Future of Music Coalition Aims to Influence What's Shakin' on the Hill

Over the past few years, the music industry’s baptism by fire has fast spiraled into a perilous trek through a thermonuclear explosion. Artists find themselves liberated by the very technology that used to require gatekeepers and considerable funds. Indie labels are changing their business models to adjust. And major labels, promoters and others have relied more than ever on consolidation and blockbuster hits to survive.

But just as this revolution was picking up speed five years ago (Napster had just turned the industry’s world upside down, as you may recall), a small group of mavericks looked around and noticed that the typical Washington crowd was steering the discussion. "These were complicated issues, but the debate was really being driven either by corporations who already controlled the space or people trying to brand a technology," says Michael Bracy, a Washington lobbyist and partner in indie label Misra Records. "There wasn’t as much embracing of the gray areas. There was a real sense that there was real room in the debate for other voices."

So Bracy and his cohorts continued bouncing ideas off of each other like a ragtag clan of grassroots politicos, thinking about the big issues that at the time had eluded most of the old guard. They thought about the indie artist. The indie label. The indie… mindset. They pondered copyright and intellectual property. The liberation of technology. And how public policy itself meshed into the fabric of a rapidly changing music business. Perhaps in an exercise considered too cerebral (or time consuming) for traditional music-industry mavens to pursue, they quite simply thought about the future.

That small group of friends and associates ended up blending their ideas into a nonprofit organization that became the Future of Music Coalition. And while many people in the music community may have never heard of the group, it has been gradually picking up considerable steam in Washington and beyond since it formed in June 2000.

These days, the group holds an annual policy summit in Washington every spring that — unlike many other such events attracting the usual crowd of insiders, lobbyists and corporate operatives—actually lures musicians, songwriters, indie label execs, club owners, recording engineers, academics and rebel lawyers from all over the country to continue that discussion about the future. Oh, and the insiders, lobbyists and corporate operatives usually show up too. In fact, that’s kind of the point. "We recognized at the gate that we have interlocking interests between communities that don’t often deal well with each other," he says. "Our job is less to be a trade association but rather to create a model that’s provocative in terms of raising issues. Our constituency is the music community."

In that fractured world in which artists, labels, managers, promoters, booking agents, club owners and other tribes often war more than they cooperate, speaking to all of those groups through one association has been a radical idea to say the least. But Future of Music Coalition has already turned heads among the Washington establishment. In November 2002, the FOMC issued a comprehensive report on radio consolidation that was widely circulated throughout Washington. 

In 2005, the FCC will reconsider media consolidation after the courts threw the issue back to the agency. "There’s a potential fork in the road," says Bracy. If the current ownership limits are retained or strengthened, local radio stations might finally decide to refocus on local music and leave more national fare to new competitors such as satellite radio. That could lead to more—not less—access for indie artists and labels, which have been shut out of commercial radio in recent years. "There could be a market correction," he says.

In the recent Federal Communications Commission proceeding on localism in broadcasting (remember when radio stations used to actually give airplay to local artists?), FOMC posted a form on its Web site that made it easy for anyone to write and submit comments—no matter what their views on the issue. All told, about 225 people filed comments using FOMC’s online form. "You filled out the text box and hit send, and it was in the docket," Bracy says. In the old days, most citizens wouldn’t have even heard about the proceeding, much less taken the time to type out comments and hunt around for the right address to which to send them. "But now because of the Web and email and the proliferation of technology, people can get more engaged," he says.

In addition, the shift toward digital content and away from physical product could accelerate in 2005 and beyond, which Bracy says could ultimately help indie artists and labels compete. "Their business models need to be redefined as well as the majors," he says, "but we feel very bullish on the notion that the music industry has been artificially restricted." He points to high CD prices driven by expensive distribution systems, which have deterred sales. "As new structures come into place, you’re going to see more money flow into the industry, including the indies."

While FOMC has grown considerably over the years, it remains a relative skeleton crew (that hasn’t changed much from its inception). The group is working on putting together an advisory committee, with representatives from all sectors of the music community. It also continues to rely on loose alliances and partnerships with several other groups, including the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the American Federation of Musicians, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and the Recording Artists Coalition, just to name a few.

FOMC’s only full-time employee is fellow FOMC founder Jenny Toomey, a musician who runs the group as executive director out of her home office in the Washington area. With no membership fees, FOMC pays her largely out of its take from the annual conference and private donations and grants. Bracy and a few others donate their time. In addition to co-founding FOMC with Bracy and several other associates, Toomey has also been a composer or performer on a dozen CDs over the last 15 years and released her second solo CD, Tempting, in October 2002. The record label? Bracy’s Misra Records, of course. Toomey also ran her own record label, Simple Machines, in the nineties.

With 5,000 people of all stripes now subscribed to FOMC’s biweekly newsletter and attendance rising at its annual policy summit, the Future of Music Coalition remains optimistic that it can help the fractured segments of the music community work better together for the common good. "We’ve been around for five years, and we feel good about our success," Bracy says. "We really want to turn this into an institution and be an organization that’s around for 20 or 30 years."

(Mike Grebb is a writer, journalist and singer/songwriter based in Washington, D.C. He has written for numerous publications, including Wired and Billboard. He just completed his debut solo record, Resolution, which is available at http://www.mikegrebb.com/).