Lemondrop is my new Perch

Who doesn’t have friends starting businesses nowadays? That almost completely invalidates what I’m about to tell you but I am going to tell you anyways.

My friend Kevin started a record label called Lemondrop Records. As the music industry is aching through a wicked growth-spurt right now record labels are hurting the most. Kevin decided to take a different route. Lemondrop has “emerged from the capitalistic rubble as an all-art-inclusive non-profit organization” whose mission is to nurture local creative culture by promoting artists, enabling their art, and facilitating compensation for their work.

I think it is brilliant.

Lemondrop provides access to equipment, funding, and assistance in producing their creative work in an industry where that kind of thing costs your next three records and all of their earnings. They will help create a community around your work through traditional marketing and by embracing the “pay what you want” pricing model. Believe it or not, consumers are loyal – look at Radiohead‘s In Rainbows.

Kevin keeps a blog about new music, movies and art called The Pelicans Perch. I have been following this blog for years to get all of my tips on emerging culture and its gems. In fact, most of my iTunes library is comprised of Kevin’s recommendations.

The point of this post is threefold:

1. My friend Kevin has created a new model for record labels — one that might just work.
2. The music industry is siding with the artist (finally).
3. Follow Kevin’s blog for your own good.

Your story:

Everywhere I look I see another story of someone keeping music afloat and sinking the big industry ships. These are exciting times and I want to hear more. Tell me about how you or your friends are working for the cause of art. Comment below.

We are cattle

Today I sat in on tour rehearsals for a few of Christian Music’s biggest contributors. I was there for work. It was actually very fun. The details that go into a large production show are unbelievable. Every single move is scripted to perfection and every sound is exactly like the record. It is without a doubt, a product.

So, here I sit on a couch drinking coffee and marketing this tour online so people will come see this show that is being put together before my eyes. Ticket counts are emailed in to me every wednesday for every show on the entire tour and I see the direct affects of my own personal marketing efforts. I feel like I am herding cattle into a pen where a well lit and produced christian rock show is about to happen.

Out in the hall to grab a cup of coffee and I bump into MuteMath who was rehearsing in the room next-door. I have to say I love my job. I haven’t decided if I am doing something manipulative yet by this act of herding, but until then I will keep enjoying it.

You missed.

For some reason I seem to always find myself seeking out the things that are not working for my attention. I am constantly listening to music without a marketing budget, and eating food without packaging. I am being bombarded with advertisements and subconscious sales pitches all day and end up consuming what is not set in front of me. I saw Nathan Lee <http://www.myspace.com/nathanleemusic> at 12th and Porter last night and must say it was one of the best shows I have ever been to. I personally know Nathan and he doesn’t have any money. He doesn’t have a budget of any sort, or a big machine of a company behind him to get the word out about his music. He is just Nathan Lee and he plays amazing music.

I see that in many of my friends too. I know a lot of people who are tired of being sold to. Now people are hungry for what is not fed to them. Now there is something flashy about the unpolished things in the dark corners of culture. Now the cool thing is the un-popular thing. I see the billions of dollars in marketing money aimed at me and my friends as I stand in a seedy music venue drinking free beer and watching a broke Nathan Lee play his heart out and look those dollars in the eye and say “you missed”.

I am the target market.

Well, here goes my first attempt at blogging. I plan on keeping it quiet for a minute until I get comfortable with it and know that I am going to stick to it. My aim for this blog is for it to be a key demographics response to the world around him. I want this to be an unabashed reply to what is happening in global, national, and local culture. In no way am I qualified to be writing on these topics so read at your own risk.. but hell.. its just a blog.

I am a 23 year old working hard to make something of himself in the music industry and in his local community. I like music, movies, food, and in one way or another am being targeted by a suit in a skyscraper with marketing prowess who wants my pennies – just like everyone else. I live in Nashville and use whatever energy I can muster to understand and love the people of this city. I attend a very unique church located downtown where people really love one-another. And I am hoping that somehow all of these things can mean something together; that everything falls under some divine order and has meaning and purpose in the end. Until then, we will keep listening to music, watching movies, eating food and surviving the blitzkrieg expensive marketing campaigns that have us in their crosshairs.

Well there it is. I hope I can stick with this and keep it up. Until next time..