The UK Riots will have an effect on independent and electronic music. The Sony DADC warehouse has been burned down. It contains large stocks of records from Warp and others. I’m certain some of these labels won’t survive this. To see a full list of those effected: click here.

“Numerous independent record labels fear they have lost a catastrophic amount of stock in a fire at a distribution warehouse in north London during the riots in the capital on Monday night. A three-storey, 20,000 square-metre building in Enfield, owned by Sony DADC and holding stock to be distributed by the Pias Group, was burned to the ground.” – guardian.co.uk

For more info: guardian.co.uk/independent-record…

A friend of mine Emrie Sherwood decided she needed to promote her album Richter Feat Eden. She didn’t think the label was doing enough so she hired her co-worker to do what you see above. Is the the best $5 or worst $5 ever spent? God help us she apparently has more on the way…

“I hired 5 more of these kinds of guys.” – Emrie Sherwood

UPDATE: Interesting (and kinda wow) this isn’t one of her co-workers! She used this website to hire the guy: fiverr.com. That actually is a pretty cool idea.

Hear the original song: iTunes or Beatport

So the biggest of the all you can eat streaming music services has arrived in America. You can read a mountain about Spotify everywhere so I’ll just chime in with my own opinion.

I feel a little old. I like owning my music. I have a giant record, cassette and MP3 library. It’s stupid I know. And now what? Everyone can just have everything for a monthly fee? That’s unfair! But wait do they have everything? What about Scarecrow “Black Door”? I bet they don’t have that. If they do I will probably join. Can anyone verify that for me? I hear the social sharing stuff is good. Although I think it’s pretty easy to post a Youtube link into Facebook these days. On a positive note I do think it’s pretty futury to have access to all the music ever made anywhere you are. Funny that last part should carry a lot of weight with me.

As a musician it seems this is another blow to making income from music sales. I do make some nice “buy a new synth every now and then” money from my iTunes sales. But the streaming services? You really have to have a mega hit for all those fractions of pennies to add up.

So what do you think? Are any of you loving members of Rdio (the Spotify like competitor)?

“The award-winning music service that’s taken Europe by storm has now come to U.S. shores. Millions of tracks ready to play instantly, on your computer and your phone. Any track, anytime, anywhere. And it’s free!” – spotify.com

For more info: spotify.com

Now that I’ve finished my album I am putting together the same album full of remixes. Instead of paying 20 people to do remixes for me I am trading a remix of my own for one of theirs. This serves three purposes. I don’t have to shell out a bunch of cash. It forces me to work on material that’s not my own which I find a challenge. Lastly, every remix I do for someone else gets promoted by that artist therefore extending my own name into the world. I know this is obvious but maybe this post will trigger you to go trade with your friends, fans and if your lucky music heros. This weekend I am finishing remixes for Haujobb and Steinkind. See how they just got some free press?

“A remixer uses audio mixing to compose an alternate master recording of a song, adding or subtracting elements, or simply changing the equalization, dynamics, pitch, tempo, playing time, or almost any other aspect of the various musical components. Some remixes involve substantial changes to the arrangement of a recorded work, but many are harmonic, such as creating a “vocal up” version of an album cut that emphasizes the lead singer’s voice.” – Wikipedia

For more info: facebook.com/thehorrorist

Be warned the service I am mentioning today may not be legit. Would you pay to have your SoundCloud tracks played more? Cloud Promotion says it will get you a set number of “Plays” for money. It seems the service is based in Europe because their prices are listed in Euros and the English text is well messed up (fancy detective work I know). Some examples: 1000 Plays for 25 Euro or 5000 Plays for 75 Euro. The site looks very much like the SoundCloud site. Is it officially affiliated with them somehow? Does it matter who listens to your songs? I know I would like a target audience not just 1000 random people. Lastly, would 1000 Plays = 25 actual song sales?

I tried to find some mention of Cloud Promotion in the SoundCloud forums but I couldn’t figure out a way to search there. If I am missing an obvious way to search the forums someone please let me know.

“With cloud Promotion You Can Have A couple bunch of Traffic to your mix or track And Make Easy The Audience of Your Dream” – cloud-promotion.com

For more info: cloud-promotion.com

A few music related blogs have posted the video above. Basically it states what most musicians know or are in the process of finding out: It’s very hard to make a living in the music business. I still make a percent of my total income from music but it’s largely from live performances and legacy hit records. That said, I would never stop making music because I love it and what it does for me other than buy me material goods. I also suspect that although the industry is in an all time lull profits will rise for those dedicated and talented.

“Topspin CEO Ian Rogers, captured at New Noise Santa Barbara, notes that only 25-30,000 musicians are actually making a living through their music.” – sonicstate.com

For more info: digitalmusicnews

I try not to cross post too much between Wire to the Ear and my record label’s site Things to Come Records. However, when I leave for a few days to perform it’s good to let you guys know why the posts were light. In any case, the photos above are from my live show in Stuttgart at the Lehmann club. I played a bunch of new songs live for the first time. I’m going to make a deadline for my album this week. I think sometime late September. I’m seriously considering releasing it all myself with Tunecore, Beatport and Amazon CreateSpace for CDs. It’s not really about money; I have a well paying day job for that now but I have noticed that the stuff I released myself made me 10x what I made when I signed my music to other labels. So the lessons for today: Deadlines have to be and doing it yourself is the way to make cash in music in 2010.

For more info:thingstocome.com

There is a new web service aimed at Band management called BandCentral. It’s an online collaboration hub where a group can manage a calendar, files, gigs, promotion, a message board, social media status updates, finances and a to do list. It’s a British service so they keep using the word “mate” and the price is in pounds: £4.99 a month (about $7 USD).

I like the fact they are launching with a business model. We are going to see web services costing money now for sure. I would like to make sure this company is going to be around a while before I put all my time, money and energy into it though. Keep in mind most bands don’t even make $7 a year!

“In a nutshell, BandCentral is an online band manager with all the tools you and your band mates need to manage your band. BandCentral gives you your very own online ‘Band HUB’, which enables you to manage everything associated with a hard working band (gigs, promotion, files and finances etc..) all in one instantly accessible place.” – bandcentral.com

BandCentral Introduction from Band Central on Vimeo.

My initial impression is this is kind of like Basecamp or Salesforce for bands. I also puked in my mouth a little because it’s all a bit too sterile for musicians you know? I mean should real rock stars be using a Customer Relationship Manager?

For more info: www.bandcentral.com

via Mashable

Here’s a choice I am running into that I need help making a decision for. When you post your commercial, for sale music online do you allow the full song to stream or only allow a 30 second preview? The large online music retailers such as iTunes and Amazon only allow 30 second previews. Do they know something about buying behavior? Does allowing just a short clip tantalize a listener so he wants to hear the rest of the song and clicks buy? Could it be iTunes and Amazon believe people will “rip” or record a full song stream even if just 128k quality?

Some websites like Last.fm give you the choice. I had my music set for 30 sec play and I received the following comment:

“30 second clips? can we get anymore of a rip off thats like showing half of the picture you painted, but if you want to hear the rest youll have to buy it if people like you enough, they will buy your music stop being such a rip off” – mnmcandiez

After a little thought I switched my settings to full song play. Is that the right decision? I think everyone knows it’s easy to record any sound your computer makes. I also know my publisher Strengholt music group doesn’t approve. There are some sites such as Bandcamp who rely on people buying music in order for them to survive yet they only allow full streaming songs.

So what do you do? What are the pros and cons here?

photo credit: mag3737

I’ve learned almost every life lesson the hard way. The “hard way” usual means you don’t listen to what anyone tells you and therefore you experience life’s pains first hand. I do admit when I am wrong and today I’ll make a minor confession. Basically, I thought if I took a full time job I would make music just as easily and with the same fluency and frequency. So yeah I was pretty much wrong.

However, it’s not actually time management that’s the issue. It’s more that well, I love my new day job! It seems after almost 40 years on this planet the left (analytical) side of my brain grew as large as my right brain (creative side). Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been freaking out waiting to get dirty with Ableton Live 8 but I’m finding organizing my audits also tantalizing. My official job title is “Field Energy Auditor”. I enter commercial buildings in a certain section of Manhattan that ConEd is having problems delivering power to. I help stores and buildings reduce their current demand by recommending various conservation (lighting retrofits, new HVAC systems, etc..) and generation (solar, geo-thermal, hydro, wind) methods. Often I meet with building managers and companies with more money than the entire music industry (just sitting in the top drawer of their desks!). You would be amazed how open they are to the green revolution. Then again, they save tons of money by implementing the plans we offer. Did you know an underwater turbine now sits in the east river and powers a Gristedes supermarket? Amazing.

I wanted to post this to put my feelings on the record. It should be interesting in a year or two to read this again (for me anyway). So to those of you who work full time how does your music making life fit in? Whenever you get the urge? Weekends only? What’s your stradgey? One thing I am sure of is I put 20+ years into the music business, learning the craft of song-writing and I am finally good at it… so expect many more albums to come. The best thing is I can afford more toys with keys and knobs on them! Here’s where I work: Energy Management Solutions

photo: They found my secret life as The Horrorist.