HOLLYWOOD -- For tech companies entering the online music game, their best investment might just be a good street guide for LA and New York.
That was the message Thursday night at the first Artistdirect online music awards, where prizes played second fiddle to the real event: record industry insiders schmoozing with new media and tech entrepreneurs trying to drum up -- and speed up -- business.
While most technology events feature staid product managers showing off their newest wares via cutesy skits, Artistdirect put on a show worthy of its House of Blues Sunset Strip location. Attending celebrities included Daryl Hannah, Dwight Yoakam, Rick Rubin, and Dave Navarro; and among the live acts were the Offspring, Chris Isaak, No Doubt, and Cypress Hill.
Online voters chose Limp Bizkit as the best hard rock act, "who, as the first artists ever to receive an online music award, couldn't be here," presenter Yoakam dryly noted.
In the spirit of online promotion, several of the awards were dedicated to musicians that were "born on the Web." In the hip-hop category, Indiana's Monte Fisto won the award, and were shown playing a pre-recorded live song over the video monitors.
"It's the Internet race divide. Of course a white hip-hop band is going to win the award," said self-proclaimed "LA party crasher" Ken Fandell.
It's no accident that Marc Geiger and Donald Muller, founders of Artistdirect, have been able to attract the business of so many big-ticket bands -- Tom Petty, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, and the Beastie Boys, to name a few. The two former record label executives were also the organizers of Lollapalooza, and have enough industry contacts between them to get a formidable leg up in the early days of the online music biz.
Given its ties to the industry, Artistdirect is also in the enviable position of using established bands to promote lesser-known acts on its other networks, like the Ultimate Band List.
Scott Murff, director of business development at San Francisco-based Mjuice, said the music business has been centered in LA and New York for so long that it makes it difficult for new players to penetrate the network.
"When you have people in the record industry that get it [the Internet], that's powerful," said Murff. "Could you imagine a Silicon Valley pulling this off, having some band from Indiana following Cypress Hill?"
Whether or not any of these unknown bands will take off, however, is still in the hands of radio and video jocks, some said.
"Everyone wanted to see a band really break through on the Web, but it was Blair Witch instead," said Jeremy Welt, head of the new media division at Madonna's Maverick label.
He also said that the notion of an unknown band using the Internet to break through to mainstream success is not likely.
"No band will ever turn down MTV or radio, so you'll never see a band that breaks through only on the Web. You can't separate it."
Nikke Slight, vice president of new media at Atlantic Records, said that it won't be long before all the major labels start to get more content on the Web. "We have hundreds of singles in the pipe," she said, and labels have promised digital audio manufacturers that they will be made available to consumers who buy players this Christmas.
But several laid-back LA types at the awards said the record industry is really in no rush to get music on the Internet. And when the industry down south does get in gear, it will happen in its own time.
Making his way into the party at about 6 p.m., one record industry exec remarked, "What's up with the schedule here? It's the middle of the day. It's lunchtime, for crying out loud!"
