Howdy all! The ECMA’s in Charlottetown was exceptionally educational this year. The best was perhaps the keynote speech by Jeff Price, president of Tunecore, who gave a really insightful talk on how the music industry is restructuring and how musicians should take advantage of it. The nutshell version is that every function once performed by a record label can now be done by musicians independently, but that WE need to take the bull by the horns and do it! Which is what I’ve been thinking all along – but he gave us some great advice how/why to do it. Interestingly, even commercial radio is going to take a major hit once streaming becomes widespread….so do we need to fit ourselves into “commercial radio” genres? Perhaps not! This means my mental wheels crank on how as to approach future recording projects, that’s for sure. In addition, I saw a fantastic workshop by Tom Jackson, the genius of the stage, who shows performers how to NOT just stand there and strum…and how to build a great SHOW instead. You can bet all this insight is going to seriously affect what I do in the coming year! Of course, along with the educational component, there were performances on Discovery Stage, Radio ECMA, and the late, late night jamming in the hotel lobby sessions – great fun.
