While at Unconvention last week I met up with Rich Dale, bass player in Befast based Escape Act. Rich has been invovled in the grass-roots music business in Northern Ireland for 15 year, and  was one of the coordinators at Unconvention in Belfast. With brands increasingly playing in the DIY and unsigned arena Rich gave me his thoughts on how brands can best work with brands at a grass-roots level. You can check out Escape Acts music here

Martin Atkins, legendary drummer with Public Image Ltd., Ministry and Killing Joke was one of the speakers at Unconference. He shared some of thoughts on the DIY music business as well as some of the insights from his new book Tour:Smart, the ultimate guide to the business of touring. Martin took a few minutes of his time to explain how he has sustained a career in music over almost 30 years, why the DIY ethic is still important and why the only contstant when it comes to the music business it change!

I attended my first Unconvention this weekend, a music conference for the grass roots music industry held in Salford, Manchester.  The first panel session I attended at the event, Outside The Box, looked at what it was like for those musicians and labels who choose to operate outside of the mainstream of the music industry, and what alternative ways they’d found that allowed them to be successful.

All the panelists had a different theory on what success looked like, but all of them agreed it didn’t revolve around massive CD sales or sold out stadium tours. For Caroline Churchill, aka Caro Snatch, “everyday I’m being paid to be creative, that feels like success to me”. While Abigail Seabrook, who has gone from being in indie bands to leading a unique 18th ‘pop band’ defined success as a process which has changed as she’s got older, but pointed out that she would tell her younger self that there are many more ways to make a living out of music than chasing the big record deal. Or as Steve Lawson put it you can have success without having hit records, then spending the rest of your life on a tour bus.

But they all agreed that all artists who choose work outside of the normal structure of a label/manage relationship that it was really important to have a plan and to keep returning to it regularly to ensure that you were achieving your goals.

But for this for this level of independence to succeed meant you also had to be resourceful, inventive and industrious when it comes to building and then managing the relationship you have with your fans. But as Steve Lawson put it “500,000 fans and no money would be a fantastic problem for any artist to have”.

On Monday evening I went to First Monday, a music industry networking night run by Sybill Bell, who manages the rather excellent Post War Years.

Much of the talk was not about doing label deals, but how to raise money for the artists to do it themselves.

Recording and distribution seemed not to much of an issue for them (one manger had an act who have already made £4K from selling their demos on iTunes), but the big problem was finding money needed to pay for marketing.

With VC funds all but dried up, managers are looking for other ways to raise funds. One manager was investigating whether to sell shares in the band to friends, family and fans, but was worried that they could end up owning nothing if they had to sell too much of the bands equity. A pretty scary option when you consider the success rates of the majority of bands and artists.

My suggestion was rather than selling equity in his band that he looked at other ways of getting friends, family and fans to invest. Playing for your fans in their own homes can offer something really different, and this personal approach is more likely to generate money than playing endless unsigned nights at local pubs and clubs. However, some fans are happy pay for even greater access to their favourite band or artist. Former Nine Inch Nails drummer Josh Freese got one fan to pay $20,000 dollars to spend some quality time with the drummer and his rock star pals! However, he also offered up a whole range of other special packages to his fans at a range of price points (in this case from a $7 CD to a $75,000 package that includes Freese writing, recording and releasing a 5-song EP about you and your life story), a strategy that can be adopted by any artist.

When we launched soundsearch, our bespoke music search and licensing facility, just over 12 months ago we wanted to deliver something different to the marketplace. We don’t have a fancy computerised system, but what we do have is over 40 years of music business experience and a huge collection and knowledge of music that can cover almost every base and genre imaginable. And to prove it, over the last year we’ve had to track down a wide range of music - from a collection of Arabic and Indian music for a series of compilation albums for a client in the Middle East, to finding and licensing an obscure 1920’s recording about Watermelons!

Our latest sampler in the “It All Ads Up”  series will give you an idea of range of music we can deliver - highlighting some of the great new music that is tickling our fancies at the moment, that also brings together of those musical treasures that are hidden at the back of our collective record collections!

This latest podcast includes music from the Superimposers, Fanfarlo, St. Vincent, School Of Seven Bells, Faunts, Fever Ray, Trost, S-Tone Inc, Speech Debelle, Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics, El Michels Affair, DJ Sheepdog v The Gossip, The Soaked Lamb, Yael Naïm and the Orchestre National de Jazz, Notty Culture, Quantic Presents and O Yuki Conjugate.

We hope you like the music. If you want more information about soundsearch contact mariana@citizensound.net

To listen now:

To download the podcast:

With recorded music sales in decline, many artists are increasingly having to turn to the live arena to make their living. One manager of an internationally renowned singer told me that even after platinum album sales she was still making very little money from her record sales, making her increasingly reliant on a punishing touring schedule to bring in the money.

However, touring is not always the easiest way to make a living. In the current economic climate many artists are finding it hard in an increasingly competitive market. So it’s no surprise that some artists have started to rethink what they do in the live arena, by better utilising their relationship with their fans, who are now becoming their business partners rather than punters!

UK folk duo Show of Hands decided that they had had enough of some live agents and promoters taking what they believed was more than their fare share of profits from the gigs the band were playing. They decided to cut out these middlemen from the equation and work directly with their fans, who have become the bands’ new promoters.

And the way it works is pretty simple. The band work directly with some 20-30 fans across the UK, who find and book the venues themselves and publicise the gig locally, as well as acting as the box office on the night of the gig. In return the band bring their own PA and lighting rig, and heavily promote the gig via their extensive mailing list. The fan who promotes the gig take enough money to cover their costs plus a small percentage of the profits from that night’s gig, and the band takes the rest.

The band told BBC6 Music’s Tom Robinson that they are can now take home some £1500 from a night’s work, where before they may have been paid only a few hundred pounds by the more unscrupulous promoters. Some 80% of their gigs are now put on by their fans, who are becoming increasingly more ambitious, moving on from putting the band on in the their local village hall, to promoting gigs in 500 seater-venues. And the band also keep their costs down by staying at the homes of their new promoters!

Solo bass player and ambient maestro Steve Lawson has played venues as big as the Royal Albert Hall supporting the likes of Level 42, and toured in the UK, Europe and the US, but his preference these days is to play in the more intimate setting of his fans homes rather than the more traditional pubs, clubs or music venues. Like Show Of Hands he has his own PA system which he takes with him wherever he plays. Steve recently played a gig in a fan’s front room in Edinburgh to 16 people, who generously paid almost £200 for him to come and play. Steve also managed to stream the gig live on the internet via a friends laptop and USTREAM, which he promoted to his followers via Twitter, allowing another 200 fans around the world to also enjoy the gig.

And it’s not just bands that are working with their fans to put on gigs.

When I first met Richard Davies he was an intern at an independent label back in the mid 80’s. After a spell working for Universal Music, he left to set up one of the UK’s first digital agencies, Good Technology, back in 1995. Richard hasn’t lost his passion or interest in music, and via his new company Vexed Digital, launched owngig.com last year. The website brings together people with similar musical tastes in the same geographical area who club together to get their favourite band to play an intimate gig just for them. The first event last November, with a specially reformed Blow Monkeys, was a huge success for both the band and their fans.

SO WHAT?

All three examples show how with a little bit of trust and creativity you can bring the fans and the artist together to deliver something that is mutually beneficial. How can you get your fans more invovled in your music?

I was in Lisbon last week speaking at the 11th Festival of the Creative Club of Portugal.

Fantastic venue.

Thanks to Manuel Faria of Indigo and the CCP for inviting citizensound to speak.

After Manuel kindly introduced me, I raised the importance of a clearly defined sonic identity for brands and public environments where people congregate (from the park to a country).

Seemed to go down well with an audience that comprised of marketing folk, creative agency people along with some really fun and smart students.

We had fun with trying to shape the Sound of Lisbon. Will post up a little soundscape that combines all of the sounds that the audience suggested.

…. “Sound of kuduro knocking at your door” in Buraka´s forthcoming album - Black Diamond.

The music and video of the single - “Sound of Kuduro” features M.I.A. as a guest vocal, Puto Prata, Saborosa e Dj Znobia.

Hold your breath, what you are about see is on its way! Buraka Som Sistema are coming to London, Live at Cargo on the 21st October and we have tickets for you to join us. Be fast or they may run out! Write to mariana@citizensound.net

“>

Black Diamond is released on the 29th September in Portugal and in November in the rest of Europe.

The citizens are loving the new single from Lisbon´s Buraka Som Sistema - “Kalemba” - or as we like to say “Wegué Wegué”, it just makes us dance like crazy. If you see 4 people dancing around The Hospital club in the middle of a meeting, that´s us, trying to concentrate.

“>

BSS is a band comprised of beat makers Lil´John, Dj Riot , Conductor and the MC Kalaf who have become notorious for their innovative sound that mixes an electronic music rhythm – Kuduro - with house, techno, grime and dubstep.

They brought to Portugal a new way of understanding Kuduro that means “hardass” , a type of music born in Angola, where basically you move your “ass” like if there was no tomorrow..

They have been spreading this new music and dancing moves all over the world on stages from Lisbon to London, to NY, San Francisco, LA and many more.

Buraka are nominated for Best Portuguese Act in the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008.

Going to a pre-launch party of a new London club should be by definition a must thing to do. A club created by the people behind Fabric…even more so. But after going to MATTER last night, the new club based at the O2 Arena in Greenwich, I am ready to change my mind.

I come from a city where people really don’t dress up for these kind of events, but living in London I found myself having to pull on a fancy dress and dig out my highest of high heels. Big mistake.

When you go to MATTER you not only have to take a 40 min tube journey, a bus, a taxi and a lift, but you also have to walk about another 40 to 50 min to get inside the club. Once inside..to go from one room to another, you walk again… It is like going to a shopping mall, and the thing is, it looks like one - And that is what Matter is. A big club mall.

Does that really matter? Of course it does, girls will stop wearing heels, or they will never go back to Matter.

If it wasn’t for:
Jamie Liddell’s concert and James Lidell himself; Tim Exile’s spectacular performance playing a strange music instrument and his backstage rider of kit kats and spicy chips and tasty sandwiches; the open bar (with no queues); and me inviting Bushwacka (from Layo and Bushwacka!) to come to Lisbon and play on my 30th birthday…
…it would have been a disaster.

To go backstage we had to walk again 40 minutes, (not joking) and every Dj had a map on the table to guide them back to the club.

The best bit was probably travelling on the Clipper boats on the Thames back home…but then again.. guess how long we had to wait for the fist boat to arrive?

40 minutes.

Citizensounds says…

Matter has so much of what makes a great clubbing experience, but on the night it simply didn’t deliver. The bouncers are very nice, it has a big outside smoking area, a powerful sound system, an incredible list of Djs ready to play there, good looking people with funky hair cuts, so definitely a place to go back to…if it wasn’t for the walk. If only in the cloakroom girls could change their heels for a pair of roller blades..that would be amazing.”

Here is Tim Exile playing with some of his weird instruments…