Tag Archives: media

Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

What is going on in Australia?

I’m trying to figure it out. Corporations and Unions run this country. The Courts have been compromised by money. The mainstream media is all about half-truths and likes. No one reports with any substance or an opinion anymore. The Labor Party has knifed themselves into oblivion, deciding in house what the people of the country desire, by throwing out people elected Prime Ministers on two occasions.

Game Of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world, with Australia leading the way. Why? Unless you pay $300 to $500 to Foxtel/Austar to have a PAY TV subscription, you can’t really watch it.

Everyone is talking about the opportunities that the Internet has given people. An artist puts up their music on Spotify and YouTube. They talk about it, post about it and tweet about it. They think the people are paying attention. They are delusional. The Web is all about sell. They are competing with billions of sellers for the attention of millions of payers. The math don’t add up. As for those people who think they have a career making money from Google Ad’s, they are also delusional.

Everyone starts off with a dream to do something that matters, however, as they grow up, we all fall into the trap of being too busy trying to be rich. There is a change coming. As much as we have celebrated the fall of the old gatekeepers like the Record Labels, the Publishers and the Movie Studio’s, new gatekeepers are starting to rise. Facebook, Google, Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, Spotify, Reddit, YouTube, Twitter. All of them are gaining power. Will they be tempted enough to turn to the dark side the way Anakin Skywalker did.

A term that is always banded about, is that the youth are inheriting the earth. They are so computer literate, that they are going to build a new world that will level the old world.

What kind of new world will emerge? One that is embedded with social media, where a person’s status is assessed on the number of friends they have and where they check in from.

One thing is certain, the Global Financial Crisis showed how skewed our ideals have become, and a new discontent has risen from it.

As the lyrics from Do Me A Favor, (Stone Sour) say, I am the anti-everything man, a scab on the lips of the lord.

It is the information age. So much information is out there, we don’t know who to believe and who to trust. Everyone is pushing their own agenda, hence the reason why we are lashing out. We are sick of all the corruption that goes on behind closed doors.

Another lyric from Do Me A Favor is the ignoring your history is killing your past line. It looks like no one is learning from the past. Have we learned anything from the GFC. Hell no, that is old news. We are back chasing the pot of gold.

In the House of Gold and Bones story arc, the character of Alan, is this snake like person, that creates a sense of negativity and distrust to the main character. Transpose Alan with any corporation or money hungry backstabbing friend and you can see why this country needs a reset.

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A to Z of Making It, Music

The New Artist Lesson

I have come across some good music lately, however the bands/artists that created the music are still languishing at the bottom of the music pile.  So what can bands like Burnside, Tesseract, The Night Flight Orchestra, Polution and Vaudeville do differently to get their brand and music out there.

IS THERE A MARKET FOR YOUR MUSIC?

The common misconception that most bands/artists have is that their music will succeed. The cold hard truth is that no one knows what music will succeed.  That is why A&R people, have a bad strike ratio.  They can find talent, however that doesn’t mean that the talent they find will succeed in the music business.

New bands need to test the market.  You need to see what kind of response you get back.  Find ways to measure the longevity of your song.  Did fans spread it on social media? Did a torrent go up on The Pirate Bay? Does it have seeders? Does it have leachers? Are people streaming it? Are people purchasing it? Are people listening to it on YouTube?

If the song is setting the world on fire, repeat the whole process again with a new song as there is a market there for you.

If the song is not setting the world on fire, take a step back, re-evaluate, create a better song and repeat all of the above as there is no market there for you at the moment.

Burnside created a brilliant album in Evolution that consisted of 13 songs and released them all at once. They relied on an old business model that doesn’t work anymore. They needed to test the market, so that they could see if there is a market for their music.  They should have released a song and measured it’s reach first. If you have an audience of less than 10,000, you should not be spending time creating a 13 song album.  

The Night Flight Orchestra wrote a song called West Ruth Avenue, that in my mind rivalled Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know.  Somebody That I Used To Know found a market, West Ruth Avenue didn’t.  (Yes, I know that The Night Flight Orchestra is a side project, however it is one album that should have found a bigger audience).

TesserAct in my view released a great album in Altered State.  Century Media streamed the album on their YouTube page and it had over 90,000 hits.  The album comes out and it moves over 4000 units in the U.S.  Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The label tested the market with the pre-release stream on YouTube. I think both artists where expecting a better turn out in sales, however this is the wrong view point to have. Fans can now stream their music.

SUPPLY vs. DEMAND

I hope that the bands I have mentioned are not focusing on the payment side of things. Remember Spotify, Pandora, iTunes are all services that you use to get your music out there.  Don’t solely rely on these services as a source of revenue.  It’s a diversified music game. You need to have other strategies for that.  However, before you get to this stage, you need to ensure that a market exists.

Remember that you are a seller and a supplier.  It’s simple economics. Supply vs Demand. At the moment, the recorded music world is over supplied. There is so much music out there, however not all of the music that is released has a demand waiting for it. Demand equals buyers. Buyers equal fans. The artists should be satisfying the needs of the fans.

BUILDING PLACES OF WORSHIP FOR YOUR FANS

It is the fans that will promote you.  No one cares about the music that radio pushes. No one cares about the music that the press and mainstream media pushes.  No one cares about the music if you scream until your black and blue about how great your song is. 

People care and pay attention, when they see fan blogs created in your name (like the John Petrucci forums, the Mike Portnoy forums, the Dream Theater forums and so on).  You need to ensure that you build a cathedral so that your fans can worship your music and spread it.

In the end, you need to have great music marketed to people that will like it and buy it.  Otherwise you will remain in your local suburban market.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, Piracy

Creativity involves Diversification

I love creativity.  It could be a song, a story, a novel, a comic, a movie, a photograph, a TV show or even a website.  We are overloaded with people creating something.  Some of it is good, some of it is bad.  However that is subjective to my tastes and interests.  Stuff that I like, a lot of other people don’t like.

Due to the Internet, the entry barriers to promote creative works have diminished greatly.  That is a good thing.  Sometimes it takes years for the creative works to be discovered by an audience that appreciates it.

Check out Randy Blythe’s Instagram account.  This dude, takes awesome photo’s and then adds a story to each photo that he takes.  He personalises his creativity.  You don’t have to be a fan of Lamb Of God, to appreciate the creative work of Randy Blythe.  He doesn’t even advertise that he is the singer of Lamb Of God, all he has are the words, “In some band. I try and be a good man.”  Make sure you check out his photos from Prague, during the court case.

Nikki Sixx is another, that is creating quite a few different creative outlets.  Apart from Motley Crue, he also has Sixx A.M.  On top of that, he is a book author, photographer, web show DJ and many more.

Check out the photos on his Tumblr account and on his Instagram account.  Even Nikki Sixx has started adding stories about his photos, in a similar vein to Randy Blythe.

There are others, like Claudio Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria and Corey Taylor from Stone Sour, that released concept albums and are branching out into graphic novels, comics and movie deals.  Robb Flynn from Machine Head is another that is building connections with his fans, by posting his Journals/Ramblings up once a week.

That is what it takes these days to make it.  You need to be creative 24/7.  You need to remain in the public eye.  You need more than just one outlet.  Selling music is a zero sum game.  Having all your eggs in the one basket, is not good risk management.  Spread out, diversify.

You need to connect with people.  It could take years or it could take days, so be prepared to put in time.  You probably will not be paid and any monies you are paid, would not be enough to support a family, but then again, all creative people create because they love it.  It is an outlet to them.  Somewhere through the years, this changed to people creating just to be paid, which is a shame.  Look back at all the masters of history, from Beethoven to Bach to Dali and Monet.  They created music and paintings, not to be paid in the millions, because they wanted too.

So don’t buy in to all of the piracy and copyright infringement bullshit, put forward by the entertainment industry’s lobby groups like the RIAA or MPAA or the labels/studios themselves.  Creativity can bring back many financial gains, you just need to be prepared to put in the time.

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Music

Stone Music Festival – Four Different Stories

Sydney Morning Herald Review

TNT Downunder Review

The AU Review

May The Rock Be With You Review

Four reviews.  Four different sides of the story.  Somewhere between the lines is the truth.

If you are looking for the truth, the AU Review is the best place to start.

If you are looking for a laugh read the Sydney Morning Herald Review.  No wonder traditional newspapers are all going down hill.  The journalism that has gone into their review of the festival is a joke.  It’s like the public relations company for the Stone Music Festival wrote the article and gave it to the Sydney Morning Herald.

If you want a good summary of both days and the bands, read the May The Rock Be With You Review.

What is clear from the three reviews (excluding the stupid SMH) is that a lot of effort needs to go into organising a great festival then just having great bands.

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