Mystonic Records

POMPLAMOOSE GETS MAJOR LABEL DEAL

2010-07-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

That's right, word is Pomplamoose is currently in bidding wars with multiple major labels right now.

This is a huge thing, as this is not just some talent scout coming in and saying, oh that kid can sing, I bet with the right development they will do great things. This is an example of an artist achieving success without the labels and forcing their foot into the door. No other way to look at it.

I eagerly await hearing the Moose in a soundtrack soon.

A great day for independent music.
A great day for the filter.
A great day for unknown bands starting from scratch, doing what they love.

Now get those songs finished, fire up those cameras, and believe!

pm

Warped Tour a great idea with room for improvement

2010-07-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Went to the Scranton PA "festival" yesterday.

I'm 37, and it's a lot of good stuff, albeit, obviously not my scene. I spoke with some folks in the artist booths, and saw portions of near 30 acts. Did a lot of observing.

The potential is there. A festival of music. Each artist having their own booth for connection with fans. Music flowing from multiple stages all day long. A cooperative, supporting effort among the bands. Security was great. All american rejects had endless crowd surf action that they easily kept up with, and a girl passed out from dehydration in front of me in line (i helped her to a shady seat) and security was there in less than 60 seconds, with medical staff there 2 minutes later.

Many CDs being sold though, for 5.00, with some being 2.00 (that came with a story about "needing your help" ), and one mp3 cd that had 75 tracks on it for 5.00. (didn't see a single one of them being sold). It cost me 9.00 for my Gyro, and 9.00 for a later sausage sub. My lemonades were 5.00. Water was 4.00. Flyers littered the entire place to the point of stupidity. (passed out to everyone and immediately thrown down) Those I spoke with said without a doubt sales are down, and I know the tour itself is down an average of 8-10% this year in various markets (NPR column) Add to that the fact that the tickets were 30.00, and there was I believe over 50 bands.

A couple of times, artists asked crowds directly.

"who here has heard us before?"
to a rousing , "RAHHHHHH"

and then
"who here has bought our cd?"
to a paltry few raising their hands

my conclusion

the industry is still in very big trouble
people will spend 5.00 on lemonade quicker than they will on a cd
that front man for the all american rejects is one cool, crowd owning cat.
the word motherfu#%er is apparently required at some point in every sentence used by any and nearly every front man.
i'm more likely in the market for the girls mother now, than the girl :(
__________________

all i can think of is "love fest"

similar setup, but with mellow fare in a field instead of a venue.

the priority being on attracting decent folks and specifically TRYING to keep the price as low as possible.

your concessions could be all legit, but independents who paid a small fee to set up their booth, so there could be a big variety and the price would be reasonable.

security would be very important, but with the bands you could easily dictate the percentage of hooligans you had to weed out.

every artist could have a booth, that's the best part of the warped tour.

it would be in a grassy field, picnic style, with actual restrooms built into trailers that could be easily parked wherever.

yeah, they were foolish to think they could pull off a second woodstock with limp bizkit type music at it's core.

instead of hiring some big names to lure folks in and then treating the audience like cattle, they could rethink the process and sell the audience on the overall experience. imagine that, providing an experience that people would enjoy and making money in the process. are we so far gone as to not be able to do that.

Effective Piracy Controls? Think of Speed Traps

2010-06-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

When will the piracy end? It never will.

When will it become acceptable? When it's pursued and enforced in a reasonable, sensible and sustainable way.

Compare speeding to piracy and you have some good parallels.

The majority of drivers have sped at some time or another.

A few drivers will never speed because they just won't do it. It's wrong.

Without any traffic enforcement, we would have a uncontrollable death trap of a road system.

The enforcement doesn't stop speeding, but just minimizes it to a reasonable level. Penalties are affordable, by anyone who can afford to drive.

It keeps most people in line. They go a tiny bit over the speed limit and they know they are OK. They know that it is foolish to run down the highway at 100 because they would face a heavier penalty in the chance they were caught.

The die hard speeders are going to do it anyway, risks be damned. They are the minority.

The highways are (relatively) safe.

The vast majority arrive at their destination each and every time they go somewhere.

The money collected from the speeders pays for not just the police, but usually for other mischief as well.

Piracy ends with several real, tangible cases of GD enforcement. not legal cases that go nowhere, and that only encourage the opponent.

i think they were on the right track when they started going after the major single person offenders. not 6 million dollar lawsuits to women who weren't worth 30k, but real enforceable penalties for individuals. Like some 30 day jail sentences with some sensible 10k max fines. really foul up a persons life, and make it seem like a real problem to get caught. again, not make a legal travesty case like the woman who got sued for millions who obviously couldn't afford to pay a dime of it. - it's not that she wasn't responsible, but the industry legals are morons to chose making someone a martyr and push forward a judgment that will result in no actual money coming in, and make the general public think that the music industry was actually crazier than they all had earlier thought.

so yeah, pick out 100 top individuals, develop a track record over a month or two, then launch a publicized campaign and get some real penalties enforced. the moment the general public starts seeing ACTUAL enforcement, instead of all this overly litigious and meaningless hooptydo, then there will be a vast reduction in the mainstream file sharing actions that "everyone" is participating in. then there will just be the minority of rebels, who would be doing it anyway.

not to mention, you have to figure they already have a wicked bunch of lawyers and consultants on retainer, accomplishing naught. if they could start to collect even some thousands from some top violators, then there would be SOMETHING coming in as a result of there actions, and if it started out smaller they wouldn't piss off the general public any further with the whole "bigshot record companies trying to squeeze ridiculous megabucks out of normal schmoes" perceptions.

But there has to be something.
It has to be perceived as reasonable to the public.
It has to be consistently applied.

I can think of no greater analogy than speeding as a model for policing this system.

Too bad they aren't looking for a project manager with a real plan of attack that would actually make sense. ha!

And I agree with psalad, this has been off the chain since they applied windows GUI to the existing MIRC technology (sorry, uh, napster). They need to get some tangible laws written that don't get hung up on particular lines of code, but rather just state it outright like it needs to be stated.

and like they do with private property in New York, they say if you own land you need to put up signs showing it is "posted" and "no trespassing", putting the burden on the land owner.

in montana, they just say if you go off the damn highway onto someone's land, you are responsible to get their permission first or otherwise you are trespassing, putting the burden where it belongs

Perhaps-
"engaged in any action that allowed for any file or portion of a file to be stored for any length of time on a computer they were using, and which was named in any way to reflect it would be reasonable to assume that it was a popular, and / or commercial release which would by any and all means suggest it would not be available for free."

"to download a file of any music using the internet, it must be accompanied by a digital certificate or digital receipt of sale, or must be listed with certificate as public domain. otherwise, you are liable"

I'm no lawyer (thank god) but a lawyer's version of that would cover napsters, newsgroups, and torrents, no?

On The Rise! (YouTube talk)

2010-04-02T05:18:00.001-07:00

With all original material, a recognized good idea, and support of the community, 1000 subscribers and the YouTube partnership program is the goal for now, at least on YouTube. Not as a way to make money, but in all honesty as a way to provide added funding to take on more contests. I think this is the future of the music business, even among "made" artists. Each contest requires it's own time to sort out guidelines, advertise, sort out votes, listen, feature, assist new artists with production, master tracks as needed, organize, upload, etc. This all requires funds and time. Time in the future will be beyond the scope of what one person can do, and will require someone to get paid for it. So yeah, I am still a ways off from a profit here, and I'm fine with that for now.

Secondly, is the factor of legitimacy. Serious sponsorships are in the works, and the details of which, will be disclosed shortly. Those will help cement us as a legitimate label. The YouTube partnership is just a small facet of that legitimacy. The big goals obviously, are to get artists on the label into major soundtracks, or major sales numbers. That is the main objective at the end of the day. All the rest is just positioning to assist that end.

So 1000 subscribers. The arbitrary metric YouTube has set as a minimum, outside of a cash investment, to become a YouTube partner.

If I wasn't happy with making the 300 subscribers in less than 4 months.

And if I still wasn't happy making 150 of those subscribers in just the month of March.

I was pretty delighted yesterday April 1 to have made 60 subscribers in that day. (no foolin')

Yes, I always knew that the idea was solid, and that sooner or later things would pick up to the level that people would have to pay attention. I think it's finally coming into it's own.

This is getting to be a time management lesson, the likes of which I have never known. The twist is going to be getting investors on board and have the machine refined, and manned in time to deal with the certain climb that's coming. 250 messages in one day is manageable for now, but that's only going to go up. It will eventually become unmanageable, and I will have to admit that I need help to get it all done.

And to think that the contest is just phase one in a much bigger overall scheme.

I am ready.

Bring it.

Enough Time?

2010-02-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

So I'm learning quickly that although I have the greatest of intentions, there is only so much one person can do really. And more importantly, only so much one person can do effectively.

The contest is growing at a measurable level. Maintaining that is my main goal, but I'm also launching a forum and an artist login in March, as well as adding 2 additional contests to the original. And that's just the tip of the idea iceberg.

A Mystonic Radio?
Video streaming?
Collective Tour and Sales Tracking?

It really comes down to what I'm currently capable of VS what yields the most benefit to the group as a whole. I'm certain that with the investment coming later this year, there will be folks hired on to do what needs to be done to fill the voids and take us to the next rung or 3 or 4, but for now I'm steadily approaching my limits. This is in no way a crying, or whining either. I love it still, and am very passionate about the whole program, and what is coming. I just regret that I'm not able to do more.

So soon I will start trying to recruit assistance from the masses.

What are you good at?

:)

The mission.

2010-01-27T07:33:00.000-08:00

I am merely a commission based employee for those on the label. Any record label is merely that. How many though look at it the other way around? I provide a service, and get paid on the basis of how well I provide it.

That being said, I would think perhaps artists should hire as many "employees" as they can. If their product is good, they should get it to as many sales people / record labels as they can. Why not? Why can't the system work that way? Because the big labels don't want anyone else having access to their artists. Well why is that? Accountability to the artist. Another reason is the fact that these relationships are based around the old system, where the artist gets a paltry amount in comparison to the label/publisher. That whole "artists work for the label" mentality. Bullocks.

The Mystonic label has just started out, but growing at our current rate we will be representing over 250 artists by the end of 2010, and over 1000 by the end of 2011. Selling music at rates other labels can't imagine - rates that other labels couldn't financially pull off. And the recruitment of great music and musicians is just the beginning of a multi-tiered business plan. Actually - 1000 artists and the amount of music that those artists will bring to the table is only a quarter of what Mystonic Records has planned.

We, as a group of musicians and music lovers, are going to change the music process, from creation, to sharing, to sales & distribution, to streaming & broadcast.

We are going to shake this industry.

American Idol is the devil

2010-01-14T04:44:00.000-08:00

American Idol shows us clearly what is wrong with the music industry today, and yet they package it so well, and distract us with entertainment, so we miss it.

Yes the show is about the "making" of it as an artist. But make no mistake, for the artist it's like a giant bait and switch. I mean, getting picked out of millions in a grueling process, and have more public support than anyone else, it must feel like conquering the world. Then they go into one of the top record studios (the ultimate goal for any musician, yes?) You would think.

But given probably one of the most well equipped studios on earth, and all the public support one could imagine. (i mean you don't get a better head start, publicity wise, do you?) Given that you have the guidance of a whole team of coaches, legal experts, great producers (you get the idea). All that and they can't reliably put out an album worth buying. Rolling Stone considered Adam Lambert's album a flop. Usually someone in the field of non-winners beats the winner in sales.

Well for those of you out there who are not musicians, you need to know one thing. Creation can never be counted on. No one can ALWAYS draw from the well and come up with a full bucket. The greats can do it better and more often, but not always.

That's why Mystonic is pushing individual songs. Think about it. Can anyone remember any of the American Idol finale songs being even decent, besides the (slightly cheesy, but we let it slide because we liked Kelly) "a moment like this". That song last year was an embarrassment.... to even listen to.

I bet they would have a hit record if they took one of this month's winning entries, and paid the artist accordingly. But that's how the music industry is. Promotion of one representative to go up the hill for us and draw from the well.

I say let everyone with a pail, or a cup, or a spoon who wants to go up the hill to the well. If you are able to get more water out that day, I will gladly give you the biggest pail I can muster. Then tomorrow I'll be making that pail available to the next guy. Oh and don't you deserve the biggest sip of that water since you drew it out?

Makes sense to me.

New Moon Soundtrack

2009-12-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

Many years have passed since I bought a CD Soundtrack. I remember my early days of DJing and spending over 2k a year on CDs. What was it? Maybe as a standard 2 good songs if you were lucky was a good average for a disc. They would, of course, play that initial (baiting) track on the radio into oblivion, giving you a vibe for this particular new artist, or known artist's new direction, only to give you that one track and about 10 filler songs.

I will say, that although I have seen this latest Twilight film, (what I like to refer to as the chick flick disguised as a vampire film) the soundtrack did a lot more for me than the movie did. Now that being said, let me say that I am not proclaiming it to be great or anything, but that it does have what I consider a couple great songs and 3 that are good. The rest of course is mostly filler music (meaning good background music when you are talking or playing games, or drinking, or painting your toenails, or anything basically, other than listening. There is a song that irritates me to such a degree, as someone who tosses out many song files of my own creation on the grounds that they are not up to snuff, that I can't help but be enraged by it. The Killers white demon made me feel like I felt when I discovered the fall out boy track on Timbaland's last album. I think to myself, "to submit this to the world and say this is my best?" No way.

Anyway, back to the topic. The New Moon Soundtrack is a decent 5 songs, with a nice instrumental in there as well, and if not for the music, the movie would have crossed the line of just being not so hot, and possibly caused riots. What's my point? I just said to myself, "you have 2 songs that you added to your "playlist" and you are all excited... what's wrong with this situation? " I also just made preliminary agreement with Mystonic's first female artist recently, and I have decided our first objective as a label is going to be attacking the film industry. I'm going to promote a challenge this summer, as the next Twilight film is premiering, putting 10 songs of the Mystonic label, up against whatever they are pushing out there as the official soundtrack. I will push those 10 songs into the marketplace of Twilight fans, and basically guarantee if you buy this album, you will find it to be firstly in the proper mood of the film, and secondly a much better collection of actual music than what they will be pushing.

A musical Pepsi challenge. A complete disc, with no filler material. No irritation. Just close your eyes and enjoy. So I'm going out on my limb now to announce this ahead of time. I intend to do man on the street videos and set up stations on the street with random pedestrians. I am confident this will be another good method for growth because with a few exceptions, the standards we have come to accept from the major labels, and those in power to pick soundrack songs is far too low. The public is hungry, i would suggest like a newborn vampire, for the good stuff, and I intend to give it to them.

Listening Service

2009-12-22T21:38:00.001-08:00

Here's a random thought on the future of the industry. Listening service. How many times has someone told you, "hey, check this out." The exposed you to a song that you really loved, and if they hadn't, you may have never heard it. That role used to fall specifically on the dj, and the radio station dj at that. Could you imagine only hearing music that was played on the radio? God forbid!

No, now we either have to do a bunch of random listening ourselves, have a really cool friend who collects music, is a dj, or just has a great playlist. Apple has attempted to satisfy this role with the "genius" service, where they analyze your playlist and make suggestions based on their data as to what they want to promote upon you, but that's more of the radio grade promotion of major label mischief.

It is my opinion that the current state of affairs is similar to the produce aisle in the local grocery store, and that those unmodified organics, and locally grown goodies are what taste the best to not only the discerning palate, but most of the general public.

So lets be clear. In the last 30 years, we went from tape to computer. Teenagers at home are able to do things that couldn't be done in professional studios of yesteryear, with gear costing in hundreds vs yesterdays gear in tens of thousands. Did the human ear advance at any time during this period? No. Has the overall quality of production improved, absolutely. But did the overall quality of music improve overall, absolutely not. Yes, while the production of music we are wanting to hear should have a minimum level of decency - the value of "perfect" production is highly debatable.

Back to the main topic, the listening. There is so much music out there now, no one could physically listen to it all. The real value today is in the picking. Someone or some group wading through the bulk of it and picking out the gems - that would be invaluable today, and in the future. Combining that with the natural selection that occurs on mediums such as YouTube, and cream could rise to the top at a much faster rate. Overall, the general public could locate good music from completely independent sources in short order.

What would this require? Genre specific "listeners" who would wade through the independent minions with regularity, selecting and posting their selections into a medium that 1. had good visibility among many thousands of listeners and 2. would be found beneficial by the majority of those listeners. 3. accountability on the part of the "listener". I think a key facet of this would be a multi- tiered method of filtering. Insomuch as perhaps 3 to 5 "listeners" would be filtering the same genre, and for accountability, each person would record their decision as to yes or no on each song they either passed on, or promoted.

That is the future of the music business. Picking 10 quality songs a month from virtually unknown sources that could be relied on for great listening in a particular genre. What would that be worth? It would be invaluable. Now that is not what we are trying to do with the monthly contest. Not at all. But the monthly contest is a starting point. The monthly contest is the launching pad. The formation of the visibility, and the community, that will grow into an eventual hub of music creators and listeners. A place where quality songs get immediate attention and are immediately available in the marketplace.

That's how I see it.

Decent Google results at last! (warning - geeky talk)

2009-12-20T21:18:00.000-08:00

In the first week following the launch of the contest, Mystonicrecords.com was getting placing in the 500's for results to Google searches in the all important phrase, "original music contest". As of today, the website is result #9 on page 1 of the search results. Also, the video responses are both taken by Mystonic in the #4 result, also on page 1.

Now to go after the phrase, "original song contest", (currently placing #45) and then go after the almost scary challenge of "original music"

More traffic, more entries, more quality, more listeners, more sales for the winners, (repeat)

I will be making the best of video to promote what I think is the best 10 tracks thusfar, and it will actually be tough.

And so it begins

2009-12-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

Although the Mystonic label was "officially" started earlier this year, I actually opted to really promote the thing in December of 2009, with the launch of the Original Music Contest.

Basically, I was bogged down most days, and had limited time to find artists I was willing to invest with. I did find Coal Parker, and already had a relationship with James Aville, but in order to take the thing out of hobby land and into a viable business model, I would need to recruit far more artists, and quality material in spades. So I envisioned a contest that could use the power of the YouTube machine to help do some recruiting for me. I would offer to publish to Itunes and Amazon music, 10 mp3s a month, as determined by public voting.

Then upon further thought, I realized it should really be a viral situation. There were hundreds of videos being posted weekly of new original music, and thousands of songs being written and yet not posted weekly as well. The draw of a contest could cause plenty of good artists to post their material into the contest, at no risk, and possibly garner them a greater audience, even if the songs were already Itunes, or Amazon listed . (this will really become a factor when there are thousands of entries, later in 2010)

At the time of this first blog entry, 15 days into December 2009, there are near 50 video entries into the contest. I am already happy with alot of the music I am hearing. I hope to have 100 video entries in this first month. January should be much bigger, as many are distracted with the holidays and many will have empty calendars soon. I would actually like to have 200 entries in January, and am confident that will happen.

The model of selecting and voting will be an ongoing refinement, but the basic model of the contest itself is magic. It's raw, real promotion of talent. The constant struggle and goal is going to be minimizing the voting games, popularity contests, and other mischief and elevating the deserving tracks to the top of the heap in a way that involves as many listeners as possible. That is going to be essential. Finding thousands of musicians with decent material is no problem, so finding hundreds of top songs every year should be easy. The challenge is finding tens of thousands of listeners and mp3 purchasers and connecting the tracks with them. While it does seem like a large order, I am confident I am the best suited to deliver it.

If you are a musician, please join in the contest, if you are a listener, please get ready to enjoy what I like to consider the Organic selection of music.

I intend to post at least twice a week here so please check back with us.

For the website, please click the link www.mystonicrecords.com

For the official contest/YouTube page, please click the link www.youtube.com/mystonicrecords