Musicians go it alone

A nice piece in, of all places, American Airline's inflight magazine, outlining how some small musicians are making a reasonable living off live performance, direct album sales, and merchandise. If their music is distributed online, well, that's just valuable free advertising.

Tellingly, I have not heard of any of the artists profiled. File trading alone is not a good way to build visibility -- you need promotion (like being written-up for inflight magazines) as well.