Marketing Pop Culture

Friday, June 13: Stephanie McKay at Central Park Summerstage

My friend Stephanie brings her powerful vocals and infectious brew of soul and funk to bear to kick off Summerstage's 2008 season tomorrow night.  The date's in support of her forthcoming album "Tell It Like It Is," which is already gaining buzz in Europe.  I expect this show to even better than the two shows she sold out at the Blue Note this past March.

One more thing: She's opening for one of the true legends of music, the great Mavis Staples. So it should be a fantastic night of music.

Additional links:

• Stephanie McKay official site
• Stephanie on MySpace
• Central Park Summerstage (they've got a great season this year!)

NY Times on J*Davey

Further reinforcing my point of a cultural shift:

When J*Davey first appeared three years ago, it presaged a revival of interest in the intersections between electro and soul. A widely disseminated demo led to a string of dates opening for Prince and a major-label deal with a division of Warner Brothers. No album arrived, but in the time since, the art-soul singer Santogold has received critical approbation, and Janelle Monáe, an eccentric OutKast affiliate, has been signed by Sean Combs to his Bad Boy Records. Suddenly the landscape for a new-wave-meets-R&B band doesn’t seem so bleak.

Read the full review here

Additional link(s):

• J*Davey web site
• J*Davey on MySpace

Bo Diddley, 1928 - 2008

By now, it's no news to most of you and rock 'n' roll pioneer Bo Diddley passed away yesterday at the age of 79.  There's been a lot written about his legacy, and his impact on four decades of musicians.  I had the pleasure and honor of talking about his legacy and his impact on music on NPR today.  It's a quick 8 minute listen.

Click here for the interview.

More coverage and links over at Bold As Love.

Bill Bragin, "Downtown Impresario"

Today the New York Times profiled a friend of mine, Bill Bragin.  When you talk about people shaping culture in New York City, certainly you have to talk about Bill.  As a programmer and presenter, he's put his wide-ranging and superb musical tastes to work in service of Festival Productions, Central Park Summerstage, Joe's Pub, and now Lincoln Center.  There, he'll run both the Midsummer Night's Swing and Lincoln Center Out Of Doors series.

“The way I define myself and my work is as an arts presenter, not a nightclub booker,” Mr. Bragin said in an interview. “This was exactly the right move. It’s multidisciplinary, it’s multiethnic. I have always been a generalist working in those boundaries between popular art and high art.”

It should be noted that he was instrumental in shepherding "Passing Strange" through it's early development at Joe's Pub.

To be in Bill's orbit is have driven home to you that there's so much great--yes, really great--music being created and performed.  Further, in an age when everyone can be a curator, Bill is a "trusted source".

Read the full New York Times article here.

Digital Music Forum: The Indie Takeover?

Jaylaan Ahmad-Llewellyn, Bluhammock Music
Jim Cooperman, Wind-Up Records
Matt Laszuk, IRIS Distribution
Amaechi Uzoigwe, Definitive Jux
Mitchell Wolk, ADA
Rich Bengloff, A2IM (moderator)

First, some apologies: This is not a live blog post.  I did something stupid and lost the original post.  Kinda bummed that Typepad hasn't created an autosave feature.  Anyway, I'm recreating this from memory.

Jaylaan: Not lamenting over the industry that was.  Trying to figure out how people are consuming music today and how I and my artists can get paid off of that.

Amaechi: Look at the glass half full.  Find the niche for your artist and serve it well.

Digital Music Forum: A&R in the Digital Age

Maria Egan-Cohen, Columbia Records
Daniel Werner, Epic Records
Elliott Mazer, Left Turn Music
Allan Kovac
Kelli Richards, The All Access Group (moderator)

Richards: Why go with a major?

Egan-Cohen: Resources.  She focuses on bands that have established a track record and a following, and are looking to get to that next level via the machinery that a major can offer.

Final thoughts: I'm leaving this panel.  The discussion has turned to promotions and 360-deals, which is disappointing, frustrating, even.  I'm interested in hearing how they're adapting A&R for the digital age.  Instead, there's a lot of talk about promotions and building artists into brands.  Does this signal a shift in the role of A&R?  Is that the function adapting to digital?  From an audience standpoint at the conference, it feels like a bit of a bait-and-switch.

Going to catch the end of the digital rights & clearances panel.  Even a legal session is more interesting than this.

Digital Music Forum: Global Music Marketing in the Digital Age (panel)

John Fleckenstein, BMG Label Group
Mark Ghuneim, WiredSet
Peter Rojas, RCRD LBL
Shahi Ghanem, Brickfish
Doug Perlson, Targetspot
Vicki Saunders, TouchTunes Music
Celia Hirschman, KCRW's On The Beat

Peter: How do you offer a great experience for users so that they'll keep coming back?  Question is not to sell music.

Fleckenstein: Start working with artists from Day 1.  It varies by artist.

Ghuneim: Search and display doesn't yield engagement.  Engagement takes place across the edges.  Artist development means getting the artist to where they are a full business.

Perlson: Internet radio.  80MM users/month.

Saunders: Digital jukebox that enables people to access their music at specific locations.  This is in beta.

Hirschman: User fatigue on social networks.  Is there a lifecycle?

Ghanem: Just a media network.  None of them will be going anywhere anytime soon.  What you see is less fatigue and more specialization in terms of needs.  How do we capitalize on the social media genre as a whole, particularly as it relates to me and my brand.

Ghuneim: Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.  Trend towards trusted sources.  Also actionable data generator.  Need real two-way API's with opensocial.

Hirschman: Where should small labels/artists with little money spend their dollars?

Rojas: They don't sell.  Believes good content sells itself.  Released over 250 artists in the past 3 months.

Ghanem: Invest in passionate, engagement-based marketing.  Target a small user base and get them excited.

Saunders: Bands must know their audiences: where they are, who they are, and clear that they want to talk to you.

Perlson: Search is the weakest performing marketing play for music.  Social networks might be more useful.

Fleckenstein: Incredibly difficult to target. 

Hirschman: BMG, have you taken an aggressive free approach to certain bands?

Fleckenstein: Free single downloads to test who's the audience.

Hirschman: What campaigns have worked for you?

Perlson: Gotta know the goal of the campaign at the outset.

Hirschman: Widgets.  What do you think?

Ghuneim: Embrace many strategies based on what consumer behavior is dictating.

Ghanem: Most exciting thing happening is the fan, so you turn around the model and make it interactivity.

On respective businesses

Rojas:  One other person works with him.  Remember: Economics of the web require that you structure your business differently.

Ghanem: Salespeople that are focused on verticals.  The Yahoo! model.

Digital Music Forum: Michael Robertson founder of MP3.com

Michael Robertson, Founder MP3.com
Jim Sheridan, Onehouse LLC/Pho Group

Talking about his idea for a digital music locker.  His underlying idea: everything digital is moving to a cloud.

Downsides of locker:

1. Music is passive
2. How do I get it to all of my devices

Amazon music was the nail in the coffin for DRM music from Best Buy or Napster.com

Lockersync: Autosyncing.  Anytime you download a song, it gets zapped to your locker.  His device is connected to that locker.

Demos his autoplay.  With the creation of playmix, you can create a radio type experience.  Now, is he building a business on the backs of the intellectual property of others?

Here's how he uses personal locker.

• Same level of security as banks
• No anonymous access
• They have access controls and looks at simultaneous access.  If too many people access a locker, then the locker is shut down
• He's selling delivery and distribution of the music.

He's been sued by EMI and has refused their request to show them the contents of everyone's locker.

Streaming seems to be an inevitability, a digital inevitability, as he calls it.

The future of the locker?  Locker gets into many kinds of storage devices such as phones, cars, etc.

BTW, lockers are free.

Final thoughts: Bottom line is that he's got the financial wherewithal to weather the legal battles he gets.  I mean, this guy gets sued every time he launches a new piece of technology.  So, while his story is inspiring (and it's great to hear about cool stuff), there's this cautionary side to it.  If you can't afford to litigate, you probably don't have money to get the necessary clearances for the music in the first place.

Digital Music Forum: Is the Copyright System broken (panel)

Jon Potter, Digital Media Association
Michael Petricone, CEA
Steve Marks, RIAA
David Israelite, NARM
Gary Greenstein, Wilson, Sonsini

Potter: Yes. Major differences in magnitudes of payment fees incurred by different competitors.  Limit the statutory damages, and prove actual damages.  None of us are price setters anymore.

As with Gerd: Potter says that companies that try to use music as a first play will be sued, which is why they do it as a secondary or tertiary play. 

Petricone: Chilling effect on innovation.  Must protect fair use rights.

Israelite: Songwriters must be paid, per an earlier agreement.  Also, every other country in the world pays a blended rate (mechanical and performance)

Marks: This whole thing is an economic issue

Funny, but I'm assuming the pros and the cons are sitting on opposite sides

Rich from A2IM (question from audience): A consensus is forming that the CRB rates are too high.  My question: When will that consensus form some kind of action?

Final thoughts: This was a highly charged discussion.  More time needed to really explore this tension between innovation and compensation.  Ironic that the established record business desperately needs indies but, particularly in the case of internet radio, current copyright law is stifling a huge avenue for exposure and music discovery.  It's not clear that the majors are seeing this need.

Off to lunch now.  Hopefully, I can find a place to charge the computer.

Digital Music Forum: Gary Shapiro of CEA

CEA=Consumer Electronics Assocation

His push is about the Digital Freedom Campaign.  Much of his work is about making the copyright laws make sense and be more responsive to consumers.

We've already had two speakers rave about Verizon FiOS (the guy from Capitol on the last panel) and Gary.  Interesting.

This presentation leads into a panel on copyright, which has someone from the RIAA.  This should be interesting, since Gary's presentation is all about a worldview that advocates opening  copyright law to the digital realities.

What's the CEA doing to push open standards and interoperability?

Copyright extension term debate.  Tradeoff is longer protective term in exchange for loosen restrictions on usage.  Shorter term means high exclusivity.