Monday, February 9, 2009
News Music Biz Crap
Posted by Andrew R Tonry on Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:38 PM
Maybe you've heard: Ticketmaster and Live Nation are hoping to merge. John Mayer fans are PISSED!
But really, even for those who DON'T like shitty music, this is still crappy. Every once in a while we all end up having to use Ticketmaster for something (and Live Nation is so evil they make Ticketmaster look like the relatively little guy). Like last week, when I had to get Sharon Jones tickets for my parents—two tickets were about $40, but the charges online pushed it to more like $60. That is, until I went down to the Crystal Ballroom myself and paid simply face value.
Anyway... Ticketmaster + Live Nation = music crushing, money grubbing monopoly. Even Bruce Springsteen, taker of Super Bowl money and Walmart coupler, says so. (Irony here being that Bruce's tix can currently be purchased through Ticketmaster... AND that, for a guy who supposedly values the working man, he sure could've helped out independent record stores by allowing his new CD's in there, rather than exclusive deal with Paul Blart, I mean, Walmart. And so what if he says it was a mistake. Too little too late.)
OK. I've run off the rails here a bit. Back on track. HO! The reason I began, other than to tell of the freaky merger proposal (which seems to face at least a somewhat strong possibility of being pushed back by Congress or whoever the fuck handles these things... oh Jesus, if it's on Congress' hands it's as good as done, or at least forgotten).
In the torrent of articles on the subject, David Carr's had something interesting, almost completely un-related—the crazy business model of Jill Sobule (stay with me here, it's worthwhile):
After listening to her fans, (Sobule) came up with an updated version of the Medici model. To raise the $75,000 she needed for an album, she set up a Web site — jillsnextrecord.com — in which her fans would serve as patrons for her next record in return for various rewards.Ten bucks earned them a digital download of the record, $50 an advance copy and a thank you in the liner notes, while $1,000 got them a personalized theme song written by the artist. Three people who paid $5,000 had Ms. Sobule play at their house. The person who gave $10,000 sang on the record.
How about that?!
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