cover the country playing shows and talking to audiences in person about my next project--- every weekend I pull in a few thousand extra in contributions. Two or three months for a time line is too small-- I don't think a third of my audience would even be aware of the campaign no matter what the noise was on the Internet regarding it. In person, I can speak about the project passionately and take questions with everyone who cares enough to come to shows. They can make out contributions in person or over the web.
I don't like putting a price goal on the fundraising. We like to tell people we are raising as much as we can for eight months. The economy had collapsed at the time, so any amount sounded ludacris. Regardless, i have an audience that trusts my overall artistic goals, so it didnt matter that i didn't define my financial ones. My unspoken goal for the first campaign was $80,000, based on what my friend Jill Sobule had raised, in thinking my audience was about the same size and age group. We eventually raised $102,000 with 252 contributors. Our only definition of timeline and goals was eight months. (there were three $10,000 donors). There was no failure because there was no limiting factors of time and money.
I'm an established touring artist, with 22 years on the road. None of the extra perks from these fundraising sites seemed to warrant as large of a commission as they were asking -- I have management to do donor follow up, And would these sites truly bring in donations from strangers to my music that warranted their commission? I didn't think so. It wasnt right for me, but it could work well for newer bands who need extra hands.
I had been on a label, Rounder Records for seven album cycles, and I'm pretty sure this was far more money than they ever invested in me. Owning the masters is very important for me, because of my placement history, and I doubt I will ever give them up again.
I learned a lot from the process, we aren't a perfectly functioning record label yet, or fundraisers-- we made some mistakes and we did some things right.
Here's the breakdown---
Hope it will be useful to your readers if you choose to run it....
252 donors totaling $102,000
I can't remember all the perks.... But something like this:
$15 level: 111.... Preorders, signed
$100: 71......plus demos, out takes
$250: 34....... Handwritten lyrics, free shows
$500: 20........plus Liner note mentions
$1000: 4 .... dinner, Video clips of recording
$2500: 5...... Guitars
$5000: 4 ...... house concerts
$10000: 3 ..... lifetime passes, songs written for you or your business, a studio invite-- sing on the cd
Some stuff fell through the cracks but overall people seemed to be truly happy with being a part of the process...
How the $102,000 was spent:
$36,000 for recording
$21,000 in promotion/media print/web
$9,000 in various radio promotion
$2,500 in cd art design/photography
$9,000 in manufacturing
$2,000 in video contest pay out
$3,000 in ad purchases
$6,000 in management maintenance
$1,000 in guitars
$2,500 mastering
$3,000 in recording equipment
$1,000 posters
$5,000 in additional manufacturing
The album, The Day After Everything Changed, sold as many as I would have on Rounder-- mainly to my established fan base. It was used as the score to the Farrelly Brothers 'Hall Pass' and I'm still out here selling it from the back of my crv.
And we have started the next campaign--- it's a different world financially this time. The economy has plateaued to a new reality.
We are setting a goal of 1,000 donors and are half way there, if we dont make it-- we still move on. We have four $5,000 donors, and it seems more people are giving, but in smaller sums.
We've raised over $80,000 with two months left. I'm halfway thru the recording project, it's being produced by Brandon and Kristian Bush of Sugarland in Atlanta with members of the band. It's a folk rock record.
I have to explain to fans that there will be delays-- I have some vocal issues and which has postponed the release date. But people are along for the ride.
I feel like $100,000 is a great budget for where my needs fall as an artist. I do 175 shows a year, with one or two side guys or solo. Its the folk curcuit--- clubs, colleges, festivals and a few churches. I'd love to see where Amanda Palmer uses her million. I know I'd have a better car/bus/plane!! with that in the tank. Comfort makes for better shows-- but that's not in my budget.
I'm lucky and grateful to have a community of supporters around me.
Thanks Bob-- always enjoy reading you-
Ellis Paul
Www.ellispaul.com
_________________________________________
It's nice when other people recognize the good guys.
Pledge music held my hand while my fans gave me mouth to mouth. Been wanting to send this to you for a while but... I've been making music.
I had the typical major label debacle. Nothing original there. But after asking to be let go, everything just fell into place. It started with a mission statement to fans in January: http://willdailey.com/2013/01/mission-for-2013/
Since then pledge held my hand through the process of bringing in my fans. Something a label doesn't know how to do.
I got lucky in the "business" a few times (albeit at my own speed) but it is only because bread and water are ok to live on if I'm making music. It is because of good friends, family and fans. If you're in it to actually create, and work harder than you think you can, then luck will find you.
Yes, with PledgeMusic I got the money I need. Yes my base is galvanized. But I feel more connected! Less alone and out to sea.
We are led to believe we are more connected than ever with our phones but that is a mirage. Typically in the studio you are locked up with you "team". Everyone there thinks it's going well but you never know who's going to be there for that music when it is done.
I know pledge will be there to help it be successful but I also got 600 fans (so far) that will be there too.
W;ll
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/willdailey
_________________________________________
Bob,
Let me tell you about Pledge Music. I am small beans- a big fish in a small town 10 years ago who still has some people who care about his music. I lead a very successful wedding/function band in Boston, I pay my mortgage by playing popular dance music and not succumbing to lounge-lizard syndrome. I REALLY sincerely enjoy playing songs that make civilians yell "woooo!" Sue me, I like my day job.
My band played at the wedding of Jayce Vardin, the co- founder of PLedge Music and he and and Benji sat in on a few songs and it was great. This was a few years ago and they told me all about this crazy business idea they had. It sounded pretty abstract at the time, but I just a had a gut feeling that those two were clever enough to make a go of it.
Fast forward a few years and I have recorded my latest batch of songs- not on my laptop on my bedroom, I drained my savings and recorded at Abbey F**king Road. I spent every penny I had to finish the record on tape, even bought a state of the art (1981) MCI 1" 8 track reel to reel machine to finish the album in Boston. I flew to LA and had it mastered by Grammy and Academy award winning mastering engineer Gavin Lurrsen (who does all T Bone Burnett's stuff and knows from analog- and who I went to college with). Not because I thought there was ever a chance in hell I'd sell enough CDs or downloads for this to make sense, but because I believe in the songs enough to record them the way they should sound.
The album came out great, but I spent ALL my money and really wanted to do a small vinyl run for the geeks. I had coffee with Jayce and he told me I could do it. I said "Jayce, c'mon, I'm not Amanda, how does crowd sourcing work for someone with not much of a crowd?" and "What if only my Mom pledges? I'll look like a jerkoff." Jacye said I could do it. He said I have a story and people can relate to someone doing something that makes no sense financially because they believe in it artistically. That's the beauty of the new music business, he said. Not everything needs to be giant, small stories matter, too. AND Jayce said I could donate some of the money to Boston Children's Hospital where my 12 year old niece had heart surgery a couple of years ago and they saved her life.
Now, mind you this is no huge deal. My goal was merely to raise enough dough to do a quality vinyl issue of the album, but look:
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/corinashley
People got behind me enough to make this work. My friend Kay Hanley who used to sing for the biggest local band, Letters To Cleo, wrote this blog about her struggles with addiction and how working on my album helped her:
http://iamkayhanley.tumblr.com/post/42025230874/new-lion-terraces-my-friend-corin-ashley-called
And people responded. Jayce and Benji created a platform that is not just designed for big projects and that is part of the beauty of Pledge.
Corin Ashley
www.corinashley.com
_________________________________________
Hey Bob,
My name is Andrew Pressman. I'm a bass player from Austin, TX. I love the letters. Keep them coming.
I am so stoked you're writing about Pledgemusic. They are building what I believe to be the best channel for independent musicians to fund projects and connect with audiences. Independent artists need to learn about their service. It needs to become the new model.
I recently designed a kickstarter campaign with Raina Rose for her next album, Caldera. She's my beautiful wife. Music is our family's main revenue stream. After what I thought was enough research, we decided Kickstarter was the best option.
We built a Kickstarter campaign, which launched in October. It was very successful. We had 644 pre-sales through Kickstarter, with all contributions lower then $600. It felt great. I was and am very happy with how it went down. Fulfilling it is a bit of an undertaking. But it's coming together.
I'm not disappointed with my Kickstarter experience. But they definitely didn't hit a homerun. We essentially paid them $2k for their brand name, hosting a video & project description, keeping track of the project backers and handling the credit card transactions. That's a pretty big chunk of cash. It would be nice if it included great customer service and some do's and don't's. Customer service isn't really a component of their model, as far as I can tell. We had trouble uploading our video. We reached out for assistance and got no help. He had to figure it out ourselves. That took us 3 days to do.
Why should a crowdfunding service be any different than any other business? Customer service and experience is key.
Customer service is where Pledgemusic kills it.
I met Benji at the Folk Alliance in Toronto. We were on a crowdfunding panel together. Almost all of the hurdles I brought up for the audience to take into consideration when building their campaigns, Benji and Pledgemusic had a solution for. And they are still developing, studying and refining their processes. They are a game-changer.
Here are just a few of Pledgemusic's advantages over other crowdfunding services:
1) They have project managers with experience running campaigns. They know what works and what doesn't.
2) They can look at your email list, twitter followers and Facebook likes and give you an extremely close estimate to the amount you'll raise.
3) If you hit your goal, when the campaign ends, the campaign remains active and is the channel for presales. YOUR FANS CAN STILL PLEDGE AND BUY THE RECORD up until it's release. This is huge. Benji kept saying something like "if you run a 30 day crowd funding campaign, what happens on day 31? People missed out. Let them pledge." This is brilliant. This allows for so much more revenue PLUS all of your campaign backers and album presales are grouped together. If raina and I were still capturing presales through our Kickstarter campaign, I bet we'd have 50%-100% more presales and who knows how much more cash.
4) They have built an infrastructure for fulfillment and distribution both for digital and physical orders. They report sales to Soundscan.
5) Pledgemusic.com has music players on the profiles of the bands who are on Pledgemusic. People can scroll through and listen to new bands. If they like the music, they can preorder the album.
These 5 things put their service in a league of its own. Kickstarter provides none of these things. I would happily pay a higher percentage to them simply for handling the fulfillment and distribution, let alone everything else I mentioned.
Pledgemusic is figuring out how to handle crowdfunding. They are building the best full-service infrastructure for music project funding and album presales. They seem to be adapting their service constantly as new projects start and complete. They're on the right track.
My peers need to know about this service. Pledgemusic let's artists give fans the option to contribute whatever they want to a project. It's the perfect tool for smaller, new artists to connect with an audience, nurture the relationship and fund projects. It's an even better tool for bigger bands with large audiences to get funding for mind-blowing art pieces that their core audience is hungry for.
Spread the word. This is an amazing tool.
Andrew Pressman
rainarose.com
_________________________________________
Bob-
Appreciate your comments on crowd funding. I have supported projects on Kickstarter, Pledge, and Indiegogo.
I can tell you what I don't like about Pledge.
The goal is not transparent. Unlike Kickstarter, which shows the pledgers that "X" is trying to raise a certain dollar amount, Pledge just shows a "percentage of goal reached". Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to know how ambitious the project is to start.
The "charity" component seemed to me to be a bit of a gimmick to compete with Kickstarter...
Additionally, it sure seems like at least in one project I pledged, the completion date was extended, (maybe even twice?) until it was reached. Not surprisingly, this is an album project.... first offered up in Sep 2011, and is STILL yet to complete.
And take a look at the letter the artist (who has toured internationally as a vocalist for a legend) sent out. She decided she couldn't fulfill some interesting pledges and asked pledgers to take signed CD's instead. To her credit, she offered refunds for those wanting out...
I have pledged on two tech projects..one a unique turntable by Orbit, and the other the NiftyMini-drive for mac. Both on Kickstarter.
Neither has quite reached production or shipping, but the communication and detail has been highly appreciated.
Dear Friends....
18:34 19 September, 2012
I'm writing to thank you so much for your support. It's time I let you know how it's going with this new album and I'd like to take the opportunity to ask a couple of questions about your pledge to me.
This has been a wonderful year. I've been playing out a lot with the band & solo; workshopping the music. I joined forces with friend, Tal Wilkenfeld, on the west coast to collaborate with her on her first record. We had some great shows in L.A. with an amazing band and head to Japan in October.
Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn my own recording sessions didn't yield the results I'd hoped for. I believe when one is honest as an artist, sometimes you don't exactly know what you're going after till you hit the nail on the head. All the mucking around in-between informs the swing of the hammer, but may not be the hit. I want this to be my best album yet - every song its own story - I have not yet hit the nail on the head, which means standing against the pressure to produce something right now, and listening to my head telling me the work's not done. I'm going back to the writing. It's going to take a few more months of tunesmithing and more recording, before I get every song on the album the way it's yearning to be.
So here are my humble requests. When my new album is ready, I'd like to honor all pledges for 1) a digital download of the new album, 2) a hand signed thank you postcard, 3) a CD and hand signed thank you postcard, and 4) a signed copy of the new CD. For all those folks, that means a bit of a wait, and I hope that's okay. (Please let me know - plus, I truly just love to hear from you.)
I'm also still offering pledgers the ability to book private house concerts.
Because I've got my hands full with the writing and buying recording time, I don't think I will be able to fulfill the other, more complicated exclusives (the lessons, the handmade bags, the mystery boxes etc). (The amount raised through PledgeMusic was $11,000 - an incredible show of generosity from friends, family, and fans I don't know personally - but it wasn't quite enough to record the whole album.) For those who did pledge for these exclusives, what I can send to you guys is a signed copy - or a few signed copies if you want to give some to your friends - of the CD when it comes out, plus the digital download of it. I hope you'll see that that'll be the best thing I have. I'll have poured my soul into the music and it'll come to you with enormous gratitude.
Are you guys who pledged for those exclusives okay with that? If not, please let me know some time this month, so I can refund your pledge. This is no trouble - I get it that money is tight for everyone and that I'm changing the deal. All you have to do is head to this link and say you'd like a total or partial refund:www.pledgemusic.com/pledges
To all of you, I just want to say that I'm lifted constantly by your support for me and for my work. It makes the hard parts easier and the easy parts a real pleasure.
Here is a demo I recorded when I spent time alone out on the Cape this winter.
Enjoy. These songs that are for you.
With love,
Sonya
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regards
Cliff Keller
_________________________________________
Benji is an incredible person and businessman. We sell PledgeMusic campaigns to our clients as a Phase 1 (pre-order, funding), then build their web presence with Topspin as a Phase 2 (direct to fan e-commerce).
The beauty of PledgeMusic over Kickstarter is that Pledge actually gives customers their data (email addresses) so we can directly import to Topspin and continue marketing to the same folks who funded the first campaign. F**k Kickstarter for keeping their customer's data.
Jacob
Jacob Tell - CEO, Creative Lead
Oniracom Corp.
_________________________________________
Just a small FYI ... Kickstarter forces you to run through Amazon Payments ... so it's not just "credit card fees" (usually 2-5%) ... it's actually Amazon Payments fees ... and it's like 6-8% ... so that makes it about parity vs this other 15% option.
Just saying.
The first campaign I ran for Panacea's "12 Step Program" was pretty much a WASH once all the payment fees and shipping totaled up. In fact, K-Murdock might have even had to dish money out of his pocket for FedEx'ing vinyl master/plates back and forth for approvals when it was all said and done. But obviously there was still a LOT of value in building that relationship, for no significant "dollar" cost, wish the most dedicated fans that wanted their music on vinyl (and the other cool backer awards).
@JeremyCee
http://about.me/JeremyCee
_________________________________________
IndieGoGo seems to be run by hucksters. I funded a smartphone case last Spring that I believed in and was IMMEDIATELY inundated with emails to fund other, dissimilar, projects from IndieGoGo. Spammed because I believed in something? With no way to opt out? When I blasted IndieGoGo via email and asked to be removed from their spam list, they did, but they also removed me from the email list for the project I supported before passing the list onto the folks I invested in (by adding "donotemail" to my email address on the email list causing bounce backs). This left me in ex-communicated limbo for 6 months after giving them $500... all because I complained about them spamming me with other non-sensical projects. I had to research and find the original company I supported via google and reach out directly to the smartphone case owner. I got what I invested in last month, but every time I think of IndieGoGo I spit up in my mouth a little.
Summary: IndieGoGo is a douchebag company.
Wendy Day
_________________________________________
Bob,I am the manager of protest the hero and I was at your panel yesterday.a few points:while I agree that only existing fans contributed,the press coverage and word of mouth was incredible and probably made non fans of the band aware of protest the hero.time will tell if they convert to real fans.regarding fulfillment,we set up a system before the program commenced to guarantee 100 percent fulfillment.getting people what they paid for in a timely manner is our #1 priority.also you mention the pizza party,that was one of 15 perks that were offered for donations.the bigger issue I have is with your opening statement yesterday that crowdfunding was in its final days.on that you are 100 percent wrong.here is where it is going.in the next few years,every label will be offering joint venture deals with bands and will be using these platforms to raise every dime of recording costs,promotion and marketing costs,video and tour support.its already starting.once again the system will co opt a great idea and use it as a way to reduce their overheads.during the protest campaign,numerous labels called me asking questions and I could see the wheels turning in their heads.this is the door that amanda palmer,protest the hero and others have opened.watch every label run right in.
entserv
_________________________________________
Benji Rogers is the real deal.
Two years ago Benji and Pledge Music were working with a band called Madina Lake from Chicago. Matthew Leone, the bass player of the band had been severely beaten while coming to the aid of a woman being assaulted. His injuries were horrific and Matthew required multiple cranial surgeries and a lengthy rehab.
Benji contacted me, connected us with Matthew's family, manager, band and a dozen other key people to coordinate an emergency health fund (Matthew , like many musicians was uninsured). Over $200,000 was raised to cover medical expenses, living expenses and other urgent items. I was amazed at the time and energy Benji Rogers gave to help his artist. There was no business to this and he had only just started their Pledge Campaign. I can't say enough about Benji's heart and character. We need more like him in the music biz.
Regards,
Rob
Rob Max
Executive Director
Sweet Relief Musicians Fund
_________________________________________
Thanks, Bob, for your review of Benji Rogers' Pledge Music vis-a-vis the other crowdfunding sites.
Dawn Mitschele, whom I manage, chose Pledge Music to fund her next EP for precisely the same reasons you state - they're music specific, they walk you through the process, and if you don't make your goal, the money goes back, which seemed like the fair thing to do. These reasons to go with the Pledge campaign far outweighed the 15% in her mind. And when you go over your goal, a percentage of the extra goes to the charity or non-profit of your choice. Dawn chose the Matt Wadleigh LoVE Foundation, an organization she has supported from its inception.
Dawn's Pledge campaign just went up last week and it's already close to half of her goal figure. She's now out on a tour of the Northeast and Midwest performing her new songs live and encouraging her audience to participate in her Pledge outreach. She has no doubt that this will be successful and allow her to record her songs the way she hears them and release them independently so that she, as you point out, keeps her copyrights.
And thanks once again for cutting through the jibberish and getting to the reality of the music biz today.
Larry Butler
_________________________________________
Hi Bob
I have been writing, recording and performing music with my band for the last 15 years or so and we have managed to fund all of our endeavors with our own money. It pisses me off when my twitter feed/FB timeline/email box is full of other bands asking me for $!!!! The main writing core of the band pays for our s**t the old fashion way. We gig and we run an interior/exterior painting company. My advice to everyone who thinks they are entitled to free money is go get a gig or a job. We have all put in way over our 10,000 hours and there is no end in sight. Since we run our own company we make our own schedule, pay our own bills and support our selves. We are living the dream. No one controls our music and we keep getting better. At this point we are on a mission to make some classic recordings and let them shine for the ages. It's not about whether we ever "break" or not, it's about making art.
Andy Salge
_________________________________________
I manage Autumn Owls from Dublin, Ireland and we were approached by PledgeMusic A&R Mike Fordham when we were working on their debut LP with Brian Deck in Chicago last year. He made a strong case for why we should work with them instead of their competition and most importantly, we knew that because he approached us we would probably have a lot of support. And we were right. They were amazing to work with and really helped us finish the album and press it to vinyl. They also offered plenty of motivation to communicate with fans and keep momentum moving forward. Mike even came out and saw us at CMJ and last week at SXSW - months after the campaign was over and checks were cashed. Not sure anyone else would give us that kind of personal attention.
www.autumnowls.bandcamp.com
Cheers!
Brian
Brian McKinney
Crooked House Management
_________________________________________
Just today I saw on my Facebook that George Benson is using PledgeMusic. So my business friends tell me it is just a vehicle to raise awareness and reward his fans. Various percs include a Skype guitar lesson.
Jonathan Schneider
_________________________________________
Bob--
I'm in the middle of my second crowd source funding campaign. My first, done privately through my website fan base raised about $100,000 in 2009. This was before kickstarter and pledgemusic existed. I am currently doing my second campaign thru Nimbit, who simply records purchases and processes cc accounts for a small percentage. I also use my management for follow up and donor support. A lot of new bands don't have that luxury.
I chose not to use kickstarter and pledgemusic because their platform was limiting to me as an already established artist. First of all, the time constraints. It takes me eight months to cover the country playing shows and talking to audiences in person about my next project--- every weekend I pull in a few thousand extra in contributions. Two or three months for a time line is too small-- I don't think a third of my audience would even be aware of the campaign no matter what the noise was on the Internet regarding it. In person, I can speak about the project passionately and take questions with everyone who cares enough to come to shows. They can make out contributions in person or over the web.
I don't like putting a price goal on the fundraising. We like to tell people we are raising as much as we can for eight months. The economy had collapsed at the time, so any amount sounded ludacris. Regardless, i have an audience that trusts my overall artistic goals, so it didnt matter that i didn't define my financial ones. My unspoken goal for the first campaign was $80,000, based on what my friend Jill Sobule had raised, in thinking my audience was about the same size and age group. We eventually raised $102,000 with 252 contributors. Our only definition of timeline and goals was eight months. (there were three $10,000 donors). There was no failure because there was no limiting factors of time and money.
I'm an established touring artist, with 22 years on the road. None of the extra perks from these fundraising sites seemed to warrant as large of a commission as they were asking -- I have management to do donor follow up, And would these sites truly bring in donations from strangers to my music that warranted their commission? I didn't think so. It wasnt right for me, but it could work well for newer bands who need extra hands.
I had been on a label, Rounder Records for seven album cycles, and I'm pretty sure this was far more money than they ever invested in me. Owning the masters is very important for me, because of my placement history, and I doubt I will ever give them up again.
I learned a lot from the process, we aren't a perfectly functioning record label yet, or fundraisers-- we made some mistakes and we did some things right.
Here's the breakdown---
Hope it will be useful to your readers if you choose to run it....
252 donors totaling $102,000
I can't remember all the perks.... But something like this:
$15 level: 111.... Preorders, signed
$100: 71......plus demos, out takes
$250: 34....... Handwritten lyrics, free shows
$500: 20........plus Liner note mentions
$1000: 4 .... dinner, Video clips of recording
$2500: 5...... Guitars
$5000: 4 ...... house concerts
$10000: 3 ..... lifetime passes, songs written for you or your business, a studio invite-- sing on the cd
Some stuff fell through the cracks but overall people seemed to be truly happy with being a part of the process...
How the $102,000 was spent:
$36,000 for recording
$21,000 in promotion/media print/web
$9,000 in various radio promotion
$2,500 in cd art design/photography
$9,000 in manufacturing
$2,000 in video contest pay out
$3,000 in ad purchases
$6,000 in management maintenance
$1,000 in guitars
$2,500 mastering
$3,000 in recording equipment
$1,000 posters
$5,000 in additional manufacturing
The album, The Day After Everything Changed, sold as many as I would have on Rounder-- mainly to my established fan base. It was used as the score to the Farrelly Brothers 'Hall Pass' and I'm still out here selling it from the back of my crv.
And we have started the next campaign--- it's a different world financially this time. The economy has plateaued to a new reality.
We are setting a goal of 1,000 donors and are half way there, if we dont make it-- we still move on. We have four $5,000 donors, and it seems more people are giving, but in smaller sums.
We've raised over $80,000 with two months left. I'm halfway thru the recording project, it's being produced by Brandon and Kristian Bush of Sugarland in Atlanta with members of the band. It's a folk rock record.
I have to explain to fans that there will be delays-- I have some vocal issues and which has postponed the release date. But people are along for the ride.
I feel like $100,000 is a great budget for where my needs fall as an artist. I do 175 shows a year, with one or two side guys or solo. Its the folk curcuit--- clubs, colleges, festivals and a few churches. I'd love to see where Amanda Palmer uses her million. I know I'd have a better car/bus/plane!! with that in the tank. Comfort makes for better shows-- but that's not in my budget.
I'm lucky and grateful to have a community of supporters around me.
Thanks Bob-- always enjoy reading you-
Ellis Paul
Www.ellispaul.com
_________________________________________
It's nice when other people recognize the good guys.
Pledge music held my hand while my fans gave me mouth to mouth. Been wanting to send this to you for a while but... I've been making music.
I had the typical major label debacle. Nothing original there. But after asking to be let go, everything just fell into place. It started with a mission statement to fans in January: http://willdailey.com/2013/01/mission-for-2013/
Since then pledge held my hand through the process of bringing in my fans. Something a label doesn't know how to do.
I got lucky in the "business" a few times (albeit at my own speed) but it is only because bread and water are ok to live on if I'm making music. It is because of good friends, family and fans. If you're in it to actually create, and work harder than you think you can, then luck will find you.
Yes, with PledgeMusic I got the money I need. Yes my base is galvanized. But I feel more connected! Less alone and out to sea.
We are led to believe we are more connected than ever with our phones but that is a mirage. Typically in the studio you are locked up with you "team". Everyone there thinks it's going well but you never know who's going to be there for that music when it is done.
I know pledge will be there to help it be successful but I also got 600 fans (so far) that will be there too.
W;ll
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/willdailey
_________________________________________
Bob,
Let me tell you about Pledge Music. I am small beans- a big fish in a small town 10 years ago who still has some people who care about his music. I lead a very successful wedding/function band in Boston, I pay my mortgage by playing popular dance music and not succumbing to lounge-lizard syndrome. I REALLY sincerely enjoy playing songs that make civilians yell "woooo!" Sue me, I like my day job.
My band played at the wedding of Jayce Vardin, the co- founder of PLedge Music and he and and Benji sat in on a few songs and it was great. This was a few years ago and they told me all about this crazy business idea they had. It sounded pretty abstract at the time, but I just a had a gut feeling that those two were clever enough to make a go of it.
Fast forward a few years and I have recorded my latest batch of songs- not on my laptop on my bedroom, I drained my savings and recorded at Abbey F**king Road. I spent every penny I had to finish the record on tape, even bought a state of the art (1981) MCI 1" 8 track reel to reel machine to finish the album in Boston. I flew to LA and had it mastered by Grammy and Academy award winning mastering engineer Gavin Lurrsen (who does all T Bone Burnett's stuff and knows from analog- and who I went to college with). Not because I thought there was ever a chance in hell I'd sell enough CDs or downloads for this to make sense, but because I believe in the songs enough to record them the way they should sound.
The album came out great, but I spent ALL my money and really wanted to do a small vinyl run for the geeks. I had coffee with Jayce and he told me I could do it. I said "Jayce, c'mon, I'm not Amanda, how does crowd sourcing work for someone with not much of a crowd?" and "What if only my Mom pledges? I'll look like a jerkoff." Jacye said I could do it. He said I have a story and people can relate to someone doing something that makes no sense financially because they believe in it artistically. That's the beauty of the new music business, he said. Not everything needs to be giant, small stories matter, too. AND Jayce said I could donate some of the money to Boston Children's Hospital where my 12 year old niece had heart surgery a couple of years ago and they saved her life.
Now, mind you this is no huge deal. My goal was merely to raise enough dough to do a quality vinyl issue of the album, but look:
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/corinashley
People got behind me enough to make this work. My friend Kay Hanley who used to sing for the biggest local band, Letters To Cleo, wrote this blog about her struggles with addiction and how working on my album helped her:
http://iamkayhanley.tumblr.com/post/42025230874/new-lion-terraces-my-friend-corin-ashley-called
And people responded. Jayce and Benji created a platform that is not just designed for big projects and that is part of the beauty of Pledge.
Corin Ashley
www.corinashley.com
_________________________________________
Hey Bob,
My name is Andrew Pressman. I'm a bass player from Austin, TX. I love the letters. Keep them coming.
I am so stoked you're writing about Pledgemusic. They are building what I believe to be the best channel for independent musicians to fund projects and connect with audiences. Independent artists need to learn about their service. It needs to become the new model.
I recently designed a kickstarter campaign with Raina Rose for her next album, Caldera. She's my beautiful wife. Music is our family's main revenue stream. After what I thought was enough research, we decided Kickstarter was the best option.
We built a Kickstarter campaign, which launched in October. It was very successful. We had 644 pre-sales through Kickstarter, with all contributions lower then $600. It felt great. I was and am very happy with how it went down. Fulfilling it is a bit of an undertaking. But it's coming together.
I'm not disappointed with my Kickstarter experience. But they definitely didn't hit a homerun. We essentially paid them $2k for their brand name, hosting a video & project description, keeping track of the project backers and handling the credit card transactions. That's a pretty big chunk of cash. It would be nice if it included great customer service and some do's and don't's. Customer service isn't really a component of their model, as far as I can tell. We had trouble uploading our video. We reached out for assistance and got no help. He had to figure it out ourselves. That took us 3 days to do.
Why should a crowdfunding service be any different than any other business? Customer service and experience is key.
Customer service is where Pledgemusic kills it.
I met Benji at the Folk Alliance in Toronto. We were on a crowdfunding panel together. Almost all of the hurdles I brought up for the audience to take into consideration when building their campaigns, Benji and Pledgemusic had a solution for. And they are still developing, studying and refining their processes. They are a game-changer.
Here are just a few of Pledgemusic's advantages over other crowdfunding services:
1) They have project managers with experience running campaigns. They know what works and what doesn't.
2) They can look at your email list, twitter followers and Facebook likes and give you an extremely close estimate to the amount you'll raise.
3) If you hit your goal, when the campaign ends, the campaign remains active and is the channel for presales. YOUR FANS CAN STILL PLEDGE AND BUY THE RECORD up until it's release. This is huge. Benji kept saying something like "if you run a 30 day crowd funding campaign, what happens on day 31? People missed out. Let them pledge." This is brilliant. This allows for so much more revenue PLUS all of your campaign backers and album presales are grouped together. If raina and I were still capturing presales through our Kickstarter campaign, I bet we'd have 50%-100% more presales and who knows how much more cash.
4) They have built an infrastructure for fulfillment and distribution both for digital and physical orders. They report sales to Soundscan.
5) Pledgemusic.com has music players on the profiles of the bands who are on Pledgemusic. People can scroll through and listen to new bands. If they like the music, they can preorder the album.
These 5 things put their service in a league of its own. Kickstarter provides none of these things. I would happily pay a higher percentage to them simply for handling the fulfillment and distribution, let alone everything else I mentioned.
Pledgemusic is figuring out how to handle crowdfunding. They are building the best full-service infrastructure for music project funding and album presales. They seem to be adapting their service constantly as new projects start and complete. They're on the right track.
My peers need to know about this service. Pledgemusic let's artists give fans the option to contribute whatever they want to a project. It's the perfect tool for smaller, new artists to connect with an audience, nurture the relationship and fund projects. It's an even better tool for bigger bands with large audiences to get funding for mind-blowing art pieces that their core audience is hungry for.
Spread the word. This is an amazing tool.
Andrew Pressman
rainarose.com
_________________________________________
Bob-
Appreciate your comments on crowd funding. I have supported projects on Kickstarter, Pledge, and Indiegogo.
I can tell you what I don't like about Pledge.
The goal is not transparent. Unlike Kickstarter, which shows the pledgers that "X" is trying to raise a certain dollar amount, Pledge just shows a "percentage of goal reached". Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to know how ambitious the project is to start.
The "charity" component seemed to me to be a bit of a gimmick to compete with Kickstarter...
Additionally, it sure seems like at least in one project I pledged, the completion date was extended, (maybe even twice?) until it was reached. Not surprisingly, this is an album project.... first offered up in Sep 2011, and is STILL yet to complete.
And take a look at the letter the artist (who has toured internationally as a vocalist for a legend) sent out. She decided she couldn't fulfill some interesting pledges and asked pledgers to take signed CD's instead. To her credit, she offered refunds for those wanting out...
I have pledged on two tech projects..one a unique turntable by Orbit, and the other the NiftyMini-drive for mac. Both on Kickstarter.
Neither has quite reached production or shipping, but the communication and detail has been highly appreciated.
Dear Friends....
18:34 19 September, 2012
I'm writing to thank you so much for your support. It's time I let you know how it's going with this new album and I'd like to take the opportunity to ask a couple of questions about your pledge to me.
This has been a wonderful year. I've been playing out a lot with the band & solo; workshopping the music. I joined forces with friend, Tal Wilkenfeld, on the west coast to collaborate with her on her first record. We had some great shows in L.A. with an amazing band and head to Japan in October.
Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn my own recording sessions didn't yield the results I'd hoped for. I believe when one is honest as an artist, sometimes you don't exactly know what you're going after till you hit the nail on the head. All the mucking around in-between informs the swing of the hammer, but may not be the hit. I want this to be my best album yet - every song its own story - I have not yet hit the nail on the head, which means standing against the pressure to produce something right now, and listening to my head telling me the work's not done. I'm going back to the writing. It's going to take a few more months of tunesmithing and more recording, before I get every song on the album the way it's yearning to be.
So here are my humble requests. When my new album is ready, I'd like to honor all pledges for 1) a digital download of the new album, 2) a hand signed thank you postcard, 3) a CD and hand signed thank you postcard, and 4) a signed copy of the new CD. For all those folks, that means a bit of a wait, and I hope that's okay. (Please let me know - plus, I truly just love to hear from you.)
I'm also still offering pledgers the ability to book private house concerts.
Because I've got my hands full with the writing and buying recording time, I don't think I will be able to fulfill the other, more complicated exclusives (the lessons, the handmade bags, the mystery boxes etc). (The amount raised through PledgeMusic was $11,000 - an incredible show of generosity from friends, family, and fans I don't know personally - but it wasn't quite enough to record the whole album.) For those who did pledge for these exclusives, what I can send to you guys is a signed copy - or a few signed copies if you want to give some to your friends - of the CD when it comes out, plus the digital download of it. I hope you'll see that that'll be the best thing I have. I'll have poured my soul into the music and it'll come to you with enormous gratitude.
Are you guys who pledged for those exclusives okay with that? If not, please let me know some time this month, so I can refund your pledge. This is no trouble - I get it that money is tight for everyone and that I'm changing the deal. All you have to do is head to this link and say you'd like a total or partial refund:www.pledgemusic.com/pledges
To all of you, I just want to say that I'm lifted constantly by your support for me and for my work. It makes the hard parts easier and the easy parts a real pleasure.
Here is a demo I recorded when I spent time alone out on the Cape this winter.
Enjoy. These songs that are for you.
With love,
Sonya
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