February 2, 2021
Thanks to digital-audio technology and the exquisitely collaborative mindset forged by necessity during the global pandemic, musicians are trading tracks back-and-forth as never before. Many recording studios remain shuttered, of course, but savvy and ambitious creators are finding ways to compose, assemble, and complete songs in their DAWs at home. Perhaps even more mind blowing […]
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January 26, 2021
[Design courtesy FreeVector] Don’t Run Your Music Career with a Busted Playbook By Michael Molenda It just keeps happening. Music-business seminars, songwriting roundtables, sell-your-music strategies, and other such tutorials continue to parse out so-called knowledge as if the global pandemic never happened, as if streaming didn’t pay less-than-peanuts, as if social-network algorithms weren’t constantly kneecapping […]
January 5, 2020
Here’s a little thought for 2020 that leapt into my brain during too much travel running up to the holidays. My mind ventured into a weird place, and that strange joint was cooking up a stew of competition, achievement, and the lambasting of other players that are deemed “less than” oneself. Now, I know that […]
August 11, 2019
The following article originally ran in 2017 at michaelmolenda.com, but some industry types recently asked for permission to distribute it on their sites, so I thought, “Hey, time to publish that puppy again.” I hope it helps you engage media people more effectively and productively — MM In my 40-plus years as a journalist and […]
July 22, 2019
DON’T LET YOUR EGO DUMP YOUR MUSIC CAREER ON THE SLAG HEAP I recently read a random Facebook post that reminded me of the thousands of conversations I’ve had with musicians over the years on the subject of “Why am I not more successful, when I am sooooo much better than sooooo many of the […]
April 23, 2019
More click bait from the corporate revenue hounds at RollingStone.com? Sigh. Yep. It’s right here. CLICK TO READ. Publishing is tough these days, and that’s no joke. (I mean, I was “made redundant” at Guitar Player due to the revenue challenges faces by new owners Future U.K.) But I laughed a bit when I saw […]
March 31, 2019
I truly believed that rock and roll would keep me forever young. And it has. At heart. Of course, the myth of rock immortality didn’t fare so well. That perception went down in flames after the far-too-early passing of Buddy, Jimi, Janis, Jim, Duane, and others. But I’ll wager few musicians of a certain age […]
March 28, 2019
Well, let’s first get all the cards on the table… Recently, I have been doing social-network posting for Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, and, as a result, I can be considered a friendly witness for the company. But I started my professional relationship with camp founder David Fishof many years ago while I was at […]
March 14, 2019
Just Stop! Does any songwriter out there believe that streaming services are their friends? Multitudes of us provide content for virtually free in the hope that massive streams will help pay mortgages, put kids through school, or, at least, drop enough cash to buy new gear or market our latest releases. But given that the […]
February 15, 2019
Your Guitar-Star Influences Are Great, But What About the Help of Unsung Buddies? I’ve had the great privilege of interviewing hundreds of successful guitarists. One of the subjects I often like to explore is how a player’s talent evolved from “open to all input” to laser focused on the elements that made them a bona […]
February 6, 2019
That Gibson Elephant Jamming in the Room Gibson has suffered through a long, hard season of getting its butt handed to it. Financial meltdown. Horrible company culture. The “Wood Incident.” Quality control out of control, and careening downward. Innovations players were so not jazzed about. A CEO (Henry Juszkiewicz) who was once a savior of the […]
January 21, 2019
Somehow I Made It Back to Earth… 25 January 2019—Unlike the Major Tom character in David Bowie’s song “Ashes to Ashes,” I didn’t stick around in “heaven’s high.” Not that abruptly losing a pretty good job that I held for more than 20 years was anything approaching heavenly. But I did float for a bit, […]
