FROM DEBRA RUSSELL’S ARTISTS EDGE NEWSLETTER – FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS NOT DEAD”!
[RANT] I am sick and tired of reading articles and blogposts that scream out “… doomsday – the sky is falling, the music industry is dead – it was killed by the internet. Blah, blah, frikkin’ blah!”Enough already! It’s just so much crap! The music industry isn’t dead. IT’S CHANGED! What’s dead are the companies that refused to change with it. And I am just so over the reporters and bloggers who are much more interested in talking about doom and gloom. What’s failed, dead, dying. Instead of looking at what’s actually working now.
In The Recession-Proof Business: Lessons from the Greatest Recession Success Stories of All Time, Victor Cheng gives us specific guidance about how to create a successful business in the midst of great upheaval and change.
“Forget the overall macro economy numbers; look for where the money is flowing to and position your business to piggyback off it.” Victor Cheng
And I think we can all agree that the last 15 years has been a time of great upheaval and change for the Music Industry. The last 6 years have been a time of great upheaval and change for all industries. This is old news.
So what’s my point? We can whine and moan about what’s past and gone. We can doom and gloom about how HARD its going to be for you to create your successful business given the challenges of the time.
But I say – To HELL WITH THAT! What does that give you? It certainly doesn’t help you move forward towards your goals and dreams. Instead of focusing on all of the obstacles and challenges:
• Look at who is making their business work for them.
• Look at who your specific target market is and what their needs are.
• And look at where your fans are currently spending their money.
And then innovate. How can you uniquely solve their problems?
Apply your creativity to creating a promise that will not only solve your target market’s problems, but shows them how deeply and clearly you see them, understand them and serve them.
In my class “Internet Marketing & Social Media – a Complete Waste of Time or the Key to Your Success“, I use Jonathan Coulton and Amanda Palmer as case studies of 2 artists who did exactly that. They saw the opportunity of the internet and social media and put themselves in front of that wave. There are companies and artists who are making a fine living in this world. I say find them, study them and then apply their lessons to your unique voice.
You can either ride the wave of the future or be wiped out by it. What will you choose?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Kaye
FEMALE BASSIST CAROL KAYE RECOGNIZED ON CBS THIS MORNING
Carol Kaye is an American musician, best known as one of the most prolific and widely heard bass guitarists in history, playing on an estimated 10,000 recording sessions in a 55-year career.
As a session musician, Kaye was the bassist on many Phil Spector and Brian Wilson productions in the 1960s and 1970s. She played guitar on Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” and is credited with the bass tracks on several Simon & Garfunkel hits and many film scores by Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin. One of the most popular albums Carol contributed to was the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
Born: March 24, 1935 (age 79) in Everett, Washington
Occupations: Session musician, teacher
Instruments: Electric bass guitar, guitar
Years active: 1950s–present
Associated acts: The Beach Boys, Phil Spector, The Doors, Ritchie Valens, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, Sonny & Cher, Joe Cocker, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, Ike & Tina Turner, Johnny Mathis, Simon & Garfunkel, The Righteous Brothers, The Marketts, Herb Alpert, The Buckinghams, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, The Monkees, Buffalo Springfield, Howard Roberts, Joe Pass
Website http://www.carolkaye.com
Kaye was born in Everett, Washington, to professional musicians Clyde and Dot Smith. She grew up in poverty near Port Angeles and in 1949, at the age of fourteen began teaching guitar professionally. Throughout the 1950s, Kaye played bebop jazz guitar in dozens of nightclubs around Los Angeles with many noted bands including Bob Neal’s jazz group, Jack Sheldon backing Lenny Bruce, Teddy Edwards and Billy Higgins. By her own account, Kaye got into lucrative studio work “accidentally” in late 1957 with Sam Cooke. A few years later, when a bass player failed to show for a session at Capitol Records in Hollywood, she was asked to fill in on what was then often called the Fender bass. She was a member of the so-called “Wrecking Crew”, a name she rejects, preferring instead to call the group “The Clique”, a group of studio musicians that played on a large amount of hit records from Los Angeles in the 1960s.
Throughout the 1960s, Kaye played bass on a significant percentage of records that appeared on the Billboard Hot 100, though almost wholly unknown to the general public at the time. It has been estimated that she played in 10,000 recording sessions. Kaye played bass on many of the Beach Boys hit recordings, including “Help Me, Rhonda”, “Sloop John B”, and “California Girls”. She worked on Brian Wilson’s ill-fated but legendary Smile project and was present at the “Fire” session in late November 1966 when Wilson reportedly asked the studio musicians to wear toy fire hats. Kaye’s work also appears extensively on well-known television and film soundtracks from the 1960s and early 1970s.
She worked under most of the leading producers and musical directors in Los Angeles during that era, including Terry Melcher, Brian Wilson, Michel Legrand, Phil Spector, Elmer Bernstein, Lalo Schifrin, David Rose, Dave Grusin, Ernie Freeman, Hugo Montenegro, Leonard Rosenman, John Williams, Alfred Newman, David Axelrod and Lionel Newman. Her intense solo bass line, reverberating in quiet moments in Spector’s production of River Deep, Mountain High, lent drama to the song’s “Wall of Sound” and helped lift the record into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Kaye played the bass tracks on several of the Monkees hits, and did soundtrack work (including sound effects on bass guitar) for a young Steven Spielberg. Her tracks for Quincy Jones so impressed him, that he said in his 2001 autobiography Q that “… women like… Fender bass player Carol Kaye… could do anything and leave men in the dust.”
Kaye performed on several American television themes including the Quinn Martin produced Cannon, The Streets of San Francisco, Mission: Impossible, M*A*S*H, Kojak, Get Smart, Hogan’s Heroes, The Love Boat, McCloud, Mannix, It Takes a Thief, Peyton Place and the Cosby Show. She is credited with performing on the soundtracks of Hawaii Five-O, The Addams Family and The Brady Bunch along with Ironside, Room 222, Bonanza, Wonder Woman, Alias Smith & Jones, Run for Your Life and Barnaby Jones.
Beginning in 1969, she wrote How To Play The Electric Bass, the first of many bass tutoring books and DVD courses. She gave lessons to thousands of students, including John Clayton, Mike Porcaro, Alf Clausen, David Hughes, Tony Sales, Karl E. H. Seigfried, Roy Vogt and David Hungate. Kaye retired from studio work during the 1970s because of arthritis. She later became active again as a session musician, live jazz performer, and teacher of bass and guitar, giving seminars and interviews.
Kaye played 12-string guitar on Frank Zappa’s album Freak Out!. She also played on a few songs for his next album but declined to continue, saying she found some of the lyrics offensive. Kaye later said Zappa was good-natured and understanding about her qualms and they remained on friendly terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Kaye
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http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/121-things-not-to-do-in-the-music-industry.html
121 THINGS NOT TO DO IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY – PART IV
Post written by Dylan Lott of BandHacks; you can follow Dylan on Twitter @DylanLott
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file:
All too often, we get wrapped up in new tactics, new ideas, new plans and new ways of getting bigger and better as musicians. With social media and the internet, there’s so much information that it’s almost become immeasurable.
• This is great and all, but maybe we sometimes lose sight of what we shouldn’t be doing.
• There’s lots of stupid shit you shouldn’t be doing.
• Here’s a quick guide to what you shouldn’t be doing.
RECORDING
108. Don’t expect your drums to sound like Lars off the Black Album when you haven’t tuned them and put new heads on.
109. Don’t expect your sound engineer to work magic. This goes for live shows, too. Your instruments must sound good first.
110. Don’t show up to the studio without extra guitar strings, drum sticks, guitar picks, and drum heads.
111. Don’t forget to bring a source of entertainment. Studio time is 90% of waiting-for-someone-else time.
LOCAL SCENE AND SUPPORT
112. Don’t talk shit on your scene when you’re not doing anything to help it.
113. Don’t be an asshole, okay? Do you fucking get it? Stop that shit.
114. Don’t think you’re band is the best. You’re not.
115. Don’t stop trying to improve your live show.
116. Don’t shit on local bands because they’ll hurt you more than you think.
117. Don’t steal from other bands; Learn the subtle difference between paying homage and stealing.
118. Don’t show up late for the show. This goes for touring bands, too.
119. Don’t dip out before the show is over. Stay for all the bands.
120. Don’t be an elitist. If a band is doing well, then they’re doing something right, whether you agree or disagree with it.
121. Don’t stop supporting local music. If you start to get big, help out the local bands that you used to play shows with. They’re the same as you, and as much as you don’t want to admit it, they might deserve it just as much, if not more than you do.
AND FINALLY….
• Don’t forget why you got into this.
• Don’t stop putting your entire heart and soul into every show. It’s cliché, I know, but it’s true.
And there we have it. A cumulative list of 121 things to completely avoid.