NIMIC – What’s Next?

The only thing that’s seems certain after Monday’s open meeting to discuss the demise of NIMIC, the Northern Ireland Music Industry sector lead body, is that such a body no longer exists.

BBC Radio had a few interviews with folks from the meeting, which you can hear over on the 17/11/09 edition of BBC’s Evening Extra (interviews start at 1hr 12mins in). The interviewer summed it up nicely: “People seemed to be struggling to come up with ideas.”

Should a similar body be formed? For what purpose? Is it even necessary? Or are the various strands of any music industry simply better served by their own representative bodies (MMF, NIRSA etc.)?

My personal disappointment with the passing of NIMIC mainly stems from the (perhaps naïve) view that the presence of a unified voice for musicians & industry service providers was better than a fragmented group of various interests – and not only for the benefits of lobbying local government, but as a representative of co-operation and willingness to collaborate to the wider world.

Work with Un-Convention, the NI Music Meetup (now Open Music Media) and other collaborative, prospective ventures only further deepened that belief.

I’d have to say that recent experience (not just the collapse of NIMIC) has changed that view to a large degree – indeed, the overall consensus is that a one-size-fits-all organization is doomed to fail, as NIMIC did. Indeed, according to what I can see as the currently prevalent idea, even the naming of a music industry body is premature. A music industry, in and of itself; either doesn’t, or to some people’s minds, shouldn’t exist at all here. I’m prepared to reluctantly accept those concepts.

So what’s next? Probably what faces most music industries in most cities – a wide range of organizations with various goals and an arrested knowledge of each others existence; advice giving and network sharing on a smaller scale between members of those organizations and occasional inter-organizational co-operation – lacking in a central point of contact for representation outside of that particular market or support for ideas and endeavor from within. What benefits or negative effects arise from this approach I’ll leave for others, and time itself, to extrapolate upon.

What do you think of the need, or lack thereof, for a central representative body for a music industry? What happens in your city by way of collaboration at an industry wide level and do you think you’d benefit from a single voice such as the one NIMIC has attempted to represent? An outside perspective is most appreciated here!

The end of the Bait & Switch

I was listening to a radio show recently that covered Evangelical Christianity’s attempts to convert “sinners” into believers – and the long standing tradition of using the bait-and-switch to bring non-believers into the fold. (I’m in no way religious, so bear with me on this…)

As an example, some churches would invite students to what looks like a regular Spring Break party “with free food and drinks!” without telling them that the party was organized by a local church, then they would not-so-subtly drop in messages about Jesus and the church throughout the event.

But one pastor, Jim Henderson, has eschewed these practices completely in favor of encouraging evangelicals to connect with people. He’s realized that people don’t want to be tricked, sold to or deceived – but that they want to be connected with, listened to and understood.

He broke down his method into 3 steps –

1: Don’t concern yourself with converts or sales.
2: Notice people. Sit and watch how people are interacting.
3: When you do engage with people, actually listen to them and respond AFTER you’ve listened.

These are some of the most basic tenents of social media (hell, ANY social interaction) – this is how social media thrives and how relationships develop in the online AND offline space. When you like someone – i.e. when you connect with them and their message INDEPENDENTLY of outside forces or trickery, the relationship changes.

Essentially, as a label or artist, you’re evangelising too. Jesus is your music . You can take the ever-less-effective route of the bait-and-switch – lure people in with the single, switch it up with the filler, focus on the numbers (how many people can I PUSH my CD on tonight?) and get concurrently pushy so you can meet your short-term sales goals.

Or you can realize that it’s not just about getting the CD or the t-shirt sold – that the smart move is developing long term relationships. That it’s about connecting with people, recognizing what they love and value and providing that in some way.

And yes, you need to have FAITH that people will connect with you and your music enough to convert.

Announcing Open Music Media Belfast

NI Music Meetup = Open Music Media Belfast – Friday, November 4th 2009 – The Limelight, 6-9pm.

You may have seen a few posts during the year about NIMIM – the Northern Ireland Music Industry Meetup. What started as a casual meetup for musicians, labels, promoters eventually evolved into UnConvention Belfast and a bunch of other get-togethers in 2009 covering a variety of subjects.

As Rich Dale explains:

“Open Music Media Belfast is the new name for the NI Music Industry Meetups. Why? A couple of reasons. Firstly we’re keen to give our participants access a wider network – Open Music Media was founded in London and there will be ‘OMM’ events happening worldwide. Secondly we like the focus, ambition and intent of Open Music Media.

It’s where music is going. The time for lamenting the death of the old regime is over, and OMM is forum for ideas and a meeting of minds that will help shape the future of the industry. Whilst it’ll ask the big questions that affect us all, it’ll also focus in on the new strategies that will help our music thrive and our music businesses prosper.

Yes, we’re all in business, and OMM Belfast will be the friendly, focused and inspiring place where we’re all pulling in the same direction.

The next OMM Belfast takes place at the Limelight on Friday December 4th, from 6-9pm.

We’ll be looking at the mix of music, media and social networks, with perspectives from BalconyTV.com founder Stephen O’Regan and Gawain Morrison, founder of Filmtrip, musician, promoter and pioneer of alternate uses of music in media.”

For those of you on Facebook, the event is here

For more on Open Music Media check out www.openmusicmedia.wordpress.com or follow www.twitter.com/openmusicmedia

Time to Quit Myspace?

There’s quite an interesting discussion started over on MusicThinkTank regarding MySpace. Specifically, Andrew Dubber’s suggesting a mass exodus from the service. It’s a great read, as are the comments.

Here’re my thoughts on that idea. First off, MySpace is a bit like Celine Dion. It’s really cool to hate her, and definitely NOT cool to like her – Tim Westergren (honcho of online music service Pandora) tells a great story about Pandora & Celine Dion in a recent article for the NYT. The bottom line of which is maybe it’s NOT cool to like Celine but that shouldn’t make you hate or ignore her, if it’s possible that her music will serve it’s purpose.

It might also be a mistake to abandon MySpace if you’ve NO IDEA who or how many people actually ONLY KNOW YOUR MUSIC THROUGH MYSPACE. You could be cutting off hundreds of paying customers because you hate Celine Dion, so to speak. Not good and certainly worth considering before you pull the plug.

Much of the MTT post rings true, that MySpace is completely unfit for purpose, that it’s drastically underutilizing the resources it has.

But at the same time, and a similar point is made by Rich Dale in the comments, “to myspace” someone is an understandable action, just as understandable as “to google” something.

And it’s that simplicity that makes me think abandoning MySpace would be a terrible idea. In fact, it’d contrivene one of Andrew’s “20 Things You Must Know About Music Online” – Rule 9 “Don’t make me search for something, show me”. The lack of a barrier to entry that MySpace has created is it’s primary asset. And quite frankly, I’m happy if that’s all it’s used for.

If you’ve “quit myspace” recently, why? What combination of tools work best for you to build your fanbase and is MySpace part of that?

Update: A fantastic middle ground has also been presented in the comments! Replace your MySpace player with any widget from another music service (including Bandcamp). Hurrah for compromise! – http://su.pr/6jc2y6

Hey Pump Audio – What’s with all the fees?

So I just got my second email in less than a year from Music Licensing service Pump Audio, explaining that the fees (or in this case, percentage of master recording licensing) is increasing. Hilariously, one of the reasons they give for the increase is “the need to support 400+ Getty Images Sales & Support Staff”.

Let’s take a jump back in time -In 2006, Pump Audio were an innovative service who worked with artists of all stripes, taking your music and finding placements for the music in film, tv, advertising and digital media. They’d take 50% of any deal done (of the master side) and 50% of the publishers share of publishing royalties. Not a great deal, but not terrible, either. And as other players began to emerge in the space (Rumblefish, MuSync), this was pretty much the standard.

But in 2008, Getty Images bought Pump Audio. And that’s when the emails started coming in.

The “percentage of sales” model was, and still is, a popular model for these kinds of services. Indeed, distribution (both physical and digital), rely on it. But the real question is not “what percentage are you taking” but “what are you providing for that percentage?”

Where is the value-add that the company gives you and is it WORTH that percentage? When they tell you about their value add (e.g. marketing services, pitching to music supes or in Pump’s case “improvements in marketing technology” (huh?)), where is their track record for music like yours? And more importantly, for all the hoops you’ll be jumping through to sign up, will you simply get lost in the massive soup of music that exists on the services servers?

Reminds me of a quote by Ian Rogers:

“Any of us, myself included, that are not either the artist or the fan, are just potentially in the way. So it’s on us to provide value. To provide real value. And that’s fine with me. I’m very happy to say, OK, my company has to provide real value. My company is not about lock-in. It’s not about me owning your masters. It’s about me providing value to you, and if I can’t, well, then I should get the hell out of the way. So I really encourage you, when thinking about the music business, to think about marginal profitability for artists first and foremost, and to think about the companies that enable that, and to forget about the ones that don’t.”

So: would you, or have you, signed up and worked with companies like Pump Audio? What’s your experience? What could make them better for you, as an artist or label?

Spotify iPhone App – Just Not Good Enough (For Me)

So, I’ve had one month with Spotify’s iPhone app, and I’m cancelling my Premium subscription today. Below are some of the reasons why.

- Doesn’t run in background. When streaming music or playing the songs which you’ve previously cached (which is admittedly a cool feature), Spotify effectively disables your phone. You can’t do anything else while the music is playing and this is HUGE, given the myriad of tasks you can accomplish on an iPhone. You CAN, however, listen to your music on your iPhone from your iPod. Hmm, anything to do with WHY Apple approved the app in the first place?

– the caching is a very slow, even over wifi – this maybe more to do with how I interact with music (see below) but it’s just not going to be worth it for me to either a) remember to cache that Kanye West remix playlist the night before or b) wait 10 minutes while the playlist caches over my wifi network. Sue me for being demanding, but it’s just not good enough for how I work and consume music.

And that’s the major killer point here – the appeal of Spotify FREE is the instantaneousness of it. Think of a record, and it’s right there. But I don’t need to pay £9.99/month for that.

– Music recommendations are not intergrated or in any way useful. Partner with LastFM already, coz I’ve had it darting between the two to sample my new recommendations. This is a minor quibble, but could be a deal breaker in getting me back into the Premium fold.

All of the above, I’ve discovered, is related individually to how I prefer to consume and discover music, which is inherently different for each person (cool, huh?). Me? I want access to the music I love on a whim, and without having to pre-plan what music I’ll take with me on a trip. If I want to hear Phoenix all of a sudden on a run, I want it to be there on my iPod ready to go. And I damn sure want to check my emails while I’m on the bus listening to Common.

I just re-upped with eMusic today. It’s the best solution for me.

The pre-planning necessary with the Spotify app at the moment is too reminiscent of having a 12-disc CD holder to take with you on a plane, and invariably you’d be flying without a record that you REALLY want to listen to. Ah, the bad old days.

Are you using Spotify on iPhone? How’s it working for you?

More on Metrics…

Image via CrunchBase

If there’s one thing anyone tackling any project in the music industry knows, it’s vital to experiment. But let’s be clear here: an experiment is testing causal relationships among variables or testing a hypothesis. How can you test a hypothesis if you don’t have accurate instruments with which to test it?

The advertising industry has already recognized “how poor metrics are undermining digital marketing“, and the same is absolutely true for music marketing.

I mentioned BandMetrics in my last post, and I’m also a fan of Trendrr. Google Alerts is a clumsy but useful tool – and there are many off-shoots or versions of Google Alerts (such as Addictomatic) that can be used to track buzz, but they all feel like blunt instruments.

Here’s my question: WHERE are the great innovators in music metrics? What metrics or services are YOU using to find out where, when and how often fans are listening to your music?

Update: Just heard about a very interesting metrics tracking site called www.trendly.com – it more usefully interprets your Google Analytics data, presenting trends etc. Just dipping into it now, but looks very promising!

Metrics and New Measurements of Success

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The launch of BandMetrics had me all excited – I really thought it was a game changer in the music industry and said as much.

So I suppose an explanation is in order. Basically, it’s about Clout. In essence, the web knows something, something deeply intricate about how people listen to our music, how people talk about it and as Seth Godin puts it, it’s not telling. At least, not yet.

Amazon’s “people who bought x also bought y” was the Penny Farthing bicycle of this stone age process of understanding how your fans interact with you. LastFM’s Music Manager or YouTube’s Insight is the pneumatic tire, just one part of an important whole. Google Analytics is great but is too technical for a quick read.

What we need is the automobile version of this process – a process simple enough and precise enough to quickly and easily interpret data and get where we need to go .

I’m not going to categorize BandMetrics in this light as it’s still in beta, but I feel it’s the first attempt to really tackle what is, to me, an essential problem with marketing music online.

Essentially, right now we’re using an ax when what we need is a scalpel.

And if you develop the scalpel, you’ll do one of two things:

1) You’ll create an incredibly valuable piece of software that could be potentially very lucrative.
2) You’ll increase exponentially the chances of artists becoming marginally profitable.

End of the summer…

Ah, Labor Day. The last day of summer – at least it would be if I were still in the USA. Things have been baking, shifting, moving in the heat this past six weeks, and that can only be a good thing. Penny’s always been about evolution

To wit, here’s what’s coming out of the oven:

El Corazon

In addition, the next step for Penny is called Penny Black. It has always been part of The Plan but now it’s got my full attention, enthusiasm and some proper muscle behind it. Should be good…

Things change quickly out here, and we can’t be standing still, now can we?

Albums of the Decade #4: The Runners Four by Deerhoof

There seems to be a certain pattern with recorded music that I’ve listened to over the past 10 years.

Some records make sense right away – they instantly take hold of your ears but often fade in significance quickly over time.

Others completely baffle initially but eventually, with an iPod on shuffle or a feeling of “I MUST understand this album somehow”, the record blossoms.

It’s a very satisfying feeling – like the sound of a pebble thrown into a pond or the reassuring click of a lock. At this point the record becomes like a novel, something deeper you can delve into, and on each return visit reveal some new treasure that makes my relationship to that record deeper.

The chaotic squelching of Deerhoof is certainly one of the more baffling aspects of their music- but they handle songwriting with what could almost be called “pop” sensibilities – matching the whirling drums and squealing guitars with simple “stuck-in-your-head” sugary riffs.

Guitarist John Dietrich described this apparent paradox well in a recent interview for State “On the surface, it doesn’t make any sense. We’re attempting to create something very specific together but which also requires the moment to moment ability of the people in the band to react to whatever’s happening. In reality, I don’t think that it’s the improvisation itself that always is what is important. It’s the feeling that anything can happen that’s important. “

It’s that feeling of “anything can happen” that I look for in any kind of music. One that’s both chaotic and yet manages to retain some semblance of structure – it’s the edge of something, where music is it’s most luminous, vibrant and at its most human.

And this feeling is borne out throughout this record (and, as it turns out, on stage too)

One of the tracks, “Wrong Time Capsule” opens with an almost Hendrix-esque riff, which belies the guitar squleching to come. But the middle section is beautiful beyond description, with Satomi softly singing “Skip the wave, syncopate, forwards-backwards” – seemingly singing about the very paradox the band represent.

Subsequent song, “Spirit Ditties of No Tone”, opens with a Tropacalia-esque groove morphing into a piercing guitar ostinato. There are moments, as there are throughout this record, where the whole song seems to careen toward a cliff but is somehow saved at the last moment – or as in the case of this track – simply drift off into 90 secs of oblivion.

“Scream Team” throws the listener back into a simple rocker but soon decends into an off time vocal-matched-with-guitar-riff bender.

It’s sequences like this throughout the 20 tracks of “The Runners Four” that make Deerhoof such an exciting band – and this record their best. It’s not that it’s perfect, by any means. But after many, many listens you still feel that anything could happen.

Started in March, my Albums of the Decade series was based on there being 10 months left in the 10th year of the decade. Each month I look at an album that, for me, has been a musical highlight of the last 10 years. Other Entries:

#1 – You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene

#2 – Thee More Shallow by More Deep Cuts

#3 – Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane – Live at Carnegie Hall