MUSIC BUSINESS DEAD? WHAT, AGAIN?

My esteemed colleague and friend, Moses Avalon, sent this out to his mailing list yesterday and, frankly, I couldn't agree more so I decided to repost it here for your viewing pleasure.

For more of Moses' musings you can check out his website at www.MosesAvalon.com


MUSIC BUSINESS DEAD? WHAT, AGAIN?
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By Moses Avalon

I’m not a big fan of repeating myself, but sometimes it’s necessary. In my Moses Supposes of December 2006 I outlined exactly why all the swill about the “decaying music business” was rubbish by has-beens and people who’ve been downsized from their cushy label jobs. I was in turn slammed by the very people who this type of thinking threatens; those who profit off of the “dying music business” business. Namely, bitter bloggers, DIYers, journalists with a hi-tech bias, and so-called insiders who sell the “You need me to make it” line, and the “Screw the labels,” blather. I try to ignore this polarized and oversimplified logic, but it won’t go away.

One of the emails I received had this link in it.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Entertainment/559846.html

You can read the piece for yourself but I’ll save you the trouble and just excerpt the opening sentence.
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A more blatant example of what I’m referring to could not be made. I am a fan of Ezrin’s important contributions to the world of music. I mean no disrespect. In fact, if I’m to be honest, I should be so lucky as to accomplish half as he. But he is not an economist. Rather, he is an example of a new breed of music business personality: the angry old-timer. I’m not even sure what marketing reports are feeding their conclusions. My guess is that their sole source for their doom-n-gloom viewpoint is their personal royalty/commission checks. A diminishing asset, I have little doubt. I’m sure when you’re the manager of wrinkle-rock mega-groups like Floyd or Gabriel, and comfortable seeing commissions in the six figures a month and suddenly those numbers start dropping down to $50,000 a month, then $40,000, it’s easy to start thinking the world is coming to an end.

But over 2 billion downloads on iTunes, Yahoo, e-Music et al and the sale of over 500 Million confirmed CD album sales in the US last year alone does not seem to jibe with the statement “People are not going to the record store and are not paying for downloads.”

What Ezrin really means is this: the music business that he and others of his elk understood is changing so fast that they must feel like high-school guidance counselors slammed in the whirlwind of a Mosh pit. In their day they argued with labels over things like tour support and mechanical royalties. Pedestrian. Today’s major label negotiation involves nomenclature like: cross-aggregation, tethered downloads, ethereal DRM, merch-cooping and web-rights. I kid you not when I say that many of these veterans would not know how to finesse those points.

It’s likely that those who prospered in the 70s and 80s may no-longer pay their $10,000 a month mortgage or their $1200 a month car payment solely from passive income derived via CD royalties. So, it must be very hard for them to reconcile the fact that the business they grew up in, the business that they helped mold, has metamorphosed and their place in it has receded into the penumbra of its progress. It’s far hipper and far easier to simply condemn it.

Now… to the 25 year-old who is excited about making $75,000 a year by doing something he loves-- music, the biz is far from dead. To the groups that are able to support their families by grossing a mere $300,000 a year, independently of a label (and I have several clients who are doing that) the biz is far from dead. To the guy who made a cool 20 second loop in his garage and is getting $1000 a month in extra dough from ring-tone sales, the biz is far from dead.

Old-timers can not reconcile these paltry numbers. To them it must seem ridiculous that today’s emerging artist aspires NOT a major label contract. Rather he prefers to make 100,000 “friends” on MySpace. He revels in getting a great, local, home-town sponsor for $50,000 instead of a million dollar deal that will make him a whore for Pepsi; is happy to make $7.00 profit that he can put in his pocket TODAY from a CD he sold off the side of the stage, over $0.94 two years after the label liquidates his reserve and only after he sells 1,000,000 units; or taking a big advance that in three years will leave him wondering what to do with his career after the label drops him.

But to the old-timers, this all sounds rather low rez. Where is the guarantee of $50,000 a night for a fifteen city tour (that I can commission)? Where is the $1,000,000 advance for five albums (that I can commission)? And how about a seven figure publishing deal (that I can commission)? That all-you-can-eat buffet has been subjected to a Balsamic reduction. It’s now a pre-fixe menu of grinding out a decent, proletariat living from the making of great art.

No. We are very much alive. Like the medical and legal industries, recent changes in economics have forced many to re-think why they are interested in becoming doctors or lawyers. You must now love what you do. The money alone cannot be the driving factor anymore.

For music, it never should have been one in the first place. Perhaps, amidst all the buy-outs, golden parachutes, and mergers, some people have forgotten that.

Just the opinion of one man.

Moses Avalon

XM + Sirius = Sirius Trouble? (insert cheesy laugh here)

Well for all of us satellite radio fans, the announcement yesterday by XM & Sirius of a proposed merger makes the heart go pitter patter. Will I now be able to get Howard Stern on XM? Martha Stewart? Can I finally get ALL the sports I want on one receiver? Whatever it is that makes you want to have both subscriptions, it now could become a reality....HOWEVER, before we get too excited, let me bring us all back down to earth for a moment:

A merger of this kind is extremely difficult. It compares in some ways with the now defunct attempt of EchoStar and DirecTV to merge.

The main reason that we may see some troubles? 3 Letters: F-C-C. The main issue is a 1997 FCC rule that expressly prohibits one company from owning both satellite licenses. I can only assume that this rule was put into play to keep anyone from monopolizing satellite radio (who could ever monopolize radio?) .

Although XM and Sirius are both understandably confident that the merger will be given the greenlight, for the merger to be approved, according to FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, "the companies would need to demonstrate that consumers would clearly be better off with both more choice and affordable prices." I have four words for them "Good Luck with That."

Another 3 Letter organization that is also raising serious issues about the merger is NAB. The National Association of Broadcasters describes itself on its website (at www.nab.org) as:

"a trade association that advocates on behalf of more than 8,300 free, local radio and television stations and also broadcast networks before Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the Courts."

Read between the lines and you will see that this organization does some hefty lobbying, so they are certainly not to be ignored. And when it comes to an alternative that could make terreestrial radio much less enticing for consumers, the NAB will be a pitbull in the corner of not allowing this merger to see the light of day.

Lastly, before we all get lost in day dreams of "umpteen" channels under one subscription plan lets not forget that competition is good for the consumer and most of all the indie musician. Its a very easy parallel to draw to terrestrial radio as ClearChannel has gobbled up seemingly all of the bandwidth on the radio and controls it with an insatiably money hungry Iron First. Do you think if clear channel owned all of the college radio stations too that it would be good for indie musicians?

I'll let you insert your ClearChannel radio woes here, but I'll also pose a couple of questions from the consumer side:

- Do you think that satellite radio would be as affordable as it is right now if the two companies weren't hashing it out to grow their subscriber bases? (both companies are practically giving the receivers away right now to encourage subscriptions)
- Do you think the content choices would be as eclectic as they are right now?
- Do you think Howard Stern could have made $100 million any other way? (well I guess this one is harder to answer, but you get the point).

I'll give you my answer, which I expect to be the same as the FCC's answer to the proposed Sirius and XM merger:

NO

The iTunes Dilemma

I listen to my music these days almost exclusively on iTunes. I do listen to a few CDs in my car and in my recording studio but for the most part its iPod and iTunes. Yup, Apple got me, hook, line and sinker.

So whenever a songwriter, producer, or act sends me a CD, the first thing I do is rip it into iTunes. Hopefully, when I insert it, it already has tags from CDDB and all of the songs and the artist come up. If it doesn't, I enter them in and then rip it. I also get a lot of MP3s emailed to me. This is where the dilemma comes in.

When I was on a long flight from L.A. to Orlando, I was listening to my iTunes on the random setting. This song came up that I don't really remember hearing and I was like, damn, this is a really good tune. So, I checked the artists name, and I didn't recognize it. Likely that meant that this was a songwriting demo or a producer demo that someone had sent me. So I hit Command+i (on a windows machine I believe its ctrl+i) and I looked at the info. LUCKILY, the producer who sent me the song was wise enough to put his info in the notes section. It said:

Produced and engineered by: __________. ###-###-##### producer@producerissmart.com

There it was, name, phone number and email. Exactly what I needed to find out more about the artist and the producer.

Remember, if your songs are great, they will travel all over the internet via email. So, if you want people to be able to find you, be sure to put your contact info in the notes section of iTunes on EACH ONE of your songs. It will only take you a few moments and you'll be glad you did. I know the producer that I'm referring to was very glad that he did.

Recovering from The GRAMMY Awards, well...not really the awards so much as the Afterparty

Wow, the GRAMMYs were amazing. I'm still in L.A. as I write this, recovering from a 22 hour travel and party day. It was like the rock concert of the century. Many of the best acts in the world all performing together on one stage, for one night only. It blew my mind. I have always dreamed of going, but this year I finally did, and I'm so glad I did. Wow, can I say that again....WOW.

Overall, I did pretty well with my votes. A lot of the people I voted for ended up winning. Not sure if anyone has ever even theard the rest of the Dixie Chicks record, including myself, so I'm a bit shocked it won album of the year.

I'd have to say that I really enjoyed all of the performances, but the standout performances of the night for me were the Police (need I say more) with Sting's vocals just absolutely perfect, as well as Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks (still one of my favorite voices on the planet, even though I don't love her politics) and probably the most emotional performance Mary J. Blige will ever deliver. No, I didn't forget standout performances from Carey Underwood (damn, that girl can SANG), the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera (possibly the most vocal control on the planet?) or any of the other, seemingly hundreds of acts. They were all brilliant.

The GRAMMYs are all about the best of the best in music, and they all delivered. The official GRAMMY afterparty was out of this world. There was enough food and booze to make a small army very fat and very drunk. It was a full on production with Chinese Dragons dancing through the hall, all the way down to scantily clad girls dancing on these huge high-rises as well as hanging from the ceiling. It was like a full-on Cirque du Soleil production. I don't even want to guess how much they spent on that, oh well, it was fun.

Anyhow, I'll post some pics soon. As for now, back to work.....

The Indie Lawyer

Hi, I'm Nick Nanton, and I'm The Indie Lawyer. I work with Indie Bands and Indie Labels. The Indie Market is where its at, and it is undoubtedly the future of music. Check back often for advice, tips and stories on the best indie bands, indie labels and indie music.

Feel free to contact me if I can help you take your band to the next level.