  Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13229 Registered: 12-2003 |
If you could do ANYTHING to help improve the music business in this town, what would you do? What is wrong with current venues, attitudes, marketing...or what is right with them? Who does it best, in your opinion? Who screws it up most? How do you find out about the performances YOU end up enjoying? What avenues of marketing seem to reach you successfully? I'm mostly considering LIVE performances, but broadcast and recording/sales, too. I'm sitting on a committee that is considering these things, and am curious if the e-thinktank potential of our DetroitYES community can be tapped, then distilled, to provide feedback to this group. Are there any individuals who seem to always be the leaders in your favorite musical genre, or better yet transcendent of genre or venue or marketing/reporting? We may need them at our table, this discussion is just beginning, and we certainly do NOT have all the players present. I promise to keep you posted as well as I can, as long as the committee allows. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7386 Registered: 10-2003 |
Gannon, I've always thought that a cheap quick recording studio type place would be cool. Somewhere that isn't very fancy, just gets your bands song onto a demo CD without charging these kids their arms and legs. Like the Kinko's of recording. Then you could have a little storefront at the front of the place where you sell all the recordings you've made for people, and create a community of people checking out local bands. | ||
Midtowng Member Username: Midtowng Post Number: 7 Registered: 04-2008 |
that's a great idea John... | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13234 Registered: 12-2003 |
Yeah, something where they don't HAVE to learn technology, acoustics, microphone technique...because even though it IS easy to do some things nowadays, it is easier to screw up some basics that are unfortunately NOT common sense. Plus, most people don't understand the horrors of digital compression, and the fact that the original should be at the highest bit-rate and sampling frequency possible, so some could be truncated during processing. THEN once everything works, you dump it down to MP3! I've heard of some people doing that FIRST, so they can manage the file size! UGH. I heard the most horrible thing the other day, asking one fellow how he mastered his demo...he said he went around and made sure it sounded good on five folks' CAR STEREOS. Talk about dumbing down the quality...although I understand the sentiment, make your stuff sound good for the masses. But unless the information is in there to begin with, you'll never know if the mix is right if listened to only on computer speakers and car stereo...the worst reproducers of sound available this side of a transistor AM radio! | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7389 Registered: 10-2003 |
Right, well anyway... The idea would be to get their songs down on something they can use to get gigs. This isn't Phil Spector stuff. You don't want to be paying somebody top dollar for audio engineering, because you don't want to pass that cost on to the customers. So yes, it would be mediocre, but it would be better than what most kids could do in their basements. Then you sell stuff in your storefront area, plus put together shows of some of your clients, and get a little community going. Try to make a scene out of it. Next thing you know, you've got all kinds of musicians just hanging out and goofing around with the equipment and sharing ideas. But could one afford rent with this idea? I don't know. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 6824 Registered: 02-2007 |
that would be a great idea. DYes studios! I'd love to see something that would put a bunch of detroit acts from different genres on the road together across the country | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13236 Registered: 12-2003 |
JL and Rb, I'm already doing all that easy cheap recording, both with the Open Mic at 1923 Coffeehouse on Thursdays, AND in my loft behind Sala Thai, although we've only recorded our Friday jam sessions as proof-of-concept. Plus, I recorded Audra's first Dinner and Show, but that clogged up the Alesis hard drive that I've not been able to offload yet due to computer and budget woes. Fucking amazing show and recording, too, so I cannot lose it. Who's got a 24-bit, 96kHz CO-AXIAL digital input into their system I can use to clean it up and get back to proving this can work? Don't ask my landlord about my rent situation... Good idea for the traveling road show...both are what I'm talking about. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13237 Registered: 12-2003 |
JL, I'm saying with a little bit of foreknowledge, it doesn't have to be mediocre. I think MOST modern recordings are TOO perfect anyways...ProTools pitch 'improvement' actually removes the character and life from these recordings, and MOST engineers use it too much! Plus, it seems musicians shouldn't mix themselves...they really cannot know how they sound in real life, heck you cannot even hear the guitar right from above and behind it! | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7395 Registered: 10-2003 |
Well I agree completely about most modern recordings. Considering my favorite example of recording is Exile on Main Street. You can pretty much hear every noise being made in the room on that album. When the bass guitar is plucked, the snare rattles in the background. That's how I like it. | ||
Matt_the_deuce Member Username: Matt_the_deuce Post Number: 820 Registered: 10-2003 |
Hey Gannon - The small speaker/car stereo trick is an old one used as a good compliment to proper monitoring speakers. As the theory goes - If you can make it sound good on this little crappy thing, then the mix is sitting pretty good etc. - of coarse this isn't the whole story, but how many people are going to be listening on a $20,000.00 system? you gotta make it sound good on a lot of systems. In reality, you want to hear it on as many systems as possible to get the truest sense of where the mix is sitting. Of coarse studio's have their proper monitoring speakers etc. but if you'll notice, they also almost always have a little teeny pair (sometimes just one for true mono) of speakers for this purpose. I'll usually listen to a mix on at least six different systems - In the studio: 15" with a horn, close field NS10's, another pair of similar standard close fields, small crappy/mono etc., car stereo, home stereo etc. And then by the grace of god it doesn't get screwed up in mastering! As for the music scene - it's all about getting kids exposed to music - then let em' run with it! Get the hell out of the way!•• The best stuff happens organically, and that is one of the main reasons why Detroit continues to produce good bands. Kids have enough time, cheap rent, space to develop their thing outside of too many music "biz" distractions. Most/many kids in LA are chasing the record deal, while most/many kids in Detroit are trying to find a musical identity and having fun - thus increasing their chances of making something truly good. You don't want to have too much top down interference when dealing with bands. The atmosphere is pretty much already here in Detroit. The proof is in the pudding - look at all the bands that have come out of here. | ||
Ggores Member Username: Ggores Post Number: 157 Registered: 10-2007 |
So comrade mails me a newly mastered six song EP and, as promised, I gave it a listen on the home stereophonic. Two things were immediately recognized as lacking: 1) me 2) bounce in the low-end of the final mix Few weeks later, comrade and I are driving about town and he put this same EP in his motor car radio. The bounce was back and it sounded ten times better. He too, I think, applies the ‘how do it sound in my car’ test. Every healthy, vibrant music scene ever made had, at its core, a relentless group of live, performance-based musicianry. Now, problem is, is that whenever you get to discussing live, performance-based musicianing, the rattle of money always sneaks in and steals the conversation. Next thing ya know everyone is trying to figure who, what, when, where, and why regards them greenbacks (an even sorer subject due to dire economic times, compounding the problem). Unfortunately even more discouraging is the fact that the money debacle is usually solved by “charitable” and fund-raising events. That’s sad. I think that it is equally important what musicians, promoters, etc., avoid and distance themselves from as to what they actually DO. Do, do, do woppity do. Heh. Just pluggin a couple pennybacks here for ya’ll to chew on. Oh, yes, my point is that money and musicians should be kept at a couple arms length distance from each another and that someone else should handle that side. Of course, history has proven that this is not an infallible approach either. | ||
Matt_the_deuce Member Username: Matt_the_deuce Post Number: 821 Registered: 10-2003 |
Gannon - don't get me wrong, I think we can always improve things - and there are things that are wrong with certain business dealings in this town. I'll try to give my opinions more specifically a little later when I get a few more minutes. Have a good one! MTD | ||
Pffft Member Username: Pffft Post Number: 1556 Registered: 12-2003 |
Matt -- Very astute and very true, about the importance of less top-down interference... | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13240 Registered: 12-2003 |
Yeah, along the lines of what I've been thinking, but your words, Matt, nailed it. I am aware of the drill to go from great to least quality speakers with the mix, sorry I didn't make myself clear...it was just that was ALL he did! Mixed it on those horrible little laptop speakers, then car stereo...exactly the OPPOSITE trend. It would take a miracle to stumble upon a decent mix then. Plus, if you are not taking note of the absolute phase (or polarity, in this case 180-degree phase) of each track you capture, then things get decidedly lame in mastering...it never has that coherent magic. THAT lesson I taught to the fellow I call my Thinking Friend in NYC when I was the Technical Editor of Stereophile Guide to Home Theater magazine...and that after he'd already made a name for himself in the industry for fifteen years. First collection of tracks afterward that he took to HIS master masterer...the great and legendary Bob Ludwig...Bob listened and checked the tracks, and asked him specifically IF he paid attention to it this time...because it was the first time he'd gotten all 24 tracks in proper polarity. THIS is the most ignored, or least-known, aspect of sound quality and can make or break the liveness of sound reproduction! My Thinking Friend called me as he was floating away from that meeting to thank me...cementing our friendship to this very day. I would LOVE to help grown the recording industry here large enough for him to come back to Detroit, NYC doesn't deserve him! (heh) ORGANIC is right, that much I've been arguing to the committee...they are looking to the successes of others, which is smart, but they will probably never discover the true magic if they only look at numbers. I've already started talking about how the sheer pursuit of money screws things up, but also in another way. Most of the creatives I know simply have NO concept of it, so some are chasing after some ever-elusive dream that will merely kill them from over-indulgence once they get there! I'm lucky, I recognized my inability to even NOTICE time or money, at least until they run out. If I've got either, I give them away freely...like here! Don't talk to my landlord...or any of my creditors! | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13241 Registered: 12-2003 |
Damn, just missed Gwen Joy and Stirling on DetroitTODAY while I was typing that...just caught the end of the interview. Great to hear...Craiggy and his team are on top of things. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7400 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: The plan has to be to make a sustainable business. No hippy-co ops formed of a bunch of people who have no money but lots of time. That will just fizzle out as interest among the members wanes, because they pick up a new hobby of rock stacking or something. Plus there's no capital to purchase at least the bare bones of what is needed. That said, there's a big difference between sustainability and greed. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13243 Registered: 12-2003 |
Absolutely. So, a structure should be built that handles the legal, marketing, scheduling, all the way down to actually paying their bills...get OUT of the way so they (WE) can do their (our) bohemian thing and still survive...without the demeaning low-end service-sector jobs most have to suffer along the way. A bohemian/capitalist system buffer, it seems. But it has to be fully transparent socio-capitalist, so the excesses of corporate capitalism are continually chased away. I've said the term at the table, and already it has been misunderstood. My clearest base assumption is that money needs to be made, or it is not a business. But if that is the focus, then if WILL fail miserably...as the current system is so clearly doing. People have to be more valuable than money, always and always. My language is for the rest of it, so that money-making does not lapse into low-human tendencies which have to be guarded against continually. Greed, laziness or sloth, vanity...funny how it starts to sound like a diatribe against the seven deadly sins! Probably because it is...h-m-m-n-n. What are those others again? Remember they were illuminated through the characters on Gilligan's Island. Cheers, let's build a sustainable enterprise...wait'll you hear what has been brewing in my noggin about this...CommunityCups social networking for coffeehouses and more! JL and Matt, if you are interested, I'd like to have you either on this committee proper, or participating in our on-line discussion group, or BOTH. However much time and energy you've got to spare. Cheers | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13244 Registered: 12-2003 |
Plus, that will be the LAST time I'll allow the term "hippy" to be so abused...take it back, take it back! You hang out at coffeehouses and know my friends, you ARE one...so don't hate yourself. Let's learn to make it a positive thing again. heh | ||
Melody Member Username: Melody Post Number: 212 Registered: 11-2007 |
I think the biggest problem with the local music industry is not enough people go to see live music. The scene is self-sustained, but if there are too many shows the regular crowd gets spread out. "Regular people" would rather see a movie or go to DTE than check out local talent for 1/5 of the price. Recording can be cheap, most bands know a guy who has Protools and a decent set up for demo recordings. Another issue is that bands will play 5 times in one month and wonder why only 12 people come to see them each time. Don't slut yourself out. Play once or twice a month and turn it into an event. That's my two cents... | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7404 Registered: 10-2003 |
I'd be willing to participate in some capacity. You might still have my email address. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7405 Registered: 10-2003 |
I agree with Melody about playing too much. Making it an event is key. Look what No Fun Records in Ann Arbor does every year with their annual bash. They bring a bunch of their bands together at the Blind Pig like The Avatars and The Hard Lessons and have a big party. The place is packed, and everybody has a great time. | ||
Melody Member Username: Melody Post Number: 213 Registered: 11-2007 |
Shameless Plug, and speaking of No Fun Records: If anyone is serious about supporting local music, come see my band at the Belmont in Hamtramck this Thursday. Ha ha. 9 p.m. $6. 18+. We go on at 11 p.m., long after Cityfest is over for the day. (Message edited by Melody on July 01, 2008) | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13246 Registered: 12-2003 |
Melody, I will be around the corner hosting my Open Mic at the 1923 Coffeehouse from 7 until 9. Holbrook a few blocks east of Jos.Campau. If you drop in to say HI and buy a cup o' joe and/or a muffin or something from Sean and Shannon, I'll come in for your show. Deal? | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7407 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: I was NOT! I was a punk rocka. Who just happened to be hanging around those hippies.  | ||
Melody Member Username: Melody Post Number: 214 Registered: 11-2007 |
You mean that coffee house with all those hippies? Just kidding. I love that place. If I am not too preoccupied trying to get my hair to be 3 feet tall for the show, I will stop by! I didn't even know you had an open mic there. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13247 Registered: 12-2003 |
BTW, you just helped me identify another mover and shaker that I'd like to talk with...can you get the folks at No Fun to contact me regarding this think-tank? Sounds like they are doing some good! I'll have my contact information at the coffeehouse for you...heh. We have a continual stream of excellent songwriters and performers there...including Audra's now-occasional arrivals, Jaye Thomas of Apartment 4, Jesse Shepherd-Bates and his gang of merry maniacs, his new friend Sarah (wish I got her last name, she is obviously destined for greatness), Tarayl from the Toy Warehouse, storytelling Terrance the beautiful barista's husband, and an amazing fine folk fellow from Windsor David Whitaker...among WAY too many to list (please forgive me in advance if you got forgotten!) The talent pool is outstanding, more like a GIFTED pool. I've gotten a few positive remarks over my staging and sound quality...one from their coffee distributor who says it is hands down the best Open Mic he's ever experienced...consistently enjoyable, and the sound is NEVER too loud. (that's my gift, heh, and MY biggest pet-peeve against MOST live performances, I've come to conclude that most sound guys are simply now-DEAF ex-musician wannabees!) My experiment is succeeding. I really hadn't thought of it that way until I typed this all out. I forced myself into the equation when Shannon first encouraged Audra to do it, because she needs a good live sound guy but hadn't quite understood that, it is dawning upon her now...but knew in my heart I needed to prove that it could be consistently done. Proof of concept of the foundation of the CommunityCups ideals...up until that hard-drive got full, I was recording EVERY show. And was able to get them into a few musicians hands for demos, one pianist gave it to a friend as a gift...actually I'd like to see him again. Where are you Richard Sparks? Cheers, I once again speak too much and am late for a meeting! (Message edited by Gannon on July 01, 2008) | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13248 Registered: 12-2003 |
OH shit, don't let me get in the way of show-prep. Tell me what you want, and I'll deliver it after we're done! heh I love hippies. Bohemians. Any seekers of truth, beauty, and love. I love them so much I want to help them succeed in our weird corporate capitalist world somehow. Yanno, the very same one that got their parents to discourage them from following their gifting or to develop their talent...yeah, that one. The one that actively tried to KILL all the creativity within me, too. If it wasn't for MY serendipitous encountering the Gotham City coffeehouse back in the day, I may not be who I am today. That's why I want to focus on THAT marketplace...plus what happened at Cafe de Troit with the e-amplification from HERE, actually. It is all in the prospectus...heh. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7411 Registered: 10-2003 |
I think Charlie is who you want to talk to at No Fun. He was working at Herb David for awhile, might still be there if you wanted to try just popping in and ambushing him. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 13250 Registered: 12-2003 |
I would IF I knew what a Herb David was...I know a few herbs, but not him. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7414 Registered: 10-2003 |
Gannon, I'm shocked. http://www.herbdavidguitarstud io.com/catalog/index.php |
