Little Joy
KCRW – Morning Becomes Eclectic
December 19th, 2008
Brand New Start
Shoulder To Shoulder
Unattainable
No One’s Better Sake
With Strangers
Play The Part
Keep Me In Mind
Don’t Watch Me Dancing
The Next Time Around

Download:
Little Joy – Little Joy (iTunes)

Little Joy is playing @ the Troubadour on June 5th (Buy Tix)

In his 20-plus years in the music business, George Howard has been a musician, author, educator and producer. In 1993, while in graduate school, he founded the Slow River Records label. Slow River eventually merged with indie powerhouse Rykodisc (Morphine, Medeski, Martin and Wood). In 1999, George became president of Rykodisc, where he signed and/or guided the careers of Robert Cray, Tom Tom Club, Josh Rouse and many others. He also developed the Rycodisc catalog of holdings.

Howard has contributed to the start-up of TuneCore.com and works closely with Wolfgang’s Vault and Daytrotter. He is both the current Vice President of Artists House Music Foundation and Editor of ArtistHouseMusic.com. Howard is also a professor and Executive in Residence in the College of Business Administration at Loyola University and a professor at Berklee College of Music’s online program. He has written two books for Berklee Press, “Getting Signed! An Insider’s Guide to the Record Industry” and “Music Publishing 101,” and is now working on his third, “The Artist’s Dilemma… and a Way Forward.”

George with his daughter Annabelle

R&G: What are your thoughts on the current state of the music business, in terms of the new business model, digital distribution, digital downloads and do-it-yourself musicians?

George: It’s a time of optimism and excitement for me, both from the standpoint of being entrepreneurial and working with artists. There’s a larger cultural thing that is going on. The days of creating something and then handing it off to some larger entity or larger company to market, promote and distribute are over for the most part. Digital distribution has created a place where you can efficiently go from content creator to constituents without handing it off. With that ability comes a whole host of challenges that are reshaping the nature of creative output, for good and bad. The good part is that it’s forcing people to be entrepreneurial and understand some business practices and things that can help them succeed. The bad part is that it’s forcing them to do those things and not be able to devote their full energy to creating. Most people were never able to devote their full energy to creating anyway. It does provide cognitive dissonance when you are the creator as well as the businessperson. The only way it succeeds is by leveraging efficiencies largely brought about by technology. It’s an exciting time, but it is certainly not a time without challenges. We hear a lot about emerging middle classes of artists, which I like and believe to a degree. But what’s being forgotten is that there is a base of knowledge any businessperson needs to understand or acquire to succeed in business, whether a restaurateur or a musician.

R&G: Apple recently hit their billionth mobile application download. What is your opinion on the music business moving into the mobile space?

George: The App store is no different from iTunes in some respects, except for that the smart people are using the applications. Hugh Macleod, who has a great blog called gapingvoid.com, throws around this term “social objects.” I’m stealing it from him, and he borrowed it from somebody else. It’s a term that’s been around forever, but he writes very eloquently on it. The smart companies using these apps as social objects to connect to something greater – such as Pandora – are pushed over the edge to success. Bands need to do the same thing with their music. This last day or so, there’s been a lot of talk about how now that the variable pricing has gone in on iTunes and the tracks are being sold for $1.29, sales have dropped off. There is an elasticity of demand going on there, and what people are failing to realize is that these are just social objects. Whereas the CD or maybe the download was seen as being it, now they are the means to some other end, and that end is really leveraging these social objects, the songs, whatever you want to call them, as a way to give your constituency – or as Seth Godin would say, your tribe – something to rally around.

R&G: Terry McBride has been discussing cloud-based servers. Will they be a reality sooner than later, if consumers think downloading is a hassle?

George: Probably. We’re in a time of constant productivity, where you can upload your entire library of music and then access it from any PC, Mac or online computer. There are services out there such as Lala that are doing that right now. The moment they release an iPhone app to access your collection in the cloud, then it’s a very easy segue to, “Okay, you have these songs in the cloud, complete your collection or use preference engines or whatever to get you to the next logical musical choice.” Then the transaction is seamless. Your credit card information is already entered in, the music is already there, and you just click OK. Lala’s onto something. They’ve gone through various business models, but this one makes sense, and it’s very much a cloud-based approach. I don’t know all the back-end licensing they’ve had to go through to make this do-able. They do need the iPhone app, and that would put them over the edge. There may be issues on the licensing side with that.

MP3: Pale Young Gentlemen – Paper Planes [MIA Cover]
MP3: The Chairs – Flume [Bon Iver Cover]

The Kills

Rollo & Grady Recommended New Releases – Tuesday, May 5th:
Akron/Family – Set Em Wild, Set Em Free (Buy)
Horrors – Primary Colours
The Kills – Keep On Your Mean Side (Reissue) (Buy)
Nomo – Invisible Cities (Buy)
Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms (Buy)
Peaches – I Feel Cream (Buy)
Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love (Buy)
St. Vincent – Actor (Buy)
Tara Jane O’Neil – A Ways Away (Buy)
The Vaselines – Enter The Vaselines (Buy)


The Horrors

Los Angeles Tour Dates:
Peaches @ Henry Fonda Theater – June 6th – 7th (Buy Tix)
Patrick Watson @ The Hotel Cafe – May 8th (More Info)
The Kills and The Horrors @ Henry Fonda Theater – May 22nd (Buy Tix)
Nomo @ Spaceland – May 23rd (More Info)
Akron/Family @ The El Rey Theatre – August 29th (More Info)
St. Vincent @ The El Rey Theatre – May 28th (More Info)

Nomo

MP3: Patrick Watson – Tracy’s Waters
MP3: The Horrors – Who Can Say
MP3: Tara Jane O’Neil – In Tall Grass
MP3: Pink Mountaintops – I Fuck Mountains
MP3: The Kills – Black Balloon
MP3: Nomo – Invisible Cities

From Digital Music News:
Today’s musician enjoys unprecedented levels of direct fan access, and the ability to create a small musical business. That is an exciting revolution, though even the most successful DIY artists face an incredibly large amount of non-musical work.

That was the subject of a recent Digital Music News article, one that delved into the extreme amount of work that do-it-yourself artists face. The piece drew serious artist response. “One of the toughest things I fight through is just staying relevant in all places at once,” David Nevue, a full-time concert pianist, told Digital Music News. “You begin to feel like you’re treading water, and quickly losing your ability to stay current, stay on top of technology, and stay on the cutting edge of what’s happening.” Continue Reading

We are about three weeks away from the release of Grizzly Bear’s new album Veckatimest. The tracks that I’ve heard thus far are solid. The New Yorker and New York Magazine are currently running features on the group. Tickets are still available for the Wiltern show on June 19th. To purchase tickets (Click Here).

VeckatimestTrack List:
Southern Point
Two Weeks
All We Ask
Fine for Now
Cheerleader
Dory
Ready, Able
About Face
Hold Still
While You Wait for the Others
I Live With You
Foreground
**Pre-order album (Click Here)

MP3: Grizzly Bear – Cheerleader
MP3: Grizzly Bear – Knife [Girl Talk Remix]
MP3: Two Weeks (Live on Letterman Show)