There’s no more brutal opponent than elevated expectations. At least, that’s one explanation for the recent meltdown of the triple-A music gaming franchises. Harmonix, company that gave birth to the modern instrument genre saw both of its creations hit hard times in recent weeks. Activision gave Guitar Hero the axe [Wired], terminating the division, its employees, and a future game in the franchise Harmonix originally created. Harmonix got an extra life, at least, but it wasn’t pretty: the LA Times reports that Viacom unloaded the company – and some $100 million in liabilities – for the selling price of fifty bucks. A fight over performance payments reportedly remains unresolved.

In recent days, I’ve heard an attitude from many musicians that boils down to “good riddance.” Many serious musicians have long mistrusted these titles’ plastic instruments and linear game play. I think that’s short-sighted on two counts. For one, music games are here to stay. And for another, that should be good news for music, not bad.

Music games still have some serious business potential ahead. Business and technology are rife with examples of failures to appreciate natural cycles in demand. It’d be just as mistaken to underestimate the growth potential in the slump as to overestimate – as Viacom clearly did – that same potential in the boom. And that means opportunities for artists, and a chance to make music gaming a gateway to real musical study. “It’s just not the same as playing a real instrument,” say the naysayers. That, to me, is promising – it means that gaming could naturally lead to playing instruments.

While hard data on the transition from gaming to musical study is hard to find, anecdotal evidence sure isn’t. I’ve seen people wind up getting deeper into music production, music lessons, playing in bands, and studying percussion, guitar, and music because these games – silly as this may sound – helped make them feel comfortable with playing an instrument. Critics say these games sell a fantasy of musicianship, without the pain and agony. I say that’s the whole point: the long tradition of music isn’t a field just for specialists. It’s a world in which everyone is involved in musical practice. They play together and sing together. Extended feelings about this are perhaps best kept to a separate rant, but I see no reason, then, why these titles can’t have broad appeal.

Even if by psychological trick, something about music games has the power to telegraph to people who are afraid of being musicians that musicianship can be okay. It can be fun. It can be okay to embarrass yourself in front of your friends. (If that isn’t required in musical expression, I don’t know what is.) Music isn’t just meant to be heard – you should sing along and play along with your favorites.

Discounting such power would be a huge mistake. And fortunately, I believe there’s plenty of evidence that this new medium – among many other media for expressing and promoting music – will survive and flourish, benefiting pro and amateur musicians alike.

For people who are specialists, the Rock Band Network lives on as another avenue through which artists might build demand for their music – and both direct and indirect revenue, by extension. It could also be a model for other ideas beyond consoles and Harmonix.

Musicians should also consider the competition, both because this is more of a battle between music games and war games than plastic and real instruments, but also because the skewed numbers of the games business set an impossibly-high bar for music games.

So, talking points:

War sells better than music – at least on game consoles. “Failure” for music games is nothing to sneeze at. The Associated Press reports that Rock Band did just shy of $1.3 billion in the US alone, while the (older) Rock Band franchise hit almost $2.5 billion. The problem is that hype around music gaming may have overstated its short-term revenue potential, particularly when you start bringing bands like The Beatles into the action. And simply put, it’s tough to compete with the scale of war games. Also from that AP story (and many others), Call of Duty: Black Ops hit $1 billion worldwide in six weeks. That’s without people slavishly transcribing guitar solos or doing deals with record companies and artists and paying license fees. So, the question is, why aren’t musicians rooting for music over war? Heck, I enjoy non-musical games to unwind, so nothing against them, but I like the idea that musical experiences would survive on these platforms, too.

…but those sales did look really awful. The sudden collapse of music game sales is rightfully troubling. Guitar Hero in particular unraveled; Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock sold only 86,000 copies versus some one and a half million of Guitar Hero III in 2007, says Wired.

So, what were the factors in that demise? Fall 2010 was the year of Kinect; its sales, in a tough economic season for gaming, was impressive. Against that backdrop and hype for war titles, you’d ideally want some serious marketing muscle in order to compete. But if Activision and Viacom were already looking to shut down or sell their properties, they may simply have cut their losses and failed to spend on marketing. That hasn’t been disclosed that I’ve found, so consider this pure speculation, but on the other hand, when I went to buy a “keytar” controller for Rock Band 3 to review for CDM, I found no in-store marketing and the store associates literally barely knew the thing was available, even sitting in their storeroom. It’s a cut-throat business, and if you don’t invest in marketing, you lose.

Music gaming is going strong as ever – if you don’t ignore the “casual” and mobile markets. Music games were never the main draw on consoles. But on mobile – platforms already associated with music consumption, and with a certain player called Apple involved in sales – things may be different. Just ask Tapulous, the startup developer of Tap Tap Revenge and other titles that was acquired by Disney last year. They were even able to unseat the mighty Angry Birds on top sales lists – well, okay, briefly. But given far lower overhead, explosive mobile growth, and more disposable content, they seem a reasonable financial bet.

None of that is necessarily good news for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Well, unless you count…

The Madden Factor could mean 2011 won’t be like 2010. Critics – rightfully happier as users with competition between franchises – once predicted the demise of football games when Madden NFL won the rights to US pro football. Instead, Madden has become an evergreen title, selling on every platform, and remaining a big-budget, big-revenue hit. Like the music games, it simulates the real thing – well enough that even actual football players often unwind by playing it. Like Rock Band 3, it’s insanely demanding of its players; to play in pro mode, you need knowledge of playbooks and formations that rival pro coaches while using the manual dexterity of an origami master.

If its new owners can unload the debts and correct the management missteps of Viacom, could Rock Band 3 – now with no natural predators on consoles – spring back to more sales?

Sounds like a safe bet to me. It’s worth noticing…

Troubles began in 2007, with the Guitar Hero-Rock Band split. Having two music platforms didn’t work out all that well. Nor did, evidently, the elevated expectations from new corporate owners Activision and Viacom, respectively.

And Harmonix has its fingers in the two successful growth areas. Console investment involves big risk, more so with music contracts. But Harmonix has its upfront investment in its platforms taken care of – and they can make money on other platforms, too. They’ve done mobile games before; though they lack a big hit, that’s a no-brainer to hedge their bets going forward, without the same investment risk. And while on mobile they face lots of competition, pay attention to those Kinect sales: the new Harmonix Dance Central was one of the only launch titles that got positive reviews. Kinect development is far more challenging, and Harmonix has a great relationship with Microsoft.

The titles were hits; now it’s a test of the platform. War games (and Madden, for that matter) require that you buy new games every year. The result: consistent sales. Music titles, requiring new hardware accessories, wound up competing with themselves – do you buy the downloadable content, or the new game? And once you have your favorite tunes loaded, given the depth of these games, why not just keep practicing (or switch to real instruments and learn music properly) rather than buy more games?

It’s a tall order, but that means that rather than oversaturate the market, Harmonix may need to provide more reason to download more music. With pro mode, it could even morph into something that allows you to practice prior to working on a real instrument. And as it happens…

Content is coming, including on the Rock Band Network. As we’ve covered previously, Rock Band 3 finally gives musician gamers and artists publishing work the serious features they need. It’s the deep, real-transcription gameplay that critics of previous titles should theoretically appreciate. It even allows the use of real MIDI instruments for input, and includes keyboard, vocal, and guitar input that could actually serve as musical practice. As such, though, it may also take a longer time to win over gamers.

The RB3 title was out in the fall, but content that can take advantage of it is coming in the near future, including music produced by independent artists through the Rock Band Network. John Drake from Harmonix updates CDM on the progress of content for Rock Band 3.

The creators on RB are closing in on 1,000 songs that they’ve created in under a year. This feat is pretty astounding and we’re insanely lucky to have a passionate community. RBN and traditional DLC continues to sell well and with launches like “London Calling” by The Clash, we’re still bringing AAA content to our music platform. We’re committed to continuing to grow the franchise through DLC releases and we’re confident that we’re providing content that die hard band gamers want.

The gaming industry right now talks about user-generated content, but especially with the addition of Pro mode, Rock Band is one of those precious few titles that might actually deliver.

Crests are easy. Troughs make you strong. The boom-and-bust cycle is part of both the gaming and music industries. It’s easy to look only for growth, only for hits, but it’s really trial-by-failure that tends to make something mature into a real business.

So, I’ll conclude with the official statement from Harmonix, which they issued on the death of Guitar Hero, the title they created:

We were sad to hear yesterday that Activision was discontinuing development on Guitar Hero. Our thoughts are with those who are losing their jobs, and we wish them the best of luck.

The discontinuation of Guitar Hero is discouraging news for fans of the band game genre. As retail sales of Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles have slowed with time, we’ve been focused on building a robust digital platform for music gaming and have recently crested 2,500 songs available for play within Rock Band 3.

Harmonix and Rock Band continue to push beyond simple performance simulation to pioneer new approaches to music gaming. Rock Band 3 saw the introduction of our innovative new Pro Mode, in which aspiring musicians of all ages can develop actual musical skills through gameplay on guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. We’re looking forward to the imminent release of the Fender Squier Stratocaster Guitar Controller, a fully functional guitar which doubles as a Rock Band Pro controller (launching March 1st). We are also relaunching the Rock Band Network, a way for bands of all shapes and sizes to get their music into Rock Band. RBN just passed the 1000-songs mark, and it’s relaunch will now support keyboards, pro drums and vocal harmonies. The music genre is one that calls for constant reinvention, and Harmonix is continuing to welcome and embrace that call.

In short, the beat of Rock Band marches on. We’re continuing to invest in the franchise and the brand that we have built, and will do our best to serve all loyal band game fans. For rhythm gamers out there who haven’t yet given Rock Band a chance, Rock Band 3 software is compatible with a wide range of instruments, including most Guitar Hero controllers. Looking to the future, for fans that want to switch, we’d happily welcome you over into the world of Rock Band.

It’s been a wild battle of the bands since 2007, but we respect and appreciate all of the hard work and innovation of our peers who have shared the music gaming space with us, and we look forward to rocking in the future.

More background:
Party over for ‘Guitar Hero,’ but not music games [AP]

Previously:
Rock Band 3, Behind the Scenes: When A Music Game Gets More Real

A California ban of the sale of violent video games to minors may not seem relevant to the world of music on first blush. But the music industry, joining everyone from software makers to legal groups to state Attorneys General, feels otherwise. Overzealous restriction of the sale of games, these groups say, is tantamount to an attack on rights of free speech protected by the United States Constitution. And while the California law would make a separate set of rules for gaming, the message from the music industry, as others, is clear: diminish the freedom of one medium, and you diminish us all.

In addition to the National Association of Broadcasters, The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) joins an amicus brief with booksellers, publishers, novelists and writers, music retailers, “amusement and music operators,” and the Recording Academy, jointly filing their protests with the US Supreme Court.

Amongst the authorities cited in that brief: reviews of the game Halo, histories of banned books and laws concerning free speech, violence in Elizabethan England, and Homer and Aeschylus. (Yes, Homer’s Iliad Book 13 sits alongside Grand Theft Auto.) Even Punch & Judy, Tom and Jerry, and Little Red Riding Hood make an appearance. So does the Bible.

Of course, the music industry is sensitive to these attacks, having been at the business end of similar, ill-fated litigation. Books, magazines, newspapers, television, broadcasting, music – there simply isn’t a medium in America that hasn’t had to fight off similar complaints.

There are various arguments for whether or not gaming is reviewed as art, though here, there’s enough legal precedent to assume they are, in the eyes of the law. More telling, however, is the observation that “protection accorded to depictions of violence did not turn on … merit.” (The case cited in the brief protected gory, grisly images and descriptions of crime, which New York law tried to ban in the 1940s. At the time, the Supreme Court conceded it couldn’t understand why you’d want such a thing, but that merit was not the basis for the ruling.)

And that’s the bottom line: free speech is not about merit, or one medium or another, just as this Supreme Court decision is as much about music or words as it is about games.

The precedent, legally, is clear, leaving only the “newness” of the technology as a defense. Here’s the brief’s response to that issue:

California also appears to suggest that the new technologies represented by video games require a reassessment of First Amendment principles. Technological change usually causes fear and uncertainty.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, technological change has repeatedly revolutionized entertainment media and communications, as well as the storage, retrieval, and distribution of information. Each of these technological advances—movies, television, the Internet, and now handheld, interactive electronic video games—has brought with it the fear that the new technology would corrupt the young. But there is no reason to permit fear of novel technologies to diminish fundamental constitutional rights such as the First Amendment.

For any artist, for anyone in the business of expression, this is a case to watch, at least in regards to US law.

More reading:
Merit Briefs/Amicus Briefs, Schwarzenegger, Gov. of California v. Entertainment Merchants, Assn., Docket No. 08-1448 [American Bar Association]

At stake in Terminator vs. video games? “The future of media”
[Ars Technica]

The brief cited here:
Brief for the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression, Association of American Publishers, Freedom to Read Foundation, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, Recording Industry Association of America, Amusement & Music Operators Association, the Association of National Advertisers, Pen Center USA, and the Recording Academy in Support of Respondent [PDF]

So, record industry, why is it you would want to push for a broken, proprietary, exorbitantly expensive to a problem that doesn’t exist as part of a discussion to which it’s entirely unrelated? The RIAA’s Senior Vice President of Government Relations (otherwise known as Grand Poo-bah of Politician Lobbying) Mitch Glazier was happy to explain to Technology Daily:

“Why wait until it is a big problem to start addressing it? There are available technologies in the marketplace to address this issue.”

Yes, indeed. Why wait for a problem to actually exist before legally mandating a solution? A technology exists! Therefore, you are obligated to use it — regardless of cost, whether it functions on the devices people use, whether better technologies exist, or whether there was even a problem in the first place. Which would you prefer: a record industry that works to solve today’s real problems, or one that creates massive, new problems to solve the problems they imagine might exist in the future?

None of this really seems to justify much of a response, but the Digital Freedom Campaign has taken a deep breath and tried to muster a logical response anyway (I don’t envy them the task):

“The music industry’s top lobbyist is calling for the implementation of a burdensome, costly, and completely unnecessary technology by webcasters who play and promote the artists the RIAA claims to represent. He then admits that the issue is “not a big problem,” said Jennifer Stoltz, a spokesperson for the Digital Freedom Campaign. “For the RIAA to try to impose unrealistic and wholly unnecessary technical mandates on an innovative and vibrant industry as part of larger, unrelated negotiations process is baffling.
“The specific issue at hand is not commercial piracy, but rather fair use of legally recorded music for personal use, which is perfectly legal,” Stoltz continued. “Requiring webcasters to implement mandatory digital rights management technologies to prevent any personal recording of Internet radio streams is an imposition on both webcasters and consumers. It is a costly solution without even a hint of a problem. There is no evidence whatsoever that stream-ripping or commercial piracy from Internet radio is an issue, and the RIAA and SoundExchange should proceed with the ongoing negotiations with webcasters without demanding provisions that would further harm and inconvenience Internet radio listeners.”

Sorry, Jennifer, you lost me in all that logic-y, fact-y stuff, probably because I was so overwhelmed with the sense that you hate music and intellectual property.

Digital Freedom Campaign

Of course, it makes sense that webcasters and the record industry would have different interests, and it’s their prerogative to defend those interests. As readers have noted on this site, navigating the law and finding rate structures that work isn’t a simple task. But that’s all the more reason to focus on issues at hand.

Some have asked if it makes sense to go past the industry altogether. For individual artists, that may be a solution. But with so much music tied up in the current system, that doesn’t really help the webcasters. Attempts to survive on free music historically haven’t gone so well (as MP3.com tried, and failed). Certainly, this doesn’t engender faith in the record industry to achieve sound policy on sound — to say the least.

Act now, fellow musicians — before Sound Recorder destroys music!

It’s amazing how complete and total crazies can suddenly wind up with the backing of organizations powerful enough to dictate the law. Witness the strange story of the “stream-ripping” scare, and how it somehow led to a push for mandatory, proprietary DRM on all Internet radio.

Gasp as the experience of bringing back Mark Twain’s ghost somehow inspires a company you’ve never heard of to build their own DRM for streams!

Recoil in horror at the evil pirating capabilities of Windows Vista and its Sound Recorder, as Microsoft earns billions — billions! — of dollars by encouraging people to steal music from radio streams!

Sigh with satisfaction at the realization that we can put a stop to these unprotected broadcasts of music forever, saving music itself in the process!

What? None of this sounds familiar? Bizarre, absurd, even illogical and out of touch with any recognizable reality, you say? You’re right, but alas …read on.

(See previous: Internet Radio Wins Temporary Delay, Possible Minimum Rate Break. You knew it wasn’t really going to be that easy, right? Apparently some of you missed my sense of irony. I was on vacation, so I wasn’t trying as hard to make my sarcasm apparent.)

Our story begins at the end of April, when a company no one had ever heard of (Media Rights Technologies) suddenly issued a press release claiming Congress had to act now to stop the scourge of “stream ripping” — recording Internet radio streams. The bad news: the idiotic ideas inside have now become negotiating demands from the record industry. Among the peculiar talking points at the time:

1. Apparently choosing to bury the lead, the press release started out with a historical non sequitur about how the company was “the first to create virtual interactive exhibitions like The Private Life of Mark Twain where you could actually see and hear Mark Twain’s 1835 Martin guitar playing Old Susannah for Noah Adams on NPR’s All Things Considered.” Um … good for .. them?
2. Slapped with an equally bizarre lawsuit by the RIAA, the company went on to — blame the RIAA for frivolous cease-and-desist orders? Start a rumble with Mark Twain’s … uh … management and legal team? Nope. They concluded they should blame Microsoft and develop their own, special DRM technologies, because Windows Media Player didn’t have enough DRM on its own. (In fairness, this was an early version of WMP.)
3. Then, the mysterious MRT claims the record industry is losing US$50 billion on the “stream ripping industry.” (The … what now? And the record industry would have been selling nearly a billion CDs that it couldn’t because of this industry?)
4. Finally, the real evil: Microsoft’s Windows Vista is a success because of evil stream-ripping capabilities Why, just look — while the record industry sales were slumping, Vista sales were increasing! That has to be connected!
5. There’s only one solution! Quick! Pay MRT for stream-ripping protection, using their specialized streaming DRM! No, wait — force Congress to force webcasters to use MRT’s DRM!

Yes, you heard that right. The real danger to the music industry: unprotected streaming content in Real, Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple formats (in other words, everything) that must immediately be replaced with MRT’s proprietary solution. Just how real is this danger? Why look no further than an evil piece of software, built for pirating music. It’s called (cue the scary piano music) Windows SOUND RECORDER. Yes, you read that right:

Microsoft has even built into the Vista OS a native ripper, called Sound Recorder, which will deaggregate performance-based streams of unlimited duration and convert them into unprotected WMA downloads, easily uploaded onto Zune players. This year, Microsoft’s Q1 profit surged 65 percent to $4.93 billion, boosted by sales of Vista, while the Recording Industry’s profits have plummeted.

Let’s translate: deaggregate performance based streams? Convert them into unprotected WMA downloads? Yes, that’s right: Sound Recorder records. Sounds. Those sounds can be stored as files. You can do things with those files. And supposedly, Microsoft has just made billions of dollars off Vista thanks to the lame, crummy sound-editing application no one uses — erm, sorry, the malicious, pirate-aiding Great Satan that is Sound Recorder.

I’m glad they pointed this out, because otherwise I might have assumed that the many other features in Vista were the reason people bought the upgrade, not using Sound Recorder to illegally record songs.

Total insanity. What a relief that no one would take this idea seriously.

Scratch that: it turns out that SoundExchange’s negotiations with webcasters are now calling for protections against stream-ripping that apparently involve mandatory DRM on all streams. That explains SoundExchange’s sudden willingness to agree to caps — but they’ve pulled this issue out at the last minute, without being upfront with either Congress or webcasters, just as the new rate rules take into affect. Apparently they thought this could strong-arm webcasters into DRM they wanted all along.

And it gets worse. These “technology mandates” appear to be causing negotiations to break down between the record industry and webcasters. Read the details here (caution: this may hurt your head):
DiMA/SX negotiations falling apart once again

The “technology mandates” are a serious business. The implication by SoundExchange is that they won’t even sit at the negotiating table unless webcasters agree to put protections in place to stop stream ripping. Never mind that a miniscule fraction of listeners rip streams, let alone do it in such a way that would diminish the value of purchased songs and albums. Never mind that DRM isn’t the only way to stop ripping (see RAIN for a few suggestions).

Just how nasty is the DRM proposed by companies like MRT? Have a look at BlueBeat:

BlueBeat Software Download

A proprietary format, in a proprietary player app that’s Windows-only (in this case, ironically, built on Windows Media Player 9 — even though MRT regularly threatens Microsoft with legal action and encourages legal action against them by others). That’s obviously not good for anyone, Microsoft included. And, in fact, MRT points to the fact that even the RIAA has acknowledged they’re a likely choice of technologies to make this happen.

Scary stuff. What’s badly needed now is some mediation to bring negotiations back into line. So much music is tied up in commercial labels, this issue isn’t just going to go away. A solution really is needed. This is hardly the way to approach it.

You can be making incredible music, but if no one knows about it you probably won’t be making it for very long. Having a good project name is the first step to getting publicity and having your music heard by a large amount of people.

Don’t be difficult. It has to be easy to pronounce and say over the phone. Try to avoid using numbers for letters (leet speak) since it will confuse people. Yes, there are exceptions like “!!!,” μ-siq, and whatnot, but the object is to make it easy for the press to write about you and for people to talk about you. While you’re welcome to choose a difficult name, it’s only going to make the rest of your publicity efforts that much harder.

Steer clear of profanity. While James Fucking Friedman has a somewhat high profile, whenever he gets listed in local papers that don’t allow profanity they star out either the entire middle word or just use stars after the F. People will get confused–”Did they star out ‘Faggot,’ ‘Fucking,’ or ‘Fellatio’? Should I Google for James Star Star Star?” Also profanity limits the types of publications that will feature you. While XLR8R and URB are magazines that are pretty laid back about their language, you might one day discover that your music has an interesting crossover audience (be it mountain climbers or acoustic engineers) and you want to make it easy for those types of journalists to approach you and write about you and your music.

It sounds good. Pick three of your favorite names. Say them out loud. Ask some friends what they think and notice how they respond. Do they laugh out loud when you’re aiming for a super serious image (“Abfahrt Hinwil” might cause some giggling)? It may sound obvious, but electronic musicians who tend to work alone and communicate through their computers could use some IRL human feedback once in a while.

No one else has it. While I wouldn’t say you should register for a trademark just yet, you should research as best you can if anyone else is using your name. You don’t want to shell out money for a domain name and spend years growing your project and fan base just to be hit with a cease and desist or worse, a lawsuit (look at Dan Snaith’s Caribou (formerly Manitoba) debacle.) Do some web searches to see if you can determine if anyone’s using your name. The US Patent office has an online search engine called TESS where you can search for trademarks in use. Search for all the words in your desired name, and then search for each one alone and see if they return anything similar. If you’re considering trademarking your name, it’s a very good idea but it will cost you a few hundred bucks. You can file online and read more here: http://www.uspto.gov.

It can be you, as long as you’re not already in use. You can use your own name as long as it’s not in use already and you won’t be confused for someone else. Can you imagine being the second Derrick May in Detroit? You might get a huge turnout for your first gig but the promoter and venue will hate you after the riot of pissed off people who thought they bought tickets to see one of the godfathers of Detroit techno. This second Derrick May in question used his middle name instead to avoid confusion, resulting in Derrick Michael.

Webify it. Get a domain name when you’ve settled on your choice. Although you might just want to use Myspace as your website, Myspace is not press-friendly, and if you adopt that early-90s bad-website look with repeating graphic as the background or garish colors it’s going to be unreadable (and incredibly annoying). Plus, with your own website you have total control over your image and don’t have to worry about deleting comments and photos posted by jerks. Then check to see if your choice is a domain in use already. I got lucky because mine is a completely made up word (Quantazelle) so the domain was available. If it’s not, see if you can add “music” “sounds,” or something else to the end of it and then grab it. If not, you might consider finding a different name, but it’s not a deal killer. While you might want to opt for something clever as your domain name, you want to make it easy for people to find information about you. A web search for your project name should return your site as one of the first results because your name is in the domain itself.

Some ideas for generating project names:

Take a passage from a favorite work of literature or a poem,. For example, “Joy Division” is from The House of Dolls by Karol Cetinsky.

Use an anagram. Aphex Twin relied heavily on this to name many of his songs. “Acrid Avid Jam Shred” on I Care Because You Do is an anagram of “Richard D. James”. Here’s an online anagram generator to experiment with: wordsmith.org/anagram.

Try playing with this emo-band name generator: www.bandnamemaker.com

Check out this tool for generating band names: www.greatnameforaband.com. On my first try I got “Galacticide” which is actually really cool.

Here’s another one: www.bandlookup.com. I put in “bandpass’ and got such gems as “Bandpass Disorder” and “Half-Ass Bandpass.”

Create an alias by generating combinations of male or female names with last names: kleimo.com/random. An example of this in action is “Malcom Kipe” who is actually Nautilis aka Skyler McGlothlin.

Take a hint from the Dada-ist poetry methods of William S. Burrows and do a “cut-up.” Grab a newspaper or any other sliceable piece of literature and cut out a bunch of words from it. Then toss them on a flat surface and see what interesting combinations happen.

Make a portmanteau. “Devo” is a concatenation of “de-evolution.” “Quantazelle” is a combination of “Quantum and Gazelle.”

Create a phrase that congers up imagery of what your music sounds like, such as “Explosions in the Sky.” It’s a little difficult if you’re not a poetic or literary type, but you can ask other people for help. Just say “If you could think of an image that sounds like my music, what would it be?” Gathering a group of people in a room together along with some alcohol or other relaxing substance is a very conducive environment for name generating.

So now that you’re better equipped for the first part of your publicity efforts, why don’t you get started on that brainstorming? Good luck!

Miraculously, Nat has escaped alive, and the results are fantastic. Good luck paying a designer to give you gig posters like this. These two warm my heart because of their digital music create-i-ness:

Day 27, Tsuki

28×28 Day 17 – Moulinex + Xinobi

For the complete set, see the lineup on onetonnemusic:

Gig Posters Archives

Have a gig coming up? Need a rocking poster to publicise said gig to the wider community? You should check out Nat’s 28 Posters in 28 Days Poster Challenge! You know you’re going to get a great result, because Nat designed this here website, and CDMo, and the forums. You should get in quick, however, because he doesn’t seem to be starting out in the most positive frame of mind:

They said I couldn’t do it! My girlfriend said I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I can do it… Let me preface this by saying that I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn’t one of my brightest ideas. Good? Clear? Okay.

For the month of February, I am going to attempt to do 1 FREE gig poster per day.

That means I need details for 28 gigs and bands who want posters done. Starting tomorrow, the 1st of February. 

I stepped up first, nominating my collaborators Segue and our show at the Empire, Brisbane on the 23rd of Feb, and I love the results!

I’m sure there are plenty of artists out there with gigs coming up (they don’t even have to be in Feb) who could do with some tasty design to publicise your awesomeness, so go sign up.

Wait, what? Microsoft is giving money away from hardware sales to a company in exchange for … um … well, nothing, actually?

Believe it or not, that’s exactly what’s happened. Mighty Microsoft is paying tribute money to Universal, and getting nothing in return.

Let’s be clear: paying for music is a good thing. I’m happy to pay a cover at a club to hear a live artist. I’m happy to buy a CD directly from the band. I’m happy to purchase a download from a band’s website. I’m happy to purchase an album from an independent label, many of which really can do a good job of promoting their artists’ work and sharing profits from record sales. I’m happy to support real-world record stores and independent online stores that support those labels. And, of course, I’ll buy mainstream big-label records because I enjoy some of the music — again, if possible, from an independent distributor.

And I’m equally happy to support license fees, which simplify the problem of how to cover more intangible uses of music. To take ASCAP as the US example, the idea is that a venue (like a bar) that uses music (bands playing covers, jukeboxes playing tunes) makes money off that music (and they do) so artists should get paid. (CESAC is the European equivalent.) I know people who have made a little money off ASCAP checks. ASCAP the organization is not an evil industry conglomerate. It’s run by members, and those members are publishers, composers, songwriters, and lyricists. It’s also a service organization that provides training, group health insurance, equipment insurance, community events, and contests to its members. You can argue with ASCAP on some matters, but at least what it does is determined by the people actually producing the music. (I’ll also say, both ASCAP and rival BMI are very supportive of contemporary concert music, which is a rare asset.)

There’s one underlying principle in all of these models: you’re paying for the music. And while any of these systems can be abused, the basic model makes sense.

Here’s a different model, proudly unveiled in a press release from Microsoft and Universal Music Group today. It involves paying the label (not the artist) for your hardware (not the music):

1. Instead of license fees covering music, they’ll cover audio hardware — with no music involved.
2. Instead of license fees being paid to the musicians, they’ll be paid to the record label. One (large, corporate) label.
3. Instead of a fair, standard license fee, that license fee will be negotiated independently by individual labels. Arbitrarily.
4. Hardware manufacturers, who theoretically ought to profit off a product they design, manufacture, market, and distribute, will now have to share those profits with a separate company that wasn’t involved in the hardware at all.

It’s easy to understand Universal’s logic here; this is great for them. Microsoft, like Apple with iPod, stands to get rich off music player sales. Record labels do not, because record sales are flat, and Apple has effectively blocked any increase in the royalty fee on download purchases. (Windows players are even worse; the subscription model is cheap for consumers but offers less revenue to music labels.) Universal wants more money, so they have to make up a new model by which they can get it.

And so, Universal made up a new model, by which they get paid for sales of music player sales. That makes about as much sense as Green Day announcing they want a slice of headphone sales. Or flannel shirt sales. But if you’re a business person charged with making up new ways by which someone pays you, I suppose it works.

The interesting question is, why would Microsoft agree unless they’re completely out of their minds?

Don’t bother bringing up the “pirated music” argument, because that doesn’t make any sense, either. Piracy, of course, isn’t mentioned in the Microsoft press release. The New York Times claims piracy was part of the argument. But let’s not kid ourselves: this isn’t about piracy, it’s about money. My strong anecdotal suspicion is that most of the music on people’s iPods, for instance, is actually ripped from their CD collection. But record labels don’t care that that’s theoretically legal, because they’d rather charge you again each time you move from one storage medium to another. The record companies were always in the business of making money off of distribution. If the money to be made shifts to electronics manufacturers and they don’t get a piece of it, they’re unhappy — not because they’re concerned about the ethics of the situation, but because they want to make more money than they’re making now, not less. And frankly, that’s their prerogative; the job of corporations is to make money, which is why we don’t look to them for a moral compass. But why Microsoft, also in the job of making money, would give money away is another question. Apparently, Universal scared them into doing so under the threat of removing their releases from Microsoft’s Zune store. This is tribute money, nothing else. But the fact that Microsoft agreed is a little scary, and it’s even scarier in terms of what it means for artists.

So let’s look back at the press release.

Translating from Universal Media Group Reality to Our Reality

This is going to be challenging, but I’ll do my best:

“announced today an agreement which creates a groundbreaking, new revenue stream for UMG and its artists.”

No argument there. It certainly creates a new revenue stream from UMG, which now can make money off a product it doesn’t manufacture. (Coming soon: “Universal Media Group and Post Cereal announce a groundbreaking new revenue stream for UMG and its artists: profits from Grape Nuts now go to a guy who manages alt-country acts!”)

“This move demonstrates there can be a win-win situation where consumers have a great experience while labels and artists are also fairly compensated.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, completely wrong. This is a lose-lose situation for the music hardware industry, the music sales industry, and artists everywhere, period. If Universal really wanted to make the argument that music players were somehow stealing revenue from artists, by piracy, then the labels should have called for a blanket license fee. It’s not clear who would collect such a fee, partly because our intellectual property law in the US and in international treaty is hopelessly outmoded. You could try to argue this was a mechanical license, going to an agency like Harry Fox, or if you really wanted to stretch things, a performing license, managed by groups like ASCAP. But regardless, you’d have license fees going to the proper artists in some form.

Instead, Universal’s choice to unilaterally negotiate a fee on a product that doesn’t even have its music on it until a consumer puts it there endangers the entire music industry. It says, rather than find a solution that works for all labels, labels will be left to fend for themselves. And instead of doing something logical, like ask for more royalties on online music sales from Zune Marketplace, Universal gets paid money without providing any service.

Who really gets hurt? Independent labels, for one. Microsoft generously put some really cool, independent labels (like Sub Pop) onto the Zune, promoting their artists. That’s terrific. Now, a significant slice of Microsoft’s profits go instead to pay Universal, in return for … nothing. It proves that it’s the big labels calling the shots, yet again.

And, of course, artists completely lose out — again. Especially if they’re not on Universal.

Consumers lose, too, because the mightiest record labels get exactly what they want, squeezing out (again) those of us who want more musical choice.

And, while it’s their own darned fault, Microsoft loses. Microsoft is effectively making a commitment to hand out cash to any label. The labels can squeeze Microsoft by threatening to remove their music from Microsoft’s online Zune store (which is really what this whole thing is probably about). It’s like the old anti-competitive practices of old — only this time, Microsoft is on the receiving end. (And Microsoft never did something this strange; this is the equivalent of charging PC makers an extra license fee just in case someone pirated a copy of Office.)

Why Microsoft is then releasing a press release saying “We Proudly Announce We Got Out-Negotiated by Universal Music Group” is beyond me.

Some users are already saying they’re dumping their Zunes. That’s a little silly; it’s just a piece of electronics. If you’re going to dump anything, it seems like it should be the music sales services from iTunes and Microsoft that are getting manipulated by the record labels. And go out and buy some CDs — at an independent record store. Or better, from the band. Out of their guitar case. At a live gig. Rip them to your Zune, and enjoy.

“We believe that the music consumer will appreciate knowing that when they buy a Zune device, they are helping to support their favorite artists.”

Heck, yeah. When you’re using your Zune to listen to music you love, bought from the artists and independent labels that support it? Absolutely. Just don’t try to convince us, Microsoft, that by you paying cash to Universal artists gain anything at all. And next time, you might want to consider skipping the press release when you make bad business deals.

Updated: I should add, theoretically UMG artists will benefit from this deal. NYT quotes an anonymous source that suggests 50% of the proceeds (expected to be $1 on a $250 Zune sale goes to the artist). But it’s not clear how that fifty cents would get divided among UMG’s stable of artists, why UMG is making 50 cents off of a hardware sale they had nothing to do with, or what that dollar is suppose to represent in the first place. And negotiating this side deal, rather than advocating a blanket license fee that would benefit everyone, is doing a severe disservice to artists, many of whom aren’t signed with UMG.

For Microsoft’s take: Cesar Menendez is working on the Zune project for the company and has a Microsoft-sanctioned blog, in which he defends today’s move.

On the Universal Deal [Zune Insider]

Excerpt:

Why? We’re about supporting artists, and ensure they continue to prosper with the emergence of the digital music model. The distribution of digital music isn’t that old, and the current method isn’t really doing a lot to compensate artists fairly …
Yes, UMG will share a portion of the proceeds with their artists. No, neither MS or UMG are disclosing the specifics. And we’re already talking to labels (yes, both indies and majors) and offering up the chance to participate in a similar way.

Given that musicians don’t really have a role in hardware sales, perhaps a better way to ensure the emergence of a new digital music model: give that per-device amount to Save the Music and ensure the next generation of musicians has a future, for when people unplug Zune earbuds and pick up an instrument.

Previously on CDM

More Zune Coverage; Why Hobble Wi-Fi?

Microsoft Not Turning Back on PlaysForSure with Zune Player

MTP, Portable Player Standard? Microsoft’s McLauchlan Sets Us Straight

Roll Your Own Zune

Think you can do better than Zune? Put your money where your mouth is, and build your own music player:

DIY Portable Music Player Kits