All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men…

Sometimes the best laid plans of musicians and men often go awry. As a music industry veteran (and still under 40 years old!), I’ve seen lots of artists and companies emerge with huge plans to revolutionize the industry only to see reality come crashing in. Most of the time it’s caused by a failure to understand the industry or by over-estimating their own abilities. But since not every painter is Picasso, we trudge on in our quest to improve and educate the industry one musician at a time. Blissfully, everywhere we turn there are diamonds in the rough.

A full disclaimer: I’ve worked with multiple music companies, played in bands, managed artists, and consulted with countless musicians and businesses. I feel confident speaking my mind as I’ve been both burned and lauded by this industry more times than I can count.

Here then, an all too common tale of the biz.

Over on the west coast, Ian Rogers decided to wade into the music management waters. As Topspin’s CEO, he rightly deduced that “being the CEO of Topspin and not having experience managing a band is like running Flickr and not taking photos.”  In that regard, he is entirely correct. Again, congrats to Ian on deciding to wade into this murky, yet enticing, water.

Ian’s chosen band is the “Get Busy Committee,” and he laid out his plan to get them rich and/or famous under his stewardship. That plan consisted of hiring a publicity company, marketing agency, web designer, web developer, and they came up with a nifty merch item (an Uzi shaped USB drive!). They also hired a lawyer to review contracts and keep an eye on potential opportunities. And of course, they’ll use Topspin for their marketing and distribution coupled with Kufala to do on-demand physical music sales and fulfillment.

All things considered, Ian and the GBC have an impressive team around them. They successfully identified their needs and put everything in place to make the magic happen. If only every band had the same opportunity.

See, that’s where I become just a tad disenchanted with what Ian’s doing. The team and products he put together for the Get Busy Committee come with a pretty solid price tag. At the very least, you’re looking at an easy $25K to get it all off the ground. How many bands have that kind of cash to get started with? And really, do we think that having Ian Rogers as your manager won’t open a few doors? Of course it does.

So with that money, and that team, what happened? The short answer appears to be not much.

After promising to make regular updates about the progress of GBC, nothing significant has been posted since late November. As of this writing (late January 2010) Get Busy Committee has 1,712 fans on Facebook, 3,283 MySpace friends, and 1,144 followers on Twitter. Not bad for a DIY’er, but with that whole team and money behind you, I’d wonder what happened. In comparison, other indie artists like Chase Coy, has over 100,000 MySpace friends, and did this on no big money, or big connections.

And while music sales aren’t published, it stands to reason that their team would justifiably broadcast the fact that they’re selling tens of thousands of discs/tracks/Uzi shaped USB sticks. But Ian and his team have gone oddly silent on the Get Busy Committee.

The message here? Breaking into the music business isn’t easy. It’s about more than just money, connections, or even sheer talent. It’s about persistence, uniqueness, and building upon your fan base over time — luck, in this industry, is when preparation meets opportunity. As such, it can take years to become an overnight sensation. Topspin has become the industry darling because of Ian Roger’s reputation as a rockstar CEO. He’s parlayed his contacts into getting some great talent on board including truly iconic musicians. But the ideas and concepts behind Topspin are the same that others have been espousing for quite a while now. I find it disappointing, but not all that surprising, that our industry has suddenly crowned a new messiah who’s speaking the words of multiple prophets that came before him. From Nimbit, to Mike Masnick, to any campaigning politician, Direct to Fan concepts are about as new as bell bottoms and disco balls.

But does Topspin create successful musicians, or are already successful musicians driving Topspin’s growth? What are emerging artists (who likely lack the budget of a Get Busy Committee) gaining from Topspin when GBC can’t seem to capitalize on it?

When you hear them say “Topspin: It Fuckin’ Works,” ask yourself … for who!?