From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V5 #207 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Monday, October 22 2001 Volume 05 : Number 207 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Re: In defense of SW's management and Response to Pitching [Simona Lobera] Re: In defense (a few comments) ["Ron Rosen" ] Re: Susan on Other Albums [Simona Loberant ] Susan's Fan Base [Rjabalos@aol.com] Re: Susan's Fan Base [charisse@pipeline.com] One more Susan-on-other-albums contribution [ImSerius2@aol.com] Management, etc. ["Sally Green" ] Re: Management, etc. ["Sally Green" ] Replaced - One more Susan-on-other-albums contribution ["Kellie lin Knott] management, et al.... [PBCoustic@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 04:32:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Simona Loberant Subject: Re: In defense of SW's management and Response to Pitching But > I've got to tell you that driving to 200 one night > stands a year gets really > old. Especially when lesser talented musicians seem > to be garnering all the > headlines and magazine coverage. ~~~ I guess the point I have been trying to make is that its not fair to criticize susan's management (or the managment of any other artist). I'm not going to claim to know SW in any way, but she does strike me as a highly intelligent woman and I would think that if she truly was unhappy with her manager she would find another. Susan's management is the same as Ani Difranco, Lucy Kaplansky, RIchard SHindell etc... None of these artists will ever make it truly big. Ani might be the biggest star at the management company and even she won't be as big as the not so talented Janet Jackson or her weird brother Micheal. Its totally a shame that less talented musicians get all the fame. N'Sync, Britney Spears and Mariah Carey don't hold a candle to artists like SW but even the biggest name in contemparary folk music Dar Williams will never in her whole career sell more than ten percent as many albums as Ms Mariah.... its a shame, but that's how it is. I got several private emails yesterday from people telling me that they have met or have dealt with Larry Goldfarb (SWs manager) and that he is a really nice guy. Perhaps it was not him who wanted the higher ticket prices (Usually her tix cost about 15 from what I have seen). And I know that Jane (her road manager) works practically for free and from what I have seen is very hardworking and dedicated to helping SW. This list should be about music, discussing SW's music and others in a similar genre. I have found that its a great place to make connectinos with people before a festival and a place to find other people to go to concerts with as well. It ruins the atmosphere of the list to have back and forth arguments about a situation for which we have little or no information on. I would say that you and others need to address your concerns with Laryy Goldfarb himself. Perhaps you can volunteer to help out in planning or booking or selling the CDs to local stores. I for one am going to email him and suggest that if he books Susan in Pittsburgh to try the Club Cafe (over Rosebud where she played last year when I did not live here) which is an intimate venue where I recently saw Dave and Tracy and Lucy K. I will reiterate that I truly think its a shame that talented musicians are not appreciated. I have two back home who I wish were more appreciated. And I know plenty of musicians who would kill for a manager who could get them 200 solo gigs a year. So, I have said my peace. I doubt that I need to post the same thing again. I am just a big believer in not cricizing something without all the infromationg availible. If anyone ever wants to see Susan perform in Pittsburgh they are welcome at my apartment as well as a free tour of the city courtesy of me and my station wagon. If anyone out there is going to see Susan perform at Tin Angel in PHilly this month and is driving from out of town and wants a road buddy email me privately b/c I would love to go but can't see driving all that way alone. ~Simona * Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 06:48:09 -0700 From: "Ron Rosen" Subject: Re: In defense (a few comments) > of these artists will ever make it truly big. Ani > might be the biggest star at the management company > and even she won't be as big as the not so talented > Janet Jackson or her weird brother Micheal. Michael is extremely talented. He has done some amazing things in the past. He just hasn't done much lately, and his weirdness keeps growing. > I got several private emails yesterday from people > telling me that they have met or have dealt with Larry > Goldfarb (SWs manager) and that he is a really nice > guy. I don't know any of the facts, but in the abstract there is no connection between someone being "nice" in a particular one-on-one situation and being an effective manager who is doing things that enhance a career or hold it back. If he is screwing up bookings, as Charisse described, it doesn't really matter if he's "nice." > This list should be about music, discussing SW's music > and others in a similar genre. It ruins the atmosphere of the > list to have back and forth arguments about a > situation for which we have little or no information > on. This list was extremely quiet until the other day, and I assume it will be again soon. Lists usually go beyond just the music. Susan's career and management is a relevant topic for the list. You should check out the Jefferson Airplane list where everything under the sun is discussed and even the rationality and sobriety of band members, some of whom are on the list, are discussed!! > selling the CDs to local stores. I for one am going to > email him and suggest that if he books Susan in > Pittsburgh to try the Club Cafe (over Rosebud where > she played last year when I did not live here) which > is an intimate venue where I recently saw Dave and > Tracy and Lucy K. You have to consider whether the club is large enough to sell sufficient tickets to pay an adequate fee. Then there is the question whether the fee should be adjusted to get a booking rather than have a dead night. There are all kinds of factors involved, and we have very limited information on which to determine whether her management is passing up good gigs for good or bad reasons. You can suggest anything you want to Larry, but you will never know what really happens after that. > back home who I wish were more appreciated. And I know > plenty of musicians who would kill for a manager who > could get them 200 solo gigs a year. It's Susan's talent and fan base that enables her to get those gigs. Her management does not make them appear out of thin air. Her management can enhance or screw things up around the edges, but they are not "responsible" for the 200 gigs. You are making very good points, Simona, but there is a degree of frustration with the fact that Susan doesn't have the record deal she should and some of the recognition she should, and I think this is an appropriate forum for expressing that. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 06:46:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Simona Loberant Subject: Re: Susan on Other Albums okay, this must be my week to post a lot.... but Ron forgot a great CD on his list. Susan sings a live version of the Baby Boomer song on a Christine Lavin compilation called "Follow that Road, the Second Annual Vineyard Retreat" This is where I first heard the musical stylings of the famous Ms. W and it features Ellis Paul, Jonathan Edwards, Buddy Mondlock, a Berryman's song, and lots of other great people. There are 2 CDs in this set and I think I paid only 18 dollars for it so it was a great deal. I also suggest any other of Christine Lavin's compilations (even if you don't like CL's music you have to admit that she has an amazing talent for finding talent and helping showcase it). ~SLL Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 09:48:37 EDT From: Rjabalos@aol.com Subject: Susan's Fan Base The time has come to separate Susan (who I love and support) from her management (which is poor and virtually nonexistent). An attack on Susan's management is not an attack on her. She has no bigger or more supportive fan in the world than me. But I'm a professional in the music business and I can attest that from all I see and hear she is being poorly served by her current representation. Examples? 1. For at least the third time in six years, she has no record deal. 2. She is forced into a relentless and grinding 200 date-a-year touring schedule and as any regular Susan concert fan knows not all of these dates are sell outs. Susan sings to a great many empty chairs sometimes. Susan may love to travel and tour but how many of you would want to spend that much time away from home, driving to and from bars and coffee houses and sleeping in motels, hoping to sell a couple dozen CDs out of the trunk of your car? And do it year after year after year? THE WALL STREET JOURNAL recently did an excellent piece on the economics of the struggling musician and the need for constant touring just to survive and I suggest anyone who thinks the touring life is glamorous should read it. 3. Other acts, including some that in the past opened for Susan (like Dar Williams) have gone on to greater success. I'm a huge Dar fan but her genius is not songwriting or performing but in marketing. Her management team knows how to not only please current fans of her music but constantly build a larger and more supportive fan base. Her cross-marketing and promotional efforts are brilliant. 4. Her current management has a poor reputation with those that deal with them and this affects Susan. Don't believe me. Speak to the bookers, venue operators, and others that deal with Susan's management and listen what they have to say. I think many of you would be shocked by what you hear. 5. Where are the efforts to get Susan new fans? Media appearances, marketing efforts, and the like? Someone in an email told me Susan needs a publicist. Of course she does! But isn't that what she's paying her current management to do? Publicity is their job and I would love to know what their current plan is for reaching out and expanding her fan base because I've been following her career for years and I don't see it. 6. Even the lack of marketing efforts to the members of the Believers list (her current fans) is startling, even criminal. We have waited more than three years for a new Susan CD and she could literally sell hundreds of copies in a matter of hours by opening up sales to this list TODAY. Instead, we have reports in postings that "Jane was happy to sell twelve copies" at a show and someone is forced to turn their hotel room into a UPS center mailing CDs to other fans. With all due respect, that is truly sad if it wasn't so surreal. The idea that withholding sales of this CD would "jeopardize efforts to sign Susan to a record deal" is absurd and contradicts all established negotiating strategies of the industry. Does Susan's management have so little faith in this CD that the sale of a few hundred copies to Susan's most die-hard fans would radically dilute future record company sales? If I am a record company executive, one of the first questions I would ask Susan's management about the new CD would be "HOW DO HER CURRENT FANS LIKE IT?" and their answer is the embarrassing "Well, we don't know because we really haven't been selling it to them." I could go on and on but the point is made. I love Susan and her music. I've seen her nearly three dozen times over the last six years. She's a joy to spend time with (especially drink beer with!) and a real unique gem of a performer. But her career is being mismanaged and has been for a long time now. As fans we really need to care for one major reason. I'm less concerned about Susan breaking out into the big leagues, playing large arenas at inflated ticket prices, than I am about her simply giving up the grind of the road, surrendering to the realization that she will always be a "tour to survive" musician, and maybe getting a non-performing job (like session work, writing songs for others, or teaching music) that allows her to have a real home life without all the stress. I know of so many other great musicians that started their careers with high aspirations and wound up driven from the business and that is our loss. I have openly criticized Susan's management for years. But all the screwed up circumstances surrounding the release of the new CD, especially not making it directly available to members of this list (like nearly every other performer with an Internet mailing list does) is the height of incompetence. AWFUL, truly awful. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 12:14:42 -0400 From: charisse@pipeline.com Subject: Re: Susan's Fan Base Well said... Charisse Rjabalos@aol.com wrote: > The time has come to separate Susan (who I love and support) from her management (which is poor and virtually nonexistent). An attack on Susan's management is not an attack on her. She has no bigger or more supportive fan in the world than me. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 13:19:34 EDT From: ImSerius2@aol.com Subject: One more Susan-on-other-albums contribution On one of the Big League Babe tribute CDs (other artists performing Christine Lavin's material, two volumes), Susan performs Christine's song 'Replaced' ...and if I had it in front of me, I could directly quote what Susan says about the song, but it's something like 'this song contains chord progressions that are banned in Iowa'. Susan does a beautiful cover of the song on piano. (I don't think Iowa's the state she refers to in the quote, but since I can't remember which one she DOES refer to, Iowa seemed like a worthy replacement - anyway, you get the idea) Suzie T HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 14:05:40 -0400 From: "Sally Green" Subject: Management, etc. Rjabalos@aol.com wrote: <<<<<3. Other acts, including some that in the past opened for Susan (like Dar Williams) have gone on to greater success. I'm a huge Dar fan but her genius is not songwriting or performing but in marketing. Her management team knows how to not only please current fans of her music but constantly build a larger and more supportive fan base. Her cross-marketing and promotional efforts are brilliant. >>>>>> I disagree that Dars genius is not songwriting or performing, because I think it is (and yes, she had great management and marketing in Young/Hunter and continues to have great mgt/mktng in AGF) but I shant go into it on the Susan Werner list <<<<<6. Even the lack of marketing efforts to the members of the Believers list (her current fans) is startling, even criminal. >>>>>> Using the word criminal is hyperbole, inaccurate, and inflammatory to boot. Anyway, I guess the proof will be in the pudding  whether Susan stays with her current management or whether she moves to someone else. One thing Id like to note is that from over six years of being on singer/songwriter discussion lists, sometimes fans have had a tendency in the past to be overly suspicious and critical of management, and to speculate about ulterior motives, and to be downright insulting and in my opinion, way out of line. (One such example is when Dar switched to AGF, and then again when the Limited Edition Green World was delayed in shipping.) Frankly, we dont know the whole story. Some might have more information than others, but what ever happened to the benefit of the doubt? There might be a lot of other things going on behind the scenes that we have no inkling of. Then again, there might not, but there might be. Its frustrating for me not to be able to buy the CD right now. However, I know that Ill be able to buy one at a show soon, and that if I couldnt get to a show, Ron Rosen or someone else would graciously have agreed to send me one. And it would be much more frustrating for me if I knew that the CD was finished but we couldnt get any of them at all due to Susans not having a record label. Im glad that at least we can buy them at shows. I think its fair to say that if we couldnt, there would be much griping and whining about that. - --Sally sallyagreen@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 14:14:08 -0400 From: "Sally Green" Subject: Re: Management, etc. I wrote: >I disagree that Dars genius is not songwriting or performing, because I ...the preceding message was brought to you by the Committee to Ban Apostrophe Usage. - --SAG _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 02:27:17 +0800 From: "Kellie lin Knott" Subject: Replaced - One more Susan-on-other-albums contribution suzie t said: > On one of the Big League Babe tribute CDs (other > artists performing Christine Lavin's material, two > volumes), Susan performs Christine's song 'Replaced' ... I have that CD too...and Susan's rendition of 'Replaced' is well worth a listen. Beautiful stuff - just solo piano and voice, as I remember... - -- HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 17:20:30 EDT From: PBCoustic@aol.com Subject: management, et al.... Interesting that this discussion comes out to accompany the CD with "Shade of Gray" on it.... Paul HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V5 #207 ******************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message