The best possible use of the next 20 minutes of your life? Watch this.

Long overdue… but better late than never. Looking to fill your brain with helpful stuff about music online? Go read this man’s book.

David Jennings, rightly happy with his efforts

I met David Jennings at the Music Tank event on Monday night. It was the first time we’d been in the same room together, to my knowledge, but it gave me a bit of a guilty start.

He sent me his book a couple of months back (a few even?) and although I read it, enjoyed it and found it genuinely worthwhile, I am still yet to write anything about it by way of recommendation.

So… let’s fix that. The book’s called Net, Blogs and Rock & Roll — and it looks at the online music world from the perspective of the net-savvy consumer.

[Read more]

One of the highlights of my New York trip was to meet and spend time with legendary jazz pianist DD Jackson. You can eavesdrop.

While in New York, I was interviewed by jazz pianist / composer D.D. Jackson (pictured right) for his Living Jazz podcast. I was losing my voice at the time — and man, I talk fast (!) — but there might be something of interest in there for you.

We talked about everything from Creative Commons and music copyright, Radiohead and Prince, Gerd Leonard’s “Music Like Water” idea, D.D.’s own Artistshare website — through to strategies for selling digital vs. physical content, plus building fan relationships and more.

Listen or subscribe to the podcast here.

Radiohead may be pushing the boat out on retail music, but Moby lays out the new territory when it comes to synch.

One of the best ways to make money from music, if you hadn’t figured it out yet, is to get your tunes attached to moving pictures — be they television commercials, movie sound tracks or a few seconds in the background in a cafe scene on East Enders or CSI.

But these days — perhaps even more than the increase in the amount of music that’s become available — there’s an absolute explosion of independent video, animation and film makers, in part thanks to the likes of YouTube, Atom Films and Spike/iFilm.

It makes a lot of sense to hook up with these independent film makers. After all, not all of them will be low- or no-budget forever. It’s also a great way to get a music clip made on the cheap, just quietly. But we’re not the only ones that have noticed that explosion in the visual media, and Moby has made an interesting offer on his website.

[Read more]