CMJ Panel Tales

So last Friday morning I headed over at the very un-rock'n'roll hour of 10:00am to trade stories with Steve Karas (Wind Up), Jay Wilson (Universal), Sue Marcus (Stunt Company) and moderator Ron Torossian (5W) at the CMJ publicity panel.

This year's title was "Indie Vs. Label Publicists," which despite the "vs." turned out to be far from adversarial. All agreed that when things are working, which is just about all the time, labels and indies complement and extend each other's work. That said it's always interesting to hear different perspectives.

Steve and Jay both talked about how they often find themselves as the face of their label, and involved in much more than publicity and have more of an ability to shape an artists path, like weighing in on a favorite single or suggesting album art. The indies brought up the other side of that, which is the advantages of being focused, and being able to keep your roster smaller and really spend a lot more time on a given campaign.

Sue pointed out that she loves the ability to stay with an artist for many years and albums, no matter which labels they move to. I couldn't agree more, especially as moving around keeps getting more and more common.

The audience questions were interesting and well informed. One person (who I'm assuming was a musician themselves) noted that he feels like artists often find that the strongest relationship on their promotional team ends up being the bond with the publicist, and asked why that was. Who knows -- my answer, a guess, was that perhaps we're the most connected with what people actually think of an album, and how it fits in. If we can't really convince people, we're toast. No slush funds for us.

(From left -- Steve, me, Ron, Jay, and Sue)

But my vote for favorite question has to go to whoever asked "what's the worst part of your job," which was met with a chorus of variations on "when you're stuck in meetings that just never end." Needless to say my answer was "the end of the day" since that's when I have to go home and wait as many as 12 hours before I can come back again. Other than that it's all unicorns and rainbows. So make sure to study hard when you get back to college on Monday, guys!

OK I lied.

I think I said long meetings too. Though there might have been a comment in there about the fact that even death metal cover bands who sing entirely in sanskrit and perform animal sacrifice on stage still ask if we can get them on Oprah. Maybe.