Three Favorite Things
1 and 2) The Wolfgang's Vault and Daytrotter iPhone Apps: Wolfgang's Vault is the most important chronicle of live music available today. Daytrotter is my filter for new music. I know that everyone Daytrotter (a.k.a. Sean Moeller) records is someone I should be listening to. To me, both collections are about humanity. Wolfgang's Vault is unedited, undoctored history. Daytrotter is modern what-you-see-is-what-you-get recordings. The artistry speaks for itself (or, in some cases, it doesn't - which is just as great, in my opinion). You can savor the moments where everyone is in a groove and just NAILS a song just as much as you can hear where the guitarist is exhausted during the last song of a two-hour set. I can't tell you how fantastic and refreshing this is to me. Finally, something real! There are iPhone apps for both Wolfgang's Vault and Daytrotter, and I can't begin to express the joy I feel when I'm listening to this music while traveling 80mph through the straight vastness of a Nevada desert or the slow, snakey turns of a mountain road. Makes me feel lucky to be alive.
3) Conversation: This is more of an IDEA than it is one specific thing. I'm absolutely fascinated and enthralled by the conversations that today's tech has enabled and the speed with which they happen. It delights me to no end that an ego can go on a rant on a Hollywood set, and in less than 24 hours you can download the techno remix, the spoof, and the parody of the spoof. I'm not saying these things are great in and of themselves, but the fact that they can happen is great.
Something I Learned About the Music Industry This Year
Music is free. I'm not talking about $ signs. I'm talking about independence. Freedom. The vast and unnecessary divide between art and commerce is closing up, disappearing right before our eyes. It used to be about what you were willing to give up in order to achieve a certain level of success. Your income/fame/success was often directly proportional to how much you were willing to give up -- copyright, creative control, your image, your integrity. This is a basic explanation for the nearly universal animosity felt towards the old system and why people are so gung-ho about what's coming, even though no one knows what exactly IS coming. Everybody has a sense that the changes we are experiencing are good. And they are. They are good for artists and they are good for art. It's now entirely possible for many people to sustain a career on original craft. To live well and create well. How amazing is that?! We live in a fantastic time! It will only get better...
A 2010 Primer
The music business is finally getting serious about art, so musicians need to start getting serious about business. There is no art vs. commerce in the new landscape. It is commerce that has always allowed artists to create (be it through royal patronages in the past or major label marketing machines more recently). Old commerce had a tendency to distort by nature of its immensity. The importance and attention given to one person or one project was overinflated. Things are more in balance now. Artists have more control now. It's now more important than ever to have a good sense of how the music business works (of course, no one really KNOWS for sure what's going on right now, but I'm talking about familiarizing yourself with various revenue opportunities, music business lingo, marketing principles, and the like). Every musician is an entrepreneur! By law (it's in the U.S. Constitution), when you fix an original expression of an idea in tangible form, you've created a copyright which affords you certain rights, including the right to be compensated for your work under certain conditions. That's a business, plain and simple. If you create original work, you have created a business. So run your business well. You can't afford not to. This is nothing new, but it is something everyone will need to embrace going forward.About Me
I've started thinking of myself less as a marketer/consultant and more of an advocate of ideas, people, and companies I believe in. Much like the music business, I feel like I'm part of a unique generation of folks who are empowered to take control of their careers. By piecing together different components, it's possible for me to make a living doing things I believe in. I've been working with Artists House Music for just over a year now, and we've done a lot with the short time we've had. In less than a year, we went from zero (0) to over 20,000 twitter followers! We've hosted many musicians in our own homes to do online video chats with those in our community. We're continually adding to our already large database of videos and articles to help educate and empower musicians and music entrepreneurs alike. All in all, I get the sense we're building a better music business. Not so much because of what we're doing specifically, but because those in our community are demanding it and are often leading the way forward.
You can get in touch with me through my website at http://www.andrewstephengoodrich.com (which may or may not work, depending on how the planets are aligned) or e-mailing me at andrewsgoodrich [at] gmail.com I'm on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/visualalchemy
