...as in non-mainstream or even indie record companies. I've come across a few of these and there are some excellent ones around, by eg Mick Mulvey, Chris Corbett, also Aidan Crossey did an excellent mandolin compilation. Several other members here have done the same. This, in my opinion is real "folk" music in the 21st century. Honest, refreshing, the real deal.Yes, I know, young indie rock bands or whoever do the same but I'm talking about our genre.
Anyone like to point to any good ones or venture an opinion?
There's a lot of it going on in NE England. In the Recordings section I submitted two CDs of Northumbrian music (Jimmy Little And Friends, and one by The Windy Gyle Band) produced in this way. Others have been produced with a definite Irish slant, and I hope to buy one or more of these too. And that's only round me, in Durham.
I should imagine player-producers, anyway, spend otherwise-earned money *on* this, rather than get much financial return from it. But friends, acquaintances and fellow-sessioners are likely to buy. Most musicians probably day-dream of one day having their music on a classy recording made entirely on their own terms, and new technology presumably makes it possible for a lot more people to realise the dream outside of fame / record companies / promotion / the rest of it.
Listening now to a radio interview/performance my son and his band did earlier this week. They initially made cd's at the house, gave them away at gigs. Then last winter made a "real" cd with a local producer/studio. They are doing great. They switched from being a metal band to playing trad of sorts. They are great musicians, but they didn't really play or listen to much bluegrass, until about 2 years ago. They do what they call "browngrass" (due to the condition of the grass most of the time here in the mountain west!).
Our daughter also plays/performs.... kinda "folkie" stuff. She'll be doing some recordings with our other son next month.
Speaking of which, our oldest is a rocker, but gone "country" too. and records at home.
so weird.
anyway.
what I mean is that I am seeing a movement among kids their age, 20's, that were not brought up with a lot of trad in their lives, just that which was out there in a peripheral kind of way. But, now, are drawn to an acoustic, "roots" type of feel/sound. They are seeming to eschew the connections to "power" be it literal as in electricity, or metaphorical as in record labels.
I'm picking up a degree of sympathy amongst my students for acoustic music in general. I think they have had enough of hyped, over-produced nothing - or at least some of them have. One said to me the other day, "It must have been great growing up at a time when pop music was actually GOOD". Sad, really.
Virtually every Irish traditional album released nowadays is self-financed and self-marketed. The Chieftains and Christy Moore are the only act stills signed to a major label, and, I think, the majority of the new albums issued by Compass Records have been licensed to the company by the musicians concerned and the same applies to several other labels. The days of the likes of Polydor, Philips and other labels setting up offices in Dublin to recruit Irish musicians are long gone.
Ireland was (perhaps still is) was of the last bastions of the cassette and I've a sneaking suspicion that the same situation might apply to the CD. In the meantime, if a singer, musician or band can't get a licensing deal, it's relatively simple and not too expensive (unless one uses certain studios which I won't name) to record and release an album and then sell it at gigs or have copies available behind the bar.
In the HMV in Durham - probably typical of most in England - there is very little Irish folk or trad music. Current albums and retro compilations by The Chieftains, Sharon Shannon and Christy Moore get in, otherwise it's back to The Dubliners and compilations from the ballad era. Scottish and English trad is similarly covered, though the best-known UK singer-songwriters - John Martyn, John Renbourn, Richard Thompson et al. - are slightly better represented.
So I buy an album from that corner about once or twice a year.
The rack is labelled "Specialist Music", making me feel I should observe a dress code of dirty raincoat, flat cap, scarf, dark glasses and rubber gloves on such occasions as I elect to visit it. These are feelings I resist, however. I don't like having to smarten up.
OK maybe I'm behind the times - so, what about artists recording for the dreaded Green Linnet and some other similar ones? Is that all gone now?
(Starting to feel like Rip Van Winkle now...)
Green Linnet doesn't exist any more. The rights to the label were purchased by Compass some years back. Oddly, however, the last Hayes/Cahill album was issued by Compass under the Green Linnet monicker, but that might just have been the duo insisting on that to ensure the end of their contract.
Cheers folks for bringing me up to date. With such a proliferation of locally done material wouldn't the big outfits want to cash in on the action? Or is it mostly done for the love of it but nonetheless thankful for whatever financial boost these enterprises bring? We're often led to believe that trad music has never been so popular (albeit still a minority genre, are we not? - so are the big companies missing a trick here?
As the independent producer of an album "Out of Thin AIr" and being close friends with several other artists who have done the same, I can assure you that it's not so "relatively simple and not too expensive " to release an album. Many musicians like myself, record and release albums at their own not inconsiderable expense and frequently do not even recover their costs. It's not worthwhile doing a run of less than 1,000 copies and sales from your friends (most of whom expect free copies anyway), acquaintances and leaving a few copies behind the local bar simply doesn't come anywhere near covering the costs. There are loads of great albums out there produced independently and I know many great musicians who have not recorded because they know they will be very lucky to cover their costs. Some of the people purporting to promote these musicians are simply lining their own pockets. So I urge you all to explore the recordings section of this site and buy some albums. If anyone's interested, my album is now available from amazon.co.uk. I will also be publishing a book of the tunes.
In the age of the internet, big record labels are rapidly going the way of the dodo.
There's hundreds of pundits opining about this everywhere, and I'll let you go find them yourself (I think they totally deserve it, for the record). It should suffice to say that a big label's primary value proposition to the artist is its promotion machine, and the the promotion/sales machine costs lots of money--as do the salaries for record-execs. Stories of musicians being unjustly treated by labels are myriad. The Bothy Band is one prime example, albeit an old one.
But these days, if you're organized, you can pretty much do better on your own with a organized social-network presence, and some fiscal discipline. If nothing else, at least it's on your own terms, and the label won't treat you as a cash cow to be milked or slaughtered.
The only real downside I can see, is that when ANYBODY can put out a CD, nearly EVERYBODY does. Where the record label might have been an effective filter to keep out the sub-par performers, now anybody can self-produce a CD (and get their family/friends to upvote it on CDBaby). The sea of self produced trad CDs is awash with dozens of self-produced vanity albums that wouldn't have stood a chance to be made if they had to go through an actual recording agent.
That said, I definitely prefer the increasingly democratic direction things are going. Having to filter though hundreds of amateur albums is a small price to pay, considering that more of the actual money is going into the hands of artists.
(And lastly, for the record, I think Chris Corbett's album sounds lovely, and is definitely NOT of the amateur albums to which I was alluding)
Good posts, Chris and Georgi, thanks.
So, in reply to Georgi's observation on the myriad of sub-par performers' CDs, is there any way to sniff out a crap one and so don't spend good money on it? I picked up one recently (thankfully for a bargain price) and it was really not very good - a violinist thinking he could play Irish trad, and he just couldn't.
(And also to add - Chris's album is indeed a good one with some very interesting tunes on it.)
Thank you George & Danny for your kind remarks. If anyone is interested, there are excerpts from all the tracks on my website (http://www.musicoutofthinair.com) and four complete tracks on myspace (http://www.myspace.com/chriscorbettfluter) so you can have a listen before you part with your hard-earned.
The only way I can think of to snuff out the good ones is to actually listen to the track samples that nearly everybody has online these days, and judge for yourself. You can't trust the album ratings, at any rate, since they're heavily biased towards the artists, since the majority of people who actually are willing to take the time to rate albums are friends/family of the artists.
The "violinist playing Irish trad" is a very common theme.
Very timely. I'm working on a CD now in my basement. It will be a "million seller" which means I will have a million in the cellar :>.
I always had a small studio way back to when I played acoustic rock 30 years ago. I just upgraded to a MAC and a USB 2.0 interface. All the mixing and effects processing are in the software. So no need for a big board or effects rack. It takes a little mixing skill though. Also I plan to pay a pro I know to master it so it's pretty even in tone and volume.
The cool thing about ITM is we play on very nice hand made instruments and all you really need is a good condenscer mic out in front of them to get good tone.
But I want to do the CD just to have it, to give to friends and anyone who needs it as a gate keeping thing for gigs. I definitely look at it as the folk process since I don't care about it's commercial success. I just want a stamp in time. I have a couple of important family songs going down from the ancestral farm in west Sligo too. The clan wants to hear my version. So all in all good fun, a lot of work but I'm way overdo.
Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
...as in non-mainstream or even indie record companies. I've come across a few of these and there are some excellent ones around, by eg Mick Mulvey, Chris Corbett, also Aidan Crossey did an excellent mandolin compilation. Several other members here have done the same. This, in my opinion is real "folk" music in the 21st century. Honest, refreshing, the real deal.Yes, I know, young indie rock bands or whoever do the same but I'm talking about our genre.
Anyone like to point to any good ones or venture an opinion?
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
I think in fact the majority of Irish Trad albums are in this category.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
These days that seems to be the case.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
There's a lot of it going on in NE England. In the Recordings section I submitted two CDs of Northumbrian music (Jimmy Little And Friends, and one by The Windy Gyle Band) produced in this way. Others have been produced with a definite Irish slant, and I hope to buy one or more of these too. And that's only round me, in Durham.
I should imagine player-producers, anyway, spend otherwise-earned money *on* this, rather than get much financial return from it. But friends, acquaintances and fellow-sessioners are likely to buy. Most musicians probably day-dream of one day having their music on a classy recording made entirely on their own terms, and new technology presumably makes it possible for a lot more people to realise the dream outside of fame / record companies / promotion / the rest of it.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Listening now to a radio interview/performance my son and his band did earlier this week. They initially made cd's at the house, gave them away at gigs. Then last winter made a "real" cd with a local producer/studio. They are doing great. They switched from being a metal band to playing trad of sorts. They are great musicians, but they didn't really play or listen to much bluegrass, until about 2 years ago. They do what they call "browngrass" (due to the condition of the grass most of the time here in the mountain west!).
Our daughter also plays/performs.... kinda "folkie" stuff. She'll be doing some recordings with our other son next month.
Speaking of which, our oldest is a rocker, but gone "country" too. and records at home.
so weird.
anyway.
what I mean is that I am seeing a movement among kids their age, 20's, that were not brought up with a lot of trad in their lives, just that which was out there in a peripheral kind of way. But, now, are drawn to an acoustic, "roots" type of feel/sound. They are seeming to eschew the connections to "power" be it literal as in electricity, or metaphorical as in record labels.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by Wyogal
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
I'm picking up a degree of sympathy amongst my students for acoustic music in general. I think they have had enough of hyped, over-produced nothing - or at least some of them have. One said to me the other day, "It must have been great growing up at a time when pop music was actually GOOD". Sad, really.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by ian stock
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Danny,
Virtually every Irish traditional album released nowadays is self-financed and self-marketed. The Chieftains and Christy Moore are the only act stills signed to a major label, and, I think, the majority of the new albums issued by Compass Records have been licensed to the company by the musicians concerned and the same applies to several other labels. The days of the likes of Polydor, Philips and other labels setting up offices in Dublin to recruit Irish musicians are long gone.
Ireland was (perhaps still is) was of the last bastions of the cassette and I've a sneaking suspicion that the same situation might apply to the CD. In the meantime, if a singer, musician or band can't get a licensing deal, it's relatively simple and not too expensive (unless one uses certain studios which I won't name) to record and release an album and then sell it at gigs or have copies available behind the bar.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
In the HMV in Durham - probably typical of most in England - there is very little Irish folk or trad music. Current albums and retro compilations by The Chieftains, Sharon Shannon and Christy Moore get in, otherwise it's back to The Dubliners and compilations from the ballad era. Scottish and English trad is similarly covered, though the best-known UK singer-songwriters - John Martyn, John Renbourn, Richard Thompson et al. - are slightly better represented.
So I buy an album from that corner about once or twice a year.
The rack is labelled "Specialist Music", making me feel I should observe a dress code of dirty raincoat, flat cap, scarf, dark glasses and rubber gloves on such occasions as I elect to visit it. These are feelings I resist, however. I don't like having to smarten up.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
OK maybe I'm behind the times - so, what about artists recording for the dreaded Green Linnet and some other similar ones? Is that all gone now?
(Starting to feel like Rip Van Winkle now...)
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Green Linnet doesn't exist any more. The rights to the label were purchased by Compass some years back. Oddly, however, the last Hayes/Cahill album was issued by Compass under the Green Linnet monicker, but that might just have been the duo insisting on that to ensure the end of their contract.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
All Celtic Music and Copperplate are a good sources of stuff you wouldn't meet in your local HMV shop.
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by deeor
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Cheers folks for bringing me up to date. With such a proliferation of locally done material wouldn't the big outfits want to cash in on the action? Or is it mostly done for the love of it but nonetheless thankful for whatever financial boost these enterprises bring? We're often led to believe that trad music has never been so popular (albeit still a minority genre, are we not? - so are the big companies missing a trick here?
# Posted on April 10th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
As the independent producer of an album "Out of Thin AIr" and being close friends with several other artists who have done the same, I can assure you that it's not so "relatively simple and not too expensive " to release an album. Many musicians like myself, record and release albums at their own not inconsiderable expense and frequently do not even recover their costs. It's not worthwhile doing a run of less than 1,000 copies and sales from your friends (most of whom expect free copies anyway), acquaintances and leaving a few copies behind the local bar simply doesn't come anywhere near covering the costs. There are loads of great albums out there produced independently and I know many great musicians who have not recorded because they know they will be very lucky to cover their costs. Some of the people purporting to promote these musicians are simply lining their own pockets. So I urge you all to explore the recordings section of this site and buy some albums. If anyone's interested, my album is now available from amazon.co.uk. I will also be publishing a book of the tunes.
# Posted on April 11th 2011 by milesnagopaleen
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
In the age of the internet, big record labels are rapidly going the way of the dodo.
There's hundreds of pundits opining about this everywhere, and I'll let you go find them yourself (I think they totally deserve it, for the record). It should suffice to say that a big label's primary value proposition to the artist is its promotion machine, and the the promotion/sales machine costs lots of money--as do the salaries for record-execs. Stories of musicians being unjustly treated by labels are myriad. The Bothy Band is one prime example, albeit an old one.
But these days, if you're organized, you can pretty much do better on your own with a organized social-network presence, and some fiscal discipline. If nothing else, at least it's on your own terms, and the label won't treat you as a cash cow to be milked or slaughtered.
The only real downside I can see, is that when ANYBODY can put out a CD, nearly EVERYBODY does. Where the record label might have been an effective filter to keep out the sub-par performers, now anybody can self-produce a CD (and get their family/friends to upvote it on CDBaby). The sea of self produced trad CDs is awash with dozens of self-produced vanity albums that wouldn't have stood a chance to be made if they had to go through an actual recording agent.
That said, I definitely prefer the increasingly democratic direction things are going. Having to filter though hundreds of amateur albums is a small price to pay, considering that more of the actual money is going into the hands of artists.
(And lastly, for the record, I think Chris Corbett's album sounds lovely, and is definitely NOT of the amateur albums to which I was alluding)
# Posted on April 11th 2011 by Georgi
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Good posts, Chris and Georgi, thanks.
So, in reply to Georgi's observation on the myriad of sub-par performers' CDs, is there any way to sniff out a crap one and so don't spend good money on it? I picked up one recently (thankfully for a bargain price) and it was really not very good - a violinist thinking he could play Irish trad, and he just couldn't.
(And also to add - Chris's album is indeed a good one with some very interesting tunes on it.)
# Posted on April 11th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Thank you George & Danny for your kind remarks. If anyone is interested, there are excerpts from all the tracks on my website (http://www.musicoutofthinair.com) and four complete tracks on myspace (http://www.myspace.com/chriscorbettfluter) so you can have a listen before you part with your hard-earned.
# Posted on April 11th 2011 by milesnagopaleen
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
The only way I can think of to snuff out the good ones is to actually listen to the track samples that nearly everybody has online these days, and judge for yourself. You can't trust the album ratings, at any rate, since they're heavily biased towards the artists, since the majority of people who actually are willing to take the time to rate albums are friends/family of the artists.
The "violinist playing Irish trad" is a very common theme.
# Posted on April 11th 2011 by Georgi
Re: Home- or Locally-Produced and Marketed Albums
Very timely. I'm working on a CD now in my basement. It will be a "million seller" which means I will have a million in the cellar :>.
I always had a small studio way back to when I played acoustic rock 30 years ago. I just upgraded to a MAC and a USB 2.0 interface. All the mixing and effects processing are in the software. So no need for a big board or effects rack. It takes a little mixing skill though. Also I plan to pay a pro I know to master it so it's pretty even in tone and volume.
The cool thing about ITM is we play on very nice hand made instruments and all you really need is a good condenscer mic out in front of them to get good tone.
But I want to do the CD just to have it, to give to friends and anyone who needs it as a gate keeping thing for gigs. I definitely look at it as the folk process since I don't care about it's commercial success. I just want a stamp in time. I have a couple of important family songs going down from the ancestral farm in west Sligo too. The clan wants to hear my version. So all in all good fun, a lot of work but I'm way overdo.
Saltcast
# Posted on April 11th 2011 by saltcast