Peter Mandelson… (strike 1)
Hello friends!
Sorry it has been such a while since the last time I forced my opinions upon you – I have had a week of gigs, followed by a week of I’m-sure-it-wasn’t-but-it-could-have-been Swine Flu, followed by a couple of days lethergy. Who would have thought that the person to kick me out of my slightly sorry for myself stupor would Peter Mandelson?!
This post is essentially a quick overview of what I have been wanting to write in more detail over the last few weeks, and hopefully will act as a more structured base to start thinking about the actual things Mr Mandelson is trying to bring in, and whether it is a good or a bad thing.
Essentially my view of filesharing is the following: For – Against – For. Let me explain slightly, hopefully this somehow will connect back to the inital conversation. As a member of an unsigned band looking for a break into the music industry I want EVERYBODY to have copies of my songs. The more the better! We ask that if possible you have a listen to the tunes, stick them on your ipod, tell some of your mates then (and most importantly) all come down and see a gig. Everyone wins – you get some nice music, we get people to gigs, thus creating a buzz.
Once you have your buzz and get signed your then releasing an album or two. 
This is where I am against. The guys in this position (and this is where the Lily Allen / Musicians Alliance stuff comes in) are the ones who have managed to get their job to be music. But all is not as it seems- as we have already discussed these guys essentially get a ‘loan’ from their record label, to be paid back in full, and with interest, before they can make money themselves, and in the end record another album. These guys are against filesharing and I absolutely agree with them.
The idea of a ‘rockstar’ being someone who drives Rolls-Royces into swimming pools and is constantly in hotel rooms with groupies is out dated and just plain wrong. These guys will be earning very simliar amounts to you or me right now (and I earn a pittance…) they are also the future of music. How many times recently have we heard people lamenting the fact that the naughties has had no classic music formed in it? Well in my opinion its not suprising – even Radiohead had to make 3 albums before they really started working on something different and clever, which, if they were starting now, is a luxury they would never have been afforded (not least because their first album didn’t sell – they would have been dropped). These guys need your support and your money to help them to continue down the path they want to make – and surely the goal for everyone on both sides of the argument is to be able to listen to quality, enjoyable, sometimes groundbreaking, always original (to an extent) music?
Then I get a little controversial- when a band hits a certain level of success I think it is in everyones best interest to go back to not being bothered about filesharing. This is because at this level they are (if doing their job properly) making a fortune from endorsements, being on soundtracks to films and games, playing live and merchandise from playing live. Labels get their money through other revenue streams and they are able to start experimenting with their sounds, seeing where they can lead their audience and generally becoming the ‘artists’ that they have always had the potential to have.
So whats this got to do with Mandelson? Well next time I will explore his plans of controlling what we do on the internet, and whether it really will make any difference to anyone at all.
Misspent Sunday afternoons in front of the radio…
I’ve been trying in my previous posts to give you an idea and a little bit of background in the whole world of being a musician, and quite what the costs are involved in getting involved in such an industry. This post hopefully will allow me to tie up any other thoughts, and then from here on in we can start looking at what is going on with the filesharing issue in particular and also the ins and outs of things we should know, understand and appreciate when deciding whether to go out and buy a cd or to jump on Pirate Bay or something similar to download the track.
Firstly this whole phenomenon is nothing new – I’m sure I’m not alone in sitting recording the tracks on radio 1 chart show when a bit younger in order to catch the top forty. Annoyingly of cause the dj would start talking just before the end of the song thus wrecking the end of the song, but you would then religiously listen to on your way to and from school. There was then of cause CD, minidisk and a whole host of other mediums to copy music from one place to another. This is even before making mixtapes for your latest beau and friends.
So what has changed this time? We often hear people say that copying music has happened forever, this is just the latest in the line of ways of exchanging tunes and that people shouldn’t get so upset about it. To a certain extent I would say this is true (remember although this is probably borderline anti-filesharing I still haven’t made a decision which way I am swinging on the issue…) but the differences are stark. For a start the ease of getting whatever your wanting to listen to. Whereas before you’d have to find a mate with the cd of the band your wanting to listen to, then convince them to tape it for you, then get the damn thing back again and then being able to listen nowadays you can jump on the internet, neatly dodge the porn and its there nicely in your player for your aural pleasure.
Depending on where you look on the internet, to the point that I wouldn’t even like to start quoting the numbers I have seen you can find a whole array of figures that have been spun by various industry ‘officials’ but we do know it is affecting sales – just taking a walk around HMV (or wanting to have a stroll round Virgin) would show that where there were once mountains of CDs are now games. Ironically of cause many of these games allow you to play along on virtual guitar with bands playing their hits, but where there once were CDs, there are now games.
But has it affected the industry as much as we are made to believe? Is there a way to keep recorded music at a high quality, when there is no money available to develop the ideas and sounds that can only be found and developed in a studio?
That my friends is for next time…
The Industry involvement…
I don’t want you to think that in my last post, or this one, I’m moaning about the costs of being a musician. Quite the contrary, there is no more brilliant thing in the world of shopping than going into a music shop with your hard earned cash in your pocket and buying some new amazing toy thats going to make everybody jealous. You pay your money and take your choices. My point in these couple of articles is to give you the idea that the shiny disk, or mp3 you have in your hand and ipod is not the beginning and end for these people. Certainly the introduction of programs such as X-Factor have made this concept more alien – you walk into a room, you sing a song, you get Christmas number 1 and you’ve made it. Going off topic I think the worst thing about these programs is that it gives anyone and everyone the idea they could do it. If you really want it, get into the pubs and clubs, get your act sorted and see what happens from there.
I digress. So we’re about to burst into the murky world of the music industry as a career rather than as fun. This bit is very simple. You get signed to a label, which means you have a whole world of marketing, production, contacts to name but three at your disposal that noone would have given you the day before. But this costs money.
I’m going to keep this purely hypothetical and certainly different artists have different contracts, but I’m going to try to keep it as a average type of thing. Normally bands and artists sign a deal for say 3 albums. For those albums the record label gives you a certain amount of money (lets say £500,000 *at the moment thats a lot in the industry!). This money is essentially a loan, you’ll have to pay it back with a huge amount of interest on top. Out of this money you need to pay for your recording and all that goes along with that (mastering, production etc), your marketing and plugging for magazines and radio stations, and your touring costs – this is not simply money for your back pocket!
The first £500,000 you make belongs (more or less) to the record company. No one should ever think of people in the music industry as fans of music, they are hard nosed stoney hearted business men. If it all goes pearshaped you will still be expected to give this money back. If they decide they don’t like what your doing and drop you from the label (essentially make you redundant) you still have to pay this money back. On top of this money they will take a lovely big cut of anything else you make. Think of it as a tin of beans from Tesco, they buy it from the supplier, push it around a bit, sell it for a bit more, keep the profits. The music industry is no different in many many ways.
Other things currently happening include labels now starting to take cuts from touring royalties, merchandise that maybe made to sell at gigs, appearance fees etc etc - traditionally all the things that would take the humble musician from being someone who earns a bit of cash but nothing special to being the more affluent type of human.
And that my friends is why you’re hearing about lots of musicians talking about file sharing, yet very little from the actual record label. But more on that next time!
Start at the very beginning (or how I learnt to stop loving holidays and start loving small rooms)
It seems at the moment everyone has an opinion on filesharing and whether music and film is a entity that should be available to all for free, or at a premium cost. What is interesting however is the lack of knowledge that most people seem to have about the basic facts behind these opinions. I think for us to start understanding exactly what is going on with this situation we should try and get a few solid facts into the equation. Being someone who has been in and around the music industry for several years we are going to focus on this side of the topic (apologies to any film buffs out there!).
Unless your phenomenally lucky, or an X-Factor winner there are large amounts of outlays from the moment you decide that the life of a rock and roll star is for you. Firstly you have to buy your equipment (or if your very lucky get it brought for you!). Thinking about my own band, my guitarist uses a Rickenbacker guitar (£1,500) with a Telecaster back up (£400(ish)). He plays through a 2nd hand Vox amp (£750). I am remarkably poor, have a Fender Bass (£600 with staff discount (my past is slightly colourful)) and an Ashdown amp (£500). The drummer has a Yamaha drumkit with 3 cymbols, as well as the hi-hats (£2600). Next time you see a band in a pub remember there could be well over £5,000 worth of gear infront of you without really even breaking a sweat.
Before you can start playing a gig you have to get good. Studios in London start at around £50 for 4 hours. You probably need to practice at least once a week, I always recommend twice if possible. Playing a gig is also quite an expense – van hire (£100 a day), or taxi (£outragous amounts) to get the stuff to the venue followed by food, beer, buying drinks for people who support your band week in-week out averages out (for me at least) at about £50 a show. We play around 8 shows a month.
This is before your band has even thought about getting signed and making it into a career.
You have played your gigs and got a couple of songs you think are going to set the world on fire, so you need to record it. Depending on where you go to record it these costs can give even a vaguely successful musician nights of sleeplesssness, and the constant dilema – do you sacrifice the sound to save money, or sacrifice that weekend in Barcelona with the other half for that extra special production. Sadly for my misses its always the latter! Recently we recorded our latest single. Normal signed bands would aim to record and produce a song in around 4 days (depending on a WORLD of factors but bare with me!) we recorded and produced two songs in a weekend in a very middle of the range studio. It cost us £1700. This is cheap – I agreed to play keyboard and the guitarist guitar for them on two sessions for free in exchange for some money being taken off and for us to work with their top in house producer. You’ll find a lot of this sort of wheeling dealing going on at the grass roots of this industry. It then costs £100 an hour for the tracks to be mastered (brought to a sound level that they can be played on the radio). Two hours later we had the tracks in our hot and sweaties, and didn’t eat that evening.
We then sent our tracks to our label to get pressed onto a limited run of 7″ vinyl (£1200 for 400) and I spent the next weeks evenings burning cd copies to send out to radio stations, magazines, record labels, management labels, publishing houses, music lawyers, anyone who could like us and give us a leg up into playing with the big boys. Replies are few and far between (remember there are hundreds of people all vying for these opportunities) we found we were getting 1 in about 20, but after hearing other horror stories we were doing well.
Now, if your very lucky, your in the position where your about to get signed…
Introductions…
It is with great fear and trepidation that I accepted the offer from Jason to blog about the pros and cons of file sharing with special interest in looking at the issues in my own field of expertise of the music industry. This is because the last time I decided to talk about something remotely political I had to escape a near on riot through the cellar of a slightly grotty east end pub. Hopefully writing this blog will be slightly less life threatening, and involve a lot less alcohol before deciding to write it. No promises though.
The subject matter that fateful night (although at best the details are hazy) were pretty much as emotive as the subject I’ve been asked to write about here. It seems everybody has an opinion as to whether film makers and musicians are money grabbing parasites paid for doing little more than a hobby, producing something that deserves to be in the public domain, or are the cream of the crop in their field, deserving of the accolades both in fame and money that come from such industries.
I think right here and now, before we start exploring the opinions and hopefully cutting some facts from the propaganda from both parties, I should tell you a little about myself and where I am coming from in the argument. I am a signed musician and earn enough money that I don’t lose money in following what is essentially my dream job, but that’s about it. I also have a full-time job, a part time job and haven’t taken a holiday except to see my mum in 4 years. Certainly over the years of playing in bands, djing, being in orchestras and such I have spent more than I think I could ever expect to get back from the industry, without a lot of help and a lot more spending before seeing the profits of my work.
I am constantly asked about the issue of file sharing and which camp of thought I reside in. In truth I chop and change my mind constantly, swinging from the ‘stuff it I’d rather have people listening to my stuff rather than not’ through to ‘penny pinching gits all its costs is 79p’ so when asked to discuss the matters for Cosmodaddy I jumped at the chance of arguing both sides of the case, hopefully with the help of you, my friends, giving me some pointers and arguments in comments about what you have read and think. I’m not convinced there is a definitive answer to the question, but maybe by exploring the issues we can make some better informed judgements on what we do, and do not download rather than buy.
All being well there should be a new post on here at least once every two weeks so keep checking back from time to time to see where my meandering thoughts may lead me. Don’t forget to leave a comment or two if you feel so inclined, hopefully though you won’t feel the need to hunt me down to my usual east end haunts and chase me out of the pub!
