Music Business News that affects the independent musician
As of May 1, 2026, Making a Scene celebrates eleven years of continuous support for independent music. By producing over 9,500 posts, including 2,200 interviews and 4,200 reviews, it has built a vital archive and community. With a redesign and expanded mission, it aims to empower artists through ownership, tools, and direct fan relationships.
The American Music Fairness Act aims to reform sound recording performance royalties for terrestrial radio, potentially requiring payment to artists. While this addresses a long-standing issue, concerns remain about how it might burden smaller stations that support indie artists. The outcome is pivotal for balancing artist compensation and preserving community radio’s vital role in music discovery.
FACTOR’s $2 million investment in Canada’s live music sector emphasizes the importance of funding the entire music ecosystem, not just artists. By supporting promoters and festivals, Canada aims to maintain cultural sovereignty and enhance local engagement. This strategic approach contrasts with the U.S., which lacks a cohesive national support system for independent music infrastructure.
The podcast discusses the slowing growth of streaming and its implications for indie artists. As platforms shift focus from acquiring users to monetizing existing ones, artists are encouraged to prioritize building genuine fan relationships over chasing streams. Strategies include owning contact lists, enabling direct sales, and creating community spaces to foster stable income.
Native Instruments has initiated preliminary insolvency proceedings, raising concerns for indie musicians reliant on its tools like Kontakt, Maschine, and iZotope products. While insolvency does not equate to shutdown, it creates uncertainty affecting user confidence. Musicians are encouraged to secure access, identify alternatives, and prioritize ownership of their work amidst potential changes.
Making a Scene is enhancing its commitment to the independent music community for 2026 by focusing on practical journalism that empowers artists in navigating a changing industry. It advocates for decentralization, AI as a supportive tool, and a strong business literacy approach, aiming to build a sustainable music industry middle class.
The music industry is evolving with new technologies like Web3 and AI, empowering independent artists to take control of their careers. Streaming services offer low payouts and limited control, but innovations such as MNFTs and decentralized platforms can enhance revenue. Artists also benefit from community engagement through DAOs, promoting sustainable growth.
Kinky Friedman, known for his satirical songwriting, prolific novels, and political run, passed away at 79. Friends and fans remember his humor, music, and love for animals. Over his 50-year career, he released 18 albums and wrote 25 books. Tributes poured in, celebrating his unique life and legacy.
Making a Scene Celebrates 9 Years of Publication! It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since Making a Scene first came to life. It’s time to celebrate and look back at some of the milestones we’ve achieved over the past nine years. As of today we have published 1,821 Artist interviews and 2,873 […]
PreSonus HOME PAGE Fender HOME PAGE FENDER PreSonus Making a Scene Presents an Interview with a Pro – Jim Odom Talks about the Fender/PreSonus Acquisition Ever since the announcement was made that Fender Musical Instruments was “Acquiring” PreSonus Audio Electronics the existing PreSonus userbase started to buzz about how this is […]
Blues fans from all over the world tuned into our virtual broadcast of the 42nd Blues Music Awards.Congratulations to all winners and nominees! B.B. King Entertainer Shemekia CopelandBand of the Year Rick Estrin & The Nightcats Best Emerging Artist Album Harlem King Solomon Hicks Blues Rock Album Mike Zito and Friends – Rock ‘n’ Roll: […]
Small Music Venues Are Sending Out An SOS With the “Save Our Stages Act” COVID-19 has left many businesses in distress, and the live music industry has suffered leading to hundreds of venues closing their doors. Senator Amy Klobuchar, D- Minnesota, and Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, have introduced a bill to the senate called the […]
HOME PAGE Muddy Water MOJO Museum and Community Center Muddy Waters aka McKinley Morganfield is widely recognized as the father of the Chicago Blues and one of the major influential figures in the birth of Rock and Roll. Modern music today would be much different if it not for the music of Muddy Waters. For […]
We recently reported on the closing of Streamlicensing.com Now ASCAP Responds to allegations made by the former owners of Streamlicensing! Recently, ASCAP learned that the StreamLicensing.com service has shut down. We are writing to inform all StreamLicensing Broadcast affiliates that the owners and operators of the StreamLicensing service have not been transparent with its customers, […]
Streamlicensing.com, one of the largest licensing companies for small web broadcasters and internet radio, has suddenly ceased all operations yesterday. The sudden loss of this resource will hit the small webcaster fairly hard. Streamlicensing collected royalties from small webcasters for the music they stream which is paid to record companies and artists. This is essential […]
Making a Scene Presents On the Scene with Scotland troubadour Dean Owens – On the Road in the USA It’s interesting how we come to hear about great artists. Especially when they are not typically played on national television or radio. We find them because we hear their name mentioned by an artist we follow, […]
MAKING A SCENE TURNS 5 YEARS OLD! It was 5 years ago today that Making a Scene was launched and I cannot be prouder of what the writers and staff have been able to accomplish in this time! Here is a recap of some of the stats we have been able to achieve! When we […]
I met Phil back in 2004 when he was working at Guitar Center in Commack NY. I was browsing the guitars on the rack and Phil came over and asked if I needed any help. Of course, I told him I was ok and I was just browsing. He directed my attention to a nice […]
When a person reaches the age of 91, you know they can’t go on forever, but if you love them, you still hope they will. That is how many Atlanta blues fans felt about Eddie Tigner. And so the news of his death tore a hole in the heart of us all today. Eddie was […]
Dave Davies Announces a new Tour and CD release! “We had great success with “You Really Got Me” and “All The Day and All The Night” and “I Need You” and “She’s Got Everything;” there’s quite a few Kinks tracks recorded that have my guitar sound on it. The Kinks music was very varied, it’s not just hard rock, it’s a mixture of many things really.” That […]
Jethro Tull Celebrates 50 Years with Anniversary Tour “We flew in and did our first ever opening show in the US at The Fillmore East with Bill Graham who had previously booked our friends Ten Years After from Chrysalis Records; an embryonic record company, they had proceeded us by a year in the USA, rather […]
NAMM Report: Wednesday Press Day Patrick O’Heffernan (Anaheim Convention Center) A $ 2 million dollar guitar strap. A watch that tunes your instruments and more, a guitar that folds up and yet sounds great. A keytar that lets anyone strike those cool rock star poses and play hot licks, a finger sized cube that plays […]
Music creators need copyright reform to ensure fair compensation for their work. Congress and the Senate listened. The Music Modernization Act, the biggest update to music legislation in the past 40 years. Impacting hundreds of thousands of music creators nationwide, and future generations, the Act unites provisions from across the music community under one legislative […]
SONAR relaunches as ‘Cakewalk by BandLab’: Iconic DAW now free to download for everyone World-leading DAW SONAR, with the entire SONAR Platinum feature set, is relaunching as Cakewalk by BandLab Full authentication and unlimited feature-access will be available free Early access to Cakewalk by BandLab is available now on Windows SINGAPORE, 4 APRIL 2018 — Today, […]
In 1986 the organizers of New York’s “New Music Festival” wanted to bring their festival to Texas. They contacted the Austion Chronicle in the hopes of making it happen. Fortunately for Austin that deal feel through, Roland Swenson, a staffer at the Austin chronicle got together with his publisher Nick Barbaro, Editor Louis Black and Musician/booking agent Louis […]
There may be hope for all those diehard users of Cakewalk’s premiere DAW software “Sonar”. BandLab has announced that they have aquired all of Cakewalks Intellectural property and “Certain” assets from Gibson. What does this mean to you the user. Well it seems that Bandlab did not purchase the “Company” Cakewalk, but instead purchased the […]
As you may have heard, or not heard, Youtube has decided to create stricter rules for Monetizing Videos! We are going to attempt to break down this news and give you an understanding as to how this affects you as an independent artist! WHY? The new channel-monetization guidelines are one part of an attempt to […]
Fender made news in the guitar and gear world today with the announcement that its Mexican Standard Series or what was called the MIM series, will be discontinued and will be replace with a new entry-level line called the “Fender Player Series”. Much like the MIM series it’s replacing, the Player Series will feature all of […]
A Brief History of the International Blues Challenge by: Mick Kolassa “You don’t have to win the IBC, all you have to do is be in the game, and there’s no telling what good things can happen to you, because they happened to me.” Watermelon Slim What do Teeny Tucker , Jarekus Singleton, Shakura S’Aida […]
Gibson has decided to discontinue all development of Cakewalk products, which includes the very popular DAW(Digital Audio Workstation) SONAR, which has for 30 years been the flagship of the Cakewalk line. The apparent explanation is “they want to focus on consumer audio electronics” Gibson Brands announced today that it is ceasing active development and production […]
The Atlanta Blues Society has long had the policy of a Smoke Free Environment for all of their events. They require any venue that they work with to be smoke free during any event that is hosted by the Atlanta Blues Society. This in itself is a huge step in creating a healthy environment […]
IMPORTANT!! PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU ENTER ANY NOMINATIONS The independent Blues Awards celebrate the diversity and power of the music that is created by those artists that acknowledge their inspiration and roots are in the blues. These awards will represent not only those “touring” artists who work within the established blues community, but embrace working artists […]
Indie Blues Artists – The John Pagano Band (formally JPBlues) have released their second production video for their upcoming CD “One More Round”. The first video was for the song “Ain’t Gonna Lose you” which was released as a single and video earlier this year. This new video sets the bar a bit higher as […]
Where would you host your music if Soundcloud Closes? Recent news about Soundcloud started making rounds in quite a few social media group forums I lurk in frequently. The most popular article shared was the article by Tim Ingham published on Music Business worldwide. Another article by Andrew Liptak published just days later on The […]
Are you involved with your local music scene? Do you love indie artists and believe the music you listen to needs to have more attention? Do you want to be known as a music journalists? Well here is your chance to become part of the fastest growing music related magazine on the internet. Making a […]
IMPORTANT!! PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU ENTER ANY NOMINATIONS The independent Blues Awards celebrate the diversity and power of the music that is created by those artists that acknowledge their inspiration and roots are in the blues. These awards will represent not only those “touring” artists who work within the established blues community, but embrace working artists […]
There has been alot of conversation out there between independent webcasters and independent artists about the new royalty schedule from the Copyright Royalty Board. Some webcasters have cut their loses and ran, some have geo fenced off the whole US market. If none of this makes sense to you, well you are not alone. I […]
An Exclusive Interview with Paul Benjamin – “Chairman of the Board” of the Blues Foundation by Richard Lhommedieu on Mixcloud The Board of Directors for any non for profit organization is the driving force in determining the direction the organization takes. The awarding of the position of “Chairman of the Board” can be the most […]
This is a real eye opener for anyone in the music industry. Indie Musicians, take heed of what the trends are telling you! .. The global market for recorded music fell slightly in 2014 to $14.97 billion, down 0.4 percent from the year before, as sales of online music matched those of CDs and other […]
Making a Scene has teamed up with Reverbnation to create a “Opportunity” for the purpose of conducting an international search to find artists that best define what “INDIE BLUES” is or could be. The search is not restricted to those who categorize themselves as “Blues” artist but is expanded into all genres of music. Those chosen will be […]
Willie Dixon will be inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame at the 46th Annual Induction and Awards Dinner in New York City June 18 He will be joined by Cyndi Lauper, Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia, Toby Keith, and Linda Perry. It is wonderful to see this bluesman recognized by this prestigious organization, as […]
The Blues Foundation has announced three living performers to be inducted into its Blues Hall of Fame. The three are Tommy Brown, Eric Clapton and Little Richard! What a wonderful thing for Atlanta blues fans, to see our own Tommy Brown honored in this fashion! The press release states, “In the early ‘50s Tommy Brown […]
SHOW # 261 – 02/16/15 ROUNDTABLE # 4 – MUSICIANS,CLUBS & BMI – MUSIC ROYALTIES & WHAT THEY MEAN TO YOU Panelists included Musician, Tas Cru, VP River City Management, Carson Lamm and BMI Executive Jeff Syracuse. The conversation revolved around the reasons BMI (and ASCAP & SECAN) do what they do and how the […]
How One Generation Was Single-Handedly Able To Kill The Music Industry The old music industry is dead. We’re standing in the ruins of a business built on private jets, Cristal, $18 CDs and million-dollar recording budgets. We’re in the midst of the greatest music industry disruption of the past 100 years. A fundamental shift […]
An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Janice Johnston about Health Screening at the IBC by Richard Lhommedieu on Mixcloud Often musicians do not have access to good medical care and more importantly, to good early detection services to protect them from some of the most common and potentially deadly medical conditions such as High Cholesterol, High Blood Pressure, […]
EDITORS NOTE: This is reprinted with permission of the author. I felt it was ironic that an independent musicians needs to be at odds with an organization that is designed to protect his rights. It is an interesting read, and a conversation that needs to happen with the new music business increasingly becoming centered on […]
Legendary Artist LeRoy Crume dies at 81 The music is what matters most… LeRoy Crume died Monday October 20th at his niece’s home in Michigan City, IN. Born in Swift, MO on June 20th, 1933, LeRoy had 7 brothers and 2 sisters. LeRoy grew up singing with his brothers and started playing professionally at age […]
Texas blues icon Johnny Winter, who rose to fame in the late 1960s and ’70s for his energetic performances and musical collaborations including with childhood hero Muddy Waters, has died. He was 70. His representative, Carla Parisi, confirmed Thursday that Winter died in a hotel room in Zurich a day earlier. The statement said his […]
The New York Post reported that this NY singer was being sued for 10 Million Dollars because she was not talented enough and not good looking enough to front a Pink Tribute band. (Read the Article in the NY POST Here). But to be more specific, the real story is a bit more involved. It […]
PLEASE EMAIL THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE ON BEHALF OF THE MUDDY WATERS HOME!! Amy Martin Director [email protected] Illinois State Historic Preservation Office Both the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago knew that the Muddy Waters home was in danger and they have done nothing to protect this valuable historic building The Muddy […]
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