Jan/Feb '17 Issue Of BRASH! Magazine Available Now!

Jan/Feb BRASH! Magazine Featuring Cover Artists The Last Living

You’ve waited patiently and now its finally here! The Jan/Feb ’17 issue of BRASH! Magazine ft. music group, The Last Living. We are making even more noise in the Indie Scene bringing you more music features, artist spotlights, and BRASHION! segment featuring editorials and style stories.

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Keeping A Pulse On The New Music Ecosystem

As a music fan today, I’m introduced to new music every week. I have what at times feels like almost personal access to my favorite artists; ranging from scintillating personal thoughts and pictures (Instagram, Twitter) to inspired support of an album’s production (PledgeMusic).

For listening to music, the physical to digital shift has given way to an abundance of platforms from which to discover, purchase, and share music. Chances are that if we met at one of our industry’s many events, we’d end up discussing the variety of streaming services that are available. I’d ask ‘what service do you use?’ to which you may confess no particular allegiance to one, rather, that you use more than one depending on the situation.  Many people (including myself) would probably answer this way.

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Is The Digital Transition The Record Industry’s Way Back to Revenue Growth?

Now that year 2015 is over, it’s report & studies high time. For starters, Nielsen just put out its “U.S. Music Year-End Report” which focuses on three keys facts: sales are going down, streaming is going off the roof, Adele’s “25” has been breaking all records. [1]
But yet overall revenue fails to grow.

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Hey YouTube! 750 indies have signed the Fair Digital Deals Declaration

The 32 pages long YouTube horror story

Some time ago I happened to read the long, horrible contract that YouTube asked indie labels to sign for launching their new premium streaming service. A copy of the leaked contract is here but I guess you won’t go far: their legal patois is unintelligible to a normal human being.

The contract is not only horrible to read: it is also greatly unfair toward indies. So indies promptly replied by taking off content from YouTube (Adele was said to be missing although I was much more concerned about XX and Anna Calvi).

Indies’ next bold move

Now it seems that indies have taken another move toward the Cupertino’s giant: more than 750 of them have signed the Fair Digital Deals Declaration (and notwithstanding the longish hashtag #fairdigitaldeal4artists, they quickly created a buzz on twitter), an initiative launched by the WIN- Worldwide independent network, that represents the interests of independent labels.

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8 Ways To Keep Up With and Discover New Music Releases

Have you ever felt like you were no longer in the loop when it comes to new music? “Have you heard Beyonce’s new song?!” “Did you get tickets for that gig?” “It went to number 1!”. None of us like to feel left out when it comes to the hottest new songs, the latest summer smash, or that killer album everybody’s talking about.

Here are a number of methods to stay up to date with the best music and most anticipated releases.  

1. Social media
Following your favourite artists and bands on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook will ensure that you are constantly in the know about what’s out and what’s coming next. Artists promote themselves and their music this way as it’s the easiest outlet to connect with their fans.  

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Purify Media Launches PurifyArt.com: Company Directly Links Artists and Fans Through Ad-free Platform

Purify Media announced the release of PurifyArt.com, an ad-free service directly connecting artists and fans. A first of its kind, PurifyArt.com enables artists and fans to find and promote music, images and video on one platform, maximizing the revenue artists and companies receive for sharing and selling content while providing viewers one affordable, complete, and interactive online service.

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An Honest Review of the All-New Sonicbids EPK System

Today, I was checking out a Sonicbids EPK that was emailed to me. Much to my surprise, the layout for a Sonicbids artist profile completely changed – there was no quick bio, music player on top, or a useful set of links (press, stage plot, etc.). Instead, I found a Pinterest-like layout with navigational tiles. I thought it was just some lame option that the artist chose, but decided to check using my own band’s profile.

This is what I found:

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The Coffee House Sessions

Coffee House Sessions is a new music initiative, exposing the hottest in upcoming UK music talent to the student market via daytime performances in University coffee shops around the country: http://youtu.be/CZRp_MoTqhM. 

With a carefully designed touring circuit taking place in 40 universities, Coffee House Sessions holds acoustic performances at two different campuses a day over a ten day period and provides promotion for the showcased artists through student media outlets such as student newspapers, student radio and student TV at each university.

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Why Artists Should Blog

I highly recommend that artists learn to love blogging. Here’s why.

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Has Digital Distribution And Production Had A Positive Impact On The Industry?

With the advent of both digital production and distribution methods becoming more popular over the past decade the landscape of music has changed with it.

The question is, has this been a positive one?

The answer to that probably differs according to who you speak to.  For some people it will be seen as a boon allowing more freedom and productivity than what was possible before. Yet others will argue it’s opened the floodgates to a swarm of low quality work diluting music in general in the process.

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Feed The Arts Introduces TIME Funding

FEED THE ARTS INTRODUCES TIME FUNDING WEBSITE FOR THE ARTS
ENTERTAINMENT SERVICE PROVIDERS BENEFIT AND BUILD THEIR BUSINESS WHILE HELPING ARTISTS

NEW YORK, NY (June 4, 2013)—

Feedthearts.com is forever changing the way art is funded by introducing its patent pending TIME FUNDING Model.  Time Funding is a cross between crowd funding and virtual rewards programs allowing fans to donate time instead of money.  Their time is what helps Artists get funded and allows funding of Creative Arts projects with fans earning virtual currency we call ?Helping Hands?.  Helping Hands are then turned around through an advertising revenue share and giving that currency to artists projects posted on the site.  This revolutionary model eliminates the risk of previous crowd funding and traditional funding models.

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Zip Marketing

The best thing Zip Marketing can do for your brand is put your brand on the internet. If your brand is not already on the 112 free to sign up websites, Zip Marketing signs up to the free websites free taking the time to do everything correctly, upload the correct songs, upload the correct photos, type the words in correct spelling, basically update the entire page correctly the first time and locking in the correct URL. So many times you see things placed on the internet with incorrect spelling, the wrong photos and the wrong music. Zip Marketing places all the correct links on each page and makes everything on the internet of that brand to work correctly on all 112 social and mp3 sites.

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Post-Digital

// Digital download cards are boring at the merch table but don’t have to be. The coolest thing about downloads is that they can go anywhere, so why do we always pick card stock? //

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Free peek at broken system of music reporting rights

Dirty secret: Musicians and songwriters all know that if their music is being played commercially, the reports they are getting back are more than likely wrong. Cue sheets and affidavits are routinely entrusted to interns to fill out – sometimes by hand. One misspelled song title and the artists wave goodbye to their royalties.  In fact, over 80% of music played commercially is either unreported or misreported.

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