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.

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.