Founded by Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses and Donita Sparks of L7, Cash Music is a nonprofit organization building open-source tools and services to benefit artists and music organizations with the belief that the need for technology should never get in the way of great music. The group vehemently promotes what many would consider radical ideas such as a free and open internet that isn’t controlled by corporate interests, exemplified by their mission statement as follows:
“Our mission is to help educate and empower artists and their fans to foster a more viable and sustainable future for music. What Word Press did for bloggers, we’re doing for musicians. We’re building a free and open platform that’s available to all artists, designed in partnership with the artists and labels who are members of our organization.”
Some of the musicians and record labels using the service already include Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman, Iron &Wine, The Man, Domino Records, Wild Flag, Fat Cat Records, Kill Rock Stars Records, and Saddle Creek Records.
I got the chance to ask a few questions of the current co-executive director at Cash Music, Maggie Vail.
Rick J Bowen: Are you a musician yourself? If so, please give us a brief background of your background.
Maggie Vail: I am a musician – I have been in 10 bands or so over the past 20 years – I come from a family of musicians. My granddad, dad, and sister are all drummers. My most well-known project was Bangs. We were around for seven years and released a couple of albums on Kill Rock Stars. I am in a band now called Hurry Up with Kathy Foster and Westin Glass of The Thermals. We are in the midst of recording our first EP.
I've also worked in the music business for the past 17 years – mostly at Kill Rock Stars where I signed many bands (Mika Miko, Erase Errata, The Thermals, The Mary Timony Band, Shoplifting, Grass Widow, etc.).
I started working with Jesse at Kill Rock Stars many years ago and worked with him closely on many of the early CASH projects. I was one of the first board members and then later Jesse asked me to be his Co-Executive Director. This is totally a dream come true for me.
RJB: What inspired you to create the CASH Music web platform?
Vail: CASH is inspired by a need. There is no easy-to-use, totally open, and free platform for musicians. If a band wanted to build a web site that included the tools we will be offering in the platform, without us it would be cost prohibitive for most. It shouldn't be that way. It should be simple and easy to set up a site that allows a band to sell their own music, stream it, collect fans' email addresses, manage tour dates, and generally just have a web presence that allows a band to create the community that they want and interact with their own fans directly. I think it's wildly important for a band to have that direct relationship in this era.
I get livid every time I see another startup that is being built on music being called a direct-to-fan platform. It's not, that's a misnomer – it's another middleman building a new business on the backs of musicians and more often than not thinking of the musician last, both in terms of compensation and also what the musician needs. CASH has built everything with artists and indie labels based on their needs and wants.
Most of the startups that you see popping up in and around music are VC (Venture Capital) driven, which means there is a lot of money invested that will need to be paid back with a serious amount of interest. For these companies a fast and robust profit is absolutely necessary to survival. CASH is a nonprofit – bands will be able to keep 100% of their earnings with our tools. We are trying to help make being a musician more viable and sustainable.
RJB: Since musicians are often not very technically savvy, what have you done to make this platform accessible to them?
Vail: Ease of use is the major goal. Each release gets easier to use and less intimidating. The platform will be easily installed onto any web site with one click. It's then driven by an admin site where the artist would simply log in and enter in all the info necessary – like, say, album title, how much you want to sell it for, etc., and then it spits out one line of code to be embedded on the site. It will work with Word Press and all your other services that you might prefer, like Sound Cloud, etc.
RJB: Why should musicians choose to use your code versus all the free or low cost services available, such as Reverb Nation, Bandcamp, and Last FM?
Vail; We're a nonprofit focused on helping artists through open models. Bands don't need to just use us or stop using anything else if they use CASH. By all means, they should use whatever services work best for them, and we want our stuff to work with those services, not compete against them.
RJB: Why open source? [Open source means software in which the end user is free to download and modify the source code – basically, the opposite of Microsoft.]
Vail;The opposite of Microsoft, but also the opposite of most commercial websites. We saw an open-source and nonprofit option as really important. Nonprofit means the organization can't be bought, so we won't suddenly become part of MySpace. Open means that a whole level of technology is suddenly available to everyone, and that guarantees artists always have access to basic tools they need to survive online. That really changes the balance of things, and forces new businesses to innovate instead of just making another buy button.
RJB: What are some successful implementations of your software?
Vail; We've built everything so far directly with artists, labels, and managers. I think the total number of projects is about 160... each time refining ideas and paying attention to how it's used. Right now we're taking all that experience and polishing up the first version of things that will be easy enough for anyone to use.
RJB: What is your vision for the future of CASH Music?
Vail;: We have a lot of grand schemes and ideas for the future, but let's talk about this year. The first release of the distributed platform is just a couple of weeks away. After that we'll be adding new tools and updating it regularly. I'm so excited about this! After the distributed version is out, we will begin working on the hosted one. That will truly enable all artists, no matter their size or technical ability, to have access to our tools. We want to commoditize the most basic layer of music tech.
More information about CASH Music and how to get involved with the organization “get the code,” and to donate can be found at www.CashMusic.org
*originally appeared in Innocent Words FEB 2012*
Comments