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Monday, March 26, 2012

DJ Shadow's 13 Secrets For Music Biz Survival

DJ Shadow image from Bobby Owsinski's Big Picture production blog
Here's a post that originally came from the great Hypebot blog regarding DJ Shadow's (also known as Josh Davis) 13 secrets for music business survival. If you don't know who he is, Shadow's considered a prominent figure in the world of hip hop, and credited with the first album (Endtroducing) that was recorded using only sampled sounds. You don't have to be a DJ for these secrets to apply; they work for anyone in the music business.

1.    Listen to the advice of those who've gone before you
2.    Realize when you've made a mistake - like turning down Apple
3.    Expect to hear your music in strange places
4.    Enjoy the minutiae
5.    Keep yourself mysterious to fans
6.    Touring doesn't make as much as you think
7.    Defy Spinal Tap with your stage show
8.    Embrace the oddity of streetwear
9.    Go to where the work is
10.  Respect the craft
11.  Reissues take a lot of work
12.  Keep up with technology
13.  Always have another project

The ones I like the best are 1, 4, 9 and 10, but the others are valuable too. Take them to heart.

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2 comments:

Mike Sorensen said...

Absolutely Bobby. I like point 5 as well especially from Shadow who has always kept a nice balance of being humble and generous at live shows and yet still keeps a lot of his life and work hidden. I like that in an artist and why I've always like Prince. Who wants reality TV shows about the people behind the music? Boring. Then they reveal themselves to be just like us. I'd much rather think they, like Shadow, keeps himself locked in a basement with 1,000's of flashing lights and displays crafting his tunes than think of him reading the paper. :-)

Great post as ever Bobby. I hope you don't mind but I keep pointing my readers your way almost every other day with a blog post about your latest post. I just like the material you've been covering of recent.

All the best
Mike

Bobby Owsinski said...

Thanks, Mike. Feel free keep pointing people this way.

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