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The Greatful Dead knew a thing or two about business. "A group of stoners who somehow got more things right than the suits running the record industry, radio and even some high powered new media businesses." Some great business lessons that could be learned from this group are sprinkled through an article on indisdemusicmedia comparing their biz model to that of the Radio Industry's. Some of these points should be laser sketched into your brain (if you simply can't remember). According to the Atlantic Magazine article your fans are key to your ultimate success. But not all your fans. As with every musician you have different levels of fans, cater to only your most loyalist fans because their the ones that are going to purchase your music. Get a team together consisting of the band the road crew and and other organization members and periodically rotate the final decision makers. Your not the only one with good ideas on how to run things. Give it away until they buy it. Some things in life are uncontrollable (death, natural disasters and file sharing fall into this category) Don't try to fight against it. Rather embrace it and exploit it for your own benefit. The greatful dead exemplified this by not having an hernia upon the realization that their fans were taping their shows. Instead they used it to increase demand and drive the sales of other revenue streams. The same way that humanity doesn't fight against death but instead uses it to make the quality of life better the same way a musician should approach the death of the CD. Just because the CD has to die, doesn't mean that your career has to go to.

Your musician page at a4a is more than just a place to tell people about your band. Post photos, music, gigs. Interact with other musicians and with a thriving community of rabid music fans all from your musician page. Access4Artists brings your music to the fans and encourages the ongoing interaction that builds a lasting relationship between the artist and the fan.

If the name Ian Rogers doesn't ring a bell it will soon. Ina Rogers is the CEO of Topsin media, a music client that analysis how your brand is doing online. The data that his company collects suggests that the campaigns that take the shape of a snowball have a much better chance of showing a return on investment. Which as someone cadidly pointed out in the comments is the traditional definition of artist development. Ians 3 points that success seeking musicians should follow are 1. Goal: Have more fans tomorrow that you had yesterday 2. Grow fan connections as well as dollars. Everyday should mean more email addresses, twitter followers, Facebook fans, and MySpace friends and of course dollars. 3. Action: Do something small weekly, something big monthly

Get Famous enough and Fans could actually be on tour to see you. Matin Contempree is driving this innovative concept with the Rock and Pop tours. The very first tour, 'Good Vibrations Tour of Los Angeles' is kicking off in April (2010). Offered is "the chance to delve behind the music industry: to hear the music live, taste the excitement and experience the iconic locations and famous venues where rock and pop history was created and still lives on". READ MORE

A4A is the only site you will ever need for the promotion of artists and their work, whether you're an indie musician or the next Stanley Kubric. We help you to build a fan base that is both loyal and passionate about your work and then the promotion is a matter of sharing your video with your built-in fan base who will in turn share it with their social networks.

At Access4Artists, we know indie bands and artists because we are indie bands and artists. We are rabid fans of music and passionate fans of art, and we believe in building a strong community of like-minded indies around the world in a single, central location that can showcase music and art and encourage musicians and artists at the same time.

1000 true fans. Even 500 sounds like a good number.

Growing your brand on the internet should be similar to growing a tree in your back yard. The internet is an intimidating place when growing your brand as a musician, many bands have already have already racked up hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of fans, followers, myspace plays and you want nothing more to turn your 100 into as many as possible, you know, to catch up. Don't get caught up in the hype. Many of these followers are are faux. Some experiment's finding that 200,000 followers only led to 25 clickthroughs, because their following wasn't grown virally. Conversely, if you grow your 100 fans like a delicate plant it doesn't take long before your true fanbase overtakes the faux disconnected user base. On the internet Viral growth

Loiterers Should Be Arrested. The CMJ Music Marathon ended last week but the lessons learned have just begun. Kevin English, blogger at eleetmusic.com took some time to talk about the lessons that he took away with him from the many panelists. His conclusion; there is no concrete answer to surviving in todays music industry. Old school pundits stressed the importance of networking and buzz generation by any means possible while New Media progressives represented new media applications, widgets and digital services that promised to strengthen direct to fan relationships. It wasn't until the Sudanese rapper Emmanual Jai took to the stage that he realized industry survival was about constantly adapting, bending the industry to specifically cater to your needs. Figure out what your number one need is right now as an indie artist and exploit that need. Kevin's short but enlightening read this morning brings me to the idea of a (wait for it, wait for it) digital manager. Not loading up all of your tracks on myspace, but actually hiring a manager to surf the web all day and submit your music to opportunities world wide. Has anyone tried something like this yet? let me know how it works, and what you have been doing to try to adapt.

Start a relationship with your fans.

Musicscout.com could help your band get discovered. Music scout is an App that has just been released for the android and iPhone market that enables music enthusiasts to express their thoughts and sentiments about the band they're currently watching. Now all you gotta do is convince all of your fans to download the App and give you great rating everywhere you go.

Since the go-to spot for every up and coming musician is the Myspace, i thought that grant you fly on the wall access @ the myspace HQ for one day. Techcrunch has the dirt on the internal crumblings Myspace.com from the perspective of 3 anonymous employees. What each employee reveals is a bit shocking, but after about a minute of mentally pretending to sift through many of pages on myspace music seem to make %100 percent sense. Internally, Myspace sucks, and it's ever-so apparent on the outside. The accounts state that there's lots of yelling and confusion going on behind the scenes and one employee even compared it to a poorly run enterprise development shop than an Internet company. I think the only thing holding Myspace together right now is the independent musicians back (they should pay us) and we can only take so much weight, before it's time for a lighter load. Facebook Fan Pages anyone?

Learn from the best music video directors and interact with musicians who need and appreciate your talent as much as you need and appreciate theirs. Share your work with the fans and let them help you to become the next big music video director working with some of the biggest names in the music business.

At Access4Artists you will find a unique online comedian showcase that brings you the best laughs you've ever had from the comfort of your computer. Whether you are a budding comedian or just a fan of comedy, you will find the comedian showcase at Access4Artists to be your new favorite place to be online.

Access4Artists is one such tool. In fact, we dare say that a4a may well be the only online tool you need to promote your band, interact with your fans and have a great centralized location online that any talent booker anywhere can access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's like we took the entire process of how to get a gig and made it virtually idiot proof!

These two thoughts are key. Ever thought of display your live show schedule with Google Calendar. Help fans find your gig venues with Google Maps.

I've been hearing some chatter recently about underground music going the way of the "black guy mohawk"-out the door. one definition of Underground music is music that refers to a variety of post-1960s rock, pop, or dance subgenres that developed a cult following despite their lack of mainstream. Even though music can't hide from the internet I still believe that because of the pressures put on todays bloggers and DJs to "play for pay" or "go where the money is" that underground music can still live and thrive and evolve on the internet. Hopefully we can help increase the underground network by strengthening long distance ties between musicians and their fans. Everyone is now the underground musician. Music will go back to its purest form where the main inspiration for doing it is the love and the respect.

Grooveshark is a music streaming service that is accessed through your browser, and is driven by users who upload their record collections. Currently Universal has initiated legal action against the service for failing to pay royalties, which is bad news for the shark. The good news comes to indie musicians looking to capitalize on increased exposure. Since it is a free service to access indie bands can upload their music to the service in hopes of extending their fan base. Users who wish to purchase your music can also be referred to Amazon or Itunes. In 2010 have your music in more places.

Potential Artist Revenue Streams David Sherbow music business visionary has a good outline of ALL POTENTIAL ARTIST REVENUE STREAMS. The list covers publishing, digital sales, merchandise, live performances, sponsorships, endorsements, fan clubs, and the list goes on. It'd be great if this list could actually link to articles that explain how to work the revenue of each stream. Hopefully we'll see this in Potential Rev Streams list 2.0.

Long gone are the days of million dollar advances. Today only a fraction of a fraction of that number is needed to finance and promote a new project. Just take a look at the NYC rock band Kill The Alarm, who recently rose $15,000 in 6 weeks by tapping into their social network and email lists. If fan funding is something that peaks your interest then you might want to take a deeper look at Kickstarter.com.