Indie Sounds NY & Austin

Ihor Gowda Gives The 101 On Music Management

This Suzanna Choffel girl is everywhere ... on the cover of magazines, featured at the Dell Lounge, and tomorrow night she performs at the Austin Music Awards, along with Carolyn Wonderland and Ruthie Foster, kicking off a week of appearances at SXSW, including the official City of Austin showcase at Momo's on Saturday.

For sure, she's a talented lady who makes great music.  But in the music business, this kind of exposure doesn't just happen. And Suz is getting a bit of help for sure, in the form of manager Ihor Gowda. So we caught up with the man behind the woman ...


Photo by Todd Wolfson

Good Info From Derek Sivers

CD Baby founder Derek Sivers - he sold the company last year and is now working on various projects aimed at helping independent musicians - has a couple of interesting posts on his blog ...

MIDEM Interviews - videos of interviews Derek conducted with various companies at the Midem event held recently in Cannes, France.

Amber Rubarth - Amber's thoughts on how to be a successful touring musician.

CD Baby Acquired, Valeze Is Brown Bread, New Galapagos Open

CD Baby has been acquired by Audio & Video Labs, the parent of Disc Makers.  Disc Makers president Tony van Veen says that the intent is to keep CD Baby independent and that it will remain in Portland, Oregon.

CD Baby founder Derek Sivers says he's not actually worked at the company since last year, and that he is now focusing on new projects to help musicians.  He's also looking for help.  See here.

Tiff Randol says that Valeze - rated by Indie Sounds (in issue #2) as "The Best New Live Rock Band In The World" - is now a thing of the past.  This means that Rich Girls can now claim that status.

Galapagos Art Space - now in DUMBO at 16 Main Street - is open and getting ready for the fall season.  See more here.  Alas, while there will be world music, there will be no rock.

The Business of Music

Some 12,500 delegates registered for this year's SXSW event, up from around 7,000 in 2001.  Those numbers do not incude performing artists.  Event sponsors like Citigroup and Dell reportedly paid $100,000 to $200,000 each for sponsorship.

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Apple is reportedly considering a bundled music service for iPod users.  Details are sketchy, but already rival download service eMusic is suggesting such a plan may violate anti-trust laws.

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Starbucks reportedly sells an average of two CDs per store per day.  Starbucks says that's wrong, but isn't providing alternative data.

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We7 in the UK will soon carry free, ad-supported streaming music from Sony BMG.  We7 Prepends demographically targeted audio adverts onto songs, whether they be streamed or downloaded.  Content owners recieve a cut of advertising revenues.

Meanwhile, UK independent artist Joy Walshe has enjoyed some 8,500 song downloads from We7 in recent weeks.

The Business of Music

There is an interesting blog about Snocap and MySpace at Penny Distribution.

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And a view about widgets at Coolfer.

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From Digital Music News there is more positive news on widgets: Music networking application iLike has reached 200,000 participating artists.  Artists are using iLike in conjunction with Facebook, hi5, and Bebo - with MySpace coming soon.

The Business of Music

Teenagers are no longer buying CDs!  That's the shock finding of a report by NPD Group.  But the firm has quantified the issue: 48 percent of teenagers do not purchase CDs at all, up from 38 percent a year ago.  And the report also found that overal music consumption was up six percent.

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Music 2.0 is a collection of contributions about music companies of the future.  The PDF download is available for a pay-what-you-like donation here.

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Tunecore - a service that facilitates online distribution is branching out into physical CD distribution, according to The Listening Post.

The Business of Music

See this article from the New York Observer on the plight of some NYC music venues.  Some comments against this article are worth reading.

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From Digital Music News: Avis car renters will be given access to a handful of free downloads supplied by eMusic, under a new partnership.  Additionally, eMusic will offer a collection of playlists geared towards seasons, destinations, and other pertinent themes.  Avis once had a deal with iTunes but that is no more.

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From Coolfer: Indie record label TVT has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  Coolfer reckons it's not surprising, given TVT's roster of rappers and radio-friendly rock in a commentary that's generally negative.

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MySpace is exploring an online music service, offering music from major labels for free.  More info here.

The Business of Music

Having rejected an unsolicited $44 billion takeover proposal from Microsoft, Yahoo is now in talks with News Corp. that might result in the Murdoch empire taking a stake in Yahoo in exchange for its MySpace social networking site and some cash.  Microsoft, however, may pursue Yahoo to win it.  Yahoo has been revamping/scalng back its music initiatives of late.

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Music-based social networking site Imeem may buy Snocap, the pretty crappy company that runs the MyStore facility on MySpace, reports Digital Music News.  If it means better service for customers, that would be great.  Otherwise, Snocap should probably just fuck off and die.

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Music business sites to check out:

www.coolfer.com
www.digitalmusicnews.com
blog.wired.com/music

These sites always have something interesting to say about the music industry and the digital impact upon it.  They are all free.

The Business of Music

Yahoo is shutting down its Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription download service.  Subscribers to the DRM-based service, which started in 2005, will be passed over to RealNetwork's Rhapsody service.

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MySpace is planning to allow third-party developers to build add-on applications that can then be added to users' pages.  Applications need to conform to the OpenSocial standard developed by Google.  This means they should work on other social networks, but not Facebook, which has its own development rules.  See developer.myspace.com for more info.

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Warner Music Group's digital revenues (online music stores, subscription services, ringtones, and webcasts) was $141 in 2007, in increase of 41 percent.  Overall, the label's revenues increased 7 percent.

The Business of Music

EMI Music will insert special codes into the February 3rd (Super Bowl) and February 10th (Grammy) editions of the New York Daily News.  The codes can been redeemed for three free songs at NYDailyNews.com.  A selection of 120,000 tracks will be offered for download.

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Txttunes is providing access to indie music song downloads, with billing to a mobile phone.  The Orchard and CD Baby will offer their catalogs via the service, though with downloads to a PC, not a phone.  Txttunes curently offers US-based billing through Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Boost Mobile, Alltel, and others.  Children without a credit card are a key target for this service.

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The Copyright Royalty Board, the goverment body that last year set stupidly high royalties for internet radio (still being disputed), is now looking to revise mechanical royalties paid to publishers and songwriters whenever physical music products, downloads, and ringtones are sold.

The RIAA (which represents labels) and the Digital Media Association (which represents download services) find themselves on the same side for once, fighting against ASCAP and the Harry Fox Agency, and presumably songwriters and publishers.