How Do You Make $$ From Music?

We're not exactly experts in this area (oh to be a newly launched venture!), but we hope that someday there will be money for artists and the systems that support them. However an important step to getting there is understanding how the heck anyone manages to make any $$ these days in the first place. Future of Music Coalition has been talking for over a decade about the music industry, the policies that impact it and the ways for artists to move forward and do things like have health care even if they don't have one of those standard old 9-5ers. They've launched a survey in order to gather information about how musicians make money from music as part of their Artist Revenue Streams project.

Here's a snip:

Artist Revenue Streams (ARS) represents the first time a US-based organization has conducted a research project that examines musicians’ revenue streams across all genres and roles. The results could provide musicians, the media and the music community at large with a comprehensive analysis of how musicians are being compensated in the digital age.

The project engages with a wide range of musicians, including jazz artists, Nashville songwriters, session musicians, touring rock artists, hip hop emcees, classical composers, and artists experimenting with direct-to-fan strategies through three research strategies: in-person interviews; financial case studies; and a wide-ranging online survey.

You can take the survey here.

Listen to Jean Cook from FMC talk about the survey on WNYC.

Test presses, lacquers oh my!

TinyRadars HQ has been getting a lot of mail these days...lacquer tests, vinyl test presses...we've been listening, testing, checking it on other machines and things are sounding quite wonderful for both of our first releases. The vinyl making process is pretty fascinating and it is a lot of fun (albeit time consuming) to see the music go through these various phases. If you've ever wondered exactly how it all gets done, check out these YouTube vids...complete with a super 80s backbeat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUGRRUecBik

http://youtu.be/IReDh9ec_rk

xo.cjc

DIY in our home away from home

TinyRadars has endless love for DIY culture and the Boston music community. This is a particularly sweet Letter to the Editor that was published in the Boston Phoenix this week about last weekend's Allston DIY Fest and really speaks to the kind of world we are trying to build through our tiny record label.

This collective culture, with socio-political agenda or without, is a huge part of what makes a city's creative landscape vibrant and contemporary. While Boston has historically been a provincial city, recognized more for its medical, financial, and tech communities than its artistic offerings, DIY Fest was a testament to the fact that the city's young artists and organizers are on their game — and much more awesomeness is on the way. It was easily one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen happen here. All of these amazing kids came out of their basements, worked through the red tape to pull permits, and shared this phenomenon in broad daylight at Ringer Park. Hats off to the organizers and the participants for their tireless work in making Boston a better place to live.

Read the whole thing here. Living in Boston and feeling fired up? Get involved with the planning crew for Ladyfest Boston.

Spotify Launches in the US

After years of building up their buzz in Europe while leaving us waiting in America, Spotify has finally come to the States. For those of you who don't spend 40+ hours a week basically tethered to your computer like a drone, Spotify is a music streaming service much like Pandora except that instead of building a radio station you can listen to whole albums. So essentially its a place where you can go when you say "Oh man, you've never heard the second track off of Gerbil Terminal's third EP? Let me just type that in...here we go." (Ed. note: Gerbil Terminal is not, to the best of our knowledge, a real band.) Other similar services that were already growing in popularity in the US were Grooveshark and Rdio.

I'm willing to shell out some $ a month for a new service (I've already found Rdio to be completely worth the $10 a month I pay for it), but it is definitely going to be one or the other for me. And it will all come down to who has the larger selection.

For artists looking for distribution you can go here to see who they are working with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CvYX_P_c__8

xo.cjc

The Plan Keeps Coming Up Again

There have been many years of talking, so it's time to get doing. Go TinyRadars, go! We are hard at work on the first release: a 7" by the wonderful Graph. It has two excellent songs on it that you will be able to hear soon.

In the meantime, we're getting this whole operation up and running. Stay tuned for more information, details and other things of interest.

xo.cjc