September 15, 2011
By Glenn Peoples (@billboardglenn )
Rock City Club Has Long List of Services For Indie Musicians
Rock City Club Has Long List of Services For Indie Musicians
-- Rock City Club launched Thursday, making it the newest music service aimed at helping independent artists further their careers outside of the traditional music industry infrastructure. The Las Vegas-based service was founded by entrepreneur and promoter Jack Wishna through his company, Rockrena, Inc. Artists and fans can go to www.rockcityclub.com now to sign up through their Facebook or Twitter accounts.
The company says the online service will allow artists to reach new fans, sell their music online and also utilize the expertise of seasoned producers to lend their career development advice. Rock City Club's "Producers' Circle" includes Phil Ramone and Ron Dante.
Given the number of free marketing platforms artists can choose from, charging for this type of product is a bold step. The Rock City Club subscription service will cost artists $12.95 per month, and the company has set the aggressive goal of signing 150,000 artists in the first year. Although their value proposition may differ from that of Rock City Club, other marketing services such as ReverbNation and RootMusic offer both free and premium levels of service. When it comes to online services, the freemium model is incredibly popular because it gets people in the door.
Fans, who can sign up for free, bring the social element to the service. Here's how it works: the Rock City Club Facebook app will allow fans to organize their music for free without leaving the Facebook platform. By learning a fan's taste in music, the service will push music to fans in a way that helps member artists build their fan bases. Due to the power of network effects, this service will obviously become more valuable to artists the more fans sign up and actively use the service.
Wishna's team includes Nyhl Henson, former chairman and CEO of Country Music Television and MTV, NetZero co-founder Stacy Haitsuka, and Michael Dann, the broadcast television executive who was the head of programming at CBS.
