Coining the term LSP
It's so boring to say The Music Industry is Dying. Passe. Lame. LAMMO. Tom Horan used to say that to me all the time. Hi Tom!
What's much more interesting is where the music industry is going, right now. I can tell you it's not going away. Bands still need distribution, booking agents, recording studios, promotion, managers, etc. What's changing is the way record labels interface with artists. They're turning into service providers - you need to record? Here, we can help you find some way to do it. You want to play a tour? Sure, we can arrange that.
I just found an article about Archer Records in TN; it's an indie label that just bought a recording studio. As the RIAA reports year over year decline in sales, and massively slashes staff and costs, studios for hire don't get as much money. Like this one in TN, it closed down. What's interesting is that it's cheaper for Archer Records to buy it and spend $230k renovating it for recording its own artists. It's a self-serving consolidation that makes the label more financially stable, and able to offer more to artists. It's just a smart move.
I chat with Ira Merrill often. He's a software developer in Seattle, and run through his string of bands. We met in the 90's when our bands played a few shows together. He's been toying with this idea of a low-overhead record label that is basically a clearing house of all the self-producing bands around the area. Nothing fancy, just a place to put that stuff out there.
But as we chat, we keep brainstorming on this Label-as-a-Service-Provider (ooh! We'll call it LaaSP, or maybe LSP). Physical CD distribution can be a nightmare, but using tools like CD Baby & iTunes, blogs, and playing shows and promoting your stuff at a table would be great ways for working bands to make it all come out even. No debt, no $20,000 recording and production fees. Just a working band with day jobs making a small business pay off while doing what they enjoy anyway.
I really like that idea. Ira's even offered to buy me a lunch sometime while we brainstorm it. How very record executive of him.
Labels: friends, itsanexperiment, maybethiscanhelp, music
