Aug 10: Paladino's in Reseda. CA
Aug 13: Espada Records Event
Aug 14: Good Hurt in Venice, CA with MONTE NEGRO
Sep 3: Bike Fest in Bakersfiled/Taft, CA with GLASSUN
Sep 18: Farmer’s Market, Vandenberg Village, Lompoc (10am-2pm)
Sep 21: Shooters in Fresno, CA
Sep 23: the Juke Joint in Huntington Beach, CA
Sep 29: Mira Costa College, San Elijo Campus
Oct 6: Mira Costa College, Oceanside Campus
This list is being updated daily as we are constantly working on adding more shows. New Fantazzmo Concerts are being added DAILY.....ENTER THE FANTAZZ!!!!!!
There are hundreds of places to play at in Los Angeles, CA which is where Fantazzmo calls home. One can easily book shows every day of the week, but that is not necessarily a good thing. Just because a show is booked doesn't mean it's a good show, or venue for that matter. Does the venue have a following? Does the venue have good sound? Does the promoter actually promote the shows and venue or wait for the band to do all the work? Are there drink specials? It it all ages, 18+ or 21+? How is the parking situation?
Just because you have a lot of shows booked doesn't mean your band is growing or getting anywhere, it just means you can pick up the phone and set one up. More importantly is how many people are coming to your shows. How many times are the same people going to come and see you?
L.A. is like a double edged sword for musicians, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. You can be overexposed without anyone even knowing who you are. There are millions of people here, and they're all trying to find something to do, then again, will they follow you to every one of your performances?
I have been advised to only play L.A. once a month. There has to be some exclusivity in your shows. You have to give people a chance to miss you and to want to see you again. You have to let them know that if they don't see your show, they may miss out for a long time.
July 30 @ Redballs Rock & Roll Pizza in Woodland Hills, CA
Aug 10 @ Paladino's in Reseda. CA
Aug 14 @ Good Hurt in Venice, CA
Sep 3 @ Bike Fest in Bakersfiled/Taft, CA
This is a reprint from the Bob Lefsetz Blog. This is his opinion of Spotify and it's impact on music.
THE DATA
SoundScan revolutionized the music business. It not only said what was sold, but where it was sold, allowing targeted marketing campaigns and tours. Spotify is SoundScan on steroids:
"Without Spotify, labels know only when an album is sold. If a CD is ripped for a friend or borrowed for a party, they know nothing. Spotify gives them a record, by location, age and gender, of every single time a track is played. Jay-Z used to think he was big in London, based on U.K. album sales; it turns out he's big in Manchester."
http://bloom.bg/oCXJci
I've lambasted the old acts for selling their new projects in the old way, using ancient broadcast media to reach so many who just don't care. The key to selling in the future is knowing who your customers are. Streams will tell you what market to visit, where to grow from, what songs are popular...
Furthermore, the arc of a project will change. Now it's all about front-loading, getting a big first week so the physical retailers that are left will reorder and media will cover your sensation. With Spotify the lifespan of music will be much longer. Furthermore, you can visualize what traction you're getting and build from there:
"On Spotify, whenever an artist appears on a talk show or releases a single, plays of her entire catalog increase on Spotify, then plateau at a higher level. Albums follow a bell curve. Spotify is a ratchet, a step function. 'LOP,' Sundin says, 'life of product, it used to be six months. Now it's 10 years.'
http://bloom.bg/oCXJci
COMPARING SPOTIFY TO PANDORA
Is like comparing your music collection to radio.
You listened to radio for discovery. Once upon a time, radio was a club, you felt a member, now it's just jive deejays and the hits of the day. You can get this information online, what the station is playing, and check it out yourself, instantly, on Spotify.
In other words, believing Pandora has got a chance against Spotify is believing that everybody's going to sit at home and watch television in real time without a remote as opposed to employing their DVR, on demand, Hulu and other online options.
The future is about what I want now. And if anything, the window is only going to shrink. This is what the movie business doesn't understand. We're going to day and date home release, it's just a matter of when, protecting windows is a waste of time, unless you're employing a sunset philosophy, timing their extinction with the adoption of new viewing modalities.
As for music discovery, it's primarily done through friends. This is where Spotify's Facebook integration and playlist sharing comes in. We trust our friends and just about nobody else. Pandora is not our friend, it's a for profit company making us expend effort to winnow a playlist that requires a ton of time to create. Huh?
SPOTIFY VERSUS RHAPSODY, MOG, RDIO, ETC.
It's the interface.
Spotify does not operate in the browser, it's its own special app. Therefore, functionality is much higher.
Also, Spotify looks like iTunes, you already know how to use it.
And Spotify mimics ownership. By employing P2P technology (legal, which is why those who wanted to kill it were so wrong), you can hear your track instantly. If you came to my house and I told you I owned all the tracks in Spotify, you'd believe me, functionality is just that high, there's instant startup and the ability to fast forward and reverse.
SPOTIFY ADOPTION
Forget the surveys speaking of name recognition. If everybody knew about Rebecca Black in a week, why can't they know about Spotify? The straight media is last on this, don't believe it when it speaks to various analysts and gets a variety of opinions. Speak to a user, who will say Spotify is AWESOME! And it's these users who are the marketing team for Spotify, they're the ones who are going to grow the user base. This is how the modern world works. Focus on the product, not the marketing, fans will do all your marketing for you. Worked for Google, Facebook, Turntable.fm...
TRACK AVAILABILITY
Of course there are holes. But just like the Beatles came to iTunes, eventually everybody will be on Spotify. If you're complaining about the holes, you're still listening to CDs. Or you're a thief and weren't planning on paying anyway and we're ignoring you.
MOBILE
2,000+ tracks live on the hand-held, playlists synch from the desktop application. So not only do you not need a cell signal, you incur no streaming costs. Of course you can stream what you don't have in a playlist too.
PAYMENTS
Spotify pays more than Rhapsody. But I wish it were a percentage of Spotify's revenue as opposed to payment per stream. And eventually the majors will try to scam the streams. But to complain about revenue is to live in the past. Streaming is here, argue for more from Spotify as opposed to the death of the service.
USER BENEFITS
This is what we've been waiting for, everything at your fingertips at one low price. This is user nirvana.
PIRACY
It doesn't pay to steal if you've got what you want at your fingertips. And stealing on a mobile is an insane experience. Why not pay a low price to save time? In other words, do you want to use a dial phone or a touch tone?
ACT BENEFITS
The barrier to entry to hearing your music just disappeared. You no longer have to focus on distribution, just music and marketing. And the best marketing is good music.
INDUSTRY BENEFITS
More people listening to more music results in more people wanting to go to the show and buy merch. MTV created a world of few winners and endless losers. The universe is much bigger now, and that's to everyone's advantage except for the old fat cats overpaying to get themselves heard and keep you out.
APPLE
It makes very little on music but if it doesn't have a streaming application in the wings, it's stupid. Ownership will survive, just like vinyl records, but it will become an ever-decreasing piece of the pie.
COMPETITORS
Usually only one site wins online. It's not like the brick and mortar world where one store is far away from another and prices vary. The best wins. There's one iTunes, one Amazon, despite billions spent by Bing, Google still dominates. Facebook killed MySpace and there will be Spotify and a bunch of also-rans. Then again, just like Google+ is scaring the bejesus out of Facebook, Spotify is not forever. We live in an evolving world, and if you don't keep improving, you're history.
HOW THIS HAPPENED
1. Spotify started small in a country deemed almost irrelevant to the music business, Sweden, riddled with piracy. iTunes did the same thing, starting in the small at the time Mac universe.
2. Users testified.
3. Public opinion was against the naysayers. It was hard for Warner, the last holdout, to stay out with the deafening cry from within the community.
4. Facebook. Once Spotify aligned with the social network giant it gained a sense of inevitability. The music business is afraid of Facebook, they see it as an indomitable juggernaut.
WINNING
We always knew someone was going to win in the music delivery sphere online, it was just a matter of who and when. A lot of money was wasted on the way, but there was always going to be an inevitable victor. Too bad the music industry didn't push the future instead of holding back, maybe all those people wouldn't have had to lose their jobs.
PAYING
Forget that Spotify is free on the desktop. The iPad has put a dent in PC sales, it killed the netbook, it's all about wireless and hand-held. There's no free option for mobile. To think people won't pay is to believe they're going to stop texting.
DRUGS
That's what music is, a drug. That's what Spotify is. And the way you get people hooked is to give them a taste for free.
SHORT TERM
Ignore the numbers, which will be significant. Online it's all about tipping points. No one has a computer, then everybody gets one to play on AOL. Then people suddenly start burning CDs. Then they sign up for broadband to steal music and watch YouTube clips. The streaming train has left the station. One day, everybody will do it. It's not tomorrow, but it's not as far away as you think, and it is inevitable. Ownership will survive, but rental will be king. And the music industry should take a tip from the Republicans, it's all about the moniker. Don't call it rental, call it ACCESS!
FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
He who tells us what to listen to will make a ton of money. And it won't be done by computer, only people can choose what's worth listening to.
MONEY
Spotify is geared to make a ton. I'm not gonna get a cent.
CONCLUSION
It's over. The majors lost. The users won. Play to the users. Build a fanbase. There's a ton of money to be made. It's easier than ever to reach everybody but harder than ever to get people to pay attention and stay focused on you. That's your challenge. Daniel Ek is an engineer, a businessman. You're an artist. It all depends on you.
CONCLUSION 2
Don't be a cheapskate. If you can't score an invite, sign up for five bucks. It's all about early adoption, being able to speak intelligently about what's happening now. You can always cancel after a month. Or you can pay for Spotify on your iPhone and be the envy of your friends...for a month or two.
So I'm reading today's "Wall Street Journal" and there's an article on Foursquare and in the accompanying photo, the CEO is wearing a hoodie. Remember when rock stars wore street clothes?
1. Don't dress up in outfits and never wear a suit, unless it's a solemn occasion, and then you should appear in a twist on a tux or suit. Country stars wear their cowboy hats to the Grammys, you should wear your normal stage clothes to the Grammys, if you go at all.
2. The business tanked when the executives all started dressing like NBA coaches, in multi-thousand dollar suits. If Tommy Mottola had been on the right path he'd still matter. But like the music he championed, he's gone.
3. Focus on the product first, not the money! Google, Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, each and every tech startup began without a business plan. When you start playing music and immediately want to get paid you're sending the wrong message. Make it about the product first, figure out how to make money second.
4. It's all about the users. Sure, Facebook is constantly changing its privacy settings, but do you notice the backlash?
5. Marketing comes last, if at all. Google didn't advertise until long after it became a household name.
6. Position yourself as cutting edge, as new. No tech startup gets a toehold unless it's doing something new, why do you think you're going to be a big success in music replicating what everybody else does?
7. Position yourself as a renegade. That's part of the hoodie ethic in tech. In music everybody dresses up in finery and kisses the butt of anybody who might get them ahead, radio, the press, the guy at the label. These people should be afraid of you, they should not understand you, they should be your friend last.
8. Education/practice. Mark Zuckerberg went to Harvard, as did Bill Gates. Why do you think you can make it in music if you've got no talent and haven't practiced? You don't get into Harvard on a whim, you've got to perform for twelve years in advance, get great SATs, have incredible grades. Bill Gates was coding when he was still wet behind the ears. If you started playing yesterday and expect to be famous tomorrow, we're laughing.
9. Be new and exciting. We can't wait for the new iPhone, Apple has us hooked, constantly testing limits like the Beatles whereas the musical acts today are repeating themselves, endlessly.
10. If you need adult supervision, raid an established firm, the way Facebook got Sheryl Sandberg from Google. But Mark Zuckerberg is still the boss. You can hire a name producer, but he answers to you! Your name is on the line, he can just go on to another project when he's done with you.
11. There's more than one way to make money in music. Selling recordings is not the end all and be all. Google developed AdWords and AdSense and they gave e-mail away for free so they could insert ads alongside missives. None of this existed prior to them doing it. What are you doing that's new? And Zynga has a huge valuation by selling air, i.e. virtual goods. Wanna entice the public? Sell something other than recordings and concert tickets, be innovative.
12. You must be outside the system. Tech companies are unafraid to ruffle the establishment yet today's musical acts are positively docile, you could take them home to mom and dad. Sure, there are performers with tattoos and piercings, but that's just for show. But even classics like Jeff Bezos are messing with mom and dad, Amazon is planning to sponsor a vote in California to ensure they don't have to pay taxes. Musical acts are so busy selling out, they have no idea what rebellion is.
13. Once you make it, don't blow all your money. Today's successful tech youngsters may buy a house, but they no longer even buy a fancy car. It's all about the work. And when they do spend, they tend to give the money to charity.
14. Tech startups are sold via word of mouth. They don't hire PR companies to flog them to the mainstream media. The mainstream media gets on the bandwagon last, when they hear about it from everybody else, when the users have turned the enterprise white-hot.
15. Groupon changed shopping. Who's willing to change music?
16. Google is your friend, you depend on it. Bands are your enemy, everybody in music is your enemy, from the label to Ticketmaster to... Interacting with music is about keeping your hands in your pockets, fearful of being ripped-off.
17. In tech they pay with stock options, it's all about the upside. In music it's all cash up front. The execs want huge salaries and the bands want huge guarantees. If you believed in yourself, in your work, you'd be willing to take more of the backend, which would be huge because of your hard work and ultimate success.
18. Tech is all about getting the most users and then monetizing. In music we want people to pay up front. Get everybody to listen to the music, that's more important than getting a very few to buy it.
19. Tech is about killing your young. No one protects the past, they just try to ensure they're not left out in the future. Friendster didn't go to Washington, D.C. to try and prevent the intrusion of MySpace into its sphere. And MySpace was eventually killed by the unforeseen Facebook. Keep making more new music, if you tour endlessly on the one hit album you'll find when you're done you've been surpassed, someone else is now the big kahuna.
20. Don't be afraid of the future. Microsoft bought Skype. Music companies sue upstarts. They should purchase or align with them.
Party like a rock star. We hear that all the time. That so and so is a rock star. You want to know who's a rock star? The techies. The cofounders of Google have a veritable air force, and they're not telling everybody about it. Rock stars used to function off the grid. Now the techies do and the musicians are positively mainstream.
The public has voted. The money is in tech. Because it's the land of excitement, where innovators go to blow our minds. That used to be music's domain. But music abdicated its position. If music is to count again it must take the above lessons very seriously, or else it will be doomed to be the second-class citizen it has become.
This is a reprint from the Berklee Blog, but it's so good, I had to reprint it!
You know a celebrity is coming to the Berklee Performance Center when a campus announcement informs students they will NOT be allowed to queue up at the BPC doors until 2 hours before an 11 o’clock event (you also know it’s a celebrity when students would choose to wake up before 9, but I digress).
And indeed, Berklee was visited by celebrity and Grammy Award-winning alum, John Mayer. Similar to his 2008 clinic, John Mayer demonstrated his candor about the pitfalls of the music industry, his sarcastic humor, and, of course, his skill as a guitarist and songwriter. Most impressive, though, was the amount of time and energy Mayer gave to the Berklee student body, spending almost 3 hours imparting wisdom, performing several songs, including some new songs from his upcoming album, and staying afterward to sign autographs and pose for pictures. But John Mayer was perhaps most enthusiastic about encouraging students to avoid letting promotion, particularly of the social media variety, interfere with their artistry.
Mayer began the clinic explaining that, although the industry has changed with the advent of social media, creating music requires the same discipline it always has, if not more discipline to combat the added distraction of online promotion. Referring to the allure of having an instant, albeit often shallow and fleeting, online audience, John Mayer cautioned against seeking out “joy in little, tiny statements – little, tiny applause hits.”
“I remember playing the guitar through the amplifier facing out the window of my house onto the street in the summer time – that was social media in 1992.”
John Mayer explained how this seemingly isolated musical grounding allowed him to concentrate on perfecting his craft and that students’ time at Berklee is perfect for this same level of focus.
“This time is a really important time for you guys because nobody knows who you are, and nobody should. This is not a time to promote yourself. It doesn’t matter. This is the time to get your stuff together. Promotion can be like that. You can have promotion in 30 seconds if your stuff is good. Good music is its own promotion.”
But John Mayer’s main reason for discouraging promotion came from his own struggle to curb using social media, which should have been an outlet for promotion but eventually became an outlet for artistic expression. Mayer shared that he found himself asking himself questions like “Is this a good blog? Is this a good tweet? Which used to be is this a good song title? Is this a good bridge?”
And possibly more alarming, Mayer realized that pouring creativity into smaller, less important, promotional outlets like twitter not only distracted him from focusing on more critical endeavors like his career, it also narrowed his mental capacity for music and writing intelligent songs.
“The tweets are getting shorter, but the songs are still 4 minutes long. You’re coming up with 140-character zingers, and the song is still 4 minutes long…I realized about a year ago that I couldn’t have a complete thought anymore. And I was a tweetaholic. I had four million twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped using twitter as an outlet and I started using twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song.”
Although twitter was his most frequent whipping boy, Mayer also targeted the urgency beginning artists feel to update their blogs and youtube channels with new songs or videos to maintain steady flows of interest for their work. Instead, Mayer explained that he found the separation of creation and promotion necessary in his own career, saying “as you start playing music you’re going to stop thinking about getting better. As soon as you flip the switch into showing other people your music, for some reason, the other brain sort of goes away.”
“You got the distraction of being able to publish yourself immediately, and it is a distraction if you’re not done producing what the product is going to be that you’re going to someday use the promotion to sell…I had to go through the same thing I’m talking to you about – what you have to go through – which is to completely manage all the distraction. Manage the temptation of publishing yourself.”
So, to avoid the temptation of publishing himself and to increase his mental capacity for creativity, Mayer deleted his twitter, stopped blogging, and created a strict regime for recording his next album.
“Here are the rules for recording this record… no drum machines, no loops, no keyboards to start out with, no excuses, no breaks, no laptops, no nothing. If you take a break, it’s to eat. If you’re done, you go home.”
In addition to the distractions of promotion, John Mayer also discussed another enemy of creativity – judging songs before they’re finished.
“I can’t stress enough how important it is to write bad songs. There’s a lot of people who don’t want to finish songs because they don’t think they’re any good. Well they’re not good enough. Write it! I want you to write me the worst songs you could possible write me because you won’t write bad songs. You’re thinking they’re bad so you don’t have to finish it. That’s what I really think it is. Well it’s all right. Well, how do you know? It’s not done!”
After John Mayer’s main talk about distractions and mental capacity, he launched into an acoustic performance of “Shadow Days,” followed by a few more song-related topics that required demonstration. For instance, to discuss when and how to mix-and-match rhyming conventions, John Mayer performed his song “Age of Worry,” whose lyrical content about fighting against stress and over-wrought decisions lends itself to a less strict rhyming pattern. And to demonstrate how to write a I, IV, V song without sounding incredibly bluesy, John Mayer even performed one of his own new songs “Something Like Olivia.” But “Olivia” was just one of several new songs Mayer shared at the clinic, including “Face to Call Home,” which he also performed before launching into his second main clinic topic – the myths everyone tells you about being a musician and other mindsets to avoid.
Myths (and Negative Mindsets To Avoid)
•The Idea of “Right Time, Right Place”
“Not true! That would be true if you only played one show for your entire life. Then, the mathematical construct would make sense that you have to be in the right time at the right place. Forget about right time right place – it doesn’t exist! You create your place and you create your time through what you’re doing. It’s not about getting your foot in the door or meeting a person and them giving you an opportunity. Doesn’t exist. Does. Not. Exist. Nobody is going to sign you at a record company anymore – they’re not in the business of building an artist from scratch anymore. You got to bring them what you already have. “
Instead, John Mayer encouraged students at Berklee to focus on their craft and to prepare themselves for their career without concern for depending on others for a lucky break. Mayer concluded that this first myth is “dismissive of what you can actually do. It’s dismissive of your actual talent.”
•So Few People Make It In the Music Industry
Referring to his father’s remark that “it’s like the NBA – so few people make it,” John Mayer went off on the idea that there’s a maximum number of people who can become successful musicians – “There’s no set lid on how many people get to come in – its the art world.” And on a related note, Mayer encouraged students not to listen to naysayers who suggest having a back-up plan for music.
“Anybody who tells you to have a fall back plan are people who had a fallback plan, didn’t follow their dreams, and don’t want you to either.”
•Learning Too Much Theory and Technique Will Replace One’s Style
John Mayer ridiculed this myth, mimicking the nerdy grievance of many a music student – “Well, I don’t what to learn too much theory because I feel as if it’s going to replace my style that I already have.”
With his swiftest de-bunking of the clinic, Mayer said “I’ve been trying to extend my vocal range for 10 years. I just can’t get that original style to get replaced And I’ve been trying. So if I can’t do it when I try, you can’t do it when you don’t try. It’s a lazy excuse, it’s a cop-out, I am on to you, not allowed to say it anymore.”
•Cynicism
John Mayer’s words speak best for themself on this topic.
“If you’re good, and you know you’re good, and you know you’re better than those people getting paid to do it, you still have to have an open ear….Nobody’s music is the enemy of your music…The idea that someone else has made it when they shouldn’t have made it is toxic thinking.”
•Rationalizing Another’s Work As Being Beneath One’s Own Work
This negative mind set was met with great laughter not just because of John Mayer’s humorous, anecdotal delivery, but probably because it struck so close to home “This is when you see somebody who’s frighteningly good and you stay and watch them until the moment you can rationalize with yourself that actually they’re not.” In addition to his earlier statement that “nobody’s music is the enemy of your music,” Mayer also added that “your limitations will define you in the best way. Your limitations make you who you are”
And then came the most anticipated portion of the clinic – the Q&A. John Mayer took a great deal of time answering each question with a long, fulfilling answer, but that meant that dozens of students who had lined up at the microphone throughout the audience (including one in the balcony which John Mayer dubbed the voice of god) were turned away empty handed, except in the case of one clever student who asked a student further ahead in line to ask Mayer to sign his guitar once he realized he would not make it to the microphone to ask Mayer himself. John Mayer was asked a range of topics from his feeling on rewrites (“I just feel like I’m massaging a dead body”) to his thoughts on a lack of support for a music career should become one’s fuel (“Anybody who’s made it will tell you, you can make it. Anyone who hasn’t made it will tell you, you can’t”) to his appearance on South Park and beyond.
But eventually Mayer needed to wrap up his time answering questions and closed the clinic with three songs from his older catalogue, “Stop This Train,” “Who Says,” and “Neon,” to the huge delight of the audience. Ultimately, I gained far more from John Mayer’s clinic than I had ever expected, especially given my sullen attitude about having to upset one of my professors over having my midterm moved to 9:00 that morning so that I can attend the clinic. But after it’s all said and done, I’m so glad I got permission from my professor to reschedule my midterm since Mayer’s wisdom about distractions and mental capacity definitely gave me a lot to think about……
More people listen to Fantazzmo on Spotify than on any other music streaming service. Spotify is not currently available in the U.S. which is my home, but as an artist I am very grateful for its existence. According to music sales and streams data, Fantazzmo is heard more on Spotify than any other music streaming service...and it is NOT even available in the U.S. yet. (I consider YouTube to be a video streaming service which competes against regular television, otherwise it would be the number one source of audio streams for Fantazzmo; and yes I Love Youtube!!!)
Does this mean that more people listen to Fantazzmo in Europe than in the U.S.?
What will happen once it is available in the U.S.? Will more people listen to Fantazzmo?
Is the Spotify platform more user friendly than other streaming platforms?
I don not have the answers to any of these questions, but I do know one thing....I Love Spotify!
I am for any vehicle that helps the music of Fantazzmo reach as many people as possible; and according to data, it seems that as far as streaming music goes, Spotify is number one.
Rock on Spotify!
Fantazzmo
The Fantazzmo debut album: "Fantazzmo 1: Enter the Fantazz" is available at all online music stores and music streaming services such as "Spotify."
Record companies still have all the power regardless what people say or think. You can't get on major radio, national tv, or major chain stores whithout being signed to a major label.
With that said, I have not wasted one cent mailing anything, or trying to contact a major label about Fantazzmo. I'd rather spend the money on a cheeseburger! There is so much competition out there and so many kiss asses with connections and so much bullshit, they can all kiss my ass FOR NOW
I've decided that the best thing for Fantazzmo to do is build this band and grow as much as we possibly can with our limited resources. There is a saying, "If you build it, they will come." I am going to live by that saying and build this band and write the best songs I can, and put on the best live shows possible; and eventually, I will be contacted buy a major label rep...It may take a little time, but it WILL HAPPEN!
Fantazzmo
Fantazzmo 1: Enter the Fantazz Available wherever music is sold online!
