Major Recording Labels and ClearChannel Practice Death-Rattles

KXS May2k4

“Rise!   Storm those shiny buildings lashed together from the sweat of indebted artists!   Strike down the ignorant swine who’ve foisted the likes of Toto, Milli Vannili, and Jessica Simpson upon us!   Yes, blast their sanctuaries to flush them out into night where we’ll smite them all by torchlight before they can slip back into the darkness!   Destroy everything of theirs that’s large with sentimental value!   Pawn their nice watches and sell their Beamers to chop shops and run to your favorite record store to finish the job!”     – Earl ‘Top’ Slayton (30 feet from a boogie fever cum hip-hop cover band inside The Palms)

Well, ET was completely wasted when he said that, but he was right, in a large and important way.   The consortium of major recording labels and FCC supported broadcasting stations have poured too much shit content into our ears and minds.   They are the practitioners of sonic scheisse … auteurs of the dookie way.   Now, they must absorb the inevitable blowback from a market waking up to the possibilities of choice.

Earlier that night, a few hours before Earl’s last tantrum of our Vegas weekend, three of us, ET, Balke, and me, were playing a round of Ghetto Stud Poker.   Our forth wheel, Mitz, was wrapping his day at the Las Vegas Convention Center…smiling and shaking hands with all who came within twenty feet of his company’s booth.   We all had a suite about three-hundred feet above The Strip. Mitz was in a special hell at the convention—try being super social off two hours of sleep, with a screaming hangover, and no drug delivery till after dinner.   The rest of us were drinking and listening to the inane jibberish of Ja Rule for the fourth time that weekend, talking about the need for a booze run.  

Suddenly ET called the offending radio station.

“Stop playing the same goddamned 20 songs!”   He screamed.   “Or what?”   ET gritted his teeth as the unfortunate lackey on the other end, who probably, hopefully, hated this music as much as we did, said something that ET couldn't accept.   “I know where your station is, asshole!”

ET clicked his mobile and addressed us.   “He could’ve said ‘management makes me do it, it’s a goddamn shame.’   But no, he tells me to sleep it off.   I’m in Vegas!   You sleep off Vegas someplace else.”  

ET grabbed his laptop and connected it to his mobile.   Within a minute he was tearing through the terra bitmap, finding all the particulars he could about this Saturday afternoon guy at KWAC-fm.   He mined information for a few minutes, muttering threats we couldn’t quite decipher.

“I’ll do the goddamned beer run,” ET said, shutting down the laptop.   "I gotta make some calls from outside this building."

The four of us had decided many weeks before to hit Vegas for a three day weekend, to hang out, gamble, get in a couple rounds of golf, and catch the Valour Deathtrap at some dive hall over on the old strip.   Mitz’ software development firm was paying for our suite, and they were throwing a serious party at The Palms on Saturday night.   Mitz had snagged passes for us.   It was set up to be a carefree weekend of mobility, bliss, and the drunken high art of striking golfballs authoritatively while not falling from the swing.

We checked in early Thursday evening to discover that ET had nothing to hook up to his laptop music library, and his puny 1watt computer speakers were, of course, useless. Despite promises of the contrary, our suite did not have a boss stereo system with digital and line inputs, just one alarm clock radio…with a busted dial set to a contemporary hits station. No problem, we figured.   It was a sign that we should do more outside stuff, and we looked forward to that.   But mother nature decided to test us.   Within a couple hours of check-in, the skies darkened, and an annoying cold mist of rain fell across the city, backed by 30mph winds…such are the varieties of springtime in Vegas.   It stayed that was all weekend.   

So we asked the front desk for a stereo system.   No can do.   A radio alarm with a functioning dial?   “The hotel is full and we have no extras.”   We debated, briefly, about buying a radio or a boombox and decided against it.   No one wanted to deal with it, and besides, rain be damned, we wouldn’t spend that much time in the room.

And for the most part that idea worked out.   But when you are forced to stay inside on a Vegas weekend, meaning inside the casino-vacuum, you’re going to drink, gamble, and god knows what else.   Thus you're also going to lose a lot of money, which, after a couple days, magnifies the little inconveniences of life.   From Thursday evening till Saturday afternoon, we had, individually and collectively been exposed to deadly levels of gaseous top-forty musical waste from the present and past, from many casino and cabbie sound systems.   Finally, being hit with that exact same vibe in our room, from our clock radio, stuck forever on one station with a playlist shorter than our President’s attention span, became too much.

Imagine our surprise and feelings of joy when the playlist pattern was broken while ET was on the beer run.   The DJ, as though experiencing A Christmas Carol epiphany, played exotic muses to environmental degradation and something that sounded damn close to Tuva Throat Singing.   It lasted for about thirty minutes, with not a peep from the DJ.   Half-way through the imaginative set, ET came back to our suite with two cases of Fat Tire.   He sat the beers down, and for a moment listened intently to the clock radio.

“That’s a deep cut for sure,” ET said, opening a case.   “When is Mitz getting back here, I want see what The Palms has to offer us tonight.”   The Palms, of course, offered more crap, except it was live crap, and ET wound up saying some very dark things in his very loudest voice.   ET was kicked out.   We followed him out into the rain, because we all knew that he was right.

The commercial recording industry is on the wrong side of history.   Almost everyone aside from industry lifers has picked up on this.   Widespread broadband and quality compression methods mixed with search engines and sneaky file-sharing schemes have made it easy to sample and download anything anyone might ever want to hear. From the net straight to your local hard drive, onto your preferred music device, and out the door without any hassles, lame commercials, or record clerks acting super bitter cause their meth dealer got pinched the night before.

More importantly, the digital audio revolution has been a boon to creativity.   If possible, check out Dj Dangermouse’s mix album, which combines the sounds and beats of the Beatles White Album with Jay-Z’s rhymes from his Black Album.   It’s one of the best albums of 2004, wholly original despite its origins and quite unavailable from a record store, online or brick.

The corporate skanks scream copyright infringement, even though The Grey Album sounds almost nothing like the White Album or the Black Album.   In fact, a first year music student could argue more forcefully that early Rolling Stones sounds more like Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson.   So who’s copying, and who’s getting screwed?   Anyway.

Ultra modernity has crushed our attention spans but diversified our sense of adventure. That means we’ll give just about any content that crosses our face ten seconds of our divided attention. Ten killer seconds will hook us for a minute, and a stellar minute puts us under the hypnotic sway of the artist…emails to friends, wondering when they're going to his Bottom of the Hill or Cafe DuNord, helping a talent pay the bills...all without the interventions of scheming suits who get high comparing their Volvo audio systems outside the Crate and Barrel.  

It's definitely more work when a talent decides to leave the corporate hands empty, but the ultimate payoff, in karma, conscience, and the beauty of being able to look your slow-building fanbase straight in the eye for an entire career can be, well, awfully rewarding.   That’s what Fugazi did with their Dischord label almost 20 years ago, DYI to the hilt.   They stayed away from the A&R tools, did it themselves, and they’re not attached to a million seller in any way, yet they can get between two and five thousand people to pay ten buck to see them jam, just about anywhere on the planet. 

Fugazi started their thing in the eighties, and it was HARD to self-produce and distribute in the eighties, when everything was done via snail-mail and landline calls.   Now it’s a snap if you possess a modicum of skills and ambition.   For one thing, you can create an album that sounds awesome, in a space of your choosing, for a fraction of what it cost ten years ago.   Loft studios are popping up everywhere across the wide nation — lined with acoustic paneling, nice mics, and the latest pro tools kit.   The Anticon, Rhymesayers and DefJux labels have moved from three-digit budgets to the edges of superstardom on their own terms by employing elements of the aforementioned.   They are hardworking dreamers who bought what they could afford, and chose not to sell their asses to anyone with a deep expense account.   Distribution was /is handled by short-term contracts.   Now they make it look easy to work indie magic under the noses of corporate non-believers.   Middle managers lose money in the process yet the world keeps spinning.

Successful contemporary independents identify with their audience, create stuff they like, and get the word out through the internet and non-stop touring.   The Corporate Recording Industry, because of its beastial relationship with the broadcasting and advertising industries, has maintained somewhat of a stranglehold on the airwaves, so unless you live in a college town, or a metropolis Bay Area-sized and up, you won’t hear a damn thing these folks are doing on the FM dial.

A lot of artists are lazy greedhounds, which makes it easy for the industry tools to do what they do.  There are a few true believers lurking in the major label depth chart, and even some genuine talents that sell millions, but they are completely outweighed by the pretty vacant hustlers who are thinking, with every song they compose, how many units they can move.   Turn on your radio…spin the dial…absorb for a few minutes.   You think half that crap comes from the heart?   The heart of darkness, maybe, but nothing that's connected to inspired creativity.  

The industry standard record contract is predicated on musician ignorance and or drugged stupor:

“Eye, we’re gonna fuck ya fer ninety percent of gross… ya, matey.”

“Oh shit, dude, does that mean you’re gonna sign us?”

Besides, it's an industry mindset that makes Madonna ten times more popular than Bjork. But it’s shiestier than that.   How, as an organization, or maybe ‘family’ is a better term, can the big five live with the notion of some poor bastard paying 20 bucks for a CD while the creator of that CD sees about a buck.   One dollar.   That, is robbery. Why not download the album from Kazaa and send the artist a check for two or three bucks?  

Many artists are cool with the downloading and bootlegging because they know it's a good way to generate interest, and by extension, generate funds.   Fans will pay to support music and movies they like, even if there are hundred’s of bootlegs floating around; ask any Deadhead, or members of the Dead themselves.   For most of the eighties and nineties, The Greatful Dead grossed eight-figures a year, year in year out...victims of bootlegs and piracy for sure.   It goes to show that some acts from the majors do get it, but they are such a minority, and with jam bands, the bootlegging thing is not supported by the labels, but tolerated by them because the majors like the money some jam bands can generate.

Most major label recording artists are not cool with bootlegging / sharing.   They believe what their handlers say, and agree it is for the best if content control stays in a small circle of paws.   Metallica represents this to a tee, and the Massive Sack masthead agrees that they shall not see another cent of our cash.   To Lars and his boys, anyone who records a Metallica show is a hardened criminal who needs ten years at Folsom State for re-education.   Besides, it cuts in to their liquor budget…and re-fueling the GulfStream is expensive.

Artists need to be selected by the consumers, not the labels.   Nothing good can come from an arrangement where an A & R tool makes six figures or more searching for the next Eminem, especially when the original almost gave up his rhyme-craft because no one with deep pockets would sit down with his demo stuff…until Dre.   Six years deep into fat city, Eminem now has zero compunction sicking his legal gunsels on you if you use or misappropriate one of his songs without paying a reasonable seven-figure tariff.   Man’s gotta eat.

It pleases us, especially ET, that the MusicBorg (principally the major record labels and Clear Channel) shall get what is coming to them.   How they receive what’s coming to them is another matter; but we at Massive Sack suggest proper lubercation to stave off any tissue-ripping, cause it’s going to hurt.  

Artists will, en masse, create and market their wares, with access to wide and varied distribution channels, without a record contract or similar conference of legitimacy from middle-aged wannabe star-fuckers with roomfuls of chotski’s and Kansas memorabilia.   No longer will people have to purchase an overpriced cd of consensus music only to feel somehow cheated a few days later.   The industry has brought it upon themselves.   Any monolithic entity that mines grunge for an ENTIRE GENERATION needs to be driven into the sea under a hail of fire and curses.   Brittany Spears could not acquire fame in a meritocratic musical culture.   She would instead climb the ladder at the Magic Kingdom, in the Snow Whitey outfit, till she’s twenty-five or so, then it would be off to Hooters for the long slide.   And we wouldn't know about it one way or another.

The only downside, really, to this changing of the guard, is that the value of an MBA in the music industry will plummet.   Gravity is a bitch.