Pay to Play - your opinions please (3 Viewers)

[Speed Racer]

Originally posted by nessy
Mr Speed Racer

Could you mail me please?

[email protected]

Ok, I'll email you in a min.

 

[Latex lizzie]

I 'd be willing to take up the mantle...with someone else you could do it for as little as €5 a month. But the problem is that there are to many begrudgers and too cool for school merchants in this country. we never think as a collective even if it means great results like a union that can ensure you get paid.....

 

[Speed Racer]

Originally posted by Latex lizzie
I 'd be willing to take up the mantle...with someone else you could do it for as little as €5 a month. But the problem is that there are to many begrudgers and too cool for school merchants in this country. we never think as a collective even if it means great results like a union that can ensure you get paid.....

Hey I'll help you out. I'm not cool at all. Seriously, I wouldn't mind rollin up the oul sleeves.

 

[Psychotic no 2]

Originally posted by egg_
A guy called Alex from Polydor UK is scouting the Dublin scene, believe it or not (or at least was a month or two ago) according to a reliable works-in-a-big-studio person I know

He's a damn fool though if he approaches one of the local cowboy promoters to showcase the scene for him

Did you see Alex's post on page three?:

"RIP OFF!!!!!!!

I was just contacted by a guy (whose name I prefer not to mention on this board) who told me Polydor UK asked him to put together two show cases of Dublin bands which will take place at Isaac Butt (!!!!) on October the 14th and the 15th.

It went like:

GUY: "I'm putting this thing together, could you be interested?"

ME: "Well... yeah fuck it why not, we didn't play live in a while.."

GUY: "Sound! I'll see you there then, the admission fee is 90 Euro"

ME: "..."

Fuckin' sharks..... Anybody heard about this? Do you think it's likely Polydor asks you to pay 90 euros to join a show case? I think it sounds more like another rip-off

I've had confirmation of this.

 

[Latex lizzie]

..hey speedy if you wann send me your no.. or something?

 

[Speed Racer]

Originally posted by Latex lizzie
..hey speedy if you wann send me your no.. or something?

I would ordinarily love to Lizzie, but my girlfriend might give me a spankin!

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by Psychotic no 2
I've had confirmation of this

So this seems to be true? What kind of confirmation?

Egg_, do you think it's likely bands must pay Euro 90 fee to join a showcase?

 

[dudley]

sigh

i wish i was still in americaland

rockin'

 

[snakybus]

you'n me both

I heard you met the bould Thomas Dunning in Schuba's

 

[dubh in seattle]

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! Ah, to be denounced from the pulpit, march in the streets, or maybe the secret musicians cabal could coordinate everybody just playing daniel o'donnel tunes for a night...that'd make the club owners cave.

 

[jpat]

if you guys need a little help in strikin
i'll be there in november and i've striked with the best of em

i marched when they wanted to tear down the stone pony in asbury park, among other more serious causes
and i think a showcase fee might be a little much
especially if a label is putting it on

that's why we go after labels
so that they can pay for things

cause if they don't pay for things, what use are they?
i mean, i'm all for labels and such
and in the us here, they are dropping money into things and picking up business expenses and writing them off and such

but i've not known the labels to charge the bands

 

[dubh in seattle]

Ah jpat my homie! Good on ye-- I'll be over in January, I'd love to help organize whatever helps the musicians, but seein' how you and I are from the states, we might be seen as outside agitators But, that'd sound good on the news! Record labels can be good(indies that really care about creativity)--but the bigguns (sony, universal media group, all their subsids)ONLY care about bottom line, indies hafta care about that too, but because majors can pour $$$ into promotions, etc. they expect usurious returns on their investments. Like, a recording advance of $200k would probably have most of us salivating, as it means a band can spend a couple years without dayjobs, etc. But, it's ALL recoupable before the band sees another cent, and label's creative accounting practises are legendary, so theoretically you could sell a million records and STILL not see a dime, especially if a band gives up some or all of their publishing rights. Not to mention that most of the big charting rekkids are produced by one of the same 5 guys, mixed by one of 5 mix engineers, mastered by one of the same 3 mastering engineers, and labels aren't often inclined to let a "new" band make any decisions to work with anybody else. Of course, bands with integrity don't need to SIGN to those stipulations, so it seems most new bands actually on majors are willing to forego creative control in order to have a shot at the brass ring. Hard to blame them; it's hard to hold out esp. when most day jobs suck! But, exceptions happen, although I seriously doubt that paying to showcase for a label can come to much good...
STRIKE!STRIKE!STRIKE!

 

[dudley]

dubh
you have any idea who the people behind all this are?
http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/mm/week1/mm.php

 

[dubh in seattle]

Argh! I don't, I've read it and shown it to several of my clients, I had a whole slew of opinions/emotions on reading it. One friend who's done WAY more/bigger records than I says that he's trying to find out but doesn't have a clue. My initial reactions are that the engineer is either 1)at least semi-fictionalized and part of an evil multi-tiered guerilla marketing plan spawned by a label, 2)at least semi-fictionalized and part of an attempt at prose, or 3)the bastard is burned out and a complete dick. To be (grudgingly)fair, the dudes' tech knowlege is deep adn the insights to the filthy world of major-labeldom are VERY valuable, like the myriad ways the labels can and do AND WILL screw bands. But the basic thing I kept thinking was--Dude, nobody's holding a gun to your head! Do you or don't you love doing this? If it makes you so ill, and you choose to operate in a reality where everybody's an "idiot," fekn quit complaining, quit the gig. I mean we all need to make a living, but sheesh dude, you can quit a gig if it's so unworkable!!!
That's what I kept thinkin'. I myself would prefer that drummers don't hit the snare when my head is 2" from it (again with the ), but after it happened once, I just started wearing earplugs when I need to go in the live room. Here comes my manifesto: THE BIGGEST part of what an engineer/producer type should do is help the band feel comfortable and freely creative and help them achieve the best possible results within their (including the eng/prod and the gear) abilities and limitations. If I didn't love doing this more than any other possible "job" I'd quit. I certainly amn't in it for the money, 'cos there isn't any I mean, I keep a roof over my head and coffee in the pot, but I used to make twice or three times as much at my final day job(glass blower). But the point came when I just couldn't stand NOT recording/playing/etc, giving in to the calling has not been good for my financial credit rating, but I've been at this malarkey for 10+years and I'm not a pathetic burnout like that fella! Out of the people I've worked with, roughly .01 % have been just flat-out impossible, but that's come down to smack shooters. Musicians ought to be respected, they ought to work with people who share that excitement about their 'children.' I ALWAYS find something in every single project that I'm excited about, some weird idea, some accidental harmony, some technical or performance "error" that gives a song a whole appropriate suprize twist. As per usual, I've prattled on for way longer than I intended or should've
but I just got done with working on a session that makes me glad to be alive, to be able to help people get this kind of feeling makes the empty pockets less worrisome. And there's lots I love about Seattle (lots to hate, too), but Ireland has always been where I planned to live, I don't have misty-leprechauns-and red-haired-coleens-fantasies, I figure I haven't got any reason not to come over and hopefully work with some of the bizillion cool people I've talked to here... mixerman should retire/change jobs/chill.

 

[#10-7]

i've been wondering about this... i've been reading it from the start and i can't help thinking its all a bit much...
he certaintly knows his shit though..
i wonder, if it is true, when the bitchslap album is released will people find out its them?
that'd be interesting.

 

[dubh in seattle]

it would be interesting! Of course, since its on a major, there's always the chance that some marketing focus group will make the label decide that the band's target demographic is now more interested in bulgarian-samba-triphop-polka or whatever, and the band's record will get shelved, and the band will be contractually unable to legally play their own songs for several years...this has happened to clients of mine!

 

[#10-7]

ALEX!

hey alex!
just on the pay to play thing, you're played loads of garageland gigs, how did you find it? could you sell the tickets every week? were you well treated? did you find that they were money spinning bastards?

 

[Unclealo]

I believe a Mr. Dermot Lambert was in some article on the Turbine last Sunday about how bad pay-to-play gigs are. I haven't read it, but this is all a little rich from a man whose band Blink used to charge £250 'deposit' to support bands and fobbed them off with tickets to flog to make the money back, and whose garage gigs are possibly the biggest con on the 'promoter' scene in Dublin at he moment (!ironyyy). Has anyone read this shite?

 

[IrishUnsigned]

Originally posted by bombidol
the cost of playing a gig is crazy, by the time you get your gear transported there and back and pay for the venue its costing you too much to be worth it

The trick is to split the cost, and also to get a local band to do the gig with you. For example, we are getting Dolan's Warehouse for Clann Zu (well, we were asked) and we will be looking to get a local band who can bring 20-30 people or more. If they don;t want to pay anything, then fine, Clann Zu will. However, they'll get any profit. We then get Wired FM and other media to feature the thing with interviews (we did this in Waterford recently - excellent).

Really, we reckon you need 3 bands who can get 15 people each (not that many really) to pay in, give them 5 guestlist slots as well, get some exposure and go for it. Usually, our gigs break even and leave a small profit to split between the bands. Our best one made a profit of about €700 (that was our launch gig) and our worst made a loss of €350. Come to think of it, we're down almost two grand. Maybe I'm not the right person to be discussing this :0(

Seriously, if bands want to do it, we'll facilitate it, but not with our money any more.

 

[IrishUnsigned]

Originally posted by Hector Grey
it's a diffycult one, cos you'd like to think some promotors are being alturistic and actually like bands and that, but they're prolly not....

Would it sound too much like "Methinks he doth protest too much" if I took a little bit of offense at that? I, personally, am off about a grand since March with IrishUnsigned.com gigs - don't tell my wife though. Dave, my colleague, is off about the same. We got no money from anywhere, including IMRO and shite like that.

Some of us do give a shit. Ask the bands who have played our gigs - Wunderland, Sutras, Alistair, Dextra, Clann Zu, RedKid, Louise Byrne (IIRC), After The Party, Shiver, Mental Institution, Taft, Lucas, ENS, Penfold, Tarebo, DM, Forever Young, Stefan Hanvey, Loophole to name some just so you can check if you don't believe me :0) None of them paid to play and in some cases even got paid from the profits (up to €100 per band in some cases) without taking any risks.

We're not all bastards. To be honest, I sometimes think bands are bastards in a lot of cases cos they couldn't be bothered pulling their thumb out of their arses (well, one or two who still make me mad) and the only 'fans' they bring are the 5 we allow them to guestlist.

If we all pulled together it'd work a treat. We really think so, anyway...

Sermon over