Philadelphia Slick

It’s been way too long, and in my best Andy Reid Voice “the fault lies completely on me. I gotta do better, there.” I’ve had much to write about, but between band obligations and everything else that is my life, this weblog has fallen by the wayside. I never intended it to be so, and I know we’ve got a couple of very patient customers out there waiting for some music and shirts to handle as well.

So what’s the occasion, then? Some hard scathing commentary aimed squarely at the music ‘industry.’ It’s tough to decide where to begin, (one of the reasons for the delay of this editorial) particularly because many of the issuses come full circle. Also because an independent musician bitching at the state of popular music and trends is fairly common and played out at this point.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have no experience with record labels, and this is probably because just as I started producing music of a certain quality with the desire to be “signed”, labels began to morph from companies that produced, funded, and sometimes promoted and distrubuted records to companies that do almost everything aside from produce and fund projects. Promotion companies, branding companies, booking companies, management companies, beatmakers, and more all declared themselves record labels.

We can debate the causes, but I am convinced it all comes back to the bottom line: profit margins. Most of these companies are laying nothing on the line to attach their name to an artist – they charge the artist up front or make a percentage of booking funds, but they certainly don’t (for the most part) pay out of their own pocket and invest in artists. Artists are supposed to invest in themselves, beckon all of their family and friends to invest as well, and reach out to a million fans all on their own. After all, this is the social network/media/mashup/connected age. Should be easy, right?

As a consequence, what has been created is a sort of social-free market. When it comes to the economy, many claim that we are useless to try anything to counter market cycles, any interntion/disruption of the market only hurts. In a way, the culture industry has adopted this same policy – there’s no need for critics or talent scouts to find and filter talent because the invisible hand of social media will do it for them. Youtube hits. Twitter trends. Facebook fans.

Does anyone see a problem with this? Do we no longer value levels of expertise?

Another example: Venues. A promoter used to be a job. There used to be people who booked talent for venues/bars/restaurants because they knew they could promote it to their audience. Yes, the venue/club’s audience. If there was a hot venue, musicians would want to play there and the crowd would want to be there: “Hey, let’s go down to XXX because they’ve always got dope funk musicians there.”

Today, it’s all up to the musicians to promote. You’ve got to bring your own crowd, not only to get paid, but to have a nice show environment. Musicians generally make music to share it, I truely believe. I’m not absolving bands from any sort of promotion – you certainly have to get out there – but for the last five to ten years, it’s been ALL on the artist. Because, hey, it’s so easy to throw your shit up on youtube and wait for the free market to take its course.

But once again, why would venues spend time and money on scouting and promotion when they could keep all of their bar money, make the musicians pay for sound and security (by way of a door split), make the bands do their own promotion, and if they don’t do a good job – well, when has there ever been a shortage of musicians? Especially in cities, it becomes easy to move onto the next artist down the line.

If we didn’t have social media, venues and record labels would have no excuse. They’d have no other option – they would have to go out and find talent on their own and build their own audiences – or they would fail. (Some argue that they’re failing now, but their profit margins suggest otherwise.)

I think small towns may still be an exception to this rule. Not only does the spoken word spread faster in small areas, but there just isn’t the influx of quality musicians that exist in cities: you can’t just move on to the next act because you’ve got to draw that next act from elsewhere. We get treated very well in small towns, usually, and often play to larger crowds than in cities.

Much of this is me venting, but much of it is a deep seeded concern about the way that our culture values music. On that note, I’m going to let you know that my next piece will be about online music, torrents, and streaming services. I’ve been meaning to get that one out for a while as well.

Until next time.

- Noesis