The Venus Trail

Chris Anderson is the editor of WIRED magazine and responsible for the influential book THE LONG TAIL. He has recently published a book called FREE.

In a nutshell this is what Anderson says: in the online and digital world free is like a force of gravity. The costs of production, data storage, processing speed and (most importantly) distribution continue to plummet. Therefore, the pressure increases for products easily distributed on line – games, music, films, newspapers etc – to become free. Piracy helps speed this process up, but isn’t the cause of it. The bytes are busting out and we can’t stop them.

Out of this we see the rise in importance of two other economies: the ‘reputation economy’ and the ‘attention economy’. These are in addition to the already dominant ‘money economy’. In the world of open source software, wikipedia, blogs etc thousands are beavering away in front of their screens. They are apparently working not for money, but to enhance their reputation and/or create something that captures attention.

These other non-monetary economies are a bit like a clumsy take on Bourdieu’s ‘cultural capital’ Can we call it ‘digital capital’? Or how about ‘friend capital’?

Dunno, and either way this is all very well. But what us get rich quick readers want to know how to make some dough out of it all.

Well there is the obvious. We can try using advertising to pay for content. But that only works if enough people are looking at your content. And you need a lot of them.

Or there is the less obvious ‘freemium’ model.

Basically how this works is you make something free and then charge for superior versions of the same thing. These subsidise the free giveaway. And because you are making something free you are potentially reaching a much wider audience.

Seeing as we are about music the example (that everyone uses) is Radiohead. They gave away their album In Rainbows (well you could pay if you wanted) but charged heaps for vinyl, fancy box sets etc. Plus, they made more money from more people coming to their gigs, because more people had heard the free album.

So the theory is that by giving something away free, you enlarge your audience. Hopefully then a small portion of that audience will be prepared to stump up for all the extras.

OK, so we’re all a bit tired of hearing about Radiohead, and we all know they were a massive band to start with. The example illustrates a point but ultimately is redundant. 99.999% of us aren’t Radiohead.

So, the more relevant question to all us small timers is this: what does this all mean for the emerging band or niche artist or small record label? We still have costs and overheads to cover right? How do we actually survive when everything is plummeting toward an inevitable zero? To free or not to free, that’s what we’re all asking?

Well this is the bit where I get a bit stuck.

While I think the book is compelling and useful, sometimes it seems a bit out of touch with the practical realities. It tends to focus on the ease/freeness of distribution, but not the time and money to actually produce something (an album, a film etc). Who pays for that? If I didn’t know Anderson was in the magazine business, and I know they’ve also had a tough time of it, I’d say it was a bit ivory tower. But I guess I can’t say that.

Also, with the ‘freemium’ model, how does a new player get the critical mass of freebies to cash in on the extras?

Still, it has got me thinking, and that’s not a bad thing. He is right about the inevitability of free, but I’m still thinking about the solutions to economic survival.

If anyone wants to offer some free advice on all this - go ahead.

Photo: Superette in the 1990s (L-R David Mulcahy, Greta Anderson, Ben Howe)

I first met Roger Shepherd sometime in the mid 1990s in Auckland. It was at the Powerstation music venue, in the back bar. My band Superette had just played an opening slot for Garageland, Loves Ugly Children or King Loser. I can’t remember exactly who or when. It may have been at Flying Nun’s week long 15th Birthday party.

Roger said to me “I wasn’t so sure about you guys when I first saw you play live. But that was a good show”. I thought to myself ‘you mean we aren’t amazing all the time?’ At the time this was a revelation. I had thought we were showing punk rock attitude – or something.

After this I reported back to the band that we needed to give this some serious thought. We needed to get our shit together. I didn’t know it at the time, but in the music business this kind of thing is called ‘A&Ring’.

Superette never did set the world alight, but we did end up making quite a good album. It was called “Tiger”.

Leslie Paris, who was head of Flying Nun NZ in the 1990s, advised me, “Whatever you do Ben, don’t start a record label”. I don’t think she was serious, but it was probably good advice.

About ten years later, long after Superette, I had somehow ignored this advice and was running a label I had started called Arch Hill. Our first release was by David Mulcahy from Superette and JPS Experience. Then we followed with others, including one of my all time favourite artists - David Kilgour from the Clean.

I had also written an MA thesis on independent music and Flying Nun, and started (but not finished) a PhD on the same topic.

So around early 2006, when I heard Roger was back from London, living in Wellington, I decided to look him up. Apparently after Mushroom had brought out the remaining shares of Flying Nun he vowed never to work in music again. I didn’t want to be in that situation. I was sure he would have some wise words. He might even have something to add to Leslie’s good advice.

We met up at a cafe. I gave him copies of recent Arch Hill albums. He said he’d already heard Bachelorette and Ghostplane. He liked them. We talked about all kinds music related things. He said he’d be interested in working in music again. He was enjoying working on the Flying Nun 25th anniversary box set. We loosely agreed to work on some projects together.

In the following months Roger would often phone me. The conversations were usually long and entertaining, mostly music gossip, trivia and so on. Often I would be concerned I wasn’t getting any work done. Roger helped out with some funding applications for me to go to SXSW and for David Kilgour to tour USA on the back of his second Arch Hill release called The Far Now. I felt I was helping introduce – or re-introduce – Roger to the New Zealand music industry. A lot had changed in the music industry in the 10 years he had been away.

Out of these discussions a plan started to emerge. Roger and I were going to start a new record label. Actually, we decided we were going to start two new record labels. One for new emerging artists and the other for re-issues and re-releases of the old good stuff. I would also keep Arch Hill going and the three labels would work together, complimenting each other.

For the new artists label our focus was going to be overseas. We had a couple of good acts in mind. I wrote up proposals and met up with the head of Sony/BMG Michael Bradshaw and with A&R man Malcolm Black. I also met with Adam Holt at Universal. Our plan was to look for some kind of backing to help try and make this new label happen.

For the re-issues label we also had a few things in mind. One of these was a band formerly on Flying Nun. They were one of Roger’s favourites. The band were keen to release a re-mastered compilation. Of course our first question was, legally could we do this? Was the band still contracted to Flying Nun (now owned by Warners, who had bought Festival Mushroom, who had bought Mushroom)? After some back and forth we quickly figured out we could. The band had never actually signed a contract and had paid for all the recordings themselves. Flying Nun/Warners legally had no rights to any of their songs and had to concede this fact to the band.

At about this time, in mid 2007, I was back at the Powerstation attending a gig by US band the Shins. Charlotte Ryan – who was then the sole (and last) person responsible for Flying Nun at Warners – was there. We were discussing the re-issues label idea and she said “you know, at a staff meeting the other day Phil Howling [Head of Warners NZ] said they should probably sell Flying Nun”

Needless to say, this was interesting news. Next day I phoned Charlotte back and asked if she would make some discreet enquiries to see if this passing comment was actually true. I also phoned Roger and told him about this. Charlotte got back shortly afterwards to confirm that indeed, Warners would consider selling the label.

After this, Roger and me had a serious discussion and decided to make a serious attempt to buy Flying Nun – together as a partnership. Roger said he didn’t want the responsibility of doing it on his own. Additionally, Arch Hill had a successful and functioning label infrastructure in place. We had physical and digital distribution and pretty much everything a contemporary record label needs. In fact, many artists on Arch Hill were once on Flying Nun. It all made good sense.

The two labels – and the Mystery Girl international touring company – would become one larger shared operation. The labels would differentiate themselves by releasing different music and targeting slightly different audiences (probably based on age). After his experiences with Mushroom, Roger said he didn’t need the stress of doing Flying Nun alone.

It was a deal.

We decided that the best strategy was for Roger to be the front person in negotiations with Warners. My involvement would be kept quiet. As the founder of Flying Nun this would clearly appeal to any sense of ‘doing the right thing’ that they may have. Roger would play everything down as much as possible. The idea was to encourage the idea he would be relieving Warners of all those dusty master tapes in the basement and ridding them of all those pesky old artists as well.

At the time I knew keeping me out of negotiations was a risky strategy for me, but it also seemed like the one most likely to get a good result. So I went with it. The future also held many unknowns: what would a deal with Warners look like? Would we need investors? Would there be other partners? At this stage it didn’t seem possible to come to a fixed written agreement between us with so many future possibilities.

I thought to myself "we have a verbal agreement we are in this together. That’s the main thing. And Roger is a trustworthy person".

So, from July 2007, we started work. We were trying to rescue Flying Nun. Save it from the clutches of a multinational corporate giant. It was an exciting prospect.

Part Two - Coming Soon...

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I just finished reading Last Shop Standing, a recently published book about independent record stores in the UK. It makes for a pretty sad (but funny) read. The writer, Graham Jones, is the founder and formerly a travelling salesman for distribution company Proper Music. He makes one final tour of all his favourite stores.

The book is filled with all the usual record store anecdotes: smelly customers, famous drop ins, drop outs and the usual misfits that hang around such places.

But it is also a bit of an anthropological study. The subjects – record store owners and employees - are almost always eccentric and music freaks. Sometimes they are smart business people. Often they are just enthusiasts who somehow ended up running a store.

One thing they all have in common is that they are just hanging on. As Jones says, it is mostly the best shops that have survived. All of these shops have staff that know and care a lot about music.

Nevertheless, Illegal and legal downloads have hit the stores. But what has really done the damage is the big chain stores and the tactics of the major record labels. Once independent stores were treated like royalty and offered all kinds of bribes to try to hype the charts. Now they are largely ignored. Many UK independent stores don’t even have accounts with them. There is no point: the Majors are only interested in stocking large quantities of heavily discounted product to the big chain stores.

It is pretty much the same here in New Zealand. I recently tried to open an account with Warners NZ thinking I would expand the Arch Hill website with a few Flying Nun titles. The application was declined on the grounds that they didn’t have enough staff and a small account wasn’t worth the trouble to them.

A Day in the Life of Ben Howe, who runs Arch Hill Recordings

Ben wakes up from dreams of wide -open spaces and wonders where he is. Usually it is in Auckland NZ, it is raining and the dog Jefrey (with one F) is barking out in the laundry. Ben lets said dog in, who proceeds to try to lick his face bite something or beg to be let outside (and if possible escape through a hole in the fence Ben hasn’t fixed yet, thus necessitating a three hour search through neighbors gardens). If he hasn’t escaped, Ben walks said dog in the rain followed by a congested drive to work. Ben tries to set a good example by getting to the office before Rosie the promotions manager arrives, which he doesn’t usually manage to do.

Once at the office Ben puts off checking his emails by going immediately to the kitchen to make a coffee, which he usually makes either too strong and dark or too weak and milky. Having made said coffee, Ben then tries to avoid checking emails by looking on Facebook and wondering if he should add the “Hot or Not” application. He worries about what kind of rating he might get, so he then goes to the “Cities I’ve Visited” application and wonders if he has forgotten any important cities that might impress his friends. He then notices that he actually doesn’t have many friends, so he worries if it is being to forward to try to make friends with people he doesn’t really know. He then decides that record label managers should seem aloof anyway, and that’s why he doesn’t have many friends. Plus, people are probably intimidated by his “Cities I Have Visited” application.

After the coffee has long been finished and Ben has procrastinated as long as possible on said websites, he takes a big breath and checks his email. Aside from the usual requests from bands needing more money, huge slow MP3 demo files from people he doesn’t really know, angry Australians and some reminders about unpaid bills there are usually a couple of emails following up on various things he has promised to do that he has since forgotten about. At this point Ben usually decides he really needs to get organized and write some of these things in his diary.

Ben then searches for his diary under various piles of unfinished lists, crumpled receipts, demo Cds, unsigned contracts and chargers for mobiles he has long since lost. Usually at about this time the phone rings and it will be a welcome relief to have a long conversation with someone from a former record label or an aspiring manager about all the things that are wrong with the music industry and how everyone else is doing it all wrong. While having these kinds of important conversations Ben likes to step outside and pace around the office courtyard making a special effort not to step on any cracks in the tiles. Sometimes he worries that the neighbor might be related to the people being discussed in these conversations. If the call came through to his cellphone the battery usually runs out mid-way.

By this time it is usually lunch time, and he regrets not having earlier organized to meet someone for lunch – like real record companies are supposed to do – so he boils and egg or opens a can of tuna and worries that others in the Native Tongue/Mana music office next door think it smells funny. During lunch Ben checks the “guitar effects pedals for sale” section on Trade Me – usually he has already checked it three or four times during the morning.

In the early afternoon Ben sometimes consults said diary again (if he found it earlier) and notices that some album artwork might be urgently due, someone really needs a band biography written, the GST is due or something else really important needs doing. If he has time, Ben then copies this list carefully into the next day’s page in the diary and makes a mental note to get one of those blueberries or eye-phones, then heads off to some afternoon meetings.

Afternoon meetings are usually with managers, bands, media types or government funding bodies and this is where Ben really gets going and starts addressing the big issues. Words like “grassroots”, “the long tail”, “digital aggregator” and “synchronization copyrights” are thrown around with abandon. If Ben remembered to bring a pen he might start drawing diagrams on scraps of paper, especially if he has had one coffee too many or decided an afternoon wine is in order. Usually these meetings end with some kind of plan for Ben to do a whole lot of things he neither has the time or money for.

In the evening, if it is the earlier part of the week, Ben usually has a band practice with White Swan Black Swan , or might plink a plunk on his guitar. If it is the latter part of the week he might either be feeling obliged to go to a gig he doesn’t want to, or he is really excited because he wants to see this new band he heard on the radio or listened to on myspace and, like, they might really literally be going to blow up or something. Or sometimes he might have a gig of his own, or perhaps a show by a band on Arch Hill.

In any case, when Ben gets to said gig he doesn’t want to lean on the bar at the back and look like some kind of A&R douche but neither does he want to be bopping and drooling like a fanboy up front. Instead he compromises by standing around looking uncomfortable – which fortunately is usually how everyone else looks anyway. He also tries to avoid making loud record company type comments like “the front man is really good but they just need some good songs” or “they’ve got some great songs but man they are ugly”. However, if Ben has had a couple of drinks he might make these comments anyway, which in the morning he tells himself is ok, because everyone else was saying them too.