Entertainment For Lively Minds
Would you pay £100 for your favourite band's new album?
I'm sure we're all (sort of) familiar with Radiohead's self-release of their last couple of albums, and the 'tip-jar' policy / deluxe edition thing.
Other artists lower down the leagues and less newsworthy have been doing the same thing on a word-of-mouth basis for a longer time - two that spring readily to mind (because I like them and have bought their wares) are Lloyd Cole and Martin Stephenson (of The Daintees).
Yesterday I received an email from Scopitones, the web "home" of the two-bands-in-one songwriter David Gedge.
I'll explain what the e-mail was about in a moment.
Gedge has been (in the words of John Peel) "responsible for some of the greatest love songs of the rock era" in his bands The Wedding Present and Cinerama, and has kept me interested for almost 25 years. I don't care that the songs are relatively simplistic, I don't care that you can "tell" it's The Wedding Present (I even had their ace self-deprecating "All The Songs Sound The Same" t-shirt), and I don't care that the lyrics only really deal with the one subject.
Like (I suspect) everyone else on here, I can mark certain events in my life with which of one of my favourite band's songs was kicking around at the time.
Drink a lot and dance and snog every Thursday night at indie disco? My Favourite Dress and Nobody's Twisting Your Arm.
Drink only slightly less than before and give up crap job in a supermarket? Bizarro album.
Drink the same as before I started drinking less, start a football fanzine? Seamonsters album.
Plan new music fanzine, meet Gedge, interview him, be astounded by his hairy ears? Three 7" single.
Notice first significant other and plan to ask her out? Come Play With Me 7" single.
Move in with first significant other - Loveslave 7" single.
Dump her? Watusi album.
Move town? Mini album.
Get really fed up at thought of having dumped first significant other, and so come home? Saturnalia album.
Etc etc etc etc etc.
Though I have "gone digital" and ditched 99.9% of my CD and vinyl collection, I "own" every song Gedge's two bands have ever officially released. I am a completist, though I don't collect. I'm not into "formats". Just the songs, please, in whatever format I can crunch down to digital and stick onto my 2TB external hard-drive.
Now, here's the thing, the e-mail thing.
The Wedding Present have recorded a new album to be issued in March next year. Hooray!
Do I want to join the 500-members only club, at a cost of one hundred pounds sterling? Ooh.
I would receive a signed copy of the album on CD, with my name in the credits, plus a 7" single with two unreleased tracks? Plus, of course, there will be other things added in to the mix over the year - who knows what these will be?
Exlusive downloads? Guest list spots? T-shirt? Mr Gedge turning up at my house to play the Seamonsters album live and REALLY FUCKING LOUD in my living room as, late one night in a blue moon, I semi-drunkenly flick through pages of youthful vim, vigour and vitriol in my football fanzine?
For the record, I am not coming from a negative angle in reporting the e-mail, and, of course, it's one of my long-term favourite bands, and I'm just grateful Gedge is still making bloody great records after all this time, so..... if I can squirrel the cash together quick enough I'll be there on the front line.
But it got me wondering, though, about value. What is true value in music, now? I guess it is whatever the punter perceives it to be. Has it always been like this?
What lengths would other members of the Massive go to in support of their favourite band, and what would you expect to receive for your money? And, as per this post, indulge yourself a little and tell a few of those significant moment / which record things....
Have a listen to this while you think about it. It's great.
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Nobody's twisting your arm...
...sorry couldn't resist...
Ian McNabb can be booked to play your front room too...
My favourite artist is probably Matthew Sweet.
His newest album comes out in a couple of weeks.
Judging by the couple of songs I've heard thus far, I wouldn't give you £2.50 for it. And I speak as a fan..
How much would you pay
if he came round to your house and didn't play any of the new one?
a fucking fortune if he brought
Susannah Hoffs along...
I'd bring the Kebabs
If you pulled that off!
Careful Now
Using the words "pulled that off" in reply to a comment by Lenny is really asking for it.
Susannah Hoffs. Ironic that she's a Bangle.
Because she always makes we want to have one off the wrist.
Jethro Tull's 'Aqualung' super deluxe remix...
...pack is out in a month and it's £100 (2CDs, DVDA, BluRay, vinyl, book). Luckily it's also available for £15 as a 2CD. I doubt I would have justified spending £100. I didn't for the Who's super deluxe 'Live At Leeds' - though both are artefacts I would like/have liked to have owned.
These are heritage projects, of course - like the 19 disc sandy Denny box set last year (nope...). All of which are aimed at people who earn more money than I do. But clearly there's enough of them.
I think we're seeing Gedge try a new kind of business model here: get £50,000 in quickly from 500 well-off diehards, if indeed there are that many. It's a marginally less tawdry angle than Linda Thompson flogging anecdotes about Nick Drake for £100 and your name as executive producer on a record or whatever it was she was trying to do a year or two back.
Be interesting to see if there are indeed 500 well-off Gedge-o-philes out there.
Measuring Worth
I've just been over to the Measuring Worth site and see that a £13 CD of 1983 (when they simply seemed a little expensive, would today cost you £34.20. That means that the Gedge's Wedge (or whatever it's called) is only three times what we were once willing to pay for a CD.... I wonder how many CDs would be flying out of Amazon's warehouses at over £30 a pop.
I appreciate the current climate....
....and the sentiment behind this action, but it reminds me a bit of buying a season ticket for Spurs or Arsenal.
Make the walk-in price ridiculously expensive, give a concession on a season ticket, remind people that if they don't invest they won't be able to see the World Class Spotty Rooney, Fat Frank or Cashley next season.
Whatever happened to the idea of just fancying the Arsenal game on the Saturday morning and pitching up in the afternoon?
.....or just buying an LP/CD instead of having to make 'an investment' in it?
Would I pay £100 for my favourite band's new album?
In the famous words of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on the occasion of her daughter's Silver Jubilee, "Had away an' shite, man."
Well, maybe I would if it came with dinner, a floor show and a procession of attractive and negotiably affectionate ladyfolk. But it would still have to be a fucking good album.
Maybe not £100
Many musicians offer lesser packages too - I happily paid around £13-16 to a few artists via pledgemusic for a signed CD (along with updates, videos and occasional works-in-progress clips as they were making the album).
The Old Magic
by Nick Lowe (not the the subscriber's version, I'm sad to say) just plopped through my letterbox so will get a good airing tonight.
It occurred to me it probably wouldn't cost the earth these days to get the "old geezer" to come round and play it to me instead.
So what's the going rate for a one-night-only solo spot?
I Think The Opposite
In the 'old days' Nick Lowe used to play regularly in small venues like the old Mean Fiddler presumably for lowish fees. These days, well, quite simply, he doesn't have to. So I would imagine that he would want quite s lot to play. Tickets in recent years haven't been cheap (I paid £25 for a ticket last week).
True that
I know that Nick has deliberately priced himself out of the most markets. He only works when he wants to. He just sits at home thanking Whitney.
but...
I thought he said that the Whitney money was gone, spent paying for a tour and recording costs for two albums. In fact I think he told us on a Word Podcast.
I may be mistaken.
I wonder how much the Bodyguard soundtrack sells now? After it's initial glorious run, I can't imagine it's one that people go looking for, unlike for instance the Saturday Night Fever sountrack. It doesn't strike me as one that successive generations are going to see as seminal.
Though for Nick's sake, let's hope they do...
Didn't know that.
I haven't listened to the podcast. I believe it was the case, maybe 5-10 years ago, when a Glasgow promoter of high standing just couldn't afford to book him.
And he's not exactly running himself into the ground on his UK tour of 2012 either.
Maybe he should do a re-record...
..."(Where's My Money For) Peace, Love & Understanding" :-D
Would pay £35 for old album though
Lovely version of Bizarro available for £35
http://www.scopitones.co.uk/merchandise2/index.php?productID=252
I can't imagine parting with £100 but I am hopeful about this one making an appearance under the Xmas tree this year. It ticks all the boxes for me.
Although I was slightly stressed by the question at the bottom of the page:
"Please specify what exactly would you like to learn about Bizarro 10" Box Set (LP):"
Then I realised the only thing I was really interested in was "what does it smell like?" and I don't think Mr Scopitones webmaster will be able to answer that.
Quadrophenia box set
Don't know if I can justify £70 for the new Quadrophenia box set considering I already have most of the music. On the other hand it is nicely packaged and I've already raised the possibility of a Christmas present with the good lady. Something else may come around in the meantime perhaps.