For sure!

“The signal to noise ratio is almost insurmountable as the entire landscape is choked to death with mediocrity and bands that either do not know how, or are unwilling to do what it takes to reach that next step.”

Yeah, totally. I’m not one to tell anyone that they’re not doing something good, after all, it is inherently great for musicians that they can do this sort of thing nowadays.

However, it’s still a nightmare for fans and audiences. Imagine a grocery store with aisles and aisles of homemade apple pie…..even the brands that sold their pie on “ma’s old homemade recipe” would get overlooked in the deluge of everything homemade.

And i’m just about as big a fan and proponent of the DIY thing as you’ll find; it’s just that we’re now in the reality of selling records in the year 2008, and it doesn’t bode well for bands. I’ve really put a priority on the personal touch, promo-ing (i’ve secured top 30 campus radio play and hit number one at one place), networking with the right people (Cosmo, for example), and it’s been more difficult than ever to actually sell recordings, and word of mouth is in serious, serious trouble nowadays.

It works for some bands and some acts–and i’m glad that it does– but it’s not enough across the board interest for a wide enough variety of bands for labels that take chances on other acts to really pay much of any bills. I am happy to get my material out there….but it does get to be troublesome to justify expenses with every coming year.

Cisco (distribution in Japan) went under last year. Some friends of mine were owed 10 grand when Cargo went under in Canada nearly 10 years ago, and recently, Pinnacle in the UK, and Fusion 3 here in Canada are all going under.

Here’s more about Fusion 3’s demise
Pinnacle’s demise
Timewarp’s demise
Neuton’s demise

That means that it will be much more difficult to find your favorite releases in stores, and labels won’t be paid, AND will have thousands of dollars of stock in various stores across the nation that they really have no easy or quick or cheap way to retrieve. I’ve had friends that were burnt in that whole process…small labels doing wonderful things for a small contingent of bands that otherwise wouldn’t have the support system.

As we get further into this, it looks as though everything’s gonna be DIY….right down to the distribution. Finding releases in stores will be harder than ever.

The crappy thing is that it’s not the dedicated music listener that has caused this–it’s a larger contingent of people not paying for things and not supporting them, in which the infrastructure for everyone collapses. And, you know, there’s lots of people that still value the old way of buying records–going out to the store, striking up a conversation with the store clerk, maybe seeing someone that you know there, etc.

As one person told me, “it’s not the record industry that’s in trouble….it’s the distribution industry”. Right now, there’s lots of indie labels that are trying to survive the insolvency of Fusion 3 and Pinnacle distribution….MAJOR distribution that pays major bills. Those places are run by music fans, people that take chances on your little acts. Without that, the industry is in deep, dire trouble. I don’t want to be a bummer, but the distribution industry is in a major, major crisis. You can’t compete with file sharing and bands giving away their material for free in the hopes that it will sell.

Having the ability to sell “directly to fans” doesn’t matter at all if there is nobody to buy it.
Trusted sources become more and more important, but we are starting to reach a tipping point for that even… there needs to be a tipping point of almost “movement” potential for a band to really achieve the kind of success that a great record and a little promo money could have got you even 10 or 20 years ago.

For sure. The days of an SST, Touch and Go, Dischord, SubPop….that’s all gone. Think of bands like Fugazi, Nirvana, Bad Religion, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr….they all had huge worldwide followings, AND they had DIY production. The difference between nowadays and then, is that those records cost alot of money to make….they used to cost between 5 grand and 20 grand, usually, for studio time. Even Jack Endino’s price for “Bleach” wouldn’t be possible anymore….because the infrastructure for favours. Those few thousands of dollars still provided a buffer zone in between indie bands that were actively trying hard to accomplish something and the hobbyists these days whose goals aren’t so clear.

Steve Albini used to do alot of work for free or cheap for bands. What he did elevated the production levels for indie bands then, like the Pixies stuff. Even Brian Paulson did this on an album like Slint’s “Spiderland” (AMAZING sounding even by today’s standards). Nowadays, you don’t have anyone doing that (Steve used to put tons of quality mics up, and put alot of effort into his studio rooms). Now you just have whatever buddy to make you an album for free, and those bands really can’t complain or demand more, because they’re not really paying the going rate, and most smaller engineers on spec (free work) either aren’t good, or they’re not able to offer anything of quality within that framework, anyways. The days of doing favours is over, because it doesn’t translate into sales, or as it used to be, notoriety.

There’s not that need to go the extra mile, as in even the case of engineers and studio guys that believed in the bands they were working with, and were certain that their goodwill and help would lead business back to them (Steve recorded the Didjits’ “Full Nelson Reilly” under the pseudonym “Reggie Stiggs”, and it was albums like those, over the course of a few years, that cemented him as a real go to guy for realistic, raw, live sound).

I think of Butch Vig’s work on something like Urge Overkill’s “Americruiser” and the quality of sound. You won’t see a new version of Butch or Smart Studios, just because the ProTools and cheap way of doing things doesn’t allow it. Digital–as much of a fan that I am–still can’t compete with a studio with a great tape machine. Smart Studios had great equipment and great rooms….same with Steve and Chicago Recording Company and Electrical Studios. But they used the old methods of making records; antiquated and too expensive in this day and age. Most bands wouldn’t be able to afford the tape reels to record on these days, let alone the guy to operate and align them correctly to get the most out of them.

“There needs to be a culling of the weak as far as bands go.

This makes an already superjaded public, that is feeling a constant barrage of sensory overload, even more overwhelmed, which will make them want to do anything but take the plunge on something that isn’t already a gold standard in their mind.”

All very true. But I fear that the damage is done….once the equipment was available to make those albums cheaply, there’s no turning back, I think.

I remember when I got my first digital 8 track (it was more like a 6 track at optimum capacity) in 1999. Man, did that thing seem like a whole new world opened up! It was 2 grand-
-alot of money for 1999, and it used 250 MB Zip disks, which made you really have to think about content. You could really only get 43 minutes recording time between all tracks, so if you had 8 tracks going, you’d get just over a five minute song on each disk.

Back then, Zip disks were 35-40 bucks apiece. It still cost about 300-500 dollars for the physical medium to record on, for each album…depending on how long you wanted that album to be. Now, with endless amounts of hard drive space, there’s no price on quality of content. You can do an endless amount, and I don’t think that lends itself to self editing very much. Same thing with recording to reel to reel tape in studios….there’s only so much time that you have, so you have to make a stronger statement.

Back in 1999, I had to erase alot of stuff that was inferior that I did, simply because the disks were so damned expensive, and it made me have a sense of quality control. Now, i’m not sure if that exists in the digital age, as memory has got more frequent and more cheaper…..disposable, in other words.

Alot of digital technology has become worthless. The Roland VS840EX that I bought for 2 grand in 1999, you probably couldn’t give it away in this day and age of ProTools and stolen programs on Bit Torrent sites (this is a major problem, but a whole ‘nother argument). The zip disks are worthless too, because when we’re into GB, things that have a capacity of storage in the MB are absolutely worthless.

To compare this sort of dichotomy in how little things are of value these days, even used tape reels had value–Ampex, etc. Some bands actually really liked to make albums on used tape.

“Consider the migration away from myspace to facebook. Part of this is due to the horrible design of myspace, and mostly due to the constant “trailer park of the web” style barrage of hacks douchebags and general lameness. Even “trusted sources” on there are buried amongst the noise.”

Yeah, totally. I think it’s made people lazy, in truth. Even i’m guilty of that…..I could keep up with individual bands, but I don’t always. I think that lots of people are guilty of that, as well.

I don’t think that there’s anything at stake on MySpace. I don’t think that it should have been for free. Bands should have had to pay to register, and then got a portion of royalties based on plays. But right now, MySpace is getting filthy rich off of the content providers that they don’t pay even a dime to….whether that band has 10 thousand plays a day or ten, the pay is the same–none.

But of course, there is the pay to play mentality that they have, in that you can be on the front page for X amount of dollars, and they’ll obviously turn a blind eye to the amounts of people that you can add per day (under the current system for regular bands, I think that it’s 400 people a day). If you see a band with tens of thousands of friends, it’s not through manual adds…..they probably have automated adders and automatic friend accept automaters that do that.

However! Speaking personally, I always answer back potential friends and fans immediately because that is one of the few advantages a smart band can have.

Foolish, absolutely foolish.

Yeah, it really made me think. I’d ask to buy things and maybe bands didn’t actually think that I was serious in the deluge of people saying “i’ll get around to buying your releases someday!”. As a band, it’s got harder to really wonder who’s out to just string you around, and who’s out because they’re sincere about it.

Right now, I think that to a certain extent, now that people have the milk, they don’t need to buy the cow. If they can contact their favorite bands–or bands in general–it’s put it on a realistic, equal level. Thinking about it, I dunno if music ever really much functioned on a realistic, equal level. Look at Sire with the Replacements in the 80’s….they put out two albums, “Tim” and “Pleased To Meet Me” that sold decently, but not extremely well. So they did “Don’t Tell A Soul”, and that was the point where you can tell that the band was under pressure to sound like every other act that people already knew about.

The ‘Mats were about as realistic as you got–fuckups, real characters, musicians that couldn’t play their instruments all that well, but damned if they didn’t have smarm and charm.

Husker Du, same thing. They never really sold that well, either. Redd Kross, when they jumped to a major in 1989 for “Third Eye”, they didn’t sell well, and places like Rough Trade and Twin Tone records were in trouble, because the majors were taking their big acts that were flagships for the indie labels…..but they ended up being disasters on the majors because they never found that wider audience.

Nirvana finally did and broke that whole thing that had up until then sold decently but not extremely well on the majors (Soundgarden “Louder Than Love”, Mother Love Bone, Screaming Trees) but had Nirvana not broken, the majors would have never invested in the grunge/ alternative thing.

As it stands, they got burnt on most times that they tried to promote real bands to real audiences. Jawbox’s two major label albums are among the absolute best albums that were little heard among those times. Same thing with Material Issue’s “Freak City Soundtrack”….whenever I put it on, everyone asks, “wow, who is this?”. It’s an absolutely brilliant album–everything rock n’ roll and pop and power pop should be. It remains a very sought after cult classic. But reality didn’t sell very well then; it’s selling even worse now that the promotional aspect and the distributional aspects are going down the toilet.

“People get sick of stuff being sold to them ALL THE TIME.”

That is very true, my friend.

“I’m a musician who has played in the same market for about a decade now. One thing that I started doing somewhat recently is send PERSONALIZED text messages to all of my friends and aquaintences who I especially wanted to be at the show. Tastemakers, influential people and more than that… people that other people WANT TO BE AROUND.

I suppose what i’m trying to say, is that I feel that there is a massive pull back from the internet as a source of discovery for anything new, due to the incredible resurgence of advertising EVERYWHERE.

The personal aspect is always the best way to work–but i've found that it's got more much more
difficult, as i've been in bands and doing the music thing for quite awhile now. There seems to be more and more, these days, an invisible wall that even personal contact, person to person, eye to eye, that doesn't translate into extra buzz or extra people at shows, that once worked. And it's a shame, because the more people that are out at a show, the more that everyone–audience members included–can network with people that they didn't even expect to be networking with: buying, selling, trading, becoming friends because they found out they liked the same bands, etc.

What i've found is that there's often a weird elitism with musicians, themselves. I think that this stands to reason that as the industry–even indies–have a more difficult
time selling, that there's more fighting to not drown, so you get more that are desperate for the life boats and the life preservers. Quality interactions at shows, i've found, have gone downhill. I could be wrong, but that's something that i've noticed that I just can't seem to shake nowadays.

Alot of things have got more segregated, too. Bands have to play to such narrowed down audiences now, that there's not that crossover appeal to other artists. This has been happening in the regular rock charts for awhile–you have your pop/ r&B; charts and modern rock and hard rock and everything else that's popular on only one radio format.

With touring bands, that becomes a nightmare, because it used to be that you'd get more diversity on bills and more people staying for other bands that they wouldn't otherwise stay for now. Whether this is a sign of our society getting more jaded, I don't know. Opening bands that audiences aren't familiar with have generally always had it pretty tough. I think it is much tougher, though. And really, it becomes that much more difficult for bands to sell, simply because they have to pander to the converted….I see that in the local hardcore and underground scene, it's people playing to only people that already like that genre.

Speaking of which, what’s your myspace address Ryan? I want to add you.

I try not to promote myself too much, but:

http://www.myspace.com/highwattelectrocutions

Something I say in interviews a lot, and far more likely to people in person… is that the best thing with the punk rock/diy movement is that it showed that “anybody can do this”.
So now the problem is, EVERYBODY IS!

The signal to noise ratio is almost insurmountable as the entire landscape is choked to death with mediocrity and bands that either do not know how, or are unwilling to do what it takes to reach that next step.

Having the ability to sell “directly to fans” doesn’t matter at all if there is nobody to buy it.
Trusted sources become more and more important, but we are starting to reach a tipping point for that even… there needs to be a tipping point of almost “movement” potential for a band to really achieve the kind of success that a great record and a little promo money could have got you even 10 or 20 years ago.

There needs to be a culling of the weak as far as bands go.

however, that won’t happen because it’s easier than ever for hobbyists, rank amateurs and well meaning folks with little discernible lasting talent to choke the entire world up with their hacky and disappointing wares.

This makes an already superjaded public, that is feeling a constant barrage of sensory overload, even more overwhelmed, which will make them want to do anything but take the plunge on something that isn’t already a gold standard in their mind.

not a “Sounds interesting”, not a “highly recommended” a SURE THING.

Consider the migration away from myspace to facebook. Part of this is due to the horrible design of myspace, and mostly due to the constant “trailer park of the web” style barrage of hacks douchebags and general lameness. Even “trusted sources” on there are buried amongst the noise.

However! Speaking personally, I always answer back potential friends and fans immediately because that is one of the few advantages a smart band can have.

I am flabbergasted by the same sort of story that is illustrated here:
I got an add request from a guy that used to play in one of my favorite 90’s bands….somewhat lesser known, but they were on a major. So I messaged him and said, “wow, i’m a big fan of your old band, small world!” and some other kind words. No response!

Foolish, absolutely foolish.

coming back to your earlier point Ryan, Everyone’s got something to sell, and it’s diluted the pool of available money. As a band or fan or label, you really don’t know which way to turn.

Yup, it’s absolutely true, even the best things around are surrounded by such huckstery desperate garbage that the first thing everybody asks is: “What is the catch?”

Going back to my early point, I feel this is one of the reasons there has been a mass migration towards facebook from myspace by people I know to be actual tastemakers and true fans of music and other forms of art.

People get sick of stuff being sold to them ALL THE TIME.

It’s human nature.

So what’s the solution?
Word of mouth still makes a difference, but you need to make an ask.

This is something I am trying to do for Mount Vicious, when people come up to me excitedly after the show glowing about how much they love the music, instead of asking them if they want to buy something, I thank them and ask them to tell some interested friends and spread the word, because personal connections are all the more important now than they ever were.

They usually end up buying something anyway, which is good! But the next time there are a couple of these people’s friends being brought in, and that is AWESOME.

I’m a musician who has played in the same market for about a decade now. One thing that I started doing somewhat recently is send PERSONALIZED text messages to all of my friends and aquaintences who I especially wanted to be at the show. Tastemakers, influential people and more than that… people that other people WANT TO BE AROUND.

It’s incredibly time consuming, and i’m just glad that my cell phone service allows unlimited messages, since I don’t have any way of doing that in an automated style, but it actually works!

It works because TXT messaging hasn’t yet been overrun by street teams and shameless market droids.

I’d consider this the modern equivalent of sending a personalized postcard.

I suppose what i’m trying to say, is that I feel that there is a massive pull back from the internet as a source of discovery for anything new, due to the incredible resurgence of advertising EVERYWHERE.

Speaking of which, what’s your myspace address Ryan? I want to add you.

-Conan Neutron
neutron-x.com
Mount Vicious
http://www.myspace.com/mountvicious

Everyone had the same thought at the same time, “here’s a way to cut out the middleman and sell DIRECTLY to fans!”. When thousands, hundreds of thousands of bands started doing that, it started to cancel itself out, because unless you had a significant name for yourself before all that happened, you weren’t/ aren’t likely to have many sales online.

I think back to when I first opened my regular MySpace account in, I think, 2004. Alot of bands would add me, I thought it was pretty cool. Then the deluge began and it was never ending. I’d leave comments for bands and things like that…..no correspondence. Alot of bands shot themselves in the feet by having that technology to reach people, personally (as opposed to having to send physical mail), and they abused it. There was times where I was basically like, “hey, i’d like to purchase something” and either they didn’t get back to me, or they somehow diffused it.

Most of the requests that I get on MySpace today with my band account are bulk adds; I shut my “accepts bands” filter off because I got back to alot of bands and they never did. Even the non-band adds are sticker places or t-shirt places. Everyone’s got something to sell, and it’s diluted the pool of available money. As a band or fan or label, you really don’t know which way to turn.

Consider this: I got an add request from a guy that used to play in one of my favorite 90’s bands….somewhat lesser known, but they were on a major. So I messaged him and said, “wow, i’m a big fan of your old band, small world!” and some other kind words. No response!

People shot themselves in their own feet. I don’t know how they can dress that one up. Musicians were never really prepared to sell themselves without a label, and that’s something that I think that not enough people mention.

I ALWAYS try to get back to people and chat a bit and network–buy, sell, trade, etc. That all takes time and effort, though, and I don’t think that most want to put the time into it.

It’s very important to know that when you see a band on MySpace that gets plenty of plays per day or feedback, those aren’t actual sales. No band does extremely well off of it. I’m not sure if people see the stats and think that the bands are selling lots of releases or MP3’s, but from my experience–even with the personal touch–it’s not true, and from those that i’ve talked to even in more prominent bands, they’ve said basically the same thing. It’s awareness for the brand or band, but that’s about it.

Yeah, I think that may need to happen. Right now, there's sort of a killing frost that's happening, just because there's way too many bands…..and although i'm not one to tell bands that they are not good and i'm happy that they're doing what they want–there are plenty that need to go, as I think that most of us could agree in theory, if not specific instances.

The problem nowadays is everyone thinks that they're a musician. Everyone's trying to make a go of it, and you generally don't sell to musicians! That stands to reason because they have bills to pay, they have expenses for pressing and whatnot.

In the past, people that wanted to be part of something musically–the A&R; guy, the record producer/ engineer, the bass player, the aspiring musician with no way to record or release albums, the drummer…you know, all people that were sort of behind the scenes….has given way to people who want to be the guitarist, the hero, the star. In alot of ways, it's sort of a Guitar Hero or American Idol mentality. People that want to "make it" with no clue how to do it.

I think that pool of available money in fans that would have bought in past eras, has now shrunk, and I know personally that when I make money off of music, I put it back into the music economy–buying someone else's releases, music gear, etc. Usually when I pick up my sales cheques from stores, i'm in the store, and spend it right back on someone else's release. I've personally been in bands with guys that don't particularly care to support the rest of the musical scene….and it's why i've had to leave those acts. They want someone else to make them famous, without actually supporting the rest of the musical community.

THAT attitude is sinking the grassroots, smaller scene community. Not totally, as there will always be some sort of support, but when there’s more “mouths to feed”, musically, that don’t quite support any musical scene, you get that money taken away from the pool of available funds to go around for everyone.

Around here, it has been ridiculously tough to find a band, and it’s why I have to do everything myself. It’s the only way I get things done. The pool of musicians has shrunk; but better yet, the pool of great musicians has shrunk, drastically. The good drummers are already in multiple bands, and a bass player is ridiculously hard to find, and they’re most likely in a few bands already, making committment issues a problem.

Some guys are great, personally, but they have no skills whatsoever; other guys are great, but they aren’t great people and they. Others have no dedication, whatsoever. It’s weird. I’ve got together with tons of people, and it’s not to say that i’m the world’s most perfect person, but my own stuff would have never got out, because i’d still be waiting for the right people.

“You paint a bleak picture, but I don’t think it’s 100% bleak. Good business is about giving people what they want, and making them pay for it. Right now the record industry isn’t giving people what they want – affordable, good music. Either it’s unaffordable or it’s crap, and thus people don’t see value in paying for either. These aren’t unsolvable problems.”

To a certain extent, I agree. Bands need to throw everything out there on the line, to make better releases. I’m not sure if they are doing it right now, though there are many great records.

The problem, Cosmo, becomes that as funds are dwindling, it will create one of two things: better core art because writing better songs never cost bands any more money than the creativity that it cost to come up with them; or decent songs without any real production or help to flesh the vision out. As with the Greg Calbi discussion that i’ve posted on here, a large portion of us that make records from the technical end are trying to determine how much of an emphasis on sound there is. Not just an overall sound, but specific sounds, tones, harmonics, production techniques, etc. Alot of this harmonic information gets lost in inferiorly ripped MP3’s (which is why I only offer mine in 320 KBPS), that is preventing people from enjoying the experience more.

Right now, it’s tough to say if bands are spending less time in the studio, and although great things can happen in a smaller window of time because of pressure to deliver, some bands don’t work well in being rushed in the studio. Speaking as a producer/ engineer, bands usually need more money and more time to do more takes and try different things and come up with things that they normally wouldn’t have.

If they don’t spend more time, the recordings suffer, the mixes suffer, and bands find out that a week or a month down the road, that they’re not 100 percent happy with what they did, because they didn’t have the opportunity to try different things.

That’s all time, therefore money, so perhaps we are getting the cheaper model of the music biz already. At some point, people cannot really complain if bands are cutting costs in the studio because the labels can’t afford as much. It’s all a downward spiral that feeds on itself. No recording will state “we spend _____ percent less than we would have _____ years ago”. You hear the end result and never know quite how much the current state of the industry is actually influencing the production on albums.

For example, I bloody HATE Auto Tune. Hate it. But it’s a technique that’s seeped into popular music, ironically just as file sharing happened, that is now accepted as a production technique that is desired, but ultimately, it’s used because singers aren’t good enough, and/ or they’re spending less time in the studio on vocals, because they can just “fix it in the mix”.

Right now, most of us in the industry are trying to determine whether it originally was a technique to compensate for poor vocals and poor vocalists, that ended up being a desired sound by people that didn’t know whether it was intentional or unintentional. Auto Tune has this weird rounding off sound that bugs me.

“The costs of making and distributing an album are indeed high. But it was just as high before, if not more, and labels got by on album sales. If CD’s have become poor investment vehicles, they should be abandoned. Thinking needs to be flexible and diverse. I’m sure that given the number of people scratching their heads over these problems, solutions will emerge.”

The crappy thing is that with inflation of the costs of making the recording, it’s never really got that cheap to make cd’s, Cosmo. In fact, it’s always gone up. Vintage gear–tape machines, a Neumann U47 mic, certain amps (to have in the studio in case bands need to use them) has gone through the roof. And cd’s only eventually get very cheap, unless you press in the thousands, but they still have to cover a large fraction of the production costs, as well as the promotional costs.

Promotional costs are unavoidable. As anyone in the industry knows, it’s not the recording that usually costs that much (even though it is expensive), it’s the promotions of the album that cost alot. Even indie labels have to spend lots of money on promos and shipping to newspapers, magazines, radio. That’s all technically free. It’s all free without any guarantee of possible sales. Advertisements are never cheap, and there’s never been a real true way to gauge sales from it. There’s also no proof that you’ll get reviewed at half of those places, or that you’ll even get a good review at all.

I say this because I know guys that have spend 500 grand on their
studio to have consoles and mics and tape machines and excellent sounding rooms, in which for bands to come in and make the best possible product. Tape machines are going extinct, for ProTools, and what we’re reacting to in current metal is the ProTools version of metal–drum triggers, brickwalled to shit to slam any dynamics out of it. I have to strongly, strongly advise that it’s the production methods that have made the albums easier and quicker to make, that have made them worse to listen to.

This is all a microcosm of the shrinking of the music industry. Bands need to make “professional” sounding records in less time, and unfortunately, we’re all finding out what happens when they go into smaller studios or ProTools operated ones.

Major studios have shut down because of their higher overhead. While some of this is just good old natured supply and demand, when records don’t sell, they put a whole sub-economy out of business as well. Alot of people think that they’re giving the finger to the man in an ivory tower. They didn’t prepare to put the guy out of business on a smaller level that’s trying to help bands make better records for the audience’s benefit, as well.

Alot of mid level engineers have been squeezed the most, and there’s absolutely no employment for new and aspiring engineers/ producers. Steve Albini has said, “when I say zero, I mean none. Zero demand whatsoever”.

“I’m not convinced that playing live doesn’t work. That is how bands sell merch and establish personal connections with fans. Look at, to name a few – Converge, Opeth, Krisiun, Mastodon – these are bands that have toured their ass off and assured their longevity through that.”

It works….if you’re an already established name. There’s no room for bands that just started up last month, last year. Opeth and Mastodon are a few albums into their career, and when you think of brand new bands to really, really make an impact sales wise, that’s where most people come up blank these days.

I’ve seen a real decline in the live scene over the last 15 years. It started in the alternative/ grunge era, in which club promoters found out that they could pay bands cheaply to play. There was no point to paying a fairly well established bar band that could draw pretty well 500 bucks, when they had bands that could draw well for 50 bucks.

Also, Battle of the Bands killed off alot of the average people that were there to see unknown talent. What would happen is that club owners wouldn’t pay bands in lieu of them being in the contest, and you’d have everyone’s friends showing up for their band, and then leaving right after, creating a real rift in the scene.

As a result, with established bands (save for a few that still do really well), audiences have been on the decline. Your average fan doesn’t care to hang out at a night club to hear unknown and new talent. Clubs have shut down across the nation. One here was sold here last year, another got sold and it’s trying to stay solvent with new ownership.

“Even if you charge less than a distro, people may still buy from the distro for any number of reasons: loyalty, larger selection of other releases, ease of purchase (customer already knows checkout process and already has account set up), etc. There have been times when, out of altruism, I’ve ordered directly from bands and regretted it b/c they’re flaky, while I know, say, The End or Willowtip would have sent out my order immediately.

All true. And unfortunately, some bands (and some places) give online ordering a bad name. I ship out in reinforced cardboard/ bubble mailers, right away.

“The failure of The Darkness to make a commercial impact isn’t necessarily b/c lower CD prices don’t work. It could be because the music is bad, and people don’t want it. There may be correlation but I don’t see causation.”

That is true. I brought the Darkness scenario into it, because the record label often throws tons of money into the promo machine that never gets recouped. That’s why I have to stress that 95 percent of the major’s roster has always lost money, it’s only the 5 percent that floats them.

Same thing with the Roadrunner analogy that someone mentioned here–they signed Nickelback to pay some “real” bills. Dare I say that without Nickelback on the label, they wouldn’t be able to deal with alot of smaller artists that lose them money.

Even on SST, I have to wonder how many bands that Black Flag, Husker Du, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur/ Dinosaur Jr. had floated the label with.

“To an extent, I have faith in the market to compensate for good music. Trend music goes away, as it should. In the underground, there’s a greater chance for market failure, whether it’s due to consumer lack of information or unstable infrastructure (smaller labels, etc.). But these are merely challenges to be solved.”

Unfortunately, specialty bands or bands that fall into no specific genre, have always had a much more difficult time with selling. Though I do think that any band nowadays is selling anywhere between 10-20 times less than pre file sharing days. It ultimately is very difficult to get anyone but the real hardcore, real music lovers, to buy music. Off the internet, I tend to sell to people in their 40’s, not young audiences. I think that those people remember the obscure bands like Hawkwind and Spacemen 3 and weird, obscure psych bands. Right now, I struggle to define the psychedelic thing in a modern context–definetely not a trend, though there are many bands doing it.

I don’t want to sound like a bummer, but i’ve been around doing things for quite some time, and most people won’t realize until they see the behind the scenes things, the behind the scenes numbers at a record label, or the recording/ production process. These are all things that i’ve seen, and I can weigh in on my thoughts in what actually happens. Believe me, I once had alot of the Utopian views that alot of people want to have about the industry or possibilities of it. And alot of those realities can’t be avoided, because you’ve got to cut costs in amidst this downsizing.

My main letdown is that the internet–and from everyone i’ve talked to (friends, friends in cult acts), there’s no type of sales numbers that are of any actual significance online. And that stands to reason, is that people have to wait for their music to be mailed out and they want it right away……but they also don’t really find that much cache in MP3’s, either. Because subliminally, like in the Greg Calbi discussion, people don’t like the experience and the sound of MP3’s….there’s something about it subliminally that doesn’t draw them in.

A few responses to points you made:

1. It strikes me that the glut of bands on the market and the distress of the record industry is akin to the housing bubble today. The products and markets are different, of course, but perhaps there’s merit in just letting the chips fall where they may, thus weeding out the weak.

2. You paint a bleak picture, but I don’t think it’s 100% bleak. Good business is about giving people what they want, and making them pay for it. Right now the record industry isn’t giving people what they want – affordable, good music. Either it’s unaffordable or it’s crap, and thus people don’t see value in paying for either. These aren’t unsolvable problems.

3. The costs of making and distributing an album are indeed high. But it was just as high before, if not more, and labels got by on album sales. If CD’s have become poor investment vehicles, they should be abandoned. Thinking needs to be flexible and diverse. I’m sure that given the number of people scratching their heads over these problems, solutions will emerge.

4. I’m not convinced that playing live doesn’t work. That is how bands sell merch and establish personal connections with fans. Look at, to name a few – Converge, Opeth, Krisiun, Mastodon – these are bands that have toured their ass off and assured their longevity through that.

5. Your comparison of MP3’s to junk food is apt. It speaks to a larger commodification of culture and decreased attention span in the world as a whole.

6. Even if you charge less than a distro, people may still buy from the distro for any number of reasons: loyalty, larger selection of other releases, ease of purchase (customer already knows checkout process and already has account set up), etc. There have been times when, out of altruism, I’ve ordered directly from bands and regretted it b/c they’re flaky, while I know, say, The End or Willowtip would have sent out my order immediately.

7. The failure of The Darkness to make a commercial impact isn’t necessarily b/c lower CD prices don’t work. It could be because the music is bad, and people don’t want it. There may be correlation but I don’t see causation. Good music + mass appeal = staying power, to use your Pink Floyd example. And, yes, if something sounds like Pink Floyd, why not just go with the original?

To an extent, I have faith in the market to compensate for good music. Trend music goes away, as it should. In the underground, there’s a greater chance for market failure, whether it’s due to consumer lack of information or unstable infrastructure (smaller labels, etc.). But these are merely challenges to be solved.

I thought of something else.

The RIAA instituted a “Minimum Advertised Product” rule, in which you couldn’t go below a certain price. I thought for YEARS, “this is bullshit. What a bunch of scam artists”.

Here’s my new thinking. Loss leaders were never good for the record industry. Alot of stores that didn’t deal in the volume to be able to get those types of deals, got put under. It created a false sense of being able to offer something at a value that didn’t allow them to make money. For example, there is a reason why HMV charges 8 bucks for the hit cds, and then 25 for non-hit and obscure and non-new releases. Plenty of stores that I know of have nowhere NEAR that gap or discrepancy between the highest and lowest priced product.

Those loss leaders, let’s say both the stores and labels and artists made a minimal profit. That is fine if you’re selling 10 million copies, but it’s another case altogether if it’s a high priced flop. Look at all the new artists in the last ten years that had one album or single that did well with tons of hype. Like the Darkness. Atlantic promoted the heck out of that, and that was below 10 bucks at most stores, and you know what? They didn’t make much off of it, and by the time of the second album which didn’t do well, the band were dropped.

It’s only when you get mega stars like Elton John, Shania Twain, U2, The Stones, etc, having long careers that you can actually make sustained money off of loss leaders. This is what most don’t realize.

“Let me expound, I played in this band Replicator for 8 years, we made records, we toured, we made t-shirts we did all the things that bands did. Something I began to notice was that in our last year of operation, more people seemed to know us and like us, yet our sales remained about the same, show attendence was way up though and we sold 3 or 4 times as many t-shirts.

This was due to the advent of file sharing as much as anything else. Had we known that was going to happen, instead of just assuming we would be ramming our heads into the concrete wall as we had the previous 3/4 of a decade, we could have prepared with more physical stuff to sell… and indeed gone further than just the IDEA of “online” singles and stuff like that.”

I relate to the frustration expressed in this post. To a certain extent, I see alot of music being sold as a brand, like Coke, Pepsi, Nike, whatever. Merch might be selling more, but more and more, the artists in question that the merch bears their name, they’re just becoming a brand. People aren’t actually listening to the music or buying it more, they’re just throwing on a Ramones t-shirt or CBGB’s shirt or whatever.

This relates back to the fact that I think that there’s a deep seated unconscious guilt about not listening to the actual music, that the band name has become something that you wear that you don’t actually have to be invested in to know lyrics or any sort of extensive backcatalogue other than a couple of songs. In other words, you don’t have to invest time or effort in wearing a shirt, but you have to continually spend your time disseminating an album to get what you perceive is of value. Plenty of times people have said, “there’s only one good song on that album”, and i’m like, “….did you actually listen to it?”. I have to wonder sometimes in what type of time that people spend in trying to dissect and enjoy art. Not all artists make albums that are apparent or easy to get on a first listen. Hell, it wasn’t until a week ago that I truly got the brilliance of the Jesus Lizard’s “Head/ Pure”, though I had the release for a long time.

Another thing about MP3’s is that if you make them too cheap, you undercut all your distro–all your stores, everything. When the majors originally sued Napster, they took all the heat, but they had to keep their distributors in mind, that were worried about sales and whatnot. Even when I sell my own albums at a price that’s cheaper than my distributors, I sometimes wonder, “is that a good thing? Then why even have distro?”. If I offer my releases 5 bucks cheaper because I can afford to because i’ve already made my markup….then why would anyone buy off my distributors, online?

At my dayjob, it’s like this. We sell only through retailers, so that anyone who comes into our store is going through them. If we sold to them directly, our retailers would get PISSED. And why not? We wouldn’t need their help, and they wouldn’t even bother to deal with us if we were giving their customers a better price than they provide with their mark up. Their mark up has to allow them to pay bills and survive. They simply can’t get prices that are equivalent to ours, because our resources and connections are better–we have a major warehouse branch that can ship us out our product that they need.

So as I mention, as a label, it’s easier said than done trying to make costs extremely cheap, because then you’re undercutting everyone. And most likely, undercutting yourself. If you make MP3’s too much cheaper than the actual release, then the whole infrastructure gives way.

In that sense, I wonder if ITunes isn’t doing the industry a favour by charging a set amount. If people were to lower their costs to 30 cents an MP3, ITunes may not be able to survive with all of their resources and advertisements that they pay for their name to keep their name in the public eye as the place to buy MP3’s from. Love it or leave it, they have a brand name cache that they’ve had to pay for, through advertisements and attempts to dominate the market share of the paid MP3 download market.

As i’ve stated, Nimbit allows you to pick your own price. But this is where, as a label, i’m really fucked–Nimbit submits to ITunes and Rhapsody and other places and they don’t take a big cut, but they also don’t have the sales power and brand power that ITunes does (ask yourself when the last time you bought off of Nimbit was, as opposed to ITunes…or if you’ve even heard of Nimbit). My downloads are available on ITunes, and there’s a mandatory charge of 99 cents. If I go drastically below that on the Nimbit player, why would anyone ever want to buy the songs off of ITunes?

Like I say, that’s easier said than done. Most people do their MP3 purchasing on ITunes, and they also have bigger expenses incurred in maintaining their market share–including continual advertising. And I imagine that their bandwidth must be insane in costs.

On top of that, quality studio equipment has never been cheap. There’s a mentality that people think that they can go on Audacity or Garageband and make something great. While I tend to err on the side of that it’s “what you do for the equipment, not the other way around” and “it’s in the ears”, there is simply a certain amount of money, even on a smaller level, that one needs to spend to have anything of quality.

Most bands that approach me now are absolutely new. And it’s like pulling teeth to get them to even throw a few hundred bucks my way to use my recording equipment and vintage amps, for some maintenance money or whatever. While I did some of that for free in the past, i’ve had to institute a “no more” approach…because bands either didn’t continue or never put it out or whatever. As Jack Endino says, “spec is for suckers”. The days of recording bands and doing things for cheap or free are done, because there’s no infrastructure for those bands to succeed, even on a local level. They’ll all be playing to 10 friends on a Tuesday night in a bar for their whole career.

I just truly, honestly, think that alot of bands and alot of casual fans and alot of average audiences are totally clueless as to what it takes to make a great sounding album, instead of some crappy, brickwall limited, Auto Tuned, Beat Detectived lifeless recording.

Again, I must urge everyone that values the old way of listening to and making records, to watch this:

http://philoctetes.org/Past_Programs/Deep_Listening_Why_Audio_Quality_Matters

People need better stereos, better headphones, better listening habits. They listen to shitty ripped MP3’s at like, 128 KPBS on earbud headphones (which can’t properly reproduce the rich sub 250 Hz low end so they hype the mids and highs like cheap food manufacturers push salt and sugar and high fructose on consumers), and then wonder why they’re not liking the music, or why it’s not transcendent. Well, of course it won’t be transcendent–if you cheap out on the experience and expect it to be the background soundtrack to you vacuuming or texting on your phone or whatever, you’ll get out of it what you put into it.