KEEN AS a cautionary tale

Rip It Up, Issue 251, 1 July 1998, Page 10

KEEN AS a cautionary tale

■t— - list of musicians who have been ripped- ' ' v ' / off is a very very very very long one indeed. From the myriad blues singers whose songs were plagiarised by any white boy who took a fancy to them, to John Fogerty— who spent more than a decade unable to play his own songs because someone else owned them, lock stock and barrel—it makes depressing reading. Seems you just can't trust anyone these days. If you need confirmation, there are about sixty local bands who will tell you it's true. Towards the end of 1997 a couple of selfstyled 'promoters' went about town signing up bands. As we know, if you offer any young (or even old) band a promise to take their music to the world they will jump at the chance every time. It's a law of nature bands want to be famous. How much of the line these 'promoters' spun was true we'll never know. Their story went like this: "We have a promoter in Asia who is crying out for new bands, but he needs good quality demos to . make his choice. There's no money in it, but for the ones he likes there's the chance to travel, play, get your expenses paid and take your music to the world." ‘ Again, not unreasonable. And around 60 bands or solo artists not unreasonably signed up. The 'promoters' then approached York Street studios to arrange recording time. York Street, keen to foster local talent wherever possible, offered a rate of S3OO for a complete session—-

4-6 hours in Studio 2—for the recording of as many songs as they can could fit in. . ■ If you multiply 60 bands by S3OO you come up with a fairly substantial sum. ■ The 'promoters paid one third of this as a deposit to York , Street and the sessions went ahead. Everybody's happy. Whilst the band were putting their efforts into the music, the 'promoters' were also busy. They leased themselves a stylish warehouse in Ponsonby, bought a van 'for touring bands', and then they went around the country 'looking for venues'. At Christmas time. In the sun. Lovely. Meanwhile, back at York Street the sessions were completed. All that needed to happen then was for the balance to be paid and the masters uplifted. First the 'promoters' tried to pick up the masters without any money whatsoever, a move which, unsurprisingly, failed. They returned the next day with a cheque. for V 2 the balance, but again left without the masters. The people at York Street, having by this time stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt, attempted to get the cheque cleared immediately. • It bounced. Go figure. Which left York Street in a delicate position. Not only were they around SII,OOO out of pocket, but the bands who had worked so hard on the demos now wanted to pick them up. And suddenly the 'promoters' stopped returning calls. . ' If we stop right there it looks like just anoth-

er rip-off. The studio don't get paid, the band don't get their demos and the crooks get off scot-free. Welcome to the music industry. Fortunately people are no longer willing to sit around and let themselves be shafted, and York Street wasted no time in instigating liquidation proceedings against the 'promoters'. Even then it looked unlikely that anyone would gain satisfaction, so they approached.the bands to see if there was a solution. Contacting everyone who was available they organised a meeting at which things were put fairly bluntly: "They've taken all your money and scarpered. What do we want to do about it?" Why not do a record? ' Though the solution was blindingly obvious, it took a while for one of the band members to point it out. Logistically it was perfectly feasible. They had the songs already done, after all. Ironically, it would take a further cash contribution from the bands, as well as more help from York Street and selected sponsors, yet a show of hands ended with 31 of the original 60 bands agreeing to take part. A trust was formed, the money was collected, Casio G-Shock was enlisted as sponsor, MTV came to the party, Software Images provided the manufacturing, a band member was paid to do the artwork and, hey presto, suddenly there was a CD where there had been none before. Good triumphs over evil every time. Well it would have done, but TVNZ chose this exact moment to pull the plug on MTV. Then, in a show of remarkable generosity, they decided to air the

\ ■ proL—motional material on TV2 anyway, , restoring everybody's faith in the system. A launch party was held, bands played, one of the tracks got playlisted on commercial radio and found its way onto the Kiwi Hit Disc and all the bands got copies of the compilation to use to their own ends. Keen as, really. The 'promoters'? They await possible fraud charges and are hopefully already in the throes of karmic payback. , But it will happen again, there's nothing surer than that. Wherever there are young (or just youngish) people in bands there will be less scrupled people trying to take advantage of them. It's one those immutable laws of nature. But things never turn out all bad, because there are usually more people to help you up than there are to knock you down. It's just better to know which is which before you give them your money. P.S. If you want to give them some of your money and buy a copy of the album, it's available at your local record store or through York Street Studios.