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Indie blues >>
Feds are about to give a lot of money to
So when the federal government announced in May that they were going to dish out a hefty chunk of green, to the tune of $23-million, to companies whose primary business is making music, it looked like good times were gonna roll for Canada’s record industry. But as the smaller fry in the Canadian music pond see it, only the big fish will be getting the money. Critics say the eligibility guidelines set out by Telefilm, the federal agency responsible for handing out the money, will benefit only the larger, more established music labels like Sony Canada, while the small, independent labels will get nothing. That, they charge, will only make the already uneven music industry field that much more lopsided. The $23-mil will be disbursed as loans under the Music Entrepreneur Program (MEP), with two levels of eligibility. Companies qualifying for Level I assistance must have sold a minimum annual average 100,000 units over the last three years; those companies are eligible to receive up to $1-million a year over two years. Companies applying for Level II assistance, which allows for up to $250,000 in assistance per year over two years, must have sold a minimum annual average of 25,000 units over three years. That figure is out of reach for almost all of Canada’s independent labels. “The MEP will basically put all the currently developed, leading labels in a position that’s even more competitive, while the smaller labels will be even less,” says Matt Collyer, co-founder and president of Montreal’s Stomp Records, which represent bands like the Kingpins, Subb and Collyer’s Planet Smashers. He says that while last year was among the label’s most successful, they were still around 3,000 units shy for Level II eligibility under the MEP. “I’ve been in the offices of those major labels. I’ve seen their leather couches and everything,” Collyer says. “They don’t need the money.” Representation,
and how to get it The director of the MEP, Shelley Stein-Sacks, says that while he acknowledges independent labels will always be in a tight spot, the program has to be fiscally responsible if it is to be successful. “The money has to be spent wisely,” he says. “In my conversations with independent labels in Montreal and Toronto, we identified two sets of problems: first, what level does a company have to reach in order for it to be considered reasonably successful? One-hit wonders don’t interest me.” Meaning that if a label has signed a band that goes on to become fantastically successful and sells thousands of records, it still won’t get a dime until that label shows it can sustain itself. Second, because the MEP was developed in consultation with regional associations like ADISQ and CIRPA, labels that aren’t members, like Stomp, don’t get their voices heard. “The position of [the regional associations] is that they represent the industry,” Stein-Sacks says. “So we have to ask the labels, were they comfortable with how they were represented?” Collyer isn’t. As a non-member, he complains that ADISQ doesn’t even return his phone calls, much less ask for his input. The cost of membership, between $250 and $2,000, is prohibitively high for cash-strapped indie labels. Therefore, only major players get to advance their agendas. Solange Drouin, ADISQ’s general manager and V-P for public affairs, says that despite the MEP’s exclusion of smaller labels, there remain several other outlets for indie labels to get money, such as MusicAction in Quebec and Factor for the rest of the country. "For the MEP, we have to look at companies and their financial depth," she says. "Some companies have done very good work, but they are very fragile. We have to look at which companies are worth the risk." The situation is different in other parts of the country. Blair Purda, label manager of Winnipeg’s Endearing Records, says that while the situation in Manitoba is getting increasingly bureaucratic, he is still quite happy with the assistance he gets from the province. The federal level is another question, something he attributes to financing scandals coming out of our province. “The only caution I have about these kinds of programs is that they have to be done at a level where I can continue to do my everyday business,” Purda says. “To access government money, you have to put your business on hold. The MEP isn’t a bad program, but just $5,000 to $10,000 in a small label’s life is a huge thing.” The value
of membership “If you have the time and the energy to lobby within the ADISQ structure and the stuff you believe in makes it to the forefront, then it’s a good organization,” Megelas says. Grenadine being a two-man operation, Megelas has neither the time, the energy nor the money to pipe up for the indies. Grenadine is another label that hasn’t reached the 25,000 unit-mark required for MEP loan eligibility. Megelas says he, Collyer and many other independent labels across the country have begun talking amongst themselves in order to find some sort of way to present a common front and voice for themselves. Tentative feelers are being put out, although nothing concrete has developed yet. “We’ve been trying to get the indies together and unified, and see what we have in common, and what are the key issues that need to be faced,” Collyer says. “It’s things like cash flow, marketing and radio tracking. What would really help would be money to take out an ad.” Collyer says that the most pressing need for him is money to ensure that he can keep people on staff and pay artists on his labels more. He’s well aware of the limitations an independent label has to face by its very nature. “It’s a catch-22,” he says. “We want our records to sell, but if we had an artist on our label that sold 25,000 records, they’d be picked up by a major label right away. We want to maintain artists on our label, but by handing out $23-million to the majors every five years, there’s no way we’re going to keep them on.” A common front is something Shelley Stein-Sacks would actually like to see. “Right now there’s actually very little consultation between the independents,” he says. “There should be. It’s imperative if we want to move forward. [Suggestions and changes] have to come from the people who will be affected, and there has to be an assessment of what their needs are. I’m certainly receptive to hearing them.” Collyer acknowledges Stein-Sack’s receptiveness, but has reservations. “The MEP really should be reviewed to include a third tier,” he says. “Or they could always just give the money to the homeless.” : |
Money.
A lot of songs have been written about it over the years, some praising
it, some cursing it, but it seems that life, love and business all have
one thing in common: they all need money.