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CD Baby Pro vs. TuneCore Publishing (The Full Report)

DISCLAIMER - This is NOT a post about CD Baby or Tunecore's distribution services. This is strictly about their admin publishing services. HOWEVER I did a full report on their distribution services here. Read on to learn about music publishing and compare services.This report was...

Don’t Try Out For A Singing Show…

...unless you know how to leverage it. I got a few questions this past week about my take on singing contest shows (from Request a Topic form below). I touched on it in You Should Try Out For American Idol, but I'm going to go a bit deeper.+You Should Try Out For American IdolLet...

This Is How I Got A Licensing Deal

The most popular 'myth' to debunk these days by talking heads in the biz is that it's not about who you know. Everyone will say 'just be great - you don't need connections!' Bull. It IS about who you know. I can't tell you how many opportunities I've gotten just because this frie...

The One Thing Musicians Should Never Admit

Musicians who know musicians know that most of them are always broke. Like Ramen broke. PB&J broke. Rice and beans BROKE.You know who doesn't know that musicians are broke? Non-musicians. And let's keep it that way.+Who Is Ari?Music lovers (your fans) don't want to hear how you a...

How To Kill a 30 Year Career in 5 Minutes

The simple answer is: alienate your audience. This is exactly what Michelle Shocked did last Sunday at Yoshi's in San Francisco.Shocked had built a career over 30 years of activist folk music that targeted a progressive, LGBT friendly crowd.Then, in a moment, she did the equivale...

The Art of Asking

Everyone watch Amanda Palmer's brilliant Ted talk. I'll wait the 13 minutes.Ok, now that you're in tears and are just as inspired as I am, let's take something away from this.No musician in the world is a better asker, connector, motivator or promoter, in my opinion, than Amanda...

Skip The Party Tonight, Become a Rockstar Tomorrow

Darren Campbell wrote in (via the Request a Topic below) and asked I write on this... so here it is!'The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now' - Zig ZiglarSome people claim that college is about the party. College isn't...

How To Pimp Out Your CD Release Show

The night of your album release show should be the biggest night of your career to date. If you've done your job right, the show will be packed if not sold out. The reason more people typically come to album release concerts than your Wednesday night 4 band bill show is because i...

You Should Try Out for American Idol (The Relatives)

Holidays are especially stressful for musicians. This is the time that uncle Joe always asks with a condescending smirk 'so how's the music thing going?' Aunt Jane then chimes in 'you should try out for American Idol! You'd be great.' This is either the point where you smile, nod...

Free Bird! (Covers vs. Originals)

Scott Palahniuk wrote in (via the Request a Topic below) and asked about cover songs and how an opener should order their set. And Ian J wrote in asking: 'they ask you to play for three hours, but having that much original material is hard. Is it singer/songwriter suicide to sing...

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I Met With AB5 Author Assemblywoman Gonzalez. Here’s How It Went

Yesterday morning 5 musicians and I piled into my car at 7am (!!) and we made the excursion down to San Diego to Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s office to discuss the effects of California’s new law AB5 on the music community. If you’ve been living under a rock the past cou...

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‘I Don’t Want to be the One-Armed Singer.’ Representation and Engagement in the Age of Instagram

I just got back from a couple weeks of traveling.This past week I was in NYC doing some TV interviews about the California 'gig economy' law AB5 which, if unchanged could single handedly crash the California music economy. I've been actively working to get the music industry an e...

I Met With Senate Majority Leader of CA About AB5. Here’s How It Went

I just left Senate Majority Leader of California, Robert Hertzberg’s office in Van Nuys. We were awarded this meeting based on the petition (started by Alicia Spillias and Adrianne Duncan) which now has over 30,000 signatures. SIGN IT!! If you've been out of the loop about the...

9 Things to do now that Your Gigs are Cancelled Because of Coronavirus

Deep breath. Shit’s scary right now. Yeah. I put on CNN for 15 minutes last night and nearly fell into a full on panic. Shut that shit off. Cable news is not helping anyone. Oh, and don’t listen to that Joe Rogan podcast episode with the infectious disease specialist either....

California’s Music Economy Is About To Crash

Photo: Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee California is on fire. But this economic blaze will ignite abruptly on January 1st and will affect the California music industry so drastically that it could completely burn it down. As the fifth largest economy in the world and the...