Tuesday, day 3 of the Future of Music Coalition’s Policy Summit featured an excellent assortment of highlights in the AM. Daniel Ek of Spotify was interviewed by FMC Communications Coordinator Casey Rae-Hunter, an hour long conversation and open question session with Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, Discord Records) and Wayne Kramer (MC5), a conversation between Radio Head Manager/Advisor Brian Message and WIRED mag writer Elliot Van Buskirk. The afternoon continued with smaller focused breakout sessions.

We’ll have more detail on the highlights of the whole summit, particularly answers for our concerns about Spotify, and information on legislation that is near and dear to our hearts.

I can say that hearing Ian MacKaye speak, and especially talking to him (even a question from the audience that didn’t really seem to move him all that much)  will always be a total thrill for me as long as I live. It certainly was today.

Another thing: There’s this thing called Band Metrics (@bandmetrics) that is coming soon and I can tell you it looks incredible. It will likely be one of the most powerful tools a musician can have to navigate their career. It’s still in private beta, but I spoke with the brains behind the project, Duncan Freeman and he is hopefull it will be out by late 2009, early 2010.  I can say this thing is scientifically thorough, while at the same time capable of some pretty subtle and nuanced analysis as well. The demo showed radio plays (down to a single spin per station? - uhh… ANSWER THAT, ASCAP and BMI!) among all other relevant data, and from there could make incredible suggestions, among them, planned tour routes. There was much more from there. It felt like anything I could think of was possible in Freeman’s mind.

In the same breakout session that Duncan demo’d Band Metrics, another very promising application called Bands in town was discussed. A demo proved frustratingly impossible for the presenter, as their were adapter/projector problems. In a nutshell it aggregates all data from the top 60 ticket selling agencies, and from there can tell you a great deal. Bandsintown also has a widget for an artist to sell tickets as well, and the commission they receive from the ticket seller ends up getting split with the artist. Seemed very interesting. Can’t wait to see it in action.

A full Summit review will be forthcoming in the near future. We need to absorb some of these things, and we’ll get back to you!