Russell Brown on BFM, talking with Murray Cammick, just mentioned that he'd heard unofficially that FMR staff had been fired, Warners keeping only two satff on. Given Warners local roster is tiny, doesn't bode well for all FMRs acts. Murray mentioned that many majors here get pressured to focus on international roster over local signings, citing the example of when former Warners head James Southgate had three local top ten albums in the charts on Xmas, and Warners Hong Kong office phoned him up and asked him why arent those positions taken up by foreign priorities. Murray used this as an example of how a major here with strong local roster came be too successful.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Technorati
//phoned him up and asked him why arent ...
//phoned him up and asked him why arent those positions taken up by foreign priorities
god that makes me wanna be sick. i would've thought chart position = someone doing their job = profit for that arm of the octopus.
//i would've thought chart position = ...
//i would've thought chart position = someone doing their job = profit for that arm of the octopus.
you'd like to think. It's probably a return on capital thing. that is, the profit relative to money spent on local artists doesn't compare to the profit on the (no) money spent on bringing in overseas artist's music.
However, just because I can see the commercial argument doesn't mean that this doesn't completely suck arse.
that's the "music industry" for ...
that's the "music industry" for you...
it's funny how as soon as the word industry gets involved the integrity of the music is compromised. coincidence??? mmmm....no.
its a pretty normal example of how ...
its a pretty normal example of how large companies treat smaller locals ones when they are bought out.. it is frankly shit for fmr artists if it is true....
happens more and more nowadays
I for one have very much enjoyed ...
I for one have very much enjoyed working with the staff at FMR and wish them all the best in their next ventures, especially to Dylan, Charlotte, Ingrid and Jonothan who are an incredibly talented bunch who make indy freaks who hate record company shtick feel comfottable while doing the shtick. Who knows what Warners are gonna be like.... you would like to think that they have bought FMR because they love the roster and think they can work with it but that is an optimistic view. We shall certainly find out!
ya. Exactly the way I felt. These were ...
ya. Exactly the way I felt. These were some good people who actually liked the music and went to the shows. It scares me who might be responsible for looking after the fly nun back catalouge now. Dylan and crew did a great job of making sure there were re-issues and that great records were available to all. (haha...and of course, some of the new FMR albums aren't too shite as well;)
//It scares me who might be responsible ...
//It scares me who might be responsible for looking after the fly nun back catalouge now.
I'm guessing a local re-release of Melt is NEVER gonna show up :(
I guess this frees up Dylan and co to create their own label, without international pressures. And then they can outsell FMR, and stick it to the man. The eternal optimist, eh?
I'm not certain how much of this is ...
I'm not certain how much of this is true, as my source is as unreliable as they come and he was wearing his blue unitard at the time, but anyhoo, word on street has it that one of the FN label staff was overheard out the back of Real Groovy @ the Stranded In Paradise book launch late last night, mentioning they were about to launch a new label dedicated to re-records of classic Nun tunes and focusing down hard on the lucrative market that exists on the Indian sub-continent. An admirable choice of career certainly, however what amused me the most was the proposed name of the new label - Frying Naan Records.
Fuck, Dylan was always good for a lead ...
Fuck, Dylan was always good for a lead on how to contact various people I wanted to interveiw. When ever I came in contact with FMR staff I found a bunch of unpretencious folk, who liked their music.
Thank you Jon Jnr. It has always been a ...
Thank you Jon Jnr. It has always been a pleasure.
from Simon Grigg's blog, read the ...
from Simon Grigg's blog, read the whole post here...
http://www.opdiner.blogspot.com/
excerpt...
I know its only a record company and record companies come and go but I feel the need to say something about the twinge of sadness I feel with the passing of Festival Records.....sorry… FMR…but I guess to those of us who have been around for a year or two, they will always be Festival.
Yep, a record company is just a record company, and this one has been controlled for most of its existence, at least in Australia, by the not-user-friendly Rupert Murdoch, who bled it for much of its life. But Festival, at least on this side of the pond, was something else. It was, for years, half locally owned (by Kerridge Odeon and before that by a series of entrepreneurs) and it had a freedom of spirit and a drive, by virtue of the people who worked there and the fact that it was small and relied on its deals with offshore indies and its suss in the local market to survive. In the eighties most of Festival’s major indies, Island, A&M, Arista, Jive, and Chrysalis, were bought and effectively turned into little more than names by multi-nationals. Whilst under the wing of Festival, all those companies enjoyed better success in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world. Even Mushroom jumped ship for a while, although its subsidiary, Flying Nun stayed in the fold. Things were tough after that and never, despite the best efforts of some pretty talented people, never really recovered. The surprise is that it took Murdoch so long to offload FMR…rumours having been rife for years.
Trips to several conferences in Australia over the years confirmed pretty much what had been obvious to many for a long time, that a&r was not a strength in the Australian operation, and hadn’t been since the golden years of the sixties. Indeed at one of those conferences, at some hellhole in Coffs Harbour, MD Roger Grierson stood up and announced that whoever had signed that “last piece of shit, was fired”.
also from simon's comments... "From ...
also from simon's comments...
"From Carlton Gore Road, where Jerry had to ring me to get the skinheads designing their album cover out of the stairway during a retailers conference, to the damp end of Nikau Street, to the rather odd offices in Scanlan Street, to the final resting place in Freeman’s Bay, Festival Records contributed something that was often un-catered for elsewhere. Over the past forty years, they provided something that no-one else did and it’s hard to see where the interesting little labels with something quirky and vital will go now. But then again, perhaps its time, like the record industry as we know it, is past. There is no doubt however, that without the support, drive and belief exhibited by the management and staff of this wannabe major, the indigenous NZ industry would not have been in the position it was in 2000 to make that jump to where it is now.
A minor but cruel irony….Flying Nun quickly ended a disastrous deal with Warners years ago and now end up owned by them, indeed such a large slice of our national musical heritage is now controlled by a listed American company. It’s like Coca Cola owning Bastion Point…..
While my bank account would disagree, I ...
While my bank account would disagree, I have some cents I want to add to this thread.
I was lucky enough to score a couple of weeks' work at FMR soon after I moved from Wellington to Auckland (earlier this year). I worked on reception, cos Hayley was outta there to do other stuff. Everyone made me feel welcome, and when we all gathered in the board room to watch the latest artist's video, the excitement was palpable. Although I was sorting out other employment options at the time, I caught on to a bit of the buzz at the place and could see that it was a pretty cool working environment. .. what I want to say is that these guys had heart and I wish them all the best of luck in whatever else they do.
I'm going to jump on the ...
I'm going to jump on the semi-professional thread, and say an especial thanks to Sian, who was great t work with even when she was telling me off for admittedly badly written bad PanAm reviews, Jonathan who wrote me once of the nicest ever "you applied too late for this position" emails, and Charlotte who always seemed really cheery, even though Tim de Laughter is actually a real mean bastard.
yep a great bunch of real cool people ...
yep a great bunch of real cool people who all loved music big time
Honourable metion to them that never get mentioned; Kim, Paul, Wayne three of the finest people you'd ever come across
I don't really pick up CDs and go "hm, ...
I don't really pick up CDs and go "hm, this is an FMR release" I don't think of any bands that way. Except maybe Led Zeppelin or one of those things where there seems to be no credits on the packaging.
Personally I quite liked the gigs by the Mint Chicks but, like, that record by Pan Am was rubbish. Ditto for the videos. Maybe if they had developed their sound for a few months extra there would have been something likeable about that album.
In the States the average record has to ship one million copies to be a successful though not major album. The highest selling artists from memory most local CDs get to about 35,000 at the most - probably many of them given away at parties and meetings etc.
this post doesn't make any sense....
this post doesn't make any sense.
..and your point is ...
..and your point is what?????
Festival has an amaxzing history...as does flying nun... and mushroom well Split Enz and Nick Cave are faitly fckn important artists in the scheme of things.
sounds like someone overheard a few ...
sounds like someone overheard a few conversations at a party and threw the bits they remember together in one almightly mess of random and pretty much irrelevant statements.
like when you're a kid at school and you try and join in with the cool people talking in front of you in the tuck shop line.
he's not wrong about pan am tho...
he's not wrong about pan am tho
Well, my point is that when you open ...
Well, my point is that when you open the paper and it says "local band _______ has sold 35,000 copies of there debut album." they aren't really valuable figures to a major label whose modest titles sell 950,000-1,150,000 copies. I'm not just making a petty 'comment' because this is an internet post. The Saturday Night Fever album shifted around 20 million units for instance.
i dont get it.... so you are for waners ...
i dont get it.... so you are for waners fireing the fmr staff?
the profit of this goes into the big warners monster....
if all we had was major labels then all the music in the mainstream would be purely money making music...
people would be starting bands purely to get signed and make money....
and then the public has to deal with worse and worse shit clogging up the airwaves.,...
i dont like the idea of that....
actually i shouldn't shit talk warners... im their bitch now.... they could be watching....
dont worry... we have some cool shit up our sleeves, the airwaves will be cleansed..
this post makes no sense ...
this post makes no sense either.
nurse, less drugs for this one.
na na, fuck that.... i wanna be sedated...
na na, fuck that.... i wanna be sedated
//the airwaves will be cleansed the ...
//the airwaves will be cleansed
the mintchicks are breaking up?
// // the airwaves will be ...
// // the airwaves will be cleansed
// the mintchicks are breaking up?
bahaha!
ah man.... first fmr gets bought ...
ah man.... first fmr gets bought out....
then i trip over the kerb on the way to work....
and then rope wants the mint chicks to break up....
total downer....
That said I'm all for local acts ...
That said I'm all for local acts having publishing and distribution for the NZ music market and markets overseas. For example, out of about 180-190 million dollars spent on music locally per annum about five percent is spent on local product. I would prefer it to be a greater amount as would anybody involved in making an album or whatever.
Casper local sales are over 10%, so are ...
Casper local sales are over 10%, so are you happier now or does every kiwi have to buy 5 copies of Staurday night fever first
wot is your point?
last I heard, cd sales in NZ were in ...
last I heard, cd sales in NZ were in the region of $180m a year - 10% of that is $18m. That aint chump change, now, is it?
Casper, Major labels are under no ...
Casper, Major labels are under no obligation to support the local music industry - it wasn't that long ago that BMG got a new boss and he dumped their local roster, including Che Fu, at the directive of head office.