From: owner-octoroon-digest@smoe.org (octoroon-digest) To: octoroon-digest@smoe.org Subject: octoroon-digest V2 #39 Reply-To: octoroon@smoe.org Sender: owner-octoroon-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-octoroon-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk octoroon-digest Wednesday, March 31 1999 Volume 02 : Number 039 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [octoroon] Northampton [Stacey & Chris Phillips ] Re: [octoroon] Their loss [griffin@cam.nist.gov (Terence Griffin)] [octoroon] Mercury news from SXSW [Deb ] [octoroon] Mercury news from SXSW [Deb ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 23:38:11 -0500 From: Stacey & Chris Phillips Subject: [octoroon] Northampton Just got home from experiencing LL in Noho with my wife, our soon to be born child (3 weeks away!) and two friends. Wow. The thing that most amazes me as usual is all that energy she has on stage. No stupid record company is going to stop this music from reaching the ears of those who appreciate such fantastic music. When LL did Mahbootay, It killed me to see this little girl, not much more than 10 turn around and point to her posterior as the lyrics ran 'I watch it , I watch it growing' - let's hope she takes this wonderful concert experience with her through the years to come. Remember girl, if it gives you pleasure, watch it grow. Don't let the big rock stars make you think you have to have a skinny little butt to be liked. Good night, Chrisp. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 10:31:47 -0500 (EST) From: griffin@cam.nist.gov (Terence Griffin) Subject: Re: [octoroon] Their loss LB1823@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 3/29/99 5:15:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, > indigo@mindspring.com writes: > > << As if to prove your theory, check out the new > ! >> > > It's a little confusing, because the > URL:http://www.mercuryrecords.com/mercury/home.html still lists Laura as one > of their artists..... Yeah, they list her as an artist, but they haven't updated her page or listed her under new release. I find this *in*consistent, from a bottom line point of view. You'd think after they'd invested in recording two records with her, that they'd want to get as much out of them as possible. And the web is one of the cheapest ways of advertising. www.mercuryrecords.com goes to www.polygram.com. Every link is biz oriented! Try out the cool search feature :} Oh borther! OTOH, www.mercuryrecords.com/mercury and www.polygram-us.com *are* much more artist oriented. However even here, there are some broken links (try Tour Dates...). The disparity in these three sites, leaves me with the feeling that they don't have their do-do together, organizationally. I'm left to wonder how that impacts the bottom line and if they aren't cutting artists to compensate for the own ineptitude. I think, on balance, she is lucky to be off Mercury. Independence does not *have* to equate to obscurity. - Tere (terence.griffin@nist.gov) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 13:11:20 -0500 From: Deb Subject: [octoroon] Mercury news from SXSW >Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 19:45:21 -0800 (PST) >From: epulse mailing list >To: epulse-L@sna.com >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Reply-To: epulse@sna.com > >epulse 5.13 [sxsw] >___________________________ >MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS > >SXSW Diary Part 1: A portrait of the state of the music business > >By Jackson Griffith > >Initial reports coming out of this year's South by Southwest music >festival in Austin, Texas, (March 17-21) commented on the pall-like >atmosphere of the proceedings. Yes, the "vibe" of the affair was decidedly >different; past years have seen an escalating major-label presence, with >ever-present label "weasels" competing to sign even the most pedestrian of >independent music artists. >Then the train wreck hit. Seagram's purchase and merger of the MCA and >PolyGram music groups, with a subsequent "downsizing" (no more A&M, Geffen >or Mercury labels, plenty of long-time label staffers out of jobs), was >the most graphic denouement of the corporate politics that have consumed >the music industry in recent years. The opening SXSW panel, on Thursday >morning following Lucinda Williams' keynote address, attempted to grapple [Williams was also on Mercury] >with the new realities of the global music business. Panelists included >deposed A&M CEO Al Cafaro, Los Angeles Times music-biz writer Chuck >Phillips, attorney Rosemary Carroll (who's married to another executive >deposed in the Seagram putsch, Mercury chairman/CEO Danny Goldberg), >record producer/Blue Oyster Cult lyricist Sandy Pearlman (now A&R VP at a >new online music venture, GoodNoise), with Reprise Records' president >Howie Klein in the moderator's chair. Also on the panel -- titled "Wall >Street and the Music Industry: Like Oil and Water?" -- was an investment >banker, Michael Nathanson, who seemed more simpatico with the Four Seasons >lobby-lounge crowd than with the suits. Essentially, the conclusion >reached was that record companies shouldn't be components of publicly >traded entertainment leviathans, and that when they are, all pretensions >of "artist development" go out the window, replaced by the kind of >profit-churning foist-rock and fast-buck pop acts we've seen in recent >years. > >But that's only part of the problem. Sure, the labels have front-loaded >record retailers with a lot of marginal records. But rock's hegemony is >dying, if not already dead; it's no longer the engine that drives the >music business. The current generation of kids and teens, which the music >biz needs to convert into active record buyers if it is to maintain its >current scale, has begun to assert its aesthetic sense on the market, and >its tastes seem geared more toward hip-hop and r&b than rock-derived >forms. > >So part of the pall over SXSW was that everyone knew the game is over, but >everyone is so heavily vested in the ongoing success of rock music -- >economically, emotionally, nostalgically -- that few have the courage to >admit that rock's cultural relevance has slipped rather precipitously. One >veteran writer I respect (whom I choose not to name) practically ripped my >lungs out when I offered the opinion expressed above. "Don't go there!" he >shrieked, backing it up with a wild-eyed look that promised impending >fisticuffs if I'd elected to belabor my point. Of course, the upside of >rock becoming another sub-mainstream aesthetic, like jazz or blues, is >that this may infuse the music with a new creative edge, as musicians -- >freed from the onus put on them by keeping their contracts with >bottom-line-obsessed majors -- begin to make challenging and satisfying >recordings. > >The other threat, which is getting a lot of press, is downloadable music >files. Record companies that have built empires on maintaining the >integrity of the album (in vinyl, then CD formats) are running scared, as >the development of Internet-distribution technologies threaten to supplant >the old distributor-as-gatekeeper pushing hard goods to retail model. But >will it? In many ways, the major distributors have created their current >set of problems. CDs are still priced at close to double what vinyl albums >cost, and the big labels pretty much killed off the singles market. Retail >budgets get chewed up buying front-loaded product, which gets rack space >at the expense of more organically developed indie acts and esoteric >titles. So who's to blame music fans for looking online when they can't >find what they want in the stores? (At the other end of the equation, >there are artists signed to majors who, it can be argued, probably make as >much in royalties -- apres "recoupables" -- as they make from pirated MP3 >files, but that's another story.) > >Still, conventional wisdom says that people still like to hang out in >record stores, and they still enjoy the fetishism of buying, owning and >playing records. But there's a young, computer-literate generation that >isn't conditioned to think of its music as an album consumed in entirety. >And many of its members' experience of enjoying music involves pointing >and clicking a mouse to retrieve single tracks. > >It all comes down to the concept of ownership versus access. And if at >some point in the future the majority of music buyers convert their habits >from buying CDs to downloading (or streaming) tracks or albums on demand, >then what every record company, major and indie, will become is >essentially a database. Then, what's to stop the powers that be at Seagram >(or Sony, or Warner, or Bertelsmann, or whoever buys EMI) to unload their >catalogs to, say, Microsoft, and opt out of the music biz entirely? > >Which is a long-winded way of saying that the over-arching "vibe" of this >year's SXSW was decidedly -- and, to this observer -- refreshingly >different. Fewer cell-phone-wielding philistines cutting into line for >breakfast at Las Manitas, fewer weasels on the prowl at indie-act >showcases and fewer oleaginous types in turbo-schmooze mode at the >convention center helped create a much more relaxed atmosphere for >enjoying music and people. Yeah, there were a few frightening foists >(L.A.-based singer Viveka Davis, anyone?) and a few big event nights (Jeff >Beck at La Zona Rosa on Wednesday, Tom Waits at the Paramount Theatre on >Saturday) that weren't exactly peak moments of novelty -- although Waits >put on a great show. But seeing signed acts like New York junk-rock band >Grand Mal tear it up, or witnessing the second coming of Pink Floyd during >Mercury Rev's set (which followed a brilliant Brian Wilson-esque turn from >Grandaddy) more than made up for them. As for unknowns, Jackpot, a trio >from Sacramento, unleashed a winning set of No Depression-style >alt-country; Jackpot singer Rusty Miller was the closest thing to the >reincarnation of Gram Parsons in town. > >Too bad about the end of the world as we knew it, though. [!] >___________________________ >THE FINE PRINT > >Who, what, where, when, how and more boring, legal stuff > >epulse is the weekly ezine published by Tower Records/Video. > >To subscribe to epulse, send the message "subscribe epulse-L" >to the address: majordomo@sna.com. Tell your friends. > >To stop receiving epulse, send the message "unsubscribe epulse-L" >to the address: majordomo@sna.com. > >If you have difficulty doing either, send an email to the editor >at epulse@sna.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 14:40:47 -0500 From: Deb Subject: [octoroon] Mercury news from SXSW >Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 19:45:21 -0800 (PST) >From: epulse mailing list >To: epulse-L@sna.com >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Reply-To: epulse@sna.com > >epulse 5.13 [sxsw] >___________________________ >MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS > >SXSW Diary Part 1: A portrait of the state of the music business > >By Jackson Griffith > >Initial reports coming out of this year's South by Southwest music >festival in Austin, Texas, (March 17-21) commented on the pall-like >atmosphere of the proceedings. Yes, the "vibe" of the affair was decidedly >different; past years have seen an escalating major-label presence, with >ever-present label "weasels" competing to sign even the most pedestrian of >independent music artists. >Then the train wreck hit. Seagram's purchase and merger of the MCA and >PolyGram music groups, with a subsequent "downsizing" (no more A&M, Geffen >or Mercury labels, plenty of long-time label staffers out of jobs), was >the most graphic denouement of the corporate politics that have consumed >the music industry in recent years. The opening SXSW panel, on Thursday >morning following Lucinda Williams' keynote address, attempted to grapple [Williams was also on Mercury] >with the new realities of the global music business. Panelists included >deposed A&M CEO Al Cafaro, Los Angeles Times music-biz writer Chuck >Phillips, attorney Rosemary Carroll (who's married to another executive >deposed in the Seagram putsch, Mercury chairman/CEO Danny Goldberg), >record producer/Blue Oyster Cult lyricist Sandy Pearlman (now A&R VP at a >new online music venture, GoodNoise), with Reprise Records' president >Howie Klein in the moderator's chair. Also on the panel -- titled "Wall >Street and the Music Industry: Like Oil and Water?" -- was an investment >banker, Michael Nathanson, who seemed more simpatico with the Four Seasons >lobby-lounge crowd than with the suits. Essentially, the conclusion >reached was that record companies shouldn't be components of publicly >traded entertainment leviathans, and that when they are, all pretensions >of "artist development" go out the window, replaced by the kind of >profit-churning foist-rock and fast-buck pop acts we've seen in recent >years. > >But that's only part of the problem. Sure, the labels have front-loaded >record retailers with a lot of marginal records. But rock's hegemony is >dying, if not already dead; it's no longer the engine that drives the >music business. The current generation of kids and teens, which the music >biz needs to convert into active record buyers if it is to maintain its >current scale, has begun to assert its aesthetic sense on the market, and >its tastes seem geared more toward hip-hop and r&b than rock-derived >forms. > >So part of the pall over SXSW was that everyone knew the game is over, but >everyone is so heavily vested in the ongoing success of rock music -- >economically, emotionally, nostalgically -- that few have the courage to >admit that rock's cultural relevance has slipped rather precipitously. One >veteran writer I respect (whom I choose not to name) practically ripped my >lungs out when I offered the opinion expressed above. "Don't go there!" he >shrieked, backing it up with a wild-eyed look that promised impending >fisticuffs if I'd elected to belabor my point. Of course, the upside of >rock becoming another sub-mainstream aesthetic, like jazz or blues, is >that this may infuse the music with a new creative edge, as musicians -- >freed from the onus put on them by keeping their contracts with >bottom-line-obsessed majors -- begin to make challenging and satisfying >recordings. > >The other threat, which is getting a lot of press, is downloadable music >files. Record companies that have built empires on maintaining the >integrity of the album (in vinyl, then CD formats) are running scared, as >the development of Internet-distribution technologies threaten to supplant >the old distributor-as-gatekeeper pushing hard goods to retail model. But >will it? In many ways, the major distributors have created their current >set of problems. CDs are still priced at close to double what vinyl albums >cost, and the big labels pretty much killed off the singles market. Retail >budgets get chewed up buying front-loaded product, which gets rack space >at the expense of more organically developed indie acts and esoteric >titles. So who's to blame music fans for looking online when they can't >find what they want in the stores? (At the other end of the equation, >there are artists signed to majors who, it can be argued, probably make as >much in royalties -- apres "recoupables" -- as they make from pirated MP3 >files, but that's another story.) > >Still, conventional wisdom says that people still like to hang out in >record stores, and they still enjoy the fetishism of buying, owning and >playing records. But there's a young, computer-literate generation that >isn't conditioned to think of its music as an album consumed in entirety. >And many of its members' experience of enjoying music involves pointing >and clicking a mouse to retrieve single tracks. > >It all comes down to the concept of ownership versus access. And if at >some point in the future the majority of music buyers convert their habits >from buying CDs to downloading (or streaming) tracks or albums on demand, >then what every record company, major and indie, will become is >essentially a database. Then, what's to stop the powers that be at Seagram >(or Sony, or Warner, or Bertelsmann, or whoever buys EMI) to unload their >catalogs to, say, Microsoft, and opt out of the music biz entirely? > >Which is a long-winded way of saying that the over-arching "vibe" of this >year's SXSW was decidedly -- and, to this observer -- refreshingly >different. Fewer cell-phone-wielding philistines cutting into line for >breakfast at Las Manitas, fewer weasels on the prowl at indie-act >showcases and fewer oleaginous types in turbo-schmooze mode at the >convention center helped create a much more relaxed atmosphere for >enjoying music and people. Yeah, there were a few frightening foists >(L.A.-based singer Viveka Davis, anyone?) and a few big event nights (Jeff >Beck at La Zona Rosa on Wednesday, Tom Waits at the Paramount Theatre on >Saturday) that weren't exactly peak moments of novelty -- although Waits >put on a great show. But seeing signed acts like New York junk-rock band >Grand Mal tear it up, or witnessing the second coming of Pink Floyd during >Mercury Rev's set (which followed a brilliant Brian Wilson-esque turn from >Grandaddy) more than made up for them. As for unknowns, Jackpot, a trio >from Sacramento, unleashed a winning set of No Depression-style >alt-country; Jackpot singer Rusty Miller was the closest thing to the >reincarnation of Gram Parsons in town. > >Too bad about the end of the world as we knew it, though. [!] >___________________________ >THE FINE PRINT > >Who, what, where, when, how and more boring, legal stuff > >epulse is the weekly ezine published by Tower Records/Video. > >To subscribe to epulse, send the message "subscribe epulse-L" >to the address: majordomo@sna.com. Tell your friends. > >To stop receiving epulse, send the message "unsubscribe epulse-L" >to the address: majordomo@sna.com. > >If you have difficulty doing either, send an email to the editor >at epulse@sna.com. ------------------------------ End of octoroon-digest V2 #39 *****************************