Dsquared needs your input! We are going to be doing new video series – a round table with different panelists and topics each month that all revolve around electronic/indie culture and music. The first one will be in a couple weeks and a couple of the panelists have already been picked, including a magazine music editor and a blogger/promoter. I promise you that you’ll be stoked to see some of the high profile and varied industry professionals and artists that are lined up.
Here’s where I want to have you chime in – what topics would you like to see discussed? The role and responsibilities of blogs in modern music culture? Are labels still necessary? Should music be free? Is music simply DIY now – is expensive equipment or a studio needed? Etc…
Let’s hear it!
Since waiting in line, buying drinks and paying to get past the door simply sucks, those in the club will have access to perks like free swag, drink tickets, access to members-only contests, mixes, free tracks and first stab at guest lists. Now that's music to anyone's ears.
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I would like to hear talks about how genres have changed/evolved over the years. Kind of like what defines them. Is what was considered “Techno” back in the day still called and considered “Techno” now?
Also, I think it would be great to have a more standard way of obtaining info about the industry, licensing, using of acapellas for remix, and how to publish, rights etc. Every thing seems so scattered.. unless I’m just missing the resource somewhere.
Keep Rocking!!
Did Oswald really kill Kennedy? Oh wait, wrong blog … seriously though …. where is the money in the industry these days? Is it in producing songs, remixing, performance – all three? How can a budding young dj with a good ear, like myself, quit his dayjob and make a living in the nightlife?
Perhaps a discussion on the progression of sound and music in America? How genre bending tracks seem to be more and more commercialized and therefore available to more then the few ‘heads that used to listen to house and electro outside of the UK.
Love this idea, i mean discussing the changing of genres lately , and how it effects the music scene in a whole.
The Fact that real house music is actually coming back more and more, disco is getting huge again electro seems to be on the downswing.
the hype with dubstep, enough said…lol
Lots of good topics out there, but you already know that.
djalexryan, you stole my question!
Winter Music Conference: does it have any kind of networking worth anymore? or only party worth?
As both a label owner, large northeastern promoter, festival thrower, and making attempts at production with moderate success ive been curious to see what determines the way industry leaders get to become such..
I realize its all a process of becoming liked and promotion/marketing but what determines when industry leaders really pay attention..
I notice how hundreds of artists who are VERY talented on both technical and production sides of things are virtually ignored for years and years w/out any real attention..
As a promoter I love booking up and coming producers and turntablists and live pa’s but its becoming hard to figure out what people are really interested in hearing..
I also agree dubstep has become the new fad of the 21st.. but I think disco music is making a strong comback with people like George Hatiras and them leading the way, paul anthony, and many others focusing more on the filtered and disco friendly sounds..
I would like to see the discussion aim at the message of where the production end of things is going. Maybe send the underlying message out to bedroom producers to spend more time and creative energy on production and not crank out mediocre tracks in bulk just for the sake of “getting somewhere”.
Perhaps delve into the realm of if DJs should even bother anymore in trying to develop deck skills and programming abilities. Like if DJs should instead get into production and focus there, keeping the idea that talent on the decks won’t get you as far as perhaps some big tracks selling on the net and thus building your popularity. Maybe even get into that “popularity VS talent” debate that has happened, where smaller known DJs are pressured more to bring heads than even to be able to play well. Like a state of working as a DJ in the club scene.
I’d love to see a panel of promotions people (both event and music) get into the best ways to promote. Try to educate the masses that spamming any social network, blog, and discussion forum is not an effective way to promote yourself. Lord knows I see plenty of guys spam Facebook and Beatportal to no end with those letsmix.com links.
Obviously there are hundreds of interesting subjects to discuss.. but if you are going to make a video of panelists discussing/debating a subject perhaps with adversarial points of view then when a subject has been decided you could publish a timetable a month or so in advance to allow your blog visitors to pose questions and subjects relating to each program….
A subject I have in mind is freer remixing of tunes with labels releasing production stems… not just the finished tune…then anyone can have a go at remixing..
Agreed Malcom, I think that’s a great idea – that being said, I thought the obvious first topic would be how blogging has affected electronic music culture. The panel is almost complete, I’m looking for one last person, but in the meantime, brainstorm those questions!
“Agreed Malcom, I think that’s a great idea”.. Which one? The timetable idea or the production stems release idea or both..lol
Ummm….both? But especially the comment submission one
I see now how you get so much done…you like(enjoy) being very organised…personally I dislike all that boring stuff…lol
A label friend wrote to me and simply stated “BLOGS SUCK” so I had to think about it and write back…
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I wanted to add fuel to the fire and say that blogs are a double edged sword and they suck, but they also are the single most important vehicle for new music in the world today. If you own content being distributed, which both of us have revenue wise it sometimes sucks. But in the past few years, Ive gotten dozens of DJ gigs, remixes, and thousands of fans, press & recognition from blogs. I’ve gotten contacted by DJs around the globe who found my tracks on blogs. And if 1000 people download one of my labels tracks and don’t pay for it, i may have lost a few hundred dollars, but just gained 1000 new potential fans. I realized years ago that the work for hire fees I make doing remixes for major labels and the initial payouts I get for original tracks in addition to DJ gigs are the money I’m gonna make, not from residuals. Anyone who thinks they’re gonna make money selling downloads of dance music is off their rocker unless you license something or it really blows up like a deadmau5 track. For dance music selling downloads really serves the purpose of keeping your name out there and getting gigs. And labels don’t garner much of my sympathy, there are labels that owe me and other artists and producers thousands of dollars from royalties and paying a lawyer to go do an accounting would eat it up so we just accept it. Also, as a remixer, ive seen labels make tenfold on a track compared to what they payed me so labels need to realize that if you continue to take advantage of the producers, they will find other ways to break even. Not that any of it is right, but the music industry has changed since Napster broke into the world, and labels have refused to realize this is any timely manner and adjust their business models to embrace the Information age and all the digital tools at their disposal and rely on legacy ideals.
DjJs habitually guard their play-lists and finding out what their playing in a club is usually hard becasue the DJ either doesn’t want to tell you or you cant get to him/her. Radio is absolutely useless for new music other then the top 5% of popular music that is being played or college radio which caters more towards indie rock. Even Internet dance radio and satellite play a large amount of more popular offerings so unless you know the right places to find play-lists or just want to play whatever Beatport tells you is hot this week, the blogs offer a unique way to discover new music and thus is doing the jobs that record labels and the media used to. I spend a good 2 hours a day scouring blogs looking for both my tracks, and new shit. 85% of what I like from blogs I end up buying, unless its already a bootleg and not for sale or impossible to find online digitally. A 30 second low quality clip from a digital store is no way to find out if a track has a usable intro, outro or will work well and not make me spend time re-editing it in Ableton for my DJ sets. Some of the hottest producers out now like started in the blogs. I know most of my DJ friends end up buying what they like that they find eDigging on blogs, but there are definitely many younger kids discovering blogs and dance music who have no real use other then the education of the genre and aren’t actually DJing so in essence, blogs are becoming the teachers to a generation of kids who have no other way to discover electronic music.
The entire culture of different classic genres from disco (not abba/bee gees/villiage people) to classic house, boogie, 80s electro and dance survive becasue of blogs since the labels neither exist, haven’t licensed their catalog for distribution, or the master tapes are long gone. New genres like dubstep, wonybass, electro house and everything else have survived on blogs becasue many people release their white labels there and end up getting signed becasue indie dance labels are much fewer then 10 years ago and harder to find. Blogs also weed out a lot of the crap and help people discover new music becasue trying to search through the hundreds of new records released digitally in any genre is harder then finding a needle in a haystack which makes going and purchasing the tracks afterward much easier.
For a label like yours, it definitely sucks to have your content on blogs because you’re not a major label that can just write blogs off. But you also have to understand that people want content now in the way that works for them. Now the piracy and shear fact that most of this is illegal is entirely the other side of it. But like VHS and cassette tapes which the RIAA and Motion Picture Association swore would destroy the industry 30 years ago, blogs will not destroy the industry nor will whatever comes next so on and so on. So instead of BLOGS SUCK, it should be “BLOGS THAT HOST OUR CONTENT SUCK”
Hopefully you haven’t stabbed your eyes out from this long rant. Have a nice day!