Gavin Wallace is a talented songwriter and singer with Glasgow alt-country band, the Scuffers. We found this article on MySpace and reproduce it with his permission. If you wish to comment on it then email
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I've been reading various newspaper articles and Alan McGee's blogs regarding giving away music for free and the end of record labels. Mr McGee believes that music will eventually be given away for nowt and bands will be able to make their money via gigs and merchandising. It seems the Charlatans and Radiohead are first up to offer their music. Great! Free songs!! Especially from such established bands!
Is it great though? Here we have two bands that've been on the go for years. Two bands who will sell out venues all over the country in the blinking of the eye and two bands who'll make a mint from merchandising, so recording an album and releasing it to the world without a record label is not a problem. What about the small bands? What happens to them without the financial help of a record label? Sure they can self finance an album and sure they can give it away for nothing but where does that leave them? My band has recently recorded an album. We financed it ourselves via gig money and money we've put in from our day jobs as we don't have the luxury of being able to pack them in just yet. We don't have the luxury of selling out venues up and down the country and we don't have the luxury of our songs being blasted out on radio 10 times a day or influential people telling everyone on MySpace that we're the coolest band around at the moment.
Surely without record labels and pluggers the small bands would never get their stuff played on radio? Surely being able to get yourself noticed would be a hell of a lot harder? Fair enough, bands like the Arctic Monkey's did it via MySpace but for every Artic Monkeys there are a thousand other good bands out there who just can't get a break. Bands that are skinning themselves to travel to play gigs to very few people and gigs in which they rarely get paid.
I remember watching an Oasis documentary in which they said they constantly played up and down the country after signing to Creation and often playing to no one but kept at it, up and down and back again until they were being noticed and venues became busier. How would this be possible for small bands with no financial help? How would the recording an album like 'Definitely Maybe' be possible without a record labels help? Noel Gallagher said that he will always respect Alan McGee for getting them to record the album several times, until it was just right (and quite rightly so) but how the hell would an unsigned band be able to finance the recording and re-recording of their album with the little money they've scrapped together from gigs? It's just impossible.
Now, without being able to get out there and get yourself noticed, you cannot generate a bigger fan base and cannot fill venues, so how can you then afford to put on shows, pay for promoting and pay for merchandise, which is supposed to generate money for you, now that you are giving your music away for nothing? 6 million friends on MySpace is all good and well but they ain't all going to travel to see you play some toilet in Glasgow.
Hat's off to Mr McGee as he certainly knows a lot more about this business than I do and hats off to the Charlatans and Radiohead for giving away their music for nowt whilst still coining it. Remember that this is money I'll have to weigh up and decide whether it should be spent on a gig ticket and t-shirt or save it to put towards my band's next album.
Spare a thought for the people who are still trying to make it and the people who've helped you get to where you are today. The gig attending, record buying public.
Article by Gavin Wallace
Bluesbunny comments:
There are some very valid points made here. The record business has been changed irretrievably by the Internet. An hour after a band release an album, it will have been ripped and made available from some shady servers on the Internet so you might as well give it away. Conventional outlets such as record shops are a dying breed. The major chains are unlikely to even consider stocking independent releases unless they hit that justifiably derided barometer of public taste known as the charts. As Bluesbunny knows only too well, there is so much to enjoy in music that is being produced by small independent bands and musicians but how can it be nurtured? Finding yourself in competition with an established band who can afford to give their music away must be disheartening. Perhaps this will lead us back to the business model of the earliest days of popular music where a small label would record a band, get some local sales and airplay and then license it to a larger label in the hope of finding that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. At the end of the day, the music business is just a business and therefore only motivated by profit. So next time you see a band or musician that you like in a pub or small venue then see if they have a CD for sale. A lot of them do. It will probably cost you less than that Cappuccino and Panini that you are enjoying whilst reading this in that Starbucks wireless hotpot. As any farmer knows, if you do not tend your crops, all you will have left is a barren field.