Bandwidth Conference Day Two Re-Cap

I was a little tired when I woke up Saturday morning, but I still had to make it out for day two of Bandwidth. I arrived in time to hear a conversation with Alejandro Escovedo, who discussed his own musical history including tales of the sixties punk scene in San Francisco. The conversation was followed by a brilliant performance of two songs accompanied by a second acoustic guitarist and a violin player.

The social networking panel was up next, consisting of Maureen Herman from Fuzz (who also played in Babes In Toyland), Steve Jang from imeem, Rachel Masters from Ning, and Tim Stevens from Doppelganger, Inc. Essentially, this was a discussion on how social networking sites have impacted music marketing. In fact, it really seems like the "dot com" era of the past decade - numerous panelists made the joke that weekend of "every ten minutes, a new social networking site is born." Of course, that aside, social networking sites do have their advantages and do provide a number of great tools to connect with fans. As you've probably noticed, they've become a pretty important part of our marketing. At this point, MySpace has become a bit flooded with more users not accepting friend requests from bands, so it's really only a matter of time before another site becomes a stronger avenue for independent and unsigned musicians.

I am not going to lie - there was about half the crowd that had showed up on Friday, and there seemed to be a general "exhausted" vibe through the hall. I took a break to have lunch at Tommy's Joynt with Katznelson and some of the panelists. I ate a sausage sandwich and chatted it up with Tim and George from Terrorbird.

The Streaming Rates Panel woke anything up, as it was essentially a debate between Tim Westergren from Pandora, and John Simson from SoundExchange - a company which collects and distributes song royalties. The issue of royalties and internet radio has been a rather timely one as of late, and to be honest, I really can see both sides of the debate and bot Westergren and Simson framed their arguments well. I have to say, though, that as the head of an indie label, I place building a strong brand over financial benefit at this point. That is to not to say I would say yes to everything, but the complete dissolution of internet radio of this rates issue seems a bit silly. Westergren argued that the bottom line is that artists do not want internet radio to go away, and I'd have to say that is true.

The conference ended on a strong note with "Tomorrowland! The Crystal Ball Panel" featuring David Hyman from MOG, Nancy Miller from Wired, and musician Chuck Prophet. Moderated by Brian Zisk from the Future Music Coalition, the panel was asked just what is the future of music - and, well, the general conclusion seems to be that we cannot predict the future. The nature of music as a product has changed, and we just have to wait and see how it goes. Afterwards, I chatted a little bit with Hyman and Miller (both very nice) and slipped them each a Passionistas CD, shameless self-promoter that I am.

OK, so what did we learn this weekend - the nature of music as a commercial product has completely changed, while social networking sites play an essential role in how we market this new "product." The internet is great, but everyone is trying to figure out "how do we actually make money." Well, it would appear labels and artists need to work a bit more closely, sharing in concert and merchandise revenue. At the same time, the morals of the old should not be lost - touring is still essential, and branding (or having a "quality control") is everything for a label. The future of music is cloudy, but nonetheless pretty damn exciting.