WMC diary – day 2

Well, I’m on the second day of the conference now. Yesterday was, well, mixed I guess – it started great; met some great guys, all flown out here on their own, on a mission like me, and I felt convinced that I was in the right place. As the day went on however, I started to realise that the WMC has a very, very, heavy House bias; and finding the people I need to meet, amongst 10,000 delegates, makes finding a needle in a haystack look like childs play.

The majority of the events this week are going to be House too; apart from a couple of outstanding drum & bass events; the first one’s tonight, and I’ll be there for sure, with Fabio, Shy FX and Andy C amongst many others. I wonder if Fabio will remember me from the time we played a gig in Prague, some 7 years ago?

The other slight problem here is that after putting together my album for the event, I’ve realised that I’m not really strictly a drum & bass artists – I make downtempo just as much, and when you’re listening to my music, it makes sense for the balance to work that way – so when people say “so what music do you make?” I can’t answer “drum & bass” or ‘downtempo” or “hip hop”, but kind of ramble “hmmm deep drum & bass and downtempo hip hop/trip hop electronica breakbeat oh bugger listen to this CD then you’ll know..” which iis fine, but not that productive; as I now need to look for the deep drum & bass and downtempo hip hop/trip hop electronica breakbeat events this week if I’m going to meet like-minded souls; and I can’t find any yet!!!

Haha, that’s the negative stuff out of the way; so on the positive side, everyone here is really open and friendly, so if I relax and trust the nature of serendipity, and realise that I must be out here for *some* reason, then I’ll achieve what I came out here for, whatever that is..

If I get anything from what I’ve experienced and learnt so far, it’ll be that the future of music is absolutely in digital distribution; I think eventually the majority of music will be released by the artist themselves; the music industry is changing beyond recognition; at least in the dance/electronic arena; why pay for cd and vinyl upfront when everyone can download your music? Why wait weeks for a release to come out when you can upload it and make if available by the end of the weekend? Why give 50% of your profits to a label when you can go through an online distributor, and give them 20%, and you keep the rest?

Met Alex here from www.label2net.com - his company is one of the many online distribution comnpanies that have sprung up over the last few years. Many of these companies, including Alex’s, are run by artists and labels who saw the gap in the market for a simple wasy to manage the paperwork related to getting tunes available for download on sites like iTunes and Beatport.

Food for thought. Maybe I don’t need that record deal after all. Maybe my idea for my own label, Blue Nine, is for sure the way forward – to release my own music on my own label, and take full responsibility for it’s success or failure.. Time will tell, as of course distribution is only one piece of the pie – the biggest challenge for independent recording artists now is standing out amongst a sea of independent releases. The big challenge for an artist now has to be promotion and PR. Hmm, I *am* getting something from this conference!

What about the clubs, I hear you ask? Ha, well, jet lag properly kicked in last night; I barely made it back to my room before passing out at 8pm- so my first Miami club experience will be tonight!