8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

SoundCloud Losing Money Fast As Record Labels Apply Licensing Pressure

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More SoundCloud pain.

Tech Times:

Digital Music News has reported that SoundCloud is hemorrhaging cash so quickly that it might actually run out before the end of the year, unless it can convince a bank or other investment group to hand out more dough until it can figure out a way to monetize its business model. This is despite a recent report valuing the company at $700 million dollars.



One reason SoundCloud is burning through money so quickly is the huge legal expenses the company is incurring. Record labels are growing impatient with talks intended to legitimize the service through licensing deals, with most labels currently uncompensated for the content streamed on SoundCloud. The record labels are threatening to sue the company if talks don’t progress faster.



I always tell labels / musicians that there’s a danger in making a site that’s outside of your control the main aspect of your promotional strategy (i.e. Facebook, etc). But SoundCloud has been such a useful one, especially as an embeddable platform for our own sites. I’ll be in some trouble just like the rest of you if SC goes under, or if they limit streams for non-paying listeners or start to include audio ads in my content … there will be a heavy load of site embeds to replace. It might be a good idea for us all to start thinking about and preparing for this now.

A SoundCloud Subscription Service Is Officially On The Way

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Complex:

Over a month after a leaked contract broke the news of SoundCloud’s plans to implement a paid subscription service the company’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Eric Wahlforss has confirmed the move. While Wahlforss didn’t confirm or deny the details featured in the June leak, the contract that popped up online last month outlined a three-tier subscription service consisting of a free option and two premium offerings. The free option will allegedly give users access to a limited catalog with advertisements included while the cheapest paid service offers a larger catalog and an ad-free experience. The most expensive option would allow users unlimited and ad-free access to SoundCloud’s entire catalog.



SoundCloud’s paid services applied solely to musicians / labels up to this point, with potential listeners being the reason to deposit the yearly fee. It will be interesting, and probably frustrating, to see how SoundCloud will juggle its usefulness to professional users with an apparent new emphasis on listener generated revenue. Many labels and artists — including those in the ‘majors’ — are reliant on SoundCloud for promotion and embeds on their sites. If this forced compromise cripples its effectiveness for promotion then there will be a bit of scrambling from labels of any stature.

Forget ‘Inbox Zero’: Your Empty Email Account Means Nothing

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The Next Web:

The real point of Inbox Zero was to move you away from “living in your inbox.” (Merlin) Mann said the zero was about “the amount of time an employee’s brain is in [his/her] inbox.” The key to his thinking was that you shouldn’t indulge your inbox as if it were a demanding toddler, allowing it to cry for your attention constantly.



Merlin’s video talk embedded in this article did really change the way I thought about my work (not just my email) when I first saw it many years ago. A recommended watch / listen if by chance you haven’t run across it previously.

Everyone’s Getting The Music Streaming Business Wrong

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Marketplace:

(A) new report from the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship says these (streaming royalty) squabbles miss the point. In fact, there are a bunch of other players, complex accounting and backroom deals that stand between the royalties services pay out and the artists’ paychecks.



Here’s the rub: those royalties are passed down a line of rights groups, publishers or third-party distributors before they make it to the label and then the artist. These players are supposed to divvy up the royalties companies like Spotify are paying out, which is complicated; the composition and recording are usually two separate copyrights, or there might be several co-writers or publishers. All the agreements dictating those payments are secret, and researchers found that royalty statements were difficult to parse.


As the music landscape converts to streaming, the advantages of the self-released artist become even more apparent. May you live in interesting times, indeed.

Flying Nun: The Untold Story Of A Trailblazing Indie Label

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The Vinyl Factory:

Flying Nun, based in Christchurch on the south island, turned out to be New Zealand’s Rough Trade, Mute, Factory, 4AD, Creation and Postcard labels all rolled into one, without any label competition. Its range embraced exquisite psych-pop, cantankerous quasi-goth, warped folk, experimental synth warfare – and such consistent quality, and this from a population of less than four million.



In its own quite, stealthy fashion, Flying Nun’s influence – especially in the US – has spread outward, and not just on bands like Pavement, but on indie labels such as Sub-Pop. And like the south island’s famous Jurassic reptile, the Tuatara, Flying Nun lives on today, having survived the growing pains that afflict every independent label trying to retain its autonomy in a changing marketplace, and even losing its founder, Roger Shepherd, not once but twice.


There was a point in my life (early ’90s) when this label’s output had me dreaming of running off to New Zealand. I did end up visiting a couple times and the place didn’t disappoint. By coincidence, I ran into an ex-manager at Flying Nun my first time there in the very early ’00s … he was astonished at this American fan’s knowledge of the label and its bands, and I was a little freaked out by how surprised he was.

It’s a bit of an obvious choice to those who also know of Flying Nun, but my favorite song from their catalog is — hands down — “Pink Frost”:

Meet the Man Who Flies Around the World for Free

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Rolling Stone:

Schlappig, 25, is one of the biggest stars among an elite group of obsessive flyers whose mission is to outwit the airlines. They’re self-styled competitors with a singular objective: fly for free, as much as they can, without getting caught. In the past 20 years, the Internet has drawn together this strange band of savants with an odd mix of skills: the digital talent of a code writer, a lawyer’s love affair with fine print, and a passion for airline bureaucracy. It’s a whirring hive mind of IT whizzes, stats majors, aviation nerds and everyone else you knew who skipped the prom.



For more than 30 years, the commercial airline industry has been mulling how to solve a problem like the Hobby (what the art of travel hacking is known by in this world). This past winter, however, the airlines seemed to have unveiled a new strategy. Following the example of the music industry in the early 2000s, they have taken to suing small fry in the interest of making an example.

That’s one way to do it. Here’s another, via Atlas Obscura:

Like stowaways on ships, trains, and planes, people have attempted (and sometimes succeeded!) in mailing themselves as recently as just a few years ago. It’s not easy, nor legal, nor permitted by any major shipping company, but that hasn’t stopped a very special group of people from trying.



Whether to escape slavery or merely the cost of a plane ticket, people have been trying for over a century and a half to package themselves like so many rolls of toilet paper from Amazon.

Scott Hardkiss: A Creative Life

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Scott Hardkiss: A Creative Life

Scott Hardkiss and I had an unexpected, and unwelcome, connection over the past few years. When he first complained to me about his eyes and how his vision was getting fuzzier I shocked him by responding, “It’s not keratoconus, is it?”

I had been having my own battle with this degenerative eye disease starting the year before this conversation, even losing my driver’s license as I couldn’t pass the eye test for my renewal. So, Scott and I had this really odd thing in common and spoke a lot about keratoconus and what we were doing to deal with it. I decided on a combination of special contact lenses and my usual glasses, worn together to give me passable day-to-day eyesight. Scott took the gutsier route; he opted for a corneal transplant in the most affected eye, something I couldn’t even contemplate. But Scott was gutsy in many ways and, unfortunately, this time it didn’t pay off. The transplant wasn’t successful and he struggled with this for the past couple of years. As a result, Scott had to wear an eye-patch for which he received no end of ribbing … I did my part by remarking that it made him look like a Bond villain. As awful as the situation was, I’m sure there was a part of Scott that sort of liked the eye-patch. It added to his artist mystique and charismatic aura that I know was so important to him. Scott aimed to live, and project, the creative life.

I remember when I first spoke to Scott. I had previously met Gavin and Robbie when they played a rave in Orlando around 1995. They visited my record shop and I handed them a tape of early Q-BAM productions. Scott wasn’t with them and seemed sort of an enigma. Soon after I was constantly in touch with Hardkiss office poobah Niven, putting together a three-song EP for their new off-shoot label Sunburn.

Maybe three days had passed after I sent “Toast,” the third song, to San Francisco when the phone rang in my record store. On the line, in his inimitable way of speaking, came, “Hi, Michael. This is Scott Hardkiss.” He wanted to talk about “Toast,” how it had moved him, and that he was excited to release it on Sunburn. He had some suggestions, such as trading the electric guitar for an acoustic, which I balked at (I didn’t have an acoustic guitar, for one thing) but he didn’t seem to mind. I still remember this sort of hippie-ish thing he said to me then which really meant a lot to this producer who was just starting out, unsure of his craft. I hear it in my head exactly as he said it, and those who knew Scott probably will hear it exactly the same way when they read it. Scott said to me, “This isn’t a song … it’s a living being.”

After many visits to San Francisco (it almost seemed like I was living there for a while) I acquired a west coast family that Scott was a big part of. We kept in touch after his move to New York and I’d see him when I was up there for gigs or biz. Oddly, though, I don’t think it was until after our first keratoconus conversation that we started actually working together musically. First, I remixed his track “Beat Freak” off his ambitious Technicolor Dreamer album … it’s actually one of my favorite remixes I’ve done, and Scott made me feel good by praising it almost every time we spoke thereafter.

He told me his affection for my remix inspired him to be extra-aspiring for our next collaboration, his incredible remix of my track “Balearic Chainsaw.” Now, my original is kind of simple, admittedly done as an afterthought in the recording session for a different song, but DJs responded well to it and it grew on me. I decided to put together a proper single for it and who better to remix a song with “Balearic” in the title than Scott, right? So, Scott, who is quite gutsy, as you may recall from a previous paragraph, took this simple song and turned it into a swirling and epic nine-minute masterpiece. This endeavor sums up Scott Hardkiss to me perfectly … I would have been happy with a standard remix that expanded on my original and made some feet move in the process. But Scott, being Scott, enlists in-demand session vocalist Stevvi Alexander to add a whole new vocal track. And then, if that weren’t enough, phones up DJ Afro from Los Amigos Invisibles to add a live flamenco guitar track. On a remix. That was Scott: gutsy, ambitious, and living the creative life.

Several years ago I was thumbing through a music magazine and skimmed over an interview with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. He was asked the question, “What is your ultimate goal?” I’ll never forget Moore’s answer as it really struck me and gave me something to strive for. He said, “To live a creative life.” Today I realize that’s what Scott Hardkiss did, and it’s what he showed to others, including myself. His inspiration will live on, and I’m actually feeling inspired right now just thinking about him. Goodbye and hello, Scott. Yes.

(This post originally appeared on my Q-Burns Abstract Message blog.)