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Life in the Music Business
Seven Steps to Success in the Music Business
Copyright 2007 Tom Dudley
Note: In the years since this article was written, much of this information, like much of the music business itself, has become obsolete.
Step One:
There are several good books on this subject. Truck on out to your local bookstore and pick up “This Business of Music”, by Sidney Schemel, and any other music business books you can find. Next, clean your fireplace or prepare a small fire ring in your backyard, because you will need these books for fuel. Your new career in music will not enable you to afford to heat your home for at least several years.
Step Two:
Form a band. The many fine books on the business of music will encourage you to write a business plan for your band, hire a music attorney (you will need to move to New York or Los Angeles to do this), form a partnership or corporation, and establish a legal business. The experts will also advise you to hire a trademark attorney to research your band name, and you may need a copyright research person to determine who owns any cover songs you plan to record if the Harry Fox Agency doesn’t administer the licenses*. You will also be encouraged to negotiate contracts with any clubs where you play (See Step Four).
Clearly, following this route will exact a heavy toll on the $13.15 that your band nets from its first club dates. Again, I cannot over-emphasize how important music business books can be as a source of heat during the winter months.
Step Three:
Get a major record label deal. The best way to accomplish this is to win American Idol.
If American Idol is not your style, forget the major labels.
Step Four:
Forget everything you’ve read about the business of music and go out and play for peanuts. Virtually no club will make a contractual agreement with you. You can take what they offer or leave it, because unless you can guarantee that your band will pack the house, you will have no negotiating power. Some clubs would even have you pay them for the privilege of playing there.
Many musicians have issues with authority and formality. Your band members may not be interested in writing or signing a partnership agreement. They may not be interested in copyright infringement, preferring to believe that as a small unknown band you are operating “under the radar” of copyright holders. They may not even be interested in rehearsing, or writing songs. Your band members will probably not be concerned about anything other than showing up and playing the gigs, if that.
Unless you are independently wealthy and can afford the team of attorneys, accountants, and consultants necessary to run a partnership, LLC, or corporation, you will be the person liable for everything your band does, since you will handle the money. Even if you pay your taxes and keep books showing that money is distributed to the band members, the members may not pay their taxes. If they get audited, the paper trail will lead straight back to you.
The bottom line here is that if you are the only one interested in operating a legitimate business, you will become the business manager of your band. You will also become the booking agent. Your band members may be offended if you deem it appropriate to take a commission for all the extra work you will be doing, or if you press them to agree in writing to anything. You’re fairly safe as long as you play clubs, concerts and parties and don’t try to record and sell a CD of cover tunes. If you do start selling covers, you, as the business manager will likely be held responsible for any copyright infringements. The Internet is the best place for an unsigned band to market music. It is also the easiest place to get caught infringing copyrights, since it is so easy to find your CD (assuming your website is built properly).
Step Five:
Avoid all of these thorny issues by becoming religiously uninterested in legitimate business practices, and get another band member to do it for you.
Step Six:
Make a Record.
The thought of shelling out thousands of dollars on a legal recording project may seem daunting to a young band just starting out, but the news is not all bad. Today’s innovations in recording technology have drastically reduced the cost of recording. It is now possible for the average band to recoup recording expenses faster than the average homeowner can pay off a 30-year mortgage.
Step Seven:
Join several other bands. Your band mates will be in several bands anyway, so you might as well follow suit. This will give you some diversity, and give you access to more fill-in musicians. You will need these musicians when your band members weasel out of their commitments to play for more money somewhere else, or because their wives tell them they can’t go play.
Being in multiple bands will also leave you much less time to take care of business – a great excuse if anyone asks you to manage anything.
Conclusion:
No discussion of the music business would be complete without addressing two major innovations in technology: The cell phone and the iPod.
Today’s cell phones not only play audio and video, but, since your band mates will always have a phone with them, you can now leave them a voice mail while the phone is in their pocket. Similarly, the iPod allows your friends and colleagues to ignore you even when you are sitting right in front of them.
Finally, throughout your career, you will be offered many non-paying gigs that allegedly offer you “exposure”. In the United States alone, 75,000 people a year die from exposure**.
That being said, it is your image that will make you successful in music. It is important to play whenever and wherever you can, and do anything you can to get press coverage. One strategy that has paid off for many musicians is to be controversial. This needn’t be a complex or planned process. It can be as simple as having a notoriously angst-ridden drug fiend for a lead singer.
It often takes five years or more for a band to get good name-recognition. Some bands that have been together for decades cannot always remember the name of the current bass player. But if you control your ego and don’t expect overnight success, you have a good chance of establishing yourselves just about the time you are utterly sick of the sight of each other.
Good Luck and Rock On!
* You should have read the book before burning it.
** I made this number up.
Legal Disclaimer:
This is a satirical work. Any perceived reference to actual living persons is strictly coincidental.
Any offense taken by any living person shall therefore be considered the whining of a pussy-ass wimp.
Life in the Music Business
Copyright 2010 Tom Dudley
Rant One: Are All Dancers Divas?
Dancing is something to behold. I wish I was a good dancer.
I enjoy playing for dances, and it always makes me feel good when people get up and dance to our music, but some people in the folk dance community have a strange gift for anal retention. They can be very particular about tempos, which is understandable. But my “control freak” radar often goes “blip” when playing for dances. This strikes me as odd, because we’re talking about folk dance and folk music. This is not supposed to be Broadway.
I recently got an invitation for my band to play for a clogging group.
They invited us to travel fifty miles to rehearse with them (unpaid) for a performance that included “very specific beats-per-minute requirements”. For the performance itself, they were offering a “small stipend” for each band member - A stipend of three dollars each.
Now, lots of people are willing to play for free. That’s just the nature of the music “business”. I’m willing to play for free for a good cause. But I think that offering a musician three dollars for a day’s work is just an insult.
What is up with these folks?
I’ve seen it over and over. Kids dancing to the same pre-recorded versions of Rocky Top and Fire on the Mountain. The kids are often very talented. But I always feel that behind each of them is a stage mom or dad pushing them toward Broadway…
or maybe Dollywood.
I think I should talk to Ms. Parton about this.
Life in the Music Business
Copyright 2010 Tom Dudley
Rant Two: Tourism vs. Legal
My band is under contract to play dances in a nearby County. Our contract with the tourism department states that “All bands must perform Traditional Mountain Heritage / Bluegrass Music.” Along with the contract comes a rider from the County attorney. The rider states that “the artist shall perform only works that are in the BMI or ASCAP repertoire.”
When I saw that rider I knew I had a rant-worthy semantic train-wreck on my hands.
BMI and ASCAP collect license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers and music publishers and distribute them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed. BMI and ASCAP members are living people or in some cases, their estates.
By definition, “traditional” music is music in the public domain, for which no license or royalties are due. Put simply, anything written before 1900 is traditional and public domain.
In this sense, “Traditional Bluegrass” does not exist. Bluegrass was born in the ‘40s and ’50s.
So, between the two County departments, they’ve effectively ruled out traditional and contemporary music. Legal says we have to play contemporary music, tourism says we have to play traditional music.
The only real problem here is that the tourism department doesn’t understand that “traditional” has a specific legal meaning for recordings. And the legal department just wants to be indemnified against anything and everything that could ever conceivably (or inconceivably) happen.
Everyone wants total control. Result: Total Paralysis.
We’re technically prohibited from playing anything.
Your tax dollars at work! ;-)
I signed the rider. I know this whole rant may seem trivial. I just wanted y’all to know that I can be every bit as anal-retentive as a contra dancer or clogger. LOL
Life in the Music Business
Copyright 2010 Tom Dudley
What To Do Now That Recorded Music Has No Value
As a musician these days, you had better lead a very interesting and public life, and you’d better look good on video. If all you do is write great songs, rehearse meticulously, play tons of gigs and make excellent records, you’ll have a hard time giving away your records, let alone selling them. Industry experts are now telling us to give away our music, and to cultivate and sell personal relationships with our “fans”.
Give me some money and I’ll put your name in the liner notes on my CD. Give me more money and I’ll write a song about you. Give me still more money and you can come watch me record it in the studio or hang out backstage at our concert.
More than ever, you (the musician) and your marketing are the product. Your music is just a souvenir.
If you want people to pay for these privileges, you’ll need to be a lot more interesting than I am! I got into music because I love playing music. I’m not twenty anymore, and I’m not much to look at on Youtube.
Take Lady Gaga (please!) Take the band “Okay Go”. They mesmerized the world with their Youtube clip of them jumping around on treadmills. How can something as banal as mastering the violin at age thirty compete with that?
I’ve been told over and over that as a musician, I have to have a blog. So here I sit, blogging away, trying to say something interesting, hoping someone will give a shit and maybe someday, let me give them a free CD.
Life in the Music Business
copyright 2011 Tom Dudley
The Beer Fest
1:00pm
The band departs Asheville, headed for Durham, NC.
6:00pm
Checked into hotel. One room, four guys, two beds…again.
I just love the sound of three people snoring when I’m trying to sleep.
6:15pm
Going to find festival site.
6:45pm
Found site. It is drenched in mud from the last two days of rain. Plod through mud and play one set for about three people. The rest are under the beer tents, getting out of the rain, and getting pissed.
(Note to self: Remind me why I’m doing this.)
8:00pm
Time to get paid and get the hell out of here. The search for the promoter begins…
8:30pm
Plod through the mud and eventually find the promoter. She tells me the check is at “will call”. I plod over to “will call” and they have a check…For half of what we agreed to.
9:00pm
After plodding back through the mud again, I find Memorex and tell him about the check. He thinks we should find the promoter again and try to settle up now.
I am no longer happy.
I lose it and tell him he can deal with it if he wants. I’m sure the promoter will pay us the full amount eventually.
9:45pm
The band is back at the hotel. Me and Memorex are staying put. The other two want to go to a bar. But first, Crow takes a shower with his clothes on, to wash off the mud.
I crack open the first of many PBRs, and begin channel surfing.
11:00pm
The tension between me and Memorex has subsided, and I am ready to relax and take a shower. I walk over to the bathroom, and I see that the shower and bathtub are full of mud, and the drain is clogged. I am even less happy than I was earlier. I clean it up, take a shower, and go to bed.
3:00am
Everyone else is back in the room, asleep, and snoring their asses off.
I am wide awake. I need to pee, but I think Memorex has fallen asleep in the bathtub again, and Crow is sleeping on the floor. I’m not even sure if I can step over him and make it to the bathroom.
3:15am
Epiphany!
I’ve just discovered a new use for empty beer cans!
THE END
Epilogue:
The promoter did pay us the full amount without hesitation when I reminded her what we agreed to. It was $500. Not nearly enough
Life in the Music Business
copyright 2011 Tom Dudley
How I Learned to Write Contracts
My band plays a lot of weddings. This usually involves a lot of emails or phone calls back and forth with the bride-to-be, or whoever is in charge of hiring the band or coordinating the wedding. I’ve been fortunate, in that I’ve always dealt with very nice people in booking weddings. I’ve never had to deal with a “bridezilla”. Everyone has always been very considerate, even if they do have a lot of requests and questions about our participation in the wedding. Most of the people I deal with are pretty laid-back. After all, they are booking a bluegrass band – one that does not wear suits, mind you. We’re more “old-timey school”.
Many years ago, when my band was young, I got an email from a bride-to-be. She asked about booking us for her rehearsal dinner. She had initially contacted one of my band mates about it, and he referred her to me, since I was the booking contact.
Her initial email, and all her subsequent emails to me were titled “July 14 th wedding”. In her first email, she explained that she wanted us to play for the rehearsal the night before. After a few more emails, we confirmed the gig and agreed on a fee for our services.
During the months before the wedding, she and I continued to write back and forth about the various details of the gig. There must have been 20 or 30 emails between us, discussing requests, the PA system, the plan for the evening, etc…As I always do, I did my best to answer her questions and comply with all of her requests, and I diligently filed all her emails under “July 14 th wedding”, since all of our email correspondence had that subject line.
The week of the wedding, she sent a final confirming email. Not to me, but to my band mate, who she had initially emailed months earlier. I never saw it. On July 14 th, we arrived at the venue.
I walked up to the main building, opened the door, and beheld the bride and one of her bridesmaids. The bride was a strikingly beautiful young woman, resplendent in her wedding dress. She turned toward me, and I introduced myself.
“Where were you last night!?” she hissed, a searing flame of unbridled contempt radiating from her eyes.
We very briefly discussed the misunderstanding, and then she said, “My fiancé will talk to you afterwards. I have to do this wedding thing now!”
I had arrived at the exact moment she was to emerge from the building and walk down the hill to her wedding ceremony…Twenty four hours late, and looking like a total moron!
After the ceremony, her husband came over and talked to us, and we sorted out what had happened. Needless to say, we did not get paid one red cent.
Ordinarily, I go for a beautiful young woman with fire in her eyes, but there are exceptions to this rule.
…and that is How I Learned to Write Contracts!
Contact Tom Dudley at:
Tom Dudley
Hoot Holler Music
828-658-1565
tomdudley@hoothollermusic.com
www.hoothollermusic.com