This domain is now parked and no longer updated. Please click on the image above or go to http://bobjamesuk.com for new site. Thanks

Please click on the image to be taken to Ronit’s new website or check out the Ronit Tab on this site.

Ronit will be arriving in the UK in February and we will be announcing a series of live dates. Come see her! You will be blown away!

A publishing deal with BMG Rights Management was also secured and signed. Overseas trips included Singapore, Australia, Germany, Norway, Vietnam and France.

I became an associate lecturer at The University of Surrey and a Business School tutor at ACM in Guildford teaching HDip and Degree Music industry courses.

Emma Stevens went on writing trips to LA and Germany and achieved platinum sales in Asia with a song she wrote with Will Simms.

Bob James Management Services signed an amazing talent for management, Ronit Granot, based currently in Australia and moving to the UK in February, she is one to watch out for…

Some amazing contacts made and some real hard work setting up projects that will hopefully come to fruition in 2011, next year is definitely a year to look forward to….

With two or three more acts to add to the roster next year, an expansion in the BJMS team and a couple of deals to be signed in the first quarter, bring on 2011!! …..

This post was done via a mobile app on an iPad…. Technology is ever changing!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

The four tenets of sponsorship as used by Converse, who do a lot of work in the music world:

1. Own not rent.
2. Create IP – go beyond the event
3. Big ideas that travel
4. Be useful

The experience I have with you as a customer or a friend is far more important than a few random bits flying by on the screen. The incredible surplus of digital data means that human actions, generosity and sacrifice are more important than they ever were before.

With Rubylux we are on a role! Building friends and supporters at Radio, awareness online (Just Google Rubylux to see how much!), touring Asia, Australia and all over the UK via the band unique Street Gig approach, even TV is getting ready to jump in alongside some great National Press articles due in the Autumn…

All of this takes time and as we build up for our campaign to extend to Germany I will have less time to update the blog…. So why don’t you check out http://rubylux.net and keep up to date with what is going on there… Maybe buy the album? I can assure you it is great!

The album was a new entry at Number 16 on the iTunes Alternative chart on the day of release, which is a great start. Lots of Radio and TV Stuff coming up, plus Live dates around the Country.

The Gig at The Old Market was a complete sell out – just goes to show that this band are now at the stage of selling out Theatre shows. Looking forward to more gigs like this! Make sure you Pre-Order a copy of the Live DVD it”s looking amazing!

Make sure you head over to Rubylux.net for all the latest updates…

Out Today on iTunes and all other good Digital Music Stores!

Fake Control by Rubylux – Download Fake Control on iTunes

1. Go, make something happen.

2. Do work you’re proud of.

3. Treat people with respect.

4. Make big promises and keep them.

5. Ship it out the door.

When in doubt, see #1.

Full Post here at Seth Godin’s Page

After spending 6 months hidden away crafting the record, and the following 2 months touring Asia, Rubylux have blended their powerful songwriting with a brand of electro-synth/guitar driven Alternative/Rock to rival the likes of The Killers and fellow British band Muse.

With the album due for release this summer, the first single ‘The Boy Could Fly’ out in June, and a string of international live dates being lined up, it’s already shaping up to be a stellar year for the Brighton quartet.

Purchase tickets to RUBYLUX Live in Concert at the Old Market – Hove – Friday May 28th NOW for only £5!

In the coming months I will have to use the skills developed building and running one of the UK’s most successful Promotion Companies to develop and build a label that will release the debut Rubylux Album.

Its a new world and not one for the work shy! My day at the moment starts at 7.00am dealing with Asia (Going through business, mix snags and the such like with the band) a quick break at 8.30am to do a school run then back by 9.15am to start my normal day, which seems on average to end about 10.00pm once I have managed to speak to writers in LA.. Coffee helps!

Its a new way of getting paid.. No more the security of a paycheck each month or being paid for the number of hours I put in, but being paid on results. If I generate money for my clients I get paid.

Isn’t that the way all employment is going? You get results you keep your Job. You fail you lose your Job. (Unless of course you are a politician or a CEO of a major Company – or a banker in which case the opposite applies!)

But I still get up with a spring in my step. I still manage to fit in lecturing (passing on some of the knowledge that I have built up over the years) to Music Industry students.. For the money? No – Its because I care about my industry, because I love my job, because I believe in doing things differently and if I find a path is blocked finding a new way through until I get the result I seek… Passion that’s why I do this and a belief that I can in some small way make a difference… I’m not interested in spending the day moaning about the major changes to the Music Industry, I have to embrace them. They will not change back! Seek new ways of doing business or create new ways. Innovate, work hard and don’t be afraid of doing things differently. If people say you are wrong, don’t argue just prove they are wrong with results. Don’t expect anything, don’t wait for the phone to ring.. make things happen. These are the qualifications of todays manager.

#SXSW

The film and tech folks are already in Austin and the music mavens arrive today. But perhaps your nasty boss is cutting back because of the economy or you blew your travel budget on a trip to Cannes. Either way, you can’t afford heading to SXSW this year, but still don’t want your hip rating to sink to the Osmond Family level. There’s still hope. Just use these 6 strategies to pretend that you jetted into Texas for a few hours.

1. Follow and contribute to the tweets at #SXSW
2. But be sure to turn off geotagging on Twitter, Flickr and all your apps so no one knows where you really are.
3. No one can track you are when you call from your cell to share how good the bbq at Stubbs was last night.
4. The best answer to “Dude! I thought you we’re going to meet us for a cocktail?” is: “Man, that line was too long. I’ll try to catch up with you later.”
5. Force yourself to listen to as many of the 1000 songs as you can stand on the unofficial SXSW 2010 torrent and pick out a few to talk about that suck.
6. Read & Remember: Hypebot will have coverage of course, but so does Glenn Peoples and Billboard.biz (search @SXSW), Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired’s Epicenter and too many others to mention.
7. AFTER SXSW: Print out the official schedules and maps. Crumple them up, sit and spill a little beer on them. Then leave them around your office during the week after the conference.

Please go to Hypebot for some great articles! I recommend them!

On February the 14th 2009 Felix was diagnosed with stage 4 Neuroblastoma, a particularly rare and aggressive childhood cancer. The tumour started on the adrenal gland in his abdomen, and has spread to his spine, skull vault and bone marrow.
Neuroblastoma affects approximately 100 children a year in Britain and has to be treated very aggressively. Felix has completed 16 rounds of chemotherapy over the past 10 months. He will soon have surgery to remove the primary tumour, followed by stem cell transplant, radiotherapy and immunotherapy.
Devastatingly, this is a cancer that has a nasty habit of not going away, so the treatment is very thorough. They will have to nurture Felix’s body through it and build his immune system up from scratch when it’s complete. They have to be prepared for anything as there can be all sorts of complications throughout the treatment, some which may mean going on a different protocol, some of which may even mean looking at treatments outside the NHS.
He is in the amazingly knowledgable hands of the Royal Marsden team under the leadership of Prof Andy Pearson, a global expert in Neuroblastoma. The team are pulling out all the stops, and Felix is responding well in the early stages.

Please support her Run, and Felix, by Donating Now!

http://www.justgiving.com/Sara-Sims

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Visit his site here for updates on his progress

With production duties by Grammy Award winning producer James Sanger now finished. The album moves into the mixing stage with Ash Howes mixing the whole album. Artwork has now been commissioned and we will soon be closing off the Credits page on the album that lists all the founder members names. Every VIP member that signs up in time will get their name listed as a thank you for their support!

The band will be off to Asia on the 26th February for a month, with back to back live dates and promotional duties. Then back to the UK ready to start the UK push. It’s going to be a busy summer. Updates on their time in Asia will be posted on their Blog rubylux.net and they will be broadcasting regular shows via their Ustream Channel.

I will keep you posted of developments here, as the album campaign evolves. Please feel free to comment, make suggestions and generally join in!

Via the LA Times:

1. Be real. “It can’t just be about commerce. People want to connect with you and get to know you. They don’t want to connect with you if you’re just telling them to go buy your record. They don’t want you to be perfect, either. They want you to be real.” - Evan Greene, chief marketing officer, the Recording Academy

4. Share things that you are most excited about. “Share things you find, love, hate and create. Share the things you’ve made, even if it’s not finished yet. That’s what makes it engaging.” - David Karp, founder, Tumblr

“Most of the performances on the Grammys made very clear that the people now responsible for promoting and selling music to the general public have absolutely no belief whatsoever in the actual power of music. Storm-trooper dancers, trapeze acts (although Pink’s vocal was incredible), three-dimensional computer graphics, and mid-song costume changes all testify to the fact that none of the powers that be in the music industry believe that an audience would actually be interested, much less enraptured by a lone person with a guitar, or a lyric that truly resonates emotionally.”

— Eric Beall, Berklee Music

Bob Lefsetz

1. Book Pricing

Amazon blinked.

In case you missed the story, over the weekend Macmillan drew a line in the sand.  No more devaluing our product, no more underselling to boost Kindle market share, we’re not going to let you sell electronic books for $9.99 upon date of hard cover publication.

Oh YEAH??

Well, yeah.  You should have seen the mealy-mouthed Amazon explanation when the retailer caved.  Something about Macmillan having a “monopoly over their own titles”?  Huh?

The record companies want to raise prices at the iTunes Store and Steve Jobs goes public and calls them greedy.  Jeff Bezos just caves.

But the truly interesting point is Macmillan’s desire to stand up to Amazon.  It was emboldened by a product that has not yet hit the shelves, the iPad.  Steve Jobs said electronic books would be a straight 70/30 deal, in favor of the publisher.  And books would cost $12.99 to $14.99.

Overnight, with an unreleased product, Steve Jobs changed electronic book pricing.  Wow.

(Meanwhile, emboldened by Macmillan, HarperCollins is now angling for a better e-book deal with Amazon, which Murdoch said today is ready to renegotiate. Meanwhile, Murdoch, who controls HarperCollins, referenced Apple’s higher prices in his criticism of Amazon.  So, Bezos takes his finger out of the dike and the water comes rushing in, just like that, all because Jeff is afraid of Steve Jobs and Apple.)

2. Flash

You should have seen the blogosphere.  Up in arms.  The iPad doesn’t support FLASH!

And it doesn’t have a camera, which the ultimately released edition is now rumored to include, and there’s no USB…

But Flash?  How can we run the Internet without Flash?  It’s the standard!  Hell, you could see the blank spot in the “New York Times” page Jobs pulled up in the demo, where the movie was supposed to go.  The iPad can’t triumph…  Maybe you can get away without Flash on the tiny iPhone, but not the iPad!

Then Jobs struck back.  Trumping the naysayers by saying that Flash sucks.  That it’s the main reason Safari crashes on computers.

Mmm…  That’s right.

I don’t know if you’re on a Mac, but it never crashes, not only the whole computer, but any individual program, except for occasionally Microsoft Office, where so many cooks ended up releasing a half-baked product, and Safari.

Yes, it’s not frequent, but Safari crashes.  Or hangs.  And it’s always the damn movie.  It’s always Flash.

Suddenly, online, there’s all this hoopla about HTML5.  How it and H.264 are better than Flash and are going to replace it.

Wow.  Talk about turning lemons into lemonade.  Steve Jobs is so powerful he can change the STANDARD!  Then again, this is not the first time he’s done it. Remember the iMac without the floppy drive, with USB connectors?  Seen a floppy drive recently?  Isn’t USB the standard (is the proprietary iPod connector about to be the new standard?)

3. AT&T

There were audible groans in the auditorium when Jobs stated that high speed cellular connections for the iPad would be through AT&T.  The groans may not have made the official video, but do you wonder why the stream doesn’t appear until hours later?  It’s got to be cleaned up!

AT&T has shitty 3G coverage.  Just watch TV and see the maps.  Yes, AT&T’s 3G is extremely fast, WHERE YOU CAN GET IT!  Which is in the metropolis, assuming the system’s not overloaded.

But today it was revealed that Verizon just didn’t bid high enough.  That AT&T put its money where its mouth was.  Coming up with a low-priced service plan that other providers weren’t about to match.  Giving AT&T a monopoly on Apple products and time to finally get those infrastructure changes in place before everybody abandons the legacy carrier.

All this and the iPad has not yet been released.

It seems the world comes down to two kinds of people.  Those who are afraid of Apple and those who are not.  Verizon is not.  But they just reported shitty numbers.  Amazon is.

You see companies believe that Steve Jobs is in control of a giant tribe, who will follow him anywhere.  So far, Mr. Jobs has not revealed a compelling reason to purchase an iPad.  But that doesn’t mean he won’t.  And when he does, when the tribe has acquired it and harangued newbies to join the team, do you want to be left out?

This is utterly amazing.  We’ve got a President, a whole cadre of elected officials whored out to corporations, their approval ratings in the dumper.  But we’ve got a businessman (aren’t we supposed to hate businessmen?) who appears beholden to no one, in search of excellence, willing to do it his way at the risk that potential partners might take the highway.  When so-called musical “artists” are eager to sell out, do you wonder why Steve Jobs has got such a throng of admirers, such a posse?  To the point where an unreleased product changes the course of business?

AT&T would be in the same boat as Sprint without the iPhone and now the iPad, hemorrhaging customers.

Adobe felt it won the war of Web video and rested on its laurels, just like Microsoft.  We’ve got dominant market share, Flash is the standard, you have to use our product…huh?  Especially if the platform changes.  Microsoft may own the desktop, although their share is slipping, but it’s losing tremendous ground in the new medium, mobile devices.  Hell who’d want Windows Mobile after using Windows on their desktop?  And it’s not like Windows Mobile has gotten good reviews.

And if you think physical books are the way of the future, then you’re unaware of the towns that no longer sport a bookstore, like Laredo, TX, you’re unaware that library hours are shortening, that Borders is on the bring of bankruptcy and Barnes & Noble might soon be taken over.  The publishers are too ignorant to even see what’s going on.  They’re running into the arms of Apple to avoid Amazon.  Who do you need to fear most?  Just look at a Kindle and an iPad and you’ve got your answer.  Publishers are doing BETTER by selling e-books on Amazon today, they’re getting physical book wholesale!  But fearful of $9.99 becoming the pricing standard, they’re taking a worse deal from Apple.  Retailing the books at higher prices, but getting less in return.  But how about when you want to raise prices again?  Look what happened with the record companies.  Suddenly, Apple had all the power, not them.

But publishers are shortsighted.

And Amazon is weak.

AT&T realized it’s better to get on the Jobs bandwagon than not.

And the public wants cheaper prices, or it steals.  Not that Steve Jobs really cares, he’s in the hardware business…

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