Soul man sees Internet mostly as a blessing for producers
In keeping with our mission to cover the issues affecting music in the Internet age from all angles, we invited London-based soul producer Mathieu Karsenti to answer the question:
“How does the internet affect your work as a producer?”
Mathieu: As an independent Modern Soul music producer, the internet has been very beneficial in helping reach and connect with the kind of artists and organisations I would like to work with.
Artists that promote themselves online face stiff competition
We received a message of support from a musician who only promotes his music online. In our reply, we asked him the question:
“Does the Internet make it easier for an unsigned artist to develop their career?”
Dan: In this day and age we have access to an unprecedented amount of information thanks to the Internet. Millions of sites are now available for musicians to take control of their careers on a global scale. I have had people from over 50 different countries visit my site, a pretty decent feat given that I am unable to tour (something I would sorely love to do with all my music). Can this actually help a band grow economically and are there any drawbacks?
Quality puts artists ahead of the pack, say merch men
It is important to this campaign that we get opinions from different areas of the the music world, so we asked Neil Cocker, of merchandising service Dizzyjam, the question: “Have you noticed bands becoming more creative with merchandise in the Internet age?” Neil: You’re all sick of hearing about how the music industry’s dying, right? Everyone has been banging that drum for ages now.
Pay-to-play is a bad joke, says Scottish singer
The band I was in at the time, Body Experience Review, once paid £150 for the pleasure of playing a particular venue in Glasgow and we didn’t do a great job of selling tickets. Some of us in the band felt that we had to pay the money so we dipped into our own pockets to pay about £80. We would have been much better off selling no tickets, keeping the money, playing an open-mic somewhere else and inviting people to that.
Indie labels must seize opportunities to survive
Our goal is to explore and highlight issues relating to music on the Internet, and how this is affecting musicians and people involved in the music industry. We tracked down Paul Fernandes, an indie label owner, and asked him: “What’s it like to be an independent record label today?”
It would be easy to look at a band like us, The Floe, and believe that we had it all sorted. However, it has not been handed to us on a plate …
The Penny Black Remedy’s Debut Album Pre-Order Plan
As an independent band (our album is on our own label, Soundinistas Ltd), funding the release of our debut album was initially a fairly daunting prospect, as there are, of course, many things to take into consideration; recording costs, production costs and marketing costs, to name just a few.
