Friday, March 29, 2019

You have a passion for music?

Just bumped another social media post from an artist telling "music is my passion". The problem is uif you really did the things you should do instead of making a stupid post how much you have a passion for music and wants to have a career you might actually get a career.

It's scary how often I hear artists talking about their passion around the music and how much they really work on their career. When you go behind this fake wall you really look into something different. I got so many stories from different managers around how the artist is not doing half of what they should do in order to have a career.

If you really have the passion you will do the extra mile to get there. that extra mile is the difference between a hobby and a job. Most of the time if you have the time writing a post like you have to much time on your hands. I was just checking some artist pages around just linking to media. A task like having all your written media on your homepage is quite a busy thing to do. Not hard you just have to put googel to seek out when ever someone is writing about you. Then take the link and make a library. This is great to have later when you do press releases.

So none of the artists I checked had that simple task, in fact, two out of ten didn't have a homepage. So, in fact, that artist that wrote that he had a passion for the music. I guess this is the bigger problem you focus more on the things that actually doesn't mean anything in the thing that you are kind of lazy. Same here instead of writing an important email I'm sitting and updating my blog. But hey it's better then mane a stupid post.

I guess we all could go faster if we just focus on it.



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Thursday, March 28, 2019

I got a bigger fanbase!

I actually treat my blog as the way an artist should do their career. I try to get my blog post spread as much as possible. Same as an artist is trying to spread their art. I try to market smart on free things as much as possible, same as the artist. I now and then pay for promotion and do collaborations, just as artists.

In a way, I'm just copying the things I learn from my visits on conferences and use the tips to test out on my own thing.

And now I really got another thing going my friends let me publish some things in their newsletters and sites. Her I'm going to write a bit longer then I do in the blog. Also, the language is corrected so it will be nicer to read. So go ahead and start also get the newsletter of these since I won't post these improved ones here on my blog.

the first one got out last week on both.

Cashbox Magazine Canada
http://cashboxcanada.ca/10343/if-i-can-get-readers-you-can-get-fans

Record World Magazine
http://www.recordworldmagazine.com/blog/if-i-can-get-readers-you-can-get-fans/





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Wednesday, March 27, 2019

The error usally is the artist

SOMEONE STOLE OUR SONG!!!

Another email in the distribution. Some artist discovers that a name is taking money from them on certain sites. We can see the error so we ask if they have licensed it, someone?

- No, we are the master owner, so we have the rights to the money.
- Yes, you have. But no if you have licensed the song somewhere.
- No, we have only uploaded through you.
- Still, there is a conflict with another account from another distributor?
- Well, we have never done anything, we just want our money.

So I start looking, takes around an hour until I find their stuff on an old record label. Of course, that label has just sold their catalog to a new label and of course when they put it out the conflict is there.

So I get a hold of the new label, that doesn't know anything about that the band has the right to the master. But they goes back to the old label and ask. This procedure takes around one week. In the meantime, the artist is screaming and emailing all the time that we should resolve the problem and do it fast.

Then it comes back that the first label has a contract and the rights to the master. I present that to the screaming artist.

- Ohh that old label we didn't know they still existed!
- They don't but the master is theirs and they sold it to this new company.
- THEY CAN'T DO THAT!
- You have to contact them, we just the distributor, don't scream at us.
- You have to help us, we have the rights to the master.
- First, we are not your legal service. But they have a contract signed by you that they own the master, and it clearly says they can sell that asset.
- We just thought that it was an old contract and that it's gone now.

I have this conversation in many different ways every month. It's never the artist's fault, but in the end, its' clearly their fault by doing some stuff some years back. And always they give information like, we never have done this or that and when you check it's always that they have done it.

This is the reason I don't want to clean up older bands stuff. It's full of things. in many cases, you can't get the information this easy that I did in this case.

What really annoys me I that they are wasting my time, I have nothing to do with your master in a distribution thing.



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Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Broken love!

Yes, I get that love is one of the strongest feelings and that most songs are about broken love. Still, I get pretty tired of the theme. Actually, you really want songs that make you happy. Not much of my time is on sad notes or angry notes, I'm pretty happy so the songs I like tend to be in that way as well.

Also, most songs that are sought after for placements are happy. Even with playlists they are more or less seeking happy songs. If the world gives you lemons, make lemonade is the proverb for today.

Try to write a happy powerful song. That is actually what I'm looking for.




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Monday, March 25, 2019

I can at least be nice.

We did a survey on a panel one time and checked how many that got messages from artists before the showcase festival started. This festival was at least 150 artists, but none of us got more than ten messages, or even five. I remember I was one of the ones that got more and had six.

It should really be more artists that contact you for meetings and invites to a showcase but the reality that it's not. Mainly I get invites from booking agencies or professionals. From the artist direct is usually one or two.

So why? I guess you don't want to intrude on people. or you think they get bombarded by emails from strange bands wanting them to sign them. Or you just wait until you have seen our panels to decide who you like and then invite them there.

Whatever the reason is it's actually our job to find new music in most cases.

And those who really contact me I really answer. I actually goes and check them out and try to answer. I stopped promising that I will see their show. I don't know the schedule suddenly the organizer might move me to a dinner or a meeting I have to attend. If I'm left to my own things then I put the artist in the schedule to at least see a couple of songs. I actually do that even if my impression of the links was that is nothing for me. Yes I will give them a second chance I can at least be nice if someone took the trouble to invite me to their show.

My guess is that people miss a lot of opportunity's just because they don't talk to people and being nice.



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Sunday, March 24, 2019

Peter på Årets mäktigaste affärskvinna.(Vlog swedish)

Peter på galej. Har en pratstund med Mandarin, Clementin och Dartanjang. Bitte berättar musikerskämt.


Friday, March 22, 2019

PR is a trade.

I should learn some PR you can hear artists say time to time. I guess that is kind of stupid. Sure you should know the basics so you know what kind of PR you are buying and what to expect from it. But the PR job itself an artist can never learn. Yes, they can but then they are not artists they work as PR agents. To be both I have a hard time to see, usually the people that say they usually suck on one of the two.

To be a PR agent is a trade. You pay for the knowledge or contacts. The contacts you can never pick up as an artist. To keep the network alive you need to send stuff all the time. As an artist you can't release a new thing a week to keep the network up so it doesn't matter that you have the addresses, you still have to work the network.
Another disadvantage is that if you send as the artist people doesn't really want to tell you the truth. To the PR person, you can actually say that you didn't like this song. That is much harder to tell an artist so they tend to tell some small white lies and that is very frustrating.
Another thing is that you also send the same stuff. If you went into a shop that just sells cookies you can be happy, but if you look to buy fruit you are not that excited. same here the people want different things to be excited about your send outs if you just do your own stuff it's like selling the same thing all the time.

Then the knowledge. I guess that comes with the send outs, You learn from each send out. You also are updated with the receiver and knows what they like and what they need. Same here you can learn it but then you are more a PR agent than an artist. In the end, you will do more PR jobs for other people than yourself and you are just doing music as a  hobby.

PR is a thing that cost money, yes. Even fro the PR person they have to invest in systems to push things and small as and so on. I think that many think that if you learn PR you get it all for free, that you only pay for the time.
That is NOT true. PR will cost however you do it and here the saying "you got what you pay for" is really true. You probably need to spend money in the PR game in different ways. Paying that radio person to push the song, at the same time buy some stuff from Submission Hub at the same time do that free show in the capital city to get some press. In the end, if you try to get all your PR free you are just using the same channels as many other people it becomes impossible to get through the noise.

In the end, no you can't really learn PR better to let the PRO:s do it but have a piece of knowledge what PRo:s to put it on.



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Thursday, March 21, 2019

Recognition, fueled by hate.

We all want our recognition. You create something that you are proud of and no one is even commenting or give feedback, really nothing. Then two weeks later the whole feed explodes by someone doing half what you did and get all the spotlight.

Of course, you feel enraged. Why the spotlight on this? You get angry and really want to tell the world that what you did is even bigger and better.

My whole career has been that way. I can create the biggest showcase on the biggest festival in the world and they expose some indie label that does bad DIY experiment in the next town. I placed music in the biggest commercials and movie for over five years, then they spotlight that one indie label got one placement in one reality soap in Denmark.

Then they had a panel about how to get on showcase festivals. Since I have done most showcase festivals, even been speaker and VIP guest on most of them and every year gives over 50 artists the chance to go aboard, wouldn't be interesting to have me on that panel. Hell no, instead they take five people that just place some bands on the Swedish showcase festival that got bankruptcy last year.

Or the speech about getting on to the radio. I had the most played indie song that year. They took a label that had a song on rotation for two weeks to speak.

In the beginning, I was really angry around this. The whole industry was more or less ignoring what I was doing. But I let my frustration going on to more creative stuff. I started to get on to bigger things, bigger meetings. Now when they still are on that low level it doesn't become me that much and I have created something that is bigger than life in many eyes.

I guess the recognition will come, but I guess by then I don't need it. the question if I'm strong enough to just say no when they ask me to get there?

This is what every artist will also get through in their career. I get so many parallels around it and it's part of it. You will never be big in your own eyes, and when you get that recognition it really doesn't matter. But one advice is to channel the frustration to do greater things.


Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Everything is relative.

- I got really good momentum, the artist told me.
Well with his 30 followers on Spotify, 3 interactions on Facebook on each post with a 50 000 follower fanbase and just 1000 streams on Youtube and just 200 likes out of 6000 followers on Instagram.

Nope, I don't see any momentum in this, and it's so easy checked. What I see is that you either buying numbers or forcing people to just follow you even though they don't care.

So my next question was of course how does the booking look like?

- I'm about to start to book for the summer.

This is close to April, the artist hasn't released anything since early last year. And a fact most is already booked for the summer, not really time to start now.

I guess that momentum is relative, maybe in someone else world, it is momentum to this. In my world, it seems like you spending time on chasing numbers that in the end don't mean a thing and the momentum is absolutely nothing.

I guess everything is relative depends on how you see things.



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Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Managment is not a booking agency.

I'm really tired getting from artists seeking management that they want a manager to get more gigs.
Managers are not booking gigs. We could look to get you a booking agency, but at the same time if you can't get a booking agency interested there a very slim chance that the manager could fix that problem.

It seems artist thinks a manager is a personal butler fixing all these things that they think is hard to do. They are not. If you have a hard time to find a record deal, they will have the same problem. The manager then can fix things around you so you have a better chance to get a  record deal. But then you have to do other hard working things even work twice as hard as you already are doing.

Stop looking to the manager as a personal slave so you can sit around and feel important. Think of the manager as your personal investor on the bank.

Oh yes, when I write this I just got that exact stupidity. If this artist had management they would surely do this to them. An artist (not even on my management) asking for a link. This link is not even hard to get, it's on the homepage they are asking about. You can easily google the thing and get it. No instead they send two text messages and three facebook notes that they need "the link".
Why not just go to the homepage and check it, or google it. A five-year-old can do it. No instead they use valuable time and money to get me to do something that they really don't should ask about.

You would not send a stupid request to your bank like "do you have the address to your login". No you won't you will go to the bank's homepage and look for the login. If it doesn't work you really can't find then you send a message.

It's too many that don't really know what the different people are doing in the industry. Also the new world today is more that people just scream for help without checking some easy options. And thinking it would be great with a  personal server that can fix this easy stuff.




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Monday, March 18, 2019

Why the frontcover sucks nowadays.

The artwork has really declined over the years. Many reasons for it, like the picture on Spotify is big as a stamp. You don't do physical products. Many just ignore it or make something up fast. Still, it has a big function. In the old days ( read 80:s 90:s) when you did a cover you hired an expert. A person that worked with PR and knew what would be good. Of course, we will not have great front covers like we had those days.

Today it's the artist themselves that pretends that they are graphic designers. I guess they won't just take any person on the street to play their guitar solo on the record. When it comes to the front cover it seems they choose anyone with a cellphone.

It takes years in school to be a graphic designer. Just because you have photoshop and a digital camera doesn't make you a graphic designer. Right now it feels that the artist really think just because they have recorded a song they also magically know how to make front cover.

Right now also this is an advantage you can use. Since everybody else is doing kind of crappy stuff you can shine.

Also, adapt to the online world today.

If I get another black and white grainy picture I will promise NOT to listen to your music just because your cover sucks.


Sunday, March 17, 2019

Peter goes to London

Peter goes to London for a show on 229. End up in the bad neighborhood where Elton John lurks. Takes on new ugly Soda.


Friday, March 15, 2019

GJG!

I had a friend that always said this, GJG! With stands for Go just go. Whatever it was it was GJG on almost everything. Maybe not the smartest thing to do but it worked.

You can't do everything, but if there is a possibility you have to take it. Right now I feel to many is to scared to take risk or just damn lazy.

The reasons why not taking it is usually money or some weak excuse. I really built my career on GJG. The first years on our new business that we launched in 2015 I have been working 24/ 7 for almost two years. There were decisions that on the paper looked horrible but in the end was the key to the success where we stand today.

Like when a friend invited me to NYC with just a free ticket to his conference. I skipped my nice birthday and paid both hotel room for me and my friend and the airfare for me to go there.
It could have been easy to just say no because we didn't have the money than on the company I had to take the money from my savings privately. Still, I did it. I knew I had to live on cheap pizza slices in NYC and my budget was so tight.

There on the ground my friend called me and he had a slot open on one of the panels and asked if I wanted to join. I don't know if he did it because he felt sorry for me, still I took it. The panel as in 20 minutes and I was on the other side of Manhattan. I jumped in a cab, paid on my overdue credit card to get there. Got on the panel just in time.

I guess I did a good job. Afterward, a guy came up from Asia and invited me to speak on one of the world largest conferences everything paid.

Another time I said yes to a conference in Romania. I had never heard of it, but it looked cool. My problem was that I was in USA on another conference, also being on tour already for two weeks and had to get over there straight after the last show. Same here the conference could only offer me a hotel room since I was the last speaker in, I had just met them. My costs to get there was huge since I had to travel straight from USA and on a very limited time schedule. I had to change planes 3 times around the world. On each destination, I had a new airline so I had to grab and recheck my luggage every time with only 1,5 hours at each airport. Nothing could be delayed. If I missed one plane the whole trip had been destroyed since I wouldn't reach Romania until after the conference or the last day.
It would have been so easy to just say no to this thing. Too stressful, too much costs, a big risk in total.

My answer, yes GJG. And I did it, it was a nerve-wracking journey. The conference in Romania was so worth it. I got so many good contacts and it was a blast. Then I had to take two days off coming home since I was so worked out.

Yes here afterward it's easy to see where it was the right decision. Beforehand it was impossible. All signs said that I would say no. Still, I said yes because it was possible. I wasn't booked to anyone's wedding or funeral. I was just going home, and that I could postpone. Taking a financial risk, well I have done that so I was already living out of noodles before, I could do it again if I had too.

I guess you need to have GJG to make things happen. Forget that you need braces and belt. It's very rare that you not making it. You just have to sacrifice your comfort a little bit.



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Thursday, March 14, 2019

Soon MMB!

Yes, next week it's MMB in Romania....it will be a blast.


There is no special way in!

Sometimes I just want to answer....you might try to google it? I got a question about recommendations for mastering. I gave the artist two studios that are good to check out. Direct comes...can you send their contact info?
I actually don't have that in my head, so it means I have to google the damn stuff. So I wrote back, google it.
Then it came back, yes but I thought if there was some special address we needed. They usually don't answer our emails.

I guess then it doesn't matter what I give you tip off on. The reason why they don't answer is usually that the email is stupid. The address is usually correct, no one wants to miss something so the correct email is usllay on the page. The problem is what you write.

I get too many emails with just a link to a song. Or some strange message that the person loves music and maybe whats to be an artist. These emails are really not a high priority to answer. same here if you write with a very unclear message the chances to not get an answer is a kind of high. But there is really not a secret account where you get answers even on strange messages.

I just got an answer from the highs person on the radio, she reads all my emails but answers may be on one out of hundred. And when she answers it's usually because I have written something interesting and she needs some info or extra.

So if you don't get an answer it usllay you didn't write anything that was interesting for the moment. Or the song was not good enough, or good enough and they have all info around it.

Forget that there are special ways.



Wednesday, March 13, 2019

The gut feeling is not always right!

Yes, you should trust your gut feeling. But there are cases where you get fooled about it since it's not the first feeling. A gut feeling is usually that comes direct, nothing that builds up.

When it comes to singles and how good a song is are usllay gut feeling. Still, many artists work so much with the song that they build up a gut feeling around the song since they have heard it so many times it's so familiar.

In the movie industry, it's called "kill your darlings". The expressions come after the director has worked with a scene for a long time and really fallen in love with the scene. Then the producers and the test audience comes in and really don't see a point to have the scene in the movie.

Suddenly the director comes up with excuses to keep these scenes just because it's their darling scene. And many of the arguments when you do a movie is just around that you have to kill your darlings.

The directors gut feeling is to keep the scene since they have an attachment to the scene, still, the gut feeling of many others is that it should not be there.

This happens a lot in the music industry but in the lower fields, people tend to just let it go by. If the artist is pushy they get their thoughts through. In the end, though the team is not that excited to work with a song that everybody thinks is ok, not perfect. And when you get your feedback in and all the bloggers tend to say the same thing, yes it's ok but nothing special you just lose interest in the project.

So how to get all excited about a song? One trick is to present several songs and let the team choose. At the same time be prepared to "kill your darlings" also be prepared to get a no, on each song and start over again.

The ugly truth is that with today's system you actually compete with the biggest artist in the world on the same space.




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Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Bragging about the wrong things!

It's not easy but you have to have a feeling of what to brag about and not. Just got a mail from a management firm trying to squeeze their band before the booking team. Their bragging point was that the band just signed a deal with a major label.

The problem is that our festival is an export festival. The Swedish acts that we choose should be able the next day to take their steps outside Sweden. Signing a deal with a Swedish major is then is not a good bragging point. So far the Swedish majors have NEVER exported anything. They are mainly just to release things in Sweden. In reality, you need a permit from their offices to be able to export. and the bigger countries are not that keen to give that permission. In a nutshell, you are locked into your country by a major.

So in this case, the bragging has a very big opposite effect. This artist becomes handicapped with a major and makes their chances to get into the festival very slim. We know that they just signed to be for the Swedish market.

I guess many people think that bragging around that they are signed to a record label helps. In reality, the live industry is so detached from the recording industry, especially now with the number crunching, that bragging about labels, Spotify spins or facebook followers are just not smart to do.

And it's a very good way to see if a manager is up to date or just an amateur.

So in this case, not taking this firm in as guests or book this band.

Brag more about how many people you will draw to our festival. Or your opportunities for us to send you abroad.



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Monday, March 11, 2019

Number crunchers

Now it's very easy to see the professionals from the amateurs. From time to time it's very easy to tell where in the industry you are for the moment. Right now is that time.

I got a submission by a manager for an artist to play at the festival. The only thing they brag about was how many streaming numbers the artist had on Spotify ( in reality not that high since I have the measure that you need a million in 48 hours). Still, it was easy to look at this artist that he had only 520 followers out of the massive streaming.

But what really struck me was that if I looked online I couldn't find any live videos. At the same time, they bragged of an outsold headline show in London just a couple of months ago. Of course, they didn't tell us which venue it was ( it could have been the local pub with just 50 seats) also it was strange there was no live footage on youtube. None what so ever. This only means that this artist probably isn't playing that much live or is bad live.

All they have is that the artist went into some playlists. You know what that won't drag any audience it just means that you haven't done your homework and got down and done some really good live shows because that is the new thing. You really need to be good live, not any social media numbers.

Yes, I actually check out how many videos on Youtube there is on live shows. That is what I can see how they interact with the audience. How many people and if they look good live. This is the next big thing in the industry. Here is where you easy can tell who is just faking their careers behind the screen and who really have a good fanbase.

It doesn't matter if this or that radio station thought it was good. It doesn't matter if you bought a thousand Chinese click on your song. It's down to the live scene to break artists.

Just amateurs are number-crunching and tell how much they had on their last release in Spotify. Take a lesson the pros don't even discuss social media numbers any longer.



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Friday, March 8, 2019

Export offices failure!

My mind around export offices can vary. But one thing artists and professionals have to understand is they are not all good for you.

Just got a mail from booker to try to book their artists saying that they get support from their export office. That export office though really fucked up. They went for a certain festival most because it was handled by a multinational company. Of course, that made all the other festivals not booking artists from that specific country.

The year after the festival went bankruptcy. Yes, that export office really didn't know what they were doing. Now when I get emails around that country I just answer that they should seek out this bankruptcy festival that is no longer existing.
In a nutshell, this export office just made it ten times harder to book their act in this territory of pure incompetence. No one wants to touch these artists since they have supported the wrong festival.

So doing a career abroad through an export office is a kind of risky. They might be really good, I know several that is very good. But it can also be very risky if they fuck up your opportunities like equal many does.



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Thursday, March 7, 2019

Be more specific...please

One of the mistakes people do is to be too broad with everything. Actually, it's better to be more specific even though you mean more.

I got a mail from an artist saying like this:

I do music that suits everybody!

Yes, you want your music to be heard by everybody but that will never happen. People have different tastes and they go for a channel with that taste. So when you say that you have music for everybody to a radio plugger it means he can't reach anyone. Here it's much better to go to the closest thing that you do and stick to that. If you are good enough you will reach for everybody, but in the PR process, you need to be specific.

Same with artists that seeks all festivals. No more is not better. Take the ones that you like the most and that you think you fit the most. Be more specific and work on that.

Even though you think you fit it all and you should be on there you have to look on your work and see what is best and where to start.



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Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Changing the rules of release again!

We got information from Spotify that they wanted releases six months ahead right before Christmas. Well, not a big chance that artist actually would submit stuff that early. But most record labels recommended ten weeks at least as lead time.

I was in London in meetings and the band and I was on a dinner with some people on very high positions on a major record company and the band was asking about when their favorite artists would release their next record since they know these guys are the PR team.

- Well not tomorrow!
- What do you mean with not tomorrow?
- Right now we actually get most information for release around 48 hours before. So it won't be tomorrow.

This is the biggest artists there is and the record labels get the info of a release 48 hours before? Yes it was true, they got the info so late. Of course, this is so big artists that they just have to say that they will do something and they get recognition on social media. But the strategy is not to get the fans excited beforehand. People don't have the long attention span so right now they are working that the release comes so fast so when the fans hear about it they actually can find it on Youtube or Spotify.

The PR starts directly after that when people can find something to listen to.

The problem is to organize all teams so fast. That is not easy and many other artists become bumped just because a big artist just decided to release that week.

Well, this won't work for a small or even a midsize artist. But you can see how things change so fast, was right two months ago is now totally changed again. In the end, I guess no one knows really what is going on or how it's done.



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Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Peter goes to Nairobi day 7

Going home day but will I make the plane from Amsterdam?




Here are all the episodes in one go....


Monday, March 4, 2019

Friday, March 1, 2019

Peter goes to Nairobi day 5

Shopping spree on the Massai market, meet the best manger and what to drink?