Hello everyone. This is Steve from Bside Entertainment (www.bside.com). We’re the distributors for Before the Music Dies — B4MD — in North America.

If you are on this mailing list… it means you love music. You may be a great band, a songwriter, a fan, a student, an indie label, a cool venue, a great radio station, the coolest record store in town, an independent promoter, or something else that ties you to keeping great music alive. First off, thank you for that…

Bside and the B4MD filmmakers are working together to bypass the exploitative Hollywood machinery that suffocates & starves independent filmmakers the same way faceless music industry corporations tend to suffocate & starve original musicmakers.

There is an amazing concentration of music “people” who have responded passionately to the messages in B4MD… and we view the film as a way to spread these messages to the broader masses of music consumers, not just to those — like many of you — who struggle with these issues on a daily basis.

We are officially kicking off our grassroots movement over the next few weeks, and we need the help of all of you to spread the word. We have an exciting plan for bringing the film to music lovers across North America this fall and beyond … whether it be in major markets or small towns that don’t usually get access to independent documentaries. This is the first call to action. Here’s what I’m asking you to do right now:

1) Please view the B4MD trailer on www.myspace.com/beforethemusicdies or www.beforethemusicdies.com. Even if you’ve already seen it, I think it will re-energize you for action as it does me every time I watch it.

2) Please send an e-mail to your friends… asking them to visit www.beforethemusicdies.com, view the trailer, and sign up for this mailing list.

3) If you are a MySpace member, please send a bulletin to your friend network… asking your friends to view the trailer, add B4MD as a MySpace friend, and sign up for the mailing list.

Any help you can provide would be so appreciated. Many of you have waited for months for details on the film’s theatrical release. Now is the time. I’ll continue to keep you posted with updates on our plans for the fall, and other exciting ways to get involved in this movement.

Take care in the meantime,
Steve

Steve Waters
VP Marketing
Bside Entertainment

Over the past weekend, there’s been a fair amount of discussion among many of the people associated with Before The Music Dies about radio. At times, it’s been a difficult discussion. An Austin DJ who’s been very supportive of the film was genuinely offended by the tone of a recent post about Clear Channel. His concerns made us think once again about the point of view of all the people working within the music industry who are truly dedicated to the future of music. It’s upsetting to think of anyone feeling that this site does not respect the people whose daily work is to share music with all of us. That was never the intention of any post and will never be. We’re sorry to have made that impression.

Anybody who listens to the radio knows that there is nothing like a great DJ. Period. It doesn’t matter what format, what time of day, what city. When a DJ connects with listeners, you can hear it. People call in. Songs get played. News gets passed. It feels alive, listening to a DJ talk about the things going on. It makes you want to go. It makes everybody want to go. That is the power of radio and of music itself - the power to bring people together, even when they’re sitting alone in their cars.

But we are currently in a time when it feels like too many radio stations play too few songs. Not all stations, not all the time, but lots. Before The Music Dies explores the changes in radio ownership and recording technology that trouble many devoted music lovers. And because it’s such a dramatic story, it can be difficult not to get caught up in those changes and the power of the major players.

Radio is an incredible thing. It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without it, before it. What’s so difficult to understand is the idea that some of the people who have the most control over the future of radio don’t seem to love it. They don’t seem to do it for the love of it.

Here is a prime example…the Clear Channel Creed. Available for viewing here, this 30-year old manifesto “remains the guiding light for our employees.” It speaks of “prudent risk-taking” and helping “customers grow their businesses” with “superior value” and “fairly-priced services”. It boldly trumpets Clear Channel’s belief in their “customer’s satisfaction” and in creating “long term, mutually beneficial relationships”. One word that doesn’t appear anywhere in this statement of Clear Channel’s core values? Music. What else is missing? Listener….audience….artists….you get the picture.

To those of us who love radio, this perspective seems impossible. We can only imagine how it might feel to love radio, work in radio, and find that many of people on top don’t value it for what it can do, only for what it can earn. This is why we celebrate the prospect of any Clear Channel radio properties changing into the hands of someone….anyone….else. We don’t think that radio is a bad business…and certainly don’t want radio stations to fail. We believe that radio stations run by people that celebrate great music can and will and do thrive, and that Clear Channel’s desire to offload some stations reflects the voice of an increasingly dissatisfied nation of their listeners.

Finally, let’s be very clear: when those DJs still pour their hearts and souls into their work, connecting us through songs and stories, making our towns more alive just because they’re out there, well, we owe them a debt of thanks.

Normally, we like to use this blog to keep you posted on Before The Music Dies or musicians who are associated with the film (new albums out from Calexico and The Roots–don’t forget Elvis Costello’s project with Alan Toussaint). But occasionally, something in music news deserves attention. Today is one of those days.

First off, let’s recap last week, which brought us Zune, Universal Music’s chief Doug Morris unleashing the dogs of war on MySpace and YouTube, and Idolator, the new music industry blog from the snarky folks at Gawker Media. In other words, Microsoft has entered the building, Universal is threatening to push the Napster Button, and music industry buzz has become hip enough to garner the attention of the Bloggerazzi. It was a busy week.

Lots of people spent the weekend contemplating the song-sharing feature on Zune that’s supposedly its killer app. The question on the techies’ minds is exactly how does Zune police your computer to keep it from playing that shared song a fourth time. The question on the advocates’ minds is how to protest software that keeps you from being able to share music. Hypebot is keeping a close eye on this situation, including a the call for a day of protest on October 3 by the lobby group Defective By Design.

Before The Music Dies is not only a film about music–it’s a film about the control of music. Control of what you can hear, where you can hear it, and how musicians are compensated. The hope is that new channels are developing that will allow all kinds of music to be widely available and that will allow musicians to profit from their own work. What’s happening right now is much like the awakening of sleeping giants in fairy tales. How these huge companies try to wrest control of the latest new technologies that have returned so much power to the little guy is the next chapter in the story. Stay tuned

We’ll admit it: Clear Channel is an easy target. It’s not hard to get people to agree that one company owning 1,200 radio stations across the country doesn’t seem like a good thing. When audiences first hear the name “Clear Channel” during Before The Music Dies, you’re pretty much guaranteed a very audible hiss. Frankly, Clear Channel doesn’t seem to have a lot of vocal defenders who don’t work for Clear Channel. (And in B4MD, the person who works for Clear Channel is anything but a vocal defender.)

But we must say that it’s pretty great to wake up to The New York Times publishing an article on its front business page that reports Clear Channel is actually considering selling off some of its stations.

While it’s not a “Ding dong the Witch is dead” moment, you can’t help but wonder what the future of radio will be. The Times mentions things that those of us who are already committed to fighting the corporate take-over of music by the colossal record companies and our friends at Clear Channel already know:

Satellite radio is on the rise (a 50-year-old surgeon says he wishes he could get XM in the operating room!),

Streaming audio has arrived.(Not really news, is it?),

Lots of people like to listen to music without being interrupted by babbling, insipid DJs (the DJ-less Jack format is hot).

However, there are a couple things deep in the article that deserve notice:

Here’s how things are going at CBS Radio (formerly Infinity Broadcasting, Howard Stern’s infamous Goliath and perhaps satellite radio’s greatest promotional partner so far):

In the first six months of the year, the operating income of CBS’s radio business fell 17 percent. Joel Hollander, chief executive of CBS Radio, said in an interview that althought the business was not growing as it once was, it generated a lot of cash for the CBS Corporation and and required relatively little capital investment.
“This is still a fabulous business,” he said.

This is still a fabulous business? OK, how many businesses have an income drop of 17 percent and declare that they are still fabulous businesses? Because they generate a lot of cash for their parent corporation, it doesn’t matter that their income, which comes from advertisers (who are the ones who track radio’s success in reaching audiences most closely, by the way) is way down. Talk about not being in the business of music–seems like they’re barely in the business of radio.

Amid such uncertainty, it is little wonder that the sessions at next week’s National Association of Broadcasters radio convention in Dallas advertise things like: “Learn to steal money from your local newspaper” and “Harnessing the power of blogging.”

Do those sessions sound like the people going to Dallas next week really think they’re in a fabulous business?

More on the future of radio next week. Stay tuned.

Three million bands.

Three million bands.

That’s a lot of bands.

According to last week’s announcement of MySpace’s plan to sell music on MySpace, there are three million bands on MySpace. Clearly, the focus of all the articles and posts that spread the word
instantaneously last Friday (just in time to make that three day weekend all the better–wow, the future of music just got a little brighter) was on the MySpace music store as an alternative to iTunes.But there were some serious numbers tucked in the story, to balance out the Goliath v. Goliath quality of the story. Here’s some food for thought from the Reuters wire story on CNN:

EMI, Vivendi’s (Charts) Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group (Charts) and Sony BMG own around 75 percent of mainstream popular music. Most of this music is only available on MySpace for live streaming as a promotional tool.

You already knew that, no doubt. But it explains just about everything.

And there’s this:

Digital music is the fastest-growing sector of the record industry but the market is dominated by iTunes, which has more than 70 percent of U.S. sales, according to NPD Research. iTunes is only fully compatible with the iPod.

OK, who doesn’t love their iPod? Who doesn’t love being able to buy songs or albums off iTunes? But who wouldn’t love be able to buy their friend’s brother’s girlfriend’s band’s EP that they’re out on the road promoting as easily as sending a Friend Request? Who wouldn’t want to buy the impossible-to-find import their buddy played last night if it was just a click away from his Top Eight? Who doesn’t want any band to easily sell its music online not just the 75% Club? (And that’s assuming the members of the 75% Club are being fairly compensated, which is assuming a lot.)

There are tens of thousands of talented musicians in the 75% Club who deserve every good thing that comes their way. They give us music that we love and we thank them for it. We buy their CDs, go to their shows, and make them a part of our lives. But doesn’t it seem like we should be able to treat the musicians in the 3 million bands ( oh right, the 2.99 million) with equal respect? Shouldn’t their music come out of the hinterlands of the net and take up shelf space on the most popular site in the world?

So, let’s hear it for the opening of the world’s biggest record story. And let’s not overlook the fact that Shawn Fanning, Mr. Napster himself, is behind SnoCap,the technology that MySpace’ll be using. There’s something weirdly beautiful going on here. No, we can’t really say the little guy has won, because nobody in their right mind would call MySpace a little guy. But the outlaw’s gone legit and he’s bringing a few bands along with him. All 2.99 million of them.

September. We’ve been waiting for it and now it’s here. September.

It’s not like August wasn’t great for Before The Music Dies–it was. New York premiere (if you haven’t seen the pictures, check them out), European premiere, lots of people hearing about the film, offering to help get it and its message out there. But we can’t say we’re sorry to see August go. First of all, it was too damn hot. (Remember, we’re in Austin, so when we say it was hot, it was HOT.) Second, we spent the last month working on a plan. Now that September’s here, we’re ready to roll.

To start things off, we’ve got screenings at the Tucson Film Festival on Monday and at Burning Man whenever-the-hell-they-feel-like-it. Joel Rasmussen’s in Tucson and Andrew Shapter’s roughing it with the mad artists in the desert. Maybe September’s just a continuation of Before The Music Dies’ steamy summer, with Arizona and Nevada substituting for Scotland and New York.

Once the month gets going, though, we’re going to be shifting gears. We’ve got some pretty big things planned. We want to tell you everything, but it’s still a little too early. We’re waiting for a few more people to say yes, a few more things to fall into place. But it is happening. We can tell you, this fall, it’ll be happening all over the place. You won’t have to buy a ticket to Texas. (But you might want to…)

Maybe this is too cryptic. Maybe it’s unfair to say, “Please believe us–it’s gonna be great.” But we’d be lying if we didn’t say big things are coming. We want you to know we’re working hard to make them happen soon. We’re asking you to trust us.

Erykah Badu says some amazing things in Before The Music Dies. Some of them are hilarious; some are almost too true to bear. But one thing sticks with everyone who sees the film: “Make sure that when you’re saying something, you’re really saying something.” Make sure that when you’re saying something, you’re really saying something. Think about that. How many things did you hear today that meant nothing? How many things were said just to make you feel good or want something or do something? How many things did you say just to say something, not because you had something to say?

So, following the example of Ms. Badu, we’re saying something when we have something to say:

We’re excited. This fall is gonna be great. We promise to let you know what’s happening with Before The Music Dies as soon as we can. Stay tuned. Thanks.