Create Your Own Disneyland

Bob Lefsetz is a crazy old crumugeon who writes a rambling email newsletter about the music business. The really frustrating thing? He is almost always right. Not just obvious right, but often very insightful, the kind of right that instead of just saying "amen!" you say - hmmmm, that's an interestig idea that I should think about more....

Today he was writing about Disocbiscuit fest (Campbiscuit) - huh? Some jam band I never heard of (my encylclopedic knowledge of Jam bands begins and ends with Dave Matthews - who used to play on the college where I grew up during party weekends - had to keep the W&L boys happy).

Anyway - Bob said something, and I am paraphrasing here - "Create Your Own Disneyland." Disco Busicuit have had a summer fest for 8 years now and he pointed out that they were doing this for their fans, not to get Miller Lite on board.

Now, no, I am not going to go out and start a Ninthwave Fest. ADD tried that and is probably still paying it off. And no, I am not going to resurrect SynthCon (ugh! that was a clusterfvck from the get go). But I like the idea of catering to fans.

This is what A Different Drum has done. People bitch and moan about ADD and how cheesey their releases can be, how out of fashion. Well, ok, maybe, but here they are around 11 years later still releasing new music. Why? Because ADD caters to the fans, treats them like friends not just customers.

I am of two minds about that - one- I think it is a great idea. Bob is right (Todd is right) you need to make the people who pay you happy, not the look-e-lou hipster kids who want free downloads. True dat. But, and this is a big butt! I think you run the risk of playing to a smaller and smaller core of fans. How do you avoid that reality? Journey used to play to sold out Arenas now they play to state fairs. Not a bad gig, but each year their fans fall off (or die off). I know - I used to go see Steely Dan year after year, I was such a huge fan. When they came back in the 90s I went for the first three summers, so grateful to be able to see them live! But then, well, after awhile I stopped going. Going to Great Woods is not cheap nor easy, and I realized that Becker and Fagen were going to just tour each summer until no one showed up or one of them dropped dead. The thrill was gone.

ADD is like this - after a while I just oculdn't keep up, did not want to. Too many releases that sounded similar. I wanted to move on. I am talking to three bands right now about releasing their music on Ninthwave. One is a fairly standard electrodance act but it has an industrial edge, no vocals. The second is a straight on club/circuit boy dance act, disco for the aughts. The last is a caberet act- yeah, caberet Simon Cowell, the real deal. Why? Because I like the music, why not? Its not like I am signing death metal bands (although if the right one came along)...

Anyway, the point is of this rambling post- I want to create a Disneyland - not sure how, but I am going to think about it this summer.

The Electroluvs
"Blonde" (mp3)
from "Synthetic Dance Music"
(Ninthwave Media)

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