"I'm developing it as an animated feature," says Davies. "That's what's so great about the Internet: I can put the music out and sell it in limited edition while I'm still developing the same project. You couldn't do that years ago. You'd have a room piled full of scripts and music and not know what to do with it." Of course, Davies owns the rights to the Purusha music, and his son Christian is one of the site's webmasters.

Control over art doesn't always come easy. For Chuck D, the Web is "the Wild Wild West and everybody's getting a gun." Many industry insiders share that view. "If you look farther down the road, there are more and more artists, more and more music, and less and less ways to get on the radio and MTV," says Marc Geiger, whose company, ARTISTdirect, develops and manages websites for Marilyn Manson, Beck, the Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, Tom Petty, and Korn. "This is ultimately the way people will get their music and videos. And the artists will make a considerably higher percentage of the dollar because they become the direct distributor." The flip side, of course, is that musicians will then have to find a way to promote and distribute their music without a record label's very wide reach.

Surprisingly, many artists seem willing to trade profits for more direct contact with their listeners. "The Holy Grail for what the Internet offers artists is a database of fans," says Geiger. "Tom Petty said to his manager, 'I want to find out who and where my fans are.'" Davies remembers being a fan himself: "When I think back about growing up as a young aspiring musician, I would have died to have been able to hook up with Eddie Cochran or somebody online." Anyone check for www.eddiecochran.com recently?

Originally posted Feb 05, 1999 Published in issue #470 Feb 05, 1999 Order article reprints
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