This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Podcamp Pittsburgh 4, a social media conference put on by a big bunch of fellow media enthusiasts.

It was spectacular. I was motivated, inspired, educated, and at some points, possibly a little tipsy. And it was great to make some new friends that are interested in the same kinds of stuff we like to do around here.

There was a good panel discussion hosted by Sorg (who also hosts the Wrestling Mayhem Show) on using social media to promote music. It featured Walt Ribeiro and Ryan of Basick Sickness.

It was great to hear what other people are doing to successfully market their music, and some of the conversation got me to thinking. One of the topics that came up was:

• Nobody buys records (or CDs) anymore – it’s all a la carte downloads, or you’re giving away the album for free as a “loss leader”. Hopefully people will get into the music and buy something else from you – t-shirts, stickers, other merch.

I don’t know why I still want to shell out money to have a CD manufactured when only a small group of people are really into buying the physical record

• people who aren’t hip to new tech and the Inner Nets (sorry Mom)
• people who enjoy supporting a band by actually buying an album
• people that are drunk at shows

Maybe I like the physical album because after all the time that we spend working on recording and producing the music, I like to have, um, closure; it doesn’t feel like we ever really finished if the music never leaves the digital realm.

Regardless, the market’s changing, and anybody who makes music needs to adapt, drunkdudes included. I’m still mulling that over. But there’s already been some incremental change here in that we’re actually posting some music under a CC license. Wooo hooo baby steps.

And now I have to get some new merch for the band…

More on the panel in part 2.