Posts by Simon Grigg
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though it's hard to listen to some of their earlier work without cringing.
Prog hell for me will always be Jon Anderson & Co. Pick any lyric from here and grimace.
Hey! Some of us still like that stuff.
I think it's a European thing Giovanni. Almost every German I meet over a certain age asks me what my favourite Barclay James Harvest album is....
Or maybe it's me.
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I wonder if he got all the clearances?.
Or if they were just rips....
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of must have the last word.
And guess, what, you don't own this thread, there are others here. A post here does not necessarily mean you are the intended only recipient, although the number of people who've simply groaned and walked away has narrowed the field somewhat. When I say I'm out, I'm out of these endless circuitous nowhere sub-threads it always ends in, which seem to include you and someone else.
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I'm not living in fear of major labels, no one else has to either.
neither am I but at least I make a stab at understanding them...
Well its not going in the direction you favour
No it's not going in any direction. You misconstrue, take points that no-one makes then argue them, then argue a few pages later against the point you made earlier, ignore logic, throw things and equivalence into the mix that are irrelevant and often nonsensical, refuse to ever concede a point even when you are wrong and make wild assumptions that have no basis in fact.
Rob, I respect what you do and have done immensely, but there are limits.
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Scrooge mc duck isn't a real person. money bins of cash that you can dive into don't exist, (and you'd break your neck doing so) it's exaggeration for effect. It colours the whole music industry in a sheen of gold that isn't accurate for 99.99% of the industry.
Really? Read what I wrote, then read it again. The recording industry worldwide made a fortune in the decades after the CD was invented. It's absolutely accurate and is widely documented.
to me that's called business, and it happens this way in most industries, except other industries don't plead the poor suffering artist line, they accept the deal as what it is. take it or leave it.
Most other industries don't negotiate from a position of unfair advantage, and guess what, when they do, it is often taken to task and addressed.
And yes it's ridiculous to ask me to name names, most especially when you yourself have noted that the punitive nature of recording contracts is online, in articles and everywhere.
Once again Rob you're arguing in circles, misconstruing and just being silly. Really, this is going nowhere again.
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:)
Far be it from you to exaggerate for effect.No, it's called knowing what I'm talking about. If you are able to spend the time, have a wander through the reported profits of the major record companies in the post CD era.
And thank heavens the world doesn't revolve around the four folks you know with major labels contracts (two of whom, coincidently, I've had discussions with over the years about their deals, which they knew were unfair, but no, I'm not going to list people, that's ridiculous). That people accept the deal they are offered, try to negotiate a little better one for a bigger purpose but still know they are being fucked is a fairly simple concept to grasp but it seems to confuse you.
You can't be knowingly fucked over. That's called accepting their terms of the bargain.
Sorry, but I don't see any logic in your answer, the two are perfectly compatible and it happens every day, especially when one party is negotiating from a position of power.
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Back to more important matters
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The revolution took seed long before the recording industry took notice.
In other words, this time it is different, this time they are talking about impacting on lives and businesses on a massive scale, and so the push back is likely to be massive and, given the contexts you describe, not without justifiable passion.
Agreed Don, but there were many in the recording industry who did take notice. One of the key chapters in that book both Mark and I linked to is a dismantling of Doug Morris's 2007 Wired Interview in which he pleads tech ignorance. He (CEO of Univeral Music and a righteous dinosaur) says 'we didn't see Napster and the internet coming as we are not tech savvy'. But they had loads of advice and very smart people who were simply being ignored. Morris, really, was just making it up to suit. They, being the big labels and large indies, then thought the post CD boom and cash explosion of the 80s and 90s, would last forever. Even after the industry took down Napster they thought it was going to be, more or less, a return to the days of rolling in the money bins, Scrooge McDuck style.
So when Apple came calling they did a shitty deal with Jobs because they were a) desperate and b) thought that it (iTunes) was only a Mac platform thing. Duh....
I agree with you, the recording industry still doesn't realise how big the kickback against them is and could be, and a huge part of that comes from simply alienation of their audience. They've taken themselves from heroes to villains in half a generation and most of it is their own doing.
Do they, in NZ, realise how many people went 'fuck you' over S92a? I don't think so. It really pissed off so many ordinary (as much as I hate that phrase) people, and they're never coming back.
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Sorry Rob, that's silly, you know it.
I know you are gonna go all over the place with this but the logic of your argument is that it's ok for me to take your car if you didn't lock it. After all, you were warned. That your failure to act overrides your legal rights and my obligations and binds under law.
For you to assume that the pages of Rolling Stone, a few web sites and chat rooms allow an 18 year old to navigate a 50 page contract, which is the extension of a brief deal memo which promises the world is ridiculous, and for you to imply that their desire for success overrides society's legal mechanism and obligation to protect them is just unacceptable.
And I have been fucked over, but willingly as I knew what was going down (and no, before you say it, that's not the reason I'm writing this) and I had no choice at the time (which I don't want to go into). Plenty of musicians too are in that position too. Does that make it right, no? But sometimes you have to do a Robert Johnson. Maybe you've never had that drive but most musicians I know have at some stage, and many get burnt. Your implication is that they are responsible for that. You can say silly boy / girl but that doesn't remove the onus from the other party to deal fairly.
As I said, the courts have already weighed in on this, in the US, UK and Australia.
This is getting nonsensical and starting to go around in silly circles again. Count me out...again.
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Well, you should, and in book form.
I'm not sure if I'm quite the one to do that but it's gagging to be written by someone. There's lots out there already. The Mansion on The Hill is great, albeit very dated, industry book, as is The Hitmen, although there's yet to be a book that I know of which has gone at it from a more artist and their contracts POV, rather than the intrigues of label politics.
There are a couple of good books on music industry court cases, but the most fascinating books on recording contracts are a part of the industry that is books about the Beatles, and they, of course, are a law unto themselves.