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Monday, June 06, 2022

Collected Writing: Music Business 2013-2014

 Collected Writing: Music Business 2013-2015

     This period was both the peak and end of my experience running an active record label with pr and national level exposure.  One thing I had learned from the history of recorded music, is that if you have a break through artist, you need to hold onto that artist, because the odds of you developing a second breakthrough artist art are much, much higher (the odds) than the odds of you holding onto your first breakthrough artist.  The entire history of independent music is about indie labels losing that battle, so when so when this became an issue with Dirty Beaches, I was ready.  The key was being open and honest and writing royalty checks.  I showed Alex the sales figures, physical and digital.  I told him he could do whatever he wanted artistically.  He took the meetings, but ultimately what those people told him is that they wanted him to step it up and write some more ballads. 

   So I was able to hold onto Dirty Beaches for Zoo Music and he put out Drifters/Love is the Devil in 2013.  That was the high point, financially speaking- it was a double LP, Revolver paid for the physical production and it got Best New Music on Pitchfork back when that really meant something.  After the three month wait for royalties it was a good year, but as I've already said, not great if you actually do split the profit 50/50 with the artist. 

   Meanwhile, I was going out with someone who was in the real music industry and I began to get an idea of the wider world out there, particularly via my exposure to country music, which I'd never thought about before 2014.   When my partner started managing Margo Price, that became my front row seat to the biggest come-up I'd ever seen up close, and after that I stopped writing about the music business, because I felt like I'd reached the end- not just the world of Margo Price but the world of the other artists my partner didn't manage, but who were manager by the same firm.  Jack White, Vampire Weekend, Danger Mouse- these were like figures from my childhood, or indeed, from the pages of this blog, and now I was just peripherally in the wash around these people.  It wasn't anything to do with me financially, but I was there.

Dirty Beaches Drifters/Love Is The Devil Enters Revolver's Top Seller Chart (2/6/13)

Dirty Beaches Drifters/Love Is The Devil


       Heeeyyyy so the new Dirty Beaches Double LP Drifters/Love Is The Devil has entered the Revolver Weekly Top Seller Chart where it sits at #14 as I write this.  That is FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS before the release date.  If you look at the other records on that list there isn't a single one that is being released AFTER February 5th, let alone four and a half months from now.

Touring Market: BENELUX (3/6/13)

BENELUX Map



  "BENELUX" is actually an acronym... wait... not an acronym but a combination of the first syllables of BElgium, NEtherlands, LUXemburg = BENELUX.  I feel like I'm constantly defending this area as being worthwhile as an Audience.  Let me make the case.  First- market size: 30 million people.  You can hit the entire territory by playing 2 shows: Brussels and Amsterdam and there are multiple festival opportunities and secondary markets that you can play: your Gronigens, your Rotterdam's.


 Second: geography.  France may have 50 million people and Germany may have 60 million people but  BENELUX is between the two places.  It's also proximate to the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.

The imposing Brussels Palace of Justice: Who Doesn't Want to see such an Imposing Palace of Justice?




  Third: Quality cities.  Most people are familiar with the pleasures of Brussels and Amsterdam.  The manikin piece in Brussels- the stirring public buildings of the European Union Government- also in Brussels.   And of course Amsterdam, with her canals, and bicycles and the Rijksmuseum.  But Benelux isn't just primary markets- the secondary markets are worth a look:  Utrecht, Luxembourg and of course Groningen.   Personally, I have not been north of Alkmaar- which is essentially a suburb of Amsterdam.  Amsterdam is a hundred miles south of Groningen.


Map of Frisia



   Groningen has a linguistic and ethnic heritage independent from the rest of the Netherlands- it is located in the area historically known as "Friesland." It's a language- the language is West Frisian that used to cover a large part of the Benelux territory but is now reduced to the single territory centered in Groningen- only a half million speakers.  Frisian is the language most similar to Old English so it is a very, very, fair speculation that some important part of the English population came from Frisia- which is also supported by the geography.  Basically Frisians and the Anglo-Saxons came from the same tribal groups and they just settled in different areas after the Roman Empire lost it.

   And you know, these are 30 million people who have a pretty high standard of living and buy music and such.  There are worse places in Europe- Italy- for example- where people don't buy music at all.

Dirty Beaches Passes One Million Last Fm Plays (3/9/13)


(DIRTY BEACHES LAST FM)

   The way I look at it, when an individual artist/band goes over a million plays on last fm it means that someone can earn a living- whether that someone is the Artist, a major label or a combination of the Artist and their manager, that is going to vary- but someone is going to be earning enough money to survive to make another record.

       If a band gets to that one million play threshold there should be enough income to support one or two primary song writers to the tune of about 20-30k a year.  From there, the idea should be to make to 50k then 100k as additional records are issued are additional tours are planned on a year to year basis.

  If a specific Act reaches that one million play level and can't support themselves there is a flaw somewhere: Either record labels that are overspending to get the Artist to the one million level, a touring show that doesn't live up to the recorded output or some kind of work ethic issues- something.

  Last FM doesn't capture every play of course, the Last Fm artist play count is a small fraction of the total plays- but it's probably close to being the same percentage of total plays for every Artist, which it makes the best proxy in the world for measuring total Audience for pop music act.

    But for me anyway the one million last fm plays is a huge, huge threshold.  Whoever the Artist maybe and whatever kind of music is being offered, you simply can't deny the existence of an Audience for a new record and/or tour on one or more continents.
  

Established Indie Record Labels & The "Negging" Game (3/18/13)

  For whatever reason I've had a bunch of people bring up Neil Strauss' The Game, which I guess is a book about the sub culture of Pick Up Artists- guys who delight in picking up chicks, banging them and then ditching them.  Not a fan, not going to read the book but there is at least one interesting concept therein that I've heard tell about- and that is the practice of "negging" which is when a pick up artist belittles a target so that she... I don't know- doubts herself and finds the guy more attractive?

 It's funny because while I've never tried (and wouldn't try) that strategy in the context of dating, I've experienced it a bunch from the other side when talking to larger entities about the possibility of a distribution agreement for the record labels I work wtih.

 Basically the pitch is "Here's what you can't accomplish on  your own."  As Alex Dirty Beaches put it on a really compelling blog post he recently wrote about, "[D]ealing with bigger labels that continue to make me feel like all my efforts are hardly worth anything." (DIRTY BEACHES BLOG)

  Now, I had nothing to do with those negotiations but I'm familiar with the tactic from my own discussions. All these more established labels rely on making the Artists feel like:

      a) they haven't accomplished much on their own
      b) they can't accomplish what they want to without signing a restrictive, multi-album deal.

    That's the pitch- and that is also what A Pick Up Artist would call "Negging" putting someone down to help close the deal.  Pretty shitty way to start a business relationship if you ask me.  Why bother?  Artists get so brain washed by the music industry that most of them never consider that they only reason established indies WANT to talk to them is because of what they've accomplished without the help of that established indies.

     These Artists lack confidence in their own abilities, and maybe in some cases it's justified, but in others... it's just weak.  It's a weakness and a lack of confidence, and the answers are going to lie inside the Artist, not with some outside business that only wants to make money off them.

New Dirty Beaches Jam Casino Lisboa (5/3/13)

(FACT MAGAZINE PREMIERE DIRTY BEACHES CASINO LISBOA)

  It's funny that the reward for success in any field of enterprise is the opportunity to fail on a much grander scale.  It's a truism of the business world that people rise to the level of their incompetence, and when you trying to get some skin in the indie record game, the prospect of massive, enterprise failure pops up every time you try to expand your scale.  Plus, literally the only feedback that a newer indie label gets from more established indie labels is that what your are trying to accomplish is impossible and that you should give up.  I can honestly say that in the last five years I haven't got a single compliment from anyone: local or national.  I've actually gotten waaaaayy more positive feedback about this blog then the labels I've worked with.

  And while I certainly don't do anything because I crave the approval of others, the lack of feedback can lend a most funeral air to sessions of self reflection, which is why I'm well over asking questions of the universe.  Don't ask questions of the universe has been my motto for about a decade and I think it's working out.  I highly recommend that attitude if you are someone who is actually trying to accomplish something vs. someone who is trying to figure out "what makes them happy" or "how to survive."

  All I'm saying is that is pretty easy to be on the cusp of an epic success and a career ending failure at the exact same time.  In the indie music game a small label doesn't get a half dozen shots to scale up.  It gets one shot.  Maybe two, and then it's over.  So as I sit here I can see it going either way, but I'm pretty sure the answer will be clear by this time next year.  If it works: Awesome.  If not: also OK.  It hasn't been a  bad experience to have before I turn 40 and I will always look back on this period of my life with fondness even if it's a business flop.

  Dirty Beaches Drifters/Love Is The Devil double LP comes out May 21st in the US, May 20th in the EU/UK and it is being released by Zoo Music.  Above all I'm grateful to my partners for giving me the chance to participate in something that at least possesses the potential to be larger then myself.
 

Dirty Beaches Interview in Liberation (7/2/13)

  (DIRTY BEACHES INTERVIEW IN LIBERATION)


  France may still be the third or fourth biggest market in terms of actual sales for Dirty Beaches and Crocodiles, but it is the second largest market in terms of actual numerical fans to the United States for both groups.

Crocodiles Crimes of Passion Out Today in UK/EU (8/9/13)

Crocodiles Crimes of Passion LP- I would have left the sticker off.

Crocdiles Crimes of Passion Rough Trade UK
Crocodiles Crimes of Passion Picadilly Records UK
Crocodiles Crimes of Passion NME Review 7/10
Crocodiles Crimes of Passion This Is Fake DIY Review 8/10
Crocodiles Chuck Rowell Interview Radio Adeliade
Crocodiles Crimes of Passion Spectrum Culture Review 3.75/5
Crocodiles Last Fm


   When you are an Artist, and you are more or less instantly embraced by a critical and popular Audience upon your debut, that's impressive, but it doesn't say anything about the depth of your character as an Artist. There is something deep and compelling to be said about struggling for your artistic survival prior to "making it."  For an Artist who immediately succeeds upon reaching Artistic maturity, success is simply expected, but for an Artist that struggles to find that success, it's arrival is sweeter and more meaningful.

  Despite having a long history in the music industry, and experiencing success in that history, the path hasn't been a simple one for Crocodiles. The creation of Crimes of Passion, their fourth LP, came under circumstances that are impressive to contemplate.  Crocodiles third LP, Endless Flowers, was released on June 6th 2012 by Frenchkiss/Souterrain.  Souterrain promptly went under. I know this from talking to the principal of Fresh & Only's- another artist that they released, and one that is still featured on their so-called "new releases" page.  Sales of Endless Flowers were poor, and the attendance at live concerts was so-so.  No big festivals, no second tour of the United States. Thus, at the end of the Endless Flowers life cycle they had a record label in the U.S. and little momentum.

 For 90/100 bands that might have been the end, but Crocodiles wrote and recorded a new LP, found a replacement for Souterrain (Zoo Music) and generally handled their shit in a professional way.  That's what you call "Surviving" and for my money I'd rather work with a band that has shown they can persist then a band that has every fucking thing handed to them on a platter. Artists that have struggled have demonstrated that they have it what it takes to survive. Crocodiles have demonstrated that they have what it takes to survive.

 And what is simply not appreciated about Crocodiles and front-man Brandon Welchez, is that while this has been going on, they've essentially established a viable independent label that exists separate from Crocodiles and their future.  That is a real accomplishment, and if you want to give me a list of corresponding achievers It would be a good list to be on.  For whatever reason, this combination of skills doesn't seem to be something that critics have the intelligence to appreciate.

  To take a non-Crocodiles related example, Thee Oh Sees front man is a partner in Castle Face Records of San Francisco and I almost never see it mentioned let alone appreciated. When a working musician creates a functioning record label whose success is traceable to their participation,  that is a fact worth taking into consideration when you assess the actual Art produced by that same Artist.

  It shows an understanding of the ideas that inform creeds like "DIY" and "Indie."  I'm not talking about marketing buzz words, I'm talking about the actual ideology of "DIY."  The fact that an artist/band has started a record label that has released other bands is proof that the band believes in DIY and that their heart is pure.  It should earn them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making numerically based assessments of new efforts.  The two things are related, even if critics seems disinclined to take the connection into consideration when formulating their opinion of a specific work.

Pitchfork Reviews Crocodiles Crimes of Passion (8/23/13)

(Crocodiles Crimes of Passion Album Review)

  I say that the number of Pitchfork album reviews is more important than the score of those album reviews. If you were to compare the career of an Artist who has one album review with a high score, vs. an Artist who has a half dozen reviews with mediocre or even poor scores, you know that the first Artist literally hasn't done shit since they got their award, because otherwise Pitchfork would be at least reviewing it.

 I think the proper way to express the relationship between Pitchfork and the Artists who get their albums reviewed is that Pitchfork is a kind of global university/college for non-Top 40 musical Artists. You can think of the various local and international artist generating scene/locations as being the equivalent of "high school/secondary school."  So not everyone from high school goes to college, and not everyone who goes to college graduates, and no everyone who graduates goes on to a succesful post-college life.  "Post-college life" in this analogy would be the universe of Top 40 bands.

  Examples of Artists who have made it "all the way" are Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, M83, Animal Collective, The Shins, Deerhunter. End of list. The goal however, is not necessarily to be one of the graduating Artists who makes it to Top 40, it is to obtain four LP review in a five year period or so to demonstrate that you have what it takes to survive.   After all, music is a business, and while fashions come and go, the business side is built on productive personal relationships and reliability, and band with 3+ Pitchfork album review has shown that they have both attributes.

 Far worse is to have a first LP reviewed and to then release a second LP and have it ignored entirely.  That is the equivalent of flunking out of college.  It doesn't mean you won't succeed, but it is not a great indicator of future success.

  I think it's fair to think of Pitchfork editorial as being a kind a faculty of prim, grim faced professors.  I mean obviously, Pitchfork takes itself seriously. Individual teachers/reviewers are free to hand out their own grades, but the central administration retains discretion to make grading policies consistent over the entire faculty.

  Within that world, Crocodiles are like a smart-ass student with potential but one who doesn't really do well within the constraints of the "academic" system, a band whose strengths are simply not particularly appreciated by this global University of non Top 40 music.   However, they are also a student who has managed to graduate, perhaps with average marks, but with a diploma.

 I can tell you from my own personal experience over 7 years of post-high school education, that is not a bad place to be in.  There is nothing wrong with being a straight A student but it doesn't necessarily set you up for real world success once you leave. At the same time, failing to graduate by releasing the sufficient number of LPs in the four/five year time line (unless you already made it to Top 40) is the absolute worst thing that could happen.

 All I'm saying is that once you've actually had 3-5 Pitchfork Album Reviews, the actual scores are less important then simply continuing to release records on a periodic basis, preferably once every 12-18 months.


Status Update 2013 Experiences in the Popular Music Business (8/5/13)


   It may seem strange to write a year end summary in late August, but it truly is the end of my year.  If you are on the lower rungs of the popular music business the entire last quarter of the year is essentially blacked out.  September is blacked out because of the level of competition from the upper rungs of the Popular Music Business ladder.  October and November are blacked out because the attention of the Audience is weak, and December is blacked out because the holidays make scheduling and distribution difficult.  On the other end of the year January and February are possible times but pretty weak.  That leaves the heart of the calendar for a lower level Music Business entity: March through August.   How many releases can a record label be expected to make in this six month period.  One?  Two? Certainly not more then three.

 This year it was two releases, one in May and one in August.  Both releases brought home the fact that the record business has only two categories of releases: Those which do not have an established Audience and those that do.  Releasing records of new bands without an established Audience is the most difficult thing in the world to do.  Success rates are very low, and the costs are very high.  On the other hand, releasing the record of a band with an established audience- NO MATTER THE SIZE OF THAT AUDIENCE- is essentially a given in terms of simply being an accounting exercise and an attempt to expand the size of that particular Audience for the next effort.

 Any record company business model which is built on the premise of the ability to discover new acts is doomed to failure for multiple reasons.  First, the over all success rate is low, the chance of generating profit is even lower. Second, a position on the lower rungs of the Music Business ladder is tantamount to being plankton in the ocean: You get eaten by everything, so the odds of losing an Artist once you break them is very high.  Third, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot: Time passes you by.

    Consider that there are two target demographics that comprise more then 90% of the Audience for new music:  18-24, 25-34.

    If you then say that a record label started in 2009, by 2013 you are already into the second half of that first demographic category.  In other words, you've lost 30% of your initial Audience.  The new people in that 18-24 demographic don't know shit about you unless you are a Top 40 Artist.  There is no reason for that new cohort to favor your product at the expense of a competing product.

   Locally, I've seen this happen with Burger Records- which is way, way, way more popular then anything I've been affiliated with in terms of a record label.  At the same time, I'm conscious that their popularity is akin to the popularity of a band, and doesn't reflect a strong retail presence outside of cool tape displays in some discerning retail environments.  Also, I know they signed a distribution agreement with Sony/Red Eye distribution, and if asked I would say that was a mistake.  But at the same time, when I actually talk to people at the lower end of the 18-34 age range, they all talk about Burger Records, so you can assume that national retail presence will follow. (1)  And I am impressed by their reach on social media: 25 thousand Facebook friends- 25x what Zoo Music has.

  I suppose it is that fact alone that might motivate a record label to continue to try to break new bands, on the theory that they will at least secure an Audience for that product at the lower end of the 18-34 range.   But something I've realized is that achieving even a tiny modicum of success breeds complacency almost instantly- more than anything else.  In fact, success and complacency practically require one another- they are co-dependent.

  So I know that even as I achieve some small amount of that success in the record business, the basis of that success is evaporating.  It's the equivalent of an Indiana Jones films where Harrison Ford is running with the floor collapsing behind him as he runs.  Maybe you make it to the other side, or maybe you plunge to your death. That is the cold hard fact of existence in the American Popular Music Business.  If you just sit there and do nothing you will plunge to your death. If only I knew what to do, besides breaking a new band, which is almost impossible.

Foot Note

(1) Burger Records is an actual store in Fullerton California that was created at the same time or even before the label.  Prior to their distribution agreement with Red Eye/Sony they did not have national production/distribution abilities.


Auteur Theory, DIY & Bedroom Indie (8/27/13)

  Auteur Theory, like "Post-Modernism," and "Gothic" is a good example of a critical concept that transcends art forms.  Auteur Theory was developed by film critics in Paris to describe the personality of a films creator transcending the compromises required by the industrial nature of the production and distribution of films. (1)

 As I've watched dozens of Criterion Collection titles from decades of Cinema, I've had ample time to muse on the meaning of Auteur theory and what, if any, relationship it has to the Artists I've worked with in the music business.  It occurred to me early on that some of the Artists I've worked with: Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles, Dirty Beaches, had many of the characteristics of the film auteur in that they were controlling all stages of the recording and distribution of their Art, albeit at a  "DIY" level.

  In a very real sense, every unsuccessful Artist can be considered an Auteur- Auteur status typically comes only after a film maker has succeeded.  Auteur status is often confirmed AFTER the qualifying works are released, and one of the important currents in film criticism is the continuing struggle over whether a specific film maker can be considered an Auteur or not.

  Because of the industrial nature of film production and distribution, the desire to control every aspect of the creation of a work of art may be compromised by other needs by other players.  This is well documented within the world of popular music.  It is almost taken for granted that the involvement of larger players with musicians: major labels, management, public relations, will result in that musicians ceding important parts of their artistic identity to a third party.

 This process is so taken for granted within the world of Popular Music that there has essentially been no attempt to apply Auteur Theory analysis to musicians.  To apply Auteur principles to any Top 40 Artist borders on the absurd.

  On the other hand if you look at recent trends in the DIY/Indie area of music, technology has enabled an entire generation of bedroom indie Artists whose rise relates directly to the standard definition of "Auteur," creating a work in an industrial production/distribution arrangement where the vision is solely/primarily that of the Auteur.

  There are also Top 40 Artists, particularly those within the world of hip hop, who would likely claim Auteur status if you asked them.  I'm sure Kanye West would call himself an Auteur. (2)

  In conclusion, the point of this analysis is to suggest that when you are evaluating a new Artist, it's important to consider the extent to which that Artist has the makings of an Auteur, i.e. the ability and wherewithal to control every aspect of their production and distribution.  This is a facility that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with talent, in fact the world is littered with Auteurs who are unsuccessful because their vision is not compelling to anyone.



NOTES

(1) Auteur Theory Wikipedia page.
(2) Kanye Weste Auteur Google Search.

Nothing Tells The Truth Like Pre-Sale Tickets (8/29/13)

 When you are in the business of popular music you look for indications of success that aren't susceptible to manipulation.  For example, Facebook friends and Twitter followers can be faked, Last FM total plays and users can't.  Spotify plays can not.

  One indicator which is just brutally, brutally honest is ticket pre-sales.  Man, there is no denying what ticket pre-sales tell you about the comparative popularity of two Artists.  It's only within the past six months that I've had access to both national and local pre sale figures and.....it really poses existential questions.  Sure, walk up is great, and sell outs based on walk up is great, but it is a big difference between doing that and selling out a month in advance.  And it is great if you sell out a 200-300 person venue, but let's be honest... you are probably treading water unless you can sell 10x that number of tickets.

  But I now have access to local pre sale tickets in both San Diego and Los Angeles, and access to national and international pre-sales, and then I kind of keep track of sell outs in other markets and the size of venues and man the news is just always brutal.  It's also truth about the real popularity of a specific Artist.

Museum Review: The Grammy Museum (9/16/13)

Museum Review:
 The Grammy Museum
Downtown Los Angeles/Staples Center
Los Angeles, CA.

   My first hint was that I had to convince my companion, an actual music industry person, who had been to the Staples Center numerous times for sporting events, that the Grammy Museum was a think that existed. "No really;" I said, "The Grammy Museum is a real museum that exists near the Staples Center."
Grammy Moments: Cee Lo and Gwyneth Paltrow get down.

  These is something incredibly bold in placing your Museum in a building with a bunch of enormous chain restaurants (Wolfgang Puck's Pizza Factory! Yard House with misters and outdoor televisions at every table!) across from a Sports Arena,  as if to say, "We know this isn't a real museum, and we do not give a fuck." That is line with the philosophy of a the Grammy's themselves, which have to be the least well regarded of the four major art/commerce awards in the United States (The EGOT formulation from 30 Rock is the most useful acronym.)

  I'm not one to quibble about nomenclature and/or categories, but I do think the Grammy Museum scrapes the bottom of what can properly be called a museum and verges more towards an attraction, like a wax museum or water park. At the same time it is hard NOT for me to identify with the idea of turning popular music, popular music awards even, into a proper subject for something that calls itself a "Museum" at all.

  I want to like the Grammy Museum but any Museum that does an actual exhibit on Ringo Starr.  Well. I just don't know if you can overcome that. Also difficult to overcome is the idea of choosing to tell the story of popular music via the choices of the Grammy, which is like telling the story of 19th century painting from the perspective of the French Academics.  It's like, "OH- hey here is the time we gave best metal album to Jethro Tull instead of Metallica; OH- look- hey here is the time we gave Steely Dan album of the year... in 2001!  2001 can you believe that? Wow."

 From my perceptive as a bit player on the fringes of the music business, the story of the Grammy's is a series of extremely ill advised, inexplicable decisions reflecting the continuing out-of-touchness of the voters, and then Arcade Fire winning Best New Album two years ago.  The Grammy Museum does nothing to rectify that view, in fact, it confirms it.  I spent at least five minutes staring at a photograph that The Grammy Museum had of Cee-Lo, dressed like Big Bird, singing a duet with Gwyneth Paltrow.  She named her child Moses.

  
The Stylistic Influence of Pearl Harbor/Puro Instinct on Haim (10/17/13)


The Stylistic Influence of Pearl/Harbor/Puro Instinct On Haim

This photograph accompanied an LA Times print feature on the bands Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls and Pearl Harbor/Puro Instinc in 2010.

   The class of bands this blog is most closely follows are those that emerged from the greater Southern California indie scene from 2006 to the present.  That list includes:  Best Coast, Wavves, Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles, Cults AND Puro Instinct/Pearl Harbor.
      Three of those artists were featured in a photograph which accompanied a 2010 LA Times feature, "Queens of the Lo Fi Scene."  Written by Jeff Weiss, the article made statements like, " Over the last half-decade, a group of exciting artists united by their use of inexpensive home recording technology has begun to emerge out of the Silver Lake, Echo Park and downtown scenes. The performers below rank among the brightest talents continuing the female rock tradition..."

  This article has been very much on my mind over the last couple weeks as I've encountered a tidal wave of Haim in Los Angeles.  Haim, on the cover of LA Weekly perused over coffee at Intelligensia in Silver Lake.  Haim, discussed in the back seat of BMW driving across Hollywood at 11 PM.  Haim, peering back at me from the screen of an Iphone 5 clasping the hand of British Prime Minister David Cameron.   Haim, being played on the Sirius/XFM download 15 driving to a showing of Gravity at the Arclight.  Watching an unfamiliar television and seeing Haim  enter the VH1 top 20 countdown. (Quoth the DJ, "Haim's mom is a huge fan of the VH1 Top Twenty Count Down, and so are the girls.")  Best New Music from Pitchfork, number one record in the UK, Haim, Haim, Haim.

Haim Sisters Strike a Pose


    Haim, of course, was formed in 2012, but all three sisters had been active in the entertainment industry in their formative years. (WIKIPEDIA)  Anyone who thinks that Haim wasn't consciously put together by Hollywood insiders doesn't have a very clear grasp on reality.



    I would argue that Haim owes it's existence to the example of Pearl Harbor/Puro Instinct who were, of course, a sister act (2 not three) who evoked the gauzy haze of 70s Los Angeles in a youthful, precious and of course female package.   I can imagine Haim's Mom- who exists- and is probably their manager(?) sitting down over her coffee in 2010, and reading that LA Times article, and seeing a light bulb pop off on top of her head.


   I'm not talking about music, although you would expect Haim to share reference points with other similarly aged women who started rock bands between 2008 and 2012, but rather about the concept of "HAIM" as an act.  After all, Haim was not the first try of any of the people involved in its conception and execution.  Rather they reflect an aesthetic sensibility that has already tested well with a smaller Audience.  Haim then, is an example of the larger music industry reaping what indie artists have sowed.  This is neither good nor bad, and Haim is a demonstrably popular band with a huge Audience, so any questions about their aesthetic merit are simply irrelevant.


  I've written this post merely to illustrate the reality of how careers in the Arts are created, people on the inside are always watching people who emerge from the periphery.  They seek to repackage the style generated by outsiders or fringe players and replicate the appeal to the broadest general Audience.  This is a standard event in the culture industries.   There is always some kind of give and take between the fringe and the center, and the people who negotiate that border are remembered as successes. 

Optimal Economic Conditions for Artistic Production (1/6/14)

 I gladly cop to any accusation that I am "reductionist" in my more esoteric musings about music and business.  The point of my writing in the areas of music business and aesthetics is simply develop my own model so I can then run that model.  Personally, I don't want it to be over complicated/over elaborate- I think that is a common mistake when it comes to theories and ideas, "too complicated."

 I am very interested in the optimal economic conditions for artistic production. The marriage of artistic inspiration to capitalist marketing and sale of art is such a complex and difficult subject, fraught with examples of failure.  There is a conflict between the optimum economic conditions for artistic production and the production of art itself that make any discussion a difficult task simply in terms of finding a common vocabulary to discuss both subjects. At least, on the economic side of the "equation" you have a language for quantification.

 When you are talking about "Artistic Production" you are getting into a grey area, because after all, what is art?  The art I'm talking about is art that has an audience, or art that seeks an audience, by being displayed in public. Privately created art, not avail to any sort of public audience, doesn't count for this discussion.

 The essential exchange here is the artist obtaining money in such a fashion that is sufficient to allow for artistic freedom, without surrendering said artistic freedom for said money.  In other words, the provision of money sufficient to create artistic freedom often requires that the artist surrender that same freedom in exchange for the money.  Take the money, lose your artistic freedom.

  Thus, the optimal economic conditions for artistic production are a kind of riddle.  How do you obtain the necessary funds for freedom without surrendering freedom for money?  The answer is to reduce the scale of the enterprise, so that the amount of money required for artistic freedom, and resulting in a steady stream of sellable products for the artist, is at its lowest possible point.

  An illustration of what I'm talking about, is best framed in the context of the production and distribution costs for an LP.  Starting with production costs, in 2013 those can go from zero to millions.  The optimal condition for artistic production is not zero, but it isn't a million plus either.  Another illustration is the amount that the artist obtains for the necessaries of life, food, shelter, entertainment, art supplies, etc.  Here, we are looking at a number that needs to be something substantially more than zero, but again, where a figure of hundreds of thousand or millions is simply not OPTIMAL to ensure further artistic production.  Quite the opposite: An artist who makes millions from their art can be less likely to produce new art than an artist who is making NOTHING.

  Another plus side of keeping those production, personal living expenses LOW is that it places less pressure on the Artist to appeal to the broadest possible general Audience.  Securing a personal income in the hundreds of thousands or millions REQUIRES appealing to the broadest possible audience.  Trying to make 50k a year, DOES NOT, surviving on 25k a year even less so.  Thus it is a slam dunk that the optimal economic conditions exist at the lower end of the scale in terms of the exchange of money for art, but that there must be an exchange or the risk is that the art will cease to exist because the artist will choose to do something else with their time.  Sad but true. 

Book Review: The Sound of the City - The Rise of Rock and Roll by Charlie Gillett (3/3/14)


Book Review:
The Sound of the City - The Rise of Rock and Roll
 by Charlie Gillett

  Something that is amazing to me is that 9/10 local musicians are incredibly knowledgeable about bands and songs and equally ignorant about the history and structure of the music industry.  For me it is the opposite- I know there will always be tons of people who care more about ANY band/album/song then me, so I don't bother to compete in that department.  On the other hand, I've learned a ton of lessons from the "history of rock and roll" that I've been able to directly apply in my own semi-pro career operating a record label.

  My favorite lessons from the history of rock and roll are 1) avoiding the situation where an indie label has one hit artist and spends all of that artists' money putting out the records of less lucrative artists, using the royalty money owed to the successful artist to subsidize the less successful artists.  2) The incredible ability of the "major" labels of the era to take the most successful artists from independent labels of that same era.  

  One fact from the early history of rock and roll is that very many indie labels have had hit records in the rock and roll era, but very few were still around five years after the hit. Failure is very common, success is always fleeting. That doesn't mean history inexorably repeats itself, you only have to be familiar with the bare outlines of the history of the rock and roll era to understand that changes in technology and distribution can make it more or less difficult for major labels to cherry pick the most successful indie artists.

  I would argue that the "internet era" is most amenable to the rise of indie labels since the early rock era, where a sluggish, complacent post-War record industry virtually ignored the early stirring of rock and rhythm and blues to the benefit of a number of regional record companies. Over time, the major labels of the early to mid 1960s reacted and adapted to the various changes in the composition of the rock market- notably the 'british invasion' of the early mid 1960s, the bonafide success of Motown records and the "hippie rock" revolution in the mid to late 1960s.   These three episodes were aftershocks of the initial youth-quake/emergence of rock and roll as a thing that existed.

  By the beginning of the 1970s, the major labels had essentially gotten a handle on the rock and roll situation and began a basically unchallenged dominance of the market that lasted until the dawn of the internet era itself.  The Sound of the City takes you from the antecedents of rock until the dawn of the 1970s, when the "rise of rock and roll" is essentially complete.  Author Charlie Gillett is a well regard authority on the subject of rock history, and his book is admirably complete.

  There are only a few unsteady moments, such as when he tries to describe late 60s garage rock as "punk." ( he understands what he's talking about, but seems to shy away from using "garage rock" for some reason.)  His perspective often discusses the contribution of independent labels, but typically it's a situation where you get a paragraph sketch of the back story, and then a paragraph about their one or two hit records/artists and that is the end of the story.

  Although the description of various independent labels can be cursory, his discussion of the underlying structure of the music industry and how it reacted (or didn't react) to rock and roll is priceless and I think it's probably the last word on the back-and-forth that went on in the United States and England/UK between the first rock and roll records and the early 1970s, when rock had secured its place in the music industry.

Meeting Jimmie Rodgers by Barry Mazor (4/15/14)

Book Review
Meeting Jimmie Rodgers
 by Barry Mazor
p. 2009
Oxford University Press

  Meeting Jimmie Rodgers was a totally random pick up, found by a friend at the always-amazing dtla used book hot spot The Last Bookstore.  Can't say enough about The Last Bookstore, from the location to the selection!  And the crazy second story! So many books, much reading.

  Jimmie Rodgers is constantly mentioned in almost an book you read about twentieth century popular music.  He's a key nexus between older genres of popular music like Blues and Hill-Billy and newer genres like Country and Rock and Roll.  He was also a prototype for the single singer songwriter accompanying himself on guitar, and an obvious inspiration for Folk trends of the later 20th century.

  While Rodgers hasn't exactly been forgotten, the fact that all of his recordings were done on now scarce 78s gives his story a bit of a "lost and found" vibe similar to what accompanies the re-discovery of African American bluesman.  However, that is a misleading comparison, because Rodgers recorded more than 111 "sides" via 78 and sold hundred of thousands if not millions of copies of those records, before succumbing in proto-rock star fashion to Tuberculosis during the Great Depression.

 Meeting Jimmie Rodgers devotes itself equally to chronicling Rodgers true life biography and then chronicling his long afterlife as an inspiration for broader popular music trends of the 20th century.  The most interesting of these descriptions is Rodgers relationship to the country-music establishment in Nashville Tennessee.  Rodgers recorded when what we call country music was called "Hilly-Billy" and when what we call "Western" (as in "Country and Western") was a largely separate genre called Western Swing.  Nashville did not emerge as "Music City" in a formal sense until the 1950s, roughly the same time Rodgers was going through the first of several "revivals."  One problem: Rodgers maybe played one show in Nashville, and was from Meridien Mississippi.

 Obviously it is a battle that Nashville was destined to win, but it's interesting to see the way Rodgers was initially held at arms length as an outsider before being broad into the warm embrace.   Mazor's chapter on the Rock influence is weaker- perhaps it's simply more obvious since Elvis Presley was from Tupelo Mississippi and had parents who were Rodgers fans.  Rodgers influence on rock music is less direct because the star of his early 50s revival had waned by the time of the British Invasion.

 Mazor deserves high praise for turning out an Oxford University Press title on such an interesting, but traditionally "non academic" subject.  There need to be more titles that bridge the gap between "popular" biographical accounting of pop music stars and academic treatises that focus on narrower subjects.  This is one of those books.  For other books on popular music that reach this level of sophistication without being obtuse, check out The Selling SoundThe Rise of the Country Music Industry (Duke University Press) by Diane Pecknold and Selling SoundsThe Commercial Revolution in American Music (Harvard University Press) by David Suisman.


Quarter Notes and Bank Notes: The Economics of Music Composition in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries by F.M. Scherer (8/8/14)

Quarter Notes and Bank Notes: The Economics of Music Composition in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
Princeton University Press, 2004
 by F.M. Scherer

  This is a very interesting, unfortunately dry book about the economic history of music composition in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.  This was a critical time and place for the role of music in the West, and many of our "received ideas" (a favorite term of the Author) about art and artists and their relationship with their Audience come from some of the people included in this book: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven.

  The method employed is that of a trained social scientist, and the hypotheses tested are those that come from other disciplines (history and pop social science.)   Scherer looks at other commonly accepted ideas about this subject- the idea of the "star system,"  the idea that better transportation led to increased wages in this system, the idea that the "arms race" among German principalities in terms of having choruses and orchestras.

  It's hard to detect any bias or agenda other then the method itself- using quantifiable data sets (Composers) and then creating graphs comparing changes over time and trying to explain change by using "multiple regression" analysis.  The main reason I didn't pursue graduate level social sciences was because I'm not a huge fan of the academic side of statistics, but it's hard not to think that statistics is having a kind of renaissance in the form of "analytics" or "big data" and its easy to look at this book and think of other similar experiments to run using the Google Ngram tool.

   Scherer keeps the heavily academic stuff in a series of appendixes that can remain unread by a general interest reader.   While not a text for the general reader, it is a must for anyone who is interested in ways to make data talk about art in an intelligent, intellectually sophisticated fashion.  Graduate students, writers, cultural reporters, bloggers etc.

The Story of Chess Records (1998)by John Collis (10/17/14)

Book Review
The Story of Chess Records (1998)
by John Collis
Bloomsbury Publishing

   A few years back I read the excellent book, Record Makers and Record Breakers: Voices of Independent Rock n' Roll Pioneers by John Broven (University of Illinois Press, 2009.)  That review has garnered a surprising number of page views, 1719 to date, putting it in the top 20 or so posts of all times in terms of views.  I remember at the time thinking I should review more books about classic rock and roll labels from the 50s and 60s, but there is a lot of expensive, mediocre material out there, and I basically abandoned the area until recently, when I revisited some of my Amazon Wish List titles from that time period, and found The Story of Chess Records on the shelf at the San Diego Central Library.
Muddy Waters

   The most recent piece of culture that focused on "the Chess Records story" was the thinly veiled Cadillac Records, with Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, which literally was the Chess Records story under a different name.  Today Chess Records is known for three things:

1.  The label that broke Muddy Waters and played a huge part on the pre-rock and roll era with their Chicago area "electric blues" records.
2.  The label that, along with Sun Records and Modern Records, essentially invented rock and roll, with Chuck Berry being the stand out artist.
3. Ripping off their artists by not paying appropriate royalties.

  I'm sympathetic to Leonard Chess on the payment of royalties- as I've pointed out on this blog before, very often successful artists end up subsidizing the less successful artists simply because of the limited resources of most independent labels- robbing Peter to pay Paul, or to pay for the manufacture and distribution of Paul's records, more like.

 Muddy Waters isn't my taste, and neither are his noted English imitators like the Rolling Stones, but it is interesting how the Stones managed to revive interest in Waters, a forgotten man in the music business prior to the British Invasion by a series of bands who worshipped the Blues.
   Chuck Berry, on the other hand, was an interesting dude, but since this is the Story of Chess Records and not the story of Chuck Berry, the reader gets very few deals of Berry's very interesting personal life.

   On the balance, the most interesting part of this book are the numerous rare photographs and gig posters that immerse the reader in the look and feel of the glory days of 1950s-1960s independent music.

Dirty Beaches Issues Final Record, Stateless (11/3/14)

DIRTY BEACHES STATELESS PITCHFORK REVIEW (7.5)

 One of the things I've learned in the last decade is not to overplay a winning hand.  Put another way, don't talk past the sale. There is nothing wrong with resting on your laurels, playing out the string, and generally preserving ones reputation via inactivity or a relative absence of new activity. Ambition, for those who have already achieved some level of self sustaining success, is not a flattering characteristic and if you find yourself in the position of having achieved some kind of stable, viable success in any field that does not require additional activity, you should appreciate it, and not feel compelled to pursue further success.

  When Dirty Beaches Badlands was released in April of 2011, I had already thought that it would be the high point of my involvement with Zoo Music.   I knew from my familiarity with the history of independent music in the United States that repeat success was essentially reserved for repeat players, and that bedroom indies had a close to half century record in this country of shining briefly and then fading away quickly. I wasn't necessarily interested in acknowledging that fact in 2011, and I certainly didn't want to rest on Badlands, but as time passed, it became clear that Badlands was likely to be the main legacy from my involvement with Zoo Music, whether it lasted another year or another decade.

  In 2013, Dirty Beaches released Drifters/Love is the Devil, an unlikely second act to Badlands, that both sold better and received more critical respect, with many removing the "out of nowhere" type language that they applied to Badlands, and obtaining a deeper understanding of Badlands within the long output of Dirty Beaches prior to Badlands.  Fame and acclaim aside, neither record was the kind of financial life changer that I believe people imagine when they think about what the impact "must have been" on artist and label.  Money was made, checks were cashed, royalties were paid, but nothing changed in my life.  For Alex, of course, it was different, and he was forced to confront many new fans who he essentially despised.  It is a common fate for serious artists who experience popular success, and by no means limited to Alex and his experience.

  This new found popularity and the absence of remuneration commensurate with the toll the new fans took on his artistic identity led to the end of Dirty Beaches.  Despite the disclosure of this information via a social media platform, the decision was not something made in a rush or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  Prior to the announcement I had already been told that Dirty Beaches was to go on indefinite hiatus.

 I knew that because of a sequence of events a few months ago where I made the decision to leave Zoo Music, and accepted the offer to start a new label with Alex.  I don't think it is my place either to detail my decision to leave Zoo Music, or discuss Alex's new label.  I'd rather leave the former unsaid (but add that there are no hard feelings, and that money played no part in the decision, and that the decision was mutual, and that Zoo Music will continue without me.)   As for the later, it's not my place to say.  I'm sure Alex will discuss it when he is ready.

  But I do want to assure his fans that Alex is going to continue to make music, and my readers that despite leaving Zoo Music I will continue to be involved in distributing Alex's future projects.  I am grateful for my time at Zoo Music, and for all the experiences that I had, and for my partners in the project, Brandon and Dee Dee.  They retain Zoo Music, and I'm excited to see their next chapter as well.

  One final thing I've learned, not just from music, but also from my personal life, is that you have to be ready to pull the plug on relationships and move on, even if it causes short term pain and emotional distress. Sticking a thing out to the bitter end may in some places be considered a positive character attribute, but from my experience, stubbornness and an unwillingness to admit that a particular thing has run its course only leads to deferred unhappiness.

  This is not to say that one should be hesitant to form relationships and try new things- quite the opposite- the purpose of ending something that no longer works is not to withdraw, but to open up the space and energy to try a new thing, label, relationship, partnership, business venture, whatever.  That's WHY you go through the pain and difficulty of ending something, or agreeing to end something.

  If it turns out (as well might be the case) that the only lasting impact of my involvement in popular music is the Badlands/Drifters/Love is the Devil/Stateless album cycle released on Zoo Music between 2011 and 2014, so be it.  Many independent labels exist for much longer periods of time then my participation in Zoo Music and never have a single record that makes as much of an impact.  I feel lucky for having been given an opportunity to participate in Zoo Music by Brandon and Dee Dee, and I wish them the best of luck with their label in the future.

Rockabilly as a Model for the Growth of a Subculture (11/6/14)

1957 Elvis liked Pink.




































Rockabilly as a Model for the Growth of a Subculture

Book Review
Rockabilly The Twang Heard 'Round the World
The Illustrated History
with Greil Marcus, Peter Guralnick, Luc Sante, Robert Gordon and foreword by Sonny Burgess
Michael Dregni, editor
Voyageur Press
p. 2011

   I was largely ignorant about rockabilly outside Stray Cats, Brian Setzer's subsequent solo career and the odd friend who liked the Cramps until 2011, when Dirty Beaches Badlands came out.  The three most descriptive terms applied to that record were:

1) Rockabilly
2) Elvis
3) Suicide
4) Cramps

  Three of those four descriptive terms were Rockabilly derived.  Describing something as "Rockabilly Elvis" is the same thing as saying "Early Elvis."  The Cramps are a revivalist manifestation of the original Rockabilly culture.  Thus, conscious or not, people seemed to think that the Dirty Beaches Badlands LP was some kind of rockabilly inspired work.   Whether the description is accurate or not, it is what the audience was thinking about while listening.


  That episode didn't trigger any kind of active interest in rockabilly.  Within the last year, a trip to Nashville and the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum and the opportunity to watch Wanda Jackson perform at the Stagecoach Festival have led to moments of Rockabilly inspired contemplation.  Finally, Dirty Beaches ending its run as a "band" have led me to review the history of the project, and of course to focus on the time surrounding Badlands as being both crucial to the break up itself and the fact that anyone at all cares about the break up.

  This was the route that led me to: Rockabilly The Twang Heard 'Round the World
The Illustrated History.  This volume is a 200 page picture book, with text from multiple contributing authors.  Most of the space is devoted to either interviews with surviving (or recently deceased) artists from the original period, or thematic essays on important subject.  The key point to emphasis about this volume is how CRITICAL photographs are for obtaining any thorough understanding of the rockabilly era. You need to be able to see records, record art, show posters, etc if you want to really get what was going on.

  Rockabilly The Twang Heard 'Round the World is very precise about the historical facts of rockabilly, and sports its assertions with photographs, interviews and footnotes.  The original period of rockabilly started with the first Elvis record and ended by 1960, though the precise end point is a matter of dispute.   The time period of the original Rockabilly subculture was: 1950ish-1956: precursor events/beginning 1956-1958: heyday 1959-1960: end.

   Between 1956-1958, Elvis rose to fame, but perhaps more importantly, "package tours" of rockabilly artists toured coast to coast, and not simply major markets. Although the roots of rockabilly seemingly lay in Memphis because of the confluence of Elvis and Sun Studios, the active area includes West Texas and New Mexico.  The origins of rockabilly are inseparable from the origins of Elvis Presley, and his early records and shows are the fountainhead for all subsequent rockabilly culture.

   Elvis was of course the son of poorish whites from Tupelo Mississippi, but the music that brought him to attention was unarguably "black" sounding.  Multiple people interviewed about their involvement with early Elvis and commercial radio in the South explicitly say that they would always introduce him by saying what High School (a segregated, whites-only high school) he attended so that his audience would "know" that he was white.

  In fact, race seems to be a critical determinant in separating Rockabilly culture from the larger culture of Rhythm and Blues and rock and roll.  I did not see a single black face in this book, which is a book of photographs, and there was not a single black artist profiled among dozens.  Since so much of the growth of rockabilly culture was the direct result of the success of Elvis Presley with a large audience, it's impossible to "blame" anyone, but it just happened that the Audience for rockabilly and the culture it inspired was 100% white, and it stayed that way until Japanese fans created their own revival twenty years later.

  The second aspect of rockabilly culture that requires emphasis is the style being equally or more important than the music.  If you were to look at subsequent rockabilly revivals, it would be clear that the fascination with rockabilly costume plays a greater role for revivalists than does the accompanying music.  The great majority of this costume was either directly modeled on the wardrobes of Elvis Presley or Gene Vincent (the motorcycle jacket look) and worn by fans of those artists, often at their concerts or events where there music was played by disc jockeys.

  In the example of rockabilly, sub-cultural growth is tied to a very narrow range of conditions and events: the growth of audience for a few musicians and the efforts of their fans to increase their emotional involvement in the career of that artist.   The book makes clear that after the initial break through by Elvis, stake holder in the music industry rushed to find their own versions of Elvis.  It was this effort that dominated 1957 and 1958, and Rockabilly the Twang 'Heard Round the World makes this process abundantly clear by profiling dozens of Artists.  These records were not produced and distributed by rockabilly specific labels, rather they were added to the rosters of existing independent labels who were making a living selling other genres of music.

  This growth in the number of "rockabilly" artists dovetailed with the market for "package tours" in smaller markets all over the United States, and gave these secondary Artists a chance to tour (and extend the hey day of the rockabilly period.)  The "end" of the classic period can be identified a number of ways- Elvis "leaving the building" for pop music, the death of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper in a place crash or through changes in the underlying conditions: Diminished audience interest, co-option by larger industry players and subsequent dilution of the underlying culture, incorporation of the most interesting elements by musicians outside the rockabilly sphere.

  At the end of the classic period for rockabilly, again the racial nature of the culture stands out, with essentially no rockabilly artists migrating to Rock and Roll, but many returning to the fold of Country and Bluegrass.  The conclusion that subcultural growth is more narrowly tied to specific Artists and even more specific economic conditions is inescapable.  The desire for critics to venture further afield seems typically to be a mistake concerning the influences on a specific Artist (What inspired Elvis) with the influence of an Artist on his Audience (What Elvis inspired.)

 Elvis' fans did not necessarily know or care what he "stole" from black music, they just knew they were fans of Elvis.  Trying to attribute some racist impulse to his fans his ridiculous, but documenting the overwhelming white Artist and Audiences of classic rockabilly seems impossible to avoid.
  

Collected Writing: Music Business 2011-2012

 Collected Writing: Music Business 2011-2012

    In 2010, I put out a Best Coast 7" with my partner Mario Orduno on Art Fag Recordings.  That was a partnership formed over a shared interest in producing vinyl records- we had both done it already and the fact that I could provide financial backing and Mario could provide artist relationships.  A classic independent record label combination, something I had already learned in 2010.   I also knew starting in 2010/2011 that I wasn't a talent guy, I was a business guy, and maybe a promotions guy.   The Best Coast 7" really blew up in 2010, this must have been one of the last years before digital was even a category outside of Itunes.  There was no digital agreement for the Best Coast record, so it was simply a question of producing and distributing thousands of 7" records.  That is something that happened in my office which was in downtown San Diego.

  Meanwhile, I reached a similar agreement with Brandon Welchez of Crocodiles and Kristin Gundred of Dum Dum Girls, that became Zoo Music.  Brandon found Alex Zhang Hungtai (Dirty Beaches) on YouTube and Alex agreed to put out Badlands on Zoo Music.  That record came out on March 28th, 2011, but the publicity campaign started in January, and was the first direct experience I had with what you might call the national indie scene.   Through the success of that record, I got a production and distribution deal with Revolver/Midheaven in San Francisco, and digital distribution, which became increasingly important.  I was also hearing first or second hand about the relative experiences of bands like Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles, Best Coast & Wavves, even though I didn't have anything to do with their records or actual music careers, my part always being limited to the record label.

    Moving into 2012 I was becoming increasingly interested in the digital marketplace for indie music.  I was also watching as these local bands I knew became national bands with varying degrees of financial success.

  Something that becomes clear if you actually scroll through these posts, and the stuff from the last post, is that I was definitely educating myself about the history of the recorded music industry as I was getting involved financially.  I'd already had my major insights about the shell job involving paying off succesful independent artists BEFORE it became a potential issue when Badlands became a hit. 

Dirty Beaches Explosion: AD Mixtape, BVegan, Johnny Cash Cover (2/10/11)






















   



Dirty Beaches Badlands LP is being released on San Diego's own Zoo Music on March 29th.  The pre-release publicity for this record has been kind of insane.  It has reminded some commentators of the push Best Coast got last year before Crazy For You was released on Mexican Summer.  Here are some recent examples of that pre-release publicity:
   TODAY:  Aquarium Drunkard Presents Dirty Beaches Trans Pacific Mix Tape- Free MP3 Download. (AQUARIUM DRUNKARD)
YESTERDAY: Dirty Beaches releasing New LP, Touring with Dum Dum Girls (who have a new EP)-- MP3's and Dates. (BROOKLYN VEGAN)
LAST FRIDAY:  The Singer Johnny Cash Cover MP3 download. (PITCHFORK FORKCAST)
LAST THURSDAY: The Singer Johnny Cash Cover MP3 download. (ALTERED ZONES)

GOOGLE BLOGSEARCH RESULT ST#"DIRTY BEACHES" LIB#PAST WEEK (GOOGLE BLOGSEARCH RESULTS)

Peter Hoslin's "How to get on Pitchfork's Forkcast" (3/3/11)

How to Get on Pitchfork's Forkcast: A step-by-step guide to making it in the blogosphere. in San Diego City Beat by Pete Hoslin.

  Hey while we are on the subject:  What is up with Seth Combs?  Here there was a new project in the works.  Brand new project.

The Rise of Audience-less Music (3/11/11)

    Among other oft noted impacts, the advent of digital technology has given rise to an enormous and growing class of popular music:   Music without an audience.  In the past, the anticipation of an audience was often times the sole reason for music being created.  To give but one example, Mozart's job was to write background music for various religious services and aristocratic social events.  Like, Mozart would get a letter saying, "The Duke wants you to write some music for his ball next month: Do it."
     Moving forward to the early period of the 20th century in the United States, music was very much a social activity- whether played in the parlor on a player piano, a "Juke Joint" in the rural south or a Fourth of July Parade in the mid-west, the modernization of society in no way tampered with the fundamentally social nature of Music.
   Change was introduced into the equation by advances in technology.   Recorded and Broadcast Music created the possibility of non-social Music, i.e. music with an audience of one- a person and a machine (record player or radio.)  However, the creation of music playing machines did not fundamentally destroy the artist/audience relationship, it merely reduced the average size at the same time it increased the overall size of the audience.
   No, Record Players and Radio didn't create Audience-less Music, it created bigger, more attenuated audiences. The fact was is that not every Joe could create a Record, let alone get it heard, and the same thing went for Music that was played on the radio.
   However, more recent technological changes have given rise of a historic first, music that is created that is completely without audience.  This is now possible because recording costs have dropped to the cost of a single portable computer, and distribution costs have dropped to the cost of a high speed internet connection. All those who can afford those two things can create music, but that does not guarantee that the resulting music will have any audience, whatsoever.
   In fact, the defining characteristic of this era in popular music is exactly that phenomenon: Music without Audience.  It has resulted from the combination of technological progress and the complex of ideas understood as "Romanticism" as it relates to the process of artistic creation (i.e. the lonely, misunderstood, tormented poet,  the beat generation outcast, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, etc.)
  The utter failure of contemporary Musicians to understand the essentially social nature of Music- is their downfall.  The Idea that an unknown Musician can arise from obscurity and ascend to the heights of the music industry is as old as the music industry itself, if not older.
     Everywhere that Idea is bound up with the romantic myth of artistic production and the reality of the every changing modern Music Industry- it is a timeless, epic struggle that links  Beethoven to the Beatles, Miles Davis to Moby and Devo to the Dum Dum Girls.
     Audiences can and do respond to Music which plays upon that Idea, but they don't care about Music the way Artists care about Music.  A Romantic Poet of the 19th century might have been fascinated by the idea of playing his lute in the woods, but it would be pretty tough to carry a harpsichord up a mountain, and he sure as hell couldn't bang out an EP on GarageBand in three weeks.
       The fundamental mistake of would-be professional musicians is that they assume the existence of an Audience, when in fact, there is no Audience, none whatsoever, for someone posting recordings on the internet.  At some point in the last five years, a higher percentage of non professional musicians have recorded and distributed music to the public then at any time in the past hundred years, probably by a factor of 50 or 100.
        Meanwhile, overall Audience increase mirrors the steady but small growth of the overall population, since Music is now available to everyone, always.  Thus, Audience-less Music is inevitable.   Surely it is appropriate for an artist to ask whether an audience exists for his or her music before making recordings available to the general public?  Publishing audience-less music to the public is sad.






Be My Baby: The Ronnie Spector Story (3/3/11)






















RONNIE BENNETT 1965


Be My Baby:  How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts & Madness, or my Life As A Fabulous Ronette.
by Ronnie Spector
w/ Vince Waldron
Introduction by Billy Joel
Foreword by Cher
p. 1990


   I think it's worth throwing out there the idea that the "Phil Spector story" is the primary narrative in the story of popular music in the 20th century.  First of all, Spector encompassed a large swath of the actual history of popular music in the 20th century:  He has equally interesting chapters dealing with the pre-rock Brill Building songwriters/music industry,  had huge hits DURING the rocknroll era (1953-1963),  recorded a Beatles record and ended up becoming a tabloid specatacle.  What more can you ask for?  And like any good mythic figure, you can look at the story from multipe perspectives.  I prefer to see Spector as a Pre-Christian god:  Remote, Foreboding, Violent Tempered and quite monstrous at times.  Not a god I would choose to worship, but embodying the kind of mythic characteristics that one associates with gods and god-like figures.

      Knowing that Spector is currently serving a life sentence for murder makes the story all the more mythic.  My thought though is that if you were to do say, a film, about Phil Spector, the main setting would be the mansion where he kept Ronnie Spector nee Bennett locked up for a decade or two.  And who better to give a perspective on that location then Ronnie herself?  At least, that seems to be the thesis behind Be My Baby, the clumsily subtitled (How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts & Madness, or my Life As A Fabulous Ronette) "auto"-biography from Certified Rock and Roll Survivor Ronnie Spector.

      This is book is fascinating because Spector is the Queen to Spector's King- quite self-consciously, I think.  I mean, she kept the last name, through it all.  I totally understand, but Spector's lack of agency is the headline in Be My Baby.  Truly, she was manipulated from the start by a master manipulator.   In my view the key to understand the Phil Spector/Ronnie Spector relationship is 1) Phil Spector hated his mother:  His father committed suicide when he was very young, and it's not hard to imagine that he blamed his Mother, who was also very pushy and bossy well into his adulthood.  2)  Ronnie Bennett wanted to be famous, and she believed that Phil Spector could help her achieve that goal.

    The smell of race and money permeates Be My Baby.  Spector places emphasis on her upbringing in a single-parent household, and her status as a mixed race child in a majority African American environment. Spector was working towards a career as a singer of popular music, but Phil Spector was the first person to really "get" the potential of Ronnie Bennett's voice/style.  To give but one of several examples, an early Brilll Building affiliated writer/agent said that the early Ronettes could be like the Andrews Sisters.  That guy... was just clueless.  The Phil Spector/Ronnie Bennett story has some similarities to the Barry Gordy/Diana Ross story.  In both instances, the male producer was LOOKING for something specific, and was operating in an environment where there was competition among aspiring musicians for music industry attention.
       The Bennett/Ross figure is DRAWN to the male figure by his POWER.  On the other hand, the Spector/Gordy figure is drawn to the physical characteristics of the Bennett/Ross.  In one sense that is "OK"(Spector said to Bennett after hearing her sing "that's the voice I'm looking for.") and in another sense it is creepy and weighted with power inequalities and sexual exploitation.  Shrug.  That's life, or at least- it was back then, because the same facts repeat themselves over and over again with female popular music artists.

Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977 (4/11/11)

BOOK REVIEW
Flowers in the Dustbin:
The Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977
by James Miller
p.  1999
Simon and Schuster


   If you can imagine a history of rock and roll that stops before the mp3 and doesn't mention any independent record labels after Motown written by the former 'music critic for Newsweek'(!) and possessor of a phD in the 'history of ideas' (!!) for a popular, rather then academic audience, then you already know what Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977,  a pretentious, fame and sales centered recollection of the key points in the history of the Rock Industrial complex written by a child of the sixties for children of the sixties.

   To be totally fair to the author, Flowers in the Dustbin has it's moments, particularly before the Beatles and Hippies show up in the mid 1960s.  Flowers certainly solidified my opinion that nothing particularly interesting happened in rock and roll between the Beatles and punk rock/no wave.  Miller limits his discussion of punk and post-punk to the Sex Pistols and a sentence about Elvis Costello, but since the book only covers till 1977 he can be forgiven.

  Considering this book was published in 1999, the year Napster went online, it's accurate to observe that Flowers in the Dustbin was obsolete before it hit the shelves- through no fault of the Author.  How could he anticipate what was to come?  Anyway, it's no wonder that this book can be bought for cheap.

Hit Men by Fredric Dannen (6/28/11)

Hit Men
by Fredric Dannen
p. 1990

  You should know what you are in for when the back jacket of a book about the music industry has a big-up from Sinead O Connor. Although the narrative has been tarted up for sales appeal, this is basically a biography/history of the Major Label scene in the "After Hippie Rock" era.  The central theme in Hit Men is the clash between music executives trying to profit from Rock music and Black Pop (R&B, Soul & Disco in this time period) and the corporate brass- uncomfortable with Rock music and doubting it's ability to generate profits.

  If you're like me, you may be suppressing your gag reflex right now, but Hit Men is quite diligently researched and footnoted, and thus it works outside of it's alleged agenda to "expose" the shady business involving Top 40 Radio, Record Labels, The Network & The Mafia.  Seriously, who gives a shit?  You know who "shady business practices" in the Music Industry typically benefit:  Indie Labels.  That's right all you holier-in-thou-live-in-my-Parent's-basement types:  The Mob tends to help out the little guys with suitcases of cash, not the big boys with their Federal Network Licenses (subject to renewal) and publicly traded stock.

  What really struck me about this book is how much the Major Label game is based on spending "Other People's Money" in the same way that high-financiers can bankrupt a billion dollar hedge fund, walk away, and start another hedge fund because IT WASN'T THEIR MONEY.   The business strategies embraced by major labels in the 80s were hardly "text book economics" of the sort one expects from such efficient allocatiors of capital.

  To give but one example, I will quote direct from the book- this is in the context of a "bidding" war over the "talents" of 80s solo McCartney:

  "CBS offered McCartney an unheard-of enticement, a publishing company that held the copyrights of one of America's greatest songwriters, Frank Loesser...It's hard to overstate the value of Frank Music.  Loesser wrote the words and music to Guys and Dolls and other Broadway classics; his catalog included gems such as "Spring Will Be A Little Late this Year," "Standing on the Corner," and "Once in Love With Amy."  p. 127

    We're talking 80s McCartney, not mid 70s McCartney. (PAUL MCCARTNEY DISCOGRAPHY WIKI)

    Here's another observation: With the exception of David Geffen and Irving Azoff (Live Nation Chairman) these guys are basically corporate drones: particularly with Warner and CBS, the executives are just employees- they don't even have internet era stock options.  Clive Davis was actually fired over padding expense reports- and prosecuted by the IRS, over what was a TINY bit of money.  It's almost comical because Dannen actually tells you what some of these guys were making when they were "President of Warner" and it's like the salary of well-paid stockbroker on Wall Street- even adjusted for inflation.  They are hardly industrial tycoons. 

NEIL BOGART OF CASABLANCA RECORDS (6/30/11)


























NEIL BOGART WIKIPEDIA

Wavves Self-Releasing Next EP (8/15/11)

   I read that Wavves has announced THEY are releasing an EP on front-man Nathan Williams' long-dormant record label GHOST RAMP.  I remember reading a TWEET where Williams said "Fuck 360 Deals" so I guess we know how those talks with Warner Brothers and Columbia worked out.  I think it's incredible that Fat Possum released King of the Beach and Crocodiles Sleep Forever and they both were "sales flops."  Meanwhile, Fat Possum is promoting a young country and western chanteuse. I thought they cut both records off at the knees to spend money on Lissie.  What the fuck- these are two of America's contenders for being a serious, viable rock band: you have to invest a little.  GHOST RAMP.

  AMERICAS MAJOR LABELS- YOU ARE TRULY ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH.

COMPARED:  949 HOLIDAY HOOTENANNY vs. 91X WREX THE HALLS (11/2/11)

FACT:  If there are two things blogs are about they are:

1) PANDERING TO YOUR AUDIENCE.
2) JUDGING THINGS.

  Now, if you take the clock back 12 months ago, I had basically "given" up on writing about both stations because they always get upset about anything "negative" you write about them.  FAIR ENOUGH.  Today?

     I now know that my friends are generating significant, measurable income from Satellite Radio, and that their music is "in rotation" on certain of those stations.  Closer to home, I receive income from "streaming" services like SPOTIFY- which is a MONSTER let me tell you- don't let the haters scare you off on that one.  Let's put it this way- if "sales" of SPOTIFY increases the sales of ITUNES has increased over the last decade, every indie label with a half-way relevant back catalog will be making 2-3k a month, minimum.  MINIMUM.

    At the same time, it is quite clear that the highest levels of music industry success are barred without "radio support."  Bob Lefsetz has his flaws as a journalist, but at least when he addresses a specific subject you know it's "relevant" and he wrote to that effect within the last seven days.  It's true, though- JUST LOOK AT THE 949 HOLIDAY HOOTENANNY vs. 91X WREX THE HALLS

FM 94/9 HOLIDAY HOOTENNANNY (PURCHASE TICKETS 40 DOLLARS)
Saturday, December 3rd, 2011.
JENNY CRAIG PAVILION AT USD

PRESENTED BY COORS LIGHT

MY MORNING JACKET  (15 million last.fm plays)
TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB  (18 million!)
MATT & KIM (1.3 million)
DELTA SPIRIT (1.9 million)
THE BLACKOUT PARTY (3000)

   The big surprise for me here is Two Door Cinema Club clocking in with 18 million, undoubtedly because of their popularity in the UK over here they have a alt rock radio hit.  The other band that would fit here would be TEMPER TRAP with a similar formula: foreign, have a song currently in rotation on 94/9.  I'm surprised to see that Matt & Kim are only at 1.3 million last.fm plays- that is low for the amount of "push" that they get from having a hipster magazine as their label, but their presence is a testament to the fact that they MIGHT have a song on 94/9 in the near future.  Delta Spirit is the equivalent of a Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles, but you can see the difference here in that Delta Spirit is playing this show, Crocodiles are mixing their third record in the UK, and the Dum Dum Girls are touring Europe.  I would argue for all three bands they are conscious choices.  I don't know if Delta Spirit is played on Satellite radio or not.
  Blackout Party is the "local opener"- a nice tip of the hat, but def. not going to lead to a song being played on 94/9 in the future.

91X WREX THE HALLS
December 11th, 2011
VALLEY VIEW CASINO ARENA (EX-SPORTS ARENA)
PRESENTED BY LIVE NATION
(DECEMBER 10TH, 2011 PRESALE OVER AT LIVE NATION)

DECEMBER 10th


FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE (21 million)
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE (128 million)
HIGH FLYING BIRDS (OASIS 94 million)
CAGE THE ELEPHANT (6 million)
THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT  (3.9 million)
THE NAKED AND FAMOUS (5.2 million)

DECEMBER 11th

BLINK 182 (114 million)
SOCIAL DISTORTION (11 million)
PENNYWISE (12 million)
SWITCHFOOT (17 million)
EVERLAST (5 million)
MUTEMATH (8.6 million)

   So you can see it's basically a David vs. Goliath situation here.  You gotta root for the little guy and against Live Nation, don't you?  I feel fortunate not to need to "deal" with Live Nation or live shows generally.  I'm not unsympathetic to the "feelings" of gigantic corporations, but generally I wrote for them to fail, and this show has "success" written all over it.  Several of these Artists have artificially low last.fm plays due to being popular before Last.fm started keeping track: Social Distortion and Pennywise.  The first show will be an interesting data point on the draw of Death Cab For Cutie without an album out and Florence and the Machine.  Florence and the Machine- or more specifically, Florence herself, are on the kind of tear that ONLY a MAJOR LABEL IE UNIVERSAL REPUBLIC can provide.  I think Universal Republic is just the smashing together of Universal itself and Republic.

   I think the proper analysis with Florence is that SHE NEEDS ANOTHER RADIO HIT like their last one.  I think if you really want to cement your status as a major league Artist in the American music industry you either need two hits off the same record OR hits off of subsequent records.  SO NO PRESSURE.

  Social Distortion is an underrated band- their last record was actually number 4 on the pop album sales chart when it came out in January, and their radio catalog is like four or five songs deep.  You can see how 'uncool' Social Distortion is by searching their name over at Pitchfork.  But if you have the catalog, radio play and fan base of Social Distortion, you don't give a fuck what Pitchfork thinks.

  Pennywise is a different story, still active but not as cemented in the music industry as Social Distortion, with one enduring radio hit and a decent back catalog on Epitaph.  They weirdly released a record on Myspace in 2008- I suppose it was self released and then sold by the band rather then on Myspace Records.   Those were the days, huh?  Epitaph must not have wanted the record- you would think an artist would stay with that kind of label but what do I know.

  Everlast and Mute Math are alt rock radio favorites with major label support and middling chart success/presence.  Everlast never really matched his double platinum Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, but then, it was 1998- a time of hope.  "What It's Like" is an enduring alt rock radio classic, even though it topped out at #13 on the singles chart.  Ends also, get's played, but nothing since.  But my sense is that if you still have a song being played on alt rock radio, then you have a career in the sense that you can sustain yourself through music: advances, publishing, song writing, etc.

  I think if there is one Artist that I would expect to see on ONE of the two bills it would be SHE & HIM (16 million)  with  Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward.  Zooey's TV show is a HIT, M. Ward is a savvy music vet and this is an easy way to get one of their Xmas standards on one of the alt rock stations down here, then they play the corresponding show in LA for KROQ and Live 105 in SF and they've got a Xmas radio hit. CHA CHING.   I guess Live Nation can't pull Zooey Deschanel to a radio show in San Diego.

Dean Martin's Palm Springs House (photo) (11/29/11)
















DEAN MARTIN'S PALM SPRINGS HOUSE.


Dean Martin's Palm Springs House. (FLICKR)

2011 My Year In Music (12/16/11)

   2011 My Year in Music actually started in December 2010. It was after Christmas, I was staying with my wife at the Tambo Del Inka Rest & Spa in Valley Sagrado.  You know, trying to get away from it all?  It was there I discovered that the Dirty Beaches Badlands LP had "leaked."

  "Leaked" in the sense that our digital distributor had released the album accidentally, reading the release date is March 30th, 2010 not March 30th, 2011.  As it turns out, my view is that the "leak" actually helped the record obtain a larger audience, and personally converted me from a "leak-fearing" to "leak-embracing" mentality.  That was my first lesson of the year in the music business:

   If you have a product that starts with zero audience, leaking can not hurt you, because the worst thing that can happen is for everything to stay exactly the same, i.e. a product/artist combination with no audience.

  2011 began to go "right" on January 14, 2011- not long after I returned from my very interesting, refreshing Peruvian sojourn.  That was the day that Pitchfork named Dirty Beaches "Sweet 17" "Best New Track."  As it turned out my buddy Josh Feingold over at SONG PUBLISHING was right to counsel me to not get too excited since, "The designation that really matters is Best New Music (Album) not Best New Track (Song.)"  That's actually a reversal of the conventional music industry wisdom, and deserves some recognition as an independent fact, considering the vital role that the Best New Music designation plays for about 10,000 Artists and 1,000 Record Labels.

      After Dirty Beaches, Sweet 17 was named Best New Track, the attention was overwhelming, especially from labels that didn't know that Zoo Music existed.  Solicitations included those directed to the label itself regarding who was "putting out" the Badlands LP.  Clearly something any "bedroom indie" Label needs to consider immediately on the occasion of any kind of market success is the need to react to the needs of the Artist. If you don't react in some positive way to the increased attention that results from success, you will lose your artist nine times out of ten.  Or, as another, wiser person i was talking to put it, "99 times out of a hundred."

   The saving grace for Zoo Music is that the attention for the Badlands LP came within the frame of time designation as the pre-release period- jan- march 2011- and PR had already been arranged, production commenced etc.  From the perspective of "sharks" who wanted to put out Badlands, that was an important distinction and caused many would-be suitors to drop away immediately.

  The next big mile stone was the Pitchfork Album Review of Badlands. At the time, I was aware of the fact that the mere presence of an Album in Pitchfork's Album Review section was significant, but considering that Sweet 17 had been designated "Best New Track" I that Best New Music was, if not a fore-gone conclusion then a high possibility.

        As time dragged on between January 14th and April 4th,  I was less and less sure of the likelihood of getting Best New Music.  The "nail in the coffin" was The Weeknd: House of Ballons receiving Best New Music on March 29th, 20110- the week of Badlands release.  Both reviews were written by the same writer, Joe Colly.  Both Artists are Canadians? Joe Colly gave the Weeknd 8.5 and Badlands 8.2.  I still think about:   On my recent Hawaiian vacation to Princeville, my wife and I were driving back from Waimea Canyon on Kauai to the St. Regis Princeville, listening to this college radio/public radio station, and they played the Weeknd and I was like, "Ohhh."  This was in November.

   After the initial sales period in April, early May, it became clear that Zoo Music's existing capacity couldn't satisfy demand for Dirty Beaches record.  That's a problem that def. fits into the category of what I outlined earlier:
       Clearly something any "bedroom indie" Label needs to consider immediately on the occasion of any kind of market success is the need to react to the needs of the Artist. If you don't react in some positive way to the increased attention that results from success, you will lose your artist nine times out of ten.
    The simple fact is that a small, independent record label doesn't exist without its star Artist.  Record Labels are their Hit Records, and that is always going to be linked to a specific Artist who will receive offers to move "up the food chain" of the music business.  This is the point where having Artists involved in releasing the music is  useful and a reason why an Artist owned label, other factors being equal, will have an advantage in retaining a specific Artist.  Nothing about an Artist owned label cancels out the need to react to the needs of the Artist who is putting out a record, but among roughly equal competitors for a specific Artist its an advantage.

   The Fall of 2011 basically involved holding my breath to see where the follow-up to Badlands would land.  One of the cardinal principles of this level of indie record label-dom is the well framed one album deal, "Put out one album with us, if you want another one... we'd love to."  That is the clear difference between what a Zoo Music represents vs. a larger indie or even indies of the same size.

     One of the down-sides of that from the label position is that it influences you be very passive from a business perspective in the aftermath of a hit record: That's a flaw of the one record deal from the perspective of an Artist seeking to maximize Audience size.  If the Artist isn't concerned about total size of the Audience, it's not an issue.

      That's the only way the Artist and the Label can ever be equals, anyways.  BOTH the Artist AND the Label should be concerned about overly elaborate contractual arrangements. I would argue that written contracts are really only appropriate when there is existing value to the contract.  If the agreement is, "We'll try to do a good job creating an audience for an artist with no audience" you don't need to put that in writing, I'm sorry.  I say that as a lawyer, with all due respect to the respect that Artists and Labels show to the business agreement known as a "contract."

      You know what you need a contract for?  My wife worked on a project where they built a basketball/hockey arena.  It cost 150 million dollars.  That's something where you need good contracts.  Putting out a record with no recording budget and a pr agreement does not require written requirements- it requires honest efforts and good faith- and you don't need to write that down- or you shouldn't have to, anyway.  Any Label/Artist combination should be so fortunate that they've made soooo much money that you need a contract.

    I think though, my 2011 Year in Music was summed up in an interview that Alex Dirty Beaches gave to a French interviewer in response to the question, "What is indie about your music?" or something like that. He said, "It's not about a specific sound, it's about ethics and how you treat each other."  I think it was shortly after that I watched that interview that Alex agreed to put out the follow-up LP to Badlands on Zoo Music.  It happened... a month ago?

  In conclusion, My Year in Music 2011 was basically tracked to the release of Dirty Beaches Badlands, and I spent most of my time dealing with the consequences of that release. 2012 is going to be all about the follow up album.  An answer to the question of what Artists can "do" in the music business besides creating music  is to maintain Artist relationships.  That's a valuable skill set if it can be harnessed to market discipline.   The conflict that the music business causes to Artist relationships is something like trauma.

  If you think about the prototype break-out, economically viable Artist, its someone who has spent some time and energy maintaining authentic relationship with people that exist outside of a business environment.  As a result of their success, these Artists are basically required to form new relationships with people who are only interested in them because of their success.   The Artist wants to embrace the means to leave whatever pre-success environment they've existed in, but is cautious of potential negative consequences.

  Realistically, you can't ask someone who literally didn't care about an Artist before they were successful to care about what they did and who they hung out with prior to achieving success.  That goes without saying. That can be a hard lesson for "local" friends of successful Artists to learn, but it appears to be a universal principle of the relationship between Art and Commerce.
 
   This year I was grateful that I had partners who were Artists because I know my skill set doesn't really include the kind of  personal touch one needs when dealing with Artists on a daily basis.

YEAR END LISTS ARE A DRAG (12/22/11)


    A phenomenon I've found distressing is over-celebration by indie labels about year end publicity via list.  Here's something to consider: EVERY LABEL GETS YEAR END LIST PUBLICITY.  I'm not saying that I ain't privately and occasionally keeping score, far from it.  However I am not bugging people to do numerous facebook posts, tweets or website blog posts from an "official label" perspective.  


 I will simply observe that the sales boost that you can observe from Artist who receives some of the year-end list attention is quantifiable.   Due to a quirk of supply on Amazon, I've been able to actually watch a specific Record sell 15 physical copies in a little over 24 hours.  That may not sound like a lot, but trust me... at the levels I'm working at- it's a lot.

  HOWEVER I did want to point out the Les Indockuptiblies 2011 year end best albums list because I have a fondness from this French, mostly Music oriented magazine.  My wife would get copies sent to her from France, and I even though I can't read French, I simply admired the Magazine as a music Magazine- with a sophisticated understanding of the indie music world.   I think their top 50 Albums of 2011  is my favorite year-end list thus far this year.

FORTUNE'S FOOL: EDGAR BRONFMAN JR. WARNER MUSIC & AN INDUSTRY IN CRISIS (1/23/12)

BOOK REVIEW
Fortune's Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music, And An Industry in Crisis
by Fred Goodman
p. 2010
Simon & Shuster

  Did you ever wonder what it would feel like to lose twenty billion dollars dabbling in the music business?  If so, Fortune's Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music and An Industry in Crisis, is the book for you!

  Part obituary for the music business after the internet era, and part cautionary tale about the vagaries of operating at the highest levels of that business, I imagine that Fortune's Fool was a little bit much for the general Audience at the time of publication.

  It also can't help that there is no redemption in the end.  In fact, this book reads like it was written before the end. Specifically, it was written before Universal- run by Vivendi- who Bronfman originally sold Universal to- snatched EMI from his own Warner Music- which he had bought from Time Warner back in 2004- that happened last fall. And then on December 5th, Bronfman Jr. announced he was stepping down from Warner Music, which he sold to Len Blavatnik of Access Industries, for 3.3 billion, this summer.

  To put that in some perspective, Bronfman Jr. was able to get involved at the highest levels in the music business because Seagrams acquired 20% of DuPont in 1981.  At the time, Dupont traded at 7 dollars a share.  Today, Dupont stock is worth 50 bucks, and the companies market cap is 45 billion dollars.  Today, a  20% stake in DuPont would be worth nine billion dollars.  The drink side of business was sold by UniversalVivendi in 2000 for nine billion dollars.  Diageo has a market cap of fifty billion, Pernod Ricard of roughly twenty billion dollars.  So Seagram's is a major part of that income, at least.

  So, to conclude, Edgar Bronfman Jr. LOST at LEAST six billion dollars (what 20% of DuPont is worth today- the 3.3 billion he got for Warner Music.  AND- arguably, let's say 30-40% of BOTH Diageo and Pernod-  we're talking somewhere between 15-20 billion.  Using the low end, that is 21 billion dollars reduced to 3.3 billion dollars.  That is breathtaking in magnitude.

  Is it his fault?  Well, yeah because he took his money from a very stable and dependable part of the global economy and went "all in" on a market segment that imploded just after he sunk a huge amount of money into it.  That is what you call "bad judgment." The sense that you get from reading Fortune's Fool is that Bronfman was motivated by something other business acumen to make the business decisions that he made.

 He was also basically wrong about everything he ever did.

  Bronfman Jr.  is really the spiritual heir to another business man of the 20th/21st century, Steve Ross, only failing from the outset instead of succeeding his whole life and then failing like Ross did. (2)  Ross started with what was essentially a parking lot company, Kinney National Services- which itself contained a parking lot and cleaning service division.  In 1967 Ross acquired Warner Brothers- which had just bought Atlantic- and then they added Elektra shortly thereafter- and it was in THAT configuration that Warner Brothers assumed the structure that it would have until recently- Steve Ross running the show and adding talent as it arose- specifically adding Interscope Records and Def Jam in the 1980s- through Doug Morris.

  Steve Ross's main guy at Warner Records is Doug Morris.  Doug Morris is still around- he was appointed Chairman of Sony/BMG in July 2011- which is kind of like the Yankees manager taking over for the Mets: Still New York city, but not quite the same prestige level. Morris though, came to Warner Brothers Via Atlantic Records.  Thus, within the Warner Records structure there was very loose association of labels, except when it came to distribution. Each label operated independently of the other labels in terms of release scheduling and even competition for Artists.

 Bronfman Jrs. foray into the music business consisted of three steps:

 1) Assembling his own "major label" called Universal Music Group.
 2)  Selling that Label, plus the rest of his families' business' to Viviendi and becoming Chairman of the combined company.
3) Buying back Warner Brothers Music from Viviendi after getting booted off the board of directors.
4.  Selling Warner Brothers Music to Len Blavatnik.
5. Losing about 20 billion dollars in the process.

  First, I bought this book- hard cover- brand new (remaindered) for  a penny from Amazon. (1)  Second, the only fact I knew about the Bronfman family before reading this book is that they used to own Seagram's, and that Edgar Bronfman Junior's son calls himself Ben Brewer, put out a So So Glo's record on his own record label, and showed really good judgment in marrying the artist known as M.I.A.  Yeahhh... good call on the wife, bro.

  The story of Edgar Bronfman Jr. and his simultaneously continuing AND ill fated venture into the world of recorded music is best described in this statistic:

  Edgard Bronfman lost more then three billion dollars of his families money investing in the music business.

  I am not talking about money that Edgar Bronfman Jr. earned himself, and then lost.  I'm not even talking about money his DAD made and that he lost.  I'm talking about money his grand father made, and then invested wisely.  Seagrams earned a bloody mint selling Canadian booze during American Prohibition.  After Prohibition ended they bought up a ton of US assets, making them even richer.  After that, they made an extremely smart investment in DuPont.

   None of that was good enough for Edgar Bronfman- he wanted something that would be his own.  Beginning as a failed singer songwriter (in the book the Author describes James Blunt as being a close approximation to what Bronfman would have wanted to be himself.)

  As Bronfman Jr., assembled his major label, Universal Music Group, he took direction from the business model that was current at the time: Over paying for talent, making a ton of CDs and selling a ton of CDs, "looking for hits."  Bronfman's reaction to the Internet is most kindly described as "un-savvy."  Here, we are talking about the period after 2004, when he bought Warner Brothers from Vivendi Universal.  Bronfman's "second act" as it were was to introduce the "360 Deal" to the record business, and serve as a hawk on issues like "suing fans for illegal downloading."

  The book actually interviewed Bronfman though really, no explanation is necessary- the facts speak well enough for how it went down. He doesn't appear to be sorry for anything.  I suppose his saving grace as far as the family was concerned is that they got 9 billion to split up- although if they got it Vivendi stock we're talking about a drop between 70 dollars a share and 20 dollars a share.


  As for the 360 Deal, which literally appears to be his legacy, his gift, if you will to the music industry, I would like to quote @wavveswavves on twitter, from March of 2011.  I think he speaks for me when he says:

AND WHILE I'M AT IT FUCK YOUR 360 DEAL I'M GETTING $$$$$$ OVER HERE W/O ANY FUCKING LABEL!  (TWITTER)
 


NOTES

(1)  First of all, I bought this book brand new for a penny, which means that they shipped a ton (publication date was July 13th, 2010) and didn't sell many of them.

(2)  Time Warner, of course, was acquired in AOL in 2000, a merger widely described as the "worst of all time."  Time Warner received AOL stock, and so that didn't really work out for anyone, long term.
  
Classical vs. Romantic Aesthetic Principles: Calculated-ness (1/18/12)

  Classical, Romantic and Modern Aesthetics all have their own principles that they use to judge Artists and Art Products.   Classical Aesthetics was very rule-bound, so the judging of Artists was always accompanied by statements about whether specific works of Art obeyed or flouted supposed rules of Art.

  Romantic Aesthetics took the opposite posture, specifically attacking the allegedly unbreakable rules about what constituted good Art, and good Artists within the field of Classical Aesthetics.

  This transition generally took place between the end of the Renaissance and the mid 18th century, but the debate between Classical and Romantic Aesthetics remains a valid jumping off point for evaluating the Aesthetics of a specific Artist or Art product.

 Both Aesthetics have their own principles that they favor and dis-favor.  A main principle where they diverge can be described as the degree to which an Artist or Art work can be said to be "Calculated."

Andy Warhol



  As an example of this debate in the field of studio Art, you can thing of the debate over the aesthetic merit of an Artist like Jeff Coons, Michel Duchamp, and Andy Warhol.  In the field of Music, a relevant debate is the degree to which the work of an unknown Artist is perceived as "calculated" and how that does or does not impact the more substantial principle of Authenticity.

  An Artist embodying Classical Aesthetics is one who sees a specific "truth" and seeks to provide order and harmony in his/her Artistic universe.  An Artist who embraces Romantic Aesthetics would become enraged at the prospect of being deemed Calculated by a Critic, presumably because it conflicts with the core Romantic principle of Authenticity.

Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup Can


  The role of the Market in all this is to encourage Artists who can understand while ALL POPULAR MUSIC EMBODIES Classical Aesthetic principles or order, harmony and technical excellence, while paying lip service to the Romantic principles that the contemporary audience for Art desires from it's Artists:  Alienation, Isolation, Dissatisfaction with "the way things are."   A specific Artist given commercial success will have to adjust his or her principles with the growth of an Audience:  As an unknown, it is best to embody Romantic Aesthetic principles to appeal to the "hard core" fans of a particular genre, much in the same way a Politician will "secure his base" in a Primary campaign, before "moving to the center" for a general election.

  Here, the successful embodiment of Romantic Aesthetics in early Artistic products is the equivalent of "securing your base" and the shift to embracing Classical Aesthetics the functional equivalent of "moving to the center."

  In this way, a young Artist is well advise to be conversant with Romantic AND Classical Aesthetic principles.  A common mistake is to IGNORE Classical Aesthetics on the theory that they 'don't matter'- but they do- because Classical Aesthetics appeal to a greater portion of the Audience for any Art then those who support Romantic principles.

Sony To Buy The Orchard & IODA, Which Are Merging (3/6/12)

          The Orchard is merging with IODA and Sony Music is making a major investment in the new company, according to several reports. Sources tell Hypebot that talks began with The Orchard hoping to purchase IODA, which Sony owns a major stake in. Dimensional Associates, the private equity arm of JDS Capital Management and owners of The Orchard, had reportedly hoped to roll up several distributors including The Orchard, The Orchard and IRIS into a digital music powerhouse. But Sony had other plans. (HYPEBOT)


    Not sure what that means for the physical and digital distribution elements of IODA and The Orchard, but considering that IODA stands for, "Independent Online Distribution Alliance." It does not seem like a particularly positive development for independent music.  Then again, Ingrooves is straight up owned by Universal Music, so pick your poison I suppose. 

STAX RECORDS RELEASES 27 LPs IN MAY 1969 (3/8/12)

 

 People ask me, "Why do you read books about music history?" and I say, "To avoid others mistakes."

  Here's one from the authoritative book about Stax Records,  Soulville USA: The Story of Stax Records by Rob Bowman, and published by Shirmer Trader Books in 1997.

       In 1968, Stax Records had a falling out with it's major label sponsor, Atlantic Records, which resulted in them losing the rights to all of the Records they had released under that Agreement. In response, Al Bell, the head of Stax Records, came up with the idea to simultaneously release 27 LP's in May of 1969.  It was almost certainly the worst music business decision of all time.  Out of that 27 LP release, one record, Hot Buttered Soul by Issac Hayes was a chart success, everything else failed.  This decision, the first significant decision that Stax Records made as an independent label, was, itself, enough to doom Stax Records.  Bowman tells the story:

    [Everyone] at Stax were in an absolute frenzy attempting to ready twenty-seven albums for simultaneous release in May.  This audacious move was orchestrated by Al Bell with the singular purpose of creating an instantaneous catalog to replace what had been lost in the termination of the Atlantic distribution deal.  To put the size of this release in perspective, the company had issued only forty-three albums in total from inception through the dissolution of the agreement with Atlantic.

    Stax Records was bankrupt and indicted by 1972, and although they experienced interim sales success, this one illustration shows the kind of ship they were running at that label.  I love a good music industry flame-out- Casablanca Records in Los Angeles CA is another classic.   But Stax Records putting out 27 records in one month is up there.

Comparing Netflix and Spotify In Terms of Subscriber Growth (8/1/12)

  I think it's accurate to compare Spotify to Netflix because they both provide the same function: streaming, Spotify for music and Netflix for film/television.  Each have their own competitors who do the same thing but not as well.  For Spotify that's Pandora, for Netflix, Hulu maybe...Amazon Prime.

  But I agree with others who say that the appropriate way to forecast Spotify's growth is buy looking at Netflix subscriber growth.  Here is a chart:


















       Personally, I think that Spotify should be able to post similar numbers over time.  Presently, Spotify has 20 million "users" and 4 million "paid users," which is a million more paid users then they had last year.


What is the Audience Size For Animal Collective (8/20/12)

  Last Fm is the best way to measure the Audience size for a specific Artist, because of the major Social Music services (Spotify, Pandora, Last FM) they are the only one that actually publish statistics for Artists.



  On this Graph, "0" is in 2008 for Spotify, mid 2005 for Last Fm, and 2005 for Pandora. So you can see here that Last Fm is a pretty big user group to be drawing statistics from.

  On Last FM, Animal Collective has close to one million listeners,  almost 55 million library plays and is #190 on the very excellent Last FM Top Artist Chart.  The record itself comes out on September 4th, so it would be good to check on the statistics a month from now to see the rate of increase.


Bruce Springsteen & Jon Landau (10/17/12)


Bruce Springsteen and Jon Landau


    in May 1974, 25-year-old Bruce Springsteen played at the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge. Although popular with the college crowd in the Northeast, Springsteen was not yet a star. That night, he and the E Street Band opened for Bonnie Raitt. The influential music critic Jon Landau was in the audience. Overwhelmed by what he heard, Landau wrote, "I saw my rock and roll past flash before my eyes. I saw something else: I saw rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen." In the years since that momentous spring night in Cambridge, the Boss has had 14 albums go platinum, has won20 Grammies and an Oscar, and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

    In May of 1974, Bruce Springsteen was still just one of hundreds of young rock musicians hoping to make it big. His early work, and particularly his performances on college campuses, had earned him a small but devoted following. His hard-driving manager, Mike Appel, had helped him get a record contract with Columbia. But most reviewers were at best lukewarm, and Columbia executives were becoming impatient. The record company had already lost $150,000 on Springsteen's albums; there seemed little prospect that the young singer would ever become a star.

    When Springsteen performed at the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge that spring, his life — and the future of rock and roll — changed forever. Springsteen's albums were uneven, but his live performances were sensational. Onstage, the skinny, shy kid from the New Jersey shore transformed himself into a dynamic and powerful rocker. The influential music critic Jon Landau was in the audience on May 9th, and he was captivated by Springsteen. A regular writer for Rolling Stone and the Real Paper, Landau could make or break a career. In the next issue of the Real Paper, he made Bruce Springsteen a star.

      "Tonight," his column began, "there is someone I can write of the way I used to write, without reservations of any kind. Of Springsteen's recent concert in Harvard Square, he wrote: "On a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time. When his two hour set ended I could only think, can anyone really be this good, can anyone say this much to me, can rock and roll speak with this kind of power and glory? And then I felt the sores on my thighs where I had been pounding my hands in time for the entire concert and knew that the answer was Yes.
    Springsteen does it all. He is a rock'n'roll punk, a Latin street poet, a ballet dancer, an actor, a joker, bar band leader, rhythm guitar player, extraordinary singer, and a truly great rock'n'roll composer. He leads a band like he has been doing it forever. I racked my brains but simply can't think of a white artist who does so many things so superbly. There is no one I would rather watch on a stage today."

        Columbia was quick to take advantage of Landau's enthusiasm.  Rolling Stone and other papers were soon trumpeting Landau's endorsement:"I have seen rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen,"declared full-page ads. But the Real Paperreview had even more far-reaching consequences. It marked the beginning of a relationship between Springsteen and Landau that would be key to transforming the singer into a superstar.
       In October of 1974, Springsteen returned to Boston to play at the Music Hall. After the concert, he and Landau sat down for a long discussion of how Springsteen could make the leap from his amateurish first albums to serious recordings. Shortly afterward, Landau joined Springsteen's management team as co-producer with Appel. With Landau behind him, Bruce Springsteen recorded Born to Run, the first of his records to go platinum, selling over a million copies.

Sources

The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce, by Fred Goodman (Vintage Books, 1998).


2012 My Year In Music (1/8/13)

   I did a 2011: My Year In Music post in December of 2011.  In that post I mostly discussed the experience of Dirty Beaches Badlands coming out in March of 2011.  I think the essence of this post is contained in this paragraph:

    After Dirty Beaches, Sweet 17 was named Best New Track, the attention was overwhelming, especially from labels that didn't know that Zoo Music existed. Solicitations included those directed to the label itself regarding who was "putting out" the Badlands LP. Clearly something any "bedroom indie" Label needs to consider immediately on the occasion of any kind of market success is the need to react to the needs of the Artist. If you don't react in some positive way to the increased attention that results from success, you will lose your artist nine times out of ten. Or, as another, wiser person i was talking to put it, "99 times out of a hundred."

   For me, 2012 in music was all about restraint and not doing something that would erase the success of 2011.  It's normal for ambitious people in all walks of life to tie success to being very active, but in my experience, people who are actually successful often spend most of their time not doing stuff that would ruin or compromise the existing sources of their success.

   2012 was also instructive for me in terms of understanding the relationship between a bedroom indie label and a successful artist.   The 50/50 split of profit minus costs "standard" indie business model should mean that an Artist with a selling records gets money in relatively short order.  The dilemma for every indie label is what happens when you have one hit record and then 20 records that are break even or lose money.  In that situation it's very easy for the indie label to "rob Peter to pay Paul."  Avoiding this situation requires restraint on the part of the label by not releasing a ton of break-even records following the release of a successful record.

  This business problem is not a matter of a record label "screwing" an Artist out of royalties on purpose necessarily  it just results from a  business model where only 10 percent of the product line generates revenue.  So let's say Record Label releases 10 records and spends 5-10k per record on physical production- that is going to cost 75,000.  

     Now let's say that 9 of those records break even-  that is revenue of 67,500.  For the tenth record, the revenue is ten times the cost of the record-   75,000.  So for this time period- the outlay is 75,000 and the receipts are 142,000.

      However, the label owes the successful Artist half of all the money above what the record cost- so 75,000 - 7500 /2 = 33,000.  So really, under this very realistic scenario the record label makes 109,000 and spends 75,000 in this initial time period.

  So now move to the next time period- the label is starting with 34,000- less then half of what they need to produce the same amount of music.  In the first time period, successful artist got 33,000- or roughly the amount that Record Label needs to finance their records for time period two.  Now,  Record Labels often figure this out BEFORE they've actually paid the successful Artist their royalties from time period one, and that realization is at the root of all of the very many examples of record labels screwing Artists out of royalties through history

  The only way to avoid this mistake is by reducing your number of releases so that you don't have as many break even records and can afford to pay the successful artist without compromising your ability to continue releasing new records.  I mean, that's what I did . So paradoxically I basically spent 2012 not making new records, or making as few as possible so I wouldn't be caught in the trap that I described above.

 The result of 2011 success was doing less in 2012, but hopefully that restraint will set the table for more activity in 2013- that's my hope anyway.

  



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