2013 CALIFORNIA MUSIC INDUSRY SUMMIT YOUTH HIP HOP BATTLE

Hip Hop music and culture have been a cornerstone for youth expression and movements for years now. From Rhode Island to Russia, from Tel Aviv to Texas, Hip Hop has become the voice of youth in so many ways, be it filled with raw revolutionary fervor or pristine commercial appeal.

 

But youth haven’t always been included in what has become a necessary tool for artists growing and cultivating their own careers, as well as a tool for learning and teaching: the music conference. Oakland’s own California Music Industry Summit is about to change all of that, with the inaugural Youth Hip Hop Battle, featured at this years’ edition of the CMIS on Saturday, June 15. This is a chance for young people age 14-17 in high school to hone and display their greatest skills in Hip Hop music for all attendees of the 2013 California Music Industry Summit to see. These youth will be able to submit the best of their music on http://tramaientertainment.com/Registration. From those submissions, 10 young artists will be chosen to battle for 1 minute and 30 seconds and put on display their most top notch lyrics, wordplay and rhyme skills. All youth that submit are automatically registered for free all access badges to attend the music conference on the closing day of the conference.

 

CMIS strives to be a positive and inclusive voice in the community through music and education, and teaching people about the ins and outs of the continuously evolving music industry and music business is a paramount responsibility that CMIS takes very seriously. With the introduction of the new Youth Hip Hop Battle, CMIS will continue to that tradition by encouraging youth to be as creative as they can through the music, the message and the culture of Hip Hop.

 

This will be an amazing chance for youth in our community to use their creativity and their minds to make a positive impact through music. And it will also be a great chance for adults that want to support those youths to do just that. All interested youth only need to step up to the mic and to the challenge! If you’re a young person ages 14-17, visit http://tramaientertainment.com/Registration by June 3 for your chance at Hip Hop excellence!

 

 

WEWANTSHOWS.COM: OPEN SOURCE LIVE MUSIC

No matter how far technology takes music away from it’s analog roots, one thing that seems to be irreplaceable is the live music show. And attendance at live music events is as big as it has ever been, with companies like LiveNation, TicketFly and StubHub taking the lead in streamlining the ticketing experience, large scale festivals like Coachella, Banaroo, Outside the Lands, Pitchfork, Lollapalooza, SXSW and many more making the festival experience into something to be cherished for years to come, and local venues around the country experiencing a resurgence in live music events. And one of the latest ventures to try taking the live music experience directly to the people is WeWantShows.com.

 

 A new project created by Matt Sparks, Musician, Developer and Designer from Lexington, KY, WeWantShows.com allows artists, musicians and band that want to communicate about and give information on their shows the chance to go on the open source website and choose from a total of over 160 cities and do exactly that. One of the most interesting and somewhat risky parts is that participants do not have to create an account or log into the site at all to be able to share or receive information, which is supposed to allow for easier use of the site. With a tag line of “Helping Bands find & trade shows”, this could be a new way for professional musicians to communicate with each other, network and share information about the most important way they make a living: the live show.

 

WeWantShows.com seems to be the latest in a long line of sites that is helping to make music much more D.I.Y. and open source, much like websites like SoundCloud and Bandcamp allow artists to sell and distribute their music on their own. Could it be possible that We Want Shows can potentially be the SoundCloud or Bandcamp of the live show? It’s still very early to tell, but if the company is able to build a substantial foundation of capital and buzz among artists, there’s not telling what may be able to happen.

 

 

THE GROWING POWER OF SPOTIFY AND THE MUSIC DISCOVERY BATTLE

It’s no secret that Spotify is the premiere social music platform throughout the world. True, it has direct and indirect competition from many outlets, but for all the company has done to create a certain mystique and folklore about itself, as well as aligning itself with the world’s premiere social network, Spotify is the social music tool that everyone is still talking about. And because of that, Spotify’s power and influence continues to grow exponentially.

 

Reported last week, Spotify has acquired Tunigo, a music discovery application that searches Spotify’s library and playlists. Tunigo will apparently be adding news, new releases, and an advanced music player to Spotify’s current platform. Tunigo also has a Spotify iPhone app and reportedly also already raised a total of $3 million in funding.

 

So what does this all mean? Well, mainly, it means that the music discovery has officially been crowned the new battleground in the industry. It used to be music labels that were slugging it out trying to gain the biggest slice of the pie. But things shifted away from labels a long time ago. Now, the fight is over who can provide the most convenience, the greatest experience, and the most value to music lovers. The companies involved in this new music battle royal include Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, iTunes, Slacker, Shazam, and more companies that we’re probably yet to even hear of.

 

But with the purchase of Tunigo, Spotify has once again given itself a distinct advantage that will give the company the upper hand over it’s competitors, at least for the time being. This new age battle for music supremacy is far from over and will definitely get more interesting as time passes.

 

EVENTBRITE RAISES MILLIONS FOR INDIE TICKETING

Eventbrite, known now as a major outlet for self-service ticketing, has raised $60 million in funding led by efforts from Tiger Capital Management and T. Rowe Price. The company’s total funding is now $140 million. This follows very rapid growth by Eventbrite, with a total of $1.5 billion in gross sales of tickets.

 

Why is this important? Mainly for two reasons:

 

 

1.     Eventbrite’s success is merely a drop in the bucket compared to Ticketmaster, but it’s success has but the ticketing behemoth on notice that it may have some direct and substantial competition in the near future.

 

 

2.     The company has sold over 100 million tickets in 179 countries, making for very rapid growth in the last few months alone.

 

In terms of actual events, Eventbrite gives creators the opportunity to create and manage many different kinds of events, from conferences and sports to performing arts and fundraising events. But of course, in this new sharing economy, this is very important to the D.I.Y. music artist of the 21^st century. We can be sure that from the 100 million tickets sold, a good majority of them have probably been to independent concerts and music festivals.

 

And beyond just that, people who attend these live events, especially events that a music and entertainment centered, are looking more and more to share these events with their friends, family, colleagues, co-workers and anyone else that’s important to their life. The fact that a person or group of people can actually create an event, set a price for it, manage it and take it their own hands to make it successful feeds right into being able to share that event and its success with others. Moreover, a company like Eventbrite that gives supporters the chance to actually create and manage events gives an almost direct contrast to Ticketmaster, which merely tells customers how to purchase tickets and where they can use them.

 

As important as Eventbrite has become to independent music and artists, it will likely only continue to grow and thrive. It will be interesting to see where it goes from these current successes.

 

 

BANDS – THE GAME: A NEW REVENUE STREAM FOR ARTISTS

The diversification of the music industry continues every day, with new ways to listen to and discover new music and new artists, as well as more ways for artists to let fans find their music and get money from doing so.

“Bands – The Game”, an app created by Berlin, Germany based startup New Tracks, is one such app. Apparently looking to help level the playing field even more between independent and major musicians, Bands looks to deliver on the promise of helping artists be able to see revenue from the sales of music tracks and virtual goods, that revenue then being split with the artists’ labels.

In an interview with Dotted Music, NewTracks founder David Brock talked about the specifics of the game and what it entails for bands: “The gameplay itself consists of mixing in-game skills like guitar solo, bass solo or drums to match the crowd behavior. We are not trying to compete with Rockstar’s “Guitar Hero”. We want to do something different with music.”

Some of the features of “Bands” include the following: a live chart of top performing bands among friends and the gaming community, artists being able to upload their own songs for inclusion in the “Bands” roster, where their success can be tracked through the live in-game charts, and players of “Bands” being able to track progress of fellow players within the game.

“Bands – The Game” looks like it could potentially be a new tool for independent musicians to find another way to make money in an industry that is changing its business model daily. With uncertainty looming large in music today, indie artists must find new ways to keep their careers alive. Maybe new apps like “Bands” can help in doing that.

BANDCAMP: ENTERING THE MUSIC DISCOVERY FRAY

For the past few years, Bandcamp has been known as the site where independent artists can use the direct-to-fan music sales model to find their own lane towards music success. With the ability to distribute and sell their music in basically any way they please, by the album or by the track, artists are finding new avenues to turn potential fans into believers, and Bandcamp had become an integral element of the new sharing economy in music.

And now, Bandcamp is redesigning and redefining itself as a place not only known for artists to connect with directly with their fans through creatively distributing their music, but also as a tool of music discovery. The company had already tried to do so last year with its web page app called Discoverinator, later changed to Bandcamp Discover. But in a second attempt, Bandcamp has redesigned its entire home page with new tools specifically for the purpose of music discovery. The centerpiece of this new venture is the Bandcamp Weekly show, where host Andrew Jervis, formerly from Ubiquity Records, will reportedly focus on music “exclusives, previews, recent faves, classics, and obscurities from around the world”.

With music discovery now being the wave of the present and the future, Bandcamp seems to be positioning itself to be able to compete with rival music discovery outlets like Spotify, Rhapsody and iTunes. The main difference, however, is that Bandcamp already has a vested interest and a foundation in the new millennium independent artist, which truthfully could be a hindrance or a distinguishing quality. But at least Bandcamp as a company is savvy enough to realize that they had better jump on the music discover train now before they get left in the dust with so many other similar companies that came before them and have since fallen from grace.

Buckle up and be ready: the new music discovery-driven Bandcamp is well on its way!

CMIS 2013 PANELS AND WORKSHOPS: EDUCATE, INFORM AND EMPOWER

The 2013 California Music Industry Summit is officially little more than two months away, and the excitement and anticipation is building for this years’ artist features, keynote speakers, and so much more.

But some of the most important parts of the Summit is the seminars and panels and workshops. This is where CMIS participants can gain some of the most valuable and informative tips on some of the most important topics in the music industry. The ability to get good information that will help a career is more important than ever for artists and musicians.
Here are just some of the topics that CMIS participants can expect to be part of at this year’s Summit:

-Building A Team For Success: (PR, Artist Manager, Lawyer, etc)

-Beyond The Music: The Decision Makers

-Getting Noticed Online Part 1 – Low Cost Ways To Increase Your Online Presence

-New Technology and Music

-The Evolution of European Sounds and Dance Beats in R&B and Hip Hop

The team at TraMaí Entertainment and California Music Industry Summit are confident that these and other panels and workshops will be of the greatest benefit to all attendees looking to start or continue to make their mark in the music world.