Kseniya Simonova – Sand Artist

This seems to be the week for finding great artists.  I’ll be sharing a few more videos and links this week cause I keep finding such great stuff!  This first one is from Kseniya Simonova, a Russian sand artist who lives in the Ukraine and who won the 2009 Ukraine’s Got Talent competition; the Ukrainian version of America’s Got Talent.  It’s a representation of the German invasion of the Ukraine during World War II.  Absolutely amazing.

Are you doing anything with your art that’s amazing?  If not, it’s time to step it up a notch…

Hypebot Guest Post

My post from yesterday about Square from Jack Dorsey got republished (by permission, of course!) on Hypebot, one of my favorite blogs about music industry news.  Check it out!

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/12/the-square-more-mechandise-sales.html

Square = More Merch Sales?

I just read about a new product coming out early next year that will be a massive help to performing musicians running into an age-old problem.  You have an excited fan who really wants to buy your CD, t-shirt, sticker, whatever, but they only have a credit/debit card.  For most of us, this means a lost sale.  However, this new product, called the Square will remedy this nicely!

The Square is a card-swiper that connects to your iPhone that reads credit and debit cards.  It’s from the guy who started Twitter, Jack Dorsey.  You don’t have an iPhone?  The best part is, this can be used with just about any phone (iPhone and Android phones right now).  The website says it can be used with any device with an audio jack, but I doubt your 80′s Walkman will help you much.  Even better: one penny from every transaction goes to a charity of your choice, so you can help improve the world and make more merch sales at the same time!  So now, your excited fan can swipe their card, confirm the transaction, and head home with piles of your merch!

Supposedly, they will be giving away the Square for free, you’ll just sign up for service.  There aren’t many details out there right now, but they say there are no contracts and monthly fees and your customers get an emailed receipt.  Many news sources are saying it will work like Paypal, with a per transaction fee.  As a touring artist who’s getting ready to print up physical CD’s, this solves a problem before I’ve even had it!

Speech Restricted by Visa Changes

The US Citizenship and Immigration Service has decided to take a more strict interpretation of the laws that govern them, which is making like more difficult for touring musicians.  Hypebot says the new strictness may cost up to $6000 in additional fees, but from what I’ve read, it seems that would only be if they may mistakes on their applications.  One artist that has already been affected is British rapper and Mercury Prize winner Speech Debelle.  She was unable to attend SXSW and the CMJ Marathon due to visa headaches.

It’s too bad for her, I actually like her stuff and I’m sure her career would have benefited greatly from playing those two festivals.  Hopefully, the USCIS will get it straightened out and loosen up so we can enjoy foreign artists more frequently.  Until then, check out her song: Spinnin’.

Evan Marshall Performs the William Tell Overture

I love watching someone who knows their instrument use it to do something cool.  Chet Atkins said Evan Marshall is one of the few great musicians of our time.  You can see for yourself why:

Chartjackers – I’ve Got Nothing

Ok, I’m  a sucker for a hook.  There’s this group of kids, the Chartjackers, from the UK who are trying to get their cheesy YouTube-crowdsourced song onto the UK charts.  The song is called “I’ve Got Nothing” and the lyrics, melody, band, and producer were all chosen via Youtube, then compiled into a song and the video clips are from the fans also.  I think this group does an admirable job showing how to engage an audience and create something everyone can enjoy, all the while helping a charity.  Check it out.

Music Retail Graphs

Here’s a really cool set of graphs from Hypebot (read my thoughts below):

MusicRetail R7 Mint Music Retail Graphs

Physical vs Digital:

16% growth in the past two years, wow.  Part of me is still surprised that physical products still outsell digital products.  The other part of me realizes that labels seem to do everything they can to prevent themselves from making money in the digital realm, so it’s not that surprising that physical products still provide most of their income.  Their only hope is that they open up to digital, learn how to make money with it, and reap the benefits.

Digital Retailer Market Share:

No surprise here.  iTunes rules the roost.  I can’t wait to see this chart the year after Spotify gets here.  I bet it will take a sizeable chunk of this chart.  For now, I’ll have to check out this “Other” store though, they seem to doing quite well.  (j/k)

Monthly Transactions Per User:

I really have to wonder if the variable pricing thing has anything to do with the chart going up.  The new iPhone 3GS also came out in July.  In any case, even the modest boost in Rhapsody‘s numbers show that people are very interested in music, we jsut need to have access to it.

Spending:

Simple version:

Subscription services have a steady, predictable, going-along-with-the-pricing-plans numbers here.  Napster lost a bunch of customers while Rhapsody and eMusic gained.

iTunes has the lowest spending per transaction, but has had a slight growth per user.  I’m betting $.69 to $1.29 per track is too high of a price point, otherwise their numbers would be higher in both categories.

FYE and CD Baby have the highest per transaction numbers because people are forced to buy the entire CD at retail prices.  You’ll notice people aren’t spending as much there as before.

Ray Beckerman

Yesterday, a Federal court made a ruling in a suit brought by the RIAA against Ray Beckerman, an defense attorney who specializes in copyright defense cases.  The court said he is not “vexatious”, as the RIAA claimed, but rather simply doing his job, albeit he’s not very forthcoming.

For those who don’t know Ray, I became a fan of his after reading his posts on Slashdot, a tech news site.  Ray posts under the NewYorkCountryLawyer and was the only lawyer (that I know of) that was actually involved in some of the cases discussed on Slashdot and tech-savvy enough to leave comments and answer questions from readers.  Pretty cool.  He also has a blog, Recording Industry vs The People, where he shares his views and news on copyright cases and particularly RIAA cases brought against his clients and others citizens.  Good news, Ray, keep up the good work!

Playdar

I read recently on Wired’s Epicenter blog about a new application that really excites me.  It excites me because this is what computers are supposed to do.

Playdar works with streaming sites like Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, etc and examines any music files you have on your computer.  If you’re listening to a streaming site and that site wants to play a song you already have on your hard drive, it plays the file on your hard drive instead of streaming it.  This is brilliant because it saves the streaming company money, which keeps them in business longer.  For the listener, it means you’ll probably get a better sounding song because typically the stuff on your computer is higher quality than what is streamed.

Hopefully, all the streaming companies and music players (*cough* iTunes *cough*) will support this as a plugin soon, so as Van Halen sang, we can get the best of both worlds!

You Don’t Belong on MTV

More on the Taylor Swift saga. A friend of mine, Vince Romanelli, who plays for the awesome band, Philos, came up with the parody of Taylor’s song “You Belong With Me” and I had to share it. He even got mentioned by one of my favorite bloggers, Bob Lefsetz! Here’s “You Don’t Belong on MTV”: