The Official Funky Management Blog Based in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, we are an artist management and representation company dedicated to discovering, developing and delivering exceptional talent to the world.
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This week, Twitter officially announced that it will be launching a brand-new design for their profiles. Well, brand-new is a stretch. As you can see from the examples below, the new Twitter design looks an awful lot like some other social networks. The good news is, you can repurpose content – like your big, beautiful cover photos from your Facebook and ReverbNation profiles – on your freshly designed Twitter profile.
Some of the updates include:
A larger profile photo (max size 700k)
A large cover photo (max size 1500 px wide)
Best Tweets: Tweets with more engagement will appear larger
Pinned Tweet: You can now pin one of your tweets to the top of your page (Like Facebook’s ‘Pin-to-top’ Feature we covered in this post)
Filtered Tweets: You can choose which timeline to view when checking out other profiles. Select from these options: Tweets, Tweets with photos/videos, or Tweets and replies
You can read more of the details on Twitter's blog, and check out a first-look at the new design from Mashable. Ultimately, the new design provides more opportunities for your fans to get a feel of you visually, possibly before they ever hear your music. Make sure you have great-looking high resolution photos or artwork on your pages to make a great first impression.
The new features, like best tweets and filtered tweets, can also be used to save you time when looking through your feed and engaging with fans. If you’re a DIY or Indie artist who handles all of your own social media and marketing efforts, be sure to check out these features to figure out how to make them work for you.
Another great way to use the pinned tweet feature, is to pin your most important tweets to the top of the page. It could be details about your latest album release, an upcoming show you’re playing or anything else you need your fans to know. That way you can continue to post real-time updates without worrying about your most important news getting lost in feeds.
Walmart, the largest retailer of CDs in the United States, plans to downsize the amount of space it devotes to discs by 40 percent and could reduce selection proportionately, say label sources. The company hopes to offset the potential sales loss by prominently displaying hit titles at the front of the entertainment department.
This strategy reflects a reversal of the chain’s approach to selling music. Previously, Walmart, which Billboard estimates sold $600 million worth of CDs in 2013, relied on an assortment of hot titles, new releases from established artists, Latin music, and rock, R&B and country catalog albums to satisfy its customers.
With the 40 percent cutback scheduled to take place in May and June, developing artists, already scarcely represented by the chain, will have a harder time getting carried, and a senior label executive says that even new releases might not make the cut “if your title does not have the strength to place [at the front of an aisle]. You might need a radio hit.”
“Walmart’s message is, ‘Our customer wants new hits, recent hits and catalog at lower prices, $5 or $7,’” says another. (Walmart was unavailable to comment.)
If CD selection declines as much as the space, label sources estimate that Walmart’s average inventory will drop from around 3,500 titles to about 2,100. The chain will compensate by unveiling the new displays, now in 2,400 stores, in all 3,600 that sell CDs. Billboard estimates Walmart’s U.S. market share for recorded music at 9 percent to 10 percent, making it the second-largest music account by dollar volume in the country. (iTunes, at an estimated 42 percent, is first.)
“It sounds like Walmart is going to become more like Target,” says one label president. Target stores carry the smallest CD selection of any big-box chain -- 1,000 to 1,500 titles -- with a concentration on hits.
"Fuck KD"
Taken by Cavi
A photograph of Nigel Frank & Why Fi; chanting the motto, avoiding the curse, and protecting the B.
In what is being viewed as a defeat for songwriters, the ASCAP/Pandora rate court judge has decided that Pandora will pay the performance rights organization a rate of 1.85% of annual revenue.
"This rate is a clear defeat for songwriters," Sony/ATV Music CEO Martin Bandier says. "This rate is woefully inadequate and further emphasizes the need for reform in the rate court proceedings. Songwriters can't live in a world where streaming services only pay 1.85% of their revenue. This is a loss, and not something we can live with."
The PROs and the large music publishers have reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice asking them to review the consent decrees that ASCAP and BMI operate under. For the last 18 months, the large publishers have been trying to withdraw just their digital rights from the PROs but the courts have ruled against the publishers, saying that they are either "all in or all out."
When the rate case was being heard, Pandora argued that the rate should be in the range of 1.7% on the low-end and 1.85% on the high end, while ASCAP's lawyers made the case that the rate should be 1.85% for the first two years; 2.5% for 2013 and 3% in 2014 and 2015.
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A History of Recorded Music in 90 Seconds
D.C. rapper SmCity used to curate the Indie Life concert series at U Street Music Hall, which allowed local rappers to open for nationally established MCs. These days, he and Allia (formerly known as Harmony Muzik) curate yearly Indie Life showcases at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. This year's showcase, held at Austin's Bat Bar, will be the third for Sm and Allia. "The goal was to get [the series] to the point where it would go nationally, to take DMV artists to a national platform," Sm tells Arts Desk. "This year, we wanna shine light on some artists who need that push."
In years past, prominent DMV rappers Lyriciss, XO, and Pro'Verb have performed at the SXSW showcase. This year, up-and-comers like Fly Rebel Society, Darren Hanible, and Cane will perform with headliners Twista, Freeway, Problem, and Boldy James, among many others. Allia says there are other national rappers who might perform, but they haven't been confirmed yet.
If nothing else, the organizers hope this year's Indie Life showcase will trump last year's, which saw 5,000 to 10,000 people attend during its seven hours, according to Sm and Allia's estimates. "It was a massive thing," Sm tells Arts Desk. "We hoped for that," Allia continues, "but we didn't expect that much of a turnout." This year's showcase has received almost 2,000 RSVPs already, Allia says.
So how do the organizers secure the headlining talent? "Everybody wants to support the underdog," Sm says. "The conversation goes differently than if Sprite was sponsoring it. The music industry has become more and more independent. People wanna see who's next."
Compton, USA
A few weeks ago, our good friend Wes Davenport put us on to a new service called ‘Coversion In a Box‘, which is a simple email-for-media form creator aimed at helping musicians to easily create a newsletter sign up form for their website that offers a download in exchange for an email address.
While most email services offer some sort of opt-in form, and many do also include an e-for-m option, it’s not always the easiest thing to set up / customize. For instance, Mail Chimp offers a great newsletter service but won’t allow you to upload a song directly to their server so if you are going to offer a song download in exchange for an email address, you’ll have to find somewhere else to actually host that song.
Conversion In a Box on the other hand will host your files, allow you to set up a highly customizable sign-up form in mere minutes that can be embedded to any website with ease. And for those of you who already have a newsletter set up through another service, the email addresses you collect here can be easily exported in .csv format and imported back into your newsletter service.
There is no doubt that Conversion In a Box serves a great purpose for all of you musicians going down the D.I.Y road so we asked founder Mark LaFay discuss the inspiration and genesis of his new platform below…
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As it ages, the 2014 DC Jazz Festival is getting shorter: This year, it will run for six days from June 24 to June 29, down from nine days in 2013 and 10 the year before. But it's making the most of the tighter timeframe, according to the lineup the festival announced today.
Last year's one-night showcase (which featured The Roots) is expanding to three nights this time, and it will feature local favorites Akua Allrich and Frederic Yonnet along with Trombone Shorty, Yasiin Bey, and the jazz world's hottest vocalist, Gregory Porter. The showcase will take place on the Capital Riverfront, a few blocks east of its former venue at Kastles Stadium.
Festival hub The Hamilton plans to host events every night of the fest, including performances by festival newcomers Snarky Puppy, Irma Thomas, and the Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban Experience, along with mainstays Roy Hargrove and The Brass-A-Holics. (Another mainstay, pianist Cyrus Chestnut, will be performing at Sixth and I Synagogue.)
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What is power? At its base, it’s the ability to reshape the world around you according to your vision. And who in the music industry did so with more verve than the two people leading this year's Power 100? But they weren't the only ones exerting a powerful influence on the music business, and popular culture at large. Take our top five: the head of the largest music company in the world; a man who shunned the spotlight while quietly building a diversified music empire; the leader of the most powerful live entertainment company that has ever existed; and another who runs the largest music catalog. The 2014 Power 100 list is filled with similar forces from across the industry which, if you're lucky enough to work in, offer us inspiration, guidance and shining examples of how to get things done.
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From 1991 to 2013, local bands called booking manager Lisa White when they wanted a show at 9:30 Club—and when they were pissed about not getting one. Working with primary booker and club co-owner Seth Hurwitz, White booked a lot of the bands that opened for big acts at the venue. She had the right background for it: She'd spent part of the 1980s as a freelance booker in town, putting bands in tiny clubs like dc space and BBQ Iguana. Small was her specialty.
White started booking the 9:30 Club when it was still a "wonderful rat-infested hellhole," as she puts it, on F Street NW, and she stayed on when the venue moved to its much roomier space on V Street NW in 1996. As 9:30 Club owner I.M.P. broadened its reach across the region, White put bands in other rooms that the company became involved in, like Republic Gardens, Fletcher's in Baltimore, and U Street Music Hall.
White left 9:30 Club last year after what she calls her last hurrah—the Funk-Ounk Throwback Jam in February. By that point, she'd already been living part-time in Austin for several years, and she badly needed a break from work. After she took as much time off as she could afford, White jumped right back into booking, but on a smaller scale. Now she finds bands for Gypsy Sally's, the small and still-new Americana venue in Georgetown.
White recently spoke to Washington City Paper about her new gig, the difficulties of booking small local bands at 9:30 Club, and why she'd never work for a massive entity like Live Nation.
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Those planning to wait a little bit longer before purchasing tickets to Coachella this year will have to rely on acquiring tickets through different means.
The California music festival has already sold out -- and in record time. The tweet from the festival's Twitter account has the words "Thank You" and a link to a picture of the festival with the words "COACHELLA 2014 SOLD OUT THANK YOU" (see tweet below).
According to Consequence of Sound Coachella ran out of general tickets in 2 hours and 37 minutes, toppling the previous record of 2 hours and 57 minutes set in 2012.
The tickets went on sale today (Jan. 10) at 10 a.m. PT, meaning no more passes were available by a little after 12:30.
Last year's festival, which included headliners Phoenix, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Blur, sold out in 21 hours. Promoted by Goldenvoice/AEG Live, last year's fest won Top Festival honors at Billboard's Touring Awards grossing more than $67 million dollars over six sold-out nights.
For 2014, Coachella brought in Muse and Arcade Fire, as well as the newly-reunited Outkast, as headliners.
Coachella 2014 will be held over two weekends -- April 11-13 and 18-20 -- in Indio, Calif.
