OFF: the future of the rock industry

[Doug Pearson]

On Tue, 8 Aug 2000 17:15:00 -0500, flossbac <flossbac at NLCI.COM> wrote:
>There are several labels run by artists that have done well.  Fugazi has
>Dischord Records, which is a fine label.  Fugazi do quite all right for
>themselves, and are certainly among the biggest "non-mainstream" acts in the
>world, and all this while never charging more than $5 per person for a show.

They're one of the more successful ones.  Probably the most lucrative
artist-owned label these days is Ani DiFranco's; she also charges
considerably more than $5 per show!

On Tue, 8 Aug 2000 18:17:39 EDT, "Ted Jackson jr."
<tojackso at LIBRARY.SYR.EDU> wrote:
>Really, the idea was tried by Zeppelin, right,
>with their Swan Song label, which later signed Bad Company?

And, god bless 'em, the Pretty Things! (and Rockpile)

>Of course Pagey was an astute observer of the music biz from years as
>a session guitarist.

The success of Swan Song (and financial success of 'Zep, for that matter)
owes far more to the late Peter Grant than anyone else.  He was a SHARP
businessman (with just enough thug in him to deal with sleazy
promoters/labels/etc.) and one of the few people who could get away with
roughing up Bill Graham (YESSSSS!) if he had to.  But I'm sure Page's & JP
Jones' experience as session men (seeing lots of one-hit-wonders who never
made any cash off their brief success and such) clued them into the fact
that they'd better have good management if they wanted to go anywhere ...

>It's amazing that more bands haven't tried it.

When you look at the examples, it's not that amazing; most were failures,
despite the sucesses of the bands that set them up:
Beatles - Apple
Beach Boys - Brother
Moody Blues - Threshold
Grateful Dead - G.D./Round
Elton John - Rocket (despite Kiki Dee)
Who - Track (admittedly owned by their management)

All now defunct.  Most musicians aren't very good businessmen.  Not even
all their managers are!

On Tue, 8 Aug 2000 18:34:32 -0400, K Henderson <henderson.120 at OSU.EDU> wrote:
>(BTW, is Frank Kozik a musician?)

Nope.  Rock Poster artist.

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com