Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Yeah, but I could make an argument for discontinuing it, especially in
view of the amount of abuse that occurred. 
  

    
gans:
>Record companies used to invest in tour support, because they knew
>that getting a band out on the road was the best way to sell records.

ward:
>Yeah, but I could make an argument for discontinuing it, especially
>in view of the amount of abuse that occurred. 

Uh, rodewald and i like to have a good time out there but "Hammer of
the Gods" it aint. Although its true in a hotel room we once watched
detachedly while 3 teenaged goldfish engaged in what looked to be
semi-lude behaviour with a well hung seahorse as we sipped, in a
determindly Huymansesque fashion, warm champagne left in our dressing
room by an ex-Thompson Twins roadie, theres a big difference between
"too much" money and "just enough." 

When you look at some of the things record companies GLADLY spend
money on you begin to see how incomprehensible it is that paying for
tour support is viewed as a "difficult" issue.

before this circular agrument makes me dizzy lemme just say that it is
the record company's job to provide tour support simply because
touring sells records and record companies are in the business of
selling records. i can take it no further than that.

Oh, our manager is named Chris Carter. He used to play in Dramarama
and is currently the Wondermints manager as well as the host of the
very popular Breakfast w/ the Beatles radio show. Hes also the guy to
go to if you ever need to hear the Bolivian reel to reel version of All
Things Must Pass...first printing....with the green smudge... on the
lower right hand corner.........
  

    
Never thought of you as the room-destroying type, but all I meant was
that big-time record company support for touring was abused by some,
and, I think, by enough that having it as a universal policy might not
be a great idea for a company. On the other hand, you've got a point,
particularly for a small or mid-level label, saying that a certain
amount of support at least makes an artist visible. At least they're
not, as you sort of obliquely noted, underwriting "independent
promotion." But then, you're obviously not aiming for the Top 40,
either. 
  

    

Tour support comes in many flavors.  The old-school model of paying
the expenses obviously doesn't pay out for the labels or they'd
continue doing so.  There is a logistical tour support model that does
move product off the shelves, and some labels do it for some artists.

This consists of using in-studio appearances, backstage passes, comps
-- and the threat of withholding same -- to armwrestle PDs into
playlisting and spinning an artist's releases.  Obviously, this only
applies to artists whose released product fits into well-defined
popular formats.  I'm guessing Stew doesn't fall into this category. 
:-)

That said, it's something he or his minions could do on a smaller
scale.  In every market, there's a station that could conceivably play
TNP.  Maybe it's a "community-supported" station, or maybe it's a
college station.  The local promoter should know, and should try to
arrange an on-air opportunity, even if it's only a phoner.  An in-store
appearance at a local indie record shop is also good.  It can help put
butts in chairs, and it can help sell records.  Not on any massive
scale, of course, but every little bit helps, no?
  

    
See, I don't see that as tour support, but promotion and publicity.
Tour support, as I understand it, involves spending cash on the band's
tour: underwriting the bus or accommodations, giving out a per diem,
and so on. Arranging personal appearances and press stuff comes under
publicity, and getting airplay is promotion. What you're talking about
comes under the sort of grey cloud of "artist development." 

As for your behavior in hotels, Stew, you guys strike me as the sort
of nice people who make the bed before you leave. 

Just kidding! 
  

    

What Ed is describing is what is known as "tour support" in the record 
industry.
  

    
>Tour support, as I understand it, involves spending cash on the
>band's tour: underwriting the bus or accommodations, giving out a per
>diem,

I understand, but that just doesn't happen anymore.  To at least
*coordinate* the J&A effort with a planned tour is still being done,
sometimes, for those few top-draw acts that can generate strong sales
during an appearance.

I wouldn't expect labels to underwrite or subsidize tours anymore,
even though touring can drive sales.  The beancounters have done their
cost-benefit analysis, and it just doesn't pencil.

Martin Medeski and Wood are the poster children for the current model;
relentless touring, living in the van, selling records at shows until
you hit some mythical "units sold" redline, *then* get signed.  As it
happens, Blue Note (the label MMW signed with) *does* furnish some tour
support, of a kind.  They run label showcase tours, but these are
typically stripped-down regionalized barnstorming affairs.  They put
Patricia Barber, Charlie Hunter, and Kurt Elling out on tour not too
long ago.  Each artist got to take one (1) sideman, and the whole show
only had three techs.  That's "tour support" in the 21st century, alas.
  

    

>the whole show only had three techs.

For those artists (jazz players, who usually work in intimate
configurations by choice, using minimal gear, and who have already
worked together a lot), why would they *need* more than three techs?
House sound, monitor mixer and someone to run lights (which in the case
of these acts, pretty much reduces to "turning them on"). It makes total
sense, economic and otherwise, for them to pool resources. And Blue Note
has done a far better job of promoting those packages than most labels
-- generous media buys in every market, well-targeted radio promo and
lots of street level stuff (flyering and direct mail). Nothing
lamentable about that kind of support at all.

The MMW story isn't quite right, either. They weren't exactly an
unsigned act, touring on their own and selling their little homemade
records on the road before they got with Blue Note. They were with
Gramavison, which was, at least, *trying* to be a real label at the
time, before it fell into disarray, and which had decent national
distribution through Rykodisc, and MMW was pretty much the label's
one jewel-in-the-crown while they were there (in part because their
producer at the time was also president of Gramavision). The relentless-
touring part of the tale is certainly true, but they are also a bit of
an anomaly there, as their fortunes improved dramatically when they
became one of the favorite bands of mass-cult darlings Phish, and
were able, in no small part due to that association, to make the jump to
thousand-plus capacity venues.

To pick another small nit -- Blue Note was also just a stepping-stone
for MMW. They are now with one of the hippest labels around (not that
Blue Note is chopped liver in the hipness dept.), the Atlantic-
distributed Ropeadope Records, which has a well-deserved reputation for
artist-friendliness.
  

    
(Lenny W = Lenny Waronker?)
  

    
Yup. 
  

    

Ropeadope is DJ Logic's label, isn't it?
  

    

It is. Also home to Sex Mob, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, The Yohimbe
Brothers (Vernon Reid and Logic's collaborative effort) and, as of their
superb new release, Tin Hat Trio.

BTW, Stew, I *loved* your description of your and Heidi's equivalent of
"Hammer of the Gods"-like behavior in #227! Goldfish-seahorse voyeurism!
Scandalous!
  

    

>why would they *need* more than three techs?

Wasn't saying they would.  Only pointing out that for a label to
provide *any* tour support, it's going to be a very austere program.

As for MMW, it was their sell-through at shows (net of whatever
Gramavision may have shipped) that brought them to the attention of
Blue Note.

>not that Blue Note is chopped liver

You got that right!
  

    

Vernon Reid has become very active again suddenly. Or maybe I'm just
becoming aware of it. I've been seeing his name all over the place in the
jamband scene (which doesn't surprise me). He fell off the radar for a very
long time.
  

    
Kind of an off-the-wall comment, but last night I was listening to
another famous Angeleno and Negro problem, Charles Mingus, and it
occurred to me that in the way he presented his own idiosyncratic
vision of the music he was supposed to be playing -- "jazz" -- and his
insistence on working with his fine musicians on doing it just his way,
he wound up with a music that was rooted in the past but very much a
part of the present. Totally different people, Mingus and Stew, and no
question which one I'd rather have to deal with in a professional
sense, but there seemed to me to be a lot of parallels in the end
product. 
  

    

Hey, Stew, is you as CRAZY as Charles Mingus?
  

    
Which is what I meant about who I'd rather work with. Stew also
reminds me just a tad of Jerry Williams, Jr., a/k/a Swamp Dogg, the
bard of Chatsworth and the only black songwriter ever to win a Country
Music Association Song of the Year award, much to his surprise. Do you
know, or are you aware of Mr. Dogg? 
  

    

I'd always heard Mingus was crazy to work with, too, but the other night I 
talked with a longtime associate of Teo Macero, who said Macero always 
said (which means if you tell a friend you'll be telling them something a 
friend told you that a friend told him that Teo Macero said) that Mingus 
was a complete sweetheart.
  

    
He's a hero of mine, but I gotta say reading Gene Santorino's
biography made me glad I never had to do anything but listen to his
music. The book's not perfect, but I do believe a lot of the first-hand
stories in it. 
  

    
I was just reading the book on the making of "Kind of Blue" and Teo
Macero seems to have been well loved in the jazz community, which might
explain why Mingus seemed a sweetheart to him. He'd likely say the same
thing about Miles Davis, who others found impenetrable and rude.
  

    

I suspect that Mingus fits Zoot Sims' famous description of Stan Getz --
"a nice bunch of guys." Meaning that you could never be quite sure which
of his multiple and wildly disparate personalities was gonna show up.
Obviously, Mingus could be a scary, physically threatening guy -- he
did, after all, slug one of his sidemen, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, in
the chops. On the bandstand. In the middle of a set. And there are other
tales of his getting violently physical with musical associates
(including Jackie McLean), club owners and even audience members. But
there is an equal amount of anecdotal evidence of Mingus as tender,
sentimental and hugely generous. And a lot of the people with whom he
had the most volatile relationships kept coming back to him (including
Knepper, who still hasn't forgiven Mingus for punching him out, but
frequently returned to his employ nonetheless, and who likens their
association to a dysfunctional romance).
  

    

Mingus himself spoke of there being three Minguses.
  

    
"I am half black man, half yellow man, but I claim to be a Negro. I am
Charles Mingus, the famed jazz musician--but not famed enough to make a
living in America."

There's a great bio of Mingus, _Triumph of the Underdog_, available on DVD. 
He was complex. He was a sweetie and a PITA. He had love and he had rage... 
but most of all he had genius.
  

    
total nonsequitor moment--I just gotta say, before stew checks out, that
"The Negro Problem" is one of the best band names of all time, hands down.
  

    
Yeah, where is the lad, anyway? (Going off to look)