We’ve all heard the whole “labels are dead” and all of that. But two recent articles give numbers, which are always a good thing. Billboard magazine has an article that Amanda Palmer made $15,000 worth of merchandise immediately upon releasing her recent EP on Bandcamp. That’s pretty amazing. Now, admittedly, she’s coming from a previously major-label-distributed band, Dresden Dolls. And she’s got a promotional team, etc etc. But with no major, big budget release, that’s very impressive.

Equally impressive is Chris Randall, who explains that his Micronaut EP Resistor earned $665 in 10-days. Also on Bandcamp. Okay, $665 is not enough to quit your day job. But it’s more realistic, I think, for an indie band without a label, without a track record, without a marketing campaign—but with a social networking presence and good music.

Clearly, this is the direction Ember After will go. And at this point, Fall 2010 is when we plan the new site, new songs, etc. to hit.

This Spring/Summer, they toured America with one of my favorite new bands, She Wants Revenge. SWR has a sound steeped in 80s influences, although mostly the darker ones like Depeche Mode, bauhaus, New Order and Joy Division. But SWR was clearly a logical choice, being that they’d covered “Love My Way” and could bring their own, younger fan base to the show that would clearly be Furs-friendly. They were playing one of my very favorite Orange County venues, The Grove in Anaheim, which allows for great view of the stage from nearly everywhere, and has good sound to boot.

We arrived a bit late for the first few She Wants Revenge songs, but everything we saw was excellent. We’d seen them before headlining their own show at The Grove and we already knew they were a great live act, and this show did not disappoint. The duo brings a full band with them on the road and the songs have vibrance, mood, muscle, and texture. They played two new songs that sounded really good—I look forward to their next album. They played about 50 minutes of music but I’d have loved to hear more. Both Adam Bravin and Justin Warfield seemed extremely personable, chatting with the audience and Justin stayed after the whole show was over signing autographs, taking pictures, and chatting with fans by the merchandise booth. A great band that really works hard to connect with everyone they can.

The Psychedelic Furs came on very quickly after SWR tore down their equipment, which was great—waiting an hour or more  for the headline act to come on when all their instruments have been set up and checked always frustrates me. They began with “Love My Way” and proceeded to play about an hour of their most known songs, with a few deep album cuts as well. Richard Butler sang very well, and had an energy and effervescence that made him seem some 20 years younger than he was (he had more energy than the guitar player, and the guitarist is younger than I am!). The whole band was in great form, the sound was very good, and the band was clearly excited and grateful to be able to play to close-to-full 1700+ capacity venues 19 years after their last charting record.

Overall we had a great time, watching two generations of great bands put on great performances, in a great local venue. I look forward to more from both groups in the future.

http://music.amandapalmer.net/album/idioteque

If you are not an Amanda Palmer and/or Radiohead fan, move along, there’s nothing to see here…

Thanks!
Orren

I was 11 years old in the very early 80s when I first heard Ronnie. I was over at my dad’s house, and I saw him perform “Neon Knights” with Black Sabbath.

I remember to this day the effect that driving guitar riff, with his punchy, throaty, yet operatic voice soaring over it had on me. Years later I found myself inspired by both heavy rock and metal and the sounds of new wave and punk. As my musical education and interests grew, I found industrial rock that combined these two musical influences. But the first song I ever heard that gave me an inkling of using powerful synthesizers and metal guitars was “Rainbow in the Dark” by Dio, still one of my favorite songs.

I’ve not collected every Dio album, but I’ve always followed his career. I was thrilled when he got back together with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinnie Appice for Heaven and Hell. The live recording of their reunion tour is phenomenal, and I think the 2009 album “The Devil That You Know” is some of the best music Dio, or any of them, have written in a while.

Dio was loved by many, both as a person and a musician. Like so many, I’m saddened by the loss. I’ll miss more output from Dio and Heaven and Hell—they were in such a good place musically, I would have loved to see where they could have gone.

But mostly, I am grateful for the music he left behind. You didn’t know me, and I doubt you ever heard my own music, but trust me, there’s a piece of you in there, too. Thank you, Ronnie.

• Revising my novel.  Yup, my novel.  I’ve written and co-written a fair number of music software titles, but I’ve also written an urban fantasy piece of fiction.  ”Urban Fantasy,” for those who aren’t into genre descriptions, basically means a story that takes place in our world, but with vampires or other supernatural or fantastic elements.

• Speaking of music software titles, I have a new book out now!  I co-wrote the new Logic Pro 9 Power! with the spectacular Kevin Anker.  If you use or are interested in using Logic Pro 9 you can do worse than giving our new guide a look.  I have more details on Logic Pro 9 Power over on the Geartalk blog, if you’re interested.

• Working on the Ember After song “Shallow”—that’s right, I have been working on new Ember After music!  And this song is so good, that I’ve renamed the EP to reflect that this song will be the title song.  (AKA, the Misery EP is now the Shallow EP).  The song will hopefully be finished by mid-June, with perhaps a third new song, maybe an instrumental, around the same time.  I hope to release the Shallow EP this summer.  Yeay, new music!  This song will also introduce a new Ember Member…oooh, how exciting!

That’s a quick list of my recent artistic endeavors.  I’ll hopefully keep this blog updated more regularly at this point, and perhaps even update the whole emberafter.com site for the new release.

As an early fan of the iTunes LP format, I’m sad to see that it’s not reached the level of consumer popularity I’d hoped.  Obviously, as a musician, music means more to me that it might to others.  I loved the liner notes, the art, basically the “world” that various albums and bands created around themselves.  Sound and image and attitude combined to create a rock and roll fantasy that pulled me in.  And just downloading tracks to an iPod for a party playlist doesn’t create all that atmosphere.  And to me, that means something is lost.

iTunes LPs bring it back.  The home screens, lyrics, photo gallery, videos, liner notes, and so on, all you to immerse yourself in both the music and the aesthetic of an artist.  And I love that aspect of the iTunes LP.  Now, dos the average “consumer” desire that level of engagement, or do they just want a soundtrack to jogging/tweeting/whatever-ing?  I’m not sure, but a great thing about the iTunes LP is that it includes the normal track-by-track digital downloads that you can move around into every playlist you want and treat like any other digital file.  That’s why I’d love to see the iTunes LP become the default for albums; you don’t have to enjoy the tracks from your iTunes LP as an immersive experience, but you can if you want to.  Best of both world, right?

So why aren’t they catching on?

MacWorld has their reasons.  I agree with some of them.  I think price certainly makes a difference.  I bought Alice In Chain’s Black Gives Way To Blue iTunes LP for $9.99, the same price as a normal iTunes album.  And I think that’s a fair price.  If you give someone the choice of a $9.99 album or a $16,99 iTunes LP, it’s no surprise people buy the cheaper version.  And that’s what I’d like to see—every “album” an iTunes LP with no increase in price.

I also agree with the article that many people aren’t buying full albums anymore, just songs.  Fair enough.  If someone just wants a song, I wouldn’t expect them to buy an iTunes LP.  And I also wouldn’t expect that person to really want to immerse themselves in an artist.  They just want the hit.  Nothing wrong with that.

I’m not so sure that “marketing” has much to do with it.  If every album were an iTunes LP, there would be no reason to market the format.  Its just like when all the songs in the iTunes library became “iTunes+” higher resolution DRM-free songs.  Apple didn’t need to sell people on higher resolution music, consumers simply got it, and all was well.

The article talks about how some bands were seeded with up to $60,000 to pay for the creation of an iTunes LP.  Considering the iTunes LP format is a variant of standard web design, that’s an awful lot of money to create content for a web site!  The format itself is free, it’s a matter of finding folks who can do it.  For Ember After, the next full length album will likely be an iTunes LP (after an EP or two) and I’ve no doubt it will cost a lot less than that!

I can’t help but feel that some of the problem isn’t just the cost, or listening habits, but the fact that these days, bands often aren’t as creative with their visuals/image/atmosphere as bands in the past.  When I was coming of age in the late 80s/early 90s, bands were experimenting with styles and fashions such as new wave, punk, new romantic, gothic, industrial, and so on.   There was a lot to immerse yourself into as a listener, if you wanted to.  While some bands do try and capture an aesthetic along with a sound, there’s a lot more t-shirts and jeans and an attitude of canned rebellion…not exactly the sort of thing we need to sit in front of a monitor and dive into, is it?

The iTunes LP format is free to build.  I think it’s incumbent upon musicians to take it upon themselves to build their own (or find designers who will work within their budget to build) iTunes LPs, and give their audience something to really delve into.  I think this will not only spur interest in the artist, but it will help fans feel even more invested in the art of their favorite artists.

This may not be in the major label’s interest right now, as they’re just trying to sell as many cookie cutter artists as possible, not unique artists with their own sense of style, image, and visuals.  But perhaps if there are enough indie bands that do, that will inspire the majors to “get with the program.”  They’re followers, not leaders, anyway.

Anyway, I’m not ready to write off this marvelous format just yet.  But I think artists need to grab it by its digital reins, and make it their own, before it’s going to become the norm.  Once it is, let the consumer decide what they want to do with it.  If most people just want to put the hit in the playlist, that’s fine.  But for those who want a more immersive experience, they’ll have it, and hopefully become a “true fan” because of it.

This year, I had a lot of work to do there for the publishing company I work for, so there wasn’t as much time to just wander and enjoy.  But as ever, I love NAMM as a social event, meeting exhibitors that I really only get to see at these trade shows.  And it is fun to walk around and feel the enthusiasm—and I don’t mean the manufactured enthusiasm of the exhibitors (although, to be fair, some of manufacturer enthusiasm is quite real), but the enthusiasm of full- and part-time musicians and users of these great tools and toys, who have that “kid in a candy store” joy at being there.

I have gone to so many NAMM shows at this point that the novelty of it is mostly gone.  That’s not to say it’s “just a job” at this point, I still enjoy going, both for the reasons above and just to keep up to date with the latest and greatest.  But I’ve been going long enough to judge each NAMM against previous NAMMs.  And this one was noticeably smaller than previous shows.  That makes sense for a number of reasons.  First, the economy wasn’t good.  I’m sure many exhibitors who wanted to go, couldn’t.  And it was impossible not to be surprised at how much empty exhibitor space there was this year.

But there’s something else in effect as well.  As time marches on, trade shows themselves aren’t nearly the focal points they used to be.  The original point of the NAMM show is that the organization’s buyers would invite the organizations sellers (manufacturers, developers, distributors) to show their wares, so that the buyers could see them and then make agreements to purchase them.  These days, the Internet serves as a more immediate, and usually more thorough, way to check out what a company is selling.  Not only that, but many companies tend to have online purchase order systems as well, so there may not be the need to go to Anaheim to sign a physical purchase order.  Due to these factor, many companies that weren’t there—Apple, Adobe, Native Instruments, etc—simply gave up on trade shows altogether, not just NAMM (and not just this year).

On the other hand, for smaller companies, sales reps, etc, there is still quite an advantage to being able to network, and that requires meeting in person.  And especially for smaller companies, having so many bloggers and media reps running around can result in attention that your product might not receive otherwise.  So trade shows like NAMM aren’t quite redundant yet.  But clearly, times are changing.

For now, however, I’ll continue to enjoy going, to meet business contacts and associates, to meet up with friends from far away…and yes, to look at the cool toys, too.

Work on the EP is on hold for a while, as you might have gathered if you read the most recent posting in the News blog.  Ember Member Barry and myself will be at the NAMM show, so that will mean we won’t be at our respective studios.  Nonetheless, the hope is that this song will be completely by early February, the whole EP finished in February, and new music to share and purchase in March.

Okay, back to NAMM preparations!

My initial reaction is that this is a great idea.  I am old enough to have bought “records” back in the days where the vinyl LP was king, and cassettes the next most popular.  I grew up right on that cusp around the mid-80s when CDs started coming out, and like many I bemoaned the loss of the beautiful cover art and gatefolds and all that great stuff that some albums had.  I still have my copy of Led Zeppelin III with it’s spinning psychedelic wheel inside the cover, etc.  If the iTunes LP can bring some of that back, that would be fantastic.

However, a few things gave me pause:

• To date, while all the major labels were given whatever SDK was necessary to sell music in iTunes LP format, no indie labels or artists are.  This makes good marketing sense—of course they’d want to kick off the iTunes LPs with some very popular artists.  But there’s always the anxiety if this will really trickle down to the rest of us.

• The current iTunes LPs are all more expensive than their non-LP counterpart.  This may not be Apple’s fault.  I’ve noticed that the prices of iTunes LPs are quite variable, so that implies that Apple isn’t controlling prices, unless they are simply taking more of the sales so that companies have to charge more (which I doubt, Apple hasn’t gouged any format yet).  Certainly, if the labels expect to use iTunes LPs to increase sales, raising prices is not the way to do it.  But then, if major labels have shown anything, it is the ability to not understand how to take advantage of any given situation.

• iTunes LPs are compatible only with iTunes 9 and greater.  Now, I can tell you that with Ember After, probably 90% of our digital sales come from iTunes (the rest mostly from subscriptions services).  So I don’t think being iTunes exclusive means everyone will be leaving tons of money on the the table.  But still, it is something to think about.  Also, I wonder if you could buy the iTunes LP, but then move the unprotected AAC files to another device.  So if I use iTunes on my Mac but my smartphone were a Blackberry, if I could enjoy the full iTunes LP on iTunes on my Mac but still transfer the audio files themselves to the Blackberry (of course, I don’t know if Blackberry’s can play AAC files anyway, I have an iPhone…)

Nonetheless, I still think anything that helps bring back the artistry of the “album” is a fun thing.  Even as I see releasing mostly EPs in the future, I can absolutely see compiling the EPs, adding some new songs and information/video/etc and compiling all of it into an iTunes LP.  If possible…