The Music Snob

I got an email recently from MusicSupervisor in which they pointed out this sweet website:

Metronome Online.

No need to actually buy a metronome, just go to their site, click on the beats per minute you need, and magically you have your tempo. Awesome. As long as you are sitting near a computer! Rock on. 

Sure beats the old version.

I just came across a great site called Indie on the Move.

What is Indie on the Move?

The site is a free database of booking information for music venues across the US, designed to help bands book tours.

Booking a Music Tour Just Got Easier

• The information is helpful and to-the-point. Contact info and booking tips.
• The site design is very visual, making it easy and pleasant to find what you’re looking for.

Nice job on the site, guys. This is akin to what I was hoping to start with the Music Snob venue wiki, but this site has better information in a more visually pleasing way.

The new search engine, Mahalo, seems worth checking out, both for musicians and marketeers looking to get a leg up. I’m too busy to learn more about it right now, and its “Add Link” function wasn’t working for me (Beta version), but there appears to be a ton of good music resources aggregated in a seemingly logical way.

Smoke it!

The deeper I wade into the nuts and bolts of music marketing, the sicker I feel. Are all industries as over saturated and horrifying?

Of all things, music has been the closest to my heart forever. And so I can’t imagine how I would feel, marketing something I didn’t even like. Oh, wait. Actually I can. Last year I worked in marketing at a hi-tech company here in NYC. My job in a nutshell was to sell software that didn’t exist with features and benefits that the company could never produce, to non-existent customers. What a shithole. Try feeling confident when pitching imaginary products based on technology you couldn’t produce or even talk about intelligently, to Fortune 500 companies. Good luck!

Anyway. I just came across a really cool hip-hop biz blog. Justin Boland has a style that I can really identify with. As the Bobs would say, this guy is a “real straight shooter”.
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Hey y’all, I recently came across Talk Music Biz, which covers a lot of ground that I think would be helpful for any of us poor and crushed musicians out there. The guy who maintains the site posts good videos where he talks about music industry stuff, and has some good tips for online marketing, getting licensed, internet radio, and on and on. Check it out.

The web seems host to an unending world of content, and each day I’m discovering more and more great resources for musicians. Articles on just about anything related to music marketing. Dialogue is happening on all levels, from high up at the corporate and start-up biz side, down to the nuts and bolts of engaging with one listener at a time.

Here are some sites I’ve come across that seem to be part of the solution:

Music Business 101

Bob Baker’s Music Promotion Blog

Music Marketing dot com

Music Think Tank

New Music Strategies

Unsprung Media

The Lefsetz Letter

Derek Siver’s Blog (Founder of CD Baby)

Indie HQ