Drag City

the Dans know all

what

the guys who run DC

Issues of compensation and business model aside, how mindblowing a piece of software is Spotify? Instant access to every song in the worlds biggest record collection!

I could not have imagined something like this as a kid.

Remember when Napster came out, the thrill of music being available per request! Up until then I could only hear what came on the radio, what was on mtv, on sampler cds with music magazines, and of course what I could afford and what I could borrow from friends or at the library...

Remember vividly a day at the school library, I must have been 12 or 13, I was on the computer and some girls from a class above mine were doing group work. I was on iMesh and so I asked them: Hey, is there a song you'd like to hear? They were hesitant to answer, maybe cause they didn't see the point of the question, probably also because it amounted to a kind of flirting and they were my seniors and all. But anyway, after a short while one of the girls was like, "I think he'll be able to get the song on the computer" and they asked for Lady Marmalade (the Xtina, Lil Kim, Mya, Pink version).

I searched for it and 20 minutes later I'd downloaded it and was able to play it back through the sound blasters. Felt like magic. The girls were impressed, but I think I was even more impressed. Never forgot that day.

so not gonna happen

lol

Issues of compensation and business model aside
Issues of compensation and business model aside
Issues of compensation and business model aside
Issues of compensation and business model aside
Issues of compensation and business model aside
Issues of compensation and business model aside
Issues of compensation and business model aside

Napster wasn't great for musicians either - but for the listeners? Amazing

I think it's fine if musicians can make a living from single/album sales (if they can buy a private jet I think it's silly) but I'm not sure it's necessary for there to be great music? lots of people make music for fun, ambitious stuff too

You don't hear expensive string arrangements on a lot of records these days, production value on a lot of new releases is probably lower than in the 90s - but there's tons of great stuff, right?

anyway, did not mean to further derail this dc thread, there are separate threads for this

you're right, why do we need the modern equivalent of Pet Sounds, Rumours, or Houses Of The Holy Road when we have Car Seat Headrest

Houses of the Holy, that is

everything's better now

sorry to be snarky. This is a sensitive topic for me

lots of people make music for fun, ambitious stuff too

don't you think that these 'lots of people' often reflect a very specific demographic of people privileged enough to have the free time to do this without having to worry about working a full time job? And don't you suspect this imbalance might be silencing voices that would otherwise be making great music?

no, I don't think so - especially not in an American context where jazz, blues, r'n'b, hip hop were at least partially rooted in "under-privileged" demographics

you're right, why do we need the modern equivalent of Pet Sounds, Rumours, or Houses Of The Holy when we have Car Seat Headrest

lots of things "might be silencing voices that would otherwise be making great music" but I'm not sure economics of album sales is... prominent

come to think of it - how are voices silenced? makes me think abtthe metal scene in Iran suffering oppression, but that's a case of censorship - is censorship more silencing than material concerns? (if the two are separable)

Silenced or confronted with barriers to entry? Different and both relevant but not in the thread for Drag City, of all things

xp the part about your post that triggered me was the thing about 'expensive string arrangements,' because I happened to be lamenting this very thing just yesterday. I was in a friend's car and she was listening to Aja, and all I could think about was how a record like that, under current conditions, could never get made now. Aside from the mechanics and logistics (flying session players across an ocean, recording at multiple studios), there's the matter of the cameraderie that "evil major label money" afforded bands like this. My concerns are just as much aesthetic as they are political (but that too)

it's interesting you bring up jazz because I doubt the average millennial Spotify junkie could name five working jazz artists that aren't in some way connected to Flying Lotus. Even if they could, they're not exactly 'supporting' them just by merely knowing who they are, and that may be even worse. Without benefactors, this is a music that will more or less cease to exist in any commercial capacity (and before you say anything, I would argue that as long as Downbeat still somehow exists it still does, despite the odds, exist in something resembling a commercial capacity)

La Lechera otm, sorry for the major derail, lord knows there are already dozens of threads about this (one more excruciating than the next)

just to clarify:

in an American context where jazz, blues, r'n'b, hip hop were at least partially rooted in "under-privileged" demographics

and funded by millions and millions of dollars of major label money

Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either
Napster wasn't great for musicians either

Niels absolutely killin' it ITT

just to clarify:

in an American context where jazz, blues, r'n'b, hip hop were at least partially rooted in "under-privileged" demographics

and funded by millions and millions of dollars of major label money

The situation was complex, at least with blues and jazz, but, yeah, I was puzzling over how to respond to that one too.

so much to say about the issues Wimmels raises I hardly know where to start, and can't in fact settle on a place to start. big question, the relative virtues of the old label system and its deep recording/studio budgets.

Stop Thinking of Yourself as a Good Person: The Ethics and Economics of Music Streaming

Related discussion

I'm trying to get this; Steely Dan's "camaraderie" was based on them getting paid a lot by the labels? They couldn't record Aja now because they can't fly studio musicians in to do dozens of takes?

Seems to me the home studio and digital recording, not to mention being able to fly tracks in from remote musicians, would allow the studio rat immense opportunities to make "perfect"-ish albums.

Lol no

Okay. Why?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_Access_Memories#Conception

Gott Punch it's a question of process. I know a dude, massive studio badass, played on Nick of Time -- he's available as a session guy and is widely known to be a total fucking gunslinger. If you send him your track, you WILL get something awesome back. And you'll be happy with it, or you'll ask for a slight tweak, and that'll be that. What you won't get -- and this, I want to be clear, is a very mixed thing, neither good nor bad, it has its ups and its downs -- is Nick of Time. You won't the control you would have gotten if you had this guy in a chair at Village Recorders for 8 hours and you were behind the glass stroking your chin and listening to playback in the moment, fully immersed, focused to a pretty unhealthy point of focus on what was directly in front of you. There's much more to blame/credit about this, and much of it is for the good. But the reason you can't get another Aja or Pet Sounds or w/e is that the culture of the whole process has changed. It's much less dehumanizing now, and more comfortable for everybody concerned, even though the budgets are smaller. But every touring musician I know, knows that if you play 30 dates in a row, you will be on fucking fire by the end of that run. You'll be crazy and depressed and unable to communicate with normal people, probably, but you'll be producing music at a pretty high level. Same concept w/the old studio model imo. It afforded the people making the music the luxury of very long hours in perfectly equipped studios with world-class engineers on hand 24 hours a day. The "send the amazing player a track" process keeps the most important element -- the player -- but the rest of these elements, again just imo, contributed to a deeply unhealthy hothouse environment whose virtue was that it produced a bunch of the rock/pop records that came be thought of as classics.

tl;dr it's not about money but it is partially about money.

also, most home studios don't run 2" analog tape (again $ related)

addendum, I do actually think there are people still worrying the studio model in the same insanely luxurious fashion. most of them are in rap - Kanye, Black Hippy guys. Justin Vernon built himself a massive studio in the woods and takes his time getting the record to sound exactly like he wants. But that studio rat model, I believe strongly that the aspect of all the working musicians being together and under the direction of the guys whose vision guides the project, that's actually kind of important to the project. Remote tracking isn't new and has produced plenty of great tracks, and many great albums were recorded at multiple studios, but the process is so different when the presence of the musician is no longer required. IMO only I could be wrong but this is how it seems to me.

xp I happen to agree w/sleeve but that's a controversial position.

really tickled that major label practices that were long excoriated by the likes of Drag City et al in the 1990s are being defended on this thread. Like i hardly am deeply familiar withe the label's doings in the past 15 years, but i never knew those guys or their artists to advocate for maximilist studio fantasias.

JCLC thanks for that explanation, I can see that.

Joan otm upthread and said many of the things I wanted to say but more eloquently, even if we disagree slightly

really tickled that major label practices that were long excoriated by the likes of Drag City et al in the 1990s are being defended on this thread. Like i hardly am deeply familiar withe the label's doings in the past 15 years, but i never knew those guys or their artists to advocate for maximilist studio fantasias

I don't think anyone here is speaking for Drag City, and I'm certainly in no way associated with the label, but I wonder if many of the "indie" veterans are now thinking twice about bemoaning the existence of evil major label gatekeepers now that very few of them are able to carve out even a modest living putting out a record and touring 100 days a year (which, make no mistake, was absolutely possible a few short years ago)

Like i hardly am deeply familiar withe the label's doings in the past 15 years, but i never knew those guys or their artists to advocate for maximilist studio fantasias.

― veronica moser, Saturday, January 7, 2017 12:35 PM (fifty-two minutes ago)

They actually parted ways with label stalwart Liam Hayes for doing such a thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fed_(album)

Great album btw.

sorta kinda in my case. the downside of the major label system was considerable: you seldom got final say over how stuff sounded. contracts were shiiiiiiitttty. in the present day environment, artists at most levels have a lot more control than they used to, but they also can't avail themselves of the resources I've mentioned -- though they could make records just as lush, only as I mentioned wanting to make those sorts of records at all was somewhat a function of that decried system. only the major players had control/final cut in the auteur system. now it's kind of inverted. the Joan Crawford Band, who makes a good living making music we love, would have been laughed out of the door at every major label with the possible exceptions of Reprise & A&M. that's true of a lot of good bands, and Drag City bands are some of them. who in the old system would have taken a chance on Will Oldham? Bill Callahan? David Berman? Maybe maybe Lenny Waronker. Maybe maybe Clive Davis. But probably nobody.

Even something recorded with a very modest budget of a few grand, like say 3-4 days in a studio with someone like Steve Albini (or home recorded) with mastering for vinyl etc. is going to cost probably at least $5000 (or more). With the costs for pressing vinyl etc, you are going to have to move probably at least 1000 units to even come close to breaking even. If you look at it that way, first press you might be looking a single LP with a base cost of at least $8-12 a unit. CDs would obviously be quite a bit less and getting digital files up for sale fairly negligible after the digital mastering. But you are still going to have to probably do $8-9 grand worth of sales on a title before you are square.

I'd figure guys like Will Oldham that have a long history, this is probably no problem up front, but for others, it might be a dice roll. Does Drag City move that many LPs on each of their title? I don't know, quite a few touring bands you see do LP print runs quite a bit lower than 1000.

I'm not sure if we're taking this to the Stop Thinking of Yourself as a Good Person: The Ethics and Economics of Music Streaming thread or not, but I think there've been lots of great posts itt (great stuff by JCLC)

anyway,

it's interesting you bring up jazz because I doubt the average millennial Spotify junkie could name five working jazz artists that aren't in some way connected to Flying Lotus. Even if they could, they're not exactly 'supporting' them just by merely knowing who they are, and that may be even worse. Without benefactors, this is a music that will more or less cease to exist in any commercial capacity

I also think jazz is a very interesting scene for thinking about these questions. I happen to know a few "professional" jazz players and they are broke - was talking to a drummer the other day, and he was like "I don't even know why I keep doing it - it's so irrational. My pay is terrible, I've no retirement fund etc. etc."

For all the injustice, the main takeaway for me is that musicians (unlike label owners) produce music regardless of the cost. And this is why, ironically, talking about unfair Spotify recompensation can end in a defense of major label Aja-like productions - cause these are perhaps the phenomenon most endangered! Certainly the hardcore diy scene could give a fuck about Napster.

I'm not too acquainted with the conditions for "indie" musicians, but I gather from the latest Okkervil River release that Will Sheff is not very happy abt the state of things...

A final note: as much as I love Aja and Pet Sounds, I'm not sure I'd root for a revivalist aesthetic, and I think RAM was a good indication that replication 70s top shelf production value does not necessarily = good music. That being said, the success of Kaputt enabled Dan Bejar to do some great string arrangements for last years Destroyer record, and that was awesome.

Certainly the hardcore diy scene could give a fuck about Napster

I would have thought this too, but I know a few punk / hc bands on small labels and I can tell you the consequences of Spotify et al have definitely trickled down. The so-called democratization of music that became possible after the toppling of the old system (ie cheap software, digital self-distribution models, etc) has also created a situation where supply now far outweighs demand while the pie continues getting smaller and smaller. More bands / artists than ever = fewer and fewer tenaciously dedicated fans on the sidelines. It affects everything at every level imo

that's surprising to me... I stand corrected!

tbf, I bet a grind / crust / whatever band on a stacked 8-band bill playing a basement / squat on a Tuesday night might not notice any difference, but I'd say that's maybe one possible exception; maybe some of the less ambitious noise bands, too. But I still think those artists are fighting for the attention of a smaller and smaller group of listeners, whether they realize it or not

a few punk / hc bands on small labels and I can tell you the consequences of Spotify et al have definitely trickled down.

I think about this sometimes - how in the mid-nineties, a whole lot of pretty love-it-or-hate-it HC bands could release 7"s and sell at least 500, which is usually the minimum pressing at a plant (1000 was the going minimum actually but you could swing a deal to press 2 records in runs of 500 at once to meet the minimum), and is a number which, if you sell through at even two bucks a copy, lets you recoup & maybe buy a new snare drum. those 50-page-long MRR reviews sections -- nobody was getting rich, but a fair number of bands almost nobody remembers were breaking even or coming close. now? your two songs on Bandcamp will get you a dollar if people hear about it. I don't know, because I'm not current with that scene at all, but I'd imagine the economics of making hardcore are pretty punishing in the wake of Spotify/downloading.

drag citys an alltime great label really respect them just doin their own thing f the system, crazy thing abt spotify et al is not only are musicians not making any more but neither are the streaming services who are doomed to be swallowed by bigger entities who can use them as loss leaders and eventually discontinue them when they lose interest wattba

At the very least, I'm glad we are discussing this like adults (albeit on the wrong thread), because I usually run into a lot of quasi-Darwinist "boo fucking hoo, times are changing, fuck you" derision when I bring up the issue of musicians' vanishing livelihoods

streaming feels the least like following corporate evolution bc you don't need to buy into a medium or format that will be replaced in 5 years. It is the best idea, and I hope we can find a way to make it work well for the artists.

That ship has sailed. We're reverting to previous musical culture regimes (folk music by/for plebes, elite of well-paid pet musicians paid by wealthy benefactors)

and future islands

What you get without streaming is the idea of the pilgrimage - to the record store, or having to wait to get it in the mail, and so on. Given the 70s self-released grails they're reissued (Red Hash, etc.), it's consistent with their ethos that they like having something be exciting to discover instead of available everywhere. Similar to having to roadtrip to Guerneville or Gainesville to see a Will Oldham show, instead of waiting for an annual pass through the Mercury Lounge. (Nothing wrong with that - it's just not them!)

really tickled that major label practices that were long excoriated by the likes of Drag City et al in the 1990s are being defended on this thread. Like i hardly am deeply familiar withe the label's doings in the past 15 years, but i never knew those guys or their artists to advocate for maximilist studio fantasias.

― veronica moser, Saturday, January 7, 2017 8:35 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Joanna Newsom got to record her second record with an orchestra and hire Van Dyke Parks, Jim O'Rourke and Steve Albini [though I take it his rates are reasonable as part of his whole deal] on Drag City's dime AFAIK, for which she has repeatedly praised them. I hope it worked out as well for them as it did for us and JN.