Forever On Tour: The Rise of Location Independent Musicians
(Photo by VeldaZ)
Gen-Y and young people coming out of college today are changing the status quo of the one-size-fits-all model of the industrial age. Young people are starting businesses, communicating online and interrupting the traditional business paths laid out by our elders.
Musicians are no exception. In fact, some might say they are pioneers. From the days of MP3.com to Napster to Myspace and Radiohead saying pay whatever the hell you want, musicians and people in love with music have lived and played by their own set of rules.
Take both scenarios and you have a bunch of young people, making music, starting businesses and making a living by their own admission.
Thus the dawn of the location independent musician.
- A musician who operates their business from wherever they happen to be.
- A musician who found multiple streams of income from digital downloads, merch, touring, songwriting, collaborating, creating products and focused on branding.
- A musician who has no physical inventory.
- A musician or band that lives in a van, on planes and creates cult classics in airports on MacBooks and GarageBand.
- A musician who doesn’t sit in a desk all week and play a local show on Friday night.
These bands and musicians have been categorized as boys in vans or the coffee shop circuit. The reality is that they operate a business as legit as that coffee shop or your local laundry mat for that matter.
They leverage tools that developers and designers have laid out for them and the comfort of using the internet has afforded them.
Typical tools may include:
- Wordpress to blog about their day to day lives and serve as a content management system for their online brand.
- YouTube, Twitter, Myspace, Reverbnation and Facebook to connect with fans all day long.
- CafePress for on demand shirts and other print as needed or as ordered merch.
- TuneCore to get their MP3’s onto iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and the other players that help them look like the bog boys.
- Audiolife to print CD’s and merch on demand, handle inventory, orders and shipping.
- Bandcamp to pretend they are Radiohead or Trent Reznor.
- Basecamp to keep their team organized on stay on task.
- Google Docs for all documents, presentations, contracts and offers.
- Gmail for email.
- Instant Messengers to talk to fans, partners and well, mom.
- UStream to broadcast live video from anywhere.
- Lulu to self publish books of their poetry, songs, memoirs or stories from the road.
- And countless others.
Being location independent gives a musician the flexibility to collaborate with musicians from across the world and actually be in the same studio. It gives them travel benefits like frequent flyer miles. It allows them to sustain the rock star lifestyle while working on their business.
There has never been a more exciting time to be a musician. The tools are out there, venues are begging for talent to inflate their Tuesday nights and social media has proven that people want to talk about great things.
Are you a location independent musician?
Let us know how you maintain your life on the road and enlighten others on your travels, your day-to-day and the tools that make your life easier to manage and more accessible for fans. I look forward to meeting you when you visit Orlando, a great place to stay for a few days on your travels.
For more information on location independent lifestyles (not necessarily musicians) be sure to check out:
http://locationindependent.com/blog/ - by Lea Woodward
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ – by Tim Ferriss
http://www.thrillingheroics.com/ – by Cody McKibben
(This post was written by Greg Rollett from Gen-Y Rock Stars, a resource and community for indie musicians. Check out their free Gen-Y Rock Star Tool Kit or email Greg for more information.)
