Tag Archives: Music Business

Music, My Stories, Piracy

We Gravitate To What We Believe Is Popular

Artists like Sebastian Bach and Robb Flynn have asked the question, What does a Facebook like mean these days? In the words of Dark Helmet, “Absolutely Nothing”.

Music is a popularity contest. There is no doubt about that, however popularity doesn’t mean Facebook likes. What we do know is that likes are unreliable indicators of a band’s impact. The music business is all about connecting so many different dots to solve the puzzle. This is where we’ve arrived, the data-centric world and these raw statistics leave a lot of artists out. And they don’t like it.

The number one complaint in the music business is that artists can’t make any money. If you want to make money then make music that people want to listen to. Difficult but not impossible.

Revolutions occur in music all the time. Normally those revolutions happened in musical styles. However when it comes to the reporting side of things, well that was all controlled and monopolised by the recording industry.

The Billboard charts reported what was sold and what was played. All the parties involved lied and bribed each other to play certain records or to promote certain albums. This led to an era that if we believed that a song or album was popular we were more likely to buy it. Hell the same parties even controlled MTV.

Now everyone is looking at charts based on what we are listening.

Seen Ratt’s Spotify stats recently. Even though each album from the Eighties moved over a million units, what the fans really wanted was the great songs. And lucky for Ratt, each album had a great or decent song that would be used to market the album.

I want to go back to 1985. Twisted Sister released “Come Out And Play”. The fans of the band purchased it and played it death (maybe except for “Be Cruel To Your School” and “Leader Of The Pack”). However the album was deemed a commercial failure according to the reporting arms of the recording industry.

While the big albums “You Cant Stop Rock N Roll” and “Stay Hungry” are on Spotify, “Come Out And Play” is not available for streaming officially. But that is typical of the industry because Spotify is controlled by corporations and some of those corporations are the record labels. So as is the norm, those record labels think they know best when it comes to music. However on YouTube the whole album is there.

Why is it on YouTube?

Because the fans of the album put the music up. The fans are sharing their love of the album and people are listening to it because while fans have a history of music at their fingertips and can search for any artist they like the biggest playlist on Spotify is “Today’s Top Hits”. On the rock side, there is a rock playlist called “Rock Classics” that has close to 530,000 followers.

So with everything available under the sun, music fans still prefer to listen to what we think everyone else is hearing. Much like how we purchased albums in the Eighties based on what we thought everyone else was buying.

 

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Unsung Heroes

The War Between Money and Art

The music industry is a thriving industry. It always was and still is. History has shown that musicians have expressed themselves lyrically without interference in their vision. They have been creative and innovative. However, with the rise of the recording industry and the money pyramids that industry created, the musical vision was compromised. Greed became more important than the vision. Once our heroes attained riches, the songs post “most successful album” just didn’t connect or resonate anymore.

As kids growing up, we fall in love with music, the melodies, the riffs, the lyrics, the phrasing and that free rebellious feeling that it inspires in us. Music always captured a sense of time and place. I could hear a song that I haven’t heard in ages and immediately it places me back in a time and a place of my past.

Music is about the creative individual and how they express their creativity. Great creativity equals success and success equals profits. When money enters the game and people who contribute nothing musically start to live a very comfortable life from those profits, then all they care about is keeping those profits the same plus a little bit more. That is why pop music suffered in the Eighties while Metal and Rock took a foothold. Metal and hard rock was honest and real. However once it became a commercial viable product, commerce took over and metal/rock became stale, until Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Guns N Roses blew open the paradigm again and suddenly every label was chasing similar style of bands or getting their current roster to emulate those two bands.

Impose any financial and marketing frameworks on creativity and you get compromised art.

Conformity.

A business that is 100% about profit.

And the very thing that brought money into the industry in the first place and made the industry so popular is sacrificed. What was free and rebellious becomes controlled and processed. In 2014, the songwriters from Sweden have this down pat, which is no surprise as Sweden did give the world IKEA, which sells generic and bland ready-to-assemble furniture, much like the pop industry right now, bland ready to listen music.

The songwriter of the two thousands is without doubt Max Martin, a Swede. Taylor Swifts pop career has been written by Max Martin. Britney Spears career has Max Martin all over it. Bon Jovi’s comeback hit “It’s My Life”, yep that had Max Martin as well on it. Pink’s “Please Don’t Leave Me” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” also had Max Martin all over it.

And where did Max Martin start his career. It was as a singer in a metal/rock band called “It’s Alive”. The band was a stepping stone to meeting other people and eventually he got into song writing and at the moment his team is known as an “assembly line song writing team”. Martin is that big in Sweden, that the Swedes will now be able to lick him via his own postage stamp.

It’s a thin line as artists want to be paid for their creations and record labels want to make money of art that they have funded. Add to that mix songwriters like Martin who also want to get paid along with the publishers. However all sides are forgetting the crucial unknown, the FANS.

The casual music fans will lap up the trashy, mass-marketed pop music and any other music that crosses over into the pop stratosphere. The niche fans will bank roll their heroes forever and a day. Think of Shinedown as an example. They crossed over with “The Sounds of Madness” album and had platinum parties for singles and album sales in excess of a million. The follow-up, while still popular moved half of its predecessor. What that means is that the original niche fans of the band still purchased the album, the merchandise and the concert tickets while the casual fans streamed it and purchased the concert tickets, as Shinedown did big business at the box office on the Amaryllis tour.

But the question in all of this is that labels are seeing a future where the artists are tied to corporate ‘brands’. With this kind of business mindset, would another Dream Theater, Pantera, Machine Head or Metallica even come to be.

How can an artist be free to express their musical vision if they are tied to a corporate brand whose only interest is profit and commerce.

George Orwell said that “Myths which are believed in tend to become true” and the recording industry via the RIAA and the Publishing firms are all about making myths into truths. However Orwell also said that “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” and that is what the Internet has allowed. The internet has allowed people to tell the truth or to offer a differing viewpoint then the one that is pushed by the lobbyists and the copyright industries.

For artists it is all about the song. That is your ticket and your bargaining chip. The song is your entry into the business. A lot of songs equals a body of work (not an album). But you need to work it, and you need to connect.

Standard
Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

D.A.T.A

In a November 1992 issue of the Hot Metal magazine that I used to buy, there was a quote said that stuck with me for all of the wrong reasons.

“We want to make money”
Star-Star vocalist Johnnie Holliday.

The reason why it stuck with me was that every single musician I was working with during that period and beyond had the same viewpoint.

Blame MTV.

Suddenly our musical heroes became TV stars. Artists that were big in the Seventies crossed over to super stardom during this period. New artists starting off would end up moving millions of units because of a video clip. Suddenly every prospective musician wanted a piece of that money pie, without fully understanding that the decks are stacked against them from the start.

Fast forward to 2014 and the making money argument is still there. The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all the revenue from recorded music.

Just because a person decides to create music, it doesn’t mean that they will make money from it. There is no guarantee and there never was. A music career is no different to a small business start-up. Some will succeed and others will not. Some of those that succeed will go on to greater success and from those that go on to greater success, you will get maybe 1 or 2 that will crossover in a big way.

But to make money, the artist needs data and they need to understand what that data means. Basically, data is king and it is a shame that the recording industry has taken so long to understand that.

Universal Music Group uses a database called Artist Portal that was built by interns (who are employees now) five years ago. About a year ago Warner Music created “Artist Dashboard”. Sony Music Entertainment on the other hand has so many separate dashboards in play that they need a whole analytics team to eyeball everything. Guess they have more important issues on their minds right now dealing with hack after hack after hack.

However the labels are still not getting the full picture. What they should be doing is to also compare the artists reach on P2P networks and the countries where it’s happening, even down to the cities. And the data has to be made available to artists in real-time. In the end, the artists are the ones that keep the wheels rolling on the label machine.

And the question needs to be asked. What are the metal labels like Nuclear Blast, Roadrunner, AFM, Metal Blade, Century Media, Spinefarm, etc. doing for their artists? How are they capturing and analysing data for the artists on their roster?

20 million searches take place on Shazam every day. So how many metal and hard rock labels use the data that Shazam generates?

It has been downloaded over 500 million times and even though it’s main user interface is about identifying unfamiliar songs, it’s big secret is that it is an early detection tool for songs that could break through.

Think about that for a second.

By using the data that fans generate, Shazam can identify which songs are having an impact and in what cities/countries. Of course it is great for the pop music business however I am sure it is an under-utilised tool when it comes to metal and hard rock music. How much more evidence does the recording industry need to know that “the wisdom of the fans” is law.

Bands can target what cities to promote in and eventually play in if they had that data. The future is here and data is directing the music business. That is why the big labels still rule. They have the money to throw at compiling DATA.

The barrier to entry may be low, but the barrier to success is higher than ever.

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Unsung Heroes

Piracy, Lost Sales and Profits

I am sure that everyone has come across the “Minecraft” game in some form or way. My exposure to this game was when my kids asked me last year if they are allowed to download the free version of the game, which I agreed. After playing it for months and unable to save their progress, they kept on asking me to download the full version, which cost $6.99AU.

I said NO.

They kept on playing the game and as they did new features kept on getting added to the game that made it better. However they still couldn’t save their progress and they kept on asking me to allow them to download the full version.

Eventually after a stellar week of good behaviour I couldn’t say NO to them and they got the full version at the beginning of the year.

For the uninitiated, Minecraft is one of the biggest games in the world right now. It debuted on Mac and Windows PC in May 2009. By February, 2014, it had sold 15 million copies of the PC version. Also in the same month, Mojang (the makers of Minecraft) had sold more than 21 million copies of Minecraft: Pocket Edition on Android and iOS; more than 12 million copies of the Xbox 360 Edition; and more than 1.5 million copies of the PlayStation 3 Edition — making for a sum very close to the 50 million mark. They have over 100 million registered users.

Just imagine if a streaming service had those numbers. However, the argument would still be the same. Artists are not getting paid. We all know why this is so. Talk to your record label.

And they did all of this with piracy being rampant on the game. However, Minecraft’s developer Notch (Markus Persson) has been on record in saying that worrying about piracy was a waste of time, and it was much more important to focus on giving people a reason to buy.

“Piracy is not theft. If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world. If you just make your game and keep adding to it, the people who copyright infringed would buy it the next week.”

Persson adds features to the game based on conversations he has on Twitter with random people and he fixes bugs based on the Minecraft community voting on the priorities. He is engaging with the users and a majority of those users are people who said that they copied the game initially, but then bought a copy for both themselves and a friend. Or they are people who didn’t ever buy a copy, but had friends who learned about it through them who then went on to buy copies.

There is a clear indicator here for any artist.

Make sure that everyone has access to your music.

I remember a time when I went to Utopia Records and I purchased four CD’s. They were “Subhuman Race” from Skid Row, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” from Slash’s Snakepit, “Balance” from Van Halen and “Waiting For The Punchline” from Extreme. I hand over my cash and a sale goes onto their chart record.

The fact that “Subhuman Race” and “Waiting For The Punchline” gathered dust on the shelves, while I played the hell out of “Balance” and “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” didn’t even come into the equation. All of those bands got a “SALE” or a “COUNT” from me. The fact that two albums connected with me more than the other didn’t even come into the equation. Probably the reason why SLASH is still such a force to be reckoned with in the music business, while Skid Row and Extreme, not so much.

That is why a lot of the Eighties bands couldn’t understand or get a handle on their decline in popularity. Everything under the sun got blamed, however the real reason was ignored.

WHAT DOES A SALE OF A PIECE OF PLASTIC/VINYL REALLY MEAN?

Everyone saw a sale as a fan number, a unit to add up, however the fact that the real fans listened to the music non stop and due to playing it to death they had to re-purchase the album.

In my music collection, anyone will see that for bands like Motley Crue, Dokken, Megadeth, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Stryper, Ratt and many more, that I would have an LP, plus a CD, plus for a select few, remastered releases and remastered releases with bonus tracks. That means that I have re-purchased the bands whole catalogue over 4 times. And I am sure I am not alone in that.

In other words, a sale of an album never reflected what we (the fans of music) did with the albums after we purchased them. The second-hand music market thrived for a reason as music consumers got rid of those albums that gathered dust. However, was this stat shown.

But what about all the tons of money, lawsuits, lobbying, education campaigns, advertising, threats, news reports and the like from the recording industry, all telling people who unauthorized downloading was unquestionably morally wrong and that each download is a lost sale.

The developers of Minecraft (who struck even bigger when they got acquired by Microsoft in 2014) showed that you can compete with free and that you can get people to commit if you focus on the art. Making money was always a byproduct and in the end they made a bunch of it.

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Music Is All About Change

The new music industry is all about change.

Do you think that if you pull your music from Spotify that it is not available on YouTube with ad support (which means income) and with no ad support (which means no income).

The new music industry is about exploring different business models and seeing which one works for you.

Black Veil Brides had a Pre-Order pledge campaign for their new album and the perks on offer just kept on getting sold out. First week U.S sales are anaemic at 29,925 however does that mean that the album is not popular or that it is not a success. Go on YouTube. The BVBArmyVEVO account shows 2,206,786 views for the “Heart Of Fire” video, 1,208,958 for the “Faithless” audio and recently a clip went up for the ballad “Goodbye Agony” and that has already accumulated 464,059 views. Compared to their big song “In The End” with 36,560,728 views, you can see that the fan base is experiencing the band in many different ways. In this case, the band and their team (record labels, managers, accountants, lawyers and publishers) are making money from the Pledge Campaign, YouTube views, streams on other services, physical sales, mp3 sales and radio plays.

Coheed and Cambria had a vinyl remastered re-issue of “In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth” which sold out its first pressing and then they went on a sold out commemoration tour of the album. They are remaining relevant even though their last album came out in February 2013. For them, 2014 was all about touring, vinyl sales, special edition live box sets and merchandise.

Basically new business models from bands are reshaping the way music is marketed and distributed. There are countless new artists emerging and there are countless new ways for fans to listen to those artists.

The music industry of the past consisted of great control. Distribution in those days consisted of record stores. Technology has made way for new opportunities, thus creating new models. The internet has eliminated a lot of past costs within the music industry; this goes for the way music is recorded, the format of music, the marketing, and especially the distribution outlets. New models have taken away the control aspect.

Digital Summer recently asked a Facebook question to their followers about how does everyone find new music. They wanted to know how their fans had heard of them and where they usually hear new music they like? I went through the comments and grouped them into categories.

Radio like Sirius XM Octane, local terrestrial stations, Pandora, Slacker Radio, iHeart, etc got 137 votes for 26%. At this point in time radio is still the best way to get your music out there. However it is the Live show that seals the deal for the band.

Live Shows especially comments around the opening slot that they had on the current Volbeat tour got 121 votes for 23%. It looks like the band really delivers on stage. Also the comments kept on saying that the band members took time out to meet newly converted fans and showed them where they can get free downloads of the band’s music. It’s all about connecting with fans folks.

Word of mouth from fans or band members got 63 votes for 12%. With the internet connecting everyone, I expect this to be more relevant.

YouTube via the algorithm suggestions got 57 votes for 11%. The tech industry is fragmented. When you combine the platforms like YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, MySpace, Online publications, other online platforms and Amazon, you get a 37% reach from the Techies.

Spotify via the similar artists feature got 30 votes for 6%

Twitter via the band members following someone and that someone goes on to check the band out got 25 votes for 5%.

iTunes via the Genius or suggestions based on previous purchases got 25 votes for 5%.

Promotions like having cool looking merchandise, flyers, giving away free demo CD’s, having their stickers plastered all over town, endorsement companies, music stores got 16 votes for 3%.

Other Online Platforms like Reverbnation, Soundcloud, Google Play, XBOX Music, Last.fm, Gaming Music Videos got a combined 13 votes which also equates to 2%.

Instagram via the band members liking photos posted by users or following users got 10 votes for 2%. This was a surprise, however the work that the band members have done on this site is astounding. One fan commented that they are a Gemini Syndrome fan and when they posted a photo of Gemini Syndrome on Instagram, one of the Winterstein brothers liked the photo. The soon to be fan, clicked on his account, saw they had a band, checked out the band and then became a fan.

Facebook and MySpace got 10 votes each for 2%. Goes to show that while Facebook is a good tool for connecting with fans once you have them, it is not a good tool for finding new fans.

Online publications like Stereogum, Loudwire, Jango, Revolver, Ultimate-Guitar got 6 votes for 1%. This is another fragmented industry. The online publications offer no substance, no personal opinion. It’s just all thumbs up, pat my back and I will pat yours style of reporting.

The Pirate Bay/Torrents got 4 votes for 1%. Looks like copyright infringement is not such a big issue.

Amazon got 3 votes for 1%. This is how I found out about the band. Their “Counting The Hours” album came up with bands I might like based on my purchases.

So what does tell any new artist trying to build a career in music.

Be ready to change on the whim and be ready to try different ways of promoting, connecting and marketing your music.

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

We Can Learn A Lot From History

I just finished reading Stephen Pearcy: Ratt and Roll. I don’t recommend it. It is the typical I got laid a thousand times and did drugs a thousand times ego trip. The disintegration of Ratt and the tough times of the Nineties is glossed over. The way the songs came together, and the influences behind them is not even mentioned.  Like all bios, you get the usual ode to trying to make it and doing whatever to takes to make it. All of the bios show their main characters as driven and determined.

Anyway it got me thinking about the Eighties and it seems that we can learn a lot from history. Back then it was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” that saved the recording industry from their self-inflicted recession. In addition, a certain technology called “Compact Disc” would bring riches that the labels had never seen before.

In 2014, it is streaming and digital services like Spotify, Google Play, YouTube, iTunes and Pandora that are saving the recording industry from their self-inflicted downfall. Expect a twenty year plus reign of streaming services which will bring riches that the labels had never seen before and then keep your eyes open for a new style of Napster to hit the digital services the same way it hit the recording industry. In the end, every monopoly falls.

In 1983, a band from England called Def Leppard showed the world what can be done when rock and metal is merged with POP. “Pyromania” was the result. In 2013, a band from Denmark called Volbeat is showing the world what can be done when rock and metal is merged with country and rockabilly. “Beyond Heaven, Above Hell” and “Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies” are the results and a massive victory lap for the band.

The Eighties had a whole cultural movement form around the metal and rock bands. Today, those cultural movements are around technologies and TV shows like “Game Of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead”.

In 1983, a few new players entered the metal and rock scene in Quiet Riot with their number 1 album “Metal Health” and Metallica with their speed metal “Kill Em All” album. Dokken was also releasing its first album called “Breaking The Chains”. In 1984, a band from New Jersey called Bon Jovi released their self titled debut, along with an L.A band called Stryper and their “The Yellow and Black Attack” and a band from Seattle called Queensryche issued “The Warning”. Meanwhile Quiet Riot, Metallica and Dokken all followed up their debut albums with album number 2 in “Condition Critical”, “Ride The Lightning” and “Tooth N Nail”. Actually for Quiet Riot it was album number 4 if you count the first two releases that had Randy Rhoads. It was the norm that bands would release new music on a yearly basis and we have come full circle again.

In 2013, Black Veil Brides released “Wretched and Divine: The Story Of The Wild Ones” and followed up that album in 2014 with their self-titled fourth album. Audrey Horne also released “Youngblood” in 2013 and in 2014 they released “Pure Heavy”. Buckcherry released “Confessions” in 2013 and “F***” in 2014. Adrenaline Mob released “Coverta” in 2013 and “Men of Honour” in 2014.

In 1983, Marillion, a progressive rock band from England started to the rounds as well with a “Script For A Jester’s Tear” and they followed it up with “Fugazi” in 1984. In 2013, Tesseract, a progressive rock back from England is starting to make some in roads with “Altered State”. Both bands have issues with lead singers.

In 1983, Ronnie James Dio broke away from the band format and released his first solo record in “Holy Diver”. In 2013, David Draiman broke away from the band format and formed a solo band called Device. Two of his other band members in Disturbed also released Fight Or Flight with the singer from Evans Blue.

Established artists like Kiss had a resurrection in 1983 with the Vinnie Vincent influenced “Lick It Up” album and ZZ Top also set the charts on fire with their synth heavy “Eliminator”. In 2014, established artists like Everygrey, Europe, Protest The Hero, Volbeat, Slash, Alter Bridge and Zakk Wylde are all experiencing up swings in popularity.

But in the end, no one knows what will connect with audiences. That is the beauty of music. History will show us trends and cultural movements that come about from music, but there is no way to predict what will connect and wouldn’t.

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

The World Created By Black Veil Brides

I am listening to the new Black Veil Brides album. So far I am five songs in and it is pretty good. Stand outs from the first five are the relentless “Faithless” and “World Of Sacrifice” while the ballad “Goodbye Agony” brings back memories of Bruce Dickinson’s “Tears Of The Dragon”. They are one band that gets a lot of hate from the metal elitists. They look like girls, so how can they be metal. They play commercial metal, so they can’t be metal. They follow fads so they are not genuine and therefore cannot be metal. I have read it all and I continue to laugh at the reasons people come up with for not liking the band.

However, they just keep on keeping on. Whatever boxes they need to tick on their world domination plan they are ticking. And they are doing it by focusing on their world. They understand the game that no one can be the biggest and best in everything. They’ve found their own thing that they stand for and they are working for the fans that stand with them. We all know that successful artists are NOT loved by everyone. Successful artists are hated as much as they are loved. It comes with the territory.

Five Finger Death Punch have connected with the blue-collar working class, the extreme sports and the military class.

Coheed and Cambria have connected with the comic book rock culture and fans that enjoy both narratives, heavy music and great storytelling.

Killswitch Engage with Jesse Leach on vocals are both political and entertaining at the same time.

Evergrey have connected with the people who don’t find the world as happy as social media makes it out to be.

Black Veil Brides have found a niche audience and that is their particular strength. The key for any artist is to ensure that the audience base is always added to or replenished by new fans or young fans. It’s like a ten-year cycle. AC/DC had an audience in the seventies, that got replenished in 1980 via “Back In Black” and by 1990, the audience base got replenished again via “The Razors Edge”. Dream Theater found an audience with “Images and Words”. That audience base got a boost almost 7 years later with “Metropolis Part 2”. The in the two thousands, “Train Of Thought” and “Systematic Chaos” brought in a metal audience while “Black Clouds and Silver Linings” and “Octavarium” saw a new progressive art rock fan base.

Being a metal/rock artist is not just about making music. It’s about a whole lifestyle that our favourite artists represent. Everything that Black Veil Brides does represents what their music represents. In This Moment is another artists that represents this lifestyle. They have both become the very thing that people associate with.

BVB are putting their own rock and metal concoction out there. It is a mixture of rock, metal, punk, pop, shred and thrash. They have dressed like goths, glam rockers, “Mad Max – Shout At The Devil” look and now they are dressed in metal black. That is where the backlash comes from. However they have their own style and following. And in a world that is moving to streaming services with each passing day, they still do decent sales numbers. They have defined their kingdom, their world, their space in the music business and now they are out to rule it. It’s never about the breaking into the mainstream. No metal/rock act has broken into the mainstream. The mainstream has come looking for them only when those acts have exploded all over the world.

Metallica, all but ignored by the mainstream became mainstream darlings after every circulation wanted them in their zine due to the massive Black album.

The take away in all this is to find your own world in the music business and dominate it. Your audience is the people who share the same tastes, values, attitude and lifestyle with you. When you know who those people are, you can travel around the world, because those people are everywhere, once you know who you are looking for.

And for the album, it is a solid listen.

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Talking Bout A Revolution

One of the interesting things I have seen in my time with bands and dealing with other musicians is that they balk at the realization that the career they have chosen involves real work. Musicians from the past complain about having to connect with fans and giving them reasons to buy. As far as they are concerned the music should be sufficient reason alone. And yes, doing all of that connecting does involve such horrible things as having to do actual work or involve other horrible things like actually having to go out and talk to fans.

Music was never for the lazy. Music is not for the people who want everything handed to them. Because one thing that becomes clear as you read/talk to the many success stories in the music world you will always see one simple fact: they work their asses off. That doesn’t mean that all it takes is work, or that if you work hard at things, you’re guaranteed to succeed. There’s nothing that’s ever guaranteed success. But working hard can’t hurt.

I have written countless posts on artists. Some of them achieved worldwide fame for a brief period only to be forgotten today. Some of them achieved cult recognition and are still plying their trades today. Some of them achieved worldwide fame, lost it and then regained it again and then you have the other list of people who haven’t achieved worldwide fame or cult recognition however they have been involved in the music business their whole life. The bottom line is this; if you want to be in music, you need to be a lifer. You only check out when you die.

There is no magic bullet to be successful (and there never was). The point is that if you’re committed, hard-working, good, creative and willing to embrace what fans want and what the technology allows, you have a much better chance of succeeding today than ever before. In the past, the strategy was almost entirely focused on getting “noticed” by a gatekeeper and then hoping that the “gatekeeper” would provide that magic bullet which they rarely did because even they didn’t know what would succeed and connect with audiences.

How many times have you heard the story “If only I was on a bigger label, my debut album would have been considered a masterpiece”. The music business…the game is hard, even if you play to win, oftentimes you lose. And the labels have the cash but they were clueless. They had no idea what would connect and what wouldn’t.

So where does this leave us?

Great music triumphs. It’s easier to make it from left field than ever before and with all the competition, you’ve got to be better than ever. And the beauty about music today is that the acts that are making inroads they have developed completely outside the mainstream. Bands from Sweden and Denmark are perfect examples. Volbeat was a relative unknown in the U.S until their fourth album.

And that is a good revolution.

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

The Music Careers of the “Young Guns” from Guitar World September 1991

So I am flicking through an old issue of Guitar World that goes back to September 1991 and there is a D’Addario ad with the title “Young Guns II”. Pictured on the ad are the following guitar players;

Gary Hoey
John Axtel and Atom Ellis from Psychefunkapus
Tommy Bolan from Freight Train Jane
Gerard Zappa and Adam Holland from Valentine
Black Eyed Susan guitarists
Tristan
Matt Prudoehl

So what happened to these “Young Guns.”

Gary Hoey auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne in 1988, during the search for Jake E.Lee’s replacement. We all know that Zakk Wylde got that gig. He also auditioned for Def Leppard, which ended up going to Vivian Campbell. Then he teamed up with a few LA vets in “Heavy Bones” who released one album in 1992 and when it did nothing, they broke up shortly.

Good musicians never quit. He went solo and had a hit with “Hocus Pocus” a cover of the Focus hit. This led to some chart success, some soundtrack work and a monthly column in Guitar World called “Hocus Pocus” which I found informative and helpful to my guitar playing.

Although Extreme became famous for the funk rock in the early nineties, Hoey broke it down to a teachable lesson called “Get The Funk Out” from Guitar World June 1994 issue. But the best lesson for me was “Arpeggio Acrobats” that appeared in the November 1994 which involved playing string skipping arpeggios. Since then he has more or less released an album each year.

A true warrior of the music industry and a diversified artist. He doesn’t have the world-wide recognition but he has what a lot of musicians that had world recognition wish they had. A career in the music industry.

John Axtel (guitarist) and Atom Ellis (bass) from Psychefunkapus got together in 1986 and by 1992 it was all over. Two albums came out on Atlantic. 1990’s self titled debut and “Skin” in 1991. Then it was all over.

John Axtel has been around the scene with various projects and the same for Atom Ellis.  They also have shown their diversity and that is why they have been around in various bands and different genre’s.

Tommy Bolan was part of “Warlock” and then joined the solo band of “Black N Blue” vocalist Jamie St. James, which in the end became “Freight Train Jane”. “Mitch Perry” was the first choice however he was unavailable. Then Tommy Bolan auditioned and St.James had his “guitar guy”.

The band got together around 1991 as the ad for the “D’Addario” strings shows. The album “Hallucination” didn’t come out until 1994 and it did nothing.

Everyone is quick to blame “Grunge” however the decline of glam rock and hard rock bands has a lot to do with the songs and their messages just didn’t connect with the new generation of kids. For example, “You” from the album is great song musically but lame vocally. And when you compare it to another song called “You” from Candlebox, you would understand why connected and one didn’t. Tommy Bolan for all of his talent has been hit and miss. His most recent execursion was an instructional video/book out called “Metal Primer”.

This is one person that should have achieved more however for some reason didn’t.

Valentine started with Adam Holland (guitarist), Craig Pullman (keyboardist) and Gerard Zappa (bassist) in 1986. Once all the other band members joined they moved to LA and did some demos. Columbia Records came knocking only to see a record label re-shuffle put the band in a tough position which then turned out okay as their original A&R rep took the band with him to Giant Records who then released Valentine’s debut CD in 1990.

They they became Open Skyz, a new label deal with RCA eventuated and another self-titled album came out in 1993. Another label re-organisation meant no label and compounded with fatigue after almost a decade of music industry ups and downs, they called it a day.

However they have all remained in the music business and to this day continue to have a career in the music business. A new album called “Soul Salvation” came out in 2008 after a positive response to their Firefest appearance. Adam Holland is also the guitarist in the Steve Augeri Band (former Journey lead vocalist).

Blackeyed Susan had Dizzy Dean Davidson on vocals/guitar, Rick Criniti on guitar and Tony Santoro (RIP) also on guitar. Critini and Santoro both did time together in the band “Rage” while Dizzy Dean Davidson was fresh from his “Britny Fox” stint. Criniti also worked as a live keyboardist for Cinderella.   This band was talented and they had pedigree, however it wasn’t to be. The band split after their label Mercury pulled the plug and stopped the touring support dollars from filtering down in late 1991. However all three have had a career in the music business that lasted decades, even Santoro until his untimely death at 40 due to a heart attack.

Tristan and Matt Prudoehl I haven’t even heard off. Not back then and not now. Probably a reason why they failed to have a music career.

 

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Are You in Music To Create Art Or For The Money

Blame MTV.

In the Eighties MTV made everyone believe that the music business was all about platinum albums. It made everyone believe that they had an entitlement to be paid if they just created music. It made everyone believe that success was measured on where you sat on the charts and how many records got sold. What got lost in all of this was the real people of the music business. While MTV celebrated the bands and artists that got the platinum and gold awards, it sent out a message to all aspiring artists that if you just write a song and get signed the same thing would happen.

From day dot, musicians always earned their keep by creating first and than performing. A lot of the times they performed for free. Times have always been hard for creative musicians. Just because some artists have Diamond Certifications on their walls does not mean that the rest of the musicians do. And the truth is money has ruined art. It doesn’t matter how good or bad something is, it’s all about how much money it makes. And songs written in that fashion will not last.

Which is a shame as a lot of up and coming artists are all about conformity. They want to be a member of the group. They don’t want to let their freak flag fly. Everyone wants to be liked. All this does is make everybody just like everybody else. The reason why artists became superstars is that they had a uniqueness about them. They had rough edges that connected with people.

And for all of those people who see live music as the saviour obviously haven’t toured. Touring is a tough gig because so many people who shouldn’t take a piece of the pie do. The label gets a cut (why), management gets a cut (why), the booking agent gets a cut (on top of the booking fees they charge the fan), the crew gets a cut (which is expected), the lawyers get a cut (why), the tour budget gets a cut (so that the band rolls from one city to another) and the band gets a cut (to keep up their repayments and for life expenses). But people know all this and they still get involved with music.

Why?

Because they want to create art.

So if you are an artist and you care about money then you don’t belong in the music world. Fakes, artists with no backbone or artists with an entitlement complex, please do not apply. Music is not a safety net or a pension scheme.

If you care about art, then welcome and start creating.

Take a leaf out of the Coheed and Cambria playbook.

They buck social trends with their concept albums, their comic book stories and their creative ways of releasing their albums. Even in a world that is stopping to buy albums, Coheed and Cambria have found unique ways to feed content to their fan base and this results in a ton of cash to them in the process. But it all comes down to the art and now that they are on their own, they are exploring more possibilities. They signed with Columbia Records as a successful indie artist and then when it came time to part ways from the majors, they ventured off on their own and became independent. What they do works for them and their fan base. It doesn’t mean that it will work for everyone.

Artists are more known today for a song or a body of songs instead of a body of albums.

There is a fan base out there that will like the song “Lift Me Up” from Five Finger Death Punch and not know from what album it came from.

There will be fans at a live gig that have never paid for recorded music.

That’s life right now.

Standard