On Splother

I had lunch yesterday with my friend Dave Durocher to learn more about his new venture, Splother. I wanted to write about Splother earlier when the Nashville Scene featured the company in its list on 10 new innovative companies in Nashville but to be honest I didn’t really understand what it was the company did. I do now.

I’ve known Dave for a long time and I have always admired him as one of the true good guys involved in music publishing. What I did not know is that he is also a computer whiz who, with some other talented people, has figured out how to streamline the music licensing process to create true one stop shopping for companies looking for independent music for film, television and other uses.

Most artists know that the traditional record deal no longer exists so the mantra has been to get your music into film and tv. However, the gatekeeper process in this world has been as complex and daunting as in the major label world. So, the brilliance of Splother is that it removes the artificial A+R bias and allows the music to compete on its own merit. One can argue (as I sometimes have) that there needs to be a filtering process but the companies and services that provide that are still alive and well. This is something for the truly independent artist.

There may be competing models out there but this site seems intuitive and smart and could become really significant as it develops. Dave’s enthusiasm for the concept is obvious and that’s a great thing to see these days. I’ve also enjoyed reading his partner Steve Toland’s blog comments on the website. This is a company worth watching carefully.