A passing notion...

[wayne]

Going back to strands like those on Titchmarsh & Jamie Oliver's music use on TV, KFC's use of funk in ads etc, & with the huge shaping effect digging is having on new music, I'd be interested in knowing what people think about how the way we spend our weekends is maybe the (or one, anyway) future of music? It does seem that the tracks that get discovered by diggers this year are next year being comped, repackaged & sampled for sale, which makes the VV scene (if it is a scene) a sort of unpaid, reverse A&R section for the music industry... you guys rediscover & test-market the back-catalogue sounds that keep the Big Guns in business... Putting on my writer's hat, I reckon there's maybe a good piece in all this somewhere...but for starters, anyway, certainly a good discussion to be had on here... Anyone?

(Edited by wayne at 1:56 pm on Mar. 11, 2003)

[bigdaddydan]

As it ever has been, although it seems to be gaining exposure currently. I guess that over the last 20 years the impact of the Hip Hop culture on the UK music scene has changed many things. Records are now collected not just for their musical qualities, but also for a couple of seconds of drums, a mad drama ill key stab, and the obscurity of certain items has made them valuable.
Prior to the advent of dj culture (and I'm going back to the sixties here, with soul and psyche nightclubs) rarity was never seen as desirable, although new and unusual undoubtedly were. But these dj's (as with reggae soundmen in Jamaica) realised that they could reap the competetive rewards within this burgeoning culture by covering or removing the record's label, a technique widely employed by break dj's in NYC a decade later.
All of this has given rise to the culture in which we are all here immersed - the search and the excitement of the 50p break which no-one else has yet dug. This culture is still relatively underground, but as you point out, its fruits certainly are not. Starting with Beat Freak and Paul Winley records, enterprising souls/rip off opportunists graped the opportunity to make hard to find records more widely available and line their pockets.
The culture of bootlegging has long existed around musical scenes (live tapes/Beatles blah) but the explosion in reissue artist albums and legit comps in the early 90's pushed the product to a wider audience.
So now with the rise of the compilation as the major moneyspinner in the dance albums market and licencing of tracks for adverts etc a lucrative business, diggers are infact doing the groundwork.
We find new tune, word gets out, name dj picks up on track via dealer, plays on radio/comps it onto their own after hours selection, ad company licence from label, track gets exposure.
Were we more enterprising (and I'm sure some here are already doing this) we'd be cutting out the middlemen and comping up weird shit and then making our own ads.
Or something.
But basically yes, Wayne, we are the A&R 2nd eleven.
Thankyou and good lord.

[jammin]

</span>

Quote[/b] ]Quote: from bigdaddydan on 3:49 pm on Mar. 11, 2003
As it ever has been, although it seems to be gaining exposure currently. I guess that over the last 20 years the impact of the Hip Hop culture on the UK music scene has changed many things. Records are now collected not just for their musical qualities, but also for a couple of seconds of drums, a mad drama ill key stab, and the obscurity of certain items has made them valuable.
Prior to the advent of dj culture (and I'm going back to the sixties here, with soul and psyche nightclubs) rarity was never seen as desirable, although new and unusual undoubtedly were. But these dj's (as with reggae soundmen in Jamaica) realised that they could reap the competetive rewards within this burgeoning culture by covering or removing the record's label, a technique widely employed by break dj's in NYC a decade later.
All of this has given rise to the culture in which we are all here immersed - the search and the excitement of the 50p break which no-one else has yet dug. This culture is still relatively underground, but as you point out, its fruits certainly are not. Starting with Beat Freak and Paul Winley records, enterprising souls/rip off opportunists graped the opportunity to make hard to find records more widely available and line their pockets.
The culture of bootlegging has long existed around musical scenes (live tapes/Beatles blah) but the explosion in reissue artist albums and legit comps in the early 90's pushed the product to a wider audience.
So now with the rise of the compilation as the major moneyspinner in the dance albums market and licencing of tracks for adverts etc a lucrative business, diggers are infact doing the groundwork.
We find new tune, word gets out, name dj picks up on track via dealer, plays on radio/comps it onto their own after hours selection, ad company licence from label, track gets exposure.
Were we more enterprising (and I'm sure some here are already doing this) we'd be cutting out the middlemen and comping up weird shit and then making our own ads.
Or something.
But basically yes, Wayne, we are the A&amp;R 2nd eleven.
Thankyou and good lord.

<span =''>

WELL I THINK DAN HAS SUMMED IT UP THERE.

[Si Cheeba]

Yessir, well put.

Perhaps we should all join up to form some sort of V-V/UK Soulstrut music style agency consultants type set up.

I'm looking for a career change with the stockmarket's getting f***ed over.

Anybody got a spare office in Soho going very cheap?

[bigdaddydan]

Actually not a bad idea Si.
Not sure about the office space, but have plenty of the right sort of contacts re licensing, distribution and retailing, just never had the cash to start up.

Anyone with a fairy god mother waving a bag of duckets sign up now!!

[son of stan]

Presumably A&amp;R departments send out loads of free swag to TV production companies, ad agencies and the like in the hope that it will be used as incidental music or whatever?

Why would these outfits pay a middle man a finders fee when they're already getting untold music for nowt?

[Big Nick]

I believe the old Soul Jazz building is still up for grabs. Groovy location, history of nice tunes, bunshop next door, too many local boozers to mention, unpronouncable address: what else do we need?
Bagsy a desk near the window.

[bigdaddydan]

My interpretation was that the 'finding' part was the discovery and compilation of tracks for labels and/or doing the label bit yourself.

You're absolutely right, marketing departments send out a hefty proportion of promos to TV production companies/ad agencies etc in the hope their music will be used. However, there is no reason to guarantee that the person/people who receive the cd are in touch with what 'the kids' are into, so there are also opportunities for enterprising folk to set themselves up as consultants to advise on appropriate tracks/musical genres for use within the media.

This happens in a generalist way already with expert partners called in by producers/brand owners to advise them on an overall marketing strategy, with sound and music being one facet of the overall picture they are asked to devise strategy for.
However, despite the convenience of using a one-stop agency to give all advice for a singular project or brand, there are opportunities for niche agencies to survive on giving very targeted specialist advice.

It's a tough market, but there are room for really good specialist advice shops which will help brands reach their core market ahead of their competitiors.

Once again, that, is all.

[jammin]

</span>

Quote[/b] ]Quote: from bigdaddydan on 1:25 pm on Mar. 12, 2003
My interpretation was that the 'finding' part was the discovery and compilation of tracks for labels and/or doing the label bit yourself.

You're absolutely right, marketing departments send out a hefty proportion of promos to TV production companies/ad agencies etc in the hope their music will be used. However, there is no reason to guarantee that the person/people who receive the cd are in touch with what 'the kids' are into, so there are also opportunities for enterprising folk to set themselves up as consultants to advise on appropriate tracks/musical genres for use within the media.

This happens in a generalist way already with expert partners called in by producers/brand owners to advise them on an overall marketing strategy, with sound and music being one facet of the overall picture they are asked to devise strategy for.
However, despite the convenience of using a one-stop agency to give all advice for a singular project or brand, there are opportunities for niche agencies to survive on giving very targeted specialist advice.

It's a tough market, but there are room for really good specialist advice shops which will help brands reach their core market ahead of their competitiors.

Once again, that, is all.

<span =''>

WELL I THINK DAN HAS SUMMED IT UP THERE :cheesy:

[bigdaddydan]

I like your style Jammin, I like your style...:cheesy:

[wayne]

</span>

Quote[/b] ]Quote: from jammin on 5:12 pm on Mar. 12, 2003
WELL I THINK DAN HAS SUMMED IT UP THERE  :cheesy:

<span =''>

Yep, I reckon he has... Think there (earlier in the thread) is the point in a nutshell re: £££ halting people from getting things off the ground themselves. Even if a VV crew did get start-up cash &amp; start licensing comps &amp; reissues on the Strut/SoulJazz/BGP model (&amp;, hey, I'd buy 'em!) the chances are that once you'd proved the market existed, you'd find yourselves bidding against majors for rights: in a word, your success would likely as not price you out of the market you'd created. That's the pessimistic view: I guess the optimistic one is that you'd be moving on by then, building a new market somewhere else. And that the majors would tend to 'kill' the market by oversaturating it with poor products: the 'lounge/exotica' boom in the mid-90s is a classic example of this, as Capitol's 'Ultra Lounge' sets hogged the market, the bandwagon got mass-jumped, &amp; the originators scaled down or gave up in the face of rising prices for OG vinyl &amp; licensing or were absorbed wholesale into the majors. Then the boom faded, the majors moved on to chill-out &amp; downtempo (where the same process is now going on) &amp; the 'core' lounge/exotica scene regrouped out of the spotlight...arguably stronger than before, in fact, with the residual interest generated by the boom leaving a healthy, but non-mainstream market, in its wake... Guess this involved VV to a large extent, since how many of us had our scanty (charity-shop dependent) knowledge of library/EZ/lounge opened up by all the later 90s reissues &amp; comps? That said, there was a second point I wanted to make, but maybe didn't get it over clearly the first time, &amp; that was the idea that there's a creative dimension to digging itself. We've recently accepted that sampling is an art, but what of sourcing and hearing the potential in source-sounds? Creative reassessment of the likes of Percy Faith or Klaus Wunderlich? Acknowledging the warped genius of a scam-artist like Leo Muller? Just chucking out a few thoughts here, but interested in the whole thing as it seems a really positive antidote to (as well as, inevitably, a part of) a mainstream music industry that's increasingly afraid to do anything that isn't already approved/researched &amp; proven by mass sales elsewhere. Personally, I'm cheered up no end by the sharing of knowledge on boards like this, &amp; the informal trading networks that are motivated by genuine interest in hearing new sounds, and not by making cash...

(Edited by wayne at 7:15 pm on Mar. 12, 2003)

[wayne]

</span>

Quote[/b] ]Quote: from son of stan on 1:11 pm on Mar. 12, 2003
Presumably A&amp;R departments send out loads of free swag to TV production companies, ad agencies and the like in the hope that it will be used as incidental music or whatever?  

Why would these outfits pay a middle man a finders fee when they're already getting untold music for nowt?

<span =''>

Sorry to be butting in again - but on this one I have to say that the sheer volume of stuff sent out indiscriminately by labels is actually a big reason why those using music need to pay people to sift it. My day job's in publishing (books, not music) &amp; it's the same there: so much is circulated on spec that nobody in the industry has time to sort it all out &amp; find the few nuggets of gold in all the dross. You pay the premium to get what you want, when you want it, and not have to spend days on end reading inappropriate or bad books (or listening to inappropriate or bad CDs/records). Hence agents/editors/consultancies/personal contacts/playlist compilers/reviews etc etc... In a way, it's the very volume of 'free stuff' being sent out that makes it essential to pay for the kind of knowledge we're talking about. On the other hand (to go slightly off point for a moment) there's also the opinion in circulation that consultants (esp in business &amp; government) get employed for their willingness to rubberstamp executive decisions, then take the fall when things go pearshaped - as with the Arthur Anderson/Enron/Worldcom debacles... It's another view, anyway... ass-covering as an industry in itself &quot

(Edited by wayne at 8:48 pm on Mar. 12, 2003)


(Edited by wayne at 8:51 pm on Mar. 12, 2003)

[alanmck]

don't know about the rest of you, but in a non-commercial way, this (wading through the shit and filtering it) is what i seem to spend most of my time doing.

when i was dj-ing regularly (and i confess that is not recently), i was never in it for the money. all the cash ever did was fund the obsession. all i wanted to do was find great music, play it nice and loud to however few punters turned up at the nights, and hope that something would resonate with the crowd.

good feeling seeing the room move to whatever tickled my fancy, but the biggest buzz i got from it (other than pulling, errrm, twice) was people coming up the the booth with that look we all know, saying &quot;what the fuck was that, can you write it down for me, where can i find it...... &quot;and so on.

all you got to do with some people is point out where the rabbit holes are, and they'll go straight to wonderland all on their own.

the rest of them just turn up to get pissed.

and these (non playing out) days, i am still the only one of my friends who spends time and &#36&#36&#36 buying the stuff, making up the tapes, giving them out, leaving them at parties, whatever, so one of the things it feels like i am happily doing is the filtering for them. they also do the &quot;what the fuck&quot; thing every so often, and it's still a nice feeling.

confessional over.



(Edited by alanmck at 10:25 pm on Mar. 12, 2003)

[bigdaddydan]

Well thats the world put to rights gents, a whole bunch of good philosophical points have come up on this thread, but as Alan has summarised - it all comes down to passion and love for what it is that motivates you, not the money you can make doing it.

[Si Cheeba]

</span>

Quote[/b] ]Quote: from bigdaddydan on 11:47 am on Mar. 14, 2003
Well thats the world put to rights gents, a whole bunch of good philosophical points have come up on this thread, but as Alan has summarised - it all comes down to passion and love for what it is that motivates you, not the money you can make doing it.

<span =''>

That's exactly it - feedback is very important - it can help make a night, if just one or two &quot;strangers&quot; show some interest in the tunes - rather than nob head requests such as &quot;play something funky you can dance too&quot; (?) etc, etc.

It's that &quot;NO COMPROMISES&quot; attitude we all have that needs to stand firm, brothers!



...It'd still be great to make some money from our &quot;knowledge&quot; though, rather than hacking day jobs.