Love it or hate it, everyone seems to have an opinion about Twitter right now.  One of the results of this Twitter boom is seeing well known people jump on board, and watching how they use it.  For some it’s a one way window into the little details of their lives, and for others it’s a way to actually connect with people on their own terms.

Coming from the music industry, I’ve been especially fascinated with a lot of the musicians, and how they are using it to change the way that they interact with fans.  If you can’t go two feet without hearing about Twitter these days, then you can’t go ten feet without hearing about the changes that the music business—really the entire entertainment industry—is painfully going through.  There’s an enormous paradigm shift happening in the music industry.  Some artists are jumping on this opportunity to bypass a lot of BS and connect directly with their audience.  They’re takin’ it to the streets—metaphorically speaking—in 140 characters or less.

Enter Bob Lefsetz, the curmudgeonly old-school critic of all things music.  Say what you want about him, but people at all levels of the music industry are aware of what he has to say.  And for as much as Lefsetz makes me cringe sometimes, he’s also dead fucking spot on pretty often.

Not many weeks go by where Lefsetz won’t post an email from a big name musician or producer or label head.  He recently shared an email from Amanda Palmer that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.  Palmer has been going through a very public feud with her record label, going so far as to ask them to drop her.  She’s also very active on Twitter.  These things as, as you may have guessed, are related.

Palmer tells stories of fans lining up to meet her and buy her album.  They follow her on Twitter and ask her questions.  And she answers them.  She shares little bits of random info and photos and thoughts. A lot of fans would love to receive this stuff from their favorite artists, but this unrestricted avenue through which info could flow didn’t exist in quite the same way until recently.  Sure it could be posted on a website, but how many major artists are actually editing their own site?  Now anyone that can text message can send a TwitPic photo ten seconds after it happens.

As Palmer explained to Lefsetz, when she was in Australia recently, she did an impromptu gathering with fans in a park, announced only via Twitter.  150 kids showed up to have their records signed.

“LIFE IS BECOMING AWESOME.”

“no manager knew! i didn’t even warn or tell her! no agents! no security! no venue! we were in a fucking public park!
life is becoming awesome.”

I haven’t been able to get that line out of my head.  I work for a record company, and I’ll tell you, the chances of getting something like that to happen from my end are pretty slim.  It’s not to say that people wouldn’t like the idea, or that we couldn’t try to make it happen.  It’s just that there are too many people involved.  Too many people to say no. If we set up a promotion or event with an artist, it’s essentially on our terms.  If Amanda Palmer wants to choose a time and a place to meet people, and only tell them via Twitter, those are her terms.  And that’s pretty awesome.

And it’s not just Amanda Palmer.  Look at Lily Allen, and her scavenger hunts for tickets before every show—all via Twitter (or excuse me, “Twitta”).  I get a good laugh when I think of pitching an idea like that.

Or Dave Matthews, with his oddball humor—a perfect fit for this type of communication.  A lot of the responses he gives to people feel like a more authentic connection than physically standing in front of him for five seconds and getting a record signed.

So what does this all mean?  Does it mean that all you need to be a successful musician is a solid list of Twitter followers, an iPhone and a good sense of humor?  No, of course not.

There’s a reason that people are passionate about Amanda Palmer, and her music comes first.  She’s built the foundation.  Could she be successful from here on out with no label?  By just touring and putting out releases on her own that her fans buy to support her?  Yeah, I think she probably could.  Could she start over today with none of that history and achieve the same results with only those tools?  I tend to doubt it, but I’m not so sure.  Someone’s going to do it.

So as frustrating as it can be to see a respected member of the old-guard media make a fool out of themselves when talking about something “new” like Twitter, it makes it that much more exciting to see more and more well known artists grab hold and use this new technology to connect with their audience in a way that didn’t exist a few years ago.  In that sense,  I completely agree with Amanda Palmer, life is becoming awesome.

It’s the little things—the moments and opportunities—that have kept me going at my job.  Being at a special show, meeting someone I admire, or just having a night where I remind myself that this is what I’m doing for my work, my career—this is part of what I get paid for.  For every fifty grids and reports I need to fill out there may be one of these little moments, but they can really carry me.

Last week was one of those nights, and frankly it’s been a while.  I was invited to a sort of unofficial (friends and press) album release party by Sarah Borges and The Broken Singles.  The show took place at Camp Street Studios in Cambridge, where they had recorded the album.  There’s an enormous amount of history at the studio, with music from The Pixies to Radiohead to The Lemonheads being recorded or mixed there.

I hung out early before the performance started and soaked in the scene.  Wine and cheese and PBR—from a keg—was mixed with old recording equipment and colored lights that were strung from the walls.

The back of the room was covered with bins of vinyl records, and in front of them was a combination soundboard and dusty old record player.  As people mingled, records were swapped out and played on the old deck.  It was a cool scene.

I soon realized that Paul, the studio owner and house producer, was manning the turntable.  I later found out that the entire wall of vinyl was his personal collection that he loaded into the studio years earlier when moving apartments.  Lucky for us.

Sarah and the band took the “stage” (really a corner of the room where the gear was setup) soon after.  The songs had an Americana twang with a touch of punk rock styling bubbling under the surface.  She was wearing cowboy boots.

At one point Sarah told a story about how when she was starting out as a musician and playing open mic nights around town, she would sing a cover of “Ride With Me,” by The Lemonheads.  She went on to say that it wasn’t until years later that she found out she had been playing it wrong, and that the original version of the song had actually been recorded in the same studio, by the same guy that produced her record.  The same guy that was spinning the records before the show, and the same guy that was standing at the soundboard at that moment doing the sound.  The same guy that owned the studio that we were all standing in.

That’s one of those moments.  I didn’t sing the song, and I didn’t record it.  But it’s a little thing—a little twist of history—to be standing in that same studio hearing that story.  It’s a moment I won’t forget any time soon.