Song Contest Blog » Live Music

OurStage – Artist and Venue Marketplace

Lior Shamir — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:59:13 +0000

Battle-of-the-bands site, OurStage, signed a deal with concert giant, Live Nation, last month to offer its members the opportunity to fill high-profile opening slots. Through the OurStage Marketplace, participating artists can create a free electronic press kit for venue promoter’s consideration. The model is strikingly similar to Sonicbids, the leader in the artist-to-promoter submission business. OurStage has raised a staggering $20m since its launch in 2007 and, although the site’s traffic volume has dropped since its high profile inauguration, it appears that it is gaining renewed traction, boasting a healthy advertising model and strong reputation among the independent community.

Back from Dfest

Lior Shamir — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:12:28 +0000

Just returned from Dfest. The event was truly awesome. Tom and Angie, the power couple behind the Tulsan extravaganza, cut no corners and personally addressed every detail to ensure one of the most enjoyable and professionally productive weekends I have had in a very long time. I am confident that this sentiment is shared by my fellow panelists and the 30,000 odd music fans who congregated to bear witness to the likes of Cake, The Black Crowes, Citizen Cope, Gogol Bordello, and many many others. Whether you’re an industry pro, musician or music fan, make sure that Dfest is in your schedule for next summer!

Adam’s Attic – a personal touch here at Dfest

Lior Shamir — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:48:29 +0000

I’m at Dfest in Tulsa, OK. This morning, I found a small envelope under my door with my name on it. Inside, on branded stationary, a handwritten note from a band called Adam’s Attic, which said:

Lior,

We would be honored if you could make it out to our Dfest showcase. We would love to meet you afterwards.

Best regards,

Signed

I love it. It’s personalized and I can see that the person behind this note made a real effort to try and connect with me. I imagine that he or she looked my name up in the Dfest directory, found out which hotel I am staying at and my room number, and decided on the best way to get my attention without pissing me off.

There are a lot of bands playing this weekend. I will make every effort to catch Adam’s Attic’s show and, if I get the chance, speak to the band in person. This blog post is the least I can do.

Details of the show and contact information were included, of course.

You don’t need to do much to make a real and lasting impression.

Dfest Music Conference

Lior Shamir — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:02:20 +0000

I’ll be making an appearence at Dfest this weekend and sitting in on a couple of panels. If you’re going to be there, please get in touch!

Bruce Houghton on DIY Musician Podcast

Lior Shamir — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:43:55 +0000

Bruce Houghton, founder of Skyline Music, an artist booking agency, and author of leading Music Industry blog, Hypebot, makes his voice heard on the CD Baby DIY Musician Podcast. Listen to it here.

Kris Allen Wins American Idol

Lior Shamir — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:37:27 +0000

To my surprise, Kris Allen was voted as American Idol’s Season 8 Winner, defeating Adam Lambert who was seemingly the clear favourite. Even Katy Perry, who ravaged the stage during a cameo appearance in last week’s episode, displayed support for Adam Lambert wearing a cape with his name sewed on the back. Simon Cowell was puzzled by the final outcome but his consistent endorsement of the flamboyant star throughout the season will undoubtedly be reflected in a broader exploitation of his talent, taking Adam Lambert’s career to new heights – but hopefully restraining him from singing any higher. I expected 16 year old Alison Iraheta, who made it to the top four, to receive greater backing from the voting public. In fact, I had hoped that she would ultimately go head to head with Adam Lambert. However, such is the nature of American Idol, and the general public, to play it safe: Kris Allen is cute and personable. Alison Iraheta is arguably neither and Adam Lambert, I think, makes a lot of Americans uncomfortable. Who’s the best singer? That’s secondary.

Interview with Founder of ArtistData

Lior Shamir — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:44:25 +0000

I caught up with Brenden Mulligan (@bmull), founder of ArtistData, this week. Brenden, a seasoned business manager and do-whatever-needs-to-be-done kind of entrepreneur, started in the music industry through a work study program at Creative Artists Agency in Nashville. He moved from there to work for Aware Records and Asquared Management, where he was on the label and management teams for indie and signed artists. A lot of his time was spent in the initial signing and development of an artist named Mat Kearney. He left Aware to found ArtistData, a data synch-and-syndicate system for musicians. In the early days of ArtistData, he did some consulting, serving as a strategy consultant for an online CD store, the tour manager for Mat during his arena tour with John Mayer, and the manager for a small Chicago folk rock band called The August. When ArtistData took off, he stopped the various consulting projects to focus on growing the company which has been financed by angel investors as of last year.

1. Brenden, how did you arrive at the problem which ArtistData is gaming to address?

I started in the industry at an agency and then worked at a label in Chicago. During my time at the label, MySpace exploded and then the birth of music network/profile sites started. Part of my job, and a large part of each day, was spent trying to make sense of an increasingly crowded mess of social networks, concert databases, etc.. It seemed really inefficient and tedious. The ArtistData concept was born out of making that complicated mess a little simpler.

2. How do you plan to make ArtistData a more ‘complete’ resource for artists and agents in the future?

We constantly struggle between focus and “completeness”. Some artists want us to do everything: manage fan mailing lists, create stage plots, help them book shows, help them find new drummers. I’m a firm believer in focusing on a real problem and trying to create a really good solution for it, as opposed to taking an approach to trying to create a site that does everything, but only marginally well. So, realize that ArtistData is a content management system which syndicates information out to multiple destinations. We’ll stay on that track.

Some immediate improvements we want to make to our system is finding better ways to get input INTO ArtistData (multiple user access, importing RSS Feeds to be distributed, mobile interfaces/applications for data entry). We also want the data we distribute to be more widespread, so we’ll continue expanding our network to more relevant sites, including adding status updates to MySpace and Facebook Pages. We’re also going to make the data more accessible to fans, so when they click on a twitter link from their mobile phones, it presents the information in a VERY clean and straight forward interface.

So we’re going to keep making it complete, while staying true to our focus of getting information as many places as possible without getting in the way of the band and fan relationship.

3. How are you spreading the word about your service and what kind of user acquisition and activity trends are you seeing?

Our service is word of mouth in the truest sense of the word. Since our tools don’t necessarily have our branding on them, a lot of times you will be on an artist’s MySpace page without having any idea they are ArtistData users. This is a huge positive for artists because their fans aren’t distracted by logos from all these different artist services sites. Unfortunately, it really slows down our market penetration. However, it’s a trade-off we are happy and excited to make.

So to answer your question, we spread the word by doing one thing: continuing to help our users be more efficient. When we do that, they naturally tell their friends about the site. We’re growing really fast (we’ve grown by 100% over the past 2 months), and it’s all because we have amazing users spreading the word because they find our site useful. We love that.

4. What were/are the technological barriers to creating the ArtistData service?

The hardest thing is convincing other sites that it’s okay that the artists don’t update their sites directly. So many sites are afraid that if they lose that relationship, they put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Every one of our current partners has taken the approach we believe in: that it’s better to have a lot more relevant content for fans than to have a more constant connection with the artists.

We find that the sites that are truly useful don’t see a drop in artist activity on their sites but, instead, see more meaningful activity. What I mean is that the artists who are signing-in aren’t there to do monotonous data entry, but there to interact with the community, or use other resources of the site. It actually leads to a better overall relationship with artists.

5. Who are your competitors and how is ArtistData different?

I’d say out competitors are those who offer artist promotional services. This includes all the obvious names. The iLikes, ReverbNations, etc… The difference, in my opinion, is that ArtistData has a more specific focus and is not interested in capturing the attention of the music fans. We leverage the power of the sites that are already good at that. So our approach is to put the information where it’s supposed to go onto MySpace instead of building a widget to be installed. However, the widget has its benefits, and we will hopefully give bands that option at some point.

6. How do you hope to monetize ArtistData?

We’ve been talking to our users about this all year, and the conversation has led to our users saying it would be perfectly acceptable for ArtistData to be a paid service. Because we have no intention of launching a social network where we could sell ads based on fan eyeballs, building a revenue model based on advertising is not an option for us. We also have some interesting ideas that would allow us to keep it free, but unfortunately I can’t disclose them at this time. Ultimately, we plan to keep ArtistData free for as long as we can and learn as much as we can from the artists that are using it.

Visit ArtistData at www.artistdata.com

Playing for Change

Lior Shamir — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:03:00 +0000

The story behind this video begins in Santa Monica, CA, where street musician, Roger Ridley, lays down the rhythm guitar and lead vocal tracks for the beginning of a musical journey spanning the globe. New Orleans, LA, is the next stop where Grandpa Elliot adds second verse vox. We find ourselves in Amsterdam for the third stanza with the backing of musical allies in France and Brazil. The virtual procession reaches troubadours in Russia, South Africa and Venezuela and doesn’t resolve until every note of “Stand By Me” has been spoken for, courtesy of Playing for Change.

Summer Music Festivals

Lior Shamir — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:03:29 +0000

CNN published an informative guide to the world’s best music festivals, highlighting the most renowned music events, a few of which, I must admit, I haven’t heard of, including India’s Sunburn Festival and Woodstock… no, not that Woodstock. The one in Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a good idea to keep music festivals and conferences on your radar. Many of them have indie programmes for their smaller stages so, if you’re quick and your music is blazin’, you may find yourself strutting your stuff in Serbia…

Music Sponsorship Spending

Lior Shamir — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:41:08 +0000

IEG, a global leader in sponsorship consulting services, valuation and measurement, published promising figures for US music sponsorship spending for 2009, in spite of the current economic climate. The report highlights the consistent growth in the ‘big ticket’ live music sector, while noting that local music events and properties are displaying a decline in sponsorship support.

Recent deals include J. C. Penney Co.’s two-year integrated partnership with Rascal Flatts on behalf of its American Living brand; The Clorox Co. co-presenting the US stops of Keith Urban’s tour on behalf of its KC Masterpiece sauces and Kingsford charcoal; and Research In Motion Ltd. aligning with U2 on behalf of BlackBerry.

Tighter budgets for working class musicians is expected as a reflection of the music industry’s flux, but cashflows in the direction of A-listers may [eventually] trickle down toward the indies as competition for aligning brand with band stiffens.