4th world communication wrote:
quoted 9 lines The current Mo' Wax releases might bring the artists to> The current Mo' Wax releases might bring the artists to
> attention of people who simply would not otherwise have heard
> their material, but there are scores of labels who just get ignored
> in the meantime, buying product just because it is on a certain
> label is still the rule of the thumb these days - point in case: Mark
> Broom's Sympletic release on Warp, if the same music had
> been on Ifach, or Pure Plastic it would have sold a tenth of what the
> Warp release has, it must be hard for these small labels to be
> endlessly doing the groundwork for somebody else to cash in on.
Well, I hate to state the obvious, but "get used to it mate".
The simple fact is that as long as we live in an age of "faceless Techno
bastards", the most readily identifiable characteristic one has when facing
row after row of endless bins in the shop filled with names we've never
heard of is, in fact, the record label.
Whenever I go into a Techno-specialist store here in Los Angeles, I see
literally thousands of records in the shop. Even if they have turntables,
I can only listen to a few handfuls at most ... before you know it, I've
been there a couple of hours, I've probably broken out in sweat and my back
is killing me. (Not to mention getting yelled at by someone who'd rather be
home *making* music instead of watching me pick through other people's ... )
So you tell me, then - you're in my shoes, standing in that store - do I go
over to that Pure Plastic bin (if they even had one) and grab a random record
by someone I don't know, and hope I get lucky playing Music Roulette? Or do
I go over to that Reload section and grab one I haven't seen before, because I
know from experience that I really like that label's stuff? This is a no
brainer, folks.
I've given this issue a lot of thought lately because of my wife's music.
Her attitude is either to go to a local label (like City of Angels) because
it's closeby (ever deal with robbing, thieving overseas labels? Oh, sorry,
I'll leave Kk Records out of this) and because she has friends (Q/Uberzone)
that are on it; or go to some label that might have music that's of a
similar ilk (e.g., Miami's Isophlex) because someone recommended it. In some
cases you might even be able to combine the two; I suspect Jon Drukman's
arrangement with Mephisto might qualify (local to artist, similar artistic
aesthetic) here, although how worldwide their distribution is is unknown.
Whereas my attitude is to go to the labels that *have* that recognition factor
if at all possible; people who might not otherwise buy the record because they
don't know the name would buy it because of the *label* and might end up
enjoying it. Heaven knows I've done this often enough myself ...
- Greg