A few thoughts that came from SXSW.

What is the most powerful sector of the music business today?  The record labels? The managers? The publicists?  The answer is: the agents.  It used to be that you could not get an agent until you were doing unbelievable numbers in a dozen or so markets, or you were signing to a major label.  Now, bands that have no following are being picked up by agencies.  There is nothing wrong with an agent hearing a band and seeing a vision, but it seems things are at a point where an agent wants to pick up a band simply because they are afraid of losing that act to another agent. (Sound familiar? Look out – up next: bidding wars!)

I think the next evolution of the music business will be agents giving advances to bands to sign with them.  A young band will make agents come to the table and it will tell agents to put their money where their mouth is.  I can see a band going to CAA instead of Skyline because CAA says "We will give you a $250,000 advance against your touring to be with us."  Obviously there will be more to the deal then just the normal 10%.   Agents then will develop bands to a point where they will be worth something to a record label, and they will have a piece of the album. Or perhaps it will be the agent’s own label that puts out the album.

This in turn will also make more labels have in-house agents.  I talked to two young bands at SXSW who both told me they were not there to get a record label.  They can do it themselves.  Anyone can put out music in this day and age; no, they were there to get a booking agent.

I went to SXSW to mainly do business for moe. and maybe get lucky and find a new act to work with.  I got a ton of business done for moe., but as far as finding a new band…90% of what I saw sounded horrible.  The music was too loud and the mixes were so bad.  If I was in a band that played at SXSW, and someone came up to me and said "Wow, you guys were great – I sure would like to work with you" I think I would cross that person off the list because they are
most likely full of shit.

In this report, I would like to thank Hank Sacks for a Hilton Dinner and Eric Lemasters for a Sports bar lunch.

Off to snoe.down.

Enjoy your dinner,

Jon Topper

_______________________________________

Jon Topper is the manager of moe.
To get on his dinner report list, wherein he muses irregularly about music industry topics and what he ate for dinner, e-mail him at: jontopper12@yahoo.com