James Moore's Blog, page 73
December 26, 2016
Why Industry People Don’t Trust Artists
Man, this is a big one, and also a pretty depressing one. Just my cup of tea! Long story short – there is a reason industry people don’t trust musicians, and a reason industry people will tell you ‘all musicians are the same’ and that “bands don’t know what they are doing” It’s not just because they spend more time researching this stuff and do it in a variety of circumstances. No, that’s just why people hire managers etc in the first place. No – the reason that industry people don’t trust musicians is that they know that at the end of the day musicians only care about their particular band. Many of us would tell you that’s not a good idea because odds are whatever band you are in now isn’t going to be your band for the rest of your life and you might want to preserve your connections from band to band. Alas – musicians are, as we are all well aware, oftentimes drunks and degenerates and it’s them the suits have to rely on.
Now I know that sounds reductive and it’s certainly not always true. I have met many a musician who knows exactly what they are doing and what they are doing and knows how to think over the long term. They realize their place and relationship with the music not just from an artistic standpoint but also in relation to the community. There are also a lot of industry people who also have successful careers as musicians and who help to bridge that gap. They are vital because they help both sides remember the humanity and inherent value of the other. This is something you can really take advantage of since it brings everyone closer together and allows to rally once more behind our common cause. I’m not trying to say musicians or industry people are bad guys but merely that sometimes there is a lack of communication we need to appreciate.
It makes sense too that artists often have a hard time trusting industry people. Music has a well established history of screwing musicians over and has led to countless acrimonious interviews with players on both sides who end up extremely frustrated and unable to see a reasonable path forward through all this. They only want to look out for themselves because they are afraid that industry people are going to throw them under the bridge the second something better comes along and are worried that politicking is going on around them that they are unaware of but that could leave them perpetually screwed. Industry people have a history of doing exactly this and it’s a practice that when unchecked gets really out of hand and leads to all sorts of unfortunate repercussions that no one wants to deal with, except maybe lawyers.
But can you really blame the industry people though? These are guys who are trying to create and maintain careers in an extremely volatile industry and who punish themselves day by day to help out drunks and degenerates only to have them turn around at the end of the day and fire them for some asinine reason. Of course they are going to do all the politicking they can in order to maintain their already highly volatile and stressful lifestyle. Of course they are going to spend a lot of time preparing contingency plans so that when the next big things comes they can snap it up and make more money. Sure it might not work for everyone or work out all the time, but the odds are your band isn’t generating nearly enough income to have a personal manager and they probably never will – that’s just the way it goes. Which means instead if you want a manager or a label or whatever you are going to deal with people who take people out to fancy dinners and continue trying to grow.
This creates a circle of instability obviously, even if it’s supposed to work out great in theory. While on the one hand it makes sense that artists want to hire manager who are growing and who don’t have all their eggs in one basket (That way they can have access to the resources their peers are using) on the other it means that any sort of entitlement or hope that you won’t have to deal with bullshit is going to get quickly quashed. Trust me – if the politics weren’t necessary I don’t think people would engage in hem, but the simple financial realities of the industry are such that anyone who wants to make it needs to have a diverse roster of bands in order to guarantee a variety of income streams. To maintain those income streams the industry people need to maintain a good reputation, but they know that any one of those can disappear the moment the artist feels he gets a better deal elsewhere – and so we all end up suffering.
It seems rather crass that our entire industry, an industry that’s supposed to be about art and beauty, should be subverted by the need to make a living, and at higher levels our own almost subhuman desires to make more money than we know what to do with. This goes both ways and on both sides you can understand why a level of mistrust is there. This is why as a band you need to be very careful about who you bring onto your team – it is going to make or break your livelihood as a potential viable act. It’s not just about politics but also trust – and figuring out who you can trust in order to help drive your career to the next sustainable level.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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December 24, 2016
Licensing & Distribution Deals and Your Band
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One of the things we have increasingly seen record labels, especially lower level DIY record labels engage in these days is simple licensing and distribution deals. Many record labels have decided that rather than do the A&R and PR that the old school labels pretty much view as required is not necessary and they can simply make their money off of licensing the music and distributing the albums. This model has been in full effect in recent years with the development and growth of bedroom labels run by twenty somethings who love music but lack any solid connections and the sort of understanding of the music industry that makes the legendary labels so well known. It’s an interesting dynamic to have to deal with and I for one really enjoy the possibilities that licensing and distribution companies offer – even if I doubt they are always the way forward.
Before we go forward I want to expound a little bit on what a licensing and distribution deal is and why they make money for people. Licensing and distribution deals essentially mean that the label will print your record and sell it through their distributor. They minimize overhead costs by limiting marketing and PR and thus only need to sell a few hundred copies (If that) to make their money back. Instead of getting an advance the label usually just gives the band product, that is to say, records. These labels work on two levels. The larger ones sign bands that have really hands on managers so it doesn’t really matter anyway. They simply front some money and then get their investment back and then some so they can pay their staff and keep distributing records. For the smaller ones it’s a similar idea, but more driven by hyper niche markets where the people running the label know that they can make the money back relatively quickly. It’s an appealing model. After all, it makes you into a record label CEO for minimal work.
Of course limiting yourself likes this means there is a bit of ceiling on what you can do with your record label. It means that you’re not really going to have a chance to develop your artists and the odds are unless you have a really strong roster of bands then you are going to have a hard time keeping acts over the long term. They are going to want to move to labels that offer more PR options and have A&R people to help market them. So a lot of these organizations find themselves in a position where they need to hire someone to help develop artists and invest in better PR. Hell – some licensing and distribution centric labels are so DIY hat they don’t even have their own PR branch – a harsh limitation for many bands trying to make themselves better known. It just speaks to the almost nihilistic brutality that these labels can have.
Like I said though – there are some definite advantages for the artist with licensing and distribution deals. They tend to be a lot less restrictive and you can be assured of greater autonomy. While a lot of young artists are scared of the potential responsibilities a major label could offer, for understandable reasons, a L&D deal gives you a bit more liberty and isn’t quite as much of a commitment. It can act as a solid stepping stone from being an unsigned act to working with major players in the industry in order to figure out how to bring your music to the most people. Hell – some artists just want licensing and distribution because they are so confident in their management that they would rather not be in debt to a label because the know that they already have the resources they need to develop themselves as a product in house. That’s why you see so many bands opening up their own record labels – it just makes sense!
What I’ve noticed though is that the labels who try to set themselves up as pure licensing and distribution tend to shift over into a model that is a bit more proactive in developing artists once money starts to come in. After all – this sort of stuff can be a lot of fun and can make you more money if you invest more time into it. No one running a L&D deal is in it purely for the money – there simply isn’t enough. Eventually they learn that by connecting with other professionals they can end up selling far more records and creating a better and bigger future for their bands. I know that you could technically achieve the same result just by hiring a bunch of managers, but is that really worth it? From the labels perspective they have to trust people who are not in their immediate control and who have no incentive to engage in the moneymaking side of the band that will actually generate money for the label. I know that sounds crass and unfortunate but sadly that’s just the way it happens to be in the world of independent music.
In the end – the decision to sign to a L&D deal is really case by case. While I personally would recommend against it I certainly can understand situations where it might make sense. I manage bands signed to L&D deals right now and I am very happy with them. The label in some cases might not be as stoked, but that’s because they don’t know me and my ironclad resolve to get these albums put out and selling as many copies as possible. I also know that this way my bands don’t owe money to labels and can instead just focus on making money rather than paying back debts. While I do certainly wish I could have more people on my team sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles and we need to embrace these deals as the fundamental part of the industry that they are.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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December 23, 2016
So I’ve Been Learning About Distribution…
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Distribution deals are a weird thing to deal with and something that I Think not enough of the young dudes in the industry properly get. I know that I for one didn’t seem to properly understand the significance behind distributors and why you need to have a good one if you want to get anywhere. They, like me a few months ago, don’t seem to understand why you can’t just set up a CD Baby account and go from there. That’s not to attack CD Baby, I have some very close friends who work there and I really admire there work However I think that it’s oftentimes easy to or get the true significance of this kind of deal and what it can mean for you. While CD Baby or Tunecore might be a good choice for lower level bands, I want to take a minute to sit back and figure out what it can represent as you go forward and try to create a band that can continue on throughout the years and hint at a world of endless possibilities.
See – the issue with CD Baby, Tunecore and countless companies that emulate them is not that they are bad organizations. They are doing a lot of cool stuff, time and time again. They are helping indie bands to get on Spotify as well as getting them onto iTunes, Amazon and countless other webstores. This is a service that you simply can’t pass up if you are trying to be a serous band. Tons of bands have gone from doing this to moving onto major labels. There is no shame in them and I would encourage you to revisit what they have to offer time and time again. It’s a service I take advantage of for bands and which will help important record labels to take you more seriously. Of course some bands sign to labels without getting one of these services but it definitely helps you to move the kind of units that you need in order to attract the sort of attention that makes these things worthwhile. View them as a starting point but not the be all and end all.
I also would like to point out that if you don’t have a solid relationship with your distributor you can view yourself as fucked before you even start. I’ve seen distribution deals that have left labels in absolute shambles. This is for a variety of reasons, ranging from shitty contracts to well… shitty contracts. The point being do your fucking research. The problem you can face on one end is if your distributor is… shall we say… ‘too passionate’ about your company. They will often put into contracts that they can print as much product as they want at YOUR expense and then they charge you for stocking and destroying the extra material on top of that. It’s simply crushing, an expense no small label can afford but that could make the distributor a whole boatload of money. Beyond that I’ve seen distribution companies who choose to tell labels or artists they can’t do basic things like use services like Bandcamp, something that spells the death knell for many an underground label.
Of course – I wouldn’t be writing this article if I didn’t think that there were a lot of really cool opportunities to be had with proper distributors. It’s certainly not something that you can get on the day to day, but if you play your card write you will find yourself in a position to sell thousands of extra records and represent a future that has the potential to be truly exciting. If you can schmooze with the right people and find yourself getting taken care of by a legitimate distributor who you have a solid relationship with then you can find yourself moving thousands of copies. It’s all about making sure you’re in good standing with the people you’re distributing and guiding your path forward. It’s the same with anything else you just need to be aware that they have the resources to make you a featured artist and who can fight for you to get the units moving you deserve. Sure these placements don’t often count for much, but every little bit helps and it’s all driven by being a solid supporter of the people who chose to invest their time in you.
You need to focus on what is realistic for a band on your level though. You need to realize that you can’t just up and expect someone like RED to buy in to your band just because “You really believe in the music bro” and “You’re not in it for the money right?” The thing is they sort of are in it for the money and that’s just a tortured reality that you are going to need to accept. These companies are bust and you need to realize that the people there have spent too much of their lives and invested to much money to work for penny’s on the dollar. With legitimate music distributors you can’t just mess around, it’s the same with big league labels and all the rest, there comes a point where you need to grow up, put on your big boy pants and remind people that as difficult as it might be you need to deal with the business side of rock and roll rather than just reveling in the silly self limiting DIY logic that has made our scene look so foolish for so long.
Long story short – distribution can make your band but at the same time they can utterly destroy you and run you out of house and home. Distribution companies have, for a long time gotten away with surprisingly little flak despite how evil they can be and that might simply be because a lot of people don’t take them seriously. At the same time, the commodization of the industry, as scene with CD Baby and Tunecore has made for an industry where people need to be convinced an slowly massaged into understanding. This isn’t an easy reality to deal with but rather one that we must all sit down and figure out one step at a goddamn time.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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5 Disappointing Albums from 2016
There was a lot to be disappointed in from 2016. They took Bowie, Prince, Merle, Lemmy, Leon and Leonard away from us. Kanye created one of the coolest stage sets — the mid-crowd hovering platform — only to implode a few weeks in as the stage was mechanically reeled in. Macklemore headlined Bonnaroo. Coldplay played the Superbowl. There was a mountain of notable releases this year (next week see our Best Of list) and in that pile were a number of albums that just didn’t live up to their heightened hype. Here are the year’s 5 most disappointing, though not totally bad, releases.
Okay, I feel shitty putting this here. Radiohead is the greatest running band in the world. Five musical geniuses working in unison to deliver album after album of genre defying and re-conceptualizing–each one rewriting the code of the last. It’s always a big question mark as to what the next Radiohead album will sound like. A Moon Shaped Pool, still a beautiful collection of songs from the band in their purest form, just never feels cohesive. Fine as it is, the album is in a way the first to not fully pull the carpet from under their sound. Most of the 11 songs were already available in some form for years and they’re not so radical from their initial blueprint. Not that there’s anything wrong with reaching back, but it feels a bit like the tying up of lose ends. But, rest assured, it’s always a good year when Radiohead is releasing music.
Apologies to: “Burn the Witch,” “Daydreaming”
Sorry but, LEMONADE doesn’t come close to the last visual album from Beyonce — self-titled — released in the final hours of 2013. Beyonce’s fifth album, a supposed airing out of dirty laundry from Bey and Jay’s relationship, was released by surprise with a suite of videos that ended up being more iconic than any of the actual songs. It’s Beyonce in a frilly yellow dress with a baseball bat in hand that instantly sticks out.
Beyonce took ideas and input from all across the music spectrum and threw them in the air like confetti to see where they’d land. I respect her for casting a large net for collaborators, but, really, how many people does it take to make an album theses days? It’s getting to be like factory work. In the end what you get is a hodgepodge collection of songs bouncing from style to style without ever feeling like a whole piece. She takes a classic John Bonham beat and buries it in the mix. She does less singing and more yelling and censored swearing. Dips into country with the Dixie Chicks. And I really didn’t think artists were still sticking that obnoxious dancehall horn in their songs. It just can’t be snuffed out. Despite Beyonce’s best efforts LEMONADE fails to evolve her sound in any way–her message, maybe, but not her sound.
Apologies to: “Pray You Catch Me”
Drake. Oh my Drakey Poo. Buddy. You’ve gotta cut out the fat. VIEWS is an unfortunate bloated circumstance. I know 20 tracks is a great way to capitalize on streaming sales, but that’s what the mixtapes are for. Don’t give us an album where we’re skipping every third track. At the very least, they used to be called bonus tracks. Now we’re just removing the asterisks. Drake went from someone I abhorred and passed off as something Lil’ Wayne pulled out of his jacket pocket to someone who I spent late nights drinking wine with and falling asleep with. Take Care and Nothing Was the Same are back-to-back classics. VIEWS is an oily mirrored version of the two, trying to set the same mood and hit the same spots. It doesn’t. It feels empty. While I still reach for NWTS at least once a week, I think I’ll leave VIEWS in the hard-drive.
Apologies to: “Hype,” “Redemption,” “Feel No Ways,” Child’s Play”
Big sigh. We wait and we wait. We wade through rumors and false starts. Years since Channel Orange. Years since we’ve heard Ocean’s syrupy sweet croons and high pitched tear-yanking melodies dominate an album. Then, surprised, he comes out unannounced with two bulbous, overstuffed albums as some sort of consolation prize for our time in wait. Despite a handful of songs that could stand on their own, the two albums are juiced and greased with intro and outro tracks that weigh them down. Wise man once sang despondently, “Every single record auto-tuning, zero emotion, muted emotion / pitched corrected computed emotion, uh-huh.”
1. “The Life of Pablo” by Kanye WestKanye’s always been a maniac. I’ve always loved his every move. But this shit is tragic. Other outlets are out of their collective mind putting this album in their top ten lists. Sonically, okay, he always puts something together that makes you want to listen and figure out. Sometimes, though, his splicing gets to be too jumbled. TLOP is made up of all these really incredible pieces, but when they’re thrown into Kanye’s blender it don’t always mix and match.
Mostly, though, what stinks this album up to hog heaven are Kanye’s lyrics. Lord God they’re hideous. A lot of Kanye’s best lyrics have sounded corny and nonsensical the first time you hear them, but later they reveal a six-sided meaning connecting pop culture to his inner sadness and the guilt it he feels for it. Well, it’s been months since this album was released and the lyrics still sound corny and nonsensical because mostly they are. A lot of the time he doesn’t even finish bars and just gasps and blows into the microphone.
Here I will give Kanye the award for worst lyric of the year, from “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1”: “If I fuck this model / and she just bleached her asshole / and I get bleach on my t-shirt / I’mma feel like an asshole.” This is where the Kanye force field finally disintegrated around me. To make all this worse, the album’s greatest line was replaced in later versions. “She be Puerto Rican Day parade waving,” from “Famous” was changed to, “She in school to be a real estate agent.” Just not the same flair. And why wasn’t “All Day” on this?
Apologies to: “Feedback” (been waiting for someone to rap over feedback), “Famous,” (if only for the awesome Taylor Swift hubbub), “Real Friends,” “No More Parties In LA,” “Fade”
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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December 18, 2016
So You Get To Work With The Company Of Your Dreams…
So say you do get on the record label of your dreams, or the PR company you’ve always wanted to work with, or the manager you’ve admired for years. These things do eventually happen if you work hard enough long enough. That’s awesome – it feels good to get recognition from the industry and for things to work out in your favor like that. However, as soon as you start to really think your teeth in don’t be surprised if not everything is as you hoped. Maybe you don’t get the attention or interest you think this whole thing deserves. This might be for a variety of reasons, but I wanted to take a minute to look at what why some of our most vaunted industry institutions can sometimes feel a little bit hackneyed when we look behind the curtain. At the end of the day, everything in the music industry is a human construct, and because it’s music the odds are that whoever created it in the first place was on drugs.
I think this is often most obvious when you start to see the structures of various businesses throughout the music industry, be it a band who are still managed by an old friend, or hell who don’t even have a manager or a label that has been locked in the same shitty distribution deal for five years because they didn’t know any better when they signed the contract. This is because a lot of these companies didn’t set up a solid base and then suddenly things got out of hand so now they’re sitting here fifteen years later having worked seventy hour weeks the entire time and never having had the time to go back and figure out how to properly structure a company in order to not get fucked by the taxman. This is actually pretty normal and the more I learn he more I realize that people in this industry are often still just playing it by ear because things worked out early on and now they don’t have the time or budget to figure out how to streamline things.
Most of the time this isn’t necessarily the end of the world but it does mean that you are often going to find weird little quirks that work against the companies in question. This is often compounded by the fact that oftentimes accountants and people who help make these things run a bit more smoothly often ave no context for the world of independent music. I know technically that all businesses should have similar terminology and be able to at least hold some things in common, but in our world things are set up by punk rockers who did a ton of LSD back in the day. It means that we need to figure out how to interface with everyone else, but after having spent so long in the scene that we love it can become a little tricky and mean that we are oftentimes struggling to help our bands out because we need to figure out how to make it all work with an infrastructure that can feel like it is bursting apart at the very seams.
Beyond that, you can often find at major companies that once you are inside they don’t quite function as you might think. This is because labels, above all else, operate on image. They want bands to go to them cause they think they will help them deliver the most refined and best marketed product. This image needs to stretch from the industry people like managers and consultants who get bands signed all the way down to the fans who might one day be in bands or even just have friends in bands. Oftentimes you’ll look at big league labels and think that they must totally have their shit together on every level and be veritable kings of their craft. Of course you then become a part of them and realize that everything s done in a hectic halfway falling apart manner. The behind the scenes can be way crazier than anyone wants to think about for a lot of reasons and it can lead to a lot of the stress that defines this entire industry.
It is also why you may often feel like you are not getting the attention you deserve from whatever company you are working with. Because everyone is so busy and hasn’t really had the time to set up the infrastructure to make things run as smoothly as possible at all times we as artists can often find ourselves wondering why the label is letting us run free and choosing our own art and doesn’t care about our creative process outside of the final stamp of approval. It’s simply because with budgets being what they are and the industry being where it is we just can’t afford it. It would be great if A&R men and managers could get into the nitty gritty of the album creation process of every band they work with, bu frankly they don’t have the time or the energy, at least not if they want to make money off of it and not have to get a day job. The nitty gritty is still left up to the band because at this point it often feels like we have no real choice, no one wants that headache, so they dump it on the artists.
So yeah, this entire thing has been slapped together out of whatever we could find and the little spare money we had from the time our punk single blew up a little more than expected. I know that sounds kind of nihilistic but that’s where we are at. The internal structures of these companies often leaves a lot to be desired and a lot of energy is expended trying their best to look as powerful and in tune as possible. If you can’t do that then your organization is fucked. So try and keep your head above water and be careful when choosing who you are going to work with, but also realize that even the titans can have a lot of difficulty getting all the resources to the right places on time.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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December 15, 2016
Politics And Its Influence On The Underground
So last night I went to the Revolver Golden Gods awards. I’d never been and it was interesting to say the least. It functions primarily as a heavy metal industry get together, you walk the black carpet and shoot the shit with your guys. It was interesting to watch unfold simply because it made me realize how goddamn incestuous the world of heavy metal and independent music in general can be. There is no limitation as to what a well connected individual can do in the music world because talking to them it seems like anyone who has gotten anywhere has not only worked for a dozen different companies but has all of those companies owing them a significant debt. Is this the model record labels have to follow now? Simply hiring the people who have proven themselves over the years to create an insulated environment? Yeah it kind of is.
Something I heard the other night that really stuck with me came from a major manager in the metal sphere, “Now that there is so much less money it’s only the cool people who have been able to stick around” Of course, deciding who the cool people are is a kind of arbitrary and slightly weird process and one that doesn’t pretend to not be highly exclusionary. It’s one where to break in you need to grind away doing shit for free for years with the hope that you might have the right type of personality to impress one of these people and get them to want to buy into what you have to offer. It’s a world where it’s almost impossible to become the ‘it’ guy only because again, it’s so incestuous. It’s weird to look at the age gap in the music industry. Sure I occasionally meet a few people my age who I like and who are doing cool stuff but the majority of folks are in their 40s and 50s. Why? Because they want to protect their jobs and they want to protect the jobs of their friends. It makes for a rather cutthroat environment you have to be very careful in.
More importantly for the artist it means that every big label you work for is the product of a vast network of alliances and betrayals. Someone was sold out for your A&R guy to have the job he does, and that might even have been the product of his own scheming. Not matter how cool you think he is he’s probably cut a few throats. Remember that it’s very rare that new jobs get created in the music industry so if someone gets hired it means that someone else lost their job and you probably want to figure out why they got their job in the first place. Sometimes yes people move on, but as last night showed me a lot of the time it’s just because they got the chair pulled out from under them I know that sounds kind of bitter and sad but that’s the reality we have to deal with every day. The desire to protect jobs has led to a lot of the lies and bullshit that this world has become so infamous for, and has ramped up in the past couple years, even if it is only the cool people who remain.
This also means that there is a wider gap than ever between the industry and the bands. On top of that this means that the industry people are a lot more willing to lie in order to not face problems further down the line. It’s happened to me time and time again. Because no one likes saying no sometimes you can find yourself talking to your A&R guy enthusiastically for weeks and then suddenly find yourself dropped. Hell, even getting on a label can see similar things happen. I once had a guy, and I don’t hold this against him, who spoke with me every week for a couple of months in a delicate dance to try and get a band I managed to sign to a label he worked at. Then he dropped the bomb on me. The band wouldn’t get signed. He had known for days but had decided to try and be delicate about it, it was frustrating but I see why he did it. He didn’t want to end up burning a bridge with a new manager, even if he no longer has any interest in the band.
This division between artists and industry is strange, it’s something I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with but also a bleak reality once you start to see groups that move tens of thousands of copies. In a way it makes sense since after all you need to have specialists on your side if you want to be on a label that does it well. This does not mean that the industry people don’t get it,but there is a reason that they are viewed as ‘suits’. Sure they might know how to play some instruments and have good taste but remember that these folks are trying to make serious money and they can’t just assume that you are going to be safe just because they seem like nice guys on the phone and buy you beers every time you see them in the bar. Hell, sometimes even great bands that make money get dropped for political reasons, that’s why you can’t be an asshole, because people want there bands to reflect well on them.
So yeah – bands get signed due to politics all the time, it’s an unfortunate reality and one we all have to embrace. If you can play it right then you could end up with a far larger guarantee than you are worth. If you play it wrong then you are not going to get anyone paying attention to you and maybe even mocking you. If you try to ignore it all together then perhaps you can get by just by touring a fuckton and looking professional but odds are you will get lost in the fray. These are the bitter realities and this is why I try and document this stuff for you guys. It’s a hard knock life but one that we must always look forward to and realize that we need to be a part of if we want to go out there and sell even just a few thousand copies.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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December 11, 2016
DIY Spaces And You
So, we all saw what happened with the Oakland fire. The hard truth is that it could have been any of us. I only found out about how severe the fire was while I was in a DIY space. It’s a simple reality of being involved in underground music. If your taste in music is at all relevant and you have even remotely interesting taste then you’ve been to a DIY space and probably played a show there. Everyone interested in rock and roll, hip hop or really any other genre of popular music from the last 100 years owes a debt to DIY art spaces. We all know how dangerous DIY spaces are and we’ve al been sitting there late at night realizing how fucked we would be if it all fell apart. So why is it that DIY spaces hold such an important space in independent music and what can we do to help them maintain their crucial place in society? After the fire a lot of things feel like they are in flux and we all have to come to terms with it.
DIY spaces matter because they are a consequence free space, at least in terms of scene cred. They let you hone your craft in front of people who willingly have a shitty quality of life so that they can focus on their art. They don’t really expect people to go to shows there (though it’s appreciated when they come) and they are never pay to play. At the same time there is often a built in crowd of worn out artists who want to spend time in the space to work and take a break to catch some cool tunes. So it gives you an opportunity to practice playing live in front of supportive punks who understand what this scene is about. It gives you an opportunity to share your craft with the people who won’t judge you for sucking but will rather help you figure out what you need to do to improve. DIY music has always relied on these spaces, from jazz speakeasies to punk houses they are what has always driven the arts, at least true art and not schlocky corporate bullshit.
Furthermore they let you embrace the inherent danger of independent music. This isn’t a lifestyle for people who want to live to a ripe old age. Either you die in a punk house fire, your van flips or some drug addict friend stabs you. Hell maybe you are that drug addict friend. Punk houses and DIY spots in all of their rickety danger are a symbol of how nihilistic this whole thing is. They remind us that everything we take for granted is bullshit if we’re not willing to enjoy some band whose demo we spun two times on Bandcamp. I know that seems like it’s expecting a lot but when you see the people who truly have success and who are truly humble throughout then you are going to realize what actually matters. There is a certain gives no fucks magic to a good DIY spot – you realize exactly how dangerous it is, but you keep going because the scene around it is that vibrant and the clearly illegal bar is that cheap. You gotta love it.
So it should come as no surprise that organized bodies kind of hate them. They are dangerous, rickety and oftentimes support art that could be categorized as subversive to say the least. That’s why we’ve started running into some serious issues with the Oakland fire. Suddenly the public eye has turned onto these vital spaces. They have realized that our artists have to engage in life threatening decisions just to express themselves in a way that isn’t fucking sanctioned by teachers and policemen. Think about what that means for free speech – scary right? If we close down these spaces then everyone will suffer, there will be less art and inspiration and instead we will have to suffocate under waves of crippling devastation and realize that our community is a lot more fragile then we care to admit. The punk house is what we all rely on merely to express ourselves which is why time after time we need to daub those sacred words ‘no cops’ onto our flyers.
We need to give back to these spaces though. Though the rent is often paid by the people who live there they need regular patrons. People who if they want to go out don’t go to a fucking poser bar but rather go spend some cash at a show – even if they don’t care about it. You need to keep true to the punk rock lifestyle, inviting people to these shows but making sure that they are cool about it. Remember, posting the address to a punk house online is never a good idea, nor is taking too many pictures of the outside. Governmental forces WILL and HAVE gone out of their way to close these spaces down. They aren’t stupid – they know just how dangerous these places are. They want them to be shut down not just because there is the potential for tragedies but also because that art is inherently a dangerous ting and embracing that could lead to movements that threaten their stability. I know that sounds kind of conspiracy theory nut job-y but such is life.
So yeah – go out of your way to help out your local DIY space and realize that they are the very embodiment of the DIY ethics that our entire scene was built on. DIY art spaces are the be all and end all, both the beginning and the end of the punk rock rebellion. They are where legends start out and big bands go to die. We need to embracetheir life giving force and the way that they dictate a scene and can killus all if the hands of fate swing that way. Remember – everyone who remains real, even dudes in your favorite big bangs hang out at DIY spaces all the time and they are always dangerous. Rock and roll was never meant for the faint of heart and if you’re not ready to embrace the madness you might as well pack up and go home.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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December 6, 2016
Record Labels And Artistic Frustrations
Record labels are frequently kind of grumpy. After all – they are supposed to work with entitled artists, that’s going to be an issue no matter what your relationship to them is. While I discussed before why this makes you less likely to get signed I also want to take some time to go into what behaviors out of being untrustworthy makes it difficult for labels to be genuinely interested in articles. It’s the synthesis of inaccurate expectations and entitlement. It leaves labels in an uncomfortable position and suggests that there is a lot of other weirdness to be picked apart here. They need to balance between artistic credibility and delivering a product that actually looks okay and will sell. This is obviously a tricky balance to strike, especially for independent record labels who have to deal with folks obsessed with DIY ethics as well as trying to make this entire industry work in a reasonable and (hopefully) sustainable way.
Now a lot of labels try to balance this out by going the traditional route of basically saying anything goes as long as they get to approve the final product. This actually makes a lot of sense and can ensure a decent amount of artistic freedom while maintaining the labels ability to move units. It means that the labels can make sure that the artists aren’t shooting their chance at moving units in the foot while simultaneously giving them a chance to express themselves as purely as possible. It’s a delicate balance to strike, and sometimes it can lead to artists trying to rebel in the most obnoxious ways possible. Some artists see a limitation and do whatever they can to fight it, even if it goes against their previous artistic direction and hurts them financially, just look at Van Morrisons classic dud, the so called Revenge Album. There were a lot of reasons he made that record, but a big part of it was definitely the restrictions he felt from his label, which is a big part of why labels have changed how they treat artists.
There’s a lot of secondary reasons why labels just want to approve the final product. In the days of post label bands and groups who think they can get by without any major involvement from the label front (Which can be true if you know what you are doing) they don’t want artists running away from controlling figures. Labels have a bad reputation after all of the fiascos of the late 20th century. They don’t want to have to tell you how to shoot your videos or who to use, because they don’t want to deal with megalomaniacal musicians freaking out about the labels being fascistic and controlling. I know that sounds crass and frustrating but that’s just how it is. Beyond that – record labels often don’t have the time to get their fingers deep into how you are putting together your music videos. That’s just not in their modus operandi anymore. Sure they might have a guy they can connect you with, but odds are barring total trash, things are going to work out okay for whatever you want to do with the label.
Record labels dedicate all of their time to, in some form or another, move more units and develop their artists to be as big as possible in there relevant scene. This might not be so explicit with all of them but that is essentially what they are trying to do. They don’t really have the time usually to pick apart everything that you ‘feel’ and help you feel better about your art. They aren’t interested in sacrificing their time for picky artists to tell them that their connections aren’t good enough for them. I mean – it’s worth it on very high levels for people like Dr. Luke, where the label is all but guaranteed to pull hundreds of thousands of dollars off an individual release, but on a smaller level the general attitude is ‘why bother?’ Odds are no one really cares that much about an individual artist on a labels roster so they need to spend their time maximizing opportunities and helping the artists out as much and as in utilitarian a manner as possible.
I hope you see what this means – you as an artist need to realize that there is a balance between marketability and artistic integrity. If you can find it on your own then you are going to have an easy time sticking with labels that believe in you and finding a way forward that is going to be easy to get involved in and move forward with. However if you’re a dick and you insist on putting out stuff you know won’t exactly work or sell well and leave the label losing money then you’re going to find that no one wants to work with you and are going to end up frustrated. You need to understand how to play nice if you want to move forward in a way that makes sense and will be effective in the long run. I know that can sound harsh but that’s just how it is – you need to win you r way forward and get behind some of the more challenging sides of the industry. I know that sounds rough but there ya go – it, like everything else in this world – is a process.
So embrace the record label system but realize they aren’t going to coddle you along but that you don’t need to coddle to them either. Odds are a good label has seen just about everything under the sun and you are going to need to spend time with them figuring out the best way forward for you together. That can sound like a lot and at times even be an overwhelming clusterfuck but it’s a harsh reality that we all need to turn and face. Record labels these days are all about striking an appropriate balance, demand too much and they will be frustrated and drop you, don’t do enough and they will get frustrated at the lack of income and… drop you. But if you can find the balance which is, to be sure, not that hard to find, you will find peace.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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December 4, 2016
What To Expect From Your Record Label
I just want to establish now and in perpetuity that you shouldn’t expect much from your label – especially if you are at the level that you need to be reading an article like this one. I know that sounds kind of shitty but it’s frankly true and sometimes a harsh reality that we all have to deal with. Record labels, even the big ones can often make you feel unappreciated and leave you wondering why you signed with them in the first place. I want to take a look at all of this and encourage you to embrace that record label life and realize that there are ways forward despite the burning brutality of it. Remember this above all things that the record label most likely doesn’t have any malice towards you. Sure music industry politics are a thing but the desire to make money oftentimes trumps a whole bunch of that. Record labels need to make money, but they are not trying to specifically fuck you over. If we go from there we are going to find a lot more success,
Long story short, what I’m trying to say is that don’t be surprised when you don’t get any attention if you are the smallest band on a label with a bunch of artists. That’s not your fault. That’s just how it works. The odds are that label has a lot more money to make (And with which they can fund you) with their big name artists. Sure they might have a licensing or radio branch, but if you’re a tiny band on that roster don’t expect to be the guy making money off of that. Sure they might get you a placement as a fluke because of a superfan or something, but nine times out of ten they will be concentrating on the big name artists. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – it’s almost always better to be a mid or high level band on a small dedicated label than the smallest band on a big corporate one. At the end of the day, the big corporate labels are trying to chase dollars and they need to make executive decisions based off of that.
Again – this is not because big labels are evil. Quite the opposite. If anything they are probably utilitarian. The major labels are able to pay the big bucks and provide the best and most expansive services to their clients because they have a large staff. In order to have that staff they need to pay thousands if not millions of dollars to keep them yknow… alive and happy. In order to do that they need to make a butt ton of money off of their artists. From that perspective it sort of makes sense. They aren’t hiring lazy bums, rather they are trying to find the people who will give them the most bang for their buck, which is exactly what you get with small labels too. Sure it might feel more personal and intimate at a small label, and that’s because it is – but it also means that you’re not necessarily going to have access to the same resources that one of the big boys would be able to provide you with – this is obviously a decision you need to make on a band by band basis.
So from your average small label you can expect to get some sort of press, maybe a little distribution and if you’re lucky radio and licensing – but odds are those last two are nothing you’re going to get to take a bite of. You can expect the label CEO to always be willing to get on the phone with you and to be enthusiastic about your projects and willing to connect you with the people he knows but also limited in what he can do. The odds are your average small label doesn’t have an A&R guy who can really go in and try to help grow your favorite bands. Now of course at a smaller level having a proper A&R guy isn’t necessary but it also means that you have one less person on your team working to help give your band the best opportunities that they can have. Obviously not every label has access to this sort of thing but you get what I’m trying to say – not having one can be a serious limitation but also a luxury most can’t afford.
That is not to say that small labels with bosses who are truly dedicated to the band and have a bunch of connections don’t exist it’s just that most of those record labels are also very aware of their own limitations. They can only do so much relative to the size of their roster and they probably have an upper limit I n terms of the people they are able to get you in touch with. Still – you can probably expect more from a seriously solid one or two man operation than you can from a label where you fin yourself a slave to countless layers of corporate bullshit. I know that’s really bitter and frankly kind of unfortunate but that’s just how record labels are going to work – at least for the forseeable future where we haven’t quite come to terms with what they can offer in a post scarcity world. It sucks a lot of the time, but piracy is the new future and we need to sit down and embrace that motherfucker.
Long story short if you expect shit from your label you are probably going to be disappointed so just take what you can get and embrace it for what it’s wort. You can probably get some cool stuff going in the long run bu don’t expect that to be the norm. These sorts of things are built up over years long relationships with labels and cultures of dedication to a music that oftentimes leaves us choked out and frustrated. If you can’t sit down and accept them for what they are worth then you are going to have to deal with the nihilism of an industry that failed. But if you accept these people are just kind of doing their best then you will realize there is a positive future here for all of us.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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Why Record Labels Don’t Want To Sign You
Record labels don’t want to sign your band because the odds are your band is fucking stupid. I know that’s really mean and some of you might feel ‘triggered’ but that’s the cold hard truth. Every day I hear about how a different has screwed over a PR friend, or how a manager has to deal with a different clusterfuck from someone in a group who doesn’t know the industry as well as they do. That’s just a fact of life in this world unfortunately. The thing is – those are people who the bands pay – so it makes sense in a way that they do things this way. Managers and PR people and the like are there to help artists out and in many cases teach them how to be better at their jobs that’s why they are paid. Record labels are investing money into an artist who they have no guarantee are not crazy. Even people who seem totally reasonable on the hone or in contract negotiations can see things go south really quickly – and so labels become hesitant.
Record labels don’t want to sign your band because they, like me, have seen bands time and time again go from being ‘so stoked about the label and the bands’ to not wanting to wok with any of the labels bands or engage in any of the cross promotional activites that a label might expect of its bands. They see bands acting entitled and not doing what they need to do to sell a maximum number of copies – be it with not promoting their bandcamp properly or failing to pay their PR guy. Labels, at least serious ones, don’t really care about your weird ideas of what makes a ‘true artist’ if it’s preventing you from selling copies. Labels need to make money so they can keep supporting the community, and if you are acting too entitled to give back to the label after they make an investment in you then people are going to be frustrated and wonder why they even wanted to work with you in the first place. That’s not a good thing.
Now – this might not be your band. Your band might be perfectly lovely and dedicated people. They might be the kind of people who have dedicated their lives to the music and understand the complicated process of putting out a record. More power to you. Hopefully a label will notice then. The issue is that far too often labels have been burned. A band who promised heavy touring and lots of PR will suddenly back out because of a conversation with their wives about time spent at home and money. A band who you thought would sell a lot of copies because of a celebrity member ends up kicking that member out of the band. Hell – maybe the band pays for PR but they are dicks in interviews and don’t give the PR person the materials they need in order to run an effective campaign. These are all things that slow and frustrate the process of labels trying to put out music and it’s what makes it so hard for these things to truly work out in the end.
This is part of why it’s important to have a manager with a good reputation and experience in the industry. It gives record labels a certain measure of trust in you since they know there is a more experienced and probably more reasonable figure sitting down to help things run a bit more smoothly. It holds someone who is responsible for a lot more than just your own career accountable and means that you are going to have a bit more luck. Even if the label doesn’t know your manager if they see that you’re working with someone serious they are going to be more likely to trust you. Hell – even if you have a really solid booking agent you will be able to get moving in a positive direction. You just need someone to make the connection who is already in with the labels because frankly, it’s not worth it to them to take that risk time and time again. Maybe they’ll do it if your music is that good – but they need an outside perspective backing that.
So think about this for a second from the record labels perspective, because I assure you this is how it works. Imagine getting several hundred emails a day from bands who you can be fairly confident will dick you over, not necessarily because they are shitty people but almost certainly because they are ignorant. You have to sift through these hundreds of emails in order to find the two or three bands who might actually be easy to work with and make you a reasonable amount of money to justify the massive investment that you dump into them. That’s insane right? So doesn’t it make more sense to just go with the bands that your buddies who you know to be reliable and smart recommend you to check out? As a label their goal is to put out good music and make money – those goals can be in line with each other but you need to be clear about it. You need to realize that in the end labels have no reason to trust you, no matter how much you speak with them.
So yeah – labels probably never will sign you. I know that sucks but that’s just the way of the world. It’s hard to con people into trusting you enough to want to invest record label money into you. It’s hard to fight the fight you believe to be right when you also want to keep being able to give money to other cool bands. Remember, no good label is all about one band, they are trying to cultivate a roster that works for them – you can’t just assume you will be their key focus, and so many of these labels fall apart and find themselves lost and frustrated – wondering what they need to do to reach the next step of a nightmarish process.
Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.
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