I discovered Bandcamp lastnight and am amazed at how well they’ve nailed the essentials of the interface design for an artist’s music site. I’m uploading my stuff there now. Here’s one of their little players that’s embeddable.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Then in Nov I had a beautiful baby girl named Anais Sky and in all of this, FOK DUB dun got forgot. But as I look forward to 2010, it’s FOK DUB that makes me happy… using the Web to get it out, using social media creatively, bringing my secret stages and dream gigs online, and climbing my own personal Mt. Everest.
The tension is in time, the calendar. Family first. Maile and Anais are 1 and 2, but 3 is me and in the few hours left in the week there isn’t room for lots of big plans. What big plans is there room for? [click to continue…]
Hugh MacLeod says “Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.” and I know what he’s talking about.
For about two decades now I’ve know that my greatest contributions to this world, apart from my personal love and service to those around me, would be my songs. And I’d say that for at least the last decade I’ve known that the Mt. Everest I need to climb is the one I create out of those songs, that I write, sing, and record. And that mountain is the catalog I build and will leave behind.
I know that apart from loving and serving my people, the thing I gotta keep doing to keep my soul engaged, my heart alive, and brain on fire is add to that catalog as masterfully and urgently as possible. Especially now that I am a happy family man, well employed and content, it is imperative that I share my joy and not to lose that sense of urgency and craftsmanship.
Every time something interrupts my making music I am pulled off the path, and boredom and misery creep in when I am not writing songs. My job is to climb, and filter out all that does not help me further and faster up the mountain.
It’s about recognizing that the music itself can enhance the value of everything else, whether it’s shows, access or merchandise, and that letting fans share music can help increase the market and create more fans willing to buy compelling offerings. It’s about recognizing that even when the music is shared freely, there are business models that work wonders, without copyright or licensing issues even coming into play.
The first “leveling” came with ProTools. Then came non-label distribution. Now social media has emerged and…
We now arrive at a place where musicians/artists are comparable to chefs. All chefs, within reason, have access to the same ingredients…
Being an “artist” today means coming to terms with this leveling. How will you put your ingredients together in a manner that creates attraction and retention. These ingredients go beyond the musical notes, obviously, and relate to all facets of your work: your relationship with your market, your “brand,” etc.
What I think I’m most looking forward to, beyond the emergence of music/art that never would have emerged prior to this Leveling, is the lack of excuses that will exist… Since forever the artists’ fingers have wagged at: the label, the distributor, the publicist, the radio person, the web designer, the booking agent, the management … pretty much everyone but themselves.
The future belongs to those like Thomas Keller, David Chang, Ferran Adrià, Chris Bianco. Artists who use the ingredients that are available to everyone else, but combine them – in an alchemical manner – to create something truly remarkable and unique.
My hope is that content holders will make it even easier for their customers to engage with their content… VRM is that “Customers are born free and independent of vendors.” Another is, “Customers can assert their own terms of engagement and service.” It would behoove all of us on the supply-side to remember these things.
Tom Asacker warns against outdated concepts of branding:
So what’s next? Certainly not “branding;” at least not in the conventional sense. The notion that a marketplace offering is a static, transactional thing that needs the right injection of cosmetics and communication to bring it to life is flawed thinking in today’s environment…
Ours is an era of purpose and action. What’s next are ideas and creative execution.
Here are most of the plugins from the above lists, with the ones that are listed by each at the top, along with how many times they are listed.
