PR people are evil (1 Viewer)

[Pantone247]

FOUR LEGS GOOD

TWO LEGS BAD


it must great for everything to be so black and white for you people

 

[egg_]

everyone's putting extra effort in and no-one's actually better off

Heh
It's is just capitalist economics, Richie. It's the same with any industry - the only people who are really necessary are the producers, the consumers, and the people who get the products from one to the other ... but there are very few industries where those are the only people involved, there's always managers, marketers and hangers-on all taking their cut whether the work they are doing is genuinely valuable or not. You hire a PR person to compete with other people's PR people - it's the same when you're buying a house, you only need a lawyer to protect you from the other guy's lawyer.
Mixerman had a great analogy for this - something like the music industry is a lottery, and spending more money just buys you more lottery tickets

 

[abbe]

i'd hate to work for one of those samll label distribution/pr companies because often you'd be flogging music that you really liked but you'd have to be exactly the same, attitude wise, about the ones you didn't like. I'd only want to be a music pr if i wasn't into any of the music, or music at all.

(Seperate Q: Some people - a lot of people - are indifferent to music. Does it mean they are missing something as people? Could you ever really be friends with them?) Obviously it doesn't count if they're deaf. Anyway there are deaf musicians and deaf discos as well these days, so they do count actually.

 

[RSJ]

i'd like to add that PR companies are often cringy annoying bastards and if you want to be really "successful" you're going to need to 'have something' about you (accessibility? marketability? a drug habit?) so you can break into radio, print and tv rotation all around the same time; otherwise the best you can hope for is that you get played once or twice and then dropped from the playlist.

in summary, PR is essential to becoming a cringy indie darling, but must be combined with a whole load of other bullshit to be worthwhile.

This is very true - many many times i've tried to make questions for interviews with bands i loved but there's so little an angle to work on it almost makes it a task. Similarly, some bands are so cagey when interviewed in person that nothing useable comes of it.

 

[oh shit]

it must great for everything to be so black and white for you people

meaning what? if anything, i was saying it's not as simple as just getting PR. and PR reps are cringy, and no one on the programme i work for likes dealing with them, and they're only really influential if they usually supply 'cool' stuff, which is the only reason a show/mag would want to keep them sweet.

 

[MDR]

'Jimmy' - is the problem that it's hard to break in to the PR racket?

 

[abbe]

they're not all cringy - and by 'keeping them sweet' i'd say you're being even cringier than them.



http://www.thumped.com/bbs/images/attach/jpg.gif

meaning what? if anything, i was saying it's not as simple as just getting PR. and PR reps are cringy, and no one on the programme i work for likes dealing with them, and they're only really influential if they usually supply 'cool' stuff, which is the only reason a show/mag would want to keep them sweet.

 

[Ed]

(Seperate Q: Some people - a lot of people - are indifferent to music. Does it mean they are missing something as people? Could you ever really be friends with them?)

I don't think it does. I have a lot of friends who aren't bothered with music and look on it as a completely passive thing in their lives (that said, most of my close friends are music lovers). It doesn't make them lesser people.
I do think people should have some sort of passion about something. It doesn't have to be music, it could be shoes, sport, films, birdwatching, hedonism etc.
I have a deep distrust of anyone who cares about nothing.

 

[Pantone247]

meaning what? if anything, i was saying it's not as simple as just getting PR. and PR reps are cringy, and no one on the programme i work for likes dealing with them, and they're only really influential if they usually supply 'cool' stuff, which is the only reason a show/mag would want to keep them sweet.

meaning what I said

it must be great to be so clued in and wise that you can take an entire industry, and with one sweaping comment from your all massvie and knowing brain, catorgrise into one little tiny box ('cringy' in this case.. nice word, did you make it up yourself?) and lo that is what they are and so it is said and so it is done and shall be forever and ever. Amen.

And I'm not just aiming this at you. I'm aiming it at everyone posting here who doesn't actually understand what a PR company do, but still have no qualms about rubbishing them anyhow. YOU people, YOU are the true stars...

 

[chickenham]

I tend to think that middlemen of all sorts are parasites who somehow manage to convince themselves that they're more important than the people they represent and the people they represent them to.

On the other hand there are loads of great people doing that kind of work and it's something I couldn't do in a million years. They are necessary.

Even if you thought you could handle all the middleman work in Ireland while being a working artist, how would you fare with, for example, Japanese media. Get a grip, there's really no argument.

 

[egg_]

I'm aiming it at everyone posting here who doesn't actually understand what a PR company do, but still have no qualms about rubbishing them anyhow

Sellout

 

[Deleted member 3435]

Sellout

i don't see anything particularly evil about pr. i share the reservations of you people who seem to, and i've never considered it for me. however, wouldn't you say that being in a band, making records, and playing gigs are all basically "doing" pr too. that may be overstating it, but it's not so black and and white as no pr= good, pr= bad imho. there's a continum. if you're just making music for the love of playing then who cares if anyone ever hears you? if you want respect/recognition/fame, then you formalise your situation and begin marketing yourself. if that's too much work then you may hire someone else to do the marketing for you. i'm a relative noob here but if it means anything to you jimmy, i don't think there's anything unethical about using pr. it's personal choice. decide what your after/how much time you have. that's what you were after was it not? our approval for such a course of action?

edit:

playing shows has an attraction besides marketing, acknowledged.(before i get slaughtered)

 

[egg_]

If I had the money I'd hire a publicist for Stoat, also we'd record everything in a big fancy studio and get some someone else to organise our gigs for us. It'd be deadly not to bother with all that tedious shit, takes a lot of the fun out of being a member of the rock'n'roll peasant class

 

[billygannon]

Giving people reputation points on Thumped is PR
And making friends with people

I haven't a clue what PR is. Is it where people go around harrassing journalists and all that hyping up particular bands etc.?

 

[hugh]

If I had the money I'd hire a publicist for Stoat, also we'd record everything in a big fancy studio and get some someone else to organise our gigs for us. It'd be deadly not to bother with all that tedious shit, takes a lot of the fun out of being a member of the rock'n'roll peasant class

It's true. There's nothing more boring than sending press releases to people, writing press releases (ugh!), ringing people about stuff, booking gigs, re-booking gigs after you get bumped, trying to persuade some tosser that he should give you a gig in the first place, etc.. etc .....

 

[Deleted member 3435]

If I had the money I'd hire a publicist for Stoat, also we'd record everything in a big fancy studio and get some someone else to organise our gigs for us. It'd be deadly not to bother with all that tedious shit, takes a lot of the fun out of being a member of the rock'n'roll peasant class

misuse of quote there' cormac. that wasn't directed at you.

ecomony with words is not my strong point, anyway yeah doing your own public relations is a pain in the ass, and unfortunatley i've yet to find a community minded, help/support orientated collective that operates exclusively outside pr-ish self interest. so i don't know what the alternative is supposed to be.

 

[abbe]

What of the people who are repping something truly worthwhile though? Wire magazine is pretty much a pr machine for the music they write about. Are they evil? (Can you milk me, Greg?)

 

[Anthony]

If I had the money I'd hire a publicist for Stoat, also we'd record everything in a big fancy studio and get some someone else to organise our gigs for us. It'd be deadly not to bother with all that tedious shit, takes a lot of the fun out of being a member of the rock'n'roll peasant class

you must spread ......... etc

 

[oh shit]

it must be great to be so clued in and wise that you can take an entire industry, and with one sweaping comment from your all massvie and knowing brain, catorgrise into one little tiny box ('cringy' in this case.. nice word, did you make it up yourself?) and lo that is what they are and so it is said and so it is done and shall be forever and ever. Amen.

i'd have thought it went without saying that i was giving my opinion. 'cringy' as in 'makes me cringe' when i open emails/releases/get phonecalls. can't take credit for it though.

I'm not just aiming this at you. I'm aiming it at everyone posting here who doesn't actually understand what a PR company do, but still have no qualms about rubbishing them anyhow

i wasn't rubbishing them, they're useful but if it's "success" as the industry understands it that you want then PR alone isn't enough... blahblahblah... zzz

 

[abbe]

If I had the money I'd hire a publicist for Stoat, also we'd record everything in a big fancy studio and get some someone else to organise our gigs for us. It'd be deadly not to bother with all that tedious shit, takes a lot of the fun out of being a member of the rock'n'roll peasant class

how many times have you heard someone say 'if I had money I would do things my way'?