Conferences, Marketing, Social Media

Basics of Musician Vlogging and Seattle’s First VloggerFair

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Vlogging is an increasingly popular communication medium, and I think it’s a largely underutilized way for indie musicians to communicate with fans, perform live, do interviews, build their YouTube subscribers, and share information about themselves and their lives. Musicians might even find it an unexpected source of additional income.

What is vlogging, you may ask? Vlogging is a contraction of the phrase “video blogging.” Vlogging is what happens when you publish regular, serialized video episodes on YouTube and people “tune in,” or subscribe, to your YouTube channel to watch. Vloggers, some of them quite young, but many of every age, are making a living doing this. If they offer interesting content, and can build a good subscriber base, it can be a very good living for some of the superstars of vlogging. Vloggers provide the content, people subscribe to watch it, and advertisers sell ads on their YouTube channels through the partner program.

Chris Pirillo’s VloggerFair 2013 In Seattle

I just attended VloggerFair here in sunny Seattle. VloggerFair is a combination trade show and giant fan club convention conceived and organized by the fast-talking and very creative Chris Pirillo. Chris is the star of the YouTube channel LockerGnome, a “Geek Lifestyle” channel with 288,000 subscribers. In addition to his fast-paced LockerGnome tech gadget reviews, Chris and his wife, Diana, also vlog about their day to day lives in what amounts, more or less, to a reality TV show on YouTube.

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Live, Marketing, Music

Did I Move You? How To Throw A CD Release Party

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I did something important this weekend. It was important because I’m dying. Not anytime  soon, mind you, but someday I won’t be here. So, because I could – because it mattered to me – this weekend I did a few things I enjoyed doing a lot. Things on my bucket list. These were all things I’ve never done before, and I did them with people I love and respect. I

  • entertained 50 people (pictures here),
  • performed original music I had created with my life partner, Stevie,
  • opened for Amanda Palmer (@amandapalmer, yes that Amanda Palmer), and
  • kicked off the launch of the first ever Solveig & Stevie CD, Superwoman (available soon via iTune and all your favorite channels and services).

Oh, and I moved people. That is really the most important part of what I did this weekend. I made something beautiful and magical for people I love and for complete strangers alike. How do I know this? Because people haven’t stopped telling me since last Saturday. That is why I make music: to move people. I don’t need to be a star. I don’t need to be famous. I’m old (relatively), and I have three kids.  I think regularly about how best to live the rest of my life, and what kind of meaningful memories I want to leave behind when I am gone. I’ve done my time in corporate meeting rooms. I want to make people feel. I want to touch people and make them think about their own creativity. If I did that for even a few people last weekend, that makes me happy.

Yes indeed. What a night! Could the long term good vibes of the church be blessing our communion ! I’m not the least bit religious but last night was the best feeling I’ve had in a group of strangers since the sixties. – Tim Rounds

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Live, Music

Heart: Two Unconventional Women of Rock

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Last week week I watched Ann and Nancy Wilson perform an intimate and revealing concert for their hometown fans in Benroya’s S. Mark Taper concert hall, home of the Seattle Symphony. Although the show was booked a year ago for the Live at Benaroya Hall popular music series, it was made much more significant because of this week’s induction of Heart into the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 18. Ann and Nancy are rock and roll royalty, and this concert proved just how well-deserved their fame is.

It was a sell out crowd, with Microsoft co-founder and guitarist Paul Allen in attendance, Sue Ennis (their longtime co-writer), and many, many others who have followed Heart and the Wilson sisters for decades. Stevie and I sat in the third row orchestra surrounded by adoring (and greying) fans, friends and family. The crowd was very interactive – shouting out comments and requesting songs. The familiarity and love of the audience for the two women was palpable, and they seemed equally relaxed and at home.

Before the backup band came on, Ann and Nancy were interviewed by their biographer, author and journalist Charles R. Cross. His collaborative book on the sisters called Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul and Rock and Roll was released in the fall of 2012. Although some might have called the interview portion of the concert superfluous (perhaps  preferring just a standalone musical performance), I greatly enjoyed this informative window into the personal and musical history of Ann and Nancy Wilson.

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Conferences, Music

Lessons From Hit Songwriters Of Every Genre And Race

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The issues faced by DIY (Do It Yourself), DTF (Direct-To-Fan), AKA indie musicians cut across both musical genre and race. Many of the sources of information for musicians today seem to come in silos delineated by genre: hip hop artists read hip hop books and blogs, and get advice primarily from hip hop industry people; jazz, rock, metal, pop and folk artists do the same. Yet we all face many of the same issues, and these sources of information repeat much of the same advice to those who want to make a career in music. When we all share our experiences, though, we see how universal it is to be a musician, no matter what type of music we make, what cultural background we are from, or what age we are.

I was reminded of this when I attended the Pacific Northwest Recording Academy’s (Grammy organization) inaugural Songwriter’s Summit this weekend at Seattle’s EMP (Experience Music Project). There were people of every age and color at the Summit, but the concerns and frustrations voiced by the attendees were nearly identical:

  • How do I make a living in this crazy business that I love, but which changes under my feet every year, every week, every day?
  • Where is the real money to be made in writing and recording music?
  • How do I write a hit song? Then, how do I write another hit song?
  • How do I rise above the noise in the music industry and get my music heard?
  • How do I register and copyright my music so I can get paid?
  • How does the byzantine world of music licensing work?
  • Is the music business still all about relationships and who you know, or is the internet the great equalizer?
  • What is a mechanical license, what does a publisher do, who is SoundExchange and why should I care?
  • (and why does Rhapsody hold 30%  of their licensing revenue from streaming plays because they cannot figure out who to pay? This amazing statistic courtesy of Jon Maples, Vice President of Rhapsody Product Management)
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Marketing, Social Media

How Likester Helps Musicians (Or Anyone) Visualize Facebook Like Corellations

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 [An interview with Kevin McCarthy, CEO of the Seattle-based Facebook analytics company, Likester]

S: Kevin, thanks for talking with me today. In addition to the fact that you’re my stepson (full disclosure), you’re a succesful serial entrepreneur. You’ve started a new company called Likester (definitely not to be confused with Friendster). You and I were talking about Likester, and I had a few questions about how it might be useful for musicians or labels. I understand a little about Likester – it’s basically a giant database of Facebook “Like” data and some software that helps you visualize correlations between Facebook brand “Likes”, is that correct? And the idea is that this information can be used by marketers, presumably to better target their Facebook advertising to those Facebook users who are more likely to “Like”, and thus buy, their products? Tell me more about Likester – what is the basic idea behind the tool?

K: That is correct. Likester has tracked and organized over a billion Facebook “Likes” from millions of people. The basic idea behind Likester Pro is that you can learn a lot about your customers, the customers of your competition, or the fans of any Facebook Page out there.

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Marketing, Music

6 Reasons Seattle Living Room Shows Rock

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ShelbyEarlySeattleLivingRoomShows
Shelby Earl

I recently attended an “intimate” Saturday night show with 100 other people in a secret location at a dance studio on the north side of Seattle. From the outside, it looked sketchy upon arrival. The entrance was in an alley behind a restaurant. There was no sign to indicate you were in the right place. But here’s the thing: the performances were real and the audience appreciative. They listened with respect. Mostly quietly. Often raptly. They chatted with each other and with the musicians during breaks. And then they applauded vigorously. Repeatedly.

There was no proper stage, just about 50 folding chairs in front of a makeshift stage area in a corner, the rest was standing room only. If you hadn’t arrived an hour early and put your coat on a chair to claim it, you were out of luck to get a seat. White curtains were strung up over the wall mirrors behind the artists, and Christmas lights combined with two intense soft box lights to illuminate the performers. This experience was not for the nervous artist who prefers to be at a remove from the audience. The lineup consisted of a solo musician (Jason Dodson of The Maldives), a duo (Shelby Earl), and a small group (Ghosts I’ve Met – this was actually their CD release party as well), performing amplified acoustic music with hand drums at the loudest. OK, well maybe a small kit. This was, indeed, an intimate experience, despite the fact that the space held more people than I’ve seen in many local commercial music clubs or bars. Half of the 100 people packed in this relatively small space stood through the entire three hour show holding their plastic wine cups, beer bottles and paper plates of veggies and nacho dip.

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Conferences

“Entertain, Inform, Be Useful – Or Be Forgotten”

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This past Monday and Tuesday, I attended the second annual  Seattle Interactive Conference, a mix of presentations, panel discussions, and performance art that centered around the theme of “Game-Changers” in the digital world. And on the third day I rested. My head, and apparently also David Shing’s hair, practically exploded from the firehose of information, insight and interaction at this conference.  Interactive was the game, and #SIC2012 was definitely the place to be this week.

Presenters and panelists were a diverse mix: entrepreneurs, new media agency professionals, digital visionaries, musicians, venture capitalists, and big corporate marketing executives in the trenches executing on real life campaigns. Themes like mobile, storytelling, relationships, memes, disruptive technologies, the cloud, reinvention and, above all, clever humor, kept popping up like the undead.

“Attention is the new currency – entertain, inform, be useful  –  or be forgotten,” says David Shing (@shingy, AOL’s “Digital Prophet”, a reporter for Huffington Post, and also a musician, by the way). “Humor and creative presentation win every time,” echoed  Ben Huh (@benhuh) of Cheezburger fame.

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