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Viisi unohdettua asiaa (kone)musiikkibisneksestä

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🤷

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Monet artistit – niin paikkansa saavuttaneet kuin erityisesti aloittelevat – kyselevät usein, miten käytännössä saada itselleen DJ-keikkoja ja päästä sisään konemusahommiin. Keskustelu lähtee helposti valittamiseen, että “no kun skene/promoottorit on tänä päivänä sitä ja tätä niin ei oo helppoa” eikä varsinaisia neuvoja loppujen lopuksi esitetä lainkaan. No nyt esitetään. Tässä on mun mielestä viisi tärkeintä pointtia, jotka on paikoin jopa tärkeämpiä kuin perinteiset “tee hyviä biisejä” tai “järjestä omia bileitä” -neuvot.

1) OPETTELE SOSIAALISEN KANSSAKÄYMISEN TAIDOT
Ihmiset haluavat olla kivojen ihmisten kanssa. Monesti hitusen heikommilla musaskillsseillä varustettu, mutta sosiaalisesti äärimmäisen taitava kaveri kerää ne keikat niiltä, joilla on kovat skillsit, mutta sosiaaliset taidot Tarzan Bundolo -tasoa.

2) TUO PÖYTÄÄN JOTAIN UUTTA
Keikkojen saaminen on kovaa hommaa. Mutta vielä kovempaa hommaa se on niille, joilla ei ole mitään muuta peliintuotavaa kuin ne perus-DJ -taidot, jotka kaikilta jo löytyvät. Hyvä esimerkki tästä on Kink. Jos joku soittaisi Kinkin livebiisit peräkkäin DJ-setissä, se ei olisi kovin viihdyttävää, mutta Kinkin livekeikat ovat tajunnanräjäyttävää kamaa ja takuulla inspiroivia kokemuksia kaikille, jotka haluavat nähdä jotakin uutta konemusalivejen saralla. Mieti mitä osaamista – jopa ulkomusiikillista sellaista – sinulla on, jota voisit hyödyntää.

3) ANNA KUULUA ITSESTÄSI
Hyödynnä nykyteknologia. Olen ihmetellyt monesti ääneen, miksi niin harvalla nykyDJillä on viikottain päivittyvä Spotify-lista. Miksi niin harva livestreamaa tai tekee lyhyitä videoita osaamisestaan. Miksi ei ole olemassa samanlaisia showreelejä DJistä ja tuottajista kuin esim. musiikkivideoiden tekijöillä on. Tän hoitamisesta kotiin hyvänä esimerkkinä on Takomo, joka nappasi palan kakusta yrityskeikkapuolelta ja satsasi nimenomaa oman pakettinsa äärimmäiseen visuaaliseen näyttävyyteen. Ko. homma vetoaa varmasti yrityspuolella ja Takomon kaltaiselle livekokoonpanolle siellä liikkunee myös parempaa vaivanpalkkiota keikkailusta kuin perinteisellä klubipuolella. P.S. Ketään ei kiinnosta se viime kuussa tekemäsi Soundcloud-miksaus. Eikä kukaan kuunnellut sitä kokonaan. Jos ihmettelet miksi, katso kohta kaksi.

4) MAAILMA ON ISO
Sairaan iso. Jokaiselle löytyy klubeja, keikkapaikkoja ja yleisöjä, jotka ovat omistautuneita juuri sun duunaamalle ja esittämälle musiikille. Turha pyöriä oman maan klubien ja promoottorien jaloissa, jos niitä ei pitkällisen paukuttamisenkaan jälkeen kiinnosta. Ei se ole sun syytä.
Puhutaan paljon että pitäisi olla A&R-tietämystä ja manageri ja PR-systeemit jne. Eikä pidä. Sun pitää olla vaan ihan sairaasti parempi kuin kukaan muu. Hyvänä esimerkkinä oululainen Cid Inc, joka ei soita käytännössä ollenkaan kotimaassa, mutta keikkailee säännöllisesti Etelä-Amerikassa todella isojen nimien kanssa. Mitä tapahtui? Kaikessa yksinkertaisuudessaan – Cid Inc löysi yleisönsä.

5) BE BADASS
Dave Grohl ei summaa kaikkea yllä esitettyä kahden minuutin videossaan, mutta kyseinen video on mun oma ohjenuorani. Oon ollut äärimmäisen onnekas, että olen päässyt soittamaan todennäköisesti isoimmalle yleisölle (+80.000) mihin kotimaassa on mahdollisuus ja samaan hengenvetoon viime viikonloppuna Alaskassa pienen, intiimin klubin 100-200 ihmiselle. Molempia keikkoja yhdistää se mindset, jonka haluan aina olevan läsnä: mä haluan keikan koosta ja paikasta huolimatta antaa kaikkeni yleisölle sekä antaa maailman siisteimmän vastapallon niille, jotka ovat tulleet sinne mua varten ja laittaa kysymysmerkin niiden pään päälle, joilla ei ole hajuakaan kuka mä olen. Tyhmintä, mitä voi tehdä, on olla laiska. Hoitaa keikka tutulla reseptillä läpi. Ja se on todella houkuttelevaa, koska DJ-homman ydinhän on hemmetin yksinkertainen – laittaa biisejä toisensa perään. Se käy ennenpitkää tylsäksi, mut jos se tarkoittaa että sustakin tulee tylsä, on aika keksiä jotain muuta. Koska tylsää tyyppiä ei halua kukaan keikalle. Kuten Dave totesi – you got to be badass.

Disclaimer: kirjoitin tän alunperin erään aiheen parissa painineen artistin FB-keskusteluketjuun, mutta koska ketju poistettiin, on hyvä jättää ajatukset kuitenkin talteen. Jos aihe kiinnostaa niin ylläoleva on hyvä jatkumo “Nuoren artistin 10 käskyä“-postaukselle, josta aikoinaan myös Rumba uutisoi.

The real value of promos?

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Choose the next record

Remember back in the day when DJs received promo copies? There was only vinyl format available, white label was the label with most value and if you got a promo copy in your hands (yes, despite the name, you could find them in your local record store, too), you had to mention it in your tracklists.

And think about the value – labels could print 20 vinyl promos, send them to the biggest DJs six months before the official release and the best case scenario would be that the track would become a highly sought-after gem.

The scenario a slightly different today. I’m receiving 40-80 promos a week and would have sold my mother to get that amount of music when we were still living the vinyl times. Now I’m considering it more as music spam than getting something valuable and rare.

Why?

Out of those tens of tracks I get, normally only very, very few are playable. Also, when I listen to them, they are normally already published. Most of the labels tend to send their promos only some days before the actual release date (this surely isn’t correct if you’re on the A-list – then consider this a month or two before the release), which makes me wonder what is their real motive to even send the promos this late.

In Finland there are very few EDM DJs who have so many gigs that they have the possibility to play the unreleased promos always when they still are unreleased. And despite of having a very good audience here, most of the clubbers really don’t realize or care if you play “that track I just received as a promo”. For most DJs – and I’m not only talking about Finns here – promos are just a way to make you feel important when posting tracklists afterwards even though those tracks didn’t really make your set any better.

Also – promos tend to fool you to think you’re receiving something much more valuable than you’re actually getting. This is the trick of getting something for free and from a source from which you want to get more and more music in the future.

This leads to two things: 1) when giving feedback, most DJs tell that also the bad track is “pretty good, might give some plays” instead of telling the label & artist never to release something like that again (which would be more helpful, to raise the music quality over quantity) and 2) DJs even forget to ask themselves “would I pay money to buy this track?”. If the answer is “Maybe” or “No”, I don’t even consider downloading, let alone playing the track.

Record cover - 13

A good question here is, why do DJs pretend the promotional tracks they receive would be better than the music they buy from online shops? If you think it isn’t, then tell me why do DJs spend so much energy in trying to get promos, listening to the promos, giving feedback on the promos and telling everyone they received promos instead of using all that time in the online shops where all the good music is (and all those “promos” too, just in a couple of days).

Now again – from the labels’ point of view – I asked already what’s the whole point of sending the promos very close to the actual release date. “We want to prevent piracy”, the labels answer. And then again – most of the labels see their releases appear on warez sites once the first promos are out.

Tell me, what is the real difference between a DJ, who gets a free promo two days before the release and gives a feedback “Cool track, will play, 10/10!” and a guy downloading the torrent of the release for free and not giving any feedback but possibly supporting the release as much as the DJ? Nevermind the difference, both are as (little) valuable for the label.

Wouldn’t it be the same for the label not to send out any promos (except the A-list), but to advertise that the track is available for one hour for free two weeks before the actual release? That would attract more fans, give some good publicity – and in best case, raise the sales. Exactly what the promos are failing to do. As well as the artists these days, I think labels should also reconsider updating their marketing & promotion strategies to 2010.

For DJs – what counts, is no more who has the tracks first, but who creates hits out of tracks no one else realized were there. Being different and standing out of the line of promo-hungry DJs is fruitful for the culture, audience, labels – and you.

If you think this post hit the spot, let me know in the comments. If you think it sucked, add me to your promo list.

Short notes about music business #6

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Lawrence Lessig about the copyright war.

“I believe we should not be waging this war. I believe so not because I think copyright is unimportant. Instead, I believe in peace because the costs of this war wildly exceed any benefit, at least when you consider changes to the current regime of copyright that could end this war while promising artists and authors the protection that any copyright system is intended to provide.”

[To find all these short notes, search this blog for “Short notes about music business”]

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Short notes about music business #5

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DJs should be respected and treated as music supporters and promoters by the corporations.

Not as stealers and infringers.

Rather than us paying to the corporations, artist and copyright representatives should rather pay us for promoting their music. As this won’t ever happen, I would refer to my previous note: Music marketing is becoming equal to distribution.

[To find all these short notes, search this blog for “Short notes about music business”]

Short notes about music business #4

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DJs should have a right to promote music in all the possible ways (mp3 blogs, podcasts, radio shows).

We should not pay any additional fees (such as Teosto’s digital djing or any file conversion fees).

We buy our music. We pay to the artists. We should not pay to the corporations, who can’t meet the expectations of today’s music business.

We should not fear for additional fees or lawsuit when playing artist promos. (At the moment playing promos gotten directly from any Teosto member is a similar to playing illegally downloaded tracks)

[To find all these short notes, search this blog for “Short notes about music business”]

Short notes about music business #1

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If you are a musician and you think a radio show, podcast, DJ-mix or even p2p sharing is not benefiting your business in a long run, you are so not living in the 21st century.

[I wrote these notes originally by hand over a year ago, but they seem to have needed lots of time to take this form. Originally it was The Future Of Music book that inspired me to make these notes – the book is highly recommended. To find all these short notes, search this blog for “Short notes about music business”]

Where do artists and managers stand?

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Bruce Houghton wrote an excellent blog post about band managers and today’s music business. Managing a band differs from managing an electronic music act or DJ, but there are similarities. I’ve been now part of Misc. Management for about two years, a relatively short part of Misc’s nine year history, but definitely a very active one. So – if Bruce is asking “Where have all the good managers gone?”, I’m asking what is it that makes a good manager? And is exposing a new talent on manager’s responsibility? What is it that young artists should do in the world of smaller and longer careers? And finally, what if managing doesn’t make you rich?

Finding good talent is the hardest job in this business. Exposing it, breaking it through, is almost as difficult.
Bob Lefsetz: Saving the music business

In the field of electronic music being part of an agency is considered valuable for the artist’s career. It might be right, but the role of the agency is often overestimated, too. Young artists expect their career to get an instant boost from being in a respected artist roster and are ready to give the responsibility to the management: “Go on, make me famous.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about Misc. artists here. The artists I’m privileged to represent know their responsibility and part of the work. A couple of months ago we finished DJ Orkidea’s Metaverse album tour, which was a good example of what the artist must these days do for successful results.
If all the Web2.0 consultants are telling the companies to be present in the web, write blogs and discuss in order to get loyal customers, why shouldn’t artists do the same?
The management can’t represent artist on social networks and web communities. It’s the artist himself who needs to be personally present, write, ask, answer, listen, meet, share and interact in places where the people are.

But all this 2.0. thing needs to be innovative – if you were thinking about artist writing forum posts or MySpace blogs here, your way of thinking is old-fashioned. And most importantly – it’s the artist who should come up with these ideas and the management’s task is to support it.

We are approaching the times when digital music can’t be marketed, it can only be found. The times when the management is promoting the artists in order to get more gigs sold is over and something much more exciting is ahead. And it means we have hell of an amount of work to do.

So, let’s talk about work.

[…]the new music business is creating a new musical middle class. Rather than a few flash in pan stars, we’re seeing more smaller but longer careers.
Bruce Houghton: Where have all the good managers gone?

I couldn’t agree more here. Longer careers mean bigger amount of work and patience. I’ve seen several DJs hoping to break through but unable to understand that the more influence you will get in the music scene the more work you must do. Also – breakthrough rarely happens overnight, but that’s what people seem to hope. I’m sure doing 10 years of work for the breakthrough, finally making it and then slowly fading out is much more rewarding than working hard half a year, breaking through and then fading out.
Artists should be happy and appreciate of where they stand now. Grass is always greener on the other side, but you can’t know if you’d be talented enough of keep it that green if you were there.

“[…] Managers will be more willing to manage if there’s money, but for there to be money, they need to do a good job managing! This seems to be why a lot of people give managing a shot, and then realize its not worth the headache!”

Above is a part of Gavroche’s comment to Bruce’s post. Artist management is often seen as a wealthy business which it definitely is if you’re the manager of Madonna. Most of times it’s not. But still it has a huge cultural value and big importance to the artists. I haven’t gotten rich while working at Misc, but I’ve met incredible amount of new people, made great friends, travelled a lot, explored new music and been part of influencing Finnish electronic music culture. If I would count my hourly salary, I’d definitely make more money at McDonald’s. I do not regret any of the moments I’ve worked for free for the purpose of making our artists more famous and electronic music more visible.

To sum this all up, I hope you have time to see Tony Robbins’ short speech of Why We Do What We Do. And after it, no matter if you’re an artist or manager or DJ – or anything – ask yourself what is it that you want to do and why and then do it.

But don’t forget to be happy of what you’ve achived already.