mydiscmanbroke

Once and Always A Street Musician

mydiscmanbroke — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:56:48 +0000

So I’m not sure why this video doesn’t have more views. This video came out almost 2 months ago. It is an interview with Glen Hansard. Haven’t heard of Glen Hansard? Glen is an Irish musician who has been playing on the streets since he was 13. He was the main character in an Irish indie movie called Once where he wrote the main song and won an Oscar. Now there is a very successful play on Broadway called “Once” based on the indie film. Glen has gone to tour the world and still to this day plays on the streets. He also had a band prior to going solo where they made a music video for $5 using security video camera to make the footage… MTV picked it up and spun it….

Please watch this video as it is something to see. This is what I believe makes a true musician:

http://youtu.be/epCqdwfS_lg

Music Video Featuring Topless Girls

mydiscmanbroke — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:41:31 +0000

Ok…. When did I get so old? I know porn became mainstream but I didn’t realize it completely took over not just in films but also music videos. Nothing is left to the imagination anymore! We are all familiar with the phrase “sex sells” but this is completely out of control. I don’t even know what the heck the artist is singing about because the entire video is just topless girls. These girls are a complete distraction from the actual song and artist. These girls aren’t topless to be artistic or be part of art. These girls were asked to be topless in order to get this video views which it failed to do!

Why would this help the artist sell more music? Who is actually paying attention to the music or the lyrics… WAIT!!!!!! There was a guy singing in the video… wasn’t there? Oh and Pharrell was a guest star in the video….. OHHHHHHH! Gotta watch it now!!!! Geez… Talk about a hail mary! Try everything to get noticed. Although its pretty typical for Pharrell of The Neptunes (production duo) to make an appearance in the videos of artists he signs to his label Star Trak….

http://www.myspace.com/video/robinthicke/blurred-lines-unrated-version/109255146

Word of advice… If you flaunt it then people won’t be as interested. People are drawn to things they can’t have… people are curious by nature and are draw to mystery. Peoples’ imaginations run wild and if you just throw something at them with out teasing it then you already lost their interest and attention. What’s interesting about a video of a guy singing surrounded by pretty girls who are acting as if they desire the guy? What happened to trying to make an artistic and interesting video… Trying to make a video that hasn’t been done…

Here is looking at another rich kid who’s daddy and mommy were in show biz already…. Waiting for the cycle to come around again and bring some non pretentious music back into popularity that all the hipsters will snub their noses at….

Musicians Struggles and Journeys

mydiscmanbroke — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:34:09 +0000

Leave it All Behind is a no-budget rock documentary that tells the story of a journeyman guitarist and songwriter who played stadiums, traveled in a tour bus, performed on the late-night TV circuit — then got dropped, went home and started all over again.
The film follows Dustin Stroud, whose band Riddlin Kids sold more than 300,000 records in the early 2000s before being dropped by Columbia. It picks up as Stroud, forever determined, jockeys pizzas around his hometown of Austin, Texas, while plugging away with his new band, Say Hello to the Angels, and embarking on a European amphitheater tour with street-punk favorites Born to Lose.
“Dustin’s story blew my mind. Here’s a guy who saw his band blow up overnight, then got dropped almost as fast, and he just keeps going,” said filmmaker Zack Starikov, who met Stroud in Austin while touring with his own band several years ago. “I want people to know for all the huge bands out there, and all the bands that will never be huge, there’s also this group in the middle — guys who have made it or almost made it, and keep going at it no matter what, because that’s just what they do.”

PART 1:

Part 2:

Charging for a mixtape… Isn’t that illegal?

mydiscmanbroke — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:35:43 +0000

I am beyond confused at the moment… I could have sworn that releasing a mixtape for people to stream for free was legal and that once you started charging money for it then it became illegal. Isn’t that the law that was put into effect in order to protect artists’ revenues? Actually… the labels’ revenues!

I was browsing Kickstarter and came across a really cool idea called Mixcard that these two guys are trying to fund. Chris who is in the promotional video for the project even goes as far as to tell you that he makes sure to pay each artist for the artwork they create for the postcard. Mixcard is a pretty cool concept but not fully thought out. This is how Mixcard basically works.

1. You pay $5 to these two guys, Chris and Alfred, to have them send a postcard with unique artwork on it.

2. You go to their website and you make a playlist on their website with songs from some very popular artists.

3. Then Chris and Alfred send a postcard to a person of your choice that you provide an address for. The postcard has really cool artwork on it that you choose from a list of choices to choose from.

4. The postcard has a personal message from you and a QR code and a website link. The person who gets the postcard can visit the link or use the QR code to pull up the playlist you created for them.

Here is where things get iffy and tricky! Chris and Alfred are charging people which means they are profiting off of music that is being streamed off their website. Maybe they pay fees to SoundExchange I don’t know… For those who don’t know what SoundExchange is, SoundExchange is a non-profit performance rights organization that collects statutory royalties from satellite radio (such as SIRIUS XM), Internet radio (like Pandora), cable TV music channels and similar platforms for streaming sound recordings. The Copyright Royalty Board, which is appointed by The U.S. Library of Congress, has entrusted SoundExchange as the sole entity in the United States to collect and distribute these digital performance royalties on behalf of featured and non-featured recording artists, master rights owners (usually record labels), and independent artists who record and own their masters.

Kickstarter perhaps let this slide because they also assumed that Chris and Alfred might be paying some type of fee for streaming the music just like Pandora and other internet stations do. Here is my question… why would Kickstarter over look the fact that one of the things offered from Chris and Alfred is that for a $125 pledge, “Chris will make you a real live cassette mixtape complete with cover art and setlist. He will sing one song of your choosing from the tape.”

There are two laws being broken here that I can personally see. One is Chris is selling a cover song with out paying for the cover song. Two, Chris is selling a tape of other artists’ recordings. How is this allowed? I’m also very curious who should be held responsible for “stealing and profiting off of someone else’s work?” Should Chris and Alfred be held responsible for selling and profiting illegally off of other people’s work and products or should Kickstarter be held responsible for allowing it to happen?

Give a dollar to fund a movie just not to save a life!

mydiscmanbroke — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:29:48 +0000

The last 24 hours has been an eye opener. I’ve seen hundreds of non profit groups try and raise money for good causes. Money to help save lives. Money to help rebuild lives. Money to feed the starving or help fund research which would cure hundreds and hundreds of people. It takes a year and a lot of hard work to raise even $1 million dollars. Forgot the organizations that try to raise money to save and help animals. Those organizations have an even tougher time raising money. Yet yesterday a kickstarter went up trying to raise $2 million dollars for a TV show starting Kristen Bell. The goal of $2 million was accomplished and surpassed within 11 hours!!!!

Does this make people selfish because these people want their show to air again and they don’t mind spending their hard earned money to do it rather than donate that money to a good cause…. This is America and people do have a choice. These people chose to fund a TV show with out even thinking twice when plugging in their debit card info into the blank boxes….

And is the movie industry finally catching up with the music industry? You can only ignore the obvious so long and it looks like the movie industry is starting to hit rock bottom. When huge name movie stars no longer draw in movie goers just based on the fact that that movie star is starting in that movie… The movie industry has lost control. They can no longer put crap out there and expect people to dish out their money to see the movie just because they use a famous actor. People expect the actual script to be good.

Well congrats to the millionaires involved with http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project you guys are TRUE ENTREPRENEURS… using other peoples money to get your business going and make more money. If you do need to get rid of some of that money there are some great charities that you can donate to and get a tax write off on.

http://www.whyhunger.org

http://www.projectbread.org

http://www.hua.org (National NO kill shelter for animals)

https://donate.aspca.org (Animals in need)

If You Think Facebook Is Still Cool You’re A Tool!

mydiscmanbroke — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 03:39:29 +0000

Comedian Dave Chappelle predicted that the first black president would be blamed for an asteroid hitting earth and causing destruction. Chappelle made the prediction with his comedy sketch in 2003. Come February 2013, Fox News is questioning if President Obama plotted the Russian meteor in order to prove that global warming was real. Really???

Did Chappelle pull a Nostradamus? Anything is possible especially if you pay a closer look at numbers and trends. People tend to be pretty repetitive in nature… Look at how the music industry works. The music trends seem to repeat itself in a full circle. So how do you get ahead of the trend? Pay closer attention to what the dinosaurs did wrong. Some of the dinosaurs are actually trying to survive. I read the Lefsetz Letter pretty religiously. The Lefsetz Letter is a blog by music veteran Bob Lefsetz who mentioned in one of his earlier blogs this year that he is turning 60. Some of the things he says really makes me think that he gets paid to write them. I don’t always agree with his statements but this is America and everyone is entitled to their opinion. One thing that did impress me was that Bob Lefsetz has been preaching about how Facebook is on the decline and isn’t really cool anymore. How can that be though when so many people use it? However, today I read about how Director of Product at Facebook, Blake Ross, gave his notice and will be leaving the company. In a goodbye note Blake Ross wrote “I’m leaving because a Forbes writer asked his son’s best friend Todd if Facebook was still cool and the friend said no, and plus none of HIS friends think so either, even Leila who used to love it, and this journalism made me reconsider the long-term viability of the company.”

If the new generation of kids doesn’t think Facebook is cool anymore then they probably don’t use it to discover new music. So what is the next big thing that will grab peoples’ attention. Purevolume broke Girls Like Boys. Martin Johnson got signed purely on his Purevolume plays. I’m not really sure what bands got picked up based on their Myspace numbers. Dispatch became successful because when Napster came out the kid who started Napster loved the band so much that he carried their gear for them and made sure they would pop up in every type of search entered in Napster.

Social media is the new major label…. All you have to do is be the first one to find what new social media site is cool. Does it mean you need to start reading Bob Lefsetz blog to find out what site is popular? I say read his blog cause it is fun, even though frustrating at times. But I doubt your going to figure out what website is trending from Bob. He’s been off his game a little lately. Writing about Harlem Shake videos after the entire world already saw all the videos and got over them…

If you really do care about your career and want to discover the next blog to put your band’s music on I say follow TechCrunch as they are probably the best at letting you know what websites and tech companies are growing in popularity and which will blow up because they got funding. And as most of you have learned, hopefully… Money has a lot to do with kickstarting an artists career and determining an artists popularity.

Hippie is as Hippie Lives

mydiscmanbroke — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:29:18 +0000

First came the Grateful Dead then Dave Matthews Band hit the circuit and now there is Mumford & Sons. I didn’t really catch on to the fact that Mumford & Sons was the new DMB until my girlfriend pointed out the obvious. Folky poppy jam… they sell amphitheaters out and kids pay $300 a ticket. The kids show up and tailgate and follow them where ever they go drinking and hanging out with their friends and waiting for the two singles they know every word to. Mumford & Sons are the DMB of the new generation! It is even more amusing that Daniel Glass who worked for RCA and broke Dave Matthews is the one working Mumford & Sons here in US with his label Glassnote Records.

Musicians Be Warned About Getting Scammed!

mydiscmanbroke — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 02:57:46 +0000

Musicians put everything they have into their careers. They will quit any job, lose their relationships, and much more to try and become successful (meaning be able to tour and record and make a living off of their art). It sickens me that there are so many damn scams out there preying on artists’ emotions and dreams.

Here is the biggest SCAM out of everything that is out there. I received an email about licensing opportunities from the following company:

http://musicsupervisorguide.com/

The subject line read: GOSSIP GIRL seeking new songs…. HELLO!!!!!!! GOSSIP GIRL had its final episode months ago and has gone off the air. It was all over the entertainment news as teenage girls across the country wept and through FINALE parties to their favorite show.

Oh and the audio testimonial on the website from Jack White is great…. OH NO! Not the Jack White from White Stripes / The Raconteurs… This is a publisher and song writer who happens to be Jack White who has placed music all over MTV, video games, TV shows and music. And it was all done really easily through Music Supervisor Guide. You can successfully license your music as well by signing up with them and paying a monthly fee.

Sad part a lot of musicians fall for the SCAM and pay hoping that their song will get licensed and that the song will get them played and get them fame….

Don’t fall for these scams! Just keep writing and keep working hard and find real music licensing people and companies and reach out to them. Yes it will take a lot of time and effort to reach out to all these licensing people but at least there will be a chance that your music will get licensed and you will get paid. Because if you care about your time and would rather just throw your money away then at least send it to my PO BOX 311 – SCAMVILLE USA! I’ll put your money to good use….

Netflix and Hulu Exclusive

mydiscmanbroke — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 01:25:45 +0000

As of late I have been watching some really great shows that only air on Hulu or Netflix. They are exclusives and they are much better than most of the crap on cable TV. Things are changing and changing quick. The internet has turned the entertainment upside down. Kevin Spacey is an actor with a very large fan base and he made the decision to do a show that would be exclusive on Netflix. So what is preventing big music artists from leaving the major label spotlight and focusing on a niche? If these artists focus on a niche audience they can have new careers and make money. Lady Gaga’s new album flopped and so did Madonna’s new album flopped too. Why wouldn’t these artists focus on their niche fan base instead of trying to appeal to the mass audience. WHY? WHY? WHY? Perhaps this is a question a lot of established artists are going to ask themselves before deciding in which direction they want to take their careers.

If you subscribe to Netflix check out House of Cards starting Kevin Spacey

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/House_of_Cards/70178217?trkid=7711922 starting Kevin Spacey

Having your headphones on vs head in the books

mydiscmanbroke — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 22:23:24 +0000

Although we all want to believe that the music business is about the art, most of us know that the music business is a numbers game. That being said, this is the best time ever to be and unsigned artist because everything you need to succeed is at the fingertips. Technology is and should be your best friend. For example: I absolutely love the Kickstarter community because there are constantly amazing things that come out of it. Like a system that helps you water your plants. A device that you put into the soil that sends signals to your computer and shows you if the soil is too dry or too wet.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1387729422/plant-link-listen-to-your-plants Now that’s technology!

Major labels paid thousands of dollars to people to track and figure out the band’s demographic. People who took risks and guessed on how to market the band. Now Facebook and Jango (RadioAirplay) helps you figure out your demographic much quicker. These tools let you figure out where those people live and what cities and regions to focus on marketing your material. What areas to tour in. The music business IS a numbers game. Use the data which is so simple to collect these days to figure out the areas to focus your marketing in. Yes it is time consuming but do you want to have a career or do you want your music to stay as a hobby? The choice is your