RE: MySpace Controversy

["Joshua Carroll" <josh@infinivert.com>]

Ha!  I feel you man.  That's the way I felt in my last band.  We spent a
couple grand recording a CD, and then I could hardly give them away!  I
blamed it on the college "I'm too smart to care about anything" mentality
that saturates so much of this town.  I lost a lot of money on that deal.

Now I'm in a 2-piece thing with a buddy of mine and we have a little
recording setup in his spare bedroom, so we aren't paying studio-time
fees.  And we're using MySpace (myspace.com/opuspi if anyone's interested)
and the like for crazy amounts of promotion (with much more success, I
might add), but life has gotten busy to the place where it's been nearly
impossible to finish recording anything we can sell!  So we've yet to make
a dime.

My theory, though, is that because of MySpace and other tools like it on
the web, it's now possible to actually get to the place where you make a
living from your music without necessarily having to sign your soul over
to Satan... er, ummm... Nashville.  It's going to take a ton of hard work,
creativity, risk, and time that I just don't have at the moment (my wife's
due with our first baby--a girl--in a month), but that's our goal
nonetheless.

The funny thing is that we haven't even recorded enough music for a CD,
and we're gigging way less than I did in my former band, but we've got a
ton more people listening.  And, with the help of e-mail, MySpace, AIM,
etc., we're actually meeting and connecting with our listeners on a
personal level.  To me, that's much more valuable.

--Josh



> No, I wasn't joking. In fact, I was overestimating (I do make some money
> from jazz gigs, but I've had exactly ONE sale of my recent Sandbox CD, 
>and
> that was at a show. The CD sale put us over the top - that plus ticket
> sales
> minus the space rental gave us a $5 profit for the evening). But I don't
> put
> much (hardly any, really) energy into promotion. I gave up the concept of
> making any real money from music many years ago, except in my dreams (I 
>am
> thinking about seriously trying to break into music library placements
> through TAXI, but it is really hard to find the time to follow the 
>program
> I
> have in mind).
>
> Honestly, though, what really burns me is that I can't generally get even
> get close friends and family (or loopers on this list, for that matter) 
>to
> even *listen* to my stuff for *free*. I give a CD to a friend and don't
> hear
> anything about it. 2 or 3 weeks later, I call and ask what they thought
> and
> find out they haven't listened.
>
> Hey, I know I don't suck *that* bad (in fact, I think I have some fairly
> unique musical things to say, and from time to time I get some small
> confirmations of this). But the world is absolutely innundated with new
> pieces on myspace and the like, and I think everyone is exhausted by it.
> The
> saying used to be "everyone's a critic." Now it's "everyone's an artist."
> I
> don't promote anything, because I can't even see the point in trying.
>
> Sorry for the downer, but I do find the situation quite depressing.
>
> I know there are people here (Krispen and Ted come to mind immediately,
> but
> there are no doubt quite a few others) who are much more assiduous and
> persistent than I am. I truly hope that they have much more encouraging
> stories to tell.
>
> Best wishes,
> Warren Sirota
> www.warrensirota.com
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill [mailto:rs@moinlabs.de]
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 7:47 AM
>> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
>> Subject: AW: MySpace Controversy
>>
>>
>> > I can't see getting worked up over the possibility of them
>> > somehow cutting into the profits from my $22 of annual CD sales....
>>
>> Just to get this into perspective for me: you were joking
>> with these $22, right? What is the actual profit you make per
>> year? Anybody else wants to share his experiences? (private
>> mail, if you don't want these figures to appear in public for
>> some reason...)
>>
>>      Rainer
>>
>
>