Add thesixtyone.com to the never-ending list of places you can check out JCHMusic. This site is a great place to see really new bands, with a heavy emphasis on ‘indie’, but every once in a while there are some out of the mainstream acts (such as moi.)

Thesixtyone has all the usual ‘social networking’ bells and whistles. You can ‘like’ and ‘share’ and create ‘playlists’ but it’s real strength is in exposing you to new, quality artists that you might not otherwise encounter (the true beauty of a good radio station is the encounter with the unexpected, n’est pas?)

OK, forget all that searching for truth jazz. Here’s the direct link to JCHMusic on thesixtyone. If you care, start there. Then you can move onto all that other stuff. 😀

…with apologies to Aristophanes.

As I previously stated, I’m pretty sure that piracy will soon be a thing of the past. And that’s because the concept of ‘ownership’ will soon be a thing of the past. People will no longer need to steal music because they will get it all from ‘the cloud’. They will give up ownership in order to pay for convenience.

The question for me is how will artists get paid when this happens, because it sure as shit ain’t part of the business model now. There is also this whole fantasy world which is finally being questioned that states that artists will be able to derive all manner of revenue from this magical new cloud-based entertainment world. Every wannabee musician I know is amazed at the number of ‘options’ available to them for getting ‘streaming revenue’ for their work. That’s the cuckoo part of this whole cloud deal.

Here’s a quick bit of statistics courtesy of Billboard Magazine:

Here’s a quick overview: To generate revenue equal to the $1,160 […]

…You know what I mean?

This is an update on my paltry marketing efforts.

Click Throughs

1. The adverts have changed a bit as you may have noticed. I am continuing to expend a certain amount of energy generating various ‘click-throughs’ to get a penny or two whenever y’all go to and fro over the vast InterWeb using my site links as your gateway. One way to think of these is like those product placements one sees now in every TV show and movie. But unlike those, it is very important to me that these be innocuous. The best response I could get to this news is “what are you talking about?” If you aren’t noticing anything different, then, in the immortal words of Emily Litella?

Never mind.

(BTW: For an example, if you just watched that clip, I just made me a whole 0.5¢ He shoots. He scores!)

Adverts

2. I’ve re-jiggered the adverts on the blog. There’s now no way to avoid ’em. Sorry. I need the dough. Until the ratio of downloads […]

This is actually a huge issue. The short answer? It’s the fair amount for me.

Background: You’re probably referring to the fact that most commercial CDs list for 16.95 or something like that. However, when you come right down to it, by the time that Warner Bros., the trucking company, the warehouses and the Wal-mart size record store get paid, the artist is typically left with something like $1.65 per CD. Really. That’s the reason you hear so many anecdotal horror stories about musicians going broke after selling 2 million copies. Part of it is the nature of the beast: if you’re, say a rap star, the first thing you might do is get some bling and an ‘entourage’ going. And sure that wastes a ton of cash keeping up the ‘image’. But the fact is, it’s easy to not see how little the typical artist gets from record sales. And tours get so extravagant that these are often losing propositions (ever wonder how some of those guys can afford all […]

“Submitted for your approval…”

Jaron Lanier Speaks To Canadian Music Week

Anyone remember Rod Serling? He hosted a little show called ‘The Twilight Zone’ which started every bizzare-o episode with the above. I use it because I’ve been trying to tell people since I got started doing my little sideshow that the world the ‘Internet-Empowered’ world they think that they live in is as surreal as anything Rod ever cooked up. In fact, ‘surreal’ isn’t really the word for it because far from being merely an entertaining alternate reality — like believing in Santy and the North Pole, this illusion is specifically designed to delude, control and exploit pretty much every one of us. So perhaps the analogy I’m looking for is actually ‘The Matrix’.

As Jaron points out, the story that there are lots of indie musicians out there making tons of money through self-promotion is just a myth. It just doesn’t happen. Well, actually it does but in such small numbers as to be statistically insignificant. Pretty much every […]