Not the same old song and dance
Musicians may have a friend in Grafton-based web site
It's a simple and time-tested theory: you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.
Sounds simple enough, but all too often, struggling or new, undiscovered musicians and artists do all the scratching, with nothing to show for it, according to the founders of Grafton-based unsignedartists.com.
In a digital era when fresh, original content can be posted in a million different places, UA co-founders Bonnie Milner and Sal Fantasia said artists get virtually nothing in return for driving enormous amounts of traffic to web sites like YouTube.
They aim to change that with their new venture, designed to both educate artists on how to "make it" and also provide a forum to share their work and get rewarded at the same time.
No thanks, RIAA
"Thanks to the digital revolution, artists have an opportunity to go directly to their customers, no more chokehold by the major labels and syndicated radio," said Milner, vice president and creative director for UnsignedArtists. "There's all these new opportunities to make a living without having to get signed, but musicians lack the resources they need to get started."
Artists will also be able to create their own personal pages, similar to popular social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. Unlike those sites, members of UnsignedArtists would be rewarded with discounts, merchandise, equipment and other goodies depending on the amount of traffic their personal site generates, Fantasia explained. It is hoped that a significant amount of traffic on the site will, in turn, bring in significant advertising revenue.
Other potential revenue streams for the site are a little less defined, admitted Fantasia, the site's chairman and CEO. Ideas being tossed around include an online music store similar to iTunes, which would split the proceeds of sales 50/50 between the artist and the site. UnsignedArtists is also considering a project coordinator feature that would allow artists to define what they need to finish a project, and coordinate with other members to buy or trade for unique services.
Flutes and funding
Say, for example, a progressive musician needs just the right killer flute track to complete his masterpiece, except that flute player lives in Singapore. If they're members of UnsignedArtists, no problem, said Milner. The ability to access, or upload, virtually any kind of instrumentation is a feature unique to UnsignedArtists.
Even less defined than the scope of the site, Fantasia said, are further plans to create both a record label and music catalog within UnsignedArtists. Fantasia laughs when explaining that UnsignedArtists, will, indeed, try to actually sign artists.
The site will launch Sept. 1, with a rough budget of $1.5 million. Fantasia said he already has $600,000 in hand, and has lined up the remainder through private investment.
Creating the record label and music publishing business will take at least another $1.5 million, Fantasia said.
If the business prospects for the yet-to-be-determined label are a little shaky currently, the brains and infrastructure behind them aren't.
UnsignedArtist's de facto "physical manifestation" is North Brookfield's Long View Farm, the country's oldest live-in recording studio. Since its opening in 1974, it has played host to such rock luminaries as The Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens (pre-Islam), Stevie Wonder, Aerosmith, and more recently, Creed and Mos Def.
WBJ Web Partners
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