1 post tagged “old school”
Hello all,
Sorry for the lack of post of late, wanted to see how the discussions developed on my last post. I think the handbags have been put away now. ;-)
Anyhow, met a legal/development scout the other night. Went to Taro (my favourite) and the Sun and 13 in Soho. Had a really good chat and exchanged ideas on what's what and swapped band names. It was a bit like sticker collecting in school "Got...got...got...got.....NEED! got got....got...NEED!.
It was an interesting chat as she's the first person I've spoken to in her profession who's my age. Really knew her stuff too. What is really apparent in the industry today is the polarisation between the two schools of thought as regards the music business.
In very broad terms I'm referring to the new school and old school methods. Here's something controversial though. They both work well, currently. I'm talking breaking and developing bands early careers here.
In broad terms when I refer to old school I mean, find a band, give them a bit of money, get them in a studio, get them gigging, get radio pluggers and press people. Get album done, get good single and hot video, get music on radio backed with press and bingo, you may have a big success on your hands. This works really well though is quite capital intensive so has been the jurisdiction of the major labels until late. These methods are now being employed by non-music based companies such as starbucks and distributing the product themselves in some way. This method, irrespective of the new methods developing, will always be around to some degree.
The new school is simply everything available at budget/free of cost and easily available and controllable by artists or those supporting them. So this could start with finding a band, getting them recorded dirt cheap or using existing recordings of theirs, building a strong online presence in MySpace, YouTube, blog and their own bespoke page. Knock a video together with a handicam and series of vid pod casts to help the band along. Get stuff up on all mainstream digital distributors and promotional platforms - so get you stuff on LastFM, Pandora etc. Then start gigging your tits off outside London around various parts of the country to build little fanbases here and there. Make sure you brand every gig heavily, collect emails/myspaces using any incentives you can. After a while of this you can start joining the dots or fanbases around the country using your online stuff. Then the choice is up to you, to either start employing more oldschool methods if you're after chart success or international touring. Or develop a team/company/label around your band to enable you to sustain a self-sufficient business as a band, earning enough to make a living by doing the best job in the world.
In reality, everyone uses a combination of the two but I think it's interesting to think that currently there are two defined sides of a fence. More and more people are understanding the middle ground and realising that you can only dilute/influence established methods with new, not completely replace them.
I realised this after a few months working in this role I couldn't replace established methods with new ones. But I could fortify/augment and otherwise make stronger, faster, fitter, better, newer the activities as regards getting to new talent. It's still early days in all this gubbins. It will take years before truly established online processes take form in both artist development and A&R but it's interesting to be here now witnessing everything in its early stage and see its early successes.
I put a band into rehearsal at the Ritz on Saturday. I've never invested any money into an act before but I really believe this particular act is destined for very big things. So much so that I can't mention them yet until I know what's what. What I can say is at the band's heart is some of the strongest songwriting I've heard for ages and I think they could reach a similar scale to Coldplay because of the nature of the writing. I will get details out once everything is pointing in the right direction. Quite excited about it.
Anyway, as a favour please don't argue all over this post or I'll have to start authorising comments again which is a real ball-ache of a job to do. I'd prefer to keep this open.
Hope all is well with you.
