stupid booking requisites

While this isnt a major music industry issue, its something that needs to be said to up and coming bands and most of all club owners, bookers and promoters.

As I was browsing the web for local venues for my new band to play and I came across a pretty cool looking place in town. I clicked on its booking page link and it had a list of "Ground Rules" for playing there. Rules are fine, I'm ok with rules. Most are common sense but some of this places conditions rubbed me the wrong way. After being in a sought after band in this scene for a number of years, working out way up the ladder and paying our dues one thing always pissed us off and really, made no sense. The "you must draw 50 people on a weeknight" rule. Its an understandable rule considering the venue would like to have paying customers and its in a bands best interest to have a crowd to play to. But where I have issue is expecting opening acts to have a following. Ideally, especially in venues with a larger capacity, the shows should be built around a headlining act that can guarantee a good draw, followed by opening and support acts with respectively smaller drawing power. In this situation it gives the lesser-known acts a chance to play to a crowd that is comprised of people other than their girlfriends and coworkers.

With opening acts that can draw 50+ people, 30+ people will go home after seeing the band they came to see. It sucks but its inevitable. I would also like to point out that if a local band gets to the point they can draw 50 people on a weeknight its safe to say that this band is able to draw well enough on a weekend and wouldnt need to play a weeknight gig.

With that being said, my band probably can't draw 50 people. Especially on a weeknight. But it would be rad to have the chance to open for a band that can pack the house and maybe make some new fans in the process.

Another one of thier "ground rules" was "EACH BAND IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HEAVY PROMOTION. We mean posters, flyers, mailing lists, etc. Do not think that just because you are booked here you’re going to have an awesome show." Rightly so. Any band should take the initiative to promote themselves and its naive to think otherwise. But its also in the venue's interest to advertise thier business. Its understandable to hope, and encourage the bands to promote the show but to put all responsibility on, yes I'm saying it, musicians - is also being naive. Not to mention lazy.

They also encourage bands to make friends with other bands and develop a repor with similar sounding bands. Now, this isnt entirely a bad thing. Its always good to have a good working relationship with other bands but what tends to happen is you get bookers putting together a show of 4-5 bands that although, meet the 50 people criteria, they all happen to be friends and have share the same 50 fans. You end up with an excited promoter hoping the math will work out in their favor.

I'm sure there are more outlandish requirments from clubs. And there are eager young bands that will work hard to meet them. This only betters the band. As for the club, they will continue to exclusively book local bands, never get a National headliner and eventually turn into a strip club or porno theater.

long live rock n roll.

Warner Brothers "under the radar" with Tom Petty, Johnny Cash

"Major label Warner Brother Records appears to be podcasting traditionally copyrighted music, from well-known artists, Under the Radar.

Murmurs and whispers around the podosphere have hinted that Bands Under the Radar, described as "a music podcast featuring unsigned bands and indie artists," is not "indie" at all, but is in fact a podcast being quietly produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Records.

The podcast features music from "indie bands", such as Tom Petty, Chris Isaak, Kasey Chambers, Better Than Ezra, Mark Knopfler, Johnny Cash, Loleatta Holloway & Muse - all Warner Brothers artists..."

read more

when Majors discover new original acts they shouldnt try to water them down and "spoon feed" them to the masses. they should let them be who they were when the AR rep signed them, let them develop and build a career around touring and grassroots promotion. word of mouth promo gets you way more cred than being dressed up in rented clothes and put on a pedastal with a "like me, please" sign around your neck. then these labels wont have to pretend they are indie or down with the peeps. because they really will be. they think if you dump piles of money into an artist that you've made shitty by design they will sell records. but its the other way around.. spend less, let the world think they discovered them and you will have an artist with a lasting career. this way you can let the people decide what is good or not. people get sick of anything they hear on the radio 30 times a day.

artists getting ripped off still...

with the new trend of getting your music from services like itunes, the record companies dont have to spend as much money on packaging, storage and distribution to get that music to you. Since it costs them virtually nothing to sell you this music, you'd think they could share the wealth with the artists that actually create the product they are selling. WRONG. Wierd Al of all people pointed out in an article that he makes less off of online downloads.

rad.

Wierd Al article

Allman Bros and Cheap Trick sue over download royalties(good stuff in there)

compounding this is, now its even harder to get a CD without it being copy protected and potentially getting a virus, or not even work in your CD. here's a little disclaimer from Amazon

This CD is copy protected. If that is of concern to you, do not purchase. On the back cover is a warning that this CD may not play in some CD players, DVD players, and computers. It also states that if it doesn't play you're screwed as you won't be issued a refund. If that is of concern to you, do not purchase.

you cant beat pirates/hackers at thier own game, thats what they do. you put up a wall they will climb it, you make the wall higher they will get longer rope, you put barbed wire on it and they'll dig under it.

piracy isnt a problem thats gonna get solved this way, this only hurts the average music lover (and appearantly the artist) by making it harder for them to enjoy the product they purchased.

this is only a bandaid. the RIAA needs to get off thier ass and really figure out how to beat Piracy on a root level. IMO all they really need to do is lower prices and stop being greedy SOB's

oreilly media story about protected CDs

this is just more reason to support indie labels and bands. the music is better anyway.

My Plea.

Time and time again it has been made apparent to me that the major label music industry is steadily ruining popular music. Maybe it's always been this way, but I never had the chance to see it first hand. In a time with political and corporate corruption at an all time high, it seems natural that one of the shadiest industries be tainted with it as well. Am I bitter? Of course I am. But my bitterness has sparked passion in my pursuits to bring this issue to the public. Will you care? Probably not, our president lied us into a war and nearly half of this country thinks its ok. But I digress. If you think Ashlee Simpson is a good songwriter, or that J-Lo can really sing good you are greatly mistaken. If you believed the "written by Avril Lavine" credit with full assertion you are not seeing the full picture. If you keep reading, it has a page of credits for writers, producers, musicians, vocalists in very fine print. Its like that on most pop records. They are just the pretty face that sells their product. Brittney Spears is basically the model for the Pepsi commercials... Oh wait, she IS, or was before she got handed the TV role she was born to play. Herself. Pop singers, are basically actors. Pretending to be something singing heartfelt songs written by a 45 year old man. You're being lied to. And whets worse, if you know it but still buy this shit and think its good. Your a fool.

Wake up people, everything you hear on the radio or see on MTV was manufactured from the ground up with the sole intention to be sold. To you. But not everything is completely manufactured. Most of the rock bands are real rock bands that probably wrote all their songs. But the unfortunate thing is, the reason they are on the radio isn't because they are good, or unique for that matter. Its because they fit some kind of trend that was probably stolen from kids trying to not follow a trend, then reproduced for mass-consumption. Its all a big marketing scam. Nothing is sacred to them. That's why when you cant keep up with the 18 yr old airbrushed pop star who had million dollar songwriters writing super formula hits, with 110% label backing, you get dropped and the money they spent on you gets to be a tax write off.

Some of the bands, more than you think, get studio musicians to lay down tracks and do backing vocals. They also utilize new technology that will basically make anyone sound good. A lot of bands even take this "studio magic" on tour with them. Remember Ashlee's SNL goof. Yea, she wasn't lipsyncing in the pure sense, well maybe, but her defense was back up tracks. Which probably included her autotuned voice, 3 other back up singers voices, percussion and additional guitar and keyboard tracks. This arrangement is almost standard for many live acts. I saw it first hand on a couple tours I was on. This doesn't necessarily mean the band cant pull it off live. I'm just saying don't always believe what you hear live.

Sometimes these are choices by the artists, but most of the time, and especially in cases like Ashlee and the like, they are forced too by the labels. If they've spent millions putting you up on a pedestal, they cant take a chance fucking it all up by showing the world you really suck. Stupid 14yr old girls and their parents don't want to find out that the star they saw on TV and just paid $150 a ticket to see in concert is really a 2 bit hack with nice boobs, or hard pecs.

So I'm here, hoping that you will think about what I've said next time you listen to the radio or watch MTV or say "wow this song is really good". There is a world of independent music out there that is just waiting to be discovered by you. Music that still has artistic integrity and meaning. Music that still retains the heart and soul of the person performing it. Dare I say REAL music. If we get enough people to stop feeding the beast and find new music that hasn't been homogenized for public consumption then maybe all of this real music will bubble to the surface and the general music buying public will get just a little bit smarter for it.

payola

Back in the early 00's my former band Fingertight put out a CD on Columbia Records. With that release we got a shot to have a song or single on the radio.  We did a press tour where we went around to all the major radio markets giving our song and dance to the radio folk to introduce ourselves and try to make some friends at the stations who we'd hoped would play our song when it was released.  It seemed like we made an impression.  We received a generally good response. In certain markets we would kick ass at concerts sponsored by the radio stations. In some cases the DJs would actually wear our t-shirts to work. Needless to say we were pretty confident that we'd get added to their radio playlists, even possibly some airtime.

But that totally didn't happen. In the markets we did get an add, we got played at 3:00am twice a month.  After a few weeks we started to notice a trend. We'd get about one or two plays a week for each market. We realised it was because stations have a weekly hour long cage-match show where the DJs, got forbid, actually pick the music they play. They would pick several lesser known bands and they would go head-to-head tournament style with one song each. People would call in and vote for the one they liked and the winner would go on to the next week's cage match.  Consistently we'd get played and we'd usually win. Which was why on our Soundscan listings it showed those spins regularly.  Soon after it started to slow down and then went to nothing. We chalked it up to just not being good enough, took it with stride and eventually ended up where we are now. Dead. Being the sceptic, and conspiracy theorist that I am, I knew there was something more to it. We didn't suck that much did we? I mean we still have thousands of fans all over the country. As it turns out, we just didn't get the "push"as they say in the industry. What is the "push"? Well, its part of the major label shit machine I'm always bitching about. Thats what this post is mostly about. What a big part of the"push" really is and why the label says it costs so much to "promote" a new band. Once you're chosen for "the push" there's more to it than just making posters and getting your CD's in major retail chains.

I heard this blurb about our former parent label; SONY Music/BMG on the radio and  Googled "SONY BMG" "Payola" and "lawsuit" and found this article.

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Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein is calling for a FCC investigation of payola practices uncovered by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, based on the $10 million settlement with Sony BMG announced today. "It's a real tribute to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that he has blown the lid off a potentially far-reaching payola scandal," said Adelstein."We've seen a lot of smoke around payola for a while, but now we know it's coming from a real fire. It's time to dump a bucket of cold water on it," Adelstein continued.

"It's unfair to listeners if they hear songs on the radio because someone was paid off, not because it's good music."

Adelstein wants an "immediate investigation" and has asked Spitzer to share all of the evidence that he has uncovered with the Commission. (07-25-05)

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