Changes

If you already know about my rating system then skip on down to the next header, otherwise here's the lowdown.

The rating system
The rating system I use for this blog is somewhat unique. It's not a reflection of how much I like the music itself as much as it is of how far I am along the process of conversion from consumer to fan. So, over time you may well see some of these ratings go up if I mention an artist again. And indeed go down, as musical changes of direction or failure to keep my interest are just some of the reasons that may affect a rating.


Congratulations, you've made a temporary blip of interest on my radar. Now how are you going to keep it?


I've seen enough of you to recognise and remember you, but I'm undecided so I'm not really following you (yet). I may make a spur of the moment decision to check in on what you're up to once in a while, but even that's no guarantee. May also apply to artists I am aware of, but whose music I've decided I don't have enough interest in to want to pursue further based on what I've heard.


I'm liking what I hear in general, but I still wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I will be wandering past your site occasionally, and there is something like a 50% chance I'll be buying your next offering once I find out about it, providing I have the money available.


Now I am a fan, so the chances are I'll be past your site once every month or two at least. There's a 90%+ chance your next offering is already sold, and occasionally I might even be going for something more than the basic package (if you have one)


Reserved for very few, this is about as close to internet stalker as you can get. I am actively watching because I do not want to miss your next release date, tour in my area etc. etc. You may not always be aware of the fact I'm looking over your shoulder to see what you're up to, but trust me, I'm there on a weekly if not more like a daily basis. Depending on how you tend to release your information, I may well be signed to your mailing list as well.

What I've been looking at
A lot of what I've been looking at recently appears to have had "change" as a theme running through it (hence the title of this post)

For starters, a couple of artists I'm aware of appear to have been undergoing an identity crisis.

T-ka changed her name to June Caravel back in May, but as an artist I don't particularly follow, I only spotted this at the beginning of December. Seems she decided to fund an EP via her own website rather than coming back to Sellaband and it's now available for pre-order. In addition, if you do pre-order, not only will you get to hear it prior to the official release, you can get into the release party for it for free. Assuming you can make it to London on January 10th that is.

The other identity crisis comes in the form of Tim Bennett, who has decided to revert back to the Civilized Tears name he was using when he originally signed up to Sellaband. He's recently started streaming performances on UStream in-between filming for the "Black Rain" video with the help of Bambi Monroe, who gets the main job of keeping the chatroom organised as well as relaying questions and trying to keep Tim's rockstar cat Hermione from stealing all the screen time. Whilst he's been mostly playing tracks from his "Miseducated" album, he's also thrown a couple of new ones into the mix, so irrespective of whether you like cats or good music it's worthwhile keeping an eye on his twitter feed for the announcement of his next concert if you want to catch some entertainment.

Onto a musical front with change as a theme, Fabrizio Paterlini has been continuing his "Autumn Stories" project. He's been releasing a track for free download every week since the beginning of October and he's finally coming to the end. He'll be selling an album with all the tracks he's released as part of the project plus some others in the New Year. Having been following the project since the start, it's been noticeable listening to the change from "warm" sounds at the start to a much colder feel in the later ones that mirrors the change from Autumn into Winter. Week #11 is a particular standout in this respect and paints a picture for me of opening the curtains in the morning to find the first frost of the year has hit, followed by stepping out into the crisp clear morning to find there's still some warmth to the sun. Stop on by his Soundcloud page to get the free downloads and find out what you've been missing.

The websites I've been looking at

Sellaband
Following on from my last post, I have still been keeping an eye on the place, but through curiosity as to whether anything different to what I was expecting would happen once the forum was shut down. And part of me doesn't really know whether to be happy or sad at the fact it appears that what I was expecting has indeed happened. The discussion that started on the forum (of which most but not all got copied into the support pages) died the expected death on the support pages with pretty much all the contributors choosing to take no further part. The Sellaband representative appears to have started up further threads since with the aim of getting people talking, only to have been met with the same level of tumbleweed. I've decided to continue to watch what (if anything) happens on those support pages until next year before scaling back fully as a result, but tbh I'm not expecting any change from the current situation. Obviously the lesson that if you want communication, the last thing you should be doing is shutting the place where you're getting it didn't sink in. And now that the horse has bolted it'll be too late to shut the gate in the slim event the change gets reversed. i.e. once people are gone, they won't be coming back later to communicate.

Interestingly the current top 2 artists on the site were both due to be deleted in January through having been on the site a year. Neither had even raised even half their budget, until recently when Guru Groove Foundation halved the amount they were looking to raise a few days ago, meaning they had about 3% of budget to go and hence that reduced target has now been reached (pending the 14day cooling off period after a budget change). I'll be interested to see what happens with the other artist, who was only looking to raise the minimum 3000 euro budget anyway.

Slowbizz
The aim of this new site is to bring artists to play in the comfort of your own living room. Or indeed shed, barn or whatever else you have available. Artists wanting to sign up to the network need to convince a minimum of 100 different existing fans to vouch for them to be considered for inclusion. Potential hosts apparently also go through some kind of vetting process before inclusion on the site. Slowbizz then aims to help the artist set up a tour between a number of these hosts (a figure of a minimum of 20 is quoted).

On the host side of the equation, each host is expected to pay the artist a fixed fee for the performance, arrange (and presumably pay for if necessary) accommodation and a meal for the artist and provide either transport to their next venue (if close enough) or a sum of money in lieu of that. They're also expected to be able to come up with a minimum of 10 attendees for the performance, but they are not expected to charge them for attending. i.e. it's expected the host will fill their venue with their own family/friends.

On the artist side of the equation, the artist pays Slowbizz a fixed fee for arranging the tour and an additional fee per venue visited. They're free to sell any merchandise or receive donations at the performance itself as extra income over the fee they'll receive from the host.

Sounds like a great way to listen to artists if you're a music lover, doesn't it? And if you're an artist it sounds like a very interesting way to get yourself some new fans, doesn't it? But whilst I see potential there, I also see a number of traps for the unwary. One of which could even make artists lose some of their existing fans. So let's take a closer look.

There seem to actually be quite a lot of costs for potential hosts. The fee you pay the artist is $205, which is quite a chunk of money on its own but certainly far from unreasonable if you compare it to some of the prices top-name artists charge just for one concert ticket. But as you're paying for the artist accommodation and will need to not only feed the artist, but your roomful of guests as well, you've essentially got a party to cater for and that's certainly not going to come free. Add to that the potential for a 100 mile round trip to deliver the artist to their next venue (or money instead) and I'm willing to bet the price for just one concert will actually cost a host more in the region of $500 once you take everything into account. Again, not necessarily unreasonable, but it does make it more of a special occasion thing rather than something you'd want to do on a regular basis unless you're rich. And that makes me wonder. When it comes down to it, how many people would invite any old random artist to play at that kind of cost level? Wouldn't it be more likely they were already fans of the artist?

And let's say the invite is for a special occasion (e.g. someone's birthday). If there isn't a big fan of the artist there, then there's a danger the artist becomes "background music" or constantly asked to play cover versions rather than their own songs, rather than the intimate experience they might have been expecting. There is room for some serious disappointment here if you're an artist that thrives on the intimacy and interaction when people genuinely pay attention to your music.

Slowbizz actually do a calculation on their site showing how much money artists could make from a 20 date tour. But however nice those numbers might look, there's actually a big howling gap in the equation. Essentially, if the host doesn't transport the artist to their next venue, then the artist is going to have to cover the cost of that themselves. Stop and think about it. Even if your venues are grouped fairly close, it's likely you're still going to have to get to the first one and find your way back from the last one. Now start thinking about playing on a different continent from the one you live on. How much are the flights going to cost? Oh and don't forget the transportation/insurance for any instruments too. Bet you those attractive looking numbers are starting to look less attractive the further you go from your normal area. And that's a problem because why would you pay someone else to find you gig dates in the area you already use?

And now for the real potential kick in the teeth. Let's assume for a moment that you CAN afford to make a tour in a completely different country or continent work financially. And given our internet era, let's assume you've already got fans in that area (one of the reasons you want to play there, after all?). Consider what happens if these fans cannot afford the fee to host or do not have a suitable venue in which to host, but would be prepared to pay a fee to see you perform. That means not only is your host a non-fan, they may well have no connection to one of your existing fans as well. The problem is easily identified once you re-read this statement from the Slowbizz website

The events are in principle only open to your close network of family members and friends. We don't want strangers to invite themselves into the intimacy of your own home

Seen the problem yet? Let me enlighten you. You have (potentially big) fans who have not had the chance to see you perform before because it's the first time you've come to their area and you're now performing just a few miles down the road from them. They might even have already been supporting you for many years. But irrespective of whether or not they could actually attend on the day, they're essentially not even invited, because they don't know the host (and vice versa). Congratulations, I'm willing to bet that at best you've just upset them, and at worst you might even have lost them, and there's no guarantee you'll pick up any new ones from your unknown host anyway. Is this something you seriously want to risk?

And consider the alternative if all your hosts are existing fans (or connected with existing fans). If the financials say you can make this work when you're paying Slowbizz a fee, then why the heck would you be using a middleman anyway? If you can sort something out with your fans, then you get more money and/or they pay less for a great experience when you do it direct. And because they share a connection with you, it's likely your existing fans have also formed some connections between each other even if they've never met before. It's more likely an existing fan would welcome another fan into their home even if the two were essentially strangers, compared to a host who isn't a fan inviting one of your existing fans in.

But these are perhaps two extremes and the real potential lies in a mix of concert hosts between fan and non-fan. Even here, although I can see potential, the jury is out because the scales just look wrong. On the one hand, Slowbizz are currently looking to attract hosts more than they are looking to attract artists, which is good. But on the other they are basically looking to attract 1000 hosts in a year. That's 1000 venues worldwide in one year's time. Now think...what's the average distance between those venues going to be, given we are talking worldwide? Want to revisit my earlier question on travel costs you might have to pay as an artist, given that knowledge?

For me the reality would seem to be that although some pockets of venues may spring up, there is no guarantee these will be somewhere useful to you. To create the host network the company is talking about is going to take way more than a year for it to be of benefit to all but a handful of artists. Start thinking more like five years from now. Or even better ten or more before you could usefully use it for a tour. And even then, that's assuming there are enough people who are interested in hosting concerts on a regular basis (particularly for artists they don't know) once they realise the true costs of doing so. It's an idea worth keeping an eye on for sure, but I'm far from convinced it can work in practice. I think it just as likely if not more likely we'll see some artists working out how to tour using their own fanbase directly before this idea has the chance to grow any real usefulness.

Shirtify
Welcome to a site for the music lover which combines the idea of music streaming with what can best be described as a "t-shirt of the month" club. Basically, in exchange for a monthly fee, the site keeps track of the music you've been listening to on your preferred streaming service and then sends you a shirt from one of your most-played artists over that period. It's also possible to buy a month or 3 month package for this e.g. as a present for someone else. The obvious downside for music fans is the fact they will currently only ship to addresses in the USA and Canada and have no current plans to expand.

As a music lover, this looks like quite an interesting idea, mostly due to the surprise factor (i.e. you don't actually know which artist you'll be getting a shirt from) and the fact it does put some money in the pocket of an artist you wouldn't necessarily buy from unless you went to one of their gigs. However it is also something which has its downside once you look at it with the eyes of an artist.

Shirtify say they pay the artist full retail price for the shirt, which basically means their service is coming at a premium i.e. I find it hard to believe they would offer this service for free, hence must be keeping whatever the difference in price between the shirt and the monthly fee they charge as their fee. If bought direct from the individual artists, it wouldn't surprise me if you could effectively get an extra shirt for free by going direct over the course of a year (i.e. shirts from 13 different artists instead of 12 for the same price) as a result. And therein lies a potential problem, because I'm willing to bet that very few music fans would stop and think about that fact, and that actually they're taking money out of artists pockets as a whole and giving it to a middleman instead. I know I for one was originally caught up in the idea and that thought didn't occur to me until I stopped to think more deeply about it, so I find myself wondering just how great an idea it really is, particularly given the monthly cost anyway.

And Finally
It looks like this will be pretty much the last post from me before the year end. If you're lucky I guess you might land up seeing one more, but if not, it's likely the next post will be my annual review of the year one, which you can expect to appear some time over the Christmas/New Year period as usual. As well as my favourite artists/songs of the year, this time I'll be following up on the statement I made in last year's review of the year post by revealing whether Matthew Ebel has managed the one thing I was looking for to make me declare "Entourage for life", as well as a couple of interesting stories that happened this year that I haven't told you about. Stay tuned, you know you won't want to miss this one.

The final nail?

Well I had been planning to release a different special post, but events of recent days have caused me to postpone that in favour of this one instead.

On the one hand, you could say it's something that was expected months ago and on the other you could say it should have happened months ago, but Sellaband recently made the announcement they are shutting down the forum on their site "soon". Whether this means some time next week, or whether the end of the year is unclear, but either way it seems likely it will happen before 2012.

Whilst some may claim it is no great loss, due to nothing much constructive happening in there for months, the reality remains that a lot of the reason for this is that Sellaband themselves are responsible by not taking part on their own platform, but preferring to spend their time promoting Facebook instead.

They've been holding competitions and polls (amongst other things) over there for months now and therefore directing traffic away from their own website, rather than following the mantra that the more sensible have been trying to instill on people out there. You have no idea how long the popularity of another website is going to last (look what happened with Myspace when Facebook came along), or even whether it will continue to contain features you want, so avoid having to start over from scratch again and realise that all other websites should only be signposts pointing to your own website It's a scary thought that they seem to be trying to encourage the exact opposite.

Scariest of all though is the impression left by the person announcing the closure of the forum. Particularly when you consider what has happened to me over the past couple of weeks.

It started quite simply with Pledge Music following me on Twitter. I hadn't followed them. (I have in fact never even followed Sellaband on Twitter - call it a case of being deliberate to see if/when/what would happen). Whether Pledge picked me out from the description I have there ("searching for new music"), whether they followed me from this blog or whether it was some other way, I have no idea. Whatever the reason, it prompted me to take a look at their Twitter feed.

In many respects it's rather spammy, given the frequency of the "x made a project update" and "y has reached z% of their target" messages, but it does at least suggest there's a lot more happening that the rather limp updating Sellaband have (and indeed had back when the site was a lot more active). I very nearly didn't follow back as a result of the seeming spamfest, but something in the feed caught my eye.

I spotted a conversation which was started by someone mentioning they'd seen a particular artist was fundraising on Pledge and would have supported them if they'd received the previous album (by a different artist) that they had funded on Pledge. Someone from Pledge tweeted back asking what the missing album was and was given the answer along with the fact they'd emailed about it months ago and were told it would be looked into, but nothing had ever happened.

And so time to consider what I found so scary in the Sellaband thread about the forum closure. When confronted with the suggestion that Sellaband should get involved with protecting believers, the question came back "How do you think we can set up a lawsuit against an artist?" along with the suggestion that perhaps believers should check out artists themselves before spending any money.

Eh? Really?? As I've said in the past, people go to a middleman for the trust aspect, otherwise there's no point. To see what has been put in the thread by Sellaband smacks of amateur idiots at best.

Compare by going back to the Pledge user whose last tweet on the subject read

"I'm back on the @PledgeMusic bandwagon after they fixed my Damnwells CD snafu AND tossed in a gift. Excellent!"

That tweet in turn brought another problem with a missing CD for someone else out. The speed and manner in which both problems appear to have been addressed once it was clear they had grabbed the attention of someone is noticeable by following the relevant tweets.

The net result of what I've seen recently is that Sellaband have now convinced me they have absolutely no idea what they are doing. As of the forum closure, I'll only be checking in there once in a while to deal with any money. I'd say there's now a 98% chance I won't be spending money there again, so checking the revenue balance will be my only reason to log in unless Sellaband themselves can get my attention in a positive enough way otherwise (and given how infrequently the balance gets updated, my logins will follow suit).

In contrast, Pledge have gained a few points on the trust meter. Whilst I won't be spending money there in the near future, there is now a chance I might consider spending money on an artist I haven't heard of before on their site (despite the fact I don't really like the T&C of their site either for the seeming lack of protection it gives). I'm now officially watching their site more closely than Sellaband as a result of what has happened recently, so we'll see what happens and whether the forum closure does indeed prove to be the final nail in the Sellaband coffin.