Dub dot dash

Laugh? She nearly cried.

So, another NZ Music Month draws to a close (see Damian Christie's piece on Close-up last night? Elemeno P's Dave Gibson and Carly Binding talking about how tough it is for local musos to survive, but good news - Carly is moving to LA!), and here's a heartening bit of news on the state of the global music industry...

"We try to minimize our coverage of self-styled industry pundit Bob Lefsetz around here, in part because we don't know enough about Aspen's slopes to keep up with all of his ski-related metaphors, but this was too good not to share: Earlier this week, Lefsetz sent out a spittle-flecked rant titled "Reasons Not To Sign With The Major Labels". Last night, he emailed his list one of the responses inspired by his screed--a sorta-juicy, bitching-about-the-biz blind item that made us more than a bit curious:

My sister is signed with a major label and check out what they told her last week. They said, "We hope you're piling on the makeup and getting dressed up for these radio interviews we're sending you on. We're not hearing good reports. From now on, we're going to select your clothes for you." This is someone who has had two #1's and been nominated for three Grammy's. [sic]

She also said the same thing as you. They aren't paying her a dime and she's never recouped. Because radio is so dead, touring's slow for her as well. She's working her ass off for nothing and the label doesn't have a clue about the Internet or how to sell digital music. My friend works for her management company and he's supposed to be rebuilding her website. He said the label can't even tell him who owns it so he can get in to change the DNS.

Unsurprising--but really, makeup tips for radio interviews? Have these executives ever seen the people behind some of these microphones? (Via idolator, my new fave blog..)

Here's the blurb from Damian's Close-Up piece..

NZ Music Month
"May is New Zealand music month. All month there are special events, the radio stations do their bit, and the government gets to pat itself on the back for supporting the local industry. But is it working? It's seven years since the first music month, and while there's a lot of kiwi music about, the future's not looking great. The percentage of New Zealand music on the radio is down slightly on previous years and following overseas trends, sales of New Zealand albums have dropped a third since the late 1990s. Damian Christie caught up with four bands whose careers launched in those early days of New Zealand Musc Month, to see how well they've fared."