Music format, modern society, and my discontent

[Sfarog]

What kind of music do you play? What is your music about?

Do lyrics and production notes come with the CD?

Why is this an "EP" if it's almost 40 minutes?

And I realize that the page has music on it so an in-depth review may seem silly, but you do know the quotes you put on your Myspace blog don't actually decribe anything in particular, right?

I got $12 sitting around waiting for you to tell me that you deserve it. I'm easy - any music complaining about downloaders and using the word "thief" gets a look from me.

I dont deserve it. There are hundres, nay, thousands of bands that deserve your money more.

but to be nice I will answer your questions:


1. On this EP the Lyrics do not come with the packaging, for ideological reasons only. This is not an album with conceptual integrity, and the songs on this album are to be part of two full lengths. It is then that the songs themselves will be more in context and lyrics will be included.

2. Its an EP, regardless of its length, because this was not meant to be an album (as above). two songs on this are stylistically different from the other 2 songs. This recording was meant to be an introduction, perhaps a promotion tool of sorts.. When we begun we didn't have a full lineup, this was supposed to help us get there.. In the process, this became more than just a demo. Thats also why we've decided to limit it to a certain number of copies and not sell any more than that.

3. I tend to ignore reviews for the most part. they are a promotion tool, but thats about it. I need reviews because I want to present an unbiased opinion of our music to those who might be interested. I suppose you won't find me discussing the quality of our music.

as to my commercial interest which you've implied by saying that I bitch about thiefdom: the name of the band is "gwynbleidd", people can't spell it, pronounce it, not to mention remembering it. The first recording of 40 minutes we've decided to call an "EP" knowing damn well I myself hardly ever buy EP's. and we haven't sent a single copy* of our music to any labels.. now is that a way to run a good business?

* I lied. two copies were asked for and dispatched hastily.

 

[Jim LotFP]

just one question: You don't believe that downloading free music from any of these post-Napster file sharing schemes is stealing? (assuming that the music on there was ripped and not what the band/label released for free download)

Absolutely it is. When I said "any musician complaining about downloaders and using the word "thief" gets a look from me." I wasn't being ironic or facetious. (and yeah, I meant musician not music... )

It seems most musicians avoid tackling the subject because it makes them unpopular with people who piss and moan on message boards.

And you have a right to your commercial interest, because it's YOUR work. When I (attempt to... only 4 pre-sold so far) put FUCK COMMERCIAL METAL on the back of a T-shirt, I'm not saying "musicians should make sure they never make money," I'm saying they should avoid giving a goddamn penny to any middle-men who don't give a fuck about them and would gladly just put another band in their place if they asserted their rights over their work. Dump the labels and kowtowing to the big press, not to assert your lack of interest in money, but to assert your interest over your own fate instead of handing it over to someone else and hope that they can find a way to cut you in on their profits.

YOU DESERVE EVERY PENNY FROM EVERY SALE OF YOUR MUSIC, not a percentage.

Same as I do for every LotFP subscription sold, or every T-shirt sold. Except I'm not looking to make a profit, just lose less money. But you should aim a bit higher than that. Although maybe aim a bit lower than the cover of glossy magazines and MTV videos and shit.

Now, as for your actual band, let me make sure I understand what you said. Again, honest question here. The songs on this 40-minute EP are going to be included in future works where they will be put in their intended context, which they aren't on the EP?

If that's right, tell you what. When the first album is released then, provided you do the releasing, on an actual thing, with a real insert with lyrics and all (caveats up da ass), you let me know, I'll be first in line to put some dollars down on that.

And don't let any dumb fucker prevent you from actually making these plans come alive.

 

[Dan Berger]

There are several famous Dan Bergers. Are you any of them?

I used to write for LotFP - does that count?

I'm definitely not the wine critic - I don't know of any other famous Dan Bergers. But if you're familiar with comics, you may have heard of me (although I don't consider myself famous - Hell, I'm not even infamous, although I probably should be).

 

[Dan Berger]

Actually, the digitial format is a convenience for deciding what to buy on CD or indeed vinyl.

True for some, but not all. I know several people who only buy songs from iTunes (that they originally heard on internet radio) with absolutely no intention of buying the whole album as a CD or vinyl - or even digital. They just want individual songs, and these guys are in their 40s.

It will be interesting to see how things go with online distribution - we're getting back to how things were in the '50s when people were mainly buying singles, but now instead of 45s, it's digital files online. Of course, this is "mainstream" consumerism, not underground, so I don't know if I'm talking apples to your oranges (more than likely I am).

It's not progression at all, if anything it's regressive, provided you don't stop at the MP3 format and never venture towards physical media.

I agree with that, but I'm not sure if it's because it's a universal truth or because I'm nostalgic for the old formats.

the fact that you can listen to the music yourself and make up your own mind has finally given the power back to the people to decide what's good vs bad themselves. This is excellent excellent excellent

I'm completely on board with you here.

 

[JayKeeley]

I've stopped visiting most forums because everyone's "discussing" bands but nobody's saying anything about them. It's like I'm being advertised to. Give me thoughts and impressions and feelings and a sense of what the album means instead of what the album is

Haha, yes I agree with this, and I also get frustrated when someone just says, "hey you NEED to check this band out", and I ask why and they respond with a "because it rules!!" type response -- but that's why I no longer visit the GMD. It really does depend on the forum, but generally speaking, and as we all know, fans of heavy metal are not your mid 40's type jazz coinneseur or white collar executive. For the most part, they are young, somewhat displaced youth, sharing an interest (that still has the biggest stigma attached to it over any other musical sub-genre) across the internet in complete anonimity. And isn't that your readership for the most part?

So while it's true that you're not going to get a complete dissertation on why a particular album is a 'work of art' in an online chat forum, I think we can at least be thankful that at least some discussion is taking place and that there are some general pointers indicating what's worth pursuing on your own time. Like I said, we took it one step further at RC and actually drafted a 'template' for how recommendations should be shared.

One of the things I hate about the reviews I wrote this time is the talk about where a band is from. It's relevant in exactly one case. Otherwise it's just goddamn stupid filler that my brain thinks to throw in there for the sake of looking like a review "should." So the likelihood of doing any sort of feature based on geography is pretty much nil.

Less about where a band is from, but more recognition of the fact that surges of creativity generally correlate to geography (whether it be Britain, Sweden, or even a state like Florida, etc.) It just so happens that France currently has an immense surge of creativity these days.

Same for the possibility of covering much relating to black metal at all, really.

OK, but don't say I didn't tell you so! Although I suppose you did invest some time in Negura Bunget's "Om" but maybe that's because you were sent a promo?

 

[Sfarog]

Now, as for your actual band, let me make sure I understand what you said. Again, honest question here. The songs on this 40-minute EP are going to be included in future works where they will be put in their intended context, which they aren't on the EP?

Yes. There are four tracks on this EP. The first two are to be part of the first full length, which if all goes well we will start recording in April. The second two tracks will be part of the full length that will come out whenever, or maybe never at all, who knows.

 

[Dan Berger]

I'm saying they should avoid giving a goddamn penny to any middle-men who don't give a fuck about them

Agreed.

However, I gotta say that some people working within The Corporate Distribution System are awesome and have viable talents that artists do not. I've met a bunch of "insiders" and some of them are very passionate about what they do - it's just that their talents aren't in creating art, but in sales. Marketing may be perceived as inherently evil by some, but there is an art to doing it well and value in getting an artist's message out there if said artist is incapable of doing it his/herself (as many are - if communication came easily, why would they turn to abstract forms to do so?). In a perfect world, the relationship between musician and label is symbiotic - things have never been perfect and never will be - but there are some cases where the relationship works. In short, I just don't see sponsorship as inherently evil, although more often than not it turns out that way. The glass is 1/10th full, goddammit!

 

[Sfarog]

majority bands would and do in fact need labels to handle their affairs, make contacts, use their expertise. Musicians should be able to just focus on music.

I'm most definitely not against labels. In fact I look forward to the day (hopefully some day) when I will be able to focus just on music. Then again, whatever label will express interest in us would get a lot of scrutiny from me. I have to know that they would be able to do a better job than I'm already doing handling these affairs.

 

[Jim LotFP]

Although I suppose you did invest some time in Negura Bunget's "Om" but maybe that's because you were sent a promo?

Negura Bunget are about as black metal as Sigh these days... the low-fi, must-not-use-colors, face-painted-clown-worship thing is more what I'm talking about.

 

[Jim LotFP]

majority bands would and do in fact need labels to handle their affairs, make contacts, use their expertise. Musicians should be able to just focus on music.

Musicians should also make the lion's share of the money that their music generates, I would think.

And bands which have managers and labels still have to watch their business like a hawk anyway to keep from getting "ripped off" beyond the terms of the contract.

Bands can handle their own affairs, bands can make their own contacts, and bands can develop their own expertise for their own benefit.

The only reason labels have any power is that everyone hands power over to them. They set the rules and the conditions, everyone else lines up to play and then after the fact complains that they can't win.

Need any more soundbites?

 

[Jim LotFP]

Less about where a band is from, but more recognition of the fact that surges of creativity generally correlate to geography (whether it be Britain, Sweden, or even a state like Florida, etc.) It just so happens that France currently has an immense surge of creativity these days.

I wonder how this really works.

I wonder if this whole "geography" thing is a function of actual creative outpourings in limited geographic areas, or a result of hype.

Now, obviously something was going on in Gothenburg in the early 90s, something was going on in Stockholm and Tampa in the late 80s, and in France now, but I'm sure we can go to any decent-sized city in the Western world and find a creative bunch of people doing creative things, perhaps sounding a bit similar because the local musician population mixes around like most such scenes do. But because they don't have that bit of hype behind them, the one band to catch the right record deal putting out just the right press release, we don't have "Sacramento Prog-Metal" or "Athenian cyber-metal" on the historic map.

hmmm...

 

[Occam's Razor]

Sadly, nobody has yet hyped what has been going on in Trondheim, Norway, for some years now. These bands have always been an insider thing, so it must be the industry, even though I admit that these groups do not play that accessible music.

 

[BenMech]

Well, there is the San Fran Psych(edelic/otic) black metal scene.

Which are the Trondheim acts, Andreas?

 

[Cheiron]

A number of labels (from what I can tell) do 50/50 splits on profits. That is pretty fair. The labels are making investments in bands, etc. I'm not sure if they do 50/50 on expenditures too. So the cost for a producer, engineering, artist, CD pressing, marketing etc... gets added up and then the an equal part of the bands profit pays for that, as the part of the labels profit pays for it.

I've been thinking of starting a label for the last year or two... and been working on a 'model' that I can support, and that I think is fair to both me and the bands. We'll see if I start it. Just be a side job, since I have a main job which would allow me to have some funds to actually do this.

Maybe the most fair thing a 'label' could do for the bands was to be 'hired' by the band to do all the non-music making work. So that the label is a contractor of the band intended to help the band sell music. And the label is paid flat fees to do so based on how much the band wants the label to do. And there could even be terms of agreement that 'hey this will cost you 30k for us to do that, but what we'll do is you give us 2k, and then based on the album sales we'll get 80% of them till you are able to pay us the rest of it (28k) at which point you are free to do whatever you want and to pay us to continue doing work or go somewhere else. But I'm not sure if a label like that is realistic.

 

[JayKeeley]

Well, there is the San Fran Psych(edelic/otic) black metal scene.

You can go to a show in San Fran these days with a traditional heavy metal band, a post-rock band, a doom band, and a black metal band all on the same bill. All local artists too. (So I guess it's more of a flourishing scene in general, regardless of genre).

The irony is that you have all these musicians, spending lots of time making music and being unemployed or poorly paid on penny jar tips, all living in the most expensive region in the world, after Tokyo.

And Killingsworth seem to have come out of nowhere. I think you can only buy the "Viking Steel" album from the band themselves or CDbaby. Amazingly, we would never have found them if it wasn't for a myspace link.

 

[Cheiron]

Same with Atlanta. The local bills are rarely all bands of one genre.

Atlanta has a decent mix right now of thrash, black, doom, and american power metal (which really is just thrash/trad). But also a bit of the 'core' scene. Not too much 'prog.'

 

[JayKeeley]

I live in NY and while we get good shows, they're all made up of 'import' artists. I have no problem with that, but it would be nice to see some more homegrown talent (compared to San Fran at least).

That said, there is Gwynbleidd. But it took for me to travel all the way to Minneapolis to see them at Heathen Crusade.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Trondheim is Keep of Kalessin, Manes, 3rd and the Mortal, The Soundbyte, Atrox and Madder Mortem, I believe. A lot of odd female-fronted stuff apparently.

 

[BenMech]

Trondheim is Keep of Kalessin, Manes, 3rd and the Mortal, The Soundbyte, Atrox and Madder Mortem, I believe. A lot of odd female-fronted stuff apparently.

I knew the town sounded familiar.

I like a good deal of those bands , especially MM

 

[Occam's Razor]

Ah, Madder Mortem, the band Rich Walker likes so much...