I’m gonna say it:  I hate Kickstarter.  I hate the fact that they make it easy for anyone to ask you for money.  That’s not to say I’m a total Scrooge, but I keep getting hit up to back people’s projects.  Somehow, it seems fundamentally wrong for me to...

Over the last few days, I’ve received 73 Facebook event invitations.  It’s not because of my incredible popularity, subtle wit, or boyish charm that people want me at their event.  Shocking, I know.  Instead, they overutilize the tool so much that it becomes noise — and...

Within the last month, I’ve had two interns quit.  As the lowest rung on the professional ladder, it’s not common for interns to be less than enthralled with the work they’re doing.  But as companies continue to squeeze free labor out of the unpaid masses, I had to stop and...

Working with musicians, you hear a lot of “oh no, my fans would HATE that …”  Venues do it too.  And managers often assume an understanding of what their artists like or dislike.  On nearly every count, they’re wrong.  This is never more apparent than the world of...

Working in the music industry is kind of like living through a Homerian epic. There are heroes and enemies and epithets a-plenty. You also get introduced to the mighty beast known as hubris.  You know the type:  brash CEO who boasts on and on and on about how their service will...

There are times when it’s fun to be a dick.  Maybe you’ve hard a really hard day;  the man is just beating you down.  You gotta vent on someone, and that barista seems perfect to inflict rage upon.  It happens.  But unlike the lowly barista, I run my own business.  I...

I spend a LOT of time at music industry events. And I spent a lot of time in college as a music business major. And I grew up in Boston. So when I see a band that's doing everything the industry's leading voices are recommending, I (at least...) pay attention. The bizarre twist is that NOBODY else is paying attention -- except the fans!

Maybe it’s a character flaw, I’m not sure.  But I want to be as nice to every client as I possibly can.  Sometimes that results in over-promising, and most times it results in under-charging.  As an example, I recently had a client that needed a very basic website done.  I...

So the whole industry is all abuzz about Google Music debuting. And for those that're using Google Music, they're not all that thrilled. It's slow, clunky, and not exactly the Music 2.0/Next Phase/New Wave solution everybody was trumpeting from the rooftops. And so it goes. Once the music industry gives up on one problem, they just move onto another while forgetting to continue solving the previous one. That's why I'm saying "fuck the cloud."

Here's the deal folks: websites are instruments for your career. Like a fine Steinway or a vintage B3, simply posessing them doesn't equate to being a virtuoso player...

In the process of starting D.I.-Why, I realized that bringing on investors might not be a bad idea.  If you take a look at the companies shaping “the new music industry,” investors are heavily financing their trek toward profitability.  Why should my baby be any different? To get...

I resisted writing this post for a while, because I’m either gonna piss off a few people or (at best?) come off sounding all snooty and elitist.  Finally though, that moment has passed. Foursquare is a cool way to share information about where you’re at, offer cool tips, and play...

It's really not something that needs to be discussed, or at least that's what I thought. When you're working with a client/artist/musician/band/whatever, the asumption is that everyone involved will conduct themselves in a professional manner. Unfortunately, at 3 AM, this isn't what happened...

Business school grads make millions preying upon a ready group of suckers who sang lead in their high school musicals, but a decade later they're just bartenders working for tips wondering why fame and fortune hasn't smiled on them.

Looking back, I don't think I said much of anything for the first 6 months I was working in radio. But I absorbed everything. Over time I learned how to be persuasive without being a bully. I learned when the end result often meant sacrificing what you thought (at the time) was totally essential. The hardest lesson was learning to let others do their job so you can do yours.

Dear Neil: I spent most of yesterday celebrating “Music’s Biggest Night” with a few thousand of my closest friends. As a member of the Recording Academy, it’s a singular thrill to be able to personally witness the hype machine ramp things up into frenzy of klieg lights and chaos. But this year, moreso than the others, was it really music’s biggest night?

For anyone that’s a marketing consultant, you know the three steps to discomfort…. You submit an invoice to a normally happy client. They come back to you with: “what have you done?  Why am I paying you this much?” You show them everything you did, which they...

My computer is a few years old, and I was starting to panic.  Should this computer die, I’m totally lost.  My entire professional life (not to mention a lot of other stuff) resides inside it’s Apple-y glow.  I’m approaching the hard drive’s capacity, and I know...

Over the weekend, I saw a very cool band play. At times, their shtick began to take away from their music. It was as if they had to make sure they got the gimmick represented at every opportunity...

So why hasn't the band put it all back together, hit the road, and capitalized on the adulation? And why has Steve Perry remained suspiciously out of the limelight for so long? It makes a cynical marketing mind wonder how "planned" the spontaneous appearance at the Word Series truly was...

OK, so I stole this title from Led Zeppelin, but it's really the best way to describe what's going on in today's music industry -- and especially in its marketing. I'm amazed by the continual insistence on the "next big thing" being hyped long before the current big thing has been proven...

Here in the new music industry, the paradigm is shifting. There's a clear lack of synergy between the next-gen music makers and the major label gatekeepers. As a result, there's a clear lack of revenue caused by and resulting from illegal file-sharing by the disenfranchised youth movement. While some may claim a certain Luddite pretense by those in control of the industry, it's easier to claim that they're disconnected and reluctant to embrace new technologies. Maybe you've heard this bullshit before? I thought so.

I work a lot.  Probably too much.  That’s not to say I deserve pity or commendation.  It’s just that sometimes it’s easier to keep working than it is to just stop and relax.  The vicious circle of “get it done today, or have it waiting for you tomorrow” is...

The big news perking through the indie music world is that Bandcamp will start charging musicians to provide free downloads. When you read a bit deeper, the company needs to cover the costs associated with providing a fully featured free toolset that was developed and adopted by a massive...

Back in college I waited tables.  I’m fairly certain it goes hand-in-hand with attending music school.  One of those establishments was The Cheesecake Factory.  Being there 40+ hours per week got you very familiar with the menu.  While that may have been a detriment to my overall and...