High on hope vs music synchronisation

Last post I introduced famed pianist Liberace’s popularisation of the phrase “Crying all the way to the bank”. The context may have been different, but the usefulness in relation to the modern music industry is the same.  This week Lost in Musik published the second part of their essay on the state of the economy in the electronic music scene. Amidst tales of Ghost Writers, engineering jobs and making money from touring as a DJ was the other possibility for making money by “music synchronisation”, or the licencing of tracks to video games, films and advertising uses. Apparently lucrative, but obviously a somewhat rare event for a producer overall. Selling out in such instances is always viewed as a problem, but there is another dark side to this practice that also deserves discussion.

Now that producers and their publishing companies know there is money to be made from music synchronisation there is a tendency to try and milk it for all its worth. The one off licencing of a track could relieve financial pressure for a long time to come. While there will be little sympathy for product advertisers or mainstream commercial projects trying to siphon the potential of a track to effectively make themselves more money, the  cost of licencing can be high for artistic ventures seeking the right to use a track in a film. A case in point is “High on Hope” a film by Piers Sanderson.

High On Hope - documentary trailer from Piers Sanderson on Vimeo.

The film is a documental history of the burgeoning rave scene in Blackburn, Lancashire in the early 90s and features some extraordinary footage of the warehouse parties taken on a home video by Preston Bob. Shown at several festivals to much acclaim, including the Barcelona In-Edit Festival where it will screen again this year after having won a prize. However, the larger distribution of the film has been impeded by the publishing company’s financial demands to licence the music. While within their rights to command a price, it is arguably questionable to restrict exposure to their music which could potentially increase sales and interest. Furthermore, one of the major criticisms of the music industry in the times of piracy and MP3s has been their lack of foresight and flexibility of business model in dealing with new ideas and potentials for spreading and listening to music.

“High on hope” is currently seeking donations and/or additional financing to officially licence the soundtrack to enable broader release of the film. Donations of £10 will receive a DVD and a link to the film when officially available and can be made at the films official website.

I talked briefly with director Piers Sanderson about some of these issues this week, though more details about the making of the film and problems can be found at the above link.

Floatinghead: Despite winning numerous prizes, you have still found it difficult to find funding for the film. Is this down to the crisis you think or perhaps a certain malaise amongst investors to fund documentary films?

Piers Saunderson: “The problem is that there is a cost to clearing the music and distributers of low budget, niche films are not able to take the risk on paying any money upfront. If the music was cleared I have 3 really good distributers who all want the film. They just don't have £30,000 to lay out for it.”

Floatinghead: You mentioned in one interview that one of the reasons for the (relatively) high price of licencing the music was that the publishing companies want to recoup as much money from tracks as possible to offset the losses of filesharing, for example. Can you comment a bit more on that maybe and do you think they are in a sense working against their own interest by penalising a smaller artistic project such as yours compared to say, a larger or more commercial venture like advertising or gaming etc?

Piers Saunderson: “Yes that is my theory. The music business has lost a huge slice of its income in an area it can’t control - file sharing and who listens to their music - so they are making sure they get maximum revenue from areas that they can control like syncing music in films. As a producer of a film I cannot hide if I use someone's music, I have to pay. I understand this mentality to a point but I have another way of looking at it. There has never been so many films made as there are at the moment, digital technology has meant that it is easier and cheaper to make visual content. Why don’t the publishers open up their back catalogues and allow film makers to use the tracks that haven't had any interest in for years. They could charge a small fee say £50 instead of £1000 and allow them to sell the film through selected distribution film sites (like I-tunes) and have an agreement with the producers and distribution platform to account to the publishers just how much income it’s made and they get a % of total revenue. Surely that is better than making it prohibitively expensive for small independents like myself to use the music. Just think of all the old house music that they still control that isn’t being used. Next year the International Music Seminar in Ibiza have invited me to do a panel with the publishers where I will challenge them over their current business model. It will be interesting to hear what they say.”

Floatinghead: You already have agreements for all the tracks used in the films, but there is no track list yet. Is this intentional to keep the audience in suspense or a legal issue? Is there any plans to try and release the soundtrack as a CD for example?

Piers Saunderson: “No there is no mystery, there is a track listing somewhere on the Facebook page. If I don't get the required funds needed to clear the music I will go and find 15 tracks that don't have a publishing deal anymore and re do the soundtrack of the film. I don't want to do this as I think what is there works really well at the moment. However I have used the biggest warehouse tunes of the time so perhaps it would be cool to do it with more obscure records. Yes I would like to do a Cd as well but my fear is that will just put the costs of licensing up even more.”

Floatinghead: “You did a secret warehouse screening of the film in Moscow. was that because of legal issues or was it a kind of "marketing" ploy to capture the spirit of the film?”

Piers Saunderson: “It was something that the festival organised. It was a brilliant idea. People phoned a number on the night and got directions to the location just like back in the day. It’s something I would like to do myself  when I release the film. I don’t think they have the same concerns about music licenses in Russia ;-)"

Floatinghead: What next for the film? Will there be more screenings or is the next step dependent on the last funding step? What will you be doing afterwards? Are there any plans for making other films?

Piers Saunderson: “I am still hoping that enough individuals will get behind the donation scheme to raise the money to clear the music. With very little publicity I have had nearly 100 people donate over £1500. What has been really lovely is that it’s come in from all over the world - Japan, USA, Europe, Russia, South America, Australia and New Zealand. I am sure that if enough people find out about this I will get the required donations. People can give just £3 and they will get a free download when the film comes out. That would mean I need £10,000 people to donate to hit the target. When you think about how many people this scene touched worldwide it’s an attainable figure. What has been nice though is that the average donation has been £15 which means that we could do it with just 2000 people. Now all of a sudden that doesn't seem too big a number at all. As you can see I am an optimist, I would never have tried to make this film if I wasn't. I believe in the story, I believe in the ethos of the time. I believe it will happen.

Yes I am trying to make other films. I have been in development with a UK broadcaster for a year on an idea about video games and I hope to do another music documentary at some point, I just need to get the publishers onside before I start it.”

Are you ready? or is this hyperreal?

Here is one of my favourite quotes from the recent coverage of the riots in England that have spread somewhat around the globe.

“a rage against exclusion from consumerist fulfilment”

from The Guardian

Back in Barcelona I could only look on captivated, excited and disappointed in the same breath. Given the current social, political and economic climate, it does not surprise me at all to see such behaviour and to a point I do not judge it too critically, but yet I have to feel a certain amount of disappointment at the lack of real political identity amongst the looters. The UK government is giving them a lot of credit where none is due, it seems to me, politicizing them and making them a coherent enemy when they seem nothing more than just a pack of angry dogs. This was no protest or statement against the political class, but merely a reaction from poor people (and probably many not so poor people) who are sick of being poor and who are told they will be even poorer due to economic mismanagement. The looting did not even have a Robin Hood element to it either, nothing but chaos. Also, much has been made of the use of Blackberry’s in organising and propagating the riots (see below), but shouldn’t owning a Blackberry be a sign of “consumerist fulfilment”?

The lack of political motivation in the English riots is also disappointing given the vulnerability of world governments in the face of the ever blooming financial crisis, but also given that so many other youths around the world have made impactual and, what seem to be, lasting political statements via the “Indignado” or 15M movement. Politically and socially motivated stand offs with police are also not unheard of in Britain, as the recent riots in Bristol’s Stokes Croft region showed.

The looters may seem to lack direct political motivation, but it appears there is strong evidence for their indirect or the collective action at least given the economic downturn and the enforced austerity measures put in place by many governments. A recent paper was published by Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Voth, two macroeconomic professors from the University Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, which studied 26 European countries from 1919 to 2009 and found that

“Expenditure cuts carry a significant risk of increasing the frequency of riots, anti-government demonstrations, general strikes, political assassinations, and attempts at revolutionary overthrow of the established order. While these are low-probability events in normal years, they become much more common as austerity measures are implemented.”

The obvious musical backdrop to this is punk rock and the now dubious decision to use the Clash’s song “London calling” in advertisements  for next year’s Olympic Games. Actually about nuclear war, nonetheless, the songs imagery ties in nicely with The Guardian’s dystopian view of the future.

“Images of the city's looted, burnt-out streets conjure not so much the 1980s Brixton riots as a new, dystopian reality”

The soundtrack to this brave new world might also do well to include Atari Teenage Riot who have sensibly decided to release a new album “Is this hyperreal?” in the midsts of all this after many years in the wilderness. Indeed, the album is much a search for identity for the band themselves as it is another brash and no-punches-pulled criticism of “consumerist fulfilment” and a call to action.

Alec Empire begins the idea of identity when intoning “Anonymous Teenage Riot” on several tracks, while Nic Endo provides a surprising moment of tenderness in “Shadow Idenity” when singing

“Who do you want to be and why?”

to a few bars of slow dreamy music as if addressing herself and the band as well as the listener. CX Kitronik is the most blatant however, beginning the track “Rearrange your synapses” with the monologue

“2011. Atari teenage Riot. And some people are still asking if we are still necessary. Very much so…”

Relevance is an important question as nobody seems to have paid much attention to ATRs music for long time, but CX Kidtronik is more than right when suggesting they are still necessary. While many of their old tropes may be found here, such as reams of noise, raking guitars, bullet beats and a certain comic book enthusiasm to the lyrics, there is enough innovation to the music (all recorded using an Atari ST1040 computer with 2MB ram) to keep it relevant, such as more emphasis on ambience, a variation of beat styles, from techno to the dub step influence on “Digital delay”. Closing track “Collapse of History” is a beautifully ironic party track, rough, but almost surreptitiously creating the contrasting sense of glamour and hands in the air joy to celebrate the end of civilisation.

Politically, and coming back to the riots in Britain, ATRs attack on the internet in general and social network culture is the most prominent addition to their list of targets.

“The internet

Is it worth the creation of a black hole that sucks up our time, creativity and friendships?

Some believe the every day mobile device is as powerful as a nuclear hand grenade when it comes to starting a revolution!

The ideologies behind that type of thinking aren't exactly solid, my friend!

When the authorities catch up with us, and they will, not such a good idea to leave traces and expose your whole network at once."

Wise words indeed since many in the media and the government have accused the looters and rioters of using Blackberries  and social networks to coordinate their activities. Indeed, ATRs words are almost perfectly prophetic given a more recent article  suggesting that police did in fact use the mobile devices of apprehended looters to intercept intelligence on future targets and break up further activities. Similar trumpeting of the role of Twitter and Facebook  has been made about the Arab Spring.

It is also sobering to think that the band that asked us to "Start the riot" and "Destroy 200 years of culture" is also preaching honestly about the dangers and consequences. The outstanding title track returns the scene to the idea of the dystopian chaos of life after the revolution, as if listening to a sound track to a John Carpenter film.  Rather than the bands trade mark digital hardcore, the track is a mesmerising ambient piece, mixing dark analog synths and lyrics delivered like snatches of dialogue from a range of characters, all of whom end asking the question “Is this hyperreal?”. At the end of the track Alec Empire directly addresses the German government in German, and threatens the creation of a new Republic.

 “Music is a weapon

Sounds like a threat”

Sings Empire in the opener “Activate”. He could be right, but are you ready?

Empire certainly is and has had several brushes with the police already, including this famous incident from May Day Berlin in 1999

One should also not forget that ATRs fabled introduction to many tracks, the cry "Are you ready?" is the same used by the makers of Sponge Bob Square Pants to introduce the show to kids. Perhaps in the future we can substitute the music of ATR for the sanitised surrealist world of the pineapple beneath the sea?

When folk goes digital - Roy Harper

I am a self confessed vinyl freak and my displeasure at the world of digital downloads reached a new level this week. I had been reading a recent issue of the Wire and become fascinated by the Roy Harper interview, especially as the music seemed something like what my dad would like. Since I didn’t send him a birthday present in April, I decided that I would get him some Roy Harper music to try. Following my lead from the article, I dutifully headed to his official website where I paid for a digital download of his latest retrospective collection “Songs of Love and Loss”. That the files I obtained where high quality FLAC may be lost on my father since he will receive only the two CDs I burned for him (had I sent him the FLACs I am sure he wouldn’t have been able to convert them or burn them either!). The strangeness of the gift was that there was nothing to see or even to “have” and even the gesture of giving something paid for and lovingly searched out felt somehow meaningless, even if it is the thought that counts. “Happy Birthday dad, here are your data files”. I know that I probably could have obtained the material by illegal download, but since it was my father and a late present at that, I did not feel like denying Mr Harper a little bit of income, especially as he has been on hard times and is in his seventies. One curiosity of all this as well is that digital folk music sounds like a strange contradiction. Afterall, everone remembers when Bob Dylan went electric, but who remembers when he went digital?

However, I must confess to also stealing some of Mr Harper’s music. One thing in the interview that attracted me was a little dialogue about a song he wrote called “When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease”. Being Australian and something of a cricket fan (perhaps not as much as my father) it was too much to not search out at least this track. Its exclusion from the collection was that it was not technically a love song, although perhaps a love song about cricket and not cricketers. I had the added inspiration that, since my father is a good guitar player and often jamming with friends and doing little concerts here and there, it seemed that he might even be able to learn the cricket song as part of his repertoire. I did encourage him to change the names in the lyric

“And it could be Geoff and it could be John, with a new ball sting in his tail”

to commemorate Australian players, rather than the English players Geoff Boycott and John Snow to whom they refer.

Perhaps the most outstanding lyric of this track is the line

“The fabled men and the noonday sun are much more than just yarns of their days.”

which holds resonance for much more than cricket of course.

The collection “Songs of Love and Loss” was a fascinating and surprising trawl through some of Harper’s works. Thankfully there was not too much of the harmonica-folk style of some early Dylan that gets overbearing very quickly. Similarly, while rich in poetry and rivalling some of the words of Leonard Cohen, Harper’s voice and musical ability are often more rewarding than some of Cohen’s droll delivery.

For example, the short track “Francesca” from the album “Flat Baroque and Berserk” resembles Cohen’s style, but is delivered with a real delicacy that emphasises the lyric “thanks for being free” and gives it sincerity, without a hint of sarcasm, despite the fact that Francesca has left him.

“Hey Francesca

You gave me no warning

Hey Francesca

Tiptoes in the morning

Thanks for leaving the sunshine

Thanks for leaving me

Thanks for being all mine

Thanks for being free

Hey Francesca”

Sadly there is no audio or video material I can find for the track “All you need is” from the 1967 album “Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith” which would seem to reference the Beatles track “All you need is love” from the same year. Harper’s elegant lyrics add a lot more to the Beatles sentiment of love at the peak of the hippie movement.

“I gave my love a daisy, a third eye in my mind

We turned the crazy day around, to see what we could find

And went onto a journey

Reflecting us so deep and wide

That we could see the other side

Of knowing nothing matters in the everything surrounding us

Surrounding everything itself

Surrounding”

The emphasis on “surrounding” is also beautifully embedded in the arrangement of the music as the line is delivered.

Since my father is a guitar player I also fixated on the playing on the opening track “Black Clouds” which is perhaps the most complicated of the collection, contrasting different picking techniques to emphasise discordance. The way Harper’s voice sings across the music is also effective in contrasting his smooth blue sky-voice with the menace of rain and darkness in the trickling and pointillist playing.