A better blog than my own

When I met with Kevin Jablonski, he told me about the Web site of a friend of his, Christopher Knab. You can find it here. Actually, the site is called “Music Biz Academy.com,” and Christopher is one major contributor of several.

Christopher has worked in the music business for more than 40 years. He owned a record store in San Francisco in the 60s, started his own record label and worked as a DJ and station manager for several radio stations, including the UW’s station KCMU in the late 80s and early 90s. Currently he is an author, lecturer and consultant in Seattle.

The site is impressive. It will take me some time to get through it: There are hundreds of articles, about everything from record label deals to how to not get stiffed at live shows.

The centerpiece of Christopher’s page seems to be his FourFront Music Marketing Concept. It’s a do-it-yourself guide divided into four sections: Artist and product development; promotion; publicity; and performance.

Not only is this interesting and useful, I find it timely as well. Many of the things Christopher explains are tasks that would have been handled by a large record company in previous decades. Now, of course, changing technologies have given us the opportunity to do these things on our own. This is the true “independent” music industry.

“Independent” has unfortunately become a buzzword for a genre of music—“indy,” or “indie” (I’ve seen both, and the AP style guide is no help). What people seem to have forgotten is that even if you wear second-hand clothes and emphasize the diphthong when you sing, if your record label is owned by Sony BMG, you are by definition not independent.

Many of us hold out hope that a generation of do-it-yourselfers will be able to show music consumers a few things about real artistic independence. That’s my two cents.