
I’m Andrew Dubber (just ‘Dubber’ to most people).
I’m the Director of MTF Labs, Steering Board Member of the Industry Commons Foundation, and founder of this website, New Music Strategies.
I’m an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I’m also a broadcaster, filmmaker, public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I’ve been an advisor and consultant to many music organisations, foundations, labels and startups, and I was on the Board of Advisors for Bandcamp from it’s earliest days. I’m closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them.
I started New Music Strategies way back in 2005 as a blog about independent music business online, and over time it developed into a pan-European digital music and media consultancy group that worked on several major international projects about music participation, music as a tool for social change and independent music culture online.
These days, New Music Strategies has a wider remit and intends to focus on innovation in music more generally, particularly at a time when new technologies are changing the rules for everyone at an exponential rate.
I’ve been a keynote speaker at music industry events worldwide; my blogs and podcasts have, from time to time, reached audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands; and – before it became a toxic hellsite, I regularly posted to an audience of over 10,000 people on Twitter about all sorts of things – including music industry innovation, popular music culture and digital media.
Before taking on the role as Director of Music Tech Fest (which later became MTF Labs), I was Professor of Music Industry Innovation at Birmingham City University. I’ve published fairly extensively in journals and academic books, I’m frequently cited and I spent around 17 years lecturing and researching at universities around the world. That said, my background is primarily as a practitioner in the media industries as a radio producer and presenter, label owner and record producer.
I live in and work from an old farmhouse in a forest, by a lake in a small seaside village in the north of Sweden – where the air is clean and the internet is incredibly fast and abundant.
New Music Strategies is where I tend to stay mostly on topic. If you’re interested in reading something where I absolutely don’t do that, that would be my personal blog.