We, The Unsigned

New times. There was a different time, long, long ago when Neanderthal A&R men ruled the earth, when being unsigned was jilted kudos, a misfortune. 'Unsigned' was a dirty word. Not anymore. No sir. The very concept has reversed. 'Unsigned' by definition means we've signed nothing. We are free, we are without compromise and this is a neat place to be. This is our best chance to get it right, to get it as we want it to be.

 

 

Our terms to either abide by or mutate as we please. Starting at scratch, regardless of our ambition or non-ambition we have power to wield and our options are many.

 

So for all the industry dream, for the record deals and dealers, right now, we're too busy for that. We have an aesthetic to sharpen and a myth to make.

 

We know that as the industry cats slept, dreaming sweet dreams of endless CD re-issues, forever and ever, we tipped their beds. They've just woken up, confused and on the wrong side. We got ahead of the game. We got in front. As they sniffed and willed technology away, we embraced it, we got in the saddle, and we had nothing to fear. While all else flailed we began to thrive.

 

There are no absolute rights or wrongs anymore. Guy Hands (EMI CEO) can't tell you that you don’t know what you are doing as he lays off hundreds of employees and has to justify Robbie "I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams" Williams to the world.

 

Getting signed: A cautionary tale

 

I'm music led. Playing in a band and running my own independent record label, I certainly don’t know the 'right' way about this business, but I know there’s never been a more exciting time to get noticed. We are rinsing the term 'unsigned' of meaning and relevance.  I know how we can make a new mark. We can set up our stall, right here. And people will come. After all we are reaching to people, real people, to bedrooms not boardrooms. In the absence of record label investment, development and bluster, we can do it ourselves.

 

It begins and it ends with music. We have our music and we can record it: to tape, to dictaphone, in to Garageband, on four, eight, sixteen tracks, into our mobile phone. We have all manner of resources to document idea.
 
Yes it’s overused, and impact maybe a little diluted, but as a resource, myspace is still wholly valid. Here we can throw up some songs and we can really contort our myth. We can be abstract, we can be weird, we can be funny, serious, straight. We can choose to (mis)represent ourselves as we see fit. We can posit ourselves where we choose. Me, I think myspace is a fairly level playing field, where hipsters can sit with the hobbyists, the signed with the unsigned, the good with the bad.

 

Taking a giant step further forward is last.fm with the world’s largest social music platform. A network built upon people’s music listening habits. Here we have an evolving mass charter of music that is alien to previous industry standards, based, crucially, more upon what people are actually listening to rather than purchasing. last.fm is also very artist friendly, in fact it offers a support structure for your band and your mp3s, whole-heartedly encourages new music and has even developed an artist royalty payment scheme. You can keep that propagating myth in tact here too, by updating your page Wikipedia-style. You can create your own label page too, with charts and stats. You can practically live inside last.fm.

 

How to get your demo heard

IndieMV joins internet revolution

 

We got real life too. In that other dimension, the real life, we can play our music for people. But this is where knitted old woolly conventions need some serious picking apart. We don’t have to play a show if we don’t want to. Remember, the rules have all gone and we have new choices. Set up your own shows, if you don’t want to play to stroking chins, twitching pony tails and farting dogs at the Pig and Trumpet in Luton, YOU DON'T HAVE TO. Set up a party show, invite your friends, their friends. All ages. Include. If your town never has good shows, try to put them on.

 

Good shows grow. Bands will come. People will follow. Make posters, flyers, get on the forums, the yahoo groups… word is a pretty mighty currency. Help your local promoters, work the door, it will come back to you.

If this all seems a little idealist, and time consuming, especially if you are working or studying or generally loving your life: there are people already doing it. You can seek them out. The world is rife with people running cool labels, kids booking great shows. There are forums, and email groups where music and idea is being shared, unbridled. These people are generally approachable and these people need your support as you need theirs.

 

Every record deal I have been involved with as a band started by approaching small labels that I respected that released music that I liked. It always evolved from that point. I respect The Gossip, who built a solid feminist-punk-pop foundation through independents, such as K records and Kill Rock Stars, which made them such a victorious and welcome blot on the bloated mainstream. Radiohead completely side stepped the industry and made their new album available as a download for as cheap as 50p, for a limited time, while giving you the option to buy the £40 nicely packaged box set. Here they addressed how we consume music.

 

We can grab the mp3s for our mp3 players, and if we like the to have something solid, in our houses, on our shelves, we can pay for the box set. That's an awareness of choice, and Radiohead made it work. And OK, starting out as an unsigned band, maybe you can't be Radiohead, (this is a band that, allegedly, completely recouped on their first album while recording their second and never looked back) but they are a shining light in terms of making their own mark, completely carving their own place, creatively bucking and kicking at a lazy system. And I can see no harm in being led by such an example, by a band redefining success and loading a whole new gravitas and meaning into what is now perceived as an unsigned band.

 

We, the unsigned, are the roots. They can pick the fruit.