Singer Alisa Xayalith of NZ band The Naked and Famous © m4music 2011

Well, there were no instances of yours truly vomiting in the bushes at this year’s m4music festival – thank god, last year was gruesome.

No, this year I dipped my toes in the m4m waters in perfect health, taking in a couple of workshops and panels, and a few of the Friday night gigs.

I caught the end of the Demotape Clinic Pop Jury session, in time to hear Venetus Flos being discussed. I liked what I heard, a lot – gravel-voiced indie electronica which reminded me somewhat of The Sisters of Mercy in its solemn intonation. Problem was, as the panel agreed, their music could hardly be described as ‘pop’. Perhaps they should have entered a different category? But it wasn’t really rock, urban or electronic, either. Or, maybe the Demotape Clinic categories need to be revised to allow for music which doesn’t fit neatly into those four categories. Well, in the end, Venetus Flos didn’t make it to the finals (Onésia Rithner got the pop honours), but their music was the most interesting that I heard, and my curiosity was piqued enough to look them up after the festival. I’ll be keeping an eye out for them in the future.

I certainly hope that Venetus Flos attended David Bauer (78s) and Daniel Jörg‘s (Choo Choo) Social Media für Musiker workshop – perhaps now they’ll be convinced of the necessity of giving up their MySpace page as their primary website. MySpace=DeadZone! Bauer and Daniel ChooChoo gave a succinct and definitive overview of the most useful types of social media available for musicians today, with clear visuals and slides. You can’t underestimate the effectiveness of a good visual presentation – it makes all the difference, really. With my goldfish concentration span, I need to be able to comprehend everything in 2 seconds. Plus, I’m a sucker for good fonts – I’m predisposed to pay more attention if it looks attractive (sad but true).

It’s clear that these days musicians must expect to invest a significant amount of time and energy into their social media personas and holdings; however, as Jörg pointed out, that only works if you have someone in the band who enjoys doing such things. But anyone can see the absolute utility of connecting with your potential audience on a personal level and growing that fan base. Fans expect it now. It’s about building a rapport and taking that somewhere – to sales, gigs and other forms of tangible support. And if that seems like moving more into marketing and PR than music, well, that’s today’s reality. But I would hasten to add: musicians, don’t forget it is first and foremost about the music! No point having an awesome social media presence if your music is crap, a point Bauer makes in his excellent ‘How to be a successful musician’ manifesto. FYI: Bauer has promised to make his slides from the presentation available shortly.

The Naked and Famous @ Exil © m4music 2011

Best in show gig-wise on Friday was The Naked and Famous @ Exil – packed to the rafters and bouncing off the walls with energy, pounding out good ‘n’ catchy electropop with a side of youthful enthusiasm, howling guitars and synthesizers. I could barely see a thing, but I do admit to being as mesmerised by the bass player’s luxuriant mullet as much as the music.

Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires © m4music 2011

UK dance punk band Friendly Fires threw some ska, trumpets and a whole lot of energy into their set, with singer Ed Macfarlane engaging in some very Iggy Pop-esque upper body movements. However, as good as the music was, the show was curiously lacking in atmosphere – it could have been brilliant, you could taste the potential….but it was merely, hmm, good.

Benjamin of Alvin Zealot © m4music 2011

In other highlights, Swiss darlings Alvin Zealot played some great floppy-haired rock, and Everything Everything surprised me with their intellectualised art pop falsetto meanderings and grey boiler suits (watch the livestream from both bands here) – I wasn’t expecting to really enjoy it. I’m new to Everything Everything but what I saw made me sense there’s more to them than meets the eye (note to self, must investigate further). I saw the Friendly Fires boys checking them out, too, hanging out on the edges of the crowd with beers.

But probably what brought the biggest smile to my face was the video installation soundscape of the Braun Tube Jazz Band, by Japanese artist Ei Wada. Surrounded by a bank of 14 old Braun tube TVs and using them, his body and a computer-controlled analog video recorder as musical instruments, he coaxed an amazing percussive performance out of a pile of old rubbish – literally.

Peter Sunde, speaking about Flattr © m4music 2011

On Saturday Peter Sunde gave the keynote address, talking about his infamous past as a founder of The Pirate Bay (TPB), and his new start-up venture, Flattr (watch the livestream here). He regaled us first with amusing anecdotes about the funny letters TPB would send in response to the legal cease-and-desist letters they frequently received from furious Hollywood companies, and then explained the details of Flattr, described as ‘the world’s first social micro-payment system’.

Basically, you sign up to Flattr, decide on a monthly fee to spend and then go around flattr-ing any ‘thing’ you like (a ‘thing’ can be well, anything – blog posts, comments, music, videos, software…any ‘thing’ someone has created). At the end of the month, your monthly fee is then divided up amongst all the things that you flattr-ed. So it’s a way of sharing money, as well as tokens of love and respect, for things you like. The money goes directly to the creator – well, 90% of it. The other 10% goes to Flattr to cover running costs. That’s a pretty good deal for artists, musicians, writers etc, far better than any currently available deals given out by traditional publishing/record companies. That’s the other advantage of Flattr – cutting out the middle man. Sounds like a good idea, and I hope Sunde can achieve the kind of critical mass needed to launch it into proper usability and viability. I guess we’ll see if it takes off.

While the TPB/Flattr stuff was engaging, I would have been keen to hear what prompted Sunde to move on from his position of protecting the right to copy any and all content, to the position where he is now, creating a system which allows people to give money for the things they like (however small the amounts may be – apparently the average monthly Flattr spend is around $5), rather than simply copying and making no contributions or giving any feedback to content creators. Interestingly, he mentioned that he himself uses Spotify, the music streaming service, rather than solely using TPB (although he is not entirely satisfied with it, as it sometimes doesn’t have all the content he would like, for example, all Placebo songs were recently inexplicably removed), but didn’t elaborate further on his reasons why he chooses to Spotify rather than go the TPB route – the ease of a constant music stream specific to his taste, or the fact that the streaming service is sanctioned by both major and independent record labels? Pure usability vs….philosophical inconsistency? Given his background, I want to know!

He ended the talk by emphasising the need for musicians to seek out traditional old-school sources of revenue, ie, merchandising and concerts, as well as embracing the newer forms of income and pursuing fresh and innovative ones – one shouldn’t be neglected at the expense of the others. I agree – people are still willing to spend hard cash on entertainment, but are increasingly discerning about where and how they spend it – authenticity (ie, a live gig, a user experience definitely not digitally replicable), originality and quality DO matter. I can’t help but think that music may end up being the gateway product to other forms of real revenue – just look at how the live gig business has boomed as record sales have gone into free-fall. Times, they are a-changing, eh?

The other cool thing that occurred during my m4music experience was a mini-tweet up with some lovely people I’ve been meaning to meet for ages. Yeah, that rocked in a big way. I love it when social media spills over into real life.

The 15th m4music festival will be held 22-24th March 2012.

The m4music festival is supported by Migros Kultur-Prozent.