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| From | "Michael Carpenter" <stagefright@msn.com.au> |
| Subject | Re: emusic |
| Date | Sat, 12 May 2007 13:14:15 +1000 |
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I've had a busy few days, and have wanted to contribute to this discussion..
and then my name came up a few times, which i think is nice. I'll hit a few
of my thoughts in point form.
*The main thing that i think Adam objected to was when Bob stated something
along the lines of "i don't care what happens to the artist".. or something
like that. Now, even i was struck by the off handedness of this. I know Bob
a little. He's one of the biggest supporters of indie pop i've ever met..
i've met him at IPOs where he travelled almost as far as i did. He came to
my show in Edinburgh and is one of the most passionate indie types i know.
But Bob, even i was surprised by that comment. Sorry..
*This leads me to something Jaimie has been saying.. records aren't cheap to
make. And i look at this from many points of view, being a studio owner that
is JUST hanging on by the skin of his teeth to a business i've been building
for 16 years. The effect of their being no money on the backend for artists
these days is that people stop making records. It's that simple. People just
don't see the value in spending $8-10k on an album they can't sell. And
without a doubt, that is sending me to the poorhouse as a studio owner.
*Having said that, the hardest lesson i've had to learn is that no one makes
money out of CDs sales. At almost any level. Publishing? Yep. Placements?
Yep. Cd sales.. nope. Even if you tour hard, the costs of touring cancel out
the extra sales. So yes.. you'd better love what you're doing and have
another job to support your habit, because making money out of being an
indie original artist is impossible.
*Which leads me to the strange middle ground for artists like me, and
probably others on this list, and probably many others that this list has
supported. I know that releasing my debut album at 32 years of age was
always going to make it tough to build anything. By the time i started to
get a very little thing going, i was married, had my studio, and now have my
kid. My little fanbase has either disappeared or has lost interest or can
wait and get my album on Emusic in a year's time. So there's almost no way i
can afford to make records of my own. There's just no reason other than
indulgent ones. Even though i have my own studio, records are still
"expensive" to make... every day i work on my stuff is a day i'm not doing a
paid gig, and frankly, like many others, i can't afford to make my own
records.
*I've ALWAYS had a problem with the relative value of music. The first IPO i
came home with 100 CDs people gave me, and even then it was impossible to
wade through, so many just got binned. After that i hated getting freebies.
Just yesterday, i went through my CD collection and purged almost half of it
to go to the second hand store, and binned another third as stuff i will
NEVER get to. It actually upset me greatly... to the point where i'm having
serious thoughts about the way i consume music. I was putting albums that i
couldn't wait to get, and paid top dollar for being put in the pile that i
was going to get $.50 for. It did my head in.. knowing how expensive some of
these albums were to make. I'd be surprised if i EVER buy another CD again
after that experience, which upset me tremendously, because...
*People like Jaimie, Ray at Kool Kat and Bruce at Not Lame, and many many
others need us!! I know that many of these wonderful people are right on the
edge, trying to figure out how to feed their families in the middle of this
revolution. I don't have any answers, because as you can tell, i'm as
confused as the next guy! But i know the effects these people drying up has
on my studio business, and that scares me. So there's definitely a trickle
down effect from places like Emusic..
*Finally (i think).. i know much of this is extremely contradictory. I'm not
actually critical of Emusic at all.. i know my stuff is up there. (The only
reason i'm not subscribed now is because i hate that if i don't stay
vigilant my monthly downloads would lapse.. why can't they just roll them
over every month? Or give me the option to pay as i go?) But i'm not sure i
know any other industry where the costs to create something have become so
out of whack with the value attached at the end. THAT freaks me out.
*Sorry.. one more thing. I think i'm mostly upset, still, about the uproar
over David Grahame selling his songs for $2. To me, it's like boutique
effects pedals.. they're expensive because they're handmade and there's a
built in value (that word again) This is like boutique music. I guess there
are people out there who 'get it' and others who just wanna get whatever
they can for as little as possible. I'd like to think i could make my new
album available directly from my site, with downloadable artwork for $18 and
people would still buy it. i guess i'll find out when i get around to doing
a new album, because i doubt there'll be CDs made of it.
MC
www.mcarp.com
www.lovehzstudios.com
www.myspace.com/michaelcarpenter
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