Rolling around

We call them rolling around (valsa runt)in Swedish. The artist that some not so well contacted manager or some artist doing it by themselves just pop up with but never goes anywhere. They are pretty good on what they are doing since they have read all material and done all steps. But they are not good enough. It’s unusual but they are around, the artist that just not good enough.

They have already had their chance. Usually they have played some bigger showcase festivals but nothing really came out of it. The problem is as usual they are good but not good enough. So they keep on going.

A usual thing is that they have a totally clueless manager. This person is good on nagging and with some favors actually got them these chances. But the network is too weak to get them any further. Just get them in and show them off and it’s over.

Now they are a bit tired and only want that illusive record deal. Here comes the problem. Since they work so hard they already have done everything. So it end up with them teaming up with some really small player that do less what they have done before.

So they break free and then start all over to find that person that will take them to the stars. Problem is that they are not good enough so it won’t happen.

The second 10000 houers

Sweden produced several great sport stars. For example the tennis player Björn Borg. He spent countless hours bouncing a ball against a garage door in Södertälje. That door was recently sold for a high price to be in a museum in Södertälje.

Same with the soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He spent hours down on the football field training. He also kicked the ball against a wall in Rosengård.

Yes both did over 10000 hours to practice their skill. You have to train your skill with your instrument at the same way. Playing the guitar every day for a couple of hours is a most. Or signing and train your voice. Whatever it is you have to do the practice. And do it over 10000 hours. It’s just a number I know still its makes a measurement.

But what most forget is the other 10000 hours you have to add. Yes they both along practice but on top of that they played in teams and with trainers. Both Björn and Zlatan added 10000 hours more. This is what most artists miss in the equation how to be good. The Second 10000 hours contains marketing and practice in the rehearsal room. But also playing live. For the sport player this is when you train with your team and when you do games against other teams.

On an artist side in these two other 10000 hours. Contains constantly marketing around your art, live gigs witch you get from that marketing. And of course rehearsal with other musicians. Still this is the part most skip. But in reality here is where a star could be born.

Don't trust old people

I usually say don’t trust people over 40 in the music industry they are to old (yes it’s include myself). And don’t trust anyone under 30, they are too young and not experienced.

I just got a call from a friend that shops a band and the band has just got a publisher that I know that is older than oldest. He’s only claim to fame is a Eurovision song from the 80:s. Now my friend got these really strange requests around the contract. Things that really matters in the 80:s. this guy also got sacked from his last publishing, just for the sake that he didn’t keep up with the new rules and numbers.

The sad part here is that the band will be fooled and the opportunity that raised will really get lost. These old farts should come with warning tag.

Be consistent

If you are friend with me on Facebook you probably has seen that I change my profile picture quite often. At least some times of the year. It’s not that I’m vain, oh well, but not that vain.

 No it has to with to be consistent. I decided to change my profile picture every time I’m out traveling and reach a new city. First it was just for a tour and you could follow how much my beard grow on a month of touring. But it got stucked.

 Now it is a running joke. I take a picture in the city I’m in. Usually in a way so it can be anywhere but every now and then I put in a landmark. Also the rule is that I only have one shot. If I look crap yes it will be out until I reach next destination.

 Several of my friends do the same. Mike takes pictures on plates he finishes. Magnus takes pictures on hotel floors and you have to guess witch hotel he is staying on. It’s all to keep up with it. If you stop doing it. It’s all lost.

Same with almost all your social media activity as a band. It’s about doing your thing and keep doing it. Yes of course I try many things that I evaluate after a month or two and if they don’t work I take them off. Band of the day here in the blog is a feature that didn’t work as I wanted and I put it off.

And next week my USA your starts I guess we will change the picture a lot.

Bad taste

Yes first artist to be clear to 2017 eurovision song contest is Les Gordons. Yes we have worked with the band. Got them to USA and worked their first album.

Usually I make fun of eurovision since it the past years has mainly consisted of the songwriters and artists that really didn't make in the real industry. It has been a highlight to just write mean stuff of all the contributions all years.

So now? Has eurovision got taste since they picked a good band? Or am I getting old getting crappy taste?

More about numbers

Okey another one around numbers. How to check numbers on videos. I got a message from a band that had over million views on their video and they were excited about it.

Which is cool. So I want into Youtube to look on the video and it just had 8000 views. And the comments was just 300 and all positive witch is strange.

Then I realize that they were talking about their video on Facebook. Well now we have a numbers problem. First Facebook starts all its videos automatically so if people just scroll down suddenly you get a view. So if you repost the song several times yes you will get a lot of views but really no one has seen it.

So the Youtube numbers are better in that way. Still you can also set homepages to start videos when you enter them. A thing that is really annoying but is a strong reasons why many bigger artists has so many numbers on their videos.

So the best figures is Spotify because you can’t really manipulate these figures. So I looked there and the song was under 2000 streams.

In the end, I’m not so sure about that so many has seen this video. Also Facebook doesn’t pay anything so that sucks. Youtube pays pretty bad and can be bit manipulated. So Spotify is the thing right now. I hope Youtube is getting better. Still I’m not that excited of the Facebook views.

I did a test I shot out our latest Vblog. And looked today 24 hours later it has 213 views on facebook (yes we release it as its’s own video there and as a link to youtube). On Youtube it has 10 views. But the page on the blog has been visited over 70 times. Yes the number doesn’t really add up.

Numbers is not everything

That headline could be about so much but the numbers today will be about songs. I got a message from a songwriter that writes that he has over 2000 songs written and registered. This kind of things is quite common that you get from songwriters from time to time that they have so and so much songs written. This one at least then tell that 600 of them are recorded.

Still there is no value in these number. To be honest if I start tomorrow I can easy write 2000 songs until X-mas. Yes they will probably all be crap. And that’s the risk here as well. Sure he might have taken longer time to write 2000 crap songs, but hey in the end it is still crap. You can’t polish a turd.

He then tells me that these songs he sends in are for Eurovision song contest. Even so more strange. We have never worked in Eurovision since we thing that the songs writers in Eurovision is more of the songwriters that are really crappy. Okey one of our bands Les Gordons will be on this year and they are good. Still they are a rock n’roll band and write songs in that formula. But we never place songs with artists in this way.

So even before I listen to his songs he has got me a big hunch that this is crap. 2000 songs, would be better top tell that he written 50 and all of them has been on the top 10 chart. That is much more impressive. Also that he is on Eurovision screams that it’s pretty bad. Also if you really want to get into Eurovision you can send in your songs to the open jury. 6000 songs comes in and we really don’t know how many is actually chosen that way. Also if we got it on chans, well how many others have these songs right now?

It remind me a bit of when I got the mail from a songwriter that claimed he wrote Rebecca Blacks Friday. Really not a good claim to fame. It was all over that the team who did that song not only did a lousy job when then she got famous for it they claimed some rights on a song they already sold. That mail also went into the trash bin. With my new 2000 songs dude. I guess it depends when I have time to listen to it. My guess is though that it will be close by when Eurovision starts in february.




well this is what i think...

Vlog Musichelp

Konstigaste frågorna i olika branscher

Det här är en sammanställning från de mest konstigaste frågorna från resenärer på eBeach.com Det intressanta när  man har jobbat i musikindustrin är frågorna lika konstiga. Här de här frågorna fast även i musikindustri form som jag faktiskt har fått. I vissa fall påminner mycket om reseindustrin.

1. Är kaffet på hotellet gott? Det är ju faktiskt väldigt viktigt med kaffe.
*** Är det här en bra spelning att ta? Det är ju viktigt att varje spelning är bra

2. Innan jag bokar vill jag att ni lovar mig att det kommer vara soligt och varmt under de datumen jag ska resa.
*** Innan jag skriver på för er, är det garanterat att vi kommer slå igenom?

3. Jag bokade en resa med er för några minuter sedan, men jag glömde att boka in ett av mina barn. Hur gör jag?
*** Vi har inget artistnamn än så när vi laddade upp till Spotify lämnade vi det fältet tomt.

4. Jag har bokat rum på ett lägenhetshotell. Skulle ni kunna bekräfta att det finns en brödkniv att tillgå i kokvrån? Det är oerhört frustrerande att behöva skära bröd med en vanlig kniv.
*** Finns det el på spelstället (spelstället låg i centrala sthlm).

5. Jag har bokat en resa tillsammans med min familj och mina svärföräldrar. Jag och min familj ska bo i ett rum och svärföräldrarna i ett annat. Finns det möjlighet att få rummen så långt ifrån varandra som möjligt?
*** Basisten luktar. Kan vi hyra en bil extra för bara honom?

6. Vi är tre personer som bokat en resa med er och vi har valt två dubbelrum. Betyder det att den av oss som bor själv i det ena dubbelrummet är tvungen att dela säng med en främling?
*** Vi ser att det är flera band som spelar på den här festivalen. Står de på samma scen som oss, för vi headlinar väl?

7. När vi bokade vår transferbuss stod det att resan från flygplatsen till hotellet beräknas ta 20 minuter. Resan tog bara 10 minuter, så vi har ju betalat för 10 minuter som vi inte utnyttjade. Kan man få en återbetalning på halva kostnaden?
*** Blir det billigare om vi har färre spår på CD:n?

8. Flyget till Mallorca avgår klockan 15:15 och anländer klockan 20.05 och flyget hem avgår 12:25 och landar på Arlanda klockan 15:25. Enligt min uträkning tar det alltså nästan fem timmar att resa dit och bara tre timmar hem, hur är detta möjligt?!
*** Jag har hört att man kan få in 80 minuter musik på en CD. Men min skiva är 92 minuter lång går det att trycka in ändå?

9. Min taxi har inte kommit än och jag är orolig att jag ska missa mitt flyg. Det står ”all taxes included” på min flygbiljett, så när kommer min taxi?
*** Jag har laddat upp mina låtar på Itunes och Spotify när börjar radio spela dem?

10. Jag skulle resa på semester med er nästa vecka men jag kan inte längre åka eftersom jag sitter i fängelse just nu. Kan jag flytta fram resan några månader?
*** Det är svårt att du skickar en CD för lyssning, den kommer inte förbi posten på anstalten.

Delayed

Today I got those people you really hate. They lazy ones. First I got a question from a person who didn’t do their job (even though they got paid for it) to provide them with info for the job they didn’t do. The jobs was for another customer so I was not involved like that, but it takes some nerves when that customer called me up complaining that they didn’t do their job, then they call me and ask for the info of my job to save their asses. I was just amazed.

Then an artist answered on an email that got out 3 years ago when we moved our office. We found some of their records that hadn’t been picked up after distribution and we asked them to answer quickly since we were throwing things away for the move of office. Today they answered wondering what we were doing with the CD:s. They just had saw the email. Oh wow an artist that didn’t look in the email for 3 years. And after that they wonder what kind of promotion we had done during the time we had the CD:s?

I guess when we found the CD:s we probably had done the campaign 2 years or before that. This must be to most lazy band in history. 

Will we kill country music?

Before you go totally insane let me explain. I really don’t want to kill country music but there is many reasons in the future music industry that tells me that it might actually go under.
Let’s start with the version of country music in Sweden, called Dansband (Ballroom dance music could it closest to be described). Here is a typical song ( yes they look like that)


This genre in Sweden was huge. Probably much bigger then country if you compare the majority of listeners in Sweden compare to the population. During the 80:s this really was the thing if you wanted to make huge amount of money.

First you got the money from touring, yes Sweden is small but still it was so many places that over 500 of these band actually could make over 4 to 5 gigs a week. So much that even the Swedish government put a special tax on to them. If you danced you got extra tax (weird yes I know).
Right now just 20 years later this style is dead. On the Swedish Grammy award it was just two companies left to compete about the prize. Their gig places are shut down. Why?

They didn’t follow along with the new listeners. They made so much money on CD:s that they kept going on that. Also their audience was older and still bought that. That worked for a while (90:s) but when even the older stopped using CD:s and they technical companies stopped put in the equipment. I mean right now Appel goes so far to take out the headphone jack. I can’t remember when I last saw an apple computer with a CD player. Since that was happening their audience got smaller and smaller and now they are almost not existing.

With that they didn’t attract they younger audience and the growth of fans did stop. Second they also kept on going to radio, especially the P4 format (it’s a government radio station that broadcast locally). Radio really died also in the beginning of 2000. What we see in Sweden today is really a pale shadow of the old system. People find music on other channels.

I told this to some of my American record industry people. But no it couldn’t grasp their mind that this could happen. Okey, this is the same people that told me 2011 that they would get into the hard drive business since that is where people download their stuff. I just told them that we will stream from Spotify and they couldn’t grasp their mind then. I guess this is even harder to understand.

The signs are there. Sure USA is a bigger country and it will take longer time. But radio is already dead, USA still have it since they spend a lot of time in the car. But digital radio already provides me with channels that I can only listen to The Greatful Dead or Metallica station. No need to find new music. And more and more technical devises will get me more playlists from other sources.
Gig places, yes this one is also stronger in USA. Still it looks what happen in Sweden for the moment. It’s a huge change of the live market and this will hit USA as well.

And radio and live shows are the bread and butter for country. My guess is that is there we will see the first changes. This effects all music industry. But yes country will be first, they have a older audience, harder to adapt. My eyes will be on this one to try to evaluate the market.
It won’t happen tomorrow. It would be fun to bring this post back 2025. See where country is then? Just saying Talyor Swift made a good move on genre there.

New video diary

Back from Live at Heart

Yes the blogg has been kind of empty while I have been on Live at Heart. Well I try to do a video update asap. And I have so much new stuff to talk about after the great Live at Heart. Just check out Royal Prospects on Live at Heart.