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More posts are coming, not to worry.

Below is an article from the Austin Chronicle about the realities of contracts and money for artists sign with labels. The Chronicle is the Austin version of the Village Voice or LA Weekly, you know, the free lesbian personal ad and medicinal marijuana website paper. By the way, if you think this blog is way too concerned with business and the record industry in general stifles the beauty and artistry of music, you might wanna consider a move to Austin.

Overall, the piece is concise and it covers a lot of good details just as well as some much longer books I have read. The article is from 1998, but most of the info is just as relevant today. The part about a band making their first video was (obviously) the most intriguing to me:

And videos! That's recoupable money as well. And like anything else in the music business, costs can quickly get out of hand. As a self-described hippie without a perm during his Dangerous Toys hey-day, McMaster was somewhat bewildered when the band showed up to do its first video and saw a make-up artist and stylist on the set and on the payroll - their payroll.

"Those people were there to make us look good. I understand that," says McMaster. "But out of control is out of control. It would have been nice to go, `We don't need this, we don't need this, we don't need this. And we don't need this.' But I'm in Texas getting on a plane to go out there and start shooting a video. I show up and all of the shit is there already. It's not in my hands. We spent $80,000 on the video. It was fucking stupid. You can make a great video for under $2,000. It's silly."

You can read the whole article from the Austin Chronicle whilst I ponder on about the great $2K video.

Labels: media, music video, philosophy