Loose Cannon
Posted: 4:46PM, Tuesday 23rd February, 2010.

Time for a Major Change in The Music Industry's Top (Debateable) Body

I didn’t get the press release yesterday from ARIA’s PR though they know me. No one really cared to send it to me other than Christie because I guess like most things coming out of ARIA/PPCA it’s not really major news or hardly credible. But I let out a whoop when I opened Christie’s email because this could be the most exciting thing to happen at ARIA for almost a decade. The press release spoke in glowing terms of Stephen Peach who is leaving as CEO. That warm glow dribbled from the mouth of ARIA/PPCA Chairman Ed St. Gone who also is billed in the release as President and CEO of Warner Music, which has performed about as well as ARIA since he took over.

In the past few years, ARIA has been pretty leaderless. Though St. Gone praises Peach for having “Fought the good fight across a number of different battlefronts.” it came off as a bad cliché, and St. Gone used to be a journalist! Truth be told ARIA as an organisation has lost so many battles in the past few years, lost so much respect from the government and music business and allied industries--outside its major members--that its been increasingly viewed as an impotent entity.  It has created enmity from nightclub owners and fitness operators so much so that ‘avoid paying PPCA fees’ is one of the largest search terms on TheMusic.com.au.

When Emmanuel Candi was running the show there, shit happened. He was a respected go-getter with his GM Jim White at his side and copyright cop Michael Speck in the trenches against the pirates. Peach inherited a legacy and a momentum and then things stalled. Where Candi was an astute commercial operator and White was a steamroller, Speck commanded the headlines as he fought Kazaa and won as well as initiating a large number of successful actions.

Candi was great with the pollies and didn’t command respect with Canberra, he got it despite the then head of ARIA, David Snell, being someone who didn’t. Candi reversed years of failure of ARIA’s leadership under previous heads, none of whom was remarkable other than the short-lived Victoria Rubensohn. White, who was not afraid of being aggressive from his days at Festival, was an unrelenting force in driving the industry along and both did wonders for the organisation. Denis Handlin was the Chair of ARIA and kicked goals just as Michael Smellie had done when he was PPCA Chair a while back. The organisation rocked.

Candi went to Sony and became the defacto 2IC while White retired though he and partner from Festival Meryl Gross also took Support Act Limited to a new level. Candi, in concert with Denis Handlin took the Sony/BMG brand to new heights (St Gone had headed up BMG before the merger but lost out to Handlin in the fight for the crown) and they then re-engineered it back to Sony. George Ash rocked Universal, Mark Poston restored order to EMI. Meanwhile ARIA went to shit.

The legacy of piracy enforcement fell into a heap when it seemed that every time AFACT or the AFP carried out a bust, MIPI would piggyback on and make it seem like theirs. It was laughable. The 10% fight for radio fees collapsed and even though it’s been brought up again this week, the radio lobby poked holes in ARIA’s argument by pointing out they had left out the APRA payments in the total paid by radio. Another pie in the face.

Unlike APRA which has been going from strength to strength over the past decade, leading legislative and tribunal decisions in favour of its members, creating a major music conference and songwriter festival as well as offering an incredible array of programs in major cities and small towns in their roadshow, ARIA became somewhat of a bomb shelter against industry issue blasts. If anything it was a laughingstock as you’ll see from some of the stories below.

The APRA Awards each year are three events that are compelling and have matured despite not being TV fodder. I love to go to them. It’s like meeting family at a reunion where you are entertained by artists, made to laugh by the MC Jonathan Biggins and not subjected to drunks and bimbos fighting for cistern space to draw on as the ARIAs were.

The ARIA Awards have sadly gone from go to whoa. Or I should say woe. It’s not the fault of Mark Pope who has done an incredible job over the years in growing the event, overseeing it and giving it that kick that made it special up until two years ago.  It’s collapsed in the past couple of years due to the same lack of leadership that has suffocated ARIA and I’m not saying that’s Peach’s fault. In St. Gone’s eulogy, Peach is credited with “guiding ARIA through numerous successful ARIA Awards and Hall of Fame Events…”  That’s kind of damning him with faint praise or asking him to take a bullet for the team. Well, if that’s the case, what happened last year to make one Network drop it and this year for the successor to trash it? A Hall of Fame is pretty simple to create even though it has no home, it’s just an event.

Nope, I’ve got to lay that plunge of the ARIA Awards into mediocrity in St. Gone’s hands as he was the head of the Awards committee and the Chair. Sorry Ed but when you said that someone hadn’t booked the ACER venue in announcing the delay, it made Mark look like a goose and everyone already knew ARIA had lost the network. That was the beginning of the bullshit which brought the ARIAs into disrepute and then inot far less sigificance. What was done this year was so pathetic that it set the Awards back 20 years. The best thing I could say about them is that I deliberately avoided them in person and on TV and didn’t waste three hours of my life. It was the cult of personality run riot but it had little to do with music and was a travesty.

But let’s get real here. This could be the best opportunity ARIA could have to face the future, cast off the past and pick up some new momentum. I think with the right leadership, there is tremendous potential to make real change, created new revenue streams fairly split between artists and their copyright exploiters as well as get back some respect from both the industry and government. Change is good. And it’s time. Hell, it’s been time for a change for over five years! As a friend of mine noted, ” Perhaps the resignation is a chance for a comprehensive review of the industry's advocacy and the development of a strategy that fosters next generation business models.”

I don’t know if it will work. I don’t plan to be around to see it, though I’ll probably read about it in coming years. I hope the news is good. I doubt I’ll get a quote in.

I got quoted a lot in media because when journos ask hard questions of ARIA on industry issues, they are often fobbed off and I get the play. Not that I was trying to. Unlike previous administrations when faced with tough issues, ARIA tended to duck and weave back into the bunker while some of the press releases from the company were ludicrous in their obvious fudging of figures and gloaming of stats. Here’s some greatest hits…

Take that six week window release in 2008 of how CD sales had rocketed in a short period http://www.aria.com.au/pages/CDSalesSkyrocket.htm

It was kinda debunked here as Truth, Lies and Music Economics—Putting Lipstick on the Pig http://www.themusic.com.au/imm_display.php?s=phil&id=929

It may be old news (2004) but you might remember the first call I made for Stephen to step down.
http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=65374

It referred to a couple of things including the transcript from the Triple J Hack program which unfortunately is not on the air anymore. Peach got creamed in that one and his voice spoke volumes.
http://rocknerd.org/articles/04/04/05/0735240.shtml?tid=7

Then the Sydney Morning Herald’s Spike back page picked up on it. It’s not online but the transcript is from Indie Initiative http://www.indieinitiative.com/ifShowHeadline.asp?ID=1376:

ARIA boss faces music

Just how big is the free CD collection of the ARIA CEO and anti-music theft lobbyist, Stephen Peach? Peach told Triple J on April 2 that he personally had received "a few, 10 maybe" in the last three months (Spike, Monday). He's not a music critic, programmer or publicist, but he needs to be au fait with the scene to represent Australian music, an ARIA spokesman told Spike. But we called Peach's former publicist at ARIA, Marcella McAdam, who furnished more detail on his habits. During her 18 months under his reign, Peach was in the habit of handwriting lists of titles he wanted and getting staff to source them from the record companies, she said - sometimes from back catalogues and sometimes two or three of the same title. "I sighted several A4 pages of titles and other employees had seen other lists as well. It wasn't the reason I left, but it was one of them. I thought ARIA, as the body lobbying government [for artists' rights] should be showing more . . . leadership," McAdam said. "Freeloading versus free downloading - to me it's the same. You're getting the product for free. It's not going to stop until the record companies start saying no." While Peach, who has not returned our calls for five days, didn't call back yesterday, the Sony CEO, Denis Handlin, said: "Stephen has never presented any lists or the like to us."

Then there was the piece in the Herald about how the ARIA lawyers had tried to browbeat formet PR Marcella McAdam titled ARIA’s Cone of Silence
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/26/1082831498339.html

But the best story was a year later at the APRA Awards Dino vs Peach.
http://rocknerd.org/articles/04/05/26/0536259.shtml?tid=7

OK, I admit it. I may have picked on Stevie a bit in the past but there was a reason and it had to do with the first meeting I had with him as the new CEO. But that’s what the Loose Cannon has done over time—tilt at windmills, document the ridiculous and prick the hot air balloons of hype. Somebody had to do it. I just wonder who’ll be the gadfly in the future…

Til next fortnight.

Long Way To The Top Of The World From The Bottom of The Heap

Posted: 5:39PM, Tuesday 16th February, 2010.

One of the things that bugs me about the music business is that there are so many people who believe they are entitled to success because they simply inhabit the industry, managing to eke their way in; that they deserve to recognised and rewarded because they believe they have talent; that they are owed a living because they are in a creative content business. Whether it's a song, the ability to play an instrument, assemble a band, record product, conceive a concept or create a company--success is their birthright.

Bullshit. Most of them, probably 95% of them will fail miserably because they are disorganised, lazy, unwilling to invest in themselves--thinking theres a grant to be begged or 'investor' to be conned--or they simply have no idea how to do business in a content-driven economy. I've said it before and I'll say it here for the last time before I retire in nine months time: Talent is plentiful, talent is cheap and talent is the most disposable commodity in the music industry. Failure however, is ubiquitous.

I just had a wonderful set of conversations with three people--my dear friend Julia Davis of New World Artists, Craig Treweek who publishes the Drum Medias of Sydney and Perth, Inpress and Time Off and a canny little interactive entrepreneur in San Francisco who I'll reveal in a minute.

Julia and I were chatting about the biz and she made a riveting interesting point. While I think there are great bands out there because the record labels don't breed and nurture them for longevity, she feels that the new generation of musicians have come up too well looked after. As she pointed out, the less recent generations were poor, often came from working class backgrounds, didn't have a lot of opportunities, had to starve and suffer for their art, had to learnt things on the fly n the school of hard knocks rather than a four year course and weren't supported by their parents in their musical pursuits.

She pointed out the newer generation often came from wealthier homes, had more gadgets and computers, mobiles, had instant communications and opportunities to attend music business courses, schools or unis and hadn't had to starve or suffer for their art. And as a result, their music is often more mediocre lyrically and musically. She contended that this is why so much of the newer music is so shitty. Though she didn't use that term.

To which I add that too often they make music on computers with Garageband and loops which means they don't need to hone instrumental chops or learn song structure. It's like building a prefab house instead of learning carpentry and brickwork and crafting your own. There is a sameness and following of fashion or musical trends and a lack of uniqueness. Top that off with the intense competition to get over in media, fandom and getting attention from record labels and you have a formula for crap, especially when the tastemakers are seen to be reality TV shows.

In a week, I'll be in that metal tube shooting North East to San Francisco on the way to South By Southwest in Austin a couple of weeks later where about 250 other time & space travellers will be assembling along with about 150 hopeful musicians from 44 bands, crew and managers to launch their careers to another plateau. On just the band front, they're competing against 1800 other artistes trying to rise above the noise and on the professional side of business and entrepreneurs, there's 15,000 who want to be visible above the chatter.

This is one thing that Australian and New Zealand bands are suited for and is generally their strong suit. As opposed to the Yanks who are created in studios and the Brits, we have to take out music on the road to survive and build the music from there. So when it comes to hitting the stage at South by, we rock. Plus we punch above our weight musically and are just the right genre mix for this sort of showcase event.

Fortunately, we have a new level of professional music managers who are shrewd, well educated (generally) and have greater access to the tools needed to overcome the tyranny of distance that separates us from the overseas lucrative music markets. I remember when I moved here in 1981, mail to the US or UK took ten days or more each way, there was no fax, just telex and only the majors had them. Phone calls were prohibitively expensive whereas now I'm paying six cents a minute rather than a coupe of bucks. No one had a mobile phone, texting didn't exist nor did email and all products were physical.

But now it's all changed and we've gone from generations of deprivation of tools and scarcity to a generation of a wealth of tools and plenty. My career has gone across it all, I had a telex in 83, email in 85, my first mobile and portable fax in 87, first website in 94 and last week, got my first Kindle and released a book on it that we had originally published in print and online in 04.

My world has evolved from physical carriers of music and stage performance to creative content that is disseminated over a broad range of carriers, fewer of them physical each day. I'm not really in the music industry, I'm in the wannabe business, but not for long.

It's not just musical aspirant bands and mini-moguls that I am kinda leading the charge with, there are also interactive multimedia professionals and film creators who are on their way to the SxSW Interactive and Film Festivals and Conferences which precedes the Music confab. There is a great crossover between music and film historically and there is now more between the music freaks and digital geeks as evidenced by music in games and new concepts like Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

I handle the territories of Australia, New Zealand and Hawai'i (from which five bands are playing and about 30 delegates are attending. We share some of the same impediments--distance from key markets, time zone disparity, costs of getting to the markets and communications as well as overcoming the apathy and lethargy of most content creators who believe they're smart so they should be given success.

Some things just don't change. People call us wanting free directories because they're poor and think we're rich, have no resources and think all we have to do is give them numbers, names and email addresses as well as free advice on their career or lack of one. Yesterday was a great example.

I had just finished lunch with staff (fresh guacamole, sloppy pork ribs and barbecued slow cooked lamb) when a call came in. A woman from the ACT was calling, said she had called me two years ago, said she had a cause that she need to call up bands to play for (the naming of a street as it turned out) and wanted to 'borrow' a directory which meant us mailing her one overnight at a cost of $10. She evoked the name of an old former friend who actually owed me money.  like that was going to make me do what she wanted.

Well, I suggested to her that since she lived in the ACT, she could go to the National Library because they have every copy (we're required to lodge them free) or possibly arrange for an interlibrary loan for a copy to be sent to her local library to use for free. But no, we don't give free copies to charities or other worthy causes to people who are only going to use them to harass hapless artists into playing a free gig at their own expense for the cause. Not for Greenpeace, not for PETA and not for benefit promoters of dubious intentions.

And then I casually mentioned that the old rock dog she used the name of actually owed me a few thou from years gone by and the only people who used his name when calling usually wanted something from us. It was a casual, almost offhand comment that happened to be true.

Needless to say, the former artist, manager, rock tragic and also former friend, found out what I'd said and then started emailing abuse to me, never acknowledging the debt mind you, but accusing me of bullying someone because I wouldn't give them something for free. We didn't have a phone conversation, he hid behind the email. He talked about how great his life is and how many friends he has and how low a person I am, how sad and sorry he feels for me. He tried every guilt trip tactic, every kind of insult he could muster, but being the deadbeat he is, he could never come to owning his debt nor offering to pay it off in increments or doing anything that a friend would for someone who helped him out so long ago.

Lesson. Never lend money to friends... and never remind them if you did!

But turning this around, I got an email from a fellow named Elias who had a great idea a few weeks ago. He wanted to charter a rock and roll tour bus with 12 Aussie IA minds and take a 48 hour trip with onboard wireless, bunks, shower, kitchen and driver, create three new startups in trip from San Francisco to LA to San Diego and then on to Austin, and present them at South by Southwest to angel investors.

Here's an example of someone who has pulled themselves up by their boostraps as a startup 'bus-camp' incubator rather than a muso kicking of his shoes in a squat on the dole and complaining how unfair life is. He wasn't that confident that he could make it happen holding down a full time job, needed between $10,000 and $40,000 to make it happen and has suddenly found that he's gotten the sponsorship needed (with a little help and encouragement from us who were enthused about his idea) and now has close to 35 people with an average age of under 30 willing to take the trip which would require three buses.

We rarely see that sort of get up and go enthusiasm, left brain thinking and drive in the music business anymore. I wish we did. I might have planned to stick around.

Til next fortnight.

What's Become of the Music Industry, Music Business & Music Network

Posted: 12:23PM, Wednesday 3rd February, 2010. Updated: 12:02PM, Wednesday 3rd February, 2010.

There is so much conjecture about the music business, record sales and the future that it's almost impossible to make any accurate guess about what's going to happen other than sales will continue to decline, it won't ever be like it used to be and that an expert is someone who's made three correct guesses in a row, once.

I read an interesting article from CNN titled "Music's Lost Decade: Sales Cut In Half" which sums up the numbers pretty accurately for the US. That will never happen here because each time ARia comes out with a bouyant press release on sales, they try to cloud the issue, gloss over the losses, point the finger at piracy and the ISPs and come up with some convoluted set of figures that the media seems to gobble up without doing their homework.

Not so the US where extremely accurate figures are easily at hand through independent means. The article I'm referring to starts off with the comparison between 1999 when music sales and licensing was US$14.6 billion and 2009 when it's plummeted to US$6.3 billion. It's an average of about 8% a year. And it's not slowing despite the upturn in digital sales.

I know I'm buying more music than ever and spent about $5000 between iTunes US store and Munck Music's live recordings facility (legal and you can buy with Australian credit card--FLAC Lossless, or DRM free MP3 at 256K for $14.95 a concert which is often up to three CDs worth at http://www.munckmusic.com). And I know my staff still buy CDs from the three stores within two blocks of us in Newtown--So Sounds, HUM and Fish--the latter one managed by the recently departed charts manager of The Music Network, Liz Thomas, who knows a thing or two about sales. I went into Fish the other day to catch up and also see what the inside of a CD store looks like since I haven't been in one more than a minute that it takes to pick up Drum Media.

Not much has changed except there is less stock, fewer catalog items, more collectables, about the same number of people browsing but not as many buying and a lot of table stock--schlock releases, compilations, cheap imports, etc. A lot of these recordings that don't go through the majors or major indies are never counted in ARIA figures or are reflected by charts.

There certainly aren't as many hit records or artists selling high numbers with the exception of Andre Rieu, Susan Boyle that aren't exactly kids music, and Pink whose sales are directly related to her phenomenal run of shows. And there are a lot more discount records being sold as consumers feel the pinch but want music and maybe don't opt for free.

Getting it digitally is anotehr story. It's becoming easier though iTunes here at $1.69 is a ripoff compared to the $1.10 I'm paying at the US store for six times the number of titles. Like not going into a record retailer to buy product in the past two years, I've never bought from iTunes here, but there is another new kid on the block that getting traction. Bandit from the house of Sony has launched its extensive download library of major and indie product, DRM free and at a higher bit rate than iTunes and you can bet that they are poised to offer a subscription model shortly. I've got to hand it Gavin Parry and his crew, despite a few glitches in launching it through newspapers, it has kicked off in a hefty manner.

Does the name Guvera mean anything to you? Well, they are an Australian company that is currently beta-testing about 2-3000 users here with a model that gives free downloads in exchange for the consumer tolerating advertising. It may not sound like a handsome proposition, but I think it is going to be an interesting model and they are far ahead of the next contender, Qtrax. Look for them launching in the first quarter or early second and go to Guvera.com to get an idea of what's happening.

There is a subscription model that is working which is the Nokia Music Store, primarily geared to music capable handsets of that brand. It's taking time to bed in but it's working partially because Nokia has so many handsets and also because it's easy. We remember the last subscription service, Stripe, by Glenn Wheatley, which tried but failed to meet the market.

I've got to wrap this column up fast because I'm going to meet with a fellow publisher of directories about physical vs digital, the changing landscape of trade publications and using technology to increase sales. In going to this meeting with him, as a potential buyer, I just saw the flash figures on our AMID from last March and last September's issues and at the time of the worst financial period in the industry, our advertising sales increased 25% in revenue and sales of the directory increased $22% while listing income rose 40%.
A lot of this is due to the sales of the digital version which has also dropped our costs per sale. By using digital means of collecting data over the old listing form mailout and return, we've saved about $100,000 a year in wages, eliminating one staff member and the mail and printing expenses.

To us, digital data-drug dealing has been our salvation and not a threat. We have made some major changes this year which I am happy to share with you because it shows how new formats like the AMID App (which we will be expanding to Androoid and Symbian for non-Apple phones) the new iPad, Kindle and other ebok readers have given us a new revenue stream.

I just got my first sales cheque from Apple with them taking 30% and despite them saying to allow 45 days, it actually took about five. And both myself and our developers of the App, Chance Media, are very happy with the results that only account for maybe 40 days of sales.

What it's doing for us is increasing our monetisation of Music Networks that we have created through cross-marketing to new and existing customers. Like today, we got close to $6000 in orders for directories for music business schools and they are the older copies. Kinda like selling Greatest Hits packages.
Here's the info we revealed through Christie's Column on where we are headed with our business model and perhaps you can get some inspiration to try and create new avenues of revenue for yours.

With the 44th biannual edition of the 152 page AustralAsian Music Industry Directory due out March 1, some changes in content will cause controversy while pricing has been made more attractive for digital users. AMID has expanded and enhanced some sections while eliminating others that have become superfluous or redundant. There is a new section of approximately 30 crucial Australian music bloggers or tastemaker sites followed by more than 30 critical online music magazines, the key music communities on the Net, social network contacts, online retailers of CDs and downloads as well as a range of mobile music content providers. Eliminated are CD shops, not because they are disappearing but due to so few submitting their updates for free listing and free directories. Also gone is AM Radio because it's really not a music medium anymore though digital radio still has a long way to go beyond only a few listings.

The print edition is increasing price to $55 a copy by mail though all listings get their choice of a free print or online version per listing. This compares to the Encore Film Directory which is $149 annually and the UK Music Week Directory which is $150 a year.

The online AMID version price will remain unchanged at $40 for six months with fortnightly updates by email alert to those subscribers as well as the changes, deletions, additions and revisions being updated online. This compares to the Margaret Gee's Celebrity Directory which is no longer in print and $395 annually for a one user license. The B&T Yearbook for the advertising and marketing industries has also ceased physical production with the 09 issue $149 and a digital version available.

And after little more than a month on Apple iTunes around the world, the AMID iPhone and iTouch app-which is the word's first music directory on a phone-- has been selling in several countries such as Japan, UK, US, Canada, Spain, France Brazil and even Romania and exceeding sales expectations in its own home country. It's $19.95 in Australia and an equivalent amount in Apple's iTunes stores in other countries currencies. 

The new version of the AMID App comes out March 1 with the new directory fully integrated and buyers of the previous version will get the upgrade free. It features instant dialing of all phone numbers, instant emails at a touch from email address on the phone, instant download of websites from listing hotlinks and is searchable as well as able to have data be made into Favourites. The price remains under $20 at all Apple iTune stores. Viewable here http://www.immedia.com.au/amid/app/

Other changes include the end of interstate distribution from outlets in Melbourne (Inpress), Perth (WAM), Adelaide (dB) and Brisbane (Rave) with all physical orders now by mail from IMMEDIA!'s offices at 20 Hordern Street, Newtown NSW 2042. The price of pickup from the office will be $50 starting March 1.

But new technology changes are set to revolutionise the way the Directory's listings are assembled and updated. Starting in April, all current listings can be changed online and updated without paper forms for future print editions. New listings will be able to be entered online before being checked, qualified and approved for both the online and new print version which comes out September 1. Paper forms will no longer be used as an online database replaces the 22 year system of listing submissions.

But the AMID will also be available on the new iPad and Kindle as will also be the case with the IMMEDIA! published book "When the Writ Hits the Fan" by lawyer Phil Dwyer with Phil Tripp http://www.immedia.com.au/writ which is being published through Amazon this month after being an eBook and physical book since its first edition in 2004. As Tripp remarks, "Getting our intellectual property across all potential monetising platforms has always been integral to our innovation, survival and growth. These are simply natural progressions from when we started in the physical world in 1987, went online in 1988 through a bulletin board and then onto the net in 1994. Our next step will be Android and Simian versions of the AMID for Nokia phones, Blackberries and other mobile devices."

For those people who wish to subscribe online now and get the current edition 43 as well as the next edition 44 when it automatically clicks over March 1, go to http://www.immedia.com.au/amid/order.php

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