The digital age has brought the music listener and musician closer together, giving both power in a world traditionally controlled by fat cat music industry executives.
No longer is it ”we produce, you consume”; now listeners are networking via the Internet and the industry is paying attention.
Similarly, the independent artists of today have a new set of media-savvy skills and are using the Internet to draw attention to their music, while still retaining artistic control.
Globally, across chatrooms, forums, blogs and websites, a new music industry is emerging, one where the role of the mainstream media is less pervasive and the niche market is the key.
”People are relying less and less on the mainstream media to find out about music,” says David Chislett, the manager of Johannesburg rock band The Hellphones.
The Hellphones are part of a new crop of South African musicians who have realised the potential the Internet offers for self-promotion.
”Digital delivery is clearly the way that the industry is going around the globe. It would be silly for South Africa to wait for the revolution to run its course before catching on,” says Garett van der Spek of Durban band Superhotjoy.
”The digital world, like the world of music, is without boundaries. There’s no reason why South African musicians shouldn’t be at the cutting edge.”
This involves finding the most innovative way to make the Internet work for you and your band. This may mean running an online database and newsletter for fans, uploading video and audio files on your website for free download or running an in-studio blog.
Cynics will argue that, although it has become easier for bands to record their own musical creations without big-label backing, power ultimately still rests with the major record labels.
However, the Internet is full of success stories where musicians with a little inventiveness have managed to capture exposure.
American band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is one such example. Until June last year the band was self- distributing about two to three copies of its music a day.
That was until independent online music publication Pitchfork.com gave their album a glowing review, touting Clap Your Hands Say Yeah as the new face of independent rock.
In the days following the review the band was swamped with orders for their album.
Now having sold more than 40 000 copies of their debut album, the band is trying to come to grips with its rapid rise to fame. Its challenge is to find time to plays gigs with so many parcels to package and mail.
Bassist Tyler Sargent in an online interview said it was hard to deal with the speed at which everything was happening, ”It all has to do with this one website,” he said. ”I mean it’s a website, it lives on a computer.”
Another success story is that of Sandi Thom, a young British singer-songwriter who broadcast over the Internet from her basement. This was after her car packed in and she could no longer tour.
Billed as the Twenty-one Nights From Tooting tour, Thom performed for three weeks attracting an online audience in excess of 100 000 people.
RCA/SonyBMG responded by signing her in a ceremony that was also broadcast online.
Thom’s online artist profile describes her as ”a new breed of Internet-made acts that include the Arctic Monkeys and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah”.
Thom promoted her webcasts through her page on MySpace (See box).
Digitally literate South African bands have seen the value of MySpace as a popular networking tool.
Van der Spek says mainstream international artists are using MySpace pages as a communication tool.
”Music is no longer a local domestic product, but an international one,” says Van der Spek.
Jay Bones, lead singer of Johannesburg punk band Fuzigish, agrees. ”It definitely gives more power, whether you are a small garage band or a big act.
”It creates a level playing field for a while anyway.”
The question remains how long will it be until we can boast about our own South African digital success story?
MySpace
Social networking application site MySpace is the newest weapon in any band’s arsenal.
Founded in 2003 by a young programmer, Tom Anderson, MySpace was sold last year to media mogul Rupert Murdoch for a whopping $580-million.
In the brief three years that it has existed, it has attracted 61-million registered users and includes 1,4-million registered bands and 350-000 band blogs.
Every month it averaged 21-million unique visitors, surpassing Internet giant Google in online traffic volumes.
”It has really taken off with the under-25 market,” says Jaxon Rice, a Microsoft programmer and lead singer of Johannesburg band The Diesel Whores.
Rice says the site is ideal for bands as they can upload music that can be played straight off the page, as well as provide biographies, pictures and other content for users to browse.
”Almost all the popular bands in the world are on MySpace,” says Rice, who came across the MySpace page of a young Texas musician recently. In his influences section he had listed The Diesel Whores.
”It was impossible before the Internet for artists to get heard overseas,” says Rice.
David Chislett, manager of Johannesburg band The Hellphones, says 40 people listened to one of the band’s tracks that they had uploaded to its MySpace page within the first week.
”It is putting bands in touch with each other, driving community building and giving bands an opportunity to reach a vast international audience,” says Chislett. — Lloyd Gedye
From your garage to a stage
It’s Pop Idol for the Arctic Monkeys’ generation. A talent contest will this month aim to prise the next big singer-songwriter from his or her guitar band from their garage, writes Partrick Barkham.
More than 6 000 aspiring artists who uploaded tracks to the O2 Undiscovered website have been whittled down to a final 10. Unlike TV pop talent shows that offer a speeded-up journey from obscurity to fame and back, the competition will give two artists studio time and mentoring from music industry experts.
The two winners will record a track and release it as a digital download and perform at the O2 Wireless festival in Hyde Park in London in June. More importantly, they will have the chance to network with industry figures and get their music promoted to O2’s 16-million customers.
One of the finalists is George Burton, a 40-year-old studio engineer from Lanarkshire, who has played in bands ”since I was a foetus” and worked with Paul Weller and Norman Cook.
”I was stunned when I was told I had made the final 10,” he said. ”What’s great about the prize is it is going to allow me to play a couple of tracks to some heavy-duty people in the game. That’s a scary prospect.” — Â