DubMC

Hope in Numbers: The Music Industry Turnaround

Tom Silverman, industry veteran and founder of Tommy Boy Records, recently tossed down the gauntlet to all the industry doomsayers: The numbers are in, and the music industry is recovering from its low point (which Silverman says hit in February 2010).  

Silverman points hopefully to growing sales for everything from vinyl records to digital “albums,” to the continuing interest in physical CDs, and to rising amounts of li censing and royalty fees—including those collected from digital and non-traditional broadcasters. Instead of an inevitable demise, the music industry appears to be experiencing a transitional moment, the kind that shook up the business several times over the course of history.

Social media platforms—YouTube in particular—seem to be playing a major part in driving this boom, in particular in the “discovery” of new artists. How all this plays out for "global" music remains to be seen: While more and more artists seem poised to break into once unimaginable media spaces, the deepening of online trusted sources and recommendation engines seems to be taking longer for global sounds than indie rock.

See Silverman’s full post here, complete with lots of very cool charts and graphs.

Arts Presenters Conference Snapshot for Global Music

People attending the Arts Presenters conference should consider downloading the Unofficial Guide to Global Music Showcases here: http://on.fb.me/Unofficial2012

 

 

Here is a snapshot of select APAP sessions that might be of interest to attendees interested in global music:

 

 

January 6 Friday

9 am to 12 pm World Music and Outdoor Festival Panels. Part I: Madeline Boughton, Ireland; Rene Schreiber, Israel; Pavla Niklova, Czech Republic; Cees de Bever, The Netherlands; Kelly Langgard, Canada; Anna Efraimsson, Sweden. Part II: Scott Aiges,  New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation; Erika Elliott,  Summer Stage, New York City; Danny Melnick, Absolutely Live Entertainment, LLC, New York City; Dan DeWayne, California World Fest, Grass Valley, Ca. and Director, Chico Performances, Cal State University Chico.

1 pm to 3 pm How World Music Presenters Can Increase Organizational Media Presence. Moderated by Dmitri Vietze, rock paper scissors. Not to be missed :)

2 pm to 3 pm U.S. Regional Arts Organizations' New International Funding Initiatives - Arts Midwest and MidAtlantic Arts Foundation

January 7 Saturday

8 am to 9 am Center Stage Special Session, 10 Intl Artists Touring in 2012, Sheraton, Conf. C

10 am to 11:30 am World Arts: An Investment in your Community. With Dawn Elder; Ranjanaa Deva, Asian Arts & Culture Program, University of Massachusetts; Matt Wolf, Kimmel Center, Inc.; Ismael Ahmed, University of Michigan; Jordan Peimer, Skirball Cultural Center; Matias Tarnopolsky, Cal Performances; Simon Shaheen, Homayoun Sakhi.

January 8 Sunday

9 am to 11 am Visa Tips Consultation Salon

9 am to 11 am Foreign Artist Tax Withholding: Not! Consultation Salon

January 9 Monday

9 am to 11 am Foreign Artist Tax Withholding: Not! Consultation Salon

Full schedule here

SEO, Wikifying, and Creative Commons: A year-end round up of quick DIY for musicians

CD Baby's DIY Musician put together a handy little year-end round up.

It includes a couple different directions you can pursue to raise your profile and manage your band's impact and career.

Highlights:

• Search Engine Optimization for your band/project (ostensibly in layperson's terms);
• Building a fine Wikipedia page for your group;
• How musicians can use Creative Commons.

What useful tips or advice have you found in the past year?

The Parable of the Pilot: Using the Sky and the Runway to Prepare

An NPR producer once spent a few months living in the small college town where rock paper scissors is headquartered. I took him to a demolition derby and he took me up in a two-seat airplane; he was an amateur pilot. It was pretty wild being above the clouds in such a small plane held up by old-school propellers. Especially when he had me take the wheel. 

But while we were in the air, he told me a great pilot saying: "You cannot use the runway behind you or the sky above you." Though you would think it would be safer to be closer to the ground, it's safer to be higher away from the ground so that when your engine dies, you have more time to find a good emergency landing location. The same goes for the runway on take-off: Never start in the middle of the runway. Start as far back as you can so that if something comes up, you have more time to strategize and figure out an alternative. 

The same approach that works for daredevil pilots works for thinking about the lead time you need for a successful publicity or marketing push. You can start too soon; people wouldn't be ready to make the purchase. But in most cases, it’s easier to start farther back, with ample space and time to make changes in your strategy. The more time you have--the more sky beneath you and runway ahead of you--the better.

If a strategy is not working for your album release, tour publicity, or festival launch, wouldn’t it be nice to have enough time to change course? That doesn’t work so well after an album is released or, worse yet, after a concert is over. Once of the simplest ways to use the runway is to start further back; that is, schedule your release or event with more time.

What are you waiting for? Hurry up and schedule something with more lead time.

Dub MC is sponsored by rock paper scissors, the global music publicity firm.

Xenomania, Abridged (and Linked Up)

It’s a cliché: The internet has utterly transformed the way Westerners hear music from elsewhere, throwing the notion of “world music” into (even more) confusion and doubt.

In his recent thoughtful essay for MTV Iggy, music writer Simon Reynolds finds a new angle on this worn story—and name-checks some interesting artists—by tracing the recent history of trans-cultural appropriation and reverberation. He points to some dynamics sparking new sound phenomena (or at least new in the West; follow the links to hear more):

• There’s a slew of genres considered shady and nasty in their home communities that have turned into hot club music in the West, thanks to European and North American DJs and producers, some of whom hail from immigrant communities.
  
  Reynolds gives the examples of Brazilian carioca funk (Zuzuka Poderosa; baile DJ mix), Angolan kuduro (the wildly popular Costuleta; DJ mix), and pan- African dance crazes like coupé decalé (Congo-born, France-based singer Jessy Matador, say)—all of which Euro and American DJs have taken a shine to, as the proliferation of mixes shows. He also points to the back-and-forth between émigrés and club kids, citing the fascinating Dutch subgenre of Bubblin’ and artists like Anti-G;
  

• The Western craving for vintage global re-imaginings of American and British pop forms, from Japanese rock (The Mops, say) and Indonesian rock to psychedelic Turkish folk bands and, of course, Brazil’s Os Mutantes;
  
  
• The intense hipster pursuit of undiscovered (especially African) recordings, of global rarities and exotic digital ephemera with all their glitches and scratches (like Sublime Frequencies’ releases of cell phone music from the Sahara—check out this track from Niger);
  
  
• The long, long history of the fascination of key jazz, pop, and rock figures with turning global traditions into sounds for the shaping (starting with Miles and ending most recently with young, hip bands like Gang Gang Dance).
  
  

For Reynolds, these trends and bands prove a central point: that just as temporal lines are blurred and increasingly ignored online in the (re-)creation of new music (retromania) “geographical boundaries are becoming meaningless,” in a Western drive to consume the culturally exotic (xenomania). And he connects this swelling, boundless appetite for the world’s music with the sad state of Western pop and rock. Groaning under the weight of their own extensive historyies—and perhaps struggling in a post-label world—the pop/rock/classical scenes need an infusion of fresh energy, as their own potential feels so used up.

In other words, global sounds—even the goofy, raunchy ones—are breathing new life into Western music.

Wanted (A)Live: Why Concerts Up the Impact of Publicity in an Intensely Competitive New Media World

Part II in a series, Getting the Bang for your Publicity Buck

In the days of yore—you know, ten years ago—there were lots of people writing album reviews. These reviews made it to print and to the eyes of readers. These reviews stood alone: The artist may have never even set foot in the city where the publication came out, and the reviewers’ taste (or lack thereof) governed what got covered and what didn’t.

Everything has changed. Traditional outlets have gone under, cut staff dramatically, rethought their strategies, and so on and so forth. You know the story. Sure, there are still critics and CD reviews aplenty, and there are high-impact, national, regional, and local outlets where reviews still run—and the competition to get their attention is fierce.

So what’s a musician to do to seriously liven up an album publicity campaign? Answer: Play live.

We’re not talking a massive national tour that starts on New Years and ends on Halloween, hitting every stadium from Bangor to Bellingham. A few shows, in major markets or regional hubs. A really good show at a venue with some clout and cache (and a couple other nearby dates, to fill things out). An unexpected festival appearance (Iroquois drummer at Bonnaroo!).

And lo! The press gets more interested.

Why does this work? A significant slice of the coverage in the national, regional, and local outlets open to rising musicians (as opposed to Jay Z or Keith Richards) is now almost completely yoked to local shows. Even in big markets like New York. The stand-alone reviews of yesteryear have been exchanged at many alternative weeklies and papers for the review-with-concert-mention, using live dates to power content. 

There may also be a psychological element to all this. A live show is a deadline. Journalists today, overburdened and under-supported after staff cuts or as freelancers, need something to nail down potential coverage. Looking at a huge pile of CDs may be a thing of joy for the critics of old, but may feel like a stack of despair to someone trying to cover a major city’s music practically singlehandedly. And, mysteriously, even big national outlets sometimes respond more to a project that involves performances as well as a new album. Go figure.

This doesn't mean you can't get reviews for your album without a tour. But if you have the option, getting the stars to align with a live show+album release will maximize your publicity investment and boost your campaign's potential. So when you’re wrapping up those mixes, think booking, and you'll double your chance of landing press for the album.

Unofficial Guide to Global Music, APAP 2012, submissions now open

Each year global music PR firm rock paper scissors, inc. compiles an unoffical guide to all the global and cross-cultural music taking place during the annual APAP/Arts Presenters Conference which takes place in New York City. Following in the wake of the popular annual globalFEST showcase, a huge number of global and globally-minded performers take the stage in New York during APAP. Some are official showcases, some less formal, some are curated by local concert presenters, some are produced by booking agents (of all sizes), and some are pulled together by independent artists. While the walls of the "world music" category melt into this era of extreme eclecticism, the Unoffocial Guide to Global Music at APAP still has a role to play to help performing arts professionals with a global ear (or two) wade through the thousands of concerts, magic shows, ice capades, and comedy routines on tap.

How to submit a global concert/showcase to this guide?

• Download this Excel spreadsheet
• Add you showcase(s)
• Save the spreadsheet to your computer
• Email the spreadsheet to guide [at] rockpaperscissors [dot] biz by deadline: 12/15/2011

What will happen with the Guide?

• We will post the final guide here on DubMC.com for APAP attendees to print out on their own and use as a guide for selecting showcases to attend.
• We will let people know about it on FA-World, Facebook (via the rock paper scissors page), and on Twitter.

How much does it cost?

• We do not charge to be in the guide.
• We do not charge to use the guide.
• You can get prime real estate in the official APAP website and program here and purchase a trade hall exhibitor stand through APAP here.

We encourage anyone serious about booking a tour to register and attend APAP. Our intent with this unsanctioned, unofficial, informal guide is to help the global music professional community. Please check all times, locations, and details with the organizer of eaxch individual showcase before planning your schedule as thie is a crowd-sourced schedule that is bound to have errors.

 

Taking the Lead: Why Timing Will Make or Break Your Campaign

Part I in a series, Getting the Bang for your Publicity Buck

Listen. We publicists are an accommodating lot. We’ll try, we really will, to get you press, no matter what.

But there are ways you can wildly increase the chance that our efforts (which are really your efforts) will translate into media response. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be talking about some of the most straightforward ways to maximize your publicity investment.

One of the main ways—and one of the aspects many artists, alas, flub—is timing. Seriously, you should never find yourself looking at a box of nice, new, shiny CDs (or a successful upload to an online retailer) and thinking, wow, wouldn’t it be nice to hire a publicist. Especially if you have a reasonable shot at making it into a national music magazine or onto a popular national radio show.

Here’s the best time to start reaching out to the media:

Long lead: Fashion and lifestyle magazines are a challenge for non-A listers to begin with. They often look for content way far in advance. We’re talking 6 months, on the short side. If you’ve missed that window, you may still have a chance at some online love from a major mag, but don’t get too fixated on print coverage.

Same thing goes for major TV shows; your chances plummet if you don’t plan very, very far in advance (and can make a show’s particular slot, not always an option for international touring artists). National TV can take as much as a year, sometimes.

Other outlets—music magazines, some freelancers with big-name outlets—should also be pitched very early in the process. Think 4-6 months for ideal results.

Short lead: This includes national papers (give them no less than 6 weeks), national radio (think 8 weeks), and tour-related press (alt weeklies, blogs, regional and local papers, etc). Ideally, you want to have your materials ready (and mailed, if you’re going to send out physical product) and raring to go 7-8 weeks before the first tour date or the album release.

In other words, if you want your album reviewed in a national music magazine, you need to be ready 6 months (at least) in advance. Even rough mixes and/or video can work, if you’re making appealing music or have a strong visual element. Then you need to bank on at least two months if you’re after some good coverage on tour or in national papers.

One month out? Your publicist may be biting her nails and praying for a miracle. Two weeks out? Good luck.

Dub MC is brought to you by rock paper scissors, inc., a global music publicity firm.

And yes, we will help you time things beautifully.

 

WOMEX Announces 2012 Host City: Thessaloniki, Greece

After three years in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 2009 to 2011, WOMEX will be moving south in 2012. The new host city is Thessaloniki, Greece’s second major economic and political centre, located right by the Mediterranean Sea. With its 2300-year past, it's one of the oldest cities in Europe and a true cultural melting pot, bearing traces of an eventful history between Orient and Occident. Renowned for its vibrant cultural life, it is considered to be Greece's cultural capital.

Next year, WOMEX will be taking place one week earlier than usual, from Wednesday, 17 to Sunday, 21 October 2012.

Daniela Teuber, WOMEX Director of Production, states: "We're very much looking forward to moving to Thessaloniki in 2012. It's the first time ever that WOMEX will be taking place in Southeastern Europe, and it's a great opportunity for our 2500 delegates and 300 artists from all over the world to discover Greece and the Balkans - and its musical treasures - and to boost business contacts and exchange in the region."

The local Steering Committee WOMEX 12 Thessaloniki adds: "We are very happy to welcome WOMEX and all WOMEXicans to our sunny and colorful city. The 2012 edition in Thessaloniki will be an inspiring and tasty contribution to WOMEX's musical journey through Europe."

WOMEX's new partners for 2012 are Helexpo S.A., Thessaloniki's congress and exhibition centre; Gaia Live, an established and well-versed concert promoter; the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Municipality of Thessaloniki.

Further details on the new WOMEX host city will be revealed at the WOMEX Press Conference at Forum Copenhagen during WOMEX, on Saturday afternoon, 29 October at 16:15.

Secret Agent Plan: Two Stages to Getting on Big Stages

So, you think you’re ready for that national tour, those major venues. All you need is a booking agent, right?

Whoa there! First, lay your groundwork to get the most out of a relationship with an agent.

Global musicians, especially those new to the U.S., need to do lots of preliminary work before chasing down the best woman or man for the job. Without a strong following to start with, it will be tough to convince a pro to take you on in the current, highly competitive global music market. 

Here are two stages to mounting your campaign to get repped, and several pointers to get you moving.

1. Secure a following—and track it.

--Build a local fan base that allows you to earn money from ticket sales. If you can’t turn a profit on your home turf, how are you going to do it elsewhere?

--Grow that fan base in concentric circles, from local to regional to national, from niche to broader audience. And track your social media following by geography on sites like Next Big Sound. If someone sees you’re well positioned to draw an audience, they’ll be eager to work with you.

If you’re looking to break into North America, try putting a small tour together on your own. A few festivals and clubs and some good press, and you’ll be more likely to woo an agent worthy of your time and money.

--Have really good live video so future agents can get a taste of your live show. Hone in on ways to engage live, though onstage stories, costumes, visuals, lighting, and movement.

‎--Develop a narrative for each tour that you are pitching, so that an agent can see how easy it would be easy to build momentum around this concept. It can be simple, but intriguing.

2. Find your (wo)man.

--Identify agents whose repertoire is relevant to you and study the music of the artists on their roster. A good agent’s roster should be well curated, with some interesting variety but an overall sense of vision. There should be some art to it.

--Look for someone with excellent social skills and strong relationships with the presenters and venues you’re hoping for, someone who knows when to turn up the heat and when to back off.  An agent should be friendly, knowledgeable, and highly motivated and organized. If you’re not getting that impression, look elsewhere

--Develop authentic relationships with booking agents in your town and at music industry conferences. Don’t just pitch them; dance with them, eat with them, help promote their artists. Show them you are human, and not just trying to get something from them.

Scroll down on the far right for a long list of agents excited about global music. DubMC is sponsored by rock paper scissors, inc., a global music publicity firm.