So yesterday I hosted a panel on 360 deals for the Beverly Hills Bar Association. I was questioning Rand Hoffman, head lawyer for Interscope, and Fred Goldring, attorney extraordinaire, and I wondered if we were even in the same business.

The scam is you get continuing education credit for coming to these affairs. Which is why attendance was pretty good. And I wondered…was this about 360 deals CONCEPTUALLY or how to negotiate one? After all, it was a room full of lawyers. I played along with the latter until it was all just too chummy for me… What about the elephant in the room? The act that didn’t want to sign to a major label, that had a team of twentysomethings surrounding it, that wanted no part of the SYSTEM?

Rand agreed with me. That what a major label delivered was Top Forty success. But is Top Forty the end all and be all, the triumphant, all-dominating paradigm TODAY?

You forget, that prior to MTV, there were different genres of music. All with notable successes. But MTV anointed specific stars and everybody else was either a has-been or an also-ran. You were either a winner or a loser. Now MTV plays no music, radio listenership is declining and a hit record doesn’t generate a career, doesn’t even allow you to fill the building in most cases.

Actually, that’s what MTV wrought, evanescent stars. You could be rocketed to the moon today, be forgotten tomorrow. Elian Gonzalez all over the news for a month, then back in Cuba. TV did sell records, but it burned out acts. It was good for labels and lawyers, but was it good for acts?

All the acts propping up the live business today started BEFORE MTV, or have roots in the jam band world. Even U2 broke before MTV. As for Dave Matthews, the TV airplay was icing on the cake.

I think it’s important to look at the jam band game. It’s all about the music. The music draws fans and engenders a lifestyle, one of participation as opposed to rip-off. Tickets are not a rip-off and you can get one. And when you go to the show, you don’t want to hear the hit, but EVERYTHING! You want the music to move you. You go again and again, to become familiar with the material, and you trade material online that you like. You’re a fan of the band, not the hit, not a specific track.

This is the way it used to be. Sure, Cream crossed over with "Sunshine Of Your Love", but they were a successful touring band BEFORE THAT! Traffic never really had a Top Forty hit. The AM radio hit was the cherry on top, not the starting point. Sure, FM radio helped, but the endless touring at a low price cemented the deal. That touring was today’s file-trading, today’s spreading of the word, outside the system. Does the system build or kill acts? Is a hit record the best thing that can happen to you, or the worst?

Fred asked Rand if Interscope was a pie-slicer or a pie-baker.

Rand said a bit of both. In essence, part of their commissioning of ancillary rights is a land grab, to make up for their declining recorded music sales. Is that what I want to do? Prop up an enterprise too stupid to see its future? In other words, do I want to invest in GM or Toyota?

Fred said a deal was good if the label brought partnerships to the table, brokered some deals. Fred’s clients the Black Eyed Peas have built their career on this, but it’s death for a jam band, anybody based on credibility, and it appears the only acts with a career, with a longevity, that truly have an extended run in all 360 degrees of revenue, are credible acts where the music comes first!

I don’t want to make no stinking endorsement deal, no partnership with the man. That’s just what I want, one more fucking asshole telling me what to do. Am I an artist or a puppet? I don’t know about you, but I gave up on Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop a long time ago.

I thought artists were supposed to work outside the system. Be a salve for all those BEHOLDEN to the man. Ronnie Van Zant…did whatever the fuck he wanted! Didn’t check with his sponsor first, didn’t appear in print ads hawking some product that won’t change your life.

So, what a major label delivers, Top Forty radio and marketing to the masses in the best of circumstances, is almost always antithetical to a long term career. Don’t you find that fascinating? In other words, who’s going to own the future? The usual suspects, beholden to the old game and bullying with their perceived power, or twentysomethings who reject all that? News Corp. didn’t come up with MySpace and Microsoft didn’t come up with Facebook. If these old lumbering companies were so damn smart and powerful, how come THEY didn’t invent the future?

And those tech enterprises ARE ABOUT selling out. That’s the game.

But that’s not the game if you’re an artist, if you’re an artist, it’s about NEVER SELLING OUT!

So, if you want a Top Forty hit, if you want to be both chewed up and beholden to the old machine, make a 360 deal with a major label. That’s all Interscope does, 360 deals. The old records-only deal, except for maybe already established stars, is HISTORY! And don’t ask me how the label gets paid… After ripping off the artists for years, do they expect an honest accounting? The movie business has taught us…you only get paid if the money flows THROUGH YOU!

As for the attorneys… Who are you in bed with, the major label or the artist? For the last twenty five years, the artist has had a very brief career, your primary relationship was with the label. Charging a percentage, you want something to commission, you want to look for the man with the money, you don’t want to venture into the wilderness with no guarantees. You’ve got to EAT!

No, an act has got to eat. You’ve got to put your kids through private school and make your Mercedes payment.

This whole business is top-heavy. And these lumbering giants are trying to maintain their power, however ignorantly.

The key today is leaving some money on the table. Be willing to give the audience something for free, you’ll get paid back in spades, if you’re good.

That’s what it’s come down to again… Are you any good? Can you play your instruments? Can you write innovative material? Can you touch people’s souls? Can you change their lives? Can you infect them to the point where they’ll come to your show for years?

That’s the future of this business. Not dominant superstars, but tons of journeymen, super-serving their fan base.

This is the more difficult road. But since the usual suspects, attorneys and major labels, are not interested in this road, they’re leaving the journey open to entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs will inherit the landscape. A truly savvy one will roll up some acts to reach critical mass. The new entrepreneurs will not be chomping on cigars, going to lunch, but tapping their iPhones as they Skype contacts around the world, monitoring their business, giving those with the power to spread the word the tools they need to do so.

It’s not about less, but more. It’s not about drenching the public but starting with the trickle of one drop. It’s not about banging the audience over the head, but the sense of discovery and wonderment. It’s not about feeding the mainstream media, but the bloggers. It’s not about the deal, it’s about the music.