Radio Radio

Life and work have gotten in the way of my blogging recently and I have not had the opportunity to review some of the topics that I am really interested in. I resolve to do better. In the interim, NPR’s Morning Edition has run three fascinating reports this week on some current controversial topics in the music industry.

On Tuesday of this week, they ran a long  study of the pros and cons of crowd funding vehicles such as Kickstarter. The story was important because it showed that for everyone who raises a million bucks on Kickstarter, there’s another artist who couldn’t even meet half her goal. This is also the first story that I recall that brings up the important point that not all artists want to shill for themselves on the internet. It was a fascinating piece and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in trying to start a Kickstater (or similar) campaign. Here’s the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/25/161702900/crowd-funding-for-musicians-isnt-the-future-its-the-present

The next day they ran a story on Spotify and how record labels, publishers and artists actually receive money from the service.  Although I am not sure that the reporter did a great job explaining the economics, the piece did show the current state of Spotify’s royalty payments in all the grim reality. I found this fascinating. Here’s the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/26/161758720/how-musicians-make-money-by-the-fraction-of-a-cent-on-spotify

Finally, today’s story focused on You Tube and how it has rapidly become the music on demand spot for new music listeners (and I thought it was just a place for watching old Rolling Stones videos…) Again, fascinating/controversial stuff. Listen especially to the comments made by the guitarist from the Dead Kennedys.: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/27/161837316/youtube-shares-ad-revenue-with-musicians-but-does-it-add-up

All in all, three really important stories from NPR.

Kickstarter: The New Patronage Model

A few weeks ago the manager of my office building asked if I could please leave work early one evening because a production company would be filming on my floor. I was happy to have an excuse to leave early, so I readily obliged.

The next day I was pleasantly surprised to see Steve Taylor filming with a crew on my floor. I don’t know Steve all that well, but I know of him as a sort of renaissance guy: musician (he was an amazing front-man in the band Chagall Guevera), writer, record company exec, producer, video director, and now apparently filmmaker.

I later learned that the film Steve was making is an adaptation of Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz. I just read an article in the Nashville Scene about the financing of the film.
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And here is where it gets interesting. Apparently the original funding for the film fell through and the producers turned to the online service Kickstarter to raise money for the production. According to the article, they raised $345,992 in one month making it “the largest crowd funded creative project in American history,” according to the Scene.

I have heard of other amazing stories about Kickstarter. Coincidentally, I have a client who raised $14,000 to record an album in one month through approximately 155 donors (that averages around $121 each). Kickstarter keeps 10% of the money raised (5% for itself and 5% for Amazon for handling the transaction).

I have always been wary of most patronage type arrangements but this seems to be emerging as a significant new model. Any artist with a devoted fan base can look to their fans for actual support. This is a very direct way for an artist to connect with their audience and is yet another way that technology is supporting the independent artist.