(Continued from part 1, part 2, part 3)

Martin Atkins of Tour:Smart and Invisible Records with one of his rules for success

The Fourth Movement – Your Live Show & Tour: Simple Steps to Cut Through the Glut & Reach the Magic 300 Ticket Mark

Before I get into the notes from the panel, I’ll continue the story of Loomis and the Lust from the previous post.  So they gave them a fair shot by playing the video that we were supposed to see.  Then we voted with our cell phones….and the winner was….undecided.  Loomis and the Lust and Nikki Lynette had tied.  This meant that the winner would be decided by a live performance at the end of the seminar.  (to be continued…)

Conductor

• Dave Lory

Players

• Martin Atkins (Tour:Smart, Invisible Records)
• Eliott Lefko (Golden Voice, AEG Live)
• Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour)
• Martin Winsch (Mountain Entertainment)
• John Pleeter (Creative Artists Agency)

“Practice for Catastrophy” – Martin Atkins on practicing for live performance

Notes from the third movement:

• Hook up the stage hands.  A little bit of love for the people who help you goes a long way.
• Don’t just practice in a comfortable, air conditioned rehearsal space with everything dialed in just the way you like it.  Give yourself obstacles and challenges in rehearsal, because that’s how it’s going to go in real life.
• Don’t listen to your friends.
• You can make a living somewhere around the point where you can draw 300 people in multiple markets.

Check out Tour:Smart: And Break the Band by Martin Atkins

• Be the best band in your county before you think about leaving the state.
• Don’t set out to build the great wall of China in a month.  Just start laying bricks.
• Always look at the positives of each show and play each show as if it was your last.
  

  Martin Atkins asks if there are any Rockstars in the house, before showing this slide...(click to enlarge)

• Take an accounting class.
• Know the market you’re playing.  Don’t tour blindly.  Have a plan.  Make Data Driven Decisions.
• You have to be brutally honest with yourself and you have to have a great work ethic.
• Always throw muffins into the crowd.
• You now have to earn your money in the music industry.  Inflated salaries are increasingly rare.

“Always have at least two shirts to sell.  It’s not ‘are you going to buy a shirt’, it’s ‘which one of the shirts are you going to buy?!”- Martin Atkins

• Great tip from Kevin Lyman:  Energy drink companies will often give bands branded trailers to haul their gear in.  It works out for them because of the advertisement they get while you tour with their logo all over your trailer.
• Don’t be afraid to politely ask venues to hook you up with a meal and a few drinks.  They will often oblige.

“We are now being held accountable” – Kevin Lyman on the results of the change that the music business has gone through

Martin Atkins practicing a little known rule of success - always throw muffins into the crowd.

Tom Silverman closed the seminar with a conclusion that answers his original question, ‘why are people still buying music’?  He cites Susan Boyle as an example of why people buy music.  It’s because they’re buying the story.  It’s the same reason why Elvis and the Beatles produce more money now then they did at the height of their careers.  We like to buy into a good story.  What’s yours?

…Speaking of stories, we got to watch a live performance from Nikki Lynette and Loomis and the Lust to determine the winner of the $25,000 prize package.  Nikki is a good performer, but without any live instruments the music just didn’t seem to interact with the room.  It felt like I was listening to a CD.  Loomis came out next and put on a solid show.  Voting was open for 5 minutes and we were able to view the results in real time on a screen above the stage.  Loomis and the Lust won with about 2/3 of the vote.  I think they could have a bright future ahead of them.  If nothing else, they were able to get their damn song stuck in my head all day!  That’s a good sign for them.

This concludes the longest blog post of my short career.  Here are some photos from the event and some more people you can follow on twitter.  Thank you and good night.  zzzzz

Follow on Twitter:

Martin Atkins = @marteeeen

Vans Warped Tour = @vanswarpedtour

IndependentRockstar = @independentrock

In between movements at the New Music Seminar

(Continued from part 1, part 2)

The Third Movement -The Creative Process and Radical Differentiation

Conductor

• Jason Bentley (KCRW, Music supervisor for the Matrix movies)

Players

• Tom Jackson (Live performance coach, Taylor Swift)
• Rodney Jerkins (Producer, Lady GaGa, J-Lo)
• Justin Tranter (Singer, Semi Precious Weapons)

“I’m never trying to be relevant.  I’m always trying to be revolutionary.” – Rodney Jerkins

Notes from the third movement:

Jason Bently, Rodney Jerkins, Justin Tranter and Tom Jackson

• Rodney Jerkins tells the story of how Jimmy Iovine of Interscope Records had Lady GaGa writing songs for the Pussycat Dolls a few years back.  Rodney came to him and told him “I think this girl’s a star.”  Jimmy wasn’t interested in her as a solo artist and felt that she was more valuable as a songwriter.  He didn’t buy into her as an artist in her own right until she produced a short film on her own with virtually no budget that became an underground hit in Europe.  The moral that I get out of that story is that you may be thinking “If only I could get my music to Jimmy Iovine, or Clive Davis”, when in fact, you really need to get yourself to the point where you won’t be denied.  It’s all about you.  If you build it, they will come.
• Everybody has experiences and emotions that other people can relate to.  Justin Tranter spoke about how Taylor Swift is a beautiful girl who grew up as Nashville royalty, yet she still has insecurities and knows what’s like to feel lonely or awkward.  She taps into that and is able to write songs that will resonate with an arena of people who grew up with very different backgrounds.

“Lack of urgency is killing pop culture” – Justin Tranter

• Justin also spoke about staying true to yourself and remaining honest while the rest of the world tries to get you to do otherwise.  He’s a cross-dresser who plays in a Rock’n'Roll band.  Nobody gave him a chance and everyone told him to conform to something more mainstream.  He stuck to what felt honest to him and now he’s about to tour the world opening for Lady GaGa.
• Tom Jackson stresses the importance of getting your live show together.  Don’t spend all your time and money on your CD and then just wing it with the live show.  Spend some time and effort putting your show together  (OnStageSuccess.com)
• Keep it simple for the sound guy.  Justin Tranter suggests just asking for the one or two things that are most important to you.

“When someone says go left, always go right.” – Rodney Jerkins

• Take risks at rehearsal.  If you won’t try things in rehearsal then you can’t expect to try things that will work at the show.
• A big part of live performance is creating memorable moments.
• 15% of what you communicate to your audience at a show is from the words of your music.  30% is the raw emotion.  55% is the visual.  Does your show ‘look’ like one big blur or are you creating visually distinct and interesting moments?
• The song is the script.  Let the song dictate the performance.

“People go to see stars, not to see music.” – Tom Jackson

Part of this movement included the final voting for a contest called “Artists on the Verge”.  At stake: a $25,000 prize package.  The audience would choose the winner by text message voting.  We watched a video of each artist and made our judgement based on our overall impression.  The first video was a rock band called Loomis and the Lust.  It was a grainy live video with poor audio quality.  The performance looked solid and song sounded decent, but the audio quality made it difficult to judge.

The next video was a proper music video of a girl named Nikki Lynette.  It was very Salt-n-Peppa-esque with a few bars borrowed from Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey”.

The last video was another proper video of a 3 piece rock band with the drummer as their lead vocalist.  The video was decent quality, but I didn’t care for it.

The panel discussed each video before we were to vote at the end.  While the panel was discussing the last video, the singer for Loomis and the Lust actually walked up to the stage and interrupted

them.  I was thinking to myself that this could be interesting and potentially very awkward.  He appealed to the panel to let the audience see a different video, because they apparently played the wrong one.  He said he didn’t even know where they had gotten that from.  The panel and the crowd agreed that we wanted to give them a fair shot.

Will Loomis waits patiently for the crew to cue up his video

After fumbling around on the side of the stage trying to get the correct video cued up, they told him that they just weren’t going to have enough time.  To his credit, Will, the singer of Loomis and the Lust came out again, told everyone what they told him and the asked up “what do you guys think?”  We all wanted to see it and Justin Tranter even said that he’d stop talking for 3 minutes so we’d have the time.  So after much anticipation, they finally cued up the video and hit play.  Tune in tomorrow to find out what happend next.

(To be continued….)  click HERE for part 4

Also:

Follow on Twitter:

Jason Bentley = @jason_bentley

Tom Jackson = @onstagesuccess

Loomis and the Lust = @loomislust

Independentrockstar = @independentrock

Tom Silverman addressing the crowd at the NMS

(Continued from previous post)

The Second Movement – Expose Yourself!  Marketing for the Next Music Business; Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are not enough.

Conductor

• Jon Healy (LA Times)

Players

• Corey Denis (Not Shocking)
• Greg Estes (Mozes)
• Alexandra Patsavas (Chop Shop)
• Derek Sivers (CD Baby)
• Christina Calio (Microsoft Zune)

“Turn off your computer and practice!” – Derek Sivers

Notes from the second movement:

• Corey Denis recommends submitting your music to IndieFeed.com.
• Myspace fan counts are irrelevant.  The most accurate gauge of where you’re at is your number of real twitter followers and facebook fans.  Inflated numbers added by bots are irrelevant.
• Alexandra Patsavas suggests enlisting the services of a synch agent to get your music placed in film and television.  (google ‘sync agent music licensing’)
• Derek Sivers suggests that you need to have some facts in your back pocket when you pitch yourself to the people who can help take you to the next level.  Facts take the subjectivity out of the
  

  The Second Movement

  equation and give you something to hang your hat on.  People are far more likely to listen when you tell them that you sold 5,000 CDs then when you tell them that kids really like your music.

• Great Estes spoke mostly about his company, Mozes, who specializes in mobile marketing.  Check ‘em out: Mozes.com.
• Sivers gave an example where a few friends are at a Pizza place doing their thing with the music in the background.  They all stop what they’re doing and say “did he just say what I think he just said?!”  That’s the kind of reaction you need to get from people he says.  You need to slice right through the apathetic inertia of the world and stand out.
• Derek also used the Beatles as an example of why it’s not always a good thing to get maximum exposure from the very beginning.  They used to play two sets a night seven nights a week to tough crowds in strip clubs for a long time before they ever appeared on the Ed Sullivan show.  They seemed to come out of nowhere, but they had already written over 100 songs and really honed their craft.

“Get involved,” says Corey Denis.  “If you don’t want to play an active role in what you’re doing then you might be in the wrong business.”

• FYI – you need to have a physical CD sold on Amazon before you can submit your music to Pandora.
• Don’t waste your time and money with fancy packaging for music submissions.  Sivers and Patsavas suggest that fancy packaging is unnecessary and often inversely proportional to substance and quality.  Spend your time and money on your music.
• Be ready when your moment comes.  Corey Denis mentioned Yael Naim, who’s website was under construction when her song blew up due to being used in a popular Mac Air ad.  Don’t let that happen to you!  (as a side note – I build websites, so if you should ever find yourself in that kind of situation then hit me up).

Derek Sivers recommends the book Life Is a Contact Sport: Ten Great Career Strategies That Workby Ken Kragen

• Sivers recalled reading Ken Kragen (Manager- Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers) tell about how he would always try to maximize exposure for an artist by aligning three newsworthy events to happen at around the same time.  Artists careers generally consist of a series of plateaus and this strategy, if done right,  can create enough momentum to break through to the next level plateau.
• Sivers also had a good example of outside-the-box marketing from one of the artists at CD Baby.  She was a sailor who spent 11 months out of the year sailing the world.  During the other month she would record songs about sailing.  instead of marketing her music where music was marketed, she marketed her music to sailors.  She had her music featured and reviewed in boating magazines.  She was one of the top selling artists on CD Baby because she went after a precise niche and was able to reach them through a way that was totally unsaturated with music.

“Marketing is now about creativity, not budget”  – Derek Sivers

(To be continued….) Click HERE for part 3

Also:

Follow on Twitter:

L.A. Weekly = @laweekly

Derek Sivers = @sivers

Corey Denis = @coreythrace

Chop Shop = @chopshopmusic

Greg Estes = @gregestes5

Independentrockstar = @independentrock

What’s up Rockstars?

I spent the day yesterday at the New Music Seminar put on by Tom Silverman of Tommyboy Entertainment. The day was divided up into 4 ‘movements’ with panels of guests that included the likes of Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby), Kevin Lyman (Creator of the Warped Tour), Rodney Jerkins (Producer for Jennifer Lopez, Lady GaGa), Michael Doernberg (founder of Reverbnation), Tom Jackson (Live Music Producer for Taylor Swift), Ian Rogers (CEO Topspin Media) and many more, with Daniel Ek of Spotify as the Keynote.

I’m going to break it down to the takeaways that I got out of it with some quotes and pics.

“We thought we were selling music, but we were really just selling “stuff”.” – Tom Silverman

Tom started off the day with some words and some stats about the state of the music industry.  Continuing on the trends of the last decade, there are more music transactions taking place than ever before, but people are making smaller purchases, and as we all know, downloading songs from file sharing sites and giving them away for free to their friends.  Record companies can no longer maintain the control that they once had over the product they sell.  The industry is going through a predictable cycle in which we’ve moved from order into chaos and through which we will return to order in time.

He believes that that next 10 years can be the golden age of the music business.

Right now music can be had for free by virtually anyone, yet many people still buy, and the question we need to be asking is – “why are people still buying music?”

The First Movement – Welcome to the New Music Business: Everything You Know is Wrong

Tom Silverman, Ian Rogers, Michael Doernberg and Bryan Calhoun

Conductor

• Tom Silverman

Players

• Bryan Calhoun (Sound Exchange)
• Mike Doernberg (Reverb Nation)
• Bruce Houghton (Hypebot)
• Ian Rogers (Topspin)

The first panel was all about how we define and achieve success in the music industry today.

Book recommendation from one of the panelists – What Would Google Do?

• There are greater opportunities for artists who play music that would’ve died in obscurity years ago.  We now have the ability to connect people in smaller niches to the point where music that’s far from mainstream can make a decent living for savvy artists.  Ian Rogers calls this the ‘rising musical middle class’.
• If they love us, what will they buy?  Bare Naked Ladies sold tickets for a cruise with them as the entertainment.  How can you use your creativity to sell something outside the box?
• Bryan Calhoun states that fan relations have to be authentic and consistent.  If you drop off the map completely for any length of time then you’re likely to lose much of your audience.
• True fans are of the utmost importance.  Think of Jimmy Buffet and the Parrothead culture he created.
  

  The Fan Relationship Pyramid - Potential Fans -> Passive Fans -> Active Fans -> Super Fans

• Here was a good one – Divide your fans up into different tiers and give them a reason to climb the pyramid.  Don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to your fan base.  Reward your best fans.Give them access to content and deals that other people can’t get.  Have a strategy for each level of the pyramid
• Artists need partners, but not necessarily labels.  You now have more choices when it comes to assembling a strategy and a team.

“In the future, quality is hyper-efficient” – Ian Rogers

• Your true fans will market for you.  Give them tools to help them.
• Be diligent about claiming any money that you’re owed.  Are you on this list?
• Look for mangers who listen and are in tune with your unique needs and opportunities.  Looks for mangers who see your band and your marketing as a puzzle that they need to learn how to put together.
• Micheal Doernberg makes the point that you need to engage with your fans on the place that you control – your website.  Everything else, including his own site, Reverbnation, should be seen as lead generation.
• Don’t overlook regional or local sponsorship opportunities.  What businesses could you create a mutually beneficial arrangement with?

Keynote – Daniel Elk

Tom Silverman with Daniel Ek of Spotify

After the first panel Tom Silverman sat down with Daniel Ek to talk about the company he created that’s taking Europe by storm.

Spotify was launched in late 2008 and has exploded in the 7 European countries that have access to it’s service.  The basic premise is this: It’s a music streaming service that allows users to access virtually any song and share those songs with friends.  A free membership includes the option to purchase downloads while a paid membership allows users to download as many songs they want.  The only catch is that if their membership runs out then the song files will be locked due to DRM technology.

• Daniel looked at the reality at hand and saw that a huge percentage of music that consumers own consists of  illegally copied or downloaded music.  He believed he could create a model where those same people would move towards an entirely legal music catalog.  He just needed to set up the conditions in a way that dealt with reality and was appealing to music fans, yet still produced income for the company and the artists.
• Based on his experience and data, he says that the ‘album’ concept is far from dead.  Fans still enjoy music packaged as albums and don’t actually prefer unrelated singles.
• Spotify plans to give artists access to very useful data and provide tools for communication to fans.  This can be valuable especially considering the opportunities to spread music internationally through sharing amongst members.
• Every artist on Spotify is given an artist page and no artists are give preferential treatment aside from performance based showcasing on subscriber’s home pages.
• Artists can gain exposure by being randomly selected to be featured on user’s home pages.

I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing Spotify in the U.S.  Licensing issues are currently being worked out.  There’s no timetable on it’s American release, but when it hits it will undoubtedly have a huge impact.

Click HERE for part 2

Follow on Twitter:

Tom Silverman = @tomsilverman

Ian Rogers =@iancr

Bryan Calhoun = @bryancalhoun

Reberbnation = @reverbnation

Daniel Ek = @eldsjal

and of course:

Independent Rockstar = @independentrock