http://www.fallingskyhazard.com/catalog.htm
The Problem With Music
by Steve Albini
(From Baffler Number 5)
go to http://www.thebaffler.com for more great articles!
Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I
always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a
trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards
long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some
of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of
this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other
end, holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.
Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and
besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey
shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign
the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle
furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously
and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each
other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's
only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says,
"Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim it again,
please. Backstroke."
And he does, of course.
I. A&R Scouts
Every major label involved in the hunt for new bands now has on staff
a high-profile point man, an "A&R" rep who can present a comfortable
face to any prospective band. The initials stand for "Artist and
Repertoire," because historically, the A&R staff would select artists
to record music that they had also selected, out of an available pool
of each. This is still the case, though not openly.
These guys are universally young (about the same age as the bands
being wooed), and nowadays they always have some obvious underground
rock credibility flag they can wave. Lyle Preslar, former guitarist
for Minor Threat, is one of them. Terry Tolkin, former NY independent
booking agent and assistant manager at Touch and Go is one of them. Al
Smith, former soundman at CBGB is one of them. Mike Gitter, former
editor of XXX fanzine and contributor to Rip, Kerrang and other
lowbrow rags is one of them. Many of the annoying turds who used to
staff college radio stations are in their ranks as well.
There are several reasons A&R scouts are always young. The explanation
usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip" to the current
musical "scene." A more important reason is that the bands will
intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly
of the same formative rock and roll experiences.
The A&R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and
as such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to
promise them the moon than an idealistic young turk who expects to be
calling the shots in a few years, and who has had no previous
experience with a big record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band
he's duping. When he tells them no one will interfere in their
creative process, he probably even believes it.
When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of
angel hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they
sign with company X, they're really signing with him, and he's on
their side. Remember that great gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we
have a blast.
By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music
industry scum. There is a pervasive caricature in popular culture of a
portly, middle aged ex-hipster talking a mile-a-minute, using outdated
jargon and calling everybody "baby." After meeting "their" A&R guy,
the band will say to themselves and everyone else, "He's not like a
record company guy at all! He's like one of us." And they will be
right. That's one of the reasons he was hired.
These A&R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is
present the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which
loosely states some terms, and affirms that the band will sign with
the label once a contract has been agreed on.
The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little "memo," is
that it is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once
the band sign it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with
the label. If the label presents them with a contract that the band
doesn't want to sign, all the label has to do is wait. There are a
hundred other bands willing to sign the exact same contract, so the
label is in a position of strength.
These letters never have any term of expiry, so the band remain bound
by the deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that
takes. The band cannot sign to another label or even put out its own
material unless they are released from their agreement, which never
happens. Make no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of
intent, they will either eventually sign a contract that suits the
label or they will be destroyed.
One of my favorite bands was held hostage for the better part of two
years by a slick young "He's not like a label guy at all," A&R rep, on
the basis of such a deal memo. He had failed to come through on any of
his promises (something he did with similar effect to another
well-known band), and so the band wanted out. Another label expressed
interest, but when the A&R man was asked to release the band, he said
he would need money or points, or possibly both, before he would
consider it.
The new label was afraid the price would be too dear, and they said no
thanks. On the cusp of making their signature album, an excellent
band, humiliated, broke up from the stress and the many months of
inactivity.
II. What I hate about recording
1. Producers and engineers who use meaningless words to make their
clients think they know what's going on. Words like "Punchy," "Warm,"
"Groove," "Vibe," "Feel." Especially "Punchy" and "Warm." Every time I
hear those words, I want to throttle somebody.
2: Producers who aren't also engineers, and as such, don't have the
slightest fucking idea what they're doing in a studio, besides talking
all the time. Historically, the progression of effort required to
become a producer went like this: Go to college, get an EE degree. Get
a job as an assistant at a studio. Eventually become a second
engineer. Learn the job and become an engineer. Do that for a few
years, then you can try your hand at producing. Now, all that's
required to be a full-fledged "producer" is the gall it takes to claim
to be one
Calling people like Don Fleming, Al Jourgensen, Lee Ranaldo or Jerry
Harrison "producers" in the traditional sense is akin to calling
Bernie a "shortstop" because he watched the whole playoffs this year.
The term has taken on perjorative qualities in some circles. Engineers
tell jokes about producers the way people back in Montana tell jokes
about North Dakotans. (How many producers does it take to change a
man.) That's why few self-respecting engineers will allow themselves
to be called "producers."
The minimum skills required to do an adequate job recording an album
are:
- Working knowledge of all the microphones at hand and their
properties and uses. I mean something beyond knowing that you can drop
an SM57 without breaking it.
- Experience with every piece of equipment which might be of use and
every function it may provide. This means more than knowing what echo
sounds like. Which equalizer has the least phase shift in neighbor
bands? Which console has more headroom? Which mastering deck has the
cleanest output electronics?
- Experience with the style of music at hand, to know when obvious
blunders are occurring.
- Ability to tune and maintain all the required instruments and
electronics, so as to insure that everything is in proper working
order. This means more than plugging a guitar into a tuner. How should
the drums be tuned to simulate a rising note on the decay? A falling
note? A consonant note? Can a bassoon play a concert E-flat in key
with a piano tuned to a reference A of 440 Hz? What percentage of
varispeed is necessary to make a whole-tone pitch change? What degree
of overbias gives you the most headroom at lOKhz? What reference
fluxivity gives you the lowest self-noise from biased, unrecorded
tape? Which tape manufacturer closes every year in July, causing
shortages of tape globally? What can be done for a shedding master
tape? A sticky one?
- Knowledge of electronic circuits to an extent that will allow
selection of appropriate signal paths. This means more than knowing
the difference between a delay line and an equalizer. Which has more
headroom, a discrete class A microphone preamp with a transformer
output or a differential circuit built with monolithics? Where is the
best place in an unbalanced line to attenuate the signal? If you short
the cold leg of a differential input to ground, what happens to the
signal level? Which gain control device has the least distortion, a
VCA, a printed plastic pot, a photoresistor or a wire-wound stepped
attenuator? Will putting an unbalanced line on a half-normalled jack
unbalance the normal signal path? Will a transformer splitter load the
input to a device parallel to it? Which will have less RF noise, a
shielded unbalanced line or a balanced line with a floated shield?
- An aesthetic that is well-rooted and compatible with the music, and
- The good taste to know when to exercise it.
3. Trendy electronics and other flashy shit that nobody really needs.
Five years ago, everything everywhere was being done with discrete
samples. No actual drumming allowed on most records. Samples only. The
next trend was Pultec Equalizers. Everything had to be run through
Pultec EQs.
Then vintage microphones were all the rage (but only Neumanns, the
most annoyingly whiny microphone line ever made). The current trendy
thing is compression. Compression by the ton, especially if it comes
from a tube limiter. Wow. It doesn't matter how awful the recording
is, as long as it goes through a tube limiter, somebody will claim it
sounds "warm," or maybe even "punchy." They might even compare it to
the Beatles. I want to find the guy that invented compression and tear
his liver out. I hate it. It makes everything sound like a beer
commercial.
4. DAT machines. They sound like shit and every crappy studio has one
now because they're so cheap. Because the crappy engineers that
inhabit crappy studios are too thick to learn how to align and
maintain analog mastering decks, they're all using DAT machines
exclusively. DAT tapes deteriorate over time, and when they do, the
information on them is lost forever. I have personally seen tapes go
irretrievably bad in less than a month. Using them for final masters
is almost fraudulently irresponsible.
Tape machines ought to be big and cumbersome and difficult to use, if
only to keep the riff-raff out. DAT machines make it possible for
morons to make a living, and do damage to the music we all have to
listen to.
5. Trying to sound like the Beatles. Every record I hear these days
has incredibly loud, compressed vocals, and a quiet little murmur of a
rock band in the background. The excuse given by producers for
inflicting such an imbalance on a rock band is that it makes the
record sound more like the Beatles. Yeah, right. Fuck's sake, Thurston
Moore is not Paul McCartney, and nobody on earth, not with unlimited
time and resources, could make the Smashing Pumpkins sound like the
Beatles. Trying just makes them seem even dumber. Why can't people try
to sound like the Smashchords or Metal Urbain or Third World War for a
change?
III. There's This Band
There's this band. They're pretty ordinary, but they're also pretty
good, so they've attracted some attention. They're signed to a
moderate-sized "independent" label owned by a distribution company,
and they have another two albums owed to the label.
They're a little ambitious. They'd like to get signed by a major label
the hard work.
To that end, they got a manager. He knows some of the label guys, and
he can shop their next project to all the right people. He takes his
cut, sure, but it's only 15%, and if he can get them signed then it's
money well spent. Anyway, it doesn't cost them anything if it doesn't
work. 15% of nothing isn't much!
One day an A&R scout calls them, says he's "been following them for a
while now," and when their manager mentioned them to him, it just
"clicked." Would they like to meet with him about the possibility of
working out a deal with his label? Wow. Big Break time.
label guy. He's young and dresses pretty much like the band does. He
knows all their favorite bands. He's like one of them. He tells them
he wants to go to bat for them, to try to get them everything they
want. He says anything is possible with the right attitude. They
conclude the evening by taking home a copy of a deal memo they wrote
out and signed on the spot.
The A&R guy was full of great ideas, even talked about using a name
points, but they can get Don Fleming for $30,000 plus three points.
Even that's a little steep, so maybe they'll go with that guy who used
to be in David Letterman's band. He only wants three points. Or they
or 10 grand) and have Andy Wallace remix it for 4 grand a track plus 2
points. It was a lot to think about.
Well, they like this guy and they trust him. Besides, they already
signed the deal memo. He must have been serious about wanting them to
sign. They break the news to their current label, and the label
manager says he wants them to succeed, so they have his blessing. He
will need to be compensated, of course, for the remaining albums left
on their contract, but he'll work it out with the label himself. Sub
Pop made millions from selling off Nirvana, and Twin Tone hasn't done
bad either: 50 grand for the Babes and 60 grand for the Poster
something modest. The new label doesn't mind, so long as it's
recoupable out of royalties.
Well, they get the final contract, and it's not quite what they
expected. They figure it's better to be safe than sorry and they turn
but the lawyer says he's seen a lot of contracts, and theirs is pretty
good. They'll be getting a great royalty: 13% (less a 10% packaging
deduction). Wasn't it Buffalo Tom that were only getting 12% less 10?
Whatever.
The old label only wants 50 grand, and no points. Hell, Sub Pop got 3
points when they let Nirvana go. They're signed for four years, with
options on each year, for a total of over a million dollars! That's a
lot of money in any man's english. The first year's advance alone is
$250,000. Just think about it, a quarter-million, just for being in a
rock band!
Their manager thinks it's a great deal, especially the large advance.
Besides, he knows a publishing company that will take the band on if
they get signed, and even give them an advance of 20 grand, so they'll
be making that money too. The manager says publishing is pretty
mysterious, and nobody really knows where all the money comes from,
but the lawyer can look that contract over too. Hell, it's free money.
Their booking agent is excited about the band signing to a major. He
says they can maybe average $1,000 or $2,000 a night from now on.
That's enough to justify a five week tour, and with tour support, they
can use a proper crew, buy some good equipment and even get a tour
bus! Buses are pretty expensive, but if you figure in the price of a
hotel room for everybody in the band and crew, they're actually about
the same cost. Some bands (like Therapy? and Sloan and Stereolab) use
buses on their tours even when they're getting paid only a couple
hundred bucks a night, and this tour should earn at least a grand or
two every night. It'll be worth it. The band will be more comfortable
and will play better.
The agent says a band on a major label can get a merchandising company
to pay them an advance on t-shirt sales! Ridiculous! There's a gold
mine here! The lawyer should look over the merchandising contract,
just to be safe.
They get drunk at the signing party. Polaroids are taken and everybody
looks thrilled. The label picked them up in a limo.
They decided to go with the producer who used to be in Letterman's
band. He had these technicians come in and tune the drums for them and
tweak their amps and guitars. He had a guy bring in a slew of
expensive old "vintage" microphones. Boy, were they "warm." He even
had a guy come in and check the phase of all the equipment in the
control room! Boy, was he professional. He used a bunch of equipment
on them and by the end of it, they all agreed that it sounded very
"punchy," yet "warm."
All that hard work paid off. With the help of a video, the album went
like hotcakes! They sold a quarter million copies!
Here is the math that will explain just how fucked they are:
These figures are representative of amounts that appear in record
contracts daily. There's no need to skew the figures to make the
scenario look bad, since real-life examples more than abound. Income
is underlined, expenses are not.
Advance: $250,000
Manager's cut: $37,500
Legal fees: $10,000
Recording Budget: $150,000
Producer's advance: $50,000
Studio fee: $52,500
Drum, Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $3,000
Recording tape: $8,000
Equipment rental: $5,000
Cartage and Transportation: $5,000
Lodgings while in studio: $10,000
Catering: $3,000
Mastering: $10,000
Tape copies, reference CD's, shipping tapes, misc expenses: $2,000
Video budget: $30,000
Cameras: $8,000
Crew: $5,000
Processing and transfers: $3,000
Offline: $2,000
Online editing: $3,000
Catering: $1,000
Stage and construction: $3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: $2,000
Director's fee: $3,000
Album Artwork: $5,000
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: $2,000
Band fund: $15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: $5,000
New fancy professional guitars (2): $3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs (2): $4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $1,000
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: $1,000
Rehearsal space rental: $500
Big blowout party for their friends: $500
Tour expense (5 weeks): $50,875
Bus: $25,000
Crew (3): $7,500
Food and per diems: $7,875
Fuel: $3,000
Consumable supplies: $3,500
Wardrobe: $1,000
Promotion: $3,000
Tour gross income: $50,000
Agent's cut: $7,500
Manager's cut: $7,500
Merchandising advance: $20,000
Manager's cut: $3,000
Lawyer's fee: $1,000
Publishing advance: $20,000
Manager's cut: $3,000
Lawyer's fee: $1,000
Record sales: 250,000 @ $12 = $3,000,000 gross retail revenue Royalty
(13% of 90% of retail): $351,000
less advance: $250,000
Producer's points: (3% less $50,000 advance) $40,000
Promotional budget: $25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $50,000
Net royalty: (-$14,000)
Record company income:
Record wholesale price $6.50 x 250,000 = $1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: $351,000
Deficit from royalties: $14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and distribution @ $2.20 per record: $550,000
Gross profit: $710,000
THE BALANCE SHEET
This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.
Record company: $710,000
Producer: $90,000
Manager: $51,000
Studio: $52,500
Previous label: $50,000
Agent: $7,500
Lawyer: $12,000
Band member net income each: $4,031.25
The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the
music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole
$14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as
much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour
bus for a month.
The next album will be about the same, except that the record company
will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous
one never "recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige.
The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance
will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't
have earned any royalties from their t-shirts yet. Maybe the t-shirt
guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys.
Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.
http://www.fallingskyhazard.com/catalog.htm
|
|