After yesterday’s mailbag entry on royalties, our friend Ken Muse pointed me to a great breakdown of the current record deal math done by Cord Jefferson at The Root.

By the math in the article, the average “signed” musician makes $23.40 for every $1,000 of revenue earned by the label.

Think about it in terms of downloads. Get signed to a label, and sell 1,000 downloads in your first week of release. That’s still pretty respectable for most acts, and can even get you on some charts. With a coupon code, you can now have two pizzas delivered from Papa John’s.

So why bother? What can a record deal do for you that you can’t put together yourself?

How Much Do Musicians Really Make from Record Deals? originally appeared on spinme.com on July 23, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

From the mailbag, Mark wants to know about different kinds of royalties:

hey whats the diffrence between royalties and publishing revenue..

Cashmoneyrecords sighned a  deal with Unviersal Music

They keep 85% if tge royalties 50% publishing revenues and all master..

i dont get the diffrencce…….if you sell 1000000 ringtones, do you recive 85% of the royalties or 50 precent of the publish revenues…. Publish reveunues is the same as royalties isnntit?

second they got 30millon $ to…….so do they have to make 30 mill before they got paid??

please help……….love your site also

We’re actually talking about a few different kinds of ways that labels and artists make money, and Cash Money Records is a pretty interesting case study of how a company can grow from the ground up into a vertically integrated entertainment conglomerate.

First, let’s talk about royalties. Depending on your role in the recording, you could dip your hand in the cookie jar a few times:

• Mechanical royalties for writers and publishers (often called “The Publishing.”) Record labels have to pay a fixed fee every time a song gets pressed onto a CD or downloaded to a music player. That fee gets split between the writer and the publisher, usually 50/50. This fee gets paid out regardless of whether or not a project has turned a profit.
• Mechanical royalties for artists (which is what we often mean by “royalties.”) There’s no statutory fee paid for performers in the United States, though some musicians are fighting pretty hard to get this enacted here. A typical record deal will set a mechanical royalty per “unit,” and crafty negotiators will lobby for terms that base the amount on units “pressed” instead of units “delivered.” (With digital downloading so prevalent, though, it seems like this distinction is disappearing.) Most record deals withhold this amount to the artist until all expenses are cleared, which usually means never.
• Sync licensing. If your song lands in a commercial, film, or television show, everybody gets some cash. Land on something that gets replayed in reruns or sold on DVDs, and everybody can make a LOT of cash.
• Performing rights royalties for writers. As your song gets played on the radio, in clubs, or on streaming music services, you’ll enjoy a cut of a “royalty pool” administered by ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. There’s no truly effective way to measure exactly what gets played where, so agencies sample radio stations, club playlists, and concert setlists to determine what seems “about right” from quarter to quarter. If you’re riding a Top 40 wave, expect a big check. And if you’re not maintstream, but you’re lucky enough to have a song on the radio during a sampling session, you’ll get a nice, little check.

Let’s say you’re a singer/songwriter, and you’ve got an album of ten original songs. The accounting’s pretty easy. Sell a million records, and you’ll bring in your half of the “publishing.” You may also have been clever enough to set yourself up as the “publisher” to collect the other half. So that’s about $100k right there. Your record company will probably find some way to tell you that you’re still “upside down” on the expenses of selling a million albums. That means they won’t pay you any additional royalties, but you’ll console yourself with a solid check once you’ve got a song on Grey’s Anatomy.

If you’re a high profile artist (or producer), you can even demand an advance against your future royalties. Let’s say I own a label and I want you on my roster so badly, I’m willing to give you your first $30 million up front. For instance, when R.E.M. signed their second deal with Warner Brothers, they got an $80 million advance. (It’s arguable that Warner Brothers lost that bet, with slumping record sales keeping the band from ever hitting that level on the second deal.)

Now, let’s look at Cash Money Records. They signed a deal with Universal Records that brought a whole lot of talent to that major label under an integrated production company. Instead of a single singer/songwriter, there’s a stable of artists, producers, and writers, essentially working on staff. By most accounts, the Williams Brothers that started the label used the Universal deal to cash out, leaving a business template in place that some folks like to compare to Motown Records. A factory-style setup, with a collective of artists signed to deals that give them exposure while depositing most of their signed-away royalties into the label’s accounts.

Even though publishing royalties are statutory, there’s nothing saying that you can’t sell or trade those payments away in exchange for a lump sum. A label can also act as a publisher, pulling that “publisher’s share” off the top. Although I don’t know the specifics of Cash Money’s deal with Universal, many imprint deals involve the larger label funneling mechanical royalties to the smaller label. The small label becomes a middleman, funneling royalties down from the major to artists and producers. A deal like this means Cash Money acts as if it were artist, publisher, and producer, collecting royalties and redistributing them to its talent based on their individual development deals.

In the 1990s, we often looked at deals like these as easy ways for labels to screw over artists. In the 2010s, we’re seeing artists run their own labels this way, actually maximizing their profits.

It’s a good time to run your own publishing company AND your own record label.

Mailbag: Royalties vs. Publishing originally appeared on spinme.com on July 22, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

I wrote Music Management for the Rest of Us to help novice artist managers avoid the kinds of mistakes I made when I first started managing acts. I also wrote the book to help musicians understand that it was becoming easier to convert a trusted friend or family member into a competent manager than to find an experienced management professional that you could inherently trust.

One of the things I got better at over the years was letting go of the “agency sheen,” that thing that all entrepreneurs like to do. It’s fun to spend time picking out logos, buying business cards with just the right heft to them, and overanalyzing your website.

So little of that matters to your clients’ success.

In fact, focusing too much on looking “professional” can result in a kind of “bait and switch” that poisons your clients against you.

Instead of worrying about getting potential clients to notice you, to think you’re special, and to believe you’re “connected” in just the right way, all you really have to worry about are your results and your goals. I can think of three key questions that you should be able to answer for prospective (and current) clients:

• What have you done for a client artist lately that they couldn’t have easily done themselves?
• How do you develop clear growth strategies for artists, instead of acting as an assistant or an investor?
• How large do you want to grow your business, and how would your plans impact the level of service you provide your clients?

Most of all, it’s important to check in with your clients around your personal and professional growth. Explain how they’re influencing you, and how the work you’re doing with other artists on your roster can benefit them. If their trajectory eclipses your own, this kind of relationship can help you part friends and colleagues instead of as bitter enemies.

If you’re splitting time between careers and you want to develop a management practice on the side, disclose that to your client. Let them into your own dream, and maybe give them an incentive to help you get close to what you really want. It’s not just about managers who help artists quit their day jobs — the right project has the power to propel a manager into orbit.

A client that doesn’t like where you are in your career right now doesn’t need to be your client. Veteran music managers understand that plenty of acts will come and go, but only the ones that “fit” in a roster can really benefit from the manager/client relationship.

You have the power to choose the kind of professional you want to be, and we’re no longer in a business that rewards only bullies.

Music Management Skills: Help Clients Understand Your Career Development originally appeared on spinme.com on July 20, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

If you’re a friend, a family member, or a fan enlisted to take on management duties for a musician, reading books about the business might not be enough to get you up to speed on what you really need to know. While you might think working for free is beneath you, it’s also essential to gain some hands-on experience from an objective source. Check out some of these options for building your management portfolio:

• Intern for an established management agency. You don’t even have to toil away in some large company’s mailrooms. Most towns have a handful of smaller, experienced music managers that can use an extra hand for a few hours a week. Most of these professionals restrict real internship experiences to currently enrolled college students. It’s legit if your free labor earns college credit, but it’s a potential legal issue if you’re just working without pay on a for-profit venture.
• Volunteer with a local arts agency or concert venue. Non-profits can use volunteer help in ways that established music management companies simply can’t. Whether you help produce a live event, work on fundraisers for a local public radio station, or curate a regular open mic night, learning how to put on a show can build your knowledge about what your artist will need to deliver for audiences.
• Staff a local or regional music conference. Many conferences offer free or discounted admission for volunteer staffers who can wrangle guests, keep conference rooms running, or organize live shows. You’ll learn how to stage a complex event while building your network.

What you work on during your volunteer work experience is really up to you and your host, and a good mentor will help you work out an agenda for your time together in your first few encounters. Non-profits are often a little better at this, with volunteer gigs that often come with clear expectations and job descriptions. Regardless of where you volunteer, it’s important to keep three things in mind:

• Keep a tight time frame. Most college internships last either a half or whole semester. If you’re volunteering outside of a credit-earning work experience, limit your exposure to a fixed period. That way, you won’t end up in an open-ended obligation that prevents you from spending time on the artist project you wanted to prepare yourself for in the first place.
• Try to focus on a single achievement or on a set of specific, measurable goals. Learn how to work through the beginning, middle, and end of a project. If your host’s projects run beyond your chosen time frame, focus on one chunk of a larger initiative.
• Make the experience about shared gains, not just about gaining a foothold for your artist. As someone who has mentored plenty of interns, the ones I continue to count in my professional network are the ones who helped us reach win-win solutions. Most upstanding music business veterans will happy share knowledge with interns or volunteers who are committed to paying their dues and getting everyone’s needs met. If you launch into an elevator pitch around everyone you meet during your work experience, don’t expect to build a strong network. This stage of your development is about putting your artist’s needs on the back burner for a little while as you build some core skills.

Remember to check out all of the posts in the Music Management Skills series…

Music Management Skills: Volunteering to Gain Insight originally appeared on spinme.com on July 19, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Steel City Coffee House has grown into a Phoenixville institution. The first time I was there, about eight or nine years ago, it had developed a reputation as the best place in the outlying Philly ‘burbs to see a real blend of singer-songwriters and eclectic musicians.

Today’s headline that the owner has sold the shop to one of her employees marks a welcome passage, especially since everyone seems to be following their passion. The now-former owner stays on as the booking agent, while investing in a coffee house that has to grow its daytime food business to survive.

If I were trying to book one of my acts at that venue today, I’d be trying to figure out how I could help them expand their lunchtime crowd. They’re already pulling consistent crowds to night-time gigs that feature national acts. Finding ways to help venues like this in places where they really need the help can endear you to owners and talent buyers.

A Coffeehouse Changes Hands originally appeared on spinme.com on June 30, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

I get a little worried when a new music manager writes up a goal sheet that includes “attend/work a music conference.”

Music conferences are fun, raucous affairs. But many bands treat them as little more than extensions of already overheated local scenes. Very few “civilians” attend, so it’s hard to try to convert locals into fans. Outside of major events, like SXSW and CMJ, very few high-level industry execs attend, so the folks you’re in the room with tend to be other novice managers or agency assistants.

This isn’t a bad thing, as long as you set your goals accordingly.

If you think you’re going to march into a music conference and convince Clive Davis to sign your band, forget it. (And yet, that’s the lament I hear from a lot of folks who save up thousands of dollars to attend conferences and festivals. They might as well have played the lottery.)

Likewise, I worry about bands that use music conferences as fantasy camps. Some conferences lock you up in a hotel ballroom and pretty much make you play in front of a hundred other musicians who are more nervous about the set they’re getting ready to play. It can be a good test for a not-too-distant time when your band plays a bigger room. Without the right preparation, the transition can tear bands apart. (I’ve seen it happen.)

Instead, use music conferences as an opportunity to learn more about the other people in your ecosystem. What other booking agents have been working the venues that you currently play? What challenges have promoters and publicists uncovered in the past year?

As someone who’s used to getting plenty of pitches when I attend a conference, I always remember the folks who ask me insightful questions than the folks who push yet another postcard and demo into my hands. When I was producing radio shows, these were the folks I wanted to bring back to my music director.

Think about the money you spent getting to the conference as tuition instead of as promotion, and you’ll radically change what you get from the event.

Music Management Skills: Attend Conferences with a Bias for Learning, Not Promotion originally appeared on spinme.com on June 19, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

When I started in college radio, my friends and I would jockey for position by the mailbox on the day when R&R would arrive. Two decades ago, trade magazines were the only way you knew what was happening in markets beyond your own, short of getting on the phone and calling folks you knew in different cities. We’d take turns analyzing what was performing where, while formulating justifications for our own programming decisions.

After graduating from college radio from public radio, some of those discussions migrated to online bulletin boards, like the Velvet Rope on AOL. The Velvet Rope as it exists now is nothing like it was back in the AOL days. It’s the only place you would run into people like Lefsetz if you didn’t already know them. If you were lucky enough to have AOL at work, you could get in during the day. At night, if you managed to get a live connection to an AOL dialup node, you’d find plenty of other things to do while waiting for the boards to refresh. Better to hit up the Motley Fool for stock advice than lose that connection.

Still, insight into the entertainment business was scarce. You had to know someone to get access to an internship in a music management agency. Everyone read the same five music business books. And case studies got handed down as cautionary tales. “Remember that one guy whose client set his house on fire?”

The Internet changed the music industry, mostly for the better. But while it has opened up plenty of opportunities for novice music managers, it also masks one of the biggest threats to your management career: media overload. It’s common for me to run into prospective music managers who feel crushed by the sheer volume of things they feel like they have to read, watch, or understand.

In The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss writes about going on a media diet to open up more time in your life for creative work or for relaxation. Choosing either goal gets you further along your path toward a productive music management career. Wired Magazine suggests that most Americans spend nine hours every day staring at some kind of media. That’s a full time job. Are you getting paid for that? If not, start stripping out the things that don’t move your objectives forward. Once you start cataloguing the amount of time you spend each week on empty media calories, you can refocus on the task of developing your artists and their work.

First, strip out as much television as you can possibly manage. This was probably the hardest part of my personal media diet. I’ve been a TV junkie since I was tiny. I was the one guy in my dorm in 1990 that paid through the nose to wire the place for premium cable. Today, I have only 2-3 shows that qualify as “must-see.”

Next, eliminate your bad web surfing habits. You don’t need to refresh Pitchfork every hour. By the time something’s on Pitchfork, it’s already on Pitchfork. Wouldn’t you prefer to use that time to find something new? You could use that time to call talent buyers in your city and ask them who you should be trying to meet.

At this point, most folks object. If you’re in the entertainment business, isn’t it in your best interest to stay abreast of every blip on the pop culture radar?

Here’s where you can take Ferriss’ advice: rely on your personal network for news about “what’s hot.” You don’t have to be the best coolhunter in the world to know what audiences want. You just have to develop a powerful set of filters. Friends, family, peers, and clients will clue you in to the stuff you really need to know.

And what you really need to know should concern the things you want to learn that can help you grow your practice and to help you grow your clients’ audiences. Technology can really save you, here.

• Twitter. Heed Chris Brogan’s advice. Don’t use Twitter to read every single tweet from every single follower. Dive in occasionally. Use smart alerts to let you know when someone you care about wants to have meaningful communication with you. Compartmentalize your networks into lists that you can easily manage. Lean on those Twitter lists to bubble up things like great links, pop culture memes, and video clips that really add value to your day.
• RSS Readers. Pouring your favorite websites into an RSS reader can streamline the time you spend online. I like to use Google Reader to distill what my circle of influence is talking about at any given moment. Again, I don’t need to read every single article to sense a trend, and I’ve got a few go-to sources for insight when I see the same keywords pop up again and again. Don’t add the whole world to your Reader, just those folks who can help make a difference. (Along with my own feed, naturally, I’d nominate Derek Sivers, David Hooper, Ariel Hyatt, Bob Baker, and the rest of the Music Think Tank crew.) Really good writers and editors will alert you when something’s out there worth absorbing.
• Mail filters. GMail has great filters, but pretty much any mail program will let you strip all the extra white noise from your inbox. Gina Trapani talks about using no more than three folders in her e-mail system. I add a fourth. My Inbox has been stripped of anything that my system’s not 100% sure is a personal message to me from someone I know or trust. I’ve added a “Review” box where messages go from other sources. I review my trusted Inbox about three times daily. My Review box gets reviewed about three times a week. And I have yet to miss a crucial opportunity because of…
• Active Alerts. I use Boxcar on my iPhone to actively alert me when someone has triggered an event that really needs my personal attention. The instructions on my Contact page act as a filter. Follow the instructions, and I will respond to you, often very quickly. If you’re a client of mine, chances are I have a filter that triggers an event when you send me an e-mail, as well. The alerts are tight enough that I’m no longer tempted to check my inbox all day long. (Avoiding the inbox helps me focus, since my inbox usually leads me to more time reading blogs instead of writing them…)

Let’s assume 90% of the stuff in your media intake is really white noise. Stuff you might find interesting, but isn’t vital to your success. Filters and alerts help you keep that stuff safe until you’ve got “time to kill.” You’re not missing anything. The 10% of the media you get is the stuff you really need. Focusing your time on that will help you build the foundation of a strong career.

Music Management Skills: Manage Your Media Diet originally appeared on spinme.com on June 18, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Here’s a coda to last week’s kindie rock story:

Salon contributor Kenneth Rapoza flashes back to his Bon Jovi youth and wonders how cool it would be to treat his kids to VIP tickets and a meet-and-greet at a Jonas Brothers concert, until his wife sees the $1,200 per person price tag.

Regardless of what you’re getting now per ticket at your gigs, what’s the value that you can provide that can make your audience feel like they just paid $1,200?

[photo credit: Garry Knight, used under CC license]

“Help, I Need to Buy $1,200 Jonas Brothers Tickets” originally appeared on spinme.com on June 18, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Lori and I just came back from a family vacation at the Jersey Shore. We snuck away for a night to Atlantic City, and we’re either the worst gamblers or the best gamblers ever, because we ended up spending about four hours at the Borgata with $10 more than we had when we entered. (I paid $5 back at the parking garage.) The rest of the week, we entertained ourselves with walks on the Ocean City boardwalk and quality time with our nieces.

Once we got home, Lori decided to get some Jackson Browne concert tickets as a gift for her Dad, for hosting us at the shore house all week. Live Nation’s got lots of options, ranging from seats in the back at $40, all the way to some VIP ticket packages at $160. But the website’s too shy to admit they’re sold out — just giving us the same plaintive error message that it can’t find any seats, and to call back later. (Scalpers are happy to sell us those tickets at $300, but Lori’s dad is a pretty frugal guy — if he found out, he’d kill both of us.)

Ian S. Port from SF Weekly calls this one of the signs of the music industry’s “Summer Bloodbath.” $160 concert tickets just aren’t lighting up the box office during a recession. Where they do, it’s usually in smaller venues where you’re paying a premium for a more intimate experience. But more and more national tours are rolling up shop early this year. I’m starting to worry that Jane Wiedlin didn’t just fall… maybe she was pushed?!

This is an unprecedented opportunity for independent, working musicians. Right here in Philly, I’ve seen a wave of acts doing some creative things to help talent buyers fill dark rooms. Special theme nights, one-time-only cover events, live mash-ups. That’s real value, and it’s creating experiences that actually rank up there with some of the most powerful concerts some of your audience members have ever seen.

Lori and I still talk about the power of a songwriters’ roundtable show we saw ten years ago. What can you do this summer to move your audience the same way?

If you can create an unusual, authentic, memorable evening for your audience for $10, you can earn the rest of the $160 they were going to spend on that high-priced event. They’ll come to more of your usual gigs, they’ll buy merchandise, and they’ll gift your music to their friends. It’s entertainment, but it’s also value.

And because I value Jane Wiedlin and hope she gets better soon, here’s “Rush Hour:”

Did the Live Concert Business Push Jane Wiedlin Off That Hill? originally appeared on spinme.com on June 17, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Now I know the music business has turned upside down, since I just learned about an OK Go video from a science magazine. (I probably would have been on this way sooner, but I’ve been on vacation!) Discover Magazine’s blog calls out the new video for “End Love,” and despite the time-lapse wizardry, it’s what happens with the goose in the third act that makes this clip compelling.

We’ve been talking about putting hooks in singles for years. But what’s the hook in your video? OK Go have become a powerhouse when it comes to this, but they don’t have to be the only game in town. You don’t need a pile of money, just an idea for compelling visuals that will attract the right audience. And you don’t even need to do it yourself–OK Go have famously sought assistance from friends, fans, and family members for both ideas and execution.

You may also need to feed treats to a goose.

Keep Your Eye on the Goose originally appeared on spinme.com on June 16, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Run into any burning buildings lately, even though you’re not a firefighter?

So why are you so worried about getting your song on the radio, getting your band signed, winning that battle of the bands?

Every week, I get e-mail that asks how emerging musicians can accomplish any or all of those tasks. Any one of them feels good, but none of them will really help you grow your audience.

Thom Yorke’s making headlines this week after telling the writers of a new school textbook that musicians shouldn’t “tie themselves to a sinking ship” of a music industry. He gives it a matter of months, though I reckon we’ll watch the hulking corpse of the mainstream recording industry stumble around for a few more decades.

As an emerging artist, does it even make sense to try to “get signed?” Does it even make sense to try to get your song on the radio? Will any of these old school milestones help you grow the kind of audience that’s ready to give you their direct emotional and financial support?

The saddest part about the death of the music industry, in my mind, is the ecosystem of marketers trying to coax musicians into the late-1980s dream of “getting discovered by a hitmaker” through some magic showcase, radio show, or press campaign that costs just a few thousand dollars. Music business scams have been around for decades, but smart musicians have started to debunk the myths. By understanding that you don’t need to be discovered by anyone but your true fans, you won’t have to worry about wasting money. You’ll also be able to tell the scammers from the real champions of independent music among us.

Don’t pay money to submit your song to hundreds of radio stations, unless you’re working with someone like Liz Koch. If you’re an indie rock or Americana artist, Liz knows how to get your record into that music meeting. The point isn’t even to get on the air, though that’s nice. The point is to connect you to the tastemakers who can get you a foothold with the handful of audience members who can sustain you in that market.

Don’t pay money to send your press release to media outlets, unless you’re working with someone like Ariel Hyatt. Ariel’s team will tell you who’s likely to connect with your music, and who can connect you with your perfect audience. They’re also going to tell you not to waste your cash on outlets that just don’t have the time to wade through glossy PR material.

Don’t pay money to book your band at a showcase, unless you’re attending one of Tom Jackson’s events. You’re not playing to folks who might sign you, you’re playing to skilled stage performance coaches who will kick your ass until you learn how to mesmerize your audience.

The traditional music industry really is dying. In its place, there’s a network of music lovers ready to become your audience and a smaller network of ethical experts ready to help you learn how to meet them. They’re also the folks who are courageous enough to tell you when you need to work on your craft. Listen to them, get better, and get focused on growing your audience.

Climbing Aboard a Sinking Ship originally appeared on spinme.com on June 8, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Andy Wibbels just floated a great quote from John Waters about finding something you love and making it your life’s work. And while you may need to dabble–against John Waters’ advice–to really discover whether a passion is worth pursuing, it’s going to take hold of your life pretty darn quick.

Some folks find my book, Music Management for the Rest of Us, because they’re looking for ways to break in to the music business. But I really wrote it for those folks who have just discovered their real passion: to help spread the music created by a close friend or a family member. History shows us that the most successful music managers of all time maintained real passion for their clients, usually from those early, drab days of booking dive bars and scraping for recording budgets.

If you’re in it just for the bucks, you’re not going to get very far. That’s because there aren’t many bucks in those first few years as artists grow and develop. Your passion may force you to find other ways to pay the bills while you help your project get off the ground, but that’s not dabbling. That’s finding other skills and connecting other passions to your main mission. Barbara Sher calls that becoming a Scanner.

Folks ask me, from time to time, why I’m not managing anybody right now. It’s not just because I’m busy, it’s because my passion’s with other projects at the moment. (You could say that my current passion is helping people connect with their own passion, whether that’s starting a business or saving enough money to buy their dream home.) I love meeting artists who can completely express their passion on stage, but I won’t represent someone unless their work connects with me in such a way that it becomes my passion. If somebody rang my bell that way again, you bet I’d be busting out the shingle.

Of course, for really powerful music management professionals, it’s possible to be passionate about many artists at the same time. After all, you’re not married or anything. But you do have to balance your passion around the ebb and flow of your clients’ creative output, their recording and touring schedules, and their own need for you to help them navigate their careers. Managing the capacity to stay passionate is among the most critical skills for prospective music managers to cultivate.

[ photo credit: John Waters by Flickr user EIFF, used under CC license ]

Music Management Skills: Connect with Your Passion originally appeared on spinme.com on June 8, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Have we all been using “Kindie Rock” to describe hip records for families for a while now, or is the term bubbling up from Anne Hart’s great blurb about the genre in the Savannah Morning News?

Like most overnight sensations, kindie rock took decades to come together. One of my jobs when I was at WXPN was to run the board for Kids Corner, the station’s nightly hour of songs and talk radio geared for families. And that’s where I think I first noticed the huge distinction between “children’s music” and “songs for families.”

Kathy and Robert taught me (and, at this point, an entire GENERATION of Philadelphia radio listeners) how to reconnect to the traditions of listening to music as a family, not just slapping an Elmo CD into the dashboard so those kids in the backseat will shut the heck up on the way to the supermarket. As a society, we’re spending so much time in the car with our kids, so shouldn’t we all get to listen to music we all enjoy?

For musicians, kindie rock has totally legitimized a world that was a shadow universe when I started in radio twenty years ago. Back then, Trout Fishing in America were the rebels, for daring to book both “kids shows” and “adult shows” at the same venue in the same day. (BTW, can we finally get these guys a Grammy?)

I’ve already written about Z-Rock, chronicling the (exaggerated) adventures of a real-life metal band that turned to playing kids’ parties to make the rent. And if you told me two decades ago that Dan Zanes and They Might Be Giants would be topping the kids’ music charts, I’d have wondered why the little brats were so lucky to get to hear music from artists it was so hard for me to discover while I was still in high school.

Jealous, I am. When I was growing up, my parents just had one box of music they had ordered from Columbia House. So I grew up on eight tracks of Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer, plus some greatest hits compilations from ELO and The Captain and Tenille. In hindsight, doesn’t that explain so much about my bizarre taste in music?

You no longer have to wait until high school to share great music with your kids. And with so many parents looking for fun ways to generate powerful family experiences, family house concerts are a great way for musicians to expand their audiences. You can make kids’ music your full time career, or you can let it be just one of many outlets that connect you to fans.

[ photo credit: TFIA by Flickr user Hjem, used user CC license ]

Kindie Rock originally appeared on spinme.com on June 7, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

• The Trash Can Sinatras kick off their U.S. tour at a fan’s house. House concerts are becoming the norm for a lot of small-to-mid-range acts. It’s no longer a matter of, “OMG, you’ve sunk to the point of playing a house concert,” it’s “OMG, you are making twice as much money playing to half as many people in an environment your fans totally control!”
• Steve Rubel writes about the “Situationally Aware Business,” but how can some of these ideas apply to your songwriting? If you’re free writing and looking for topics to tackle, some of the services that track web trends can give you some ideas about what your audience might be thinking about.
• How do you get the benefits of being in a “city scene” when we’re all connected online? Glen Boyd explores whether there can ever be another Neil Young or Nirvana without the unique influences of geography.

[photo credit: Flickr user koralute, used under CC license]

Monday Morning Link Love originally appeared on spinme.com on June 7, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.

Every time I write about booking shows on college campuses, I get two kinds of e-mail. One burst of e-mail comes from artists who are so frustrated about how difficult it is to nail down dates through college activities boards, especially at schools who belong to the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA). The other burst comes from college talent buyers bemoaning the fact that they’re usually undergrads who have very little time to sift through the hundreds of submissions they receive every semester.

It’s been a while since I’ve covered the topic, but a post by Steven Kent at WalletPop revived the issue for me, especially as colleges target live music in their cost-cutting measures.

Getting folks to agree on who should get booked on campus is never easy. It wasn’t easy when I was in school. It won’t be easy when my nieces’ grandkids go to college, either. If your school has a really forward thinking activities board, it probably funds a few different teams of talent buyers to pull in a diverse roster of talent. If your school’s like most, however, you’ve got a couple of very stressed-out folks who think they’re doing a great job if they can allocate the year’s music budget as fast as possible.

That’s where NACA comes in. NACA events are like mini-SXSW conventions, designed to expose college talent buyers to as many potential live performers as possible in a short amount of time. Plus, there’s booze.

If you’re great at networking in person, getting into a NACA event can help you connect with talent buyers before they blow their budgets for the school year. However, there’s a new wrinkle: block-booking.

Let’s say you’re a B-list or C-list act and you’ve got a very smart booking agent who’s a member of NACA. She can get into the regional conference and offer some significant discounts for colleges that sign on to your preferred routing schedule. Tightening up your routing is something I wrote about in More Gigs Now, and it’s a great way to keep your touring costs low. A tight, three-week schedule of four campuses per week can net you a lot of cash with minimal expenses. Passing along your savings to college talent buyers makes your act significantly more attractive.

If you’re worried that block-booking by agencies and talent groups is costing you some on-campus gigs, learn how to fight fire with fire. In GYBA and MGN, I wrote about gig swaps and gig circuits. Teaming up with similar acts in a region not only keeps your overhead low, it spreads out the workload of booking and promoting gigs. Packaging 3-4 acts as a touring showcase makes your pitch much more digestible to college talent buyers, makes you look more professional, and makes it much more likely that you’ll get picked up for a block-booked string of shows.

Even better, if your gig circuit team enrolls a single booker/representative in NACA, you’ll save significant membership and promotion costs. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get booked — that’s going to be up to the person you send to the next NACA event. But you’ll have a far better chance of getting college gigs than if you go it alone.

[ photo credit: "Rainy Day Blues" by Flickr user David Clow, used under CC license ]

NACA Schools Block-Booking Live Music originally appeared on spinme.com on June 1, 2010. If you are reading this in a feed reader, you rule. If you are seeing this post included on another website, it is in violation of our terms of use.