Before he signs a new band to his independent music label, Franz Schuller usually gives aspiring musicians bad news: They're probably not going to be famous. This bitter pill is briskly followed by another: “Whatever they think they knew about the music industry from what they've heard, or read, or seen on television, that really doesn't exist any more,” says Mr. Schuller. “It's really, really hard for artists out there now. It's an insanely huge challenge to actually make a decent living playing music these days. That's the reality.”
Since music first jumped into digital form and as consumers increasingly turned to downloading songs on the Internet, the music industry has attempted to figure out exactly how and where music and technology meet. The same goes for bands trying to make it in the digital age. The irony is, while technology can help a band get noticed like never before, it also can be the biggest impediment in making a career out of it.
That was exactly what a diverse group of international music industry types – from small promoters to app developers – who gathered in Victoria, B.C. for the fourth annual Transmission conference asked themselves.
Members of Mother Mother (from left to right) Ali Siadat, Jasmin Parkin, Ryan Guldemond, Molly Guldemond and Jeremy Page. The band was recently in Victoria, BC attending the Transmission conference and playing a gig.
Branded as a forum for music and technology leaders, the annual invitation-only event aims to “facilitate a meaningful, solution-oriented dialogue amongst peers from within and inside the music industry.” The talks dovetailed with Rifflandia, a sold-out music festival in the same city featuring hipster darlings Mother Mother, Tegan and Sara and Holy F(asterix/asterix)k. One of the headlining topics: “Does anyone know what the [bleep] is going on?”
Mr. Schuller, singer and guitarist for the Montreal-based punk band GrimSkunk and founder of indie label Indica Records, was one of Transmission's attendees. He says technology has had innumerable positive effects on the music industry, ranging from band websites, MySpace pages and Facebook accounts that aid promotion and publicity, to digitized songs that can be easily distributed across international borders.
I just want to create a clone who actually enjoys being online. When you get home, your time off is actually way more work than being on the road.— Tim Baker, lead singer of Hey Rosetta!
But he also insists that the music industry needs a fundamental rethink, and suggests the allure of social technologies may eventually prove to be a Trojan horse for aspiring bands.
“For all the massive opportunity that the Internet and mobile phones and devices give us by reaching millions and millions of people, there's also a gazillion bands. It's really hard to get noticed or to get anyone's attention,” says Mr. Schuller. “It's allowed people with absolutely no business competing in the same space to complicate the careers of people who do have a lot of talent. There's way, way too much stuff out there.”
This rings true for Tim Baker, lead singer of the burgeoning Newfoundland-based band Hey Rosetta!, which made the shortlist for this year's Polaris Prize. As social networking technologies grow more popular, bands are put under pressure to communicate with their fans in a way that didn't exist a decade ago.
“I just want to create a clone who actually enjoys being online,” he says with a laugh. “What a band is historically supposed to do is tour, and write music and put on shows. When you get home, your time off is actually way more work than being on the road.”
