New Jersey Reopens!

What's up, everybody? How you doing? I'm Sweet Deat, and I'm so glad you found my blog.

So for all of you wondering, when the world are we gonna get back to large scale concerts, I have a little bit of news for you today, New Jersey's Governor Phil Murphy just announced that for 5,000 and up seated venues, he's going to start allowing 15% capacity starting on March 1st.

I'm so excited because now we can sit 500 people in a 5,000 seat venue. No one's still making money, but I suppose progress is progress and we should maybe look at the bright side that people are at least considering opening up these type of rooms for actual entertainment again, I've been saying all along to my friends here for the last few months that it's likely that we're not gonna see anything more than 75% to 80% capacity if everything stayed on a really good track until probably the first of the year of next year, and while that really sucks, that means you, the listener has a real responsibility, you have to get out and find live music this summer while all of these concerts are gonna start happening outdoors and safely, you gotta get out, you gotta support, you gotta let artists know that you got their back. If you show the industry that there's a serious, serious demand for this, they will come around, governments will come around, everybody will come around when it's the right time to get out and support some live music this Spring.

Until next time, I'm Sweet Deat, and I'll see you later!

Facebook has been caught red handed...again.

What's up, everybody? It's Sweet Deat back with another episode!

Our good friend Zuckerberg is in the news again today, and big surprise, it's for manipulation of data.

Facebook has allegedly been doctoring data for its Advertiser, so that means you and me that like to advertise our music and maybe boost a post or something like that, the information that we're getting back from Facebook saying it reached this many people and this many people engage, etcetera. Likely has been skewed to some degree. They first became aware of the problem in 2017, but basically buried it according to the article that I have listed in the comments below, and decided not to do anything about it or do any sort of correction, like getting rid of inactive profiles and stuff to make sure that they're measuring tactics were in fact honest, because they felt that it might affect revenue in a big way, according to the article attached, there's a lot of back and forth as to whether this accusation is actually true, but it's not the first time they've been accused of this. How much has been inflated potentially? Well, the lawsuit showed some metrics up to 900% inflated.

For someone who's ran a lot of ads on Facebook, I know it's really hard to really get to that target audience that you want, and when you're getting data that's coming back to you, it's inflated or incorrect, it just makes you wanna just pull the whole up and throw it away, except for the fact they've got 80% of the world on Facebook, so I guess I'll have to stick around, but that's it.

I'll be watching for more really closely and keep you updated as to what's going on, so until next time, I'm Sweet Deat and I will see you later!

How Many Artists Make Over $100k on Spotify?

What's up, everybody? It's Sweet Deat and we're back with another episode!

So let's get to it.

Hey folks, we all know as artists and musicians as Spotify is a load of… But if you need to continue to remind her about how much artists are getting screwed... Here is a great one for you.

There's over 80 million people that are putting music and podcasts and things of that nature up on Spotify as we speak, out of those 8 million plus, 7,500 of them are making over $100k a year from their art being put on Spotify, and if you're wondering what percentile that might actually be, I can help you with that.

So put down the calculator, it's 009%.

Now, I could sit here and tell you all the things about Spotify that would really piss you off beyond this, or maybe you already know all of those things because you've watched 100 videos on YouTube, or if someone else has already filled you in on all this madness. It was recently  said that Spotify only had three million artists on the platform as of just a few years ago, so you can see that the popularity of the platform has really grown with this current projection by 2025, he's talking about having over 50 million contributing artists and creators on Spotify, but I'd just like to ask the question: when are you gonna up the songs per play stream royalty rate so that we can all get paid for... It wouldn't be too much to ask what...

Tell me what you think about this and what's a fair rate to actually pay an artist per stream.

Sofar Buys Seated, Pharell vs. Gaye Verdict, Spotify Being Generous?

What's up, everybody? My name is Sweet Deat, and we're back with another episode. Thanks for stopping by.

Sofar Sounds is in the news this week, if you don't know what Sofar sounds is, it's like couch concert sort of series where they do these secret concerts, you sign up on their mailing list, which is a nice way to get an email, and then they notify you when it's your turn in your area to come and check out a concert in somebody's living room or in a really interesting space.

Usually they pay two, three, four, five, six artists in a night and only invite enough people... That makes it feel nice in the room and it's not overcrowded, then each artist gets to be exposed to a completely brand new group of people, and the people that show up don't know who's playing, so it's kind of like a rule of music, so to speak. I've been to many, Sofar Sounds concerts, and they're really cool, 'cause usually I find out a lot of artists that I didn't know about in my hometown, I've also played so far concerts before and got paid next to nothing, so there's that.

Anyway, the concept is really cool. And this week, they acquired Seated. It is pretty cool 'cause it's a direct to fan type of ticketing platform that a lot of major artists have used to put on private shows in these Covid times that we're in, Sofar can't really get together by packing a bunch of  people in a very small space and doing shows, so it makes sense that they would look to acquire something like seated that does online shows already, the acquisition price is still unknown, but I'm very interesting see how they integrate together in the future to hopefully benefit the local artist community that you and I both live in onto the next…

That's right, folks. Gibson and Universal Music are teaming up in China, his agreement for Universal Music comes at a very interesting time, they're the second largest in China, as it stands right now, and they are planning on to release their new IPO at the end of 2024, and this unique branding opportunity gives and plans on putting songwriter clinics on and all sorts of other type of workshops in China in partnership with Universal Music. Additionally, Gibson will be providing Universal Music Group studios in China with tons of equipment and such to sweeten the deal.

Additionally, they plan on working together on social media campaigns to really rev up their artists and their interests, as we know China is a huge market for music and everything in the entire world, so I'm very interested to see how this sort of plays out with two power houses in the music industry, working together in a market like China, good things are probably around the corner from both of them.

Alright, let's keep it moving.

As always, there wouldn't be an episode unless we talk about Spotify, recently, Spotify came out publicly saying that they are willing to pay the New York and San Francisco wages of all of their employees and they can live wherever they want, and by wherever they want, they do mean, 100% of the time. Anywhere they want to go. Now, Spotify has offices in New York, Miami, Detroit, and kinda all over the place recently. It dropped a memorandum simply saying that people could work from anywhere. So all these people that were hired in major market cities that have decided that maybe the more rural life is best for them, they get to keep their salaries in full - way to go Spotify.

So we all may remember that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke song called Blurred Lines, that was sort of similar to the Marvin Gaye song, Gotta Give it Up. Initially, it was in the favor of Marvin Gaye and they got rights to the song and probably a... Some sort of payout. Additionally, they went back for more money and just recently a federal judge denied that request, apparently Marvin Gaye whole crew was looking for repayment and legal fees and stuff, which I guess reached in the millions of dollars, personal opinion, I don't necessarily think that was copyright infringement here I don't really think that you can take someone to the bank on the idea of just copying the feeling of a song and not the actual notes, the notes are different. I mean, that's just clear as day, go listen to God to give it up and go, listen to Blurred Lines, you can tell that the vibe and the feeling is there, but the notes aren't the same, so Stevie Wonder said that too, so you can argue with him but anyway, this cashgrabbing effort is now over according to a federal judge 

Alright, that's it for this week. I'm Sweet Deat!

The Weeknd's $7M Show, Morgan Wallen Cancelled, Goodbye Chick

Artist of the day: Chick Corea

What's up, everybody? My name is Sweet Deat, and welcome back for another episode. We've got a lot to cover and not a lot of time to do it, so... It's been a busy week.

Well, everybody, concerts are back in New York.Governor Como just announced 300 popup gigs sanctioned by the state of New York, while many musicians I know in New Yorker in total unrest of not being able to work due to government restrictions, it seems that at least they're starting to listen. And while this isn't really the sort of longterm solution that everybody wants or the immediate solution that even anybody wants, it's a start and that we should at least be thankful for that they have an opportunity to go out and make money. These events are slated to start on February 20th, and we'll reach the number of 300 by Labor Day. As a jazz musician, I follow a lot of the jazz clubs that are in New York, and a lot of them shut down, like the Jazz Standard, for example, that was a staple in the community there. And it was a very high end,

beautiful venue, and now it's gone because of Covid and the lack of being able to do business, so the fact that there is at least some sort of traction or having public gatherings, again, four concerts gives us hope that maybe New York will finally come and see the light. I love you, all my New York friends, and I'm thinking about you.

So as everybody knows, The Weeknd played the Super Bowl halftime show.

Now, I must admit, there was a lot of mixed reviews on this that I saw online, and quite frankly, I had to miss the very beginning of this performance because I got drawn away from my TV, but I did see about three quarters of it, and then I went back and rewatched it. So watching it in real time, what did you think, personally, it felt a little underwhelming being that I am kind of a newfound Weeknd fan, but when I did go back and rewatch it, I did actually really enjoy it, it's just different than, say, All these other songwriters of yesteryear, literally having to trim down their entire catalog into a very brief moment for an audience of millions and millions and millions.

Now, I happen to have an interesting perspective on this because I've done national TV spots before I was on America's Got Talent with an artist years ago, and we played in front of 17 million people, obviously not near as many as the Super Bowl, but 17 million at one time is a lot, and the pressures that go into that is pretty heavy, I thought if you went back and watched the Weeknds have time performance and see how the sets are put together and how intricate that is and how beautiful that is, I think you maybe gain a different perspective if you had a negative one, and I get it.

For the Super Bowl halftime show, we always want this over the top performance that's… You know, like I said, anthemic sing along, all that kind of stuff, and that's not really the Weeknds vibe. All of this said, He spent 7 million dollars to put that on. That worth it to you? In that particular moment, he had the world literally in his hand and everybody knew who he was... Is that worth 7 million dollars? You tell me in the comments below.

Morgan Wallen is still in the news.

Can you believe it? I say that because he basically was cancelled everywhere, if you know about the story, he was a rising songwriter in Nashville, had a bunch of hits on the radio, and then all of a sudden a video came out of nowhere and essentially showed him using a racial slur and everybody cancelled him. Everybody, I'll tell you everybody, Spotify, Apple music, Pandora, Sirius XM, his talent agency, William Morris cancelled them. The Academy of Country Music Awards cancelled him from being able to accept any awards or be nominated for any awards for the end of time, country music television blacklisted, and so many more. Now, to most people, that would be very simple. Your career is over. That's the end. You should just go. Become a construction worker or something. But not so fast, his album dangerous just tripled in sales and is still a top the chart on week four, and even more specifically, within 24 hours of all of this cancellation, his album sales, who ruled, and even though he's been cancelled by basically everyone, all of his fans are begging for his music back on Radio.

One program director of a radio station recently said that they're actually losing listenership because of their stance on Morgan Wallen. This is highly fascinating. I mean, how does a guy get cancelled on that level... I mean, he's not Garth Brooks or anything. He's rising, he has a lot of popularity, and all of a sudden he becomes cancelled for something obviously he should have never said, but then immediately after that, his swarm of fans basically prop him up and begin to advocate for them, pretty crazy. And I'll keep you posted on what happens next, because that's what I do.

And for our last bit of news today, I recently found out within the last 24 hours or so, appending this episode that you... Chick Corea has passed away at the age of 79.

Apparently he had a cancer that he did not know about and was detected very late, and the transition happened really quickly, and while... If you're listening to this, you may not know who Chick Corea is. If you're a jazz musician or any sort of improvisational based musician, you know whoChick Corea is, and you know how big of a lost this is to the music community. Corea was one of the pillars of music, one of the true architects of the music that we know and love today, which is Jazz, Chick was one of those musicians that was just simply rare, and to lose someone so suddenly without any sort of learning, has been very hard on a lot of people that have performed with him, but also of his fans today.

 it just makes sense to make the Corea our artist of the day, and to talk about a few records that you should check out, now they're seemingly a million records from this guy, but I'm gonna highlight a few that used to just check out, if you're not familiar with his music to get sort of an understanding about how incredible he was... We'll start with a 1968 release called Now He Sings. Now He Sobs secondly, his 1972 release Light as a Feather, which is his band Return to Forever. You should really check that one out to the recording of Gary Burton and chakra duo called Native Sense is really awesome, you should also check that one out, also you can check out his work with Bobby are and basically every other jazz legend in the world, he even played with Miles Davis.

We will miss you Chick, and all of the wonderful recordings that you left behind will keep us entertained for hundreds and hundreds of years to come.

Distrokid Play Matchmaker, AWAL Acquired, Coachella Toast

What's up, everybody? It's Sweet Deat. And we're back with Episode Number 50. I just can't believe I've stuck with it this long, I'm kidding, I love this. And thanks for being here for a milestone episode.

Distrokid is trying to play matchmaker between artists and labels.

Basically what Distrokid is saying to labels and artists, this artist friendly service is meant to connect artists that are seeking label deals to labels who are seeking artists. It's really that simple. The idea here is to give artists power over labels, and so use this as a way to shop their product to maybe varying labels who might have varying interests for their matchmaking services. It is just charging a labels a small fee that will sort of help seal the deal, if you know what I mean. But really, if you're a startup artist and you're looking for a label, why are you doing that anyway, you should just be focusing on all of the hashtags and regular content and your art and being good, rather than just immediately seeking a label deal to give away all of your rights too, so that when your art  just does become good. Maybe then they take everything and you get nothing, so maybe slow your roll a little bit on the whole thing.

Spotify is once again in the news this week, and it's pretty hilarious what they're doing now.

Get to know this patent everyone, identification of taste attributes from an audio signal. This is the generic patent that Spotify filed for back in 2018, and it was recently granted on January 12 as digital music news reported, the patent basically says that traditional methods of trying to figure out your algorithmic tastes are not good enough, so the current methods of figuring out what your age is, your play lists, even the genre and the age of the music that you listen to is all sort of put together in an algorithm, and then they kind of figure out more about you. Right, well, this new voice recommendation patent is gonna blow all that away, Spotify now says with the technology that they can recognize things like information, distress and rhythm from just the way you speak, so by being able to tell how angry you are or maybe how happy you are they might be able to recommend music that is best for you, depending on your mood, So have no fear, Big Brother Spotify is here for you for all of your needs and your emotional support through music… A little creepy, right?

So as you probably heard, Coachella is cancelled, and so is the country counterpart Stage Coach.

So this makes the third time in two years that this concert has been cancelled with all the latest news about Coronavirus spreading very quickly, and California immediately opening up in spite of all of this information, it seems like everybody's kind of on a different page, there's no information of this concert Becoming Digital or anything, so I think at this point, they're pretty much dead in the water when new dates are announced... You know, I got you right here.

So stay tuned. Sony Music is back in the news.

They have acquired AWAL from cobalt for 430 million, which really is like a drop in the bucket because they basically make a million dollars an hour from streaming anyway. This purchase is just another long list of major label purchases that is happening and consolidation within the industry right now, it just seems like the big guys are swallowing up the little guys right now, right, in all of these acquisitions of late... If you've been following the channel, it's kind of interesting, and I don't really know that it's good for the future of business because when all the major sort of companies hold all of the small companies underneath their wings, when one of those majors falls over a whole lot more falls with it, but last, that's what happens when Coronavirus happens, the little guys suffer more than the big guys, and you know, consolidation usually becomes a thing.

There are so many more news topics that I could talk about, but I gotta save some for next week, so let's get to the artist of the day! The musical artist is Crumlin, and that's spelled really weird. Their 2020 release, Mordecai has been on my stereo nonstop. It's an unbelievable record. The production is really cool and kind of lowfi and with the haunting sort of overarching OS and as in the vocals and the really cool guitar tones, this is made for one of my new favorite bands, so check them out. They are worth it.

That's all for this week. My name's Sweet Deat.

Sun Records Sells Out, SXSW has lost their mind, Youtube's MASSIVE Payouts

What’s up everybody... My name is Sweet Deat, and thanks for coming back for another episode.

We've got a lot to talk about in a short amount of time, Sun Records just sold everything, but their Elvis catalog, there's a new Amazon Prime channel that's coming out based around music and vintage concerts, and a number from YouTube that will leave you mind blown.

So Sun Records joins the club and sells off their entire catalog except for Elvis.

I mean, let's be real. There's no price tag for Elvis, right. What was your favorite part of Elvis career? Because everybody has a favorite part of Elvis career because everybody loves Elvis, and if you don't love Elvis, you can leave... I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Mine was the fat era, like in the 70s when he was nice and big and round and saying the truth is marching on and stuff like that, I don't have the republic, that's my favorite Elvis era. And for all my regular listeners, I've talked a lot about buying a lot of the catalogs that are going around, and they snatched up some really cool artist catalogues, people like Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and all for the low low price of 30 million. This still also included the logo and all of the things that are related to the brand as well, so it was a true sale all the way through and through with the massive consolidations of all of these record catalogs. It'll be really interesting to see how this all plays out in the future, so stick right here for more news on this particular subject.

There is a new Amazon channel that is coming out for Prime.

Did you know about it? It's called The Kota channel, and it's a collection of all of this raw footage and rare concert footage that maybe hasn't been released before or has been very limited. This center will also feature music documentaries and never before seen backstage footage of all types of iconic tours and such, so just a lot of music that's been caught on film that maybe hasn't had the chance to see the light, it's now coming out in this one interesting platform, however, Amazon is gonna charge you $4.99 a month for you to view this footage, now they have already released some of the major headlining concerts they're going to essentially release or documentaries, and here's a few of them music money and madness, it's Jimmy Hendrix in Maui, Rolling Stones on the air, Johnny Cash live at San Quentin. You'll also be able to catch the streaming Premier of Bob Dylan's Trouble No More, which is something that Dave Grohl collaborated with and will include a performance by The Dead and company, so they have a lot of people behind them on this... Pretty much everybody who's anyone, Sony Music Entertainment is an equity partner, for example, other partners include people like Warners, Rhino entertainment, mercury studios, real in the years productions, Korean magazine, and a whole host of others. So there's a lot of money behind this to make this work, but… Will you pay $4.99 for it? Let me know in the comments below.

South by Southwest is in the news this week, planning to have South by Southwest virtual 2021 for the low, low price of $249.

Who in the right mind wants us there at a TV screen for $249? Now, the $249 does cover everything. So you're talking... The key note addresses all the workshops, even all the concerts too, so you're getting a lot, but $249 to sit at home on your laptop or TV and be present, I don't know if half of the attendees from 2019 decide to buy this ticket price, that will equate to about a 20 million gross win for South by Southwest, but wait, there's more. This price will inflate to $399 after a certain period of time, so act fast and go get that really overpriced ticket for South by Southwest, which in my mind for artists has kind of been a scam for a very long time... Sorry, not, sorry.

Are you thinking about starting a podcast? Well, here's a little piece of information that might change your mind.

A new report that just came out and says that 99% of all the downloads in the world for podcasts are coming from 1% of the podcasts made... Now, obviously, if you're starting a podcast and you want to do that, you should… And any time you start any sort of multimedia type company or channel, like a YouTube channel like I have here, it should never be about the short game and how fast you can get people to follow you and all that kind of stuff, it really should be born out of passion, and it should be born out of the need to make people aware of whatever it is you wanna make them aware of, let's face it, I'm at 49 episodes and I only have a meager 263 subscribers. Thank you very much. The truth is, if you don't love doing it and you don't really have a real message inside of you that you wanna talk about, which mine is really educating people about what's going on in the music business world and giving this as a platform for them to... You know, get the quick hits and to be informed because it's important, if you don't have that sort of fire up or underneath of you, you're gonna run short on energy to do it and you're going to give up, but even though 1% is getting 99% of all the downloads.

That's okay. Treat yourself like a media company, I've said this a thousand times, and get your word out there about who you are and what you do, and let the community effect over time be your truth to carry on or some inspirational word like that. Me and finally, I have this little tidbit to share it with you about YouTube, how much did you to pay out in the last three years? Take a guess. I'll wait. Times up, what do you think? Well, you're probably wrong, it's 30 billion, and they're not stopping there with the development of YouTube shorts, which is supposed to be sort of a rival to the tiktok world that we're now living in. They should be poised to take on an even greater market share and pay out even more money, so... Congratulations, YouTube, you’re rich.

That's it for this week. I'm Sweet Deat.

Live Nation's stock soars, Superbowl Performers Announced and Ed Roland sells his catalog!

Live Nation stock is soaring right now. Have you checked it out?

Back in 2020, it started at around $72 a share in January from a year ago. In 2019, it was up $50. And if you wanna think about it from a broader perspective, in the heat of the pandemic, it dropped all the way down to $20-something dollars a share.

Again, the lowest it's been since 2016, and if I had half of a brain, I would have bought stock then, but then a whole bunch of negative press came out and it was talking about how they were requiring artists to take a pay cut, and all the artists were essentially saying, No, we're not taking a pay cut, we'd rather just not play. And that kind of soured my opinion on buying stock at the time, and now I kinda wish I did this past week, Live Nation stock is back to $78 a share, an alltime high. The great news is, if you're asking me, I think there's a lot more range for this to grow because with people's overzealousness to get back and see a concert, as soon as his vaccine takes shape and everybody feels comfortable about going and seeing a concert next to someone in close proximity, I feel like their stock is gonna take an even higher jump, so if you haven't gotten on the train yet, maybe it's worth considering, I don't know, I am not a stock analyst. Something tells me there might be something more up Live Nation’s sleeve to really drive that stock price higher. So pretty interesting, right? Here's some interesting news about Spotify and anchor...

Do you know what Anchor is? Let's talk about it. Anchor is a free platform for podcast creation essentially, and Spotify bought it after it was only four months old for around 150 million, apparently, they saw a lot of promise in this platform, obviously Spotify bought this because they're really trying to get into the podcasting game, and they're really trying to grab some market share, and they thought buying maybe something like Anchor would really help them get there faster, specifically with this purchase, Spotify was really after attracting Indie type of podcaster, so not your big shows, but all of the little small ones. And the ones that sort of have their own flair and personality and maybe aren't already infiltrated with sponsorships, and so it seems like sponsorships other than anchor and Spotify are the only ones that are actually happening within the platform, it's supposed to bring in all these other sponsors and really be diversified and everything, but it obviously seems like Spotify and anchor are sort of throttling and maybe running people out of town on this one.

So some Superbowl news... Both performers were announced.

That's pretty cool. Here's the latest as to who's gonna be singing your favorite patriotic songs: Erich RC and Jasmine Sullivan will be doing the national anthem, The singer, H.E.R ... H.E.R., as many of you know, if you don't know, she's great, she will be doing America the beautiful and the main attraction this year for the halftime show, it's The Weeknd, and I'm sure there'll be other performers that jump in with them too, 'cause that's usually how it seems to go these days... I remember the days when only one performer sort of had the spotlight and the collaborations are kind of cool, but I do kind of miss the days where it was just Paul McCartney singing all of my favorite songs, but I do love the weekend too, so I'm anxious to see this performance. What about you?

And for those who live in Georgia, I have a little news for you: Ed Roland has joined the ranks of so many famous people who have decided to sell their catalogs and their futures.

The purchaser is Round Hill Music, and they have decided to strike a deal. How much money? I don't know, they haven't released the numbers yet, but it does include all 10 of collective soul albums that they have released to date. As many people in Georgia now, there's a project that Ed Roland had for a long time called The Sweet Tea Project that he releases music with intermittently, and I don't know if those songs and stuff were covered in this deal, but pretty awesome that Ed Roland cashing out and making some money, speaking of that glorious era of rock and roll music, go back and check out. 

Counting Crows’ August and Everything After, I've been listening to it for the last week, and it's been a really nice walk through memory lane, as many of those songs were very pivotal for me in the late 90s. So August and Everything After begins, one of my favorite drumming tracks ever so simple. So perfect.

Barcelona's Concert Study Results & Bandcamp goes VINYL!

So What's up, everybody? My name is Sweet Deat, and I am so glad that you are here again today.

Artist of the Day: The Weeknd

So let's talk about this recent experiment that happened in Barcelona. Pretty awesome. Why is it awesome?

Well, it's because there was a concert that was thrown and there was almost 500 people there, and nobody got sick... Wait, nobody. Zerol. Nobody. Pretty awesome. And it gives... All of us that are in the music is a little smile on our face to hopefully get back to real life at some points, and one of the controlled conditions that they put into place was everybody was given an N95 mask, and they were all asked to keep it on and enjoy the show and because everyone wore masks, apparently there was no transmission of covid 19 and that's good. So realistically, I don't know how this really changes anything immediately, most performing art centers are completely shut down through May 31st of this year that I know of from being a part of NIPA and other agent networks, but I can say this that it does at least give us a little bit more confidence moving into this new time of vaccines when everyone's gonna be taking the two shots, and maybe there's a chance that we can have some live concerts again by the fall, even still in the fall, we're looking at a slow capacity roll out so there's not going to be a grand scale, full capacity show likely... I gotta say though, even through this whole process, I'm really impressed with how a lot of musicians have really pivoted, and I hate that word pivot, they have really embraced this new digital age 20 of life as we know it, and have really taken on all sorts of really creative ways to expand their brands and expand their reach as far as their own musicianship or their own art.

So for you, that person out there that is doing these things, I'd like to applaud you, it's important that we realize that as the digital age has now been reborn in 2021 and in 2020, that even with live concerts coming back, this digital platform like YouTube and all these other platforms that we're using to interact with people, this is now the standard, this is now what the bar is, so at any point, if I can help you in planning and helping that process grow for you, whatever it is that you would like to, send me an email, and I would be glad to help. I just thought it would be cool to share a little positive news today.

Did you hear about Bandcamp?

Bandcamp is expanding their vinyl production services. It's pretty neat. I have a past video, if you're interested in the differences between Spotify and Bandcamp and talks about how they have completely different visions, but they're all digital ageminded, and it's very interesting to see the differences and how both of them have... Seem to coexist in this particular marketplace, so you should maybe check that out 'cause it's pretty cool. I think, anyway, Bandcamp continues their noble cause by making vinyl at prices that artists can't afford it, and if you've looked into printing any sort of vinyl at all, you know that it's really expensive and that you can't really afford it, especially in the coronavirus times. Why are they doing this? Well, it's kind of a big piece of the puzzle as it pertains to physical products within the music industry, I'll tell you why, Vinyl sales last year were 232 million, and that represented 62% of the physical product sales. That's a lot of market share.

So fear not, my vinyl loving friends, if you've got favorite brands that just are small and can't afford vinyl seems like Bandcamp is tackling the issue. And we are thankful.

We have to talk about the artist of the day. I gotta tell you, I never thought I'd really say this out loud, or at least on this podcast, but here I am, I'm gonna say it. I've become a fan of The Weeknd. Now, I know many of you probably like The Weeknd, but that was not something that I was really prepared for, but his latest huge single that he released late last year, blinding lights has been in my playlist at home very secretly for a long time, and I think it's time that I came out of the closet on this one.So What's up, everybody? My name is Sweet Deat, and I am so glad that you are here again today.

Artist of the Day: The Weeknd

So let's talk about this recent experiment that happened in Barcelona. Pretty awesome. Why is it awesome?

Well, it's because there was a concert that was thrown and there was almost 500 people there, and nobody got sick... Wait, nobody. Zerol. Nobody. Pretty awesome. And it gives... All of us that are in the music is a little smile on our face to hopefully get back to real life at some points, and one of the controlled conditions that they put into place was everybody was given an N95 mask, and they were all asked to keep it on and enjoy the show and because everyone wore masks, apparently there was no transmission of covid 19 and that's good. So realistically, I don't know how this really changes anything immediately, most performing art centers are completely shut down through May 31st of this year that I know of from being a part of NIPA and other agent networks, but I can say this that it does at least give us a little bit more confidence moving into this new time of vaccines when everyone's gonna be taking the two shots, and maybe there's a chance that we can have some live concerts again by the fall, even still in the fall, we're looking at a slow capacity roll out so there's not going to be a grand scale, full capacity show likely... I gotta say though, even through this whole process, I'm really impressed with how a lot of musicians have really pivoted, and I hate that word pivot, they have really embraced this new digital age 20 of life as we know it, and have really taken on all sorts of really creative ways to expand their brands and expand their reach as far as their own musicianship or their own art.

So for you, that person out there that is doing these things, I'd like to applaud you, it's important that we realize that as the digital age has now been reborn in 2021 and in 2020, that even with live concerts coming back, this digital platform like YouTube and all these other platforms that we're using to interact with people, this is now the standard, this is now what the bar is, so at any point, if I can help you in planning and helping that process grow for you, whatever it is that you would like to, send me an email, and I would be glad to help. I just thought it would be cool to share a little positive news today.

Did you hear about Bandcamp?

Bandcamp is expanding their vinyl production services. It's pretty neat. I have a past video, if you're interested in the differences between Spotify and Bandcamp and talks about how they have completely different visions, but they're all digital ageminded, and it's very interesting to see the differences and how both of them have... Seem to coexist in this particular marketplace, so you should maybe check that out 'cause it's pretty cool. I think, anyway, Bandcamp continues their noble cause by making vinyl at prices that artists can't afford it, and if you've looked into printing any sort of vinyl at all, you know that it's really expensive and that you can't really afford it, especially in the coronavirus times. Why are they doing this? Well, it's kind of a big piece of the puzzle as it pertains to physical products within the music industry, I'll tell you why, Vinyl sales last year were 232 million, and that represented 62% of the physical product sales. That's a lot of market share.

So fear not, my vinyl loving friends, if you've got favorite brands that just are small and can't afford vinyl seems like Bandcamp is tackling the issue. And we are thankful.

We have to talk about the artist of the day. I gotta tell you, I never thought I'd really say this out loud, or at least on this podcast, but here I am, I'm gonna say it. I've become a fan of The Weeknd. Now, I know many of you probably like The Weeknd, but that was not something that I was really prepared for, but his latest huge single that he released late last year, blinding lights has been in my playlist at home very secretly for a long time, and I think it's time that I came out of the closet on this one.

Neil Young sold his songs too?!

So what's up, everybody? My name is Sweet Deat, and we're back with another episode.

So without further ado, let's talk about Neil Young. It's true, it's in the news. Neil Young has joined the likes of Bob Dylan and many other people that he has decided to sell a portion, not all of it, but 50% to the exact of his songs. Once again, Hypnosis was the buyer just like they've been buying up a whole bunch of other UK catalogues, and they are paying an estimated 150 million for 50%, as I've said in my previous videos, it's incredible to me how much of a trend this has become and how hot of a commodity these legacy artists catalogues are becoming with physical products being completely destroyed in the marketplace and everybody moving to streaming, it's really an interesting play by all of the companies like hypnosis, this trying to grab as much market share as they can... Obviously, the songs have held the test of time, and they think that in the long run, they're gonna make a lot of money, it's really important that young artists all across the world hold on to as much of their royalties as they can in the hopes that they are able to generate enough hits, maybe one day to actually make their catalog worth selling, or at least it gives you that option with the amount of equipment and availability of training on YouTube and other platforms to learn intricate things like Logic.

It doesn't really make much sense these days to just give away your royalties to somebody in hopes that they will propel you to a very quick successful music career, never beforehas artists have the amount of control they have over their careers. And I think this is a pretty desperate play to just grab as much market share as they can because they know that these legacy artists that have pumped out like Neil Young over the course of decades now, number one hit after number one hit, it's just harder to do that anymore. I think it also guarantees that these legacy artists are gonna be around for a while, because they're gonna wanna see their return on investment, so they're gonna be pumping these songs to everyone for years to come, well, as somebody like me, for example, that maybe just puts out a song, it might not be as retained the long term, I feel like these days, people put out songs in a week, the people have forgotten, you put out a song and it just goes to show the current value of what the song actually is. So another legacy artist bites the dust, and it just begs the question with only a handful of these companies trying to buy up as much market share as possible, it makes me wonder what the future of music is gonna look like in this regard.

I mean, you're gonna have basically a handful of people that own every song ever, and then at some point, one of them will cave and then another one will buy itself out, just like the record label industry did when there was tons of labels everywhere, and then you got down to the major five, I kinda wonder if it... This will implode on itself at some point also... I don't know, just talking. So do me a favor, tell me what you think about all of this in the comments below, I'd love to hear your opinion on what you sort of see the future of the business being in this regard, good things happen to those who wait and work really hard so keep writing your songs, your song writers out there, and I hope that you get as many number one hits as you can and you can sell them all off for a big profit in your 60s or 70s and live happily ever after and affect your family for generations and generations.

Do These 3 Things to Start 2021 Right!

So What's up, everybody? It's 2021. How are you doing? My name is Sweet Deat.

So listen, everybody's thinking about New Year's resolutions, it's just after the first of the year, you're probably thinking about going to the gym because of all the pounds you've added over the course of this whole pandemic, or maybe you're just trying to think about things that will make your life better moving forward, and I was kind of thinking about that over the course of this past weekend, and even over New Years itself, and I just kind of thought that I would do something at the top of the year, that could really add value to you and sort of give you some inspiration to really adjust how you do business and start really thinking about the times that we're living in.

So we're gonna talk about three things, and here's the first one.

Let's talk about auditing your time, this is a really simple one to understand, we waste time every single day... That's right, you and I both waste time every day, whether it's just unintentionally, fumbling around on your favorite social media platform, or maybe you like to watch a Netflix show, whatever it is, we're always wasting time. So on the other side of that is really simply, how many hours a day are we really, truly productive as in we're really moving... Moving things forward, right?

I started doing this at the top of every year to sort of recalibrate my brain and to make myself a lot more efficient, and since I've been doing this over the last few years, it's really gradually up to my productivity time to where I can get things done in a day that maybe not a lot of people can... And maybe that's because I kinda have a high motor and I'm always kind of a gogetter type of a person, but I think it sort of started from this very point that I'm making is that you really have to have just a real conscious top of mind understanding of how you're spending time. So what I want you to do is I want you to sit down and I want you to monitor your day tomorrow, so when you wake up, just think about the exact amount of time, whether it's like from say 8:00 AM to 8:20, and that you actually were working on something and then at 8:20, maybe you got a phone call, maybe were interrupted in the kind of way, and just actually log the amount of time that you're actually working in a day.

As self employed people like we are... Most of the people who find this channel are, I would say that are musicians and people of that sort, it's easy for us to just be off the schedule all the time and get lost in daily activities because we get pulled in one direction or another, audit your time, see how much time you're really working in the day and then work backwards and trying to figure out how to make each day more productive, you'll get closer to your goals and your dreams a lot faster.

Anyway, point number two.

Yes, creative and musician type. It is time to embrace the digital revolution, that is 2020 and 2021. I've had this conversation about six different times with six different musicians, so I figured it was kind of time for me to actually talk about it right here, specifically in this way, that being that I was speaking with one particular musician about how fast everything has sped up, live streaming and the idea of just marketing yourself in a digital way as opposed to going to jam sessions traditionally, like if you're a musician or maybe poetry reads, If you're a poet, acting seminars and classes and stuff like that, all this stuff was things that you just always did. And that's the way things have always been. And all of a sudden, in the year 2020, everything changed and everything went digital because we couldn't leave our house to do our job, it's never been more important now for you to embrace this digital age, if you're a sideman, musician and artist, whatever you are in the creative world, or if you're not in the creative world and you're watching this and you're a banker, it's time for you to figure out how to be relevant over a camera, like the one that I have here that I'm speaking into. And good news is, you don't need a fancy camera like I have, you can use your phone or you can use anything.

Really, anything that gets your material out into the digital world. The internet as we know it, it's really important that you start thinking about how to do it and how to do it consistently. Now, I can hear all of you crying right now saying, Oh my God, I don't wanna be on social media, I get it. It's not my favorite thing to do either. Honestly, it's not... If I could spend my day doing what I wanted to do, it would just be playing guitar behind closed doors, which I still do a lot, and I would probably just be reading a book from Jay Kris,, and not really being all that social but the truth is, this is how people find other musicians now and validate them in order for them to get called for the gig, think about it, you've already been doing this for years, you're hanging out with someone and they need a guitar player or a drummer or a bass player for a gig, and then what do they do? They go and they find their social media profile, and they find a recent clip of them playing, and they look at it and they say, Oh, this guy is pretty killer, I think I'm gonna call him for my gig. It's just a nobrainer. So it's time for you to come up with a marketing plan for your instrument, figure out ways to be creative and sit down and record yourself doing whatever it is you do, and put it up online consistently every single week. You may not like it, but this is the world that we're in now, and if you're a musician that's maybe in, say your sixties and beyond, you might be able to just ride off into the sunset here and not really embrace this, because maybe you have a really strong reputation in your hometown, or maybe you've got a legacy type of gig that you've been working for 20 years and you don't intend on changing that arrangement... Yeah, you could probably slip by with this, but for the rest of us, this is the way people are going to find you, and this is the way people are going to choose you in the future, and really the future is now also too, it's... A lot more important than just playing a lick of the day and putting it out online, this is your legacy, like we now in 2021, have an unbelievable opportunity to document our legacy in a way that our forefathers in the music world have not...

It's almost like you have a responsibility to do it. And the truth is, if you work really hard at what you do and you honestly put things out with great intention, and that intention being to be the best musician that you can, it's likely that music is gonna find a way to reward you. And honestly, you may be inspirational to someone for a very long time in the future, so… Just do it.

Side note, if you're listening to this and you're like, I have no idea what to do, slide into my DMs and send me an email, and I would love the opportunity to consult with you and to help you achieve some sort of success. I could build a social media strategy plan for you and give it to you for a super, super, super affordable price. Why? Because you need it. And I'm here for you, that's what this channel is all about.

And the third thing that you're going to do immediately, like as soon as you get off of this video, is you're going to figure out how you're going to start contributing to retirement plan.

I can't tell you how many musicians I know that have not taken this seriously, and it drives me crazy, it's never been easier to save for your retirement. I'm not kidding. There are some very traditional things like a Roth IRA that has higher buy-in and if you don't have that money or laying around, and covid is really been really hard on you. It's very easy to get started with something like Acorn.

If you don't know what Acorn is, it's like something that just rounds up all of your transactions from your bank account or your ATM card or maybe your credit card, and say you buy something and it's $2.50, it rounds it up to $3 and takes that extra 50 cents, puts it into an investment account or a retirement account. So it's never been easier for people like you and me to figure out ways to save money. And that's a way that you can do it, and you don't even have to think about it, and you'll be surprised how much money you'll save over a course of a year, because how many transactions do you do a day... I did a little research for this one, and it turns out that around every person in America routinely does at minimum two transactions per day, let's say each one of those transactions rounded up in 99 cents, so maybe it was like $1 was your total or something like that, that would get you to the grand total of $1.98 cents per day, if you multiply that times 365, that's an easy $722. And I think 70 cents. So there, you just saved $722, roughly, just from starting an app, of course, this doesn't account for market  increase or decrease, so if the market has a really good year, you might make even more, the quicker you take this seriously is the quicker you get to financial freedom, so this is just one small way that you can do it every day and not think about it, if you'd like to take it in even into even a larger step, hit me up, I have a financial planner that I wanna introduce you to, he's amazing and he will take great care of you.

So that's it, everybody audit your time, Become a digital musician, and start saving for your retirement, if you start doing these three things from day one this year, you'll be surprised where you might end up in a few!

Are you doing your part this holiday season?

Artist of the Day: The Wood Brothers

It's Christmas week, and I figured I would change things up a little bit from the normal routine and just kinda have a heart to heart with you.

Alright, is that cool? I'm gonna do my best to spare you from the whole idea of this has been an incredibly hard here, and all this kind of stuff because we already know all that, and I think we're hearing that enough right now, but within the same parameters, I wanna talk about maybe something a little bit more action driven as in, what are you doing right now to make someone's life better during the holidays, there are a lot of people out there that are not going home because of this pandemic, and I think it's really important for us as artists to reach out and connect to someone in our community and make sure that they know that they're loved. A simple phone call or a FaceTime message would really go a long way for people right now, and it's our job to stick together, so... What are you doing? Have you called anybody today, I actually wanna take a big step and say, Don't text them this information, because text is like something that we get a thousand times a day, call them, or even better if they have face time or something of that manner, like a Zoom or whatever, get on something where you can see their face and  ou can tell them face to face that you love them, appreciate them, and that you hope that they're having a good holiday, and if they're not...

Be there to listen to them. I can only speak for my own life, but in my own life over the last few months, I've been doing this a lot more, and I feel like my friendships have grown infinitely more just because I'm making myself available to listen to someone during this time. Acquaintances have become friends, and friends have become even closer friends, so take a step by your comfort zone and pick up the phone and FaceTime someone, or even me, and just say, Hey, I hope you're doing well. Tell me how you're doing. I know that when people reach out to me and they do these types of things, it makes me feel really good that somebody really cares, and it's Christmas week, we should care. So no fancy music news this week, no fancy guitar lessons or anything of that sort. Just call somebody and tell them that you love them. And check in on them and see how they're doing. I'm wishing your holiday to be all the best that it can be in a time like this, but... Yeah, thank you for everything this year. It's been amazing. All right, everybody, well, I'll see you next time.

The album I've been listening to this week the most has been Kingdom in My Mind by The Wood Brothers, and that first song, Alabaster, gets me every single time.

Bob Dylan Sold His Songs?!

What's up, everybody? Can you believe that Bob Dylan sold his entire catalog? I can't wait to dive more into this.

Universal Music just purchased 600 Bob Dylan songs. What... In Bob Dylan's memoir, he makes a mention of his first music publishing deal, and he said that he was given 100 bucks against future royalties, and at the time, that was just all right with him. Fifty-eight years later, and 600 songs later, he is now perpetually wealthy for generations to come. As if he wasn't already. But this is massive. Now, the official word has not been released, but everyone in the industry is estimating the deal to be around $300 million. So let's do some quick math here. $300 million divided by 600 songs equals $500,000 a song. I mean, this is like fairy tale money, Dylan's catalog is definitely one that's been sought after, and why wouldn't it be - over 6,000 different artists has covered his songs and rerelease them as their own. Demand is prolific by any stretch of the imagination, and if you're gonna go after a catalog, you might as well go after one, like Dylan. If you follow this channel, just two weeks ago, I released the video that talks about holding on to your masters and having control over your artistic career by you fronting the money and putting out your art in the beginning of your career, so that you don't give too much of your royalties away in the very beginning, that type of deal could be very critical on the very steep arc of a career, if you are able to write a hit song or get any sort of traction or anything like that, going on the other side of one's career and thinking about where he is in his time and space, this is probably the smartest thing I think Dylan could have done with his catalogue.

If you have all of these songs that are super desirable and everybody loves them, you know that when you die, there's gonna be a war between your family and how your assets were laid out to be dispersed amongst your family, the ones you're leaving behind in his life. And potentially companies like Universal that wanna sweep in and grab catalogs after death plus seven years or whatever the latest incarnation of the copyright laws are, so I think this is extremely smart, it takes the guess work completely out of all of this and relieves your future relatives of continuing to handle the fight between the record labels and the rights to your music.

Well just go ahead and sell your music now and just get that lump sum payment when you're in your seventies like Dylan, and just move on. Big companies like Universal are always paying attention to what music becomes public domain, so they can sweep in and snatch it up, and that doesn't make them bad, it's just the rules, but they always wanna get the cheapest sort of buy that could then turn them into a profit and just going ahead and selling your catalog at Dylan's age, I think he's actually in his eighties now, I think he's like maybe early eighties, I have to look, but the truth is, is that selling it now just makes things so much easier for when you transition to the next life or whatever.

Not to mention now, all of that cash is liquid and you're able to do a lot of generational wealth moves that can really set up your family for the rest of their lives, or maybe you take the money and you do something generationally good with it, like provide some sort of grant funding once a year for a variety of people to apply for and to make positive impact and change for generations to come in that way, either way, it gives Bob there way more options and probably makes his family a little more at ease knowing that they don't have to... Continually to knock on anyone's door to try and get royalties every quarter. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, Stevie Nicks the fame singer from Fleetwood Mac sold her back catalog as well, some estimates say that was an 80 million sale for all of the hits that she has also something worth mentioning, there's a company, England called Hypnosis that has been buying up back catalogs to the tune of over 600 million worth for a variety of artists such as Rick James, Barry, Manilow, Blondie, the pretenders and others. So it's very interesting, all of these artists are sort of on the arc of their career, they're getting towards a later parts in their life, and people are realizing that their music is going to live on beyond their life, I feel like so much music that has happened in the past, maybe hasn't lived on to the same way, but a band like Fleetwood Mac, who just hit the charts because of a guy who got on tiktok and rode a skateboard with an Ocean Spray in his hand, made Dreams chart again for the first time in I don't know how long, 40 years, I think. So this classic material is still very, very valuable and people are paying top dollar for it.

So to tie in the post from two weeks ago, in the beginning of your artistic career, it is important for you to hold on to your masters, and if you have a successful career. It might be worth selling at the end of your career, and who knows that could be your retirement and your kids retirement and their kids retirement. Pretty fascinating, if you ask me.

For this week's artist of the day, I was feeling a little bit nostalgic, so I was looking backwards this week instead of forwards.  and I just really had a moment and went back and pulled out Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins and realized what an awesome record that was. There's a classic fight between any person who likes Smashing Pumpkins to what record is the best record, and all the early hardcore fans will say Gish, and some will say Siberia, and some will say Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness and while all three of those are really great, I think for me, I'm a Siamese Dream guy.

Anyway, that's it for this week. My name is Sweet Deat and I will see you next week.

Taylor Swift’s Music Business Lesson for All of Us

Okay, so let's talk about Taylor Swift. 

Variety just recently reported that she's re-recording her masters and hoping that by doing so, her fans will then turn to support her directly, rather than the master recordings that this new holding group has purchased, I gotta read this because if you've never heard this, this is probably the best formation of anything related to the music business that's ever been said. It's from Hunter S. Thompson and many musicians will know this, but it says that  

“the music business is a cruel and shallow money trench... A long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”

Now, obviously, Hunter S. Thompson was being a little sarcastic, but truth be told, it's actually the truth. The music business is a very corrupt business at certain levels of it, and unfortunately, this is another situation where an artist was taken advantage of very early on in their career, and unfortunately does not have the right to their own music. So what do I mean? Chances are, your musician that's watching this, but early on, these people who come in and invest in you are constantly trying to take advantage of you in the future income you might make by maybe not charging... You are a lot of money upfront to record all of these songs, but basically owning the master recordings of these songs, rather than you owning the master recordings as the songs... And by you, I mean the artist. 

Anyway, about Taylor Swift rerecording her stuff I think that's really interesting, and I also think that it's a trend that could be coming in the future, I mean, there's a lot of people out there that own massive catalogs of music that we all know and love, but who wouldn't wanna hear... Say, If you're a fan of Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift reinvent some of those songs that she did early on in a brand new ways, so that you can enjoy them in a brand new way from an artist's perspective, it's usually something we don't do...

Usually when we create something, we just kinda leave it there and that sort of marks a specific time in place to where we were thinking in which we created the art and then released it, but with the way the music business is as far as owning masters and such, if there's means to be able to go back and rerecord those things to free yourself from people who own your masters and then remarket those songs that already have traction to an established fan base that you have. It may be a really nice way for somebody to get reenergized about your past work. I definitely could see this becoming a trend with artists that have the means like a Taylor Swift or a nationally known artist that has the financial resources available to do this, if they're unhappy with their current arrangement as it pertains to who owns our master's and for how long... And for those of you who don't know, a lot of times, artists will negotiate deals that after a certain specific amount of time, you'll be able to buy back or be automatically given back your master recordings. Because that's where a lot of people make the money that the record labels or the ownership group sort of invested to make that art for you, they use those masters to then collect the money that they had originally put out for you.

Oftentimes, artists don't have the money to effectively record and promote and go out on the road and do the whole thing to bring awareness to their product, and this is a really quick and dirty way to sort of fast forward the productivity of your brand, but you're obviously signing away a lot of future royalties when you give away your Master's, so that's how Taylor got into this predicament from the beginning, she signed an unfavorable deal, put out a lot of hit songs, the company knew that she was probably gonna be a hit or had a really strong inclination and took the risk, and now she wants her master's back because she feels like they're her songs, and that's true, but someone else owns those recordings, and if there was no expiration date on these recordings as far as the masters coming back to Taylor, then they own them in perpetuity and they can sell them to whoever they want to, and in this particular case, they've been sold twice in the last year and a half.

I just literally had a conversation with someone that's new to the area in which I live in Atlanta, and he was very excited, and he was talking about how he just moved to town, and he has this song that he was really excited about, and he met this producer, and this producer is out there and he sees this kid and he's like, Oh, come into my studio, we're gonna record you. We're gonna promote this single... We're gonna do all this kind of stuff. And the first question I asked the kid, I was like, Well, how much are they charging you? And the kids sort of gave me a sort of a dumbfounded look like, Well, he didn't say anything about what he was gonna harge me, and I was like, red flag, you gotta think about what people are charging you and what they want, you gotta know what they want, they're gonna want some percentage of future royalties or if they're giving you something for free upfront.

It's better to save the money and to learn how to record at home as best you can, and just pay upfront if you believe in your art so much, and it is everything that you want to do. Figure out a way to pay for your art upfront and own your stuff from the beginning and build your empire with all the free social media networks that we're all allowed to use and have available and invest in yourself that way until the point somebody comes along and then wants to do a deal with you. You always have more control over your art that way, and I think that's important for artists to know like you potentially... Or if you're an experienced musician and you've had your masters taken from you, or maybe you've negotiated for your masters, leave a comment below and help the community grow in knowledge.

The artist of the day is Norah Jones. I know you already know who Norah Jones is, but there's this one particular song I want you to listen to go back to that first record that she released is called Come Away With Me, the song is Lonestar, and one of my favorite guitar solos, recording in the last 20 years, we'll say, is on this song. So go check out Norah Jones’  song, Lone Star and listen to that slide guitar solo. It's 100% Epic.

Well, that's it. My name is Sweet Deat.

Ticketmaster Has a Master Plan

Today we're talking about Ticketmaster, and we're talking about how they're going to check your Covid status or your vaccine status more specifically, when you come into a concert, when we can all get back together. It's a little creepy.

I'll explain right now, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies called Pfizer that is doing a lot of covid research on the vaccine, they just recently announced that they have a 90% success rate with this new vaccine, so that's really good. So in preparation and in light of this news, Ticketmaster released some information that's really interesting as to how they plan to let people back into concert safely without spreading the virus. It looks like this plan will hinge on three different entities on the Ticketmaster digital app, information from third party health companies like Clear Health, which I did not know that Clear got into the health game, pretty interesting. Ibm's digital health pass will be involved in this also, and distributors of this vaccine like LabCorp and CBS Health Clinic.

So here's how it's gonna work. After you purchase a ticket, they're gonna ask for your vaccine information, which usually last for a year, or have an active test that within 72 hours or so, you have not been diagnosed positive for Coronavirus, so once the test is complete, then you're gonna ask somebody like IBM or CVS that has your information, to then send it to Ticketmaster, so they can authorize that information If you didn't take a test or take the vaccine, you're not allowed to come to a concert. Even if you bought a ticket, Ticketmaster says They're not gonna store any of your health data, they just wanna know whether you're positive or negative, and they just wanna get it from a trusted source that they believe in, or have a whole procedure with that... We'll move things along pretty quickly, they say the main role for the third party company is just to encrypt the data that you send from them to Ticketmaster, so Ticketmaster washes their hands of basically everything. And your information is protected.

To this day, in 2020, the FDA has never involved themselves in a thirdparty sort of collaborative effort to pass a long data that's encrypted to anyone, so this is brand new territory we're talking about here, Ticketmaster sees themself on the forefront of all of this, and Mark Ovi, the President of Ticketmaster, says that airline industries and other industries that require rapid testing, having this thirdparty company is going to really help operations move forward in a very quick and consumer friendly way.

Ticketmaster says there's two technologies that are gonna really help scale this whole program, so let's dive into that.

The first is digital ticketing, which will then tie a particular person to its identity to their account, so they'll be able to get rid of paper tickets and those type of things, secondly, to get Masters planning to deploy what they call a smart Event System, which will allow for social distancing and staggered concert arrival, so not everybody showing up at the gate at once, stuff like that. And you also have to remember that a lot of Ticketmaster’s event spaces are also linked to Live Nation, because Live Nation uses those venues to then put on all of their concerts.

So here's where I'm a little worried. It seems like that everybody's really excited about this vaccine, and believe me, I am, if you've watched any my videos, I'm super excited, but when you start talking about tying things to digital identity, I get a little wary. I don't know. So there's a lot of varying views out here, and I don't really know what's the best route, but I know that when you're talking about taking vaccines that are coded and sort of encoded for you and then you're registered in a system, and I don't know, does anybody else feel a little wary about that? Maybe it's just me, but I feel like there's a lot of... What's the best word to say? There's a lot of personal securities and boundaries that are sort of being overlooked for the greater good of taking a vaccine, and I do think the vaccines are good, and I think that people should find a way to take a vaccine, but taking government records of things and basically cataloging who's taking things and who's allowed to do things and who's not, it just kinda scares me a little bit, and I think it's okay to admit that.

Right, anyway, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it because I'm always interested in everybody's opinion as it pertains to a subject, it's controversial as this one.

So today's artist today is my neighbor. I'm talking about my neighbor Kim, she is an amazing artist, and she barely puts any of her stuff out there. She's definitely one of the most creative people that I've ever met, and she's just something - actually talented, everything. She's an incredible songwriter, she's an incredible visual artist and a painter, and I think that the world needs to know a little bit about her.

Until next time, I'm Sweet Deat, we'll talk soon.

Live Nation Unveils Reopening Plans… But When?

So What's up, everybody? How you doing? 

Without further ado, let's get into it. As I said before, today's topic is about Live Nation and how they're forecasting the future, they believe that by next summer we will be back to scale with live performances, and gotta say that's pretty exciting to at least fantasize about... And just a disclaimer, I say all of this because who really knows, but also it may be just a move to keep their stockholders very happy. But anyway, I digress. Live Nation is encouraged by the 86% of people that had concerts that they bought tickets for rescheduled and they didn't ask for a refund. I think they're starting to believe that the overall temperature of what's happening in the world is coming to a point where consumers are feeling a little bit more comfortable holding on to their investments being tied up in future tickets, also based upon their polling and research that going to live concerts is nearly the number one thing that everybody misses the most and are very excited to get back to in the near future.I know that I am.

Here's a few numbers from last quarter that are not so good. Lab nation reported a 94% drop in revenue is from 26 billion to 146 million. That's a lot of money. So for you counters out there, that's 588 million in the red as they currently speak, which is crazy to think about... Because this time last year, they were 172 million in the black. Currently, they're projecting that with these funds that they have made just recently, it looks like they're gonna be able to stay in business at least until the summer of 2021, which is when everything is projected to go back to normal and... What is the new normal? Who knows? But one thing's for sure, in the time like this, we could all use a little bit of confident reinforcement, and I think you and I both need that.

How do you feel about all of this? Do you feel like that maybe by next summer, we can go to a concert again, at least safely to do it, maybe outdoors, leave a comment below and tell me what you think, I'm interested in your commentary on the subject, a quick shout out to my friend Aaron because when all this started back in March, he immediately said 2021, and I just couldn't see that at the time, I think I was definitely in the beginning in the camp of, Oh, this will be gone by the end of the flu season. Right. And granted, I'm not an epidemiologist, I don't study pandemics or the history of them, nor did we really know that we were in one to begin with, it was a lot of talking going back and forth and to think back on this time is kind of crazy now, we've been in this a long time, and any sort of good news that we can get out of Live Nation makes me feel good.

One thing I'm curious to know is if you leave a comment below also if... To tell us what you've done differently in this pandemic to keep your music world afloat, are you teaching more lessons, did you pick up a second job that's not music related, do you see yourself going back to being a fulltime musician?

I'm just curious to what you have to say about the whole thing, and like I said, I think positive reinforcement and conversation during these times really helps the psyche, so... I'd love to hear from you.

I'm Sweet Deat, and I’ll see you next time.

Van Morrison is Starting His Own Stimulus Fund

Hey everybody, what's going on? It's Sweet Deat, and I'm back again to tell you about Van Morrison stimulus check that he wants to send everybody in the UK, think I'm crazy, I might be. So might he... We'll talk about it right now.

Today, we're gonna talk about Van Morrison's plan to stimulate the old musician economy by starting his own stimulus program, what… So let's dive right into it. Last month, a study on the British live music scene was released and it said that over 170,000 musicians are set to lose their jobs. Now, we know that Van Morrison has had some very strong feelings. If you've been following the news about this whole lockdown thing and how he basically doesn't really prescribed to it at all, his opinion, his world, go Van Morrison, totally on you. Rather than just continue to write songs about how the government is screwing everyone like he has been, he decided to take it a step further and actually start a musician fund that would benefit musicians  hat are in hardship. Van Morrison has dubbed this The Lockdown Financial Hardship Fund.

So how is he getting the funding... Well, he's using the funding that's come with his lock down songs that he wrote, just so that you can go and listen to them online, these tracks are called Born to be Free , and the obvious toe-tapper... No more Lockdown. So now you can go listen to Van Morrison's protest songs and know that you're doing musicians a solid… These payments are a onetime stimulus to musicians that are around 500 Pounds or 650 US dollars, not too shabby. So how does one become eligible for this Van Morrison stimulus package? Well, it's simple, if you're an unemployed or self-employed musician and over 50% of your money came from music, you are eligible, the only other stipulations is you're above the age of 16 and that you live in the UK area and Ireland. Of course, they're gonna ask for that eligibility. So make sure that you have all that stuff ready to go.

In addition to this fund, you gotta know that Van Morrison has already sent a letter to the Northern Ireland folks asking for them to recommence live music as he says, and that you know, it's time for us to get moving. A great episode of this particular channel that might be of interest in you is the very last one that I did, which talks about a German study that proved that if you have good ventilation systems and everybody wears a mask, it's very, very unlikely for transmission of covid 19 to occur. So Van Morrison is really trying to express his views here and pretty awesome that he's donating all of the money from those protest tracks to musicians who need it the most right now. England is gonna be one of the most hardest hit musician economies, it seems as it pertains to just a working man musician type, they have been much more in locked down than a lot of other countries, and also a lot of major cities in general, that speaking about London, Manchester, etcetera.

Pretty fascinating. Wouldn't it be nice if one of our pop singers or one of our staple musicians decided to donate all of their streaming revenue to a musician fund such as this to help out people? That would be a really cool thing. So regardless of what you think about Van Morrison and his political views, you gotta give them a nice round of applause for taking the step forward and doing something really interesting here. Thank you, Van Morrison.

So for today's artists to the day, I'm gonna choose me. Yes, I know. It's rather silly that I've not done this yet, but I have music that I'd like for you to listen to. My band is called Wisetale, and the song I want you to listen to this week is called Fix. It's pretty fun,

Until next time, I’m Sweet Deat.

The Results are in! What it Will Take for Live Music to Come Back.

Okay, okay, so let's dive right into it. Today's topic is talking about how to safely put together a concert. It seems like the Germans have figured out how to do it, and guess what? It involves wearing a mask.

A while ago, a German group began this experimental concert type stuff to see how they were going to jump start the live concert music industry again, and they were gonna put on these concerts and expose people to Covid and do all sorts of different things, or they were going to at least put a bunch of people in the room, test them before they go in and see if anybody came out with it, or just all kinds of weird crazy experiments. Just trying to figure out how in the world do we get back to normal. Well, there's test results are back and there's some really interesting data that I'd like to share with you, but first a little back story for the people who did not read that post. So back in July, a bunch of scientists got a whole bunch of people together and it was like around 4000 or so, and they just tested a whole bunch of different scenarios and figure out how they could have concerts again, because we all miss concerts and I miss playing them. And a lot of the people that love going to concerts and spend a lot of their money going to concerts, they missed them too, so the whole system is completely destroyed. They just were the first to really organize and say, Hey, we're gonna try and come up with a solution. So here are some of the results that they found, and also here are some of the parameters that they used to do the study.

So without further ado, let's get into it. This whole entire project was actually called Restart 19, which is pretty funny because they could have called it restart 2020 and that would have probably been even better, but I digress. So on August 22nd, they recruited people for about 10 hours to get together, they ranged from the age of 18 to 50, and they were all very healthy and checked out ahead of time, initially they looked at having closer to 4000 people there, but they ended up only settling in about 1500 because I mean, hey, let's face it, you're basically putting yourself in a petri dish and becoming the actual experiment for Covid 19. And who wanted to do that back in August?

Right, so the first scenario, scenario number one was just a normal concert that you would have gone to all the time, very much prepandemic, no social distancing, everybody's just crammed in there real close to the stage watching the show. The second scenario that they tested was one where everyone was appropriately socially distanced, the third one they did was with seats, so they had people sit down, enjoy the concert and then leave potentially. The third one they did was simply just have everybody come down and sit in actual designated seats and then they left, so everybody in the audience was given very safe masks, they were also giving contact tracers so they could actually see where people were touching, etcetera, and they also used fog to sort of give an idea as how air flow was happening in the room, the findings were very interesting, and essentially it really comes down to how great the ventilation systems are in the venues, which is no surprise to me.

Delta has been doing this thing where they upgraded all of their ventilation systems to make sure that air is not being recycled, or if it is... It's being recycled in a way that's points you're a zero clean, so to speak. But the idea of the concert is basically the same, you have a great ventilation system, you have a really good chance of not wearing covid if you also wear a mask. A postconcert survey was done, and it said that up to about around 90% of the people who attended the concert said, I wouldn't mind wearing a mask to go watch a concert because... Hey, let's face it, I miss live music, where there is a will, there is a way, people... So what does this all mean? Does this mean that concerts just immediately come right back?

The truth is, most of the venues that I've ever been into have the worst ventilation systems ever, and the idea of a company being able or an independent theater or any sort of major moves from a major conglomerate like Live Nation, which just drop a bazillion dollars on new ventilation systems and mortgage that to the future, it seems a little unlikely to me, at least in the short term, I think that their probable play is to continue to do what they're doing right now, doing these outdoor concerts and trying to just show people that they care, and they want to bring live music back and doing that kind of stuff, but it does make you wonder if there was a sweeping move in selling ventilation systems across the country and all of these venues, both large and small, could we get back to work? Maybe I'm just simply happy that a study was done, that was done in a professional manner that now gives us data that we can look at and say that we can get together and do live concerts if these certain things are met.

And I think at this point, no matter whether you're a masker or anti-mask e or have any sort of agenda at all with this, I think everybody, at the end of the day is a music lover, and they would probably make the sacrifice of wearing a mask, just to show up and enjoy music again, and I know that musicians like myself and all my friends would love to also do that too.

Today's artist of the day is a band that is no longer in existence, so that's why it's really important that I talk about them. It is the band called Jungol and they are based right here where I'm at, from Atlanta, Georgia, and they are awesome, they were around many moons ago, the Yoder brothers did a really great job and putting together many, many albums of great music, but the album that I always keep going back to is this album called Places, and you should go and check that out, shout out to Graham, Josh, Jason and Zack, the whole crew. Sure, you miss hearing you guys.

Until next time, I’m Sweet Deat.

Broadway Delays Comeback Until…

What's up everybody? Broadway has announced that they're shutting down until May of 2021. What does the economic impact of that look like? I'll tell you the numbers are pretty ridiculous, let's go... 

Let's talk about Broadway.

I'm gonna go ahead and let you know right now, this is a bloodbath of numbers, and you're not gonna like it if you're involved in the Broadway community at all, that said it is rather revealing about how crazy this pandemic has totally ruined the music industry short term, so let's get into a show... The initial shutdown for Broadway happened back in March, I believe it was around the 12th of this year, and the governor Como came in and said, Hey listen, we're not doing this anymore, it's too unsafe. People being close together, en mass, we gotta shut this thing down and probably rightfully so. At the time, we just didn't know what we were dealing with or what we were getting into. Shutting down seemed like the right move.

It was just, Let's just wait til April before we do anything. And then it was June, and then it was the fall, and now here we are in October, and they're already announcing they're not gonna open until May of next year, by far the largest jump that they've made so far. This means that for the first time in who knows how long, Broadway will be closed for an entire year.

So how bad are the numbers... I'll tell you about that. Approximately 97,000 people are involved in the Broadway industry alone. So this isn't talking about all the local theaters you'd like to go to or any of the other theaters across the world, this is just in New York City. The economic impact is 14.8 billion. Now remember, New York was initially hit really hard by the pandemic, they had like 11,000 cases reported in early April per day, and eventually now that's dropped from down to 1% or so, from that large number, it's decreased to basically less than 1% of the population in New York City per day, which is good. And obviously, if they were to even open right now anyway, attendance would be so low based on fear and consumer lack of confidence that they would be really spending more money than they'd be making, and that's not a good business model. And I don't understand all the answers to the questions, I don't... I'm not an epidemiologist, I'm not any sort of disease or virus expert. I am not a doctor. But if you want your Performing Arts to come back and you wanna go back and enjoy concert experiences without putting people's health at risk, it might be time for all of you to be wearing a mask, and also consider, if you wanna go back to a concert that wearing a mask in the short term might be the only way you get to do so faster.

That's a lot of money, folks. 14 point, blah, blah, blah, billion dollars lost because of this pandemic just in New York City alone, pretty insane, and I just wanna give it up to all my musicians and everybody involved in the music theater community. Keep holding strong. We love you. And if you're the general public still has a nine to five job, consider finding an artist to donate and subscribe to and give money to help them continue to pay the bills doing their art, just like they did before this pandemic, that they had absolutely nothing to do with, they make the world a better place, and they make the music or the art that is the soundtrack or the visual of your life, so to speak, and it would be really cool if you would find a way to support someone, so do that. If you're out there means a lot.

I would not be doing my good friend duty if I did not make this week's artist of the day, my friend drum roll, my good friend Karlye Hayes has released her first solo record, it's all live and low budget. She’s kind of quirky, kinda Indie and acoustic, kind of soft, sort of romantic and kinda dark, so if any of those things apply to you, you might check out her record, it's pretty cool. She's been dropping all these really cool things on an Instagram, so I'll probably link back in the description below, just so that you can see kind of what she's up to.

That's it for today. I'm Sweet Deat.

San Francisco is Trying a UBI for Musicians

San Francisco adopts a UBI for musicians. I'll tell you why it's cool, and I also tell you why it's not…

Today we have a millennial favorite: UBI. But this time it's just for musicians, just to help them kinda get moving along in the San Francisco area, interesting topic. I'll tell you what I think about it right now. 

San Francisco annoucned that they're instituting a $1,000 UBI for artists and creatives that live in the city. Now, UBI is not something that's uncommon, it's kind of becoming more frequent of a topic to speak about, people like Andrew Yang have been advocating for it for several years  now, and if it goes way farther back than that, but the San Francisco Mayor has really put her foot down on this one, and it looks like it's gonna go through and it looks like it's gonna happen for about 130 or so musicians in the San Francisco area.

Now, there's a lot of people out there that are really in favor of this move, and there's a lot of people who think it's a total waste of money, or maybe just not the best use of funds in this particular time, but... Let's talk about the pluses and the minuses of both show, I think the good is pretty obvious in this situation, 130 artists are gonna get $1000 a month at the start of next year for a period of months, if not an entire year… Who knows? I feel like once you start going down this rabbit hole wind as it end, but that seems to be the culture there, and some of the people and some of the artists that are in that community, they're not happy about this because obviously San Francisco has more than 130 artists.

And how do you go about choosing the artists that you want to fund this particular way, what makes an artist worthy of $1000 versus an artist that's not worth $1000. So some of the major criticism of the band has been because it's not a broadbased program, it's not something that's equal, for all of that have claimed taxes as being an artist or a musician over the past year or more.

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, says that it even could be used for political agenda reasons, let's face it, what politician doesn't do everything for a political agenda reason, but whatever, he argues that the real benefit of the UBI should be... Like I said before, Universal and all fair across the board, and it just kinda seems like he's not in favor of the whole idea of it being 130 artists that's plugged for this benefit. Other voices are a little bit more excited about the future of this UBI program, saying that, yes, this is sort of like a pilot thing, 130 people are gonna get it now, but maybe the expands in the future.

He also makes the point that the UBI that these 130 artists are gonna be getting is universally allowed to be spent on anything, so you don't have to just spend it on say food, if you were to get food stamps, etcetera. Get it. That said, both people who are in favor of this idea or not so in favor of this idea, all agree that how do you select 130 musicians or artists to get this type of benefit and leave everybody else behind in the beginning upsetting anyone. But I think it gets back to the whole idea of the pandemic has totally wrecked us and we're all without work right now, and basically anything that we can get from the government is definitely a help, but also to what sort of longterm ramifications come with continuing to reach to the Governor for support. I guess it's that longstanding debate, how much government do you want in your life and are you willing to wait it out for all this to turn around to keep going back to work, or is it something that you really want that money from the government now to help you out.

Either way, it's an interesting idea and I like interesting ideas, I like ideas that make me think and think about the future and think about what an artist's life could evolve into being… UBI is popular or some people... And some people, it's not... I'm really anxious to hear what you have to say, so make sure you leave a comment down below and tell me what you think of this idea of choosing a select amount of artists for a pilot program to sort of see if this UBI thing works.

Another interesting thought about the whole process is taking this UBI, does it help or hurt you if you're trying to buy a house or trying to advance in life and you need to show income, is this UBI going to hurt you in making those larger purchases or is it gonna be viewed negatively by the people who loan money for you to do bigger and better things with your artistic career, essentially, is it viewed sort of like welfare or is it viewed as just like a grant program that doesn't show up so negatively on your tax returns also, if this ends up being a great thing for artists, how does that fit into the mold of art being separate from government and politics and having a unique role and voice in expressing opinions about either the political climate or the way the country is going, or any of that type of stuff to start to burn the line too much to where art is now influenced politically by the dollar bill that's being paid them monthly, as I said before, I really like ideas that make me think...

I really like ideas that make me ponder the future, and this is definitely one of them. So make sure you leave a comment down below and tell me what you think of UBI and this whole San Francisco situation. How would you do it if you did it? Would you do it? Would you accept it? Tell me what you think.

And you've gotta be kidding me, right? You think I forgot about the artists of the day, not so fast, my friend. Today's artist is Jesse Fischer, and he just released this brand new record called resilience, that's really, really awesome, making a lot of waves online, and he's been doing thi interview series to talking with some of the artists that played on the record as well as other people and how they showed resilience in their own artistic careers, he's a really great guy to get to know his catalog with SoulCycle, a band he used to have for years and years, and may still have... I'm not sure they've been doing a lot of great work, like I said, for years, and Jesse's a super creative dude, he seems to have his hand on the pulse of everything that's happening in New York City. So make sure you go check out Jesse Fischer this week.

Until the next time, I'm Sweet Deat.