Dubtribe Sound System - 17 Oct 2009, San Francisco
Digeum Mix Sessions - Volume 02, Session Victor. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Tuesday, August 11, 2009. Runs 1:19:16 at 128 bpm. First Digeum mix in three weeks. Genre: House.
“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” — Clifton Fadiman (1904 - 1999)
In memory of John Hughes (1950 - 2009)
2½ years ago, a group of us got together in San Francisco. Emily was bored, put out a message, and I headed up to San Francisco to hang out. We decided to head to the Haight, called Kevin and Tantek. After they’d arrived and we started to figure out where to have lunch, I quipped, “We’re just one girl short of the Breakfast Club.” Kevin called up Carla and we had our princess.
We found a copy of the movie and shot this photo in Kevin’s flat.
Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club 2.0
“There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.” — James Lovell, Astronaut, Apollo XIII
“I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.” — Anatole France, French novelist (1844 - 1924)
tedr:
Trent Reznor from the Nine Inch Nails has some great advice for young, unknown artists trying to make it.
via Trent:
Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
To clarify:Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this - give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.
Don’t have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [www.amazon.com]
Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]
Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.
The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So… have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).
The Beastie Boys’ site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in - available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging - they are established and you are not. Think this through.
The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on - like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content - pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.
If you don’t know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don’t get it - find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig - good luck, you’re going to be waiting a while.
I scratched this for you on the summit of Half Dome at Yosemite National Park in California. June 18, 2009. It would have been so much sweeter, if I could have shared this moment with you.
“I’m going to tell you something really subverse. Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it… It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, and risking everything for. And if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.”— Erica Jong via libraryland (via gatekeeper) (via quote-book) (via fcg)