It's overwhelming!

[Cry Logic]

Lefsetz sent this out in his newsletter today.

 

It's sorta funny and tragic at the same time,

but there's no denying the message.

 

It's all too bloody overwhelming!

 

 

[YOUTUBE]c7ANYvXP1hY[/YOUTUBE]

[ggm1960]

We're living in strange days. I'm glad that all I'm compelled to do is write, record and play to satisfy my own little self!

[Mudcat007]

I will be putting this plan into action immediately!

[blue2blue]

 

That was actually really good, both informative (in providing a quick but semi-encyclopedic catalog of all those services) and thought-provoking, both on his punchline message -- but also about specific aspects of the virtual world processes that we all know won't be going away any time soon and that someone involved with shepherding bands to marketplace will have to deal with.

 

 

But it's directed at old guys who did not grow up in the virtual world.

 

Like me. I almost entirely live in the virtual world. My job's online. Its product is online. My entertainment is almost entirely online (except for 6 symphonies a year), and my social life is mostly online (particularly if you count the telephone system, which one might have the temerity to suggest is the real, historic, conceptual root of the internet)...

 

... but I didn't grow up here. I'm an immigre.

 

I know my way around, of course, but it's not -- as the science-know-nothing, online pop social crits say -- in my DNA. (I'm even somewhat fluent in the local idioms, eh?)

 

 

Kids whose 'first gig' isn't at the local coffee shop or beer bar but rather online do not even need someone to list all those ventures (most of them sooner-or-later-to-fail but some of them certainly due to grow and become integral, necessary institutions).

 

They already know what's important now and have the antenna (the smart ones, anyhow) to sense out which up-and-comers to watch -- while many of us old-timers, perhaps caught up in out own, long ago, (more or less) youthful dreams of what the internet might become, often seem to focus on what we wish would come true rather than what will come true because of the inescapable but not always visible-to-everyone realities of fifteen minutes from now...

[Ernest Buckley]

I`m trying to think... are there any artists out there who have become hugely successful on their own? I can`t think of any.

 

The video is confusing but it does give you some options if you are an artist building a following but I think you can only grow so much touring on your own without a major labels support.

 

Yeah, I can think of several bands that are known or were known for touring but even their following was limited until they signed with a major: Phish, Grateful Dead and I think Dave Matthews come to mind... all pretty successful touring bands that never really took off until a major label got them past that glass ceiling.

 

I`m not saying it can`t be done, I`m just having a hard time thinking of an artist/band who has become huge on their own. I remember watching a Behind the Music with MC Hammer... the guy sold close to 100,000 CDs out of his trunk before a major picked him up, then when he had that machine backing him, he exploded.