Leadership Music Digital Summit 2009 – Mike Masnick keynote address, 3/25/09 from Leadership Music Digital Summit on Vimeo.

The second video is all NIN, a video they made about their new website/iPhone app, the video is a great representation of the increasing opportunities technology is making available, with the immanent release of iPhone 3.0 operating system, the next 12 months are going to see some jaw dropping ingenious methods of connecting with fans and inevitably, being able to monetize from those relationships. This vid is close to 8 minutes long, but again, very much worthwhile.

NIN: Access iPhone app walkthrough with Trent Reznor, Rob Sheridan, and special guest Kevin Rose from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Their manifesto is as follows:

1. Culture always builds on the past
2. The past always tries to control the future
3. Our future is becoming less free
4. To build free societies, you must limit the control of the past

It loosely follows the journey of serial re-mixer and performer Girl Talk. The film also includes Lawrence Lessig, who talks about changing the laws in order to make them more relevant to today’s society, rather than making people criminals. Metallica are in it, Industry lobbyist scaremongers (Rick Cairns),  It also has heartbreaking interviews with people who have been sued by the RIAA, for hundreds of thousands of dollars which has ruined their lives working towards paying a debt they will probably never finish (Jamie Thomas – $9,250 per song – 24 songs – $222,000). Seeing as these type of law suits (also known as hubcap), are no longer pursued by the IFPI and it’s member companies, shouldn’t these debts be dropped? Shouldn’t these people be able to pick up their lives and move on? Are these suit figures realistic of actual damage caused by downloading said tracks? Answers on a postcard.

Whatever you feel towards copyright, you’re going to enjoy watching this… so here are a few ways to do it…

• If you’re in the US, you can download the movie on a pay what you like basis (but only the US dammit)
• Anywhere else, you can stream it here
• You can remix/stream the film on this website (check it out, some cool features, very inspiring)

Today also introduces the release of Lawrence Lessigs book “Remix” on a creative commons license, so download the free PDF here!

UPDATE: site was created by http://wearebrilliantlydifferent.com/ et al.

First of all, the site is simple, Wordpress based, clean and easy on the eye. The right sidebar is very impressive and is the best use of a website Friendfeed I’ve seen. On Friendfeed, you can make a profile which feeds into all your other profiles on sites out there such as Twitter etc. Sky Larkin have done just that, they’ve integrated their Twitter, YouTube, Blog, Vimeo etc. but they’ve gone one step further, they’ve also fed into their Friendfeed an RSS feed of search results from Twitter of “Sky Larkin”, easily done via Twitter. So anyone who talks about “Sky Larkin” in Twitter will automatically feed into their website, see below:

Their header image changes at random, making the site more interesting and seem fresh.

There are many ways to make updating various sites real easy. By having a Flickr plugin, and updating FlickR you can update your website automatically. Same goes with gig’s, other blogs etc.

So check them out, they’re a source of inspiration for and band or label. Their Vimeo channel is quite cool, Matador has a great drum beat.

Twitter is what you make of it. For me it’s great. I use an application called Twhirl for the iMac, Tweetie for the iPhone and Twitterberry for the Blackberry. At the moment, I follow 239 people.

The majority of people I follow are to do with music, some artists, graphic designers and relevant and interesting local peeps. When choosing to decide whether to follow someone, I’ll check out their bio (always import to have one & also make sure your status updates aren’t protected), I will usually click on their link so it’s a good tool for driving traffic and raising awareness and I will check out their recent tweets, so if all they talk about is what they’re having for lunch or how many thousand emails they have to get through, I probably won’t follow.

Twitter make it simple to follow/unfollow people, so why not trial them? Happens all the time, nothing personal.

It’s a great tool to connect and find people with similar interests, as a result of Twitter I’ve made some friends and met up with people who perhaps I wouldn’t have had the chance to meet with otherwise.

Can be a great tool for brands – managing exposure, finding out what people are saying, helping those who need it, finding opportunities etc. Like this tweet a few mins ago from @SonicBidsTess

If your an artist and want to gain exposure through Twitter, remember it’s not a one way conversation, don’t just talk about where your touring, mix your personality into it, talk to other tweeters about anything.

I think every single one of my followers are worth connecting with on Twitter, but this a short list of music folk everyone should follow.

• Me! (of course….)
• Mark Mulligan – “Vice President and Research Director with Forrester Research” This guy knows his stuff!
• Mr Trick – forget RSS feeds, he’ll tweet all you need to know about what’s going on in music
• Jonathon Deamer – Lots of things music he be
  
• Fascinated – you know that amazing site The Hype Machine yea? This guy made it
  
• Jonas Woost – Head of music at Last.fm & all round nice guy
• Dave Haynes – One of the Soundcloud crew amongst other things
  
• Andrew Dubber – New Music Strategies
• James Pennycate – One of the guys from Brilliantly Different
• Jon-Paul Waddington – One of the guys from In The City
  
• Andy “CMU” – Music Journalist
  
• Luke Netvalar - lots of interesting tweets with links
• Music Week
  
• Bearded Magazine
  
• Make it in Music
  
• Sonicbids – Tess
• Sonicbids – Benjy
• Spotify
• We7

I think everyone I follow is worth following so check them out! Also, “Gabriel N” has created a google doc list of music folk on Twitter, worth looking up.

Drop me a comment if I’m missing some key people or even for some shameless self promotion

According to Twitter, 23 days ago, I posted this tweet: “Imagine, if you could buy demo’s (work in progress) on iTunes, then upgrade like an application? + able to listen to previous versions????”.

So what if music worked like software? I’m a big fan of demo recordings, live recordings etc, really into that sort of stuff. Usually, you have to buy the singles to get your hands on these. The digital market has made it easier but it’s still not great. The idea struck me while my mac was going through an update… e.g. If you could subscribe to a community for an album for an artist, how would it work? Let’s say, you paid £15 what would that get you? Well first comes the recording. Bands will usually record a series of rough demo’s of tracks, perhaps about 25 of them, they’ll sit down with the label and even pluggers to decide which one’s to record, although companies now exist who are paid to decipher which tracks are going to be the most popular and those are duly recorded, this is the world in which we live. So what if your subscription entitled you to listen to all of these, you could comment, rate etc interact and communicate, which would create invaluable feedback/hype? Tracks for the album are then recorded which can be done a few times for some major record labels so more demo’s for the fans, more feedback for the artist & label, everyone’s happy.

As these tracks are improved upon, like software, you can update. But perhaps saturation is a problem here. The final versions are then released.

How can this be value added? Well after the final recording, give the community the stems (the individual parts that make up the track) to play with and remix. Music videos? give them away too. Sell tickets exclusively to the subscribers a week before they go on sale to the public.

Imogen Heap has been using Twitter and YouTube to broadcast updates about her new album, playing snippets of tracks, welcoming feedback. Consumers are getting used to more interaction, I’m not suggesting turn it into a democratic procedure, but there’s potential in getting your fan base involved from an early point.

I can see a LOT of pros and cons for the idea and rather than listing them at this stage, I’d like to hear what you love/hate about it?

There are more artists and bands out there than ever, which is great. But it also means our email traffic increases. One thing I’ve noticed, is that bands are getting lazy, all too often music companies will receive a one liner email saying “Hi, we’re XXXXX band from XXXX, check out our MySpace here and let us know what you think, thanks.” What part of that sentence motivates me to go and check out you’re work? Would you approach a prospective employer with a one liner email saying, “Hi, my name is XXX from XXXX, here is my Linkedin profile, let me know what you think, thanks”

Approaching a music company, be it a label, publisher, agent, whatever is like applying for a job, so treat it like one. Below I’ve listed some points, which if you abide by them, should yield greater results.

• Your CV in this case is your band bio, keep this INTERESTING, no matter how short it may be, it isn’t a deal breaker to know that you used to be in a metal band but thought you were too good for them and decided to start a new band, include press clippings, upcoming gig listings.
• Why not use something like Sonicbids for your Bio/Mp3 needs – (EPK).
• Also, check out Soundcloud, new site but has amazing potential.
• Send tracks you think are the best and most polished, quality over quantity.
• Some companies can get arsey about mp3 attachment emails as it slows down their inbox, offer alternative links, your MySpace, Sonicbids, Soundcloud or even straight off your server.
• DO NOT ADD THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS TO YOUR MAILING LIST WITHOUT PERMISSION – these get blacklisted straight away and sometimes your band name tagged as spam, so any emails you send at a later date won’t get through.
• Ensure you add a covering letter equivalent, doesn’t have to be long, an introduction and to who you are and why you are emailing. Don’t be shy, in the industry emails usually contain what they’re looking for, so an email from one label to another may be trying to sub licence one of their act’s, so they state it: “Looking for sub licencing in the UK, JAP, GER etc.”
• Try to add the personal touch, make sure it doesn’t look like a mass email out, something like “like the new website” or “XXXX’s last single was amazing” (Flattery can get you places but not everyhwere).
• Be original, it’s hard to calculate how many black and white photos of bands standing under a railway bridge looking moody I get a day, but I reckon it’s a lot.
• Try to use different methods of communication, if they’re on Twitter, converse with them, if they run a live night, attend and maybe give them your cd in person & comment on their news stories/blog posts etc.
• Go to their website, do they have a preferred method of submissions? follow it, don’t email asking what the procedure is if they have already specified it on the website.
• If you’re sending something through the post, can you add something for them to remember you by, if your calling up chasing up feeedback “We’re the band that sent you mini eggs with our demo” they’ll remember you, like you for it and be MOTIVATED to give you feedback and check your stuff out, mini egg’s did go down nicely, thanks.
• Are you selling yourself right? “We released this ourselves under our own label” doesn’t sit well, pretty much says, we’re shit because we’ve failed in our own self release and have already sold as much as we can to all our family and friends and now we want you to do something with it…
• Avoid the phrase “Hope we can work together”

To sum up, be original, try to motivate, make it easy for people to check your stuff out.

I may update this post when more come to mind, in the meantime, if you think I’ve missed anything out, please comment them below.

Also check out Andy Derricks post on promotional packs.

Okay so I’m not going to go through a list of ALL of them and neither am I detail how to apply, the list & links should basically inspire to check them out, do some research and apply if your music would be suitable for the said festival. Some won’t have formal ways of applying so you’ll have to ask nicely for the promoters contact details and send them some music along with an early Easter egg or something, they’ll remember & thank you for it. Despite it being only January, your already running late to apply to some, others haven’t opened for submission yet either. Okay so here goes and good luck, If I’ve missed any out, spread the love a bit and comment them so everyone can check them out. One last thing, if you know of anyone who’s in a band or anyone who would find this list useful, please link them up to it!

• Glastonbury Festival – details of how to apply here
• Trucker Festival – website
• o2 Festival – website
• Reading Festival – website
• Isle of Wight Festival – website
• All Tomorrow’s Parties – website
• Acoustic Festival – website
• Download Festival – website
• Beach Break Live – website
• Guilfest – website
• T in the park – website
• LAtitude Festival – website
• Glade Festival – website
• Lovebox – website
• Womad – website
• V Festival – website
• Shambala Festival – website
• Greenbelt – website
• Big Session Festival – website
• Camp Bestival – website
• Bestival – website
• Relentless Wakestock – website
• Cambridge Folk Festival – website
• Blissfields – website
• Brighton Festival – website
• Dot to Dot festival – website
• End of the Road Festival – website
• Evolution Festival – website
• Field Day Festivals – website
• Futuresonic – website
• Green Man Festival – website
• Hydro Connect Festival – website
• Indie Tracks Indiepop Festival – website
• Jersey Live – website
• Secret Garden Party – website
• Summer Sundae – website
• The Big Chill – website
• The Great Escape – website (hurry!!!)
• Two thousand Trees Festival – website
• Underage Festival – website
• Wickerman Festival – website
• Wood Festival – website

Possibly my favorite blog is one called Created in Birmingham. I live in Birmingham and I find it invaluable. Not only that, but it’s run by some of the best bloggers Birmingham has on offer.

It was started by Pete Ashton, who is also up for the award but who has already asked people to vote for CiB instead. Pete is renowned for his blogging and he puts a massive amount back into the community, along with Chris Unitt, who has been running CiB for the last year now. CiB is about to be taken over by Kate Spragg for the next year or so I guess. Let’s not forget the contributors and people who’ve help CiB start up – Stef Lewandowski, Danny Smith, [EDIT Julia Gilbert] &  Frankie Ward.

But now they need our help! They’re up for ‘Best UK Blog” in the Web Blog awards! The other blog in the running is a Daily Mail one! The DAILY MAIL!!! I wouldn’t use that piece of shit to light a bonfire!

So let’s do something something positive and VOTE CREATED IN BIRMINGHAM as Best UK Blog. I’d really appreciate it, it’s neck and neck at the moment. It literally is one click to vote, and you can do so every 24 hours. CiB, Birmingham and I would owe you one, thanks.

A few more tips for you. Your an artist who gives music away for free, doesn’t matter, get your music on the online retail stores, just because you feel like giving it away for free, the consumer might not want to or even come across the place they can download it from. Let me give you another scenario, someone’s listening to their radio, they’re an avid iTunes user, they hear your song, like it, search the music store for you but find no results. I know your not gutted about the lost sale, because your giving it away for free , but you’ve lost out on a fan, which is 100 times worse. Just because it’s your choice to concentrate on one method, you’ve can’t expect the potential out there to change along with you.

One last tip, if you are deep linking, for example on MySpace, don’t deep link straight from the profile page. Link to your webiste or a PHP301 redirect page or HTML timed redirect (Google it, learn it), that way, you can monitor traffic and ensure Apple recognise your deep link code from your specified URL.

Happy New Year.

Reading the labels section, they had a piece on “some of the best record labels to work with” and there we were! Boy Wonder Records, page 187 bottom left. Did crack me up a little, but on closer inspection, quite a bit wrong with listing, Typo’s and mistakes ahoy!

Well, its “100 HIGHFIELD road” the telephone number is 0121 288 7711 and the email isn’t @botwonderrecords. Not too bothered, did call the publisher who mentioned the book is coming out with a new edition next August and the information will be rectified by then. But really, thanks to Dennis publishing for including us in the listing.