Charlotta Hedman recently spoke with one of The Orchard’s founders, Scott Cohen, to discuss what many call a “broken” music industry. Scott disagrees with this idea, and argues that there is more money in the music industry now than ever before. However, one must know how to get it.

First, Cohen says that it is important to adapt to modern marketing. It is also equally important to know your customer and your markets. He points out that without local, there is no global, and local should always come first.

As a result, Cohen believes the future of the music industry lies in figuring out how to monetize and organize music and content online and whom to sell to.

Catch Scott Cohen speak more about global and local markets at the next Music 4.5 event in September.

Before the holiday weekend I sent this email out to Team Orchard, and, as we settle back into our fall groove I figured I’d share our excitement with you.

Hey all – I’ve got great news to share about 2 albums that came out last week on our digital side:

Ra Ra Riot’s album “The Orchard” (Barsuk Records) made it to #36 on the Top Current Albums Chart for its debut week, with 70% of sales coming from digital!

Here are some notable promotions we set up – Robbie leading the Interactive Marketing side with Tonia’s help and Jess handling our major digital retail accounts while Meagan worked with all other North American retailers, and, of course, the support of Lindsay and Nick.

· We created the strategy for their site and Bill designed it, making it look totally awesome: www.rarariot.com

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Coming Soon: iTunes App Downloads To Pass Music

Amazon Buys AmieStreet Just To Shut It Down, Team Shifts Focus To Songza

The Latest Digital Music Success Is, Er, Eye Of The Tiger

When Blank Media Costs Less Than Your Album

Track Your Website Visitors and Their Behaviors in Real-time

Web Faceoff: Ping vs. MySpace

ZumoCast Debuts Cross-Platform Streaming iPhone And iPad App For Videos, Music, And More

Earlier today Brooklyn Vegan premiered “Upside Down,” the first of many ferocious songs to be leaked from OFF! - a new band on Vice featuring Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks), Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides), Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless/Hot Snakes/Rocket From the Crypt) and Steven McDonald (Redd Kross).  The 1-minute 19-second banger will appear on the forthcoming October 12th seven-inch-only release of the band’s 1st EP, which comes with a limited edition Raymond Pettibon print. There’s the image above.  The 1st EP, along with 12 additional tracks, comprise the full length debut from the band, First Four EPs, out November 23rd digitally and as a four 7″ box set.

Download and share OFF!’s “Upside Down” from First Four EPs [Vice Records] here!

The band just came off a killer performance at LA’s FYFest this past weekend, and they’re playing Chicago’s Riot Fest on October 9th and the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin on 11/7.  Stay tuned for more dates to come.

Surfer Blood, the Florida power pop quintet who have been storming the planet with their fuzz-laden hooks since debut album Astro Coast hit stores this past January, debuted a second video from the album today on MTVu and MTVu.com. The “Floating Vibes” clip pokes fun at all things TV-related, featuring the band members starring in faux commercials, newscasts and more. Watch it for yourself!

Astro Coast was released by Kanine Records on January 19th of this year and received a “Best New Music” tag from Pitchfork, as well as rave reviews from Spin, PopMatters, Absolute Punk and more.

A Letter from Richard Gotteher & Seymour Stein…

Sometimes you just feel it!

If anything has been lost in our business today, it’s this; the greatest loss… instinct… intuition… and that indefinable something that comes from just feeling it.

When we started Sire Records many years ago, that’s what drove us. It guided us thru decades of success, discovering great artists, selling millions of records, producing and writing hit songs and still drives us today.

That’s the way it was at Sire in the early days, when we signed an obscure Dutch band, Focus, whose “Moving Waves” was our first platinum album featuring the top 10 “Hocus Pocus” with all its yodeling and flute solos. Our partner in the original Blue Horizon, Mike Vernon, took three blues musicians (Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie) who had been dropped from John Mayall’s band and helped start the legendary Fleetwood Mac.

When we went our separate ways, I knew, just knew, when I found Blondie and The Go Go’s that these bands no one wanted were super special and went on to produce both bands’ first two LPs.

I also knew in 1997 that the Internet was going to change the way people would access music. So together with Scott Cohen, I founded The Orchard and began signing digital distribution rights a full 6 years before iTunes appeared and changed the music business forever. The Orchard is now the leading distributor of digital music with offices throughout the world and one of the companies leading the way to the future of the new music business. Again it was instinct and intuition that guided me.

Seymour also experienced some resistance when he first found and signed CBGB bands The Ramones and Talking Heads. The same was true with Madonna, who fought long and hard to find someone who believed in her. Seymour also found a gold mind of unbelievable talent in the UK, that no one stateside was willing to bet on, bands like The Pretenders, The Smiths, The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, the Cult, Depeche Mode, and many others; also a wide variety of American acts like the Replacements, and Ice-T, and from Canada, kd Lang.

Instinct, followed by actions and dedication to the artists and to artistic freedom, is what it’s all about.
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People’s Music Store to Close Its Doors

Wow: Even Steve Job’s Ping Profile Is Fake…

Vote: What Do You Think Of The New iTunes Logo?

YouTube Set For Profit, But Suffers Big Loss In German Court

What Happened At Music Hack Day London

Morning Brief: Google Music for Xmas, Mark Hurd to Oracle, Samsung Fascinate Available Tomorrow

Weekend Stats: Twitter Hits 145 Million. Ping, 1 Million. More…

REWIND: The Music Industry’s Week In Review

Now Orchard film and television distribution clients can track their daily activity on Hulu in Orchard’s client dashboard, a useful tool in tracking the results of marketing and the correlation between Hulu streams, YouTube trailer streams, and iTunes downloads. Preliminary testing of the impact of catalog title free-to-consumer Hulu streams on paid iTunes downloads/rentals has shown no negative effect, and in some cases Hulu has proven to be an iTunes revenue driver for catalog titles.  The positive correlation is especially true when coupled with Orchard’s marketing around a related marketable event. Stay tuned for ongoing additions and improvements to Orchard’s client dashboard for film and television clients in an effort to remain seamless and increase sales intelligence.

Ping’s Top 10 Problems

iTunes Ping Draws Fire From Facebook & Indie Music Community

A 90-Second Song Sample For Apple Could Be Pricey

Google Looking To Launch Its Music Service By Christmas

Twitter Now Over 145 Million Users, Almost 300,000 Apps

BandPage Provides Performance Royalties To Artists On Facebook

Echo Nest, 7digital Launch DIY Web Music Store Platform

You may remember the advertisements during The Howard Stern Show on E!.  You may have seen him in movies (Back to School) or performing stand up.  You didn’t see him in the film Three Amigos, where his scenes fell victim to the cutting room floor.  However, Sam Kinson is probably most well known for his video comedy specials and his raunchy, harsh, preacher-style stand up. Now his comedy has come back to life with the release of 4 new albums from some of his most famous performances, as well as the video release of those performances on Hulu (US only).  Not for the faint!