Guitarist extraordinaire!

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tommy-emmanuel/id1316200737?i=1000739662023

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/f53d2cdc-6ed9-412a-abb1-abf7ded7aa0c/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-tommy-emmanuel

You know that feeling when you’re about to land and suddenly the pilot pulls back on the controls and the nose of the airplane rises into the sky?

Then you know you’re not going to make it.

Actually, one time I was landing in Toronto on a snow day, our plane actually touched the tarmac, and then we lifted right back up. WTF was that?

It seems to me in the old days, the pilot would get on the intercom right away and hip you to what was going on. But we were mystified in T.O. until we were way back in the sky and the pilot said there was a plane further down the runway and with the snow we might not have been able to stop soon enough…

The second time was a charm.

But not today.

There’s a direct flight from L.A. to Aspen now. Used to be you had to land in Denver and take a puddle jumper into Sardy Field. You know that bucking bronco from “Urban Cowboy”? It was oftentimes like that…

Well, do people even remember “Urban Cowboy” and the line-dancing craze? When Debra Winger dominated the screen? She disappeared for a while, never to be replaced. Now we tend to get 10s who can’t act. And the great thing is Debra was a 9 or an 8, better looking than the average bear, but you’d grown up with someone like her, you could relate.

Eegads! Did I just use a numbering system to rate women? That was a faux pas before Trump… But we’ve pulled back from the politically correct woke, as we should have… Then again, pardoning Cuellar and getting rid of the CAFE rules… Every day I turn on my phone and read the news and am convinced I’m living in Bizarroland.

So we go up, up, up, and I’m convinced that we’re being diverted, to probably Grand Junction on the Western Slope…that’s a different weather pattern, it’s much drier.

But no, we circle back around, the nose of the airplane dips, and now the hills are so close you think you can reach out and touch them. We’re just about down…

And the pilot pulls back up on the stick…

And I’m asking myself… How much fuel does this plane have? They don’t fly with much more than they need and….I’ve been diverted because a plane was low on gas.

So what the hell are we going to do now?

We’re heading up into the stratosphere, like we never ever came close to land, and then finally, the pilot comes on the PA and tells us we’re going to go to Grand Junction. And we’re going to track the weather, and if it’s clear enough, we’ll take another shot.

Or they’ll bus us.

Which they ended up doing. Summoning a coach. Add two hours and fifteen minutes of road time to this journey. But I wasn’t pissed. In my old age I cope with f*ck-ups better. We’ll miss our annual lunch at the White House Tavern, and I won’t be able to go to every ski shop to see the new wares (although most of the stuff is online these days), but we’ll get there in time for the annual BBQ.

Yes, that’s how Jim Lewi’s Aspen Live starts, on Wednesday night.

It used to be the Aspen Artist Development Conference, but then the labels cut back on artist development people and then cut back on spending all together, and doesn’t live run the business today?

As for the conference… It’s old home week. You start to see people in the airport. You walk into the lobby of the Limelight Hotel and it’s like a summer camp reunion. Makes you feel connected and loved.

So we’re riding along in the bus, and there’s no snow on the ground, up at the top of the glorious mountains there’s a little, but things are dry…

Until we’re a bit out of Glenwood Springs and there are flurries.

My phone is going wild with people in Denver, planning how they’re going to make it over the passes to Aspen, but…

The flurries turn into snow.

One thing you’ve got to know about Colorado is it’s not like Utah. In Utah it DUMPS! Four or five inches an hour at Alta and Snowbird. We get that in Colorado a couple of times a year, but really it’s a regular drone of snow, light stuff that accumulates.

And that’s the snow we’re getting as we’re taking Highway 82 into town.

And then traffic is backed up in the other direction.  This usually happens when there’s a snowplow leading, but I didn’t see one.

The pavement is now completely covered with snow. It’s only dangerous if you don’t know how to drive in these conditions. But today with four wheel drive and anti-lock brakes…it’s much easier than it used to be.

And we’re rolling along slowly and then…

How do I say this… It was like being in a movie, going from color to black and white, from today to yesterday…

I was suddenly rooted. I was no longer looking at the environment, but part of it! This is how it was living in Vermont. Where the snow never leaves the ground during the winter and the days are gray…the land of hot chocolate and board games.

My roots.

Now we live in a world where flights are cheap and people travel constantly. So to pick up and fly to Colorado to ski…it’s not the exotic effort of yesteryear. And when I’m in the condo in Vail… The streets are heated and the gondola is right outside the door and I don’t do that much driving.

But now we’re on the highway into town, driving by Paepcke Park… I’ve been  coming to Aspen since 1970, back before the logo stores appeared. I’ve got roots. And I’m not bragging, I’m just saying it felt beyond familiar, like this is where I belong, like this is home.

I hope all is well with you and yours.

I worked at AWAL as its U.S. SVP of Business Affairs from 2018-2023, and it was amazing to see how many indie artists at AWAL were earning real money while owning their recordings and controlling how and when they were released and licensed.  As an attorney, I can’t share details, but Kobalt’s founder, Willard Ahdritz, summed it up pretty well in 2020 in this and other articles: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/hundreds-of-artists-are-now-earning-100k-per-year-via-kobalts-awal/.  (Sony bought AWAL in 2021 and, when I left two years ago, it was still very much the same company.)

As Willard said, there is a significant and growing “middle class” of artists who generate enough streams to net at least $100k/year.  This isn’t a myth or an urban legend.  These artists exist.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Based on average broad-stroke streaming “rates” (which are constantly evolving), it may take about 3,200,000 monthly streams for an artist to earn $100k/year.  While 3,200,000 may appear to be an intimidating number, that’s roughly the equivalent of 25,000 fans listening to a 15-track album just twice a week, or 100,000 fans listening just twice a month.  Most of these artists fly under the media’s radar because they build their fan bases primarily via digital marketing.  This simply would not have been possible pre-Spotify.

I’m not suggesting that Spotify is some kind of savior or can do no wrong.  They’re a business, after all, trying to maximize profit.  But, without Spotify and Apple Music and the other DSPs, there would be thousands of currently successful artists stranded on the outside looking in, as they were 30 years ago, trying to figure out how to get their songs played on terrestrial radio and how to secure shelf space for their new CDs at record stores.

Dan Stuart

General Counsel

Seeker Music

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We talked about this topic extensively when I did your podcast…and I still don’t get why people don’t get it.  The details are no more arcane and complex than they were in the physical distribution era (in fact, much of the business is simpler and cleaner) and the basic math is pretty simple.

Ultimately, it’s about ownership vs. loanership.  If you own your masters and publishing (as we do for the Presidents’ debut) and have any traction with listeners, you’re going to make money.  And more of it, in a more clearly accountable way than if you had to distribute physical product.  I.e., you get a monthly accounting from your digital distributor with transparent tracking of your usage and payments, versus a 100-page statement once or twice a year from a label or distributor, typically riddled with holdbacks and exceptions and other minor mechanisms designed to rip you off.  Ask any major label artist or indie label owner about this.  I know multiple former indie label owners who had good distribution deals in the physical era but in the end gave up, tired of dealing with inventory and getting the product out there and getting returns back, etc.

And you are also right about artists’ odd sense of entitlement.  The cream will rise to the top, and there’s only so much cream.  Not to mention that it’s impossible to predict what the cream will look and taste like…case in point, I have absolutely no freaking idea how a band as weird as ours could ever have possibly broken out, but it happened and it happens over and over.

best,

Dave Dederer

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Every time I speak at a conference, I have to re-explain this too.  Once a false narrative takes hold, it is very hard to change.  In every era, no matter the format or pricing model, regardless of genre, popular artists made a lot of money.

If you are popular, you make money.  If you are not, you complain.

Scott Cohen

“The Truth About Streaming Payout – Take a closer look at the actual math behind real music royalties.”

https://spotifynews.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-streaming-payout

Even I missed this story, which was published a week ago. I caught it in today’s Record of the Day e-mail.

I constantly get e-mail from people claiming that Apple pays more per stream than Spotify… But the devil is in the details. THERE IS NO PER STREAM RATE! Furthermore, the more people stream on a service, the less a stream ultimately pays out…

But I don’t expect this story to EVER be accepted by the general public which is somehow convinced that Spotify is the devil…

But that’s the world we now live in. One in which you can’t get a message to everybody and people run on emotion rather than fact. Don’t even get me started on the endless stories about measly payouts on Pandora… When it comes to publishing… How much of the song did the writer contribute? Who owns the publishing? There’s a hundred cents in a dollar. Maybe half is taken by the publishing company and of the fifty cents left… If there are ten writers, each gets a nickel.

Never mind that on demand streaming pays more than radio streaming. I.e. if you pick and choose the tracks, it’s a higher rate than if they are served up to you radio style.

It’s really not that complicated, it’s just that the internet and the advancement in tools has eliminated the barrier to entry…everybody can play/put up their songs on streaming services…and then they complain they are not getting paid enough!

And then there are the artists who were supported by the major labels in the pre-internet era. Well, not only do they no longer have major label deals, not many people are streaming their music. If people are not listening, should you get paid?

What is the number of people who should be able to support themselves as full time musicians? Think about the number of people who can play in the NBA…or in Major League Baseball. It’s a thin elite of highly-compensated players. Most people can’t get paid at all, and those in the minor leagues that exist get paid a pittance. But everybody in music should be able to earn a living wage?

Everybody keeps telling me I’m on the wrong side of this. That Spotify and streaming are truly the devil.

And this is why we can’t have a discussion. Because we can’t start with the facts. Read the above article, it’s simple and clear.

But it doesn’t square with your emotions…

So we live in a world where few know the facts and when confronted with them they deny them.

So most in the music business don’t even bother to explain themselves, it doesn’t make any difference. It reminds me of the sixties, when people believed music should be free… Funny how now everybody is complaining they can’t get paid…