IndyKlipschFan Posted July 2, 2002 Share Posted July 2, 2002 The Deal: Concerts are put on, for the large part, by promoters. Promoters, like everyone else, are in business to make money. When they put on a concert, they are taking a financial risk. They are paying for the venue, the advertising, staffing the place for the night, and various other costs associated with putting on a show. They want to know that by the end of the night, they've recouped their nut and made a handsome profit. As a group, they are risk-averse. If they don't think that a group will draw a crowd, they won't book them. The Catch: Now how does a promoter know if a group will draw a crowd sufficient to fill his club/theater/concert hall/arena and thence his pockets? He does not go to a tarot card reader. He does not say to himself, 'Hmm. I like them. I think I'll call them and see if they'd like to put on a show in my place'. He looks at what's playing on the radio. He looks at who has the hit videos. He looks at the music industry rags to see what flavor of pop is being dished out and who is sucking it up. And we already know from other little bits of The Way Things Work that radio play, video play, and Hype In General are bought and paid for by the Big Labels. If a group has a big radio hit, the promoters stand in line and beg and plead. No radio hit, you stand in line and beg and plead with the promoters. Get it? The Image: A note about Big Hits: They are industry confections, whipped up in plush offices by teams of marketing and p.r. people. They've studied what you wear, watch, eat, think, and buy. They have had focus groups, opinion polls, demographic studies, and statistical analyses. They have figured out exactly what they think you'll go for, and their job is to take whatever artistic putty their label has signed and mold it into a megabuck franchise. The music side of the industry takes it easy on these teams of fluffers by making most of its output interchangeable. The groups look alike, sound alike, have the same dance moves, hair designers, and merchandise tie-ins at your local grease mart. So all the fluffers have to do is figure out which cookie cutter band has the best chance of going platinum in the first twenty minutes of shelf time. If they miss, well, a few pony-tailed heads roll, and the next band is served up. The industry operates much like the Army Corps of Engineers. They look for projects that fit neatly into a formula, which can then be packaged on an assembly line and shoved up your *** as quick as they can stamp CD's. There's no room in there for groups that don't fit the box. This means that a lot of good, original music is relegated to the 'fringe' of the biz. The consequence of this sort of pre-apocalyptic corporate-industrial extrusion is the inevitable homogenization of popular music. Or more simply put; This is why there are so many xeroxes in every major category of pop music: Your basic sixteen-year-old butt-wiggling spandex-encased virgin diva, your basic four- or five-guy calisthenic boy-band, your basic pierced, tattoo-encrusted, goateed garage band, your basic pierced, tattoo-encrusted, goateed, leather-sheathed bad-boy metal munchers, your basic sexy-to-the-max, shrink-wrapped slinky girl trio, your basic good-'ol-boy/girl in a big Stetson and anything with fringe, and on and on ad nauseum. The artists who rise to the top of this infernal doggie pile represent a small fraction of the spectrum of music-making in our fair land. A lot of really quality stuff goes begging (ahem). I am well aware that this sounds like a vat of fermenting grapes. It's not. It is The Way Things Work. About Fame: Fame comes in an assortment of flavors. There is the kind that legitimately accrues to someone who does something heroic- presumably the greater the deed, the more lasting the fame. Saving a tot from a burning building usually earns the hero a spot on the front page, a segment on the evening news, a medal and the eternal gratitude of the parents. Both the event and the hero pass from public consciousness within a day or so. Bringing medical supplies through an arctic blizzard to an isolated community's dying children will net you a statue in Central Park and a cartoon movie. Swatting a hard little ball with a stick with incredible power and accuracy will earn you a season of glory, or until someone else swats the ball more times than you did. Discovering the cure for a fatal ravaging illness naturally earns one a spot in history and medical texts, various humanitarian awards and a cure named for the discoverer. Notoriety, the tarnished side of the fame coin, is often the stuff of legends, which pass into the murk of collective consciousness and become bedtime stories handy for sowing nightmares in children and grownups alike. Andy Warhol, in a prescient moment, said that everyone gets fifteen minutes of fame. On my dissection table, I've taken the scalpel to that statement and found that the fame to which he referred is simply media attention. What we commonly call fame is really the media spotlight, which is drawn, by its nature, to anything sensational. Peeling back the dermis of 'sensational', I find 'anything capable of sustaining a subnormal attention span for the two minutes of what passes for 'news' between onslaughts of commercials'. In the media's competition for viewers' eyeball hang-time, it has become necessary to put whatever the story du jour might be through a hypobaric process that mercilessly inflates the tale, its details and players, until it becomes 'newsworthy', that is, capable of sustaining byte-sized intellect. The alternative to this process is to comb the day's sorry catalog for the worst, goriest, saddest and most tragic events and grind them into our brains over and over again. On the rare day that nothing truly terrible happens, the archives are sifted for the anniversary of something truly terrible with which to titillate the passive receptor. The net result of this practice is that for an individual or group to be 'famous', i.e. receive more-or-less constant media attention, the image of that person or group must be constantly burnished, stroked, and hyperinflated in order to maintain its place in the voracious, jaundiced eye of the media. Failure to tend this image properly results in rapid consignment to oblivion. The Nitty: Caught in such an unstable tautology, those who are driven to capture and rivet public attention must hire pros to keep their images burnished, stroke and hyperinflated. These highly trained, well-connected professionals operate in the arena of Public Relations. They keep their clients, as their titles blatantly advertise, Related to the Public. Wait a minute. Did you think it is some sort of bizarre cosmic coincidence that has a certain movie star's face on the cover of ten different magazines and on all the daytime and nighttime talk shows all in the same month, neatly coinciding with the release of her latest flick? Did you think it is because of our collective overwhelming interest in the private life of a rock star that MTV decides to do a feature on him at the same time as his latest album hits the stores? Did you really believe that topless photos of a supermodel pop up in the tabloid press just when she hasn't had a major magazine cover in four months? Is it an accident that a group's album sells millions in its first week on the charts after six months of merciless prerelease hype? Oh please, please tell me you didn't really - oh never mind. And all those paparazzi pix of who is wooing, screwing or suing whom - do you think they show up on page six on a fluke? The Gritty: Nope. Nope. Nope. They were all strategically placed by an army of flacks. That's showbiz lingo for Public Relations Persons, or more simply, publicists. Your basic Star Persona pays a flack or a battalion of flacks an average of about five g's a month in order to maintain this completely manufactured and often undeserved simulacrum of specialness. Even with my crippled math skills, that works out to about sixty big ones a year just to maintain a niche in the spotlight, just to maintain the ephemeral illusion we call fame; attention bought and paid for in cold hard cash. You have to have both a copious income and want the attention rather desperately to devote that hefty a chunk to insure that you are properly regarded and worshipped. Either that or some enterprise that has a large interest in maintaining your phony aura gives it up as a cost of doing business. One of my favorite passive-aggressive pranks is, upon being introduced to one of these glitzy folks who assumes that everyone knows Who They Are (cuz they've paid for it), pumping the proffered hand and looking earnestly at their face as though searching for a clue to their identity and saying, "Now what is it that you do?" The reaction is most gratifying. After the initial flash of existential terror, they retire to a corner, whip out the cell phone and spend twenty minutes cursing their high-priced publicist and screaming about greater market penetration. My favorite dominatrix, Lady Irony, sits at the bar watching this charade, showing cleavage and winking at the bartender, munching on egos and washing them down with double shots of Drano. See Spot Spin. Spin Spot, Spin: It gives me a vicious case of the giggles to think that anyone willing to pay the price can have this sort of fame. At base, it is completely valueless yet so many pay so much to maintain it. Part of the art of Public Relations is called Spinning, hence the term Spin-Doctors. Spinning can mean damage control, image inflation, image correction, or just plain lying. In the amorphous, amoral world of Public Relations, meaning has relation only to the speed and angle of the Spin. Is your client's public image sagging? Make him the Sexiest Man in America. Make him The World's Greatest Tenor. Make him something, for heaven's sake, that puts him back on the public's radar screen, whether it's truthful or not. If that doesn't work, put his latest escapade with an underage hooker in the tabloids, get a shot of him with his latest flame at a trendy watering hole on the society page, get him on E!; do whatever you have to do to get him out there. We can worry about the backlash later, but for now just get out there and Spin! The yokels will gobble it up and beg for more. ================================================ I have read and re read this like 4 times now just today. Lots of wisdom from a guy who is a "Famous Music Superstar" (My words not his) lost it all, and now back on the charts. I will protect his identity, I think you will appreciate the overall truth in a lot of what he sais. Sometimes fun to really have a heart to heart talk with someone you think has had it all in the music business, who has been a close friend, and how he sees it after being in it for years and years. I hope you enjoyed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANOCASTER Posted July 2, 2002 Share Posted July 2, 2002 Having just done a record for Columbia Records, I know full well the above sceneario about club draws etc..to the image spin.(Though we did do some great shows at Birdie's in INDY ).They (Columbia) took us, a Nashville based modern day "Pretenders" post punk/indie band and proceeded to slowly "evolve" us into something we were not- ( slicker, poppier,more singles driven ). From the image, to the music/singles choices, to the promotion angle. You basically have very little say about your future in a lot of ways. You become a product. The label basically took something they dug and tried to make it into what everyone else was doing and ,in doing so, robbed the very essence of what they dug,..dig?? Not sure WHY they do that except that they spend SO much to get a single breaking on the charts that they NEED a sure thing to keep it going. They spent $300,000 on us and that is NOTHING. They spend that just pushing singles to radio for one group/one single. EVERYTHING on the radio is spun because of Payola thru indie promoters. Yet most of my peer group rarely listens to the radio. AND listens to a MUCH wider variety than a single station could play. Basically came down to we were unhappy..they werent getting from us what they wanted either..we "parted ways" (read: DROPPED)..I'm cool..now we make the music we WANT to- for us and for our fans..without being told what,who,when ,where..The seperation of art and commerce once again- I'm MUCH happier !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted July 2, 2002 Share Posted July 2, 2002 How the heck did I miss this thread? Great post, and really quite funny.f>s> Your basic sixteen-year-old butt-wiggling spandex-encased virgin diva, your basic four- or five-guy calisthenic boy-band, your basic pierced, tattoo-encrusted, goateed garage band, your basic pierced, tattoo-encrusted, goateed, leather-sheathed bad-boy metal munchers, your basic sexy-to-the-max, shrink-wrapped slinky girl trio, your basic good-'ol-boy/girl in a big Stetson.f>s> rotflolf>s> ------------------ Deanf>s> AE-25 Super Amp DJH * S F Line 1 * S9000ES * HSU x-over * SVS CS+ * Klipsch RF7s f>s> Metal drivers make metal music shinef>c>s> This message has been edited by deang on 07-02-2002 at 11:34 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 It's always been like that in the music industry. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazman Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 To qoute the character Morpheus from the movie "Matrix". "Welcome to the real world" Klipsch out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curmudgeon Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 Great observations, very comical with more truth than most would care to admit. Is it any wonder the music industry has become a snake pit and charges ridiculous prices for CD's? Excellent rant but could it be time to switch to decaf, maybe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobile homeless Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 Interesting post(s). That seems almost foreign to me in a way as there is such a healthy independent label music scene which is out there for artists that dont cater to that whole carbon copy, dull as oatmeal, Top 40 equation, an equation that has done more to round the edges of music since the 70s than just about anything (besides the public's ability to mold to it). Danocaster, the problem is, you went with Columbia! heh.... That surely is about the least indie-esque label I can imagine. Matador, Merge, Creation Records, Minty Fresh, Sub Pop, Homestead Records, Dutch East India, Amphetamine Reptile, K Records.... etc .... Perhaps less money but more true to the source. Of course, bands like Guided by Voices, Guv'ner, Helium, Sebadoh, Thinking Fellers Union, Kicking Giant, Lois, Fly Ashtray, Sun City Girls, Beat Happening, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Yo La Tengo, Kings of Convenience etc are not too visable on ye olde public radar. But there are still many alternatives out there... Rock Stars that make it to the front lines have been injection molded plastic for years.... What is your band's name? Interesting thread... kh Phono Linn Sondek LP-12 Valhalla / Linn Basic Plus / Sumiko Blue Point CD Player Rega Planet Preamp Cary Audio SLP-70 w/Phono Modified Amplifier Welborne Labs 2A3 Moondog Monoblocks Cable DIYCable Superlative / Twisted Cross Connect Speaker 1977 Klipsch Cornwall I w/Alnico & Type B Crossover Links system one online / alternate components / Asylum Listing f>s> This message has been edited by mobile homeless on 07-03-2002 at 07:17 AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANOCASTER Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 The band's name WAS "Sparkledrive" but we are now defunct. The singer and I will continue on in a more Liz Phair / PJ Harvey sorta vein. Yeah..Columbia was UNWISE but their promises were so alluring. We came outta it w/ a $30K van, a huge Pro Tools rig, lots a gear, our Masters, our Publishing, and a whopping 10,000 free cds of a record we are not backing,,Whoopee !! Speaking of the above mentioned bands..We did our record w/ Roger Moutenout (Yo La Tango, Sleater Kinney,etc..)so we wanted some Indie cred but he also did Paula Cole's big record and THAT is what attracted Columbia. Now..we'll do our own thing thru an indie label w/ good distribution. Our music- Our way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndyKlipschFan Posted July 3, 2002 Author Share Posted July 3, 2002 To learn more about Danocaster. Look up http://www.sparkledrive.com/ Wow. July 20th, At Birdy's. I am soooo there!!! See this is so cool. Birdy's is a great place, and I loved your website. I would like to buy a CD when your here, if possible, at the show. (I figure more $$ to you too, if I buy it in person.) To Dan and all who care to read: I was a past lead singer in my 20's in a band called "Exposure". (1980's) We played, based out of Indy, all around the midwest. Basically a great college band that didn't know how or wasn't at the right place, at the right time to know how to make that next big leap after playing all of the "cool" spots already. I really loved it, but after years and a few times of not getting close enough to our dreams, the band fell apart...And I finally got fed up with the BS. My belief, like a lot of people, was if they saw us live, playing to sold out, or nearly sold out shows, we would get someone other than the part time promoters to help us get to the next level. People in the biz would hopefully notice too. They might, but after you jump from the "Top 40" stage..(whatever that is today..In the 80's for us it was John Mellencamp, Huey Lewis, and countless 80's one hit wonders and some classic rock n roll songs) Where do you go? I figured thats what everyone wants anyhow, let their own music take care of itself. I have great memories that will last a lifetime, opening for some bands that really were my heros too. Like you said on the website, when you go to a city and people are singing YOUR song back at you, havin a great time..... Thats everyone in this music biz's dream. Well that and some serious fiscal and physical success too..LOL. I mean what guy ever got into this business NOT to meet women?? Anyhow, I look forward to the show in Indy at Birdy's. I thought the song clips on the website sounded great, and can't wait to hear them and see the band LIVE! Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANOCASTER Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 If ANYONE is interested in a CD..I would be more than happy to send you one for $5- including shipping !! This is not a CDR but one from the label. I have 10,000 cds in my garage !! I take Paypal at Sparkledrive1@aol.com or you can send $ or check to my home. Wasnt gonna use this site for promo but if anyone cares- $5 a pop w/ shipping !! Dan Strain 509 Ashlawn Circle Nashville, TN 37211 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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