In my previous article, I dropped the following:

Perhaps someday, someone will explain to me why anyone would order CDs through Oasis when all their packages are at least $100 more expensive than identical packages from Discmakers.

I didn’t realize that “someday” would actually be the next Monday, and “someone” would be the president of Oasis, Micah Solomon.  Google Alerts is a beautiful thing, and Solomon responded to me immediately.  He was friendly and professional and he got me curious.  Nothing impresses me like real human beings, so I wanted to give Micah Solomon a platform, right here on Audible Hype, to correct me. 

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We all want to be successful.  Nobody who reads Audible Hype is looking for ways to continue living in poverty, or working at jobs they hate.  So this article could be the most crucial piece of advice I give in 2008.  It seems obvious, but given what I read on other sites, and given the questions I get asked by readers, it needs to be repeated: the “music industry” is a multi-billion dollar total failure. The only justification for studying how it works is to get a clear cut example of What Not To Do.

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Of all the dinosaur occupations in the music biz, few are more endangered than the “Booking Agent.” Don’t get me wrong—a well-connected and professional booking agent can deliver the world at your fingertips.  But don’t delude yourself—if you can afford a real booking agent, you don’t need to be reading Audible Hype—you’ve already got a successful music career.

This article, then, is for everyone else.  When I book shows, I use freely available tools and common sense, and it’s been working out great in 2008.  This is a step-by-step guide to exploiting new technology to get you good old GIGS, anywhere you want.  It’s downright amazing how much power you have at your fingertips—here’s a guided tour.

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Myspace is a wasteland of fake profiles, horrible coding, obnoxious ads and total brain death.  Unfortunately, it’s also 100% nescessary for making money off music in 2008.  It’s the largest built-in audience of any social networking site, and if you’re doing hip hop, metal or anything that involves lots of young fans, there’s nowhere else to be.

Online promotion through Facebook is a communist nightmare in comparison to the tools available on Myspace.  Let your fans promote you on Facebook—your efforts are better spent shaping your image and reaching new audience on Myspace.

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Can I just rant for a minute here? I have a very useful post coming up, but let me get this off my chest and into the global brain:

1. Nobody knows shit right now.

I’m writing a successful website about the music industry precisely because I have no idea what I’m doing. It keeps me loose enough to recognize things that trained monkeys have a hard time accepting.  My best summary is: learn how to mix being Professional and Organized with being Creative and Loose, because you need to be running both ends of the operation in 2008. You need to be prolific and entertaining, and you also need to have your online operation running smoothly. In other words: just make good music, then use efficient tools to tell the world about it.

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When I first met Witness, we had both showed up at a gig we’d planned 2 months in advance.  We had arrived to find out there was still no sound system for venue.  There had been no promotion, and the venue had submitted the wrong lineup and mispelled his name in both local papers.  It was probably the worst-managed, most-pathetic Music Biz Moment I saw in 2007.  Witness was completely unfazed and very kind about the whole thing.  It turned out his attitude worked: we wound up finding a sound system, an audience, and an actual venue all during the next 2 hours.  Witness and Unsung went on to deliver killer sets in front of a tough audience.  The toughest, really: the “I’m just here for pizza why are you rapping at me” demographic, notoriously hard to please.  Witness pleases everyone. He graciously answered some nosy questions from Audible Hype:

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Rawkus Records, the independent hip hop label who collapsed in the ugliest possible way, are suddenly back on the scene with a new business model.  They’ve gotten a lot of free publicity for it: a mix between a classic talent contest, a digital distribution scheme, and good old “major label” promotion.  They’ve got a talented lineup, too—from total unknowns to longtime underground hustlers. 

But it’s worth taking a closer look at their business model—how different is the Rawkus 50 from the Bad Old Days of record labels exploiting their artists for token peanuts?  How do the artists on the Rawkus 50 feel about the benefits they’re recieving from the label?  Can you really benefit from mass promotion when there’s 49 other acts nobody’s heard of on every advertisement?

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I came across something excellent on Andrew Dubber’s New Music Strategies today:

So why, if these things are simply part of the same phenomenon, do we have this ongoing tension between the art of music and the commerce of music? Because clearly, there is a tension. The simplest way to explain it away is that people are a problem. Musicians are selfish and precious. Record companies are greedy and corrupt. Audiences are thieves. Promoters are crooks. Publishers are parasites. Retailers are unimaginative. The Music Press either regurgitates PR bollocks or has completely disappeared up its own arse. We often rely on these simplifications and stereotypes to make sense of the fact that being in music (and, therefore, in the music business) is hard. Harder than it probably should be.

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