OFF: Re: Hawkzine #4/MM

[Carl E. Anderson]

> dave refused to do a hw cover for a certain
> tribute album
> while claiming to be better than they are.

        I thought they didn't do the tribute cover because of contractual
obligations.  After all, they did reherse a version of Born to Go which
hasn't surfaced live or on disc (according to the band).

> not all of their cd singles have
> unreleased
> material,and anyone who owns it all can plainly see the marketing
> strategies.i bought a couple of EXTREMELY LIMITED edition eps,only to find a
> week later that the market was flooded with these items,selling for 5-7
> dollars less than i paid.
> dave pretends to be
> a street freak/punk while he is actually a very serious businessman.

        Heck, music is a business, after all--they are supposed to be
trying to make money.  We all like to think of our musical heros as
artistic crusaders, blessing the masses with their visions--which might
be true, but they are also trying to make a buck.  I'm sure Mozart was
a dedicated artist, and I bet he wished his marketing strategies had been
more astute just before he keeled over and got bunged into a mass paupers'
grave ;)
        Would, that Hawkwind were serious enough business men, that they
didn't have little problems like not having any T-shirts to sell to
the money-waving masses--sheesh!  Imagine Hawkwind _not_ losing money
needlessly!  The mind boggles at the potential .... :/
        I'm not saying that musicians should be accountants, but just
that the music business (and it is a business) is a very easy place
to get screwed (ask Lemmy!) and a very difficult place to make a
living ...
        Let's not forget occasional 'special limited edition' Hawkwind
items that mysteriously appear in great droves.  It's not like Doug
Smith and Hawkwind don't know there are collectors out there who will
drop 30 quid on a special re-release of _Live Chronicles_ in which you
can hear Michael Moorcock sneeze on the microphone ;)
        I'll happily buy most special releases 'limited' or not if I
have the money or the release entertains me significantly.  It's not
like I can't find out what's on the release before I buy it!
        (I draw the line at a 20+ dollar Monster Magnet CD-ROM for a
CD-ROM player I don't have and that had tracks I already had elsewhere.)

> i am also bothered by the fact that
> wyndorf believes he is too big to allow fan recording.

        That is, indeed, a shame.  Especially as he is hardly one to
refuse a bootleg cassette himself!  Perhaps this is another contractual
necessity, or perhaps he still labors under the common misapprehension
that taping cuts into sales rather than boosting them (as has been very
adequately demonstrated by all the 'neo-hippy' bands like Phish and Blues
Traveller who followed the Dead's lead in allowing taping and conqsequently
attracted a far larger fan base through tape trading than they otherwise
could have in the days before these bands acquired major label contracts).

        If Monster Magnet manage to avoid the depths of poverty that
Hawkwind reguarly inhabits by pretending to be drug-addled time-travellers
from 1972 while still producing music that I enjoy, then more power
to them.  (Hey, it works for Floyd ;)
        If I ever made it as a professional musician (only marginally
less likely than finding a job as a scholar of medieval scandinavia ;)
I would certainly want to balance art with putting food in my mouth.
Luckily, I'll probably starve in the street without anyone hearing
a note I play or the merest snippet of a lecture, so I probably won't
be faced with such dialemnas ;)

Cheers,
Carl

ps--I still wish the lads in Hawkwind had even a thimble-full of
        financial acumen.