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Vice Watch – How to Take Your Music Career to 11

The Invisible Common Denominator.

I’m known in the music industry for doing thorough research. Some of my research projects have spanned more than a thousand hours each. This particular journey led me to discover something I call vice watch. Let me explain.

A lot of my research began while I myself was being mentored and apprenticed by some of the most admired names in the music industry; Phil Collins, Quincy Jones, Phil Ramone, Steve Lillywhite and more.

There is a definite common denominator that has been practiced by all of my mentors. That common denominator when I tell you may sound wrong, or too trite and simple at first glance to even mention.

So often it seems that the actual power of truth is made invisible by the effective mask called simplicity.

I’ve grown enough wisdom over the years to learn something fascinating. The more simple a truth, the harder it is to see. And yet when discovered and applied it becomes life changing.

The Simple Truth

The common denominator of all my mentors was not just that they NEVER GAVE UP, it was HOW THEY NEVER GAVE UP.

“Don’t give up.” I know, you’ve heard it a million times before. No need to write another article about it. Right?

Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe this article shines a new light on a trite subject that could help save your career.

I took that simple truth, “Don’t give up,” and researched the hell out of it until I could deliver to my students a WAY of never giving up that worked every single time it was applied.

Like most discoveries, I found it when I needed it most (necessity IS the mother of invention after all). Vice watch.

There was a time in my career (actually TIMES) I felt totally overwhelmed. I felt I could NOT keep going with my home studio, that I could not keep going with my music career. Too many challenges and problems all happening at one time. I call these times in my life my “Trial & Terror” days. (Months is more like it).

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Challenges and Problems

See if you can relate to any of these challenges and problems which can, when added up, create the feeling of overwhelm. Especially when you sit down to work on that one thing that should be giving you complete joy in your home studio: music!

  • Computer Frustrations
  • Financial Stress
  • Lack of Exercise
  • Relationship Drama and Family Stress
  • Certain People in Your Life Pulling You Down
  • Contrary & Confusing Tutorials, Lessons and Courses on Music Production
  • Not Enough Time to Learn Enough About Your DAW
  • Not Enough Time to Make Your Recordings Sound Polished
  • Lack of Confidence In Your Ear
  • Lack of Confidence In Yourself as an Artist, Musician, Producer, Engineer
  • Lack of Confidence in Yourself as a Person
  • Stress from Your Day Job
  • Not Having Enough Good Contacts
  • Not Getting Any Breaks in Your Career
  • Too Much Time Needed for Social Media Promotion and Distribution
  • Too Many Distractions on the Internet and Social Media
  • Health Problems Arising from All of the Above

How & Why I Never Gave Up With My Home Studio

I’m going to save you time by getting straight to the bottom line. One thing I know for sure: If you are still reading this article you don’t have time to waste.

Over the years, I developed a way of mentoring and apprenticing as a Life Coach that always works for my students when followed.

From my direct observation, this approach parallels HOW my mentors kept going. HOW they never gave up.

It has to do with character and responsibility.

Vice Watch – A Step-By-Step Approach to “Self-Serve” Life Coaching

You can do this on your own. If you have trouble mustering up enough discipline to maintain this approach — collaborate with someone and help each other through.

This approach to Life Coaching is called “Vice Watch,” so named by one of my students, Robin Kaye of Australia, after he found success by following it.

STEP ONE:

Make a list of all the conceivable vices in which humans could engage on this planet.

Definition of Vice:

A Vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered wrong, immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, a vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, or a bad or unhealthy habit.

This is a very personal step. Everyone’s list will be different.

Divide the list into two categories: ACTION and INACTION.

Important Note: Pay close heed to the definition of Inaction: Lack of action where action is expected or appropriate.

Here are a few of many possible examples:

A List of All Possible Human ACTION VICES
  • Excessive Drinking
  • Taking Drugs
  • Gambling
  • Gambling in Life (Taking Stupid Risks and Knowing It)
  • Putting Oneself Down
  • Stealing
  • Cheating
  • Lying
  • Being Rude to Others
  • Bad Sportsmanship
  • Eating Junk Foods
  • Eating Too Much
  • Releasing Music Knowing It’s Not Done Yet
  • Excessive Time On Social Media
  • Excessive Time Playing Video Games
  • Using Cracked Software and Plug-Ins
  • Etc., etc., etc.
All Possible Human INACTION VICES
  • Ignoring One’s Children, Spouse, Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Family, etc.
  • Neglecting Needed Paperwork (Taxes, Licensing Contracts, etc.)
  • Not Educating Oneself Daily Regarding One’s DAW
  • Not Educating Oneself Daily Regarding Music Theory
  • Not Educating Oneself Daily Regarding (Fill In The Blank)
  • Not Exercising
  • Not Sleeping Enough
  • Procrastinating (List Specific Areas of Life)
  • Giving Up on One’s Dreams
  • Etc., etc., etc.

STEP TWO:

Look over your list of ACTION VICES and INACTION VICES in Step One above.

Place a checkmark next to the vices that you consider apply to you. Be as honest as possible.

STEP THREE:

Rate each vice that you have checked off using the following system:

The lowest Minus 10 up to the highest Plus 11.

Keep your list and your ratings written down and updated on a weekly basis.

How the Rating System Breaks Down

Minus 10 means the particular vice in question is literally ruining your life. Regardless of how things look on the outside to others, you know honestly that that Vice is literally ruining your life. Left unchecked, other areas of your life will get worse.

As you improve each vice that you checked off, the numbers will move closer towards zero. Minus 10, minus 9, minus 8, etc.

Zero = Vice conquered.

A Zero means the vice in question is no longer a problem in your life – at all. Period. Gone. Vanquished. This is a big deal and can take some time to accomplish. The point is to work on this vice watch daily, and to note down your ratings weekly. Some people go so far as to note down their ratings daily.

Collaborations

When collaborating (which is a great way to hold yourself and another accountable) there is no need or pressure to share what your vices are. Simply assign each vice a letter, such as A, B, C, D – and a number. All you have to do is let your collaborator know the letter of your vice and the number rating for the week. Some people are OK with sharing what their vices are, some are not. I found that even if one keeps their vices to themselves and shares only letters, this approach still works just as well.

What the Positive Numbers Mean

During my initial research, I set up this approach to life coaching where conquering one’s vice was the final goal and the end of the game.

And then I discovered something that changed my life.

Once you reach zero (vice conquered), it’s now time to help OTHERS conquer THEIR vices. Therefore, a Plus One means you have conquered your vice and are now actively helping one other person conquer that same vice.

Plus Two means you are actively helping two other people conquer that same vice, and so on (Plus Three, Plus Four, Plus Five, etc.) Once you get to Plus Ten (meaning you are actively helping ten other people conquer that same vice), there is one more level up you can achieve: Plus Eleven.

The Goal

Plus Eleven means you are actively helping more than ten other people conquer that same vice.

What is the goal of this approach to Life Coaching?

The Goal is to improve your “numbers” until you achieve an eleven on each of your vices.

Why does this work so well?

I learned from my Mentors that life is a group activity. One cannot be an island and truly achieve one’s potential. You need a team.

Just improving yourself IS NOT ENOUGH.

However, you can’t just “build a team” either, you’ve got to work on yourself as well. You see the balance here?

In my online course The Lucrative Home Studio, I lay out exactly how to build your team by hiring interns, and how to help them achieve their goals and dreams – by being PART OF A TEAM.

Besides the legendary mentors I listed earlier, I was also very lucky to apprentice under the team that supports 25 Time Grammy Award Winning Legendary Musician Chick Corea (Nominated 51 Times!). For two years I learned an incredible amount of wisdom about how to run a business in the music industry and how to organize your personal life and professional life. One reference shared with me, which has helped me successfully apprentice many musicians around the world, is a common sense guide to morals called The Way To Happiness.

The Results

The results are nothing short of life changing and mind-blowing. What this does to someone’s music career can only be described as miraculous. That is all I can say. Here is one of many testimonials I recently received:

“Gary, as important as everything you have taught me about music and music production truly is, I NEVER thought this seemingly unrelated and counterintuitive approach to shattering the “glass ceiling” of my career would result in achieving not only my goals in the music industry (including making more money!), but going way above and beyond what even I believed my potential for success was! I was ready to GIVE UP FOR GOOD. In fact, I had already started packing up my studio. Thank you is not enough! I’m giving back by working hard on a daily basis to get my Vice Watch “numbers” up to eleven!”

Summary

I found that when people give up on their home studios and/or their music careers, it’s usually the result of not working hard enough at strengthening themselves, followed by not building up a team for real. The secret is to work on both at the same time. That’s how you achieve success you can bank on.

When people work on both at the same time, their lives achieve a much better balance, and they become what I call “magnets for miracles.” And many of those miracles show up in the form of unexpected music career successes.

You can see the results of not addressing your vices show up in the following ways; distractions pulling your focus away from what you are doing, feeling exhausted, repeating the same mistakes over and over, not able to persist on an action until it’s truly done, allowing others to pull you down, and ultimately — giving up.

The Vice Watch approach to Self-Serve Life Coaching is an amazingly simple and effective insurance plan against giving up.

The bottom line is this — give it a try. Do it. And let me know how it goes. You might be pleasantly surprised. And don’t be afraid to reach out for help along the way.

I’m always here to listen and to help.

I do believe this article is the most important article I will probably ever write. I am, in essence, working right now on getting my Vice Watch “numbers” up to eleven by helping you!

My personal mission statement is simple. “To create a Renaissance in the entertainment industry which will then create a Renaissance in the world culture.”

Here’s to a balanced life which leads to a productive and successful music career for you!

That’s what we are trying to do at the New Artist Model.

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Written by Gary Gray creator of The Lucrative Home Studio. Out of his one bedroom home studio, he’s completed major projects for The Disney Music Group and 20th Century Fox, CBS Daytime Television, A&E, Megatrax, EMI Production Music London, and others. 

Check out Gary's free Mastering Music for Licensing and Streaming webinar

Check out Gary’s free “Mastering Music for Licensing and Streaming” Webinar

For more information regarding revolutionary approaches to life and music production for the home studio developed by Gary, check out The Lucrative Home Studio.

If you want to work directly with Gary, sign up to get one of your songs critiqued.

A version of this post was also published on the Tunecore blog.

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Artistic Efficiency

Photo credit: http://bit.ly/1cv3FL0

Photo credit: http://bit.ly/1cv3FL0

As we reach the end of the year, we all look forward to a new year and new resolutions for a better career and better self. But why not get started now and hit the new year running? Next year, I know many musicians out there who will be working towards goals to play more, write more, and be more on top of social media. Set the ground work now for artistic efficiency!

This guide, by Michael Shoup, was originally posted on Hypebot. It really sets out some great, actionable guidelines.

RULE 1: Minimize

Chances are, if you’re in your 20’s or 30’s, you’re doing too much. You have a Twitter, Facebook, 4Square, Tumblr account, and maybe more. You may not even realize it, but you find yourself wishing you’d start that business, try for that dream job, or make that record… and you don’t because of “obligations” or “responsibilities”, or worse yet, simple “lack of time.” I’m with you. I’ve been there. Unfortunately for us as humans, this doesn’t get easier as we grow older and add families or children to the mix, so it’s best that we learn how to handle it now. No more excuses. It’s time to trim the fat.

While this may not be the exact first step for everyone, I believe minimalism is key. I challenge you to examine what you do on a day to day basis, and ask yourself (a) do you actually like doing those activities and (b) what would happen if you just STOPPED doing part of it. What are the consequences? What is the worst-case scenario that could happen if you just dropped that activity today? What would the benefits be? What if you only used one social network and built your audience there? Would you suddenly find yourself with blocks of time available to dedicate to your passion or audience? I certainly did.

RULE 2: Delegate

While the term “independent” in the music industry generally refers to running your own career, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do it alone. This is one part of the puzzle that I find many creatives miss. I know I certainly did. The beauty of being an “independent” artist is that you’re suddenly the boss of your own career; the CEO and founder of your music, and it’s your job to build a team under you.

Our society, and partially our school system, has ingrained in us that busy is better; that multi-tasking is a necessity, and that Facebook deserves your constant attention. It doesn’t. What does deserve your attention are your goal-driven, well-defined priorities. It’s time to separate yourself from the noise.

This is the rule where I see most creatives lose focus. I personally suffer from the “do-it-all-now!” syndrome, so I can relate, but doing what deserves your attention at the right time creates momentum, and our goal is to feed that energy.

I start this process by taking a pen and paper and writing down all of the tasks that I need to do [Actually, I usually do this starting at rule one and make columns for “minimize”, “delegate” and “prioritize”]. Once I have my list, I’ll give each task a weight based on its urgency, my desire to see it to completion, or the length of time it’s been on the list [longer gets higher priority].

Now, the magic comes in making these priorities actionable. For each item with the top priority rating, I break it down into small steps.

RULE 4: Automate

By running myself through this “5 Rules” process numerous times, I began to notice systems develop each time a similar priority was identified. Perhaps all co-writing appointments could be setup in the same 4 steps. Maybe all my reoccurring payments could be pooled to one credit card that I auto-pay once a month? Could all my booking emails be funneled to an auto-responder that followed up for me and sent a press release? As these systems began to develop, I would ask myself one simple question: Does automating this task make it too impersonal? If the answer was no, I’d set the system in place.

RULE 5: Create!

This is it, folks. This is what you’ve saved up so much time and energy to do. In my personal opinion, this should always be priority and rule #1, even if you do use the first 4 rules to clean out everything else. This is what drives and motivates you. As an artist or content creator, this is what will actually make or break you in the end. This is what you should be funneling the vast majority of your time and effort into as it feeds your authentic ability to connect and engage your audience.

*BONUS ROUND: Take Big Calculated Risks

This last piece I include as a small tidbit to chew on.

At least once a month, I challenge myself to take a big risk with my career; to do something that scares me or toss a Hail Mary with no real assurance that anything will come of it. Though sometimes these amount to nothing, they’ve also accounted for some of my greatest successes and built relationships that I would’ve never dreamed possible.

What are your goals for the coming year? How will you start working towards those goals NOW?

 

 
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Tips for Your Facebook Business Page

 

A Facebook business or band page is different from a personal page, and therefore requires a different approach.  Once you get a hang of it, it can be a great way to create a more meaningful relationship with your fans and customers.  Facebook allows you to talk to them directly, offer Facebook-exclusive promotions, and get instant feedback, just to name a few.

Check out this infographic with lots of tips to make your Facebook page more successful.

tips-facebook-business-page-infographic-e1372797853416

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Leadership Lessons from Jazz Musicians

Musicians are smart, creative, and innovative thinkers despite what popular culture would have you believe. Too often, when we think of musicians, images from Spinal Tap come to mind, but this is not usually the case. Being a musician requires a mix of extreme creativity and logic, collaboration, listening and multi-tasking skills, and complete dedication  – a mix that not many professions require.

Many entrepreneurs would do well to take up an instrument, as many of these skills are also required in business. Here’s a list of 11 leadership lessons to be learned from musicians:

1. Playing it safe gets you tossed off the stage. Some executives would say that in today’s turbulent economy, takings risks isn’t wise. If you don’t take risks you’ll never excel. Playing it safe all the time becomes the most dangerous move of all.

2. There are no do-overs in live performances. For every hour in a “performance” setting, you should spend five hours practicing. Athletes do this, musicians do this–muscle memory is no different in the board room, in front of a new client, or with your team. So why aren’t you doing this?

3. Listening to those around you is three times more important than what you play yourself. If you’re the one talking all the time, you’re not learning anything. Listen, absorb what you hear, and use the information to make a conscious choice about whatever you’re facing.

4. There’s a time to stand out as a soloist and a time to support others and make them shine. You rocked a project–nicely done. Praise is well-deserved. However, as a leader, it’s more likely the case that your team members rocked a project, together. Susie was on top of her game with the slide deck? Tell her–and tell the client. Johnny couldn’t have articulated the challenge to the press any more astutely? Refer back to his commentary as a stellar example. When you can share the wealth, everyone wins.

To see the full list, visit Inc.com.

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Beyond the Playlist with Viinyl 2.0

Why do most music players look like spreadsheets?

Discovering music on your own requires that you listen to a song for a period of time to see if you like it. Sure, if one of your friends tells you about a track you may “discover” it through them, but you will also spend some time listening to the song before you decide if it’s for you. This is the nature of the beast. Music is a time-based phenomenon.

Unlike with videos where you can “time compress” a video into a single frame image that you can easily visually scan, with music there is no alternative format that represents the song that can be easily scanned, except for the song name. This explains why most music interfaces display playlists, with song names as text not unlike in a spreadsheet, or list of song names. These can be easily scanned, but have no direct correlation to the sound or feeling of the song itself. I have always found it odd that in this era of digital music and highly designed interfaces, that most players default to a spreadsheet of song names to present music – true of iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Rdio and many others.  Spreadsheet music players.

Sure you can have a thumbnail of the album cover, but rarely do you see this on a song-by-song basis. Maybe in parts of Beatport or other DJ sites that are focused on tracks, but not generally on the web for the mass consumers of songs. And yes we have also seen many different visual interfaces like Sonorflow that let you visually traverse music genres or the linkage between bands, but these do not convey information about the songs themselves or the emotions that they convey.

What if we had a way to make a song come alive visually? This was the whole idea behind the original MTV and it was wildly successful for decades. What is the online equivalent, or even better, what can we do to push the whole boundary of music discovery and showcasing to new levels by embracing the time-based nature of music and coupling it with visual expression and a modern interface that lets you experience and interact with music in new and interesting ways. And no, I’m not talking about the waveform displays on Soundcloud.

I am working with a new company called Viinyl which is in the final testing stage for a whole new video-based version of their Music Showcasing platform that is very hot. I haven’t seen anything like Viinyl 2.0 and I think it represents a whole new way of presenting music. Viinyl amplifies the emotional content of songs visually, in a way that is enjoyable and super easy to use. This is a whole new way of showcasing music.

Viinyl is re-defining the way music and videos are experienced. In fact their video player is a new way to attract attention, engage an audience with the emotion of a song, and make money on singles and tracks. From a simple URL you can run a full screen video with interactive overlays and gather email, sell tracks and tickets, connect to your social networks and literally showcase music thru video. You can sell any digital file including music and movies, and provide relavent information directly in the context of the song including bios, links, credits, contacts, concert dates, lyrics, etc.

Here are some examples of the new Viinyl 2.0 in action:

http://hiphopdraft-ghost-in-the-machine.new.viinyl.com/
http://synthetica-mini-documentary.new.viinyl.com/
http://destination-brazil.new.viinyl.com/
http://idareyoubeta.new.viinyl.com/

The new platform supports audio file sales with fixed or flexible album pricing (minimum price and Pay What You Want) along with various free distribution options. The software is lightning fast, with just a few clicks, musicians and labels will be able to share their work independently – and hold onto all revenue generated.

The new Viinyl 2.0 LP format delivers a visual playlist, giving listeners and fans a far richer, more immersive and inviting music experience compared with the current spreadsheet format.  This new software will be available in the coming weeks.

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The Most Interesting Startup in the World

The Most Interesting Startup in the World

  • They have no employees, only customers.
  • Strangers ride the elevator up and down, just to hear their pitch.
  • When they meet with Angels, they take equity… in their investors.
  • Their seed round was an IPO.
  • They once pivoted all the way around, just to see how it feels.
  • They mentor their mentors.
  • Their business cards say only “We’ll call you”.
  • Their lean model produces water and gold from air with no waste.

I found most of this written on a wall at the Mass Challenge accelerator in Boston.  I don’t know who started it or where it came from, but here you go.  Fun stuff.

What can you add to the story, the company, the myth…

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Remembering Music Producer Phil Ramone

Here is an interview with the great Phil Ramone, recorded at his home in Connecticut. Phil discusses making hits, songwriting, music production, the music industry, the listening experience, working with artists, the studio, spare parts, preparation, working style and gives his advice for artists and writers. A true master, he gives us a glimpse into his thought process and how he works to get the most out of the creative process. Notice how his mind easily shifts from the artistic to the technical and back without missing a beat. We will miss you Phil.

Phil Ramone is one of the most respected and prolific music producers of all time in the recording industry. Ramone’s musical acumen, creativity and use of audio technology are unmatched among his peers. Phil played a huge role in shaping the careers and songs of both Billy Joel and Paul Simon and is going to be missed so much. Such a gentle and graceful man who filled the world with optimism and carved such a wide swath across the music business.

He won 14 Grammy Awards, including producer of the year, nonclassical, in 1981, and three for album of the year, for Mr. Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” in 1976, Mr. Joel’s “52nd Street” in 1980, and Mr. Charles’s duets album, “Genius Loves Company,” in 2005. He also produced music for television and film, winning an Emmy Award as the sound mixer for a 1973 special on CBS, “Duke Ellington … We Love You Madly.”

Mr. Ramone was born in South Africa and grew up in Brooklyn. His father died when he was young, and his mother worked in a department store. A classical violin prodigy, he studied at the Juilliard School but soon drifted toward jazz and pop, and apprenticed at a recording studio, J.A.C. Recording.

In 1958, he co-founded A & R Recording, a studio on West 48th Street in Manhattan, and built a reputation as a versatile engineer, working on pop fare like Lesley Gore as well as jazz by John Coltrane and Quincy Jones. He ran the sound when Marilyn Monroe cooed “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy in 1962, and three years later won his first Grammy as the engineer on Stan Getz and João Gilberto’s landmark album “Getz/Gilberto.”

As a producer, he had a particularly close association with Billy Joel and Paul Simon; the back cover of Joel’s 1977 album “The Stranger” features a photograph of Mr. Ramone posing with Mr. Joel and his band at a New York restaurant.

“I always thought of Phil Ramone as the most talented guy in my band,” Mr. Joel said in a statement on Saturday. “He was the guy that no one ever, ever saw onstage. He was with me as long as any of the musicians I ever played with — longer than most. So much of my music was shaped by him and brought to fruition by him.”

Acknowledged as one of the top creative music producers, Ramone has also played an integral role in pioneering many of the technological developments in the music industry over the years. He ardently supported the use of the compact disc, digital video disc, hi-definition recording and surround sound.

Ramone’s impeccable list of credits includes collaborations with artists such as: Burt Bacharach, Bono, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Chicago, Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Gloria Estefan, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Quincy Jones, BB King, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Liza Minnelli, Sinead O’Connor, Pavarotti, Peter/Paul and Mary, Andre Previn, Carly Simon, Frank Sinatra, Phoebe Snow, Rod Stewart, and Stevie Wonder.

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The Democratization of Entrepreneurship

sethlevineTechnology investor and managing director of The Foundry Group, Seth Levine, shares his thoughts about the changing trends in entrepreneurship over the past few years.

He points to several factors that have recently contributed to shifts in the way people consider and approach entrepreneurship including the breaking down of geographical barriers and a decreasing emphasis on pedigree.

One of the great trends we’ve been witnessing over the past decade, and in particular the past 5 years, has been what you might call the “democratization” of entrepreneurship”. It’s a powerful trend and one that I think will have a huge impact not just on the US economy and workforce, but perhaps even more intensely on other areas of the world – particularly developing economies.

Read the full story on his blog, at SethLevine.com

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The Evolution of the Live Touring Business

While the recorded music business continues to suffer, the live touring business is holding up rather well, propelled in the short term by legacy acts, but moving forward with smaller bands and festivals well poised to fill the shoes of the legendary bands as they retire. Here are some excerpts from a great piece by Dean Budnick with the Hollywood Reporter.

We’re at a fascinating crossroads. The modern touring rock industry emerged in the late ’60s, during the heyday of such venues as Bill Graham’s Fillmore East and West in New York and San Francisco, respectively, Jack Boyle’s The Cellar Door in Washington, D.C., and Don Law’s Tea Party in Boston. Rock music didn’t move into arenas until the early ’70s, a development that prompted Graham to close his clubs, announcing his decision via a letter to the Village Voice that decried “the unreasonable and totally destructive inflation of the live concert scene.”

So how are the smartest people in the industry preparing for the next big shift?

“We need fresh acts to appeal to new generations,” says Michael Rapino, president and CEO of Live Nation, the world’s dominant tour promoter. “The Rolling Stones was an epic tour, but it’s not a long-term business.” Rapino suggests that this process already is in motion, as six of the top 10 Live Nation tours of 2012 were by artists whose first hit was in the 2000s, including Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Jason Aldean, Drake, Rascal Flatts and Nickelback. “The beauty of this industry is there are always new acts to win our hearts.”

Chip Hooper, worldwide head of music at Paradigm, echoes this sentiment: “Today you’re talking about one group of bands, but what is contemporary and what is heritage just keeps changing as time goes marching on. If you took a snapshot of today, yeah, there’ll be some older artists who won’t be touring in a couple years, but then there’ll be new older artists because younger artists are getting older.”

Still, it remains an open question as to whether today’s concertgoers will continue to follow a singles artist like Rihanna into her dotage and whether they will pony up for the ever-escalating price for a live-concert experience. “As concertgoers age and inflation increases the price of nearly everything, ticket prices will rise in conjunction,” says industry analyst Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG. “When Coldplay play Madison Square Garden with a crowd averaging 50 years old rather than 30 years old, the higher-income-earning crowd will part with more money. The transition from The Eagles and CSN to Bon Jovi and U2 to Coldplay and Foo Fighters might be difficult for some interested parties — but the transition will occur.”

The answer might be to think smaller, says Tom Windish of The Windish Agency, which reps more than 500 acts including Foster the People, Gotye and 20 of the performers at the 2012 Coachella festival. “If I was a promoter, I would be analyzing which markets could use a 2,000- to 5,000-capacity venue and what obstacles are in the way to creating one,” Windish says. “As an agent, there are many cities where there is just not a suitable venue for a band who can sell this number of tickets. It takes time to open a venue of this size for many cities, and it can’t happen soon enough.”

So will all this work? Perhaps a more pointed question is: Can the live music industry survive the coming generational shift? Will young people show the same passion for live music as their elders — and do they have the income to support their habit? Tentative signs point to yes, based on festival attendance as well as the rising popularity of such performers as Mumford and Sons, Zac Brown Band, Bassnectar, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Vampire Weekend. At its core, the live entertainment industry is built on a certain ineffable, unquantifiable connection between fan and band, which is also why those legacy acts might not be leaving the stage anytime soon.

Read more from the Hollywood Reporter.

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Startup Strategies – Best of 2012

Here is a fantastic compilation of posts and articles from 2012 about managing startups from  Professor at Harvard Business School who studies lean startups, entrepreneurship, platforms, and network effects (Twitter: @teisenmann).  This is so much information and wisdom here for anyone starting a new venture or trying to make their startup successful.

As Tom says “The generosity of the startup community is amazing, and these insights are invaluable to those of us who teach and coach aspiring entrepreneurs.”  Dig in, there is a lot to digest:

Lean Startup

Business Models
Customer Discovery and Validation

Marketing: Demand Generation and Optimization

Sales and Sales Management
Viral Marketing
PR Strategy

Branding/Naming a Startup

Product Management/Product Design

Business Development

  • John O’Farrell of a16z describes how quality trumps quantity and clarity regarding mutual objectives is crucial in doing business development deals, using Opsware’s transformative distribution agreement with Cisco as a case study.
Scaling

Funding Strategy

Founding Process
  • My colleague Noam Wasserman published his book, The Founder’s Dilemmas, that describes tradeoffs that founders confront when deciding when/with whom to found, how to split equity, how to divide roles, etc.
  • Blake Masters’ summary of Peter Thiel’s Stanford CS183 lecture on the importance on early founding decisions.
  • Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures on questions that co-founders must address ASAP and the concept of the “minimum viable team,” i.e., the smallest set of skills needed to get traction in an early-stage startup.
Company Culture, Organizational Structure, Recruiting and Other HR Issues
Board Management

Startup Failure

Exiting By Selling Your Company

The Startup Mindset and Coping with Startup Pressures

Management Advice, Not Elsewhere Classified
Career Advice (Especially for MBAs)

Startup Hubs

  • Brad Feld of Foundry Group and TechStars has published the book Startup Communities, a guide to building an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Tools for Entrepreneurs

  • Beyond Steve Blank’s Startup Owner’s Manual, a book he co-authored with Bob Dorf, here is a list of the fantastic resources Steve has made available to the startup community — mostly for free.
 Original post is here.  Thank’s for compiling and sharing this Tom.
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