what is the demographic of these labels?
white/academic/bourgeios/single income + artistic aspirations?????peer to
peer?
but why is this important to know? For Staalplaat some people work,
and they all different backgrounds and everybody gets to say
something (as for those think differentely: I am not the director of
Staalplaat, just one of the main speakers)
I'd like to add something else. There is a huge amount of music being
produced in the world, technology to create music has become so
simple and cheap that everybody does make music. Most of this music
should be released, as that is for most people the wish to share with
others what they have made. But a lot of times it happens that a
single musician is not ready to release music. Good ideas but not
always well executed in a format that is enjoyable for other people.
Yet a lot of these people send out their works, thinking they created
the next worldwonder. I would hope there would be a little bit more
self-reflection.
there is a lot of music outthere that we at Staalplaat like. But we
have limited financial resources and limited distribution
possibilities, so we can't release everything we like. Since late
1998 we have been releasing CDRs, probably as the only 'big' company
around. We have a multitude of small CDRs labels to release music we
think is worthwhile to hear but is not (yet) commercially interesting
to serve a 'real' cd. Most of these CDRs are not great sellers, yet
we will continue to release them. Me personally I think that the 14
releases on the Microwave label kick ass and show what the click &
cuts thing was about. Unfortunally not many people have these
releases, which i think is a pity, because it displays the various
developments in that music, which has sadly come down to a 4/4 beat
with scratches. I've stopped this label, simply because I don't see
any interesting new developments going on.
Much of our dabblings to release music or not, is based on a wide
experience of hearing music (staalplaat exists since 1982, so I think
that counts as experience), but if often comes down to: we release
what we like. if we don't like it, we won't release it.
i think sending a demo to somebody 'so they can reject it' is a waste
of time. you should send demo's to somebody so they can be excited to
release it.