My client, Jill Maurer, has a business that’s a week old. It’s called Bukoomusic. Here’s the story behind how it started.
A couple of years ago, Jill and a friend were sipping wine in a restaurant, when they saw a young waiter they hadn’t seen for weeks. They asked where he’d been, and he said he’d been on tour with his band. A couple of the other waiters, in fact, were his band mates. During the upcoming year, the group had lined up over 200 gigs.
Jill was impressed. Here was a group that could write and perform their own songs, and arrange a lengthy tour. What puzzled her was why they still worked at the restaurant.
The waiter told her that without a record label backing the group, they couldn’t get enough exposure to break into the big time. They were knocking on record company doors, looking for representation, but still hadn’t caught a break.
Jill and her friend were back a few weeks later, when the waiter approached the table with good news. The group’s diligence had paid off, and they had secured a contract with a small label.
Jill again asked when he and his band mates would resign as waiters, so they could concentrate on playing music. The young man said they couldn’t ditch their jobs yet, since the deal they signed gave the label most of the rights to the music, as well as heavy creative control. They signed it because they didn’t think they had any options.
When Jill went home, she couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d heard. The idea that dedicated artists had to sign away the rights to their work and couldn’t make a living wage doing what they were born to do aggravated her.
What’s more, she thought about all the great music the listening public was missing out on, because the labels were acting as gatekeepers. Executives were deciding what constituted sellable music, and some of their decisions were likely based more on the artists’ looks and gimmicks than their sound.
That’s when Jill decided to start Bukoomusic. It would be a website that acted as a central location for all types of independent musicians: professionals, struggling artists, even novices who had never sung before an audience. Anyone who wanted to be on the site, could be on the site. (“Think ‘YouTube for audio,’ says Jill. “Anyone can put their work on YouTube regardless of its quality.”)
The musicians would upload their songs, and could either give them away to the public for nothing, or charge a nominal fee for each download.
Even better, these musicians would retain full rights to their work.
They also wouldn’t have to pay for uploading their music to the site, and would only pony up a percentage of the actual sales if the public bought a download of one of their songs or albums.
After months of development, Bukoomusic went live last week. Jill, an experienced entrepreneur who cofounded the pioneering software company, SlickEdit, decided to do a soft opening so she could work out any bugs.
As of this writing, seven independent artists have uploaded songs and albums to the site. Take a listen. And, if you have any musical talent yourself . . . .