Comments on: DIY Daze

By: Brian McTear

Brian McTear — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:56:57 +0000

Yes. Exactly. I think there’s a need for some innovation in music release format, and an equal amount in audience/community building. I guess the latter looks like something that Facebook and MySpace can lay claim to, yet joining these groups etc, I fear, is really a superficial sidebar for many people at best. Building an audience of music supporters, people who see the importance of music’s survival, people who consider themselves part owners in our series, people who consider themselves “activists” by their participation is what we’re hoping to do. I hope I have the energy to pull it off!

By: jvd

jvd — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:04:51 +0000

Yeah we’re very much in agreement…great points all around. I’m especially fond of your point about the arms race. The constant need for only new and different ideas can lead to fatigue. Like you said, I don’t want to discourage innovation, but I don’t think an idea should be invalidated because it worked. If an audience appreciated something and you have a similar audience, then by all means build upon previous successes.

Also love the emphasis on a shared experience and the importance of a supportive audience that can rally around an artist. Such a key.

By: Brian McTear

Brian McTear — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:58:19 +0000

You have the fire in you Jesse! This is great. I absolutely agree with your points listed above.

There’s a part of me that can’t help lament the fact that, in the absence of a standard format, musicians have to be caught up in an “arms race” of promotional packaging, and being “the first to do X”. In other words, I believe there’d be a great benefit in some segment of the industry working toward an industry standard format for delivery of music and the related arts. Not to sound like I am discouraging people doing what they can to stick out and be noticed, but what I am sensing is a mounting exhaustion with the requirement for the consumer to go look and find “what’s out there”.

If only there were a place and set of experiences and activities that consumers could rely on and expect. Some of this might be the release process as you’ve mentioned, taking over for the product itself. THe first experience = the release. In this day and age, people rather quickly listen and move on to never return. A big problem, itself.

The other missing element, these days, is a rapidly shrinking phenomenon known as the “shared experience”. Even as already refined niches of consumers are broken down in greater and greater detail, there’s very little that we experience together. (I really love and appreciate Kristin Hersh’s small private concert idea. To me, this puts a premium on people being together to have an experience, made more evident by the smaller crowd and therefore heightened sense of interaction.)

So I guess what I am saying is that, while it is true that artists need to perfect the execution of the perfect release in the attempt to get noticed, I hope that what I can bring to the conversation is the necessity for someone or something to round up an audience of die-hard music lovers: the kind of people driven by the desire to actively support and advance music, to experience music and the experience of music together and to see it as a matter of cultural survival that all music not “die on the vine”.

I can’t wait to meet in person and have this conversation on Saturday!