THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

In less than a decade, the New Music Seminar has risen from humble roots to become one of the most important music industry conventions around. And while the New Music Seminar has very little to do with new music these days, it is still one of the few forums available for “the business” to gather and talk turkey. Indeed, NMS is a prime locale for music people to meet and “do lunch.” This could be heaven or this could be hell, depending on your level of tolerance.

Nine years ago, the New Music Seminar was started by Mark Josephson, Tom Silverman and Joel Webber as an alternative to the usual music

long. As well, how many critics of NMS would really turn down the big money for the taking? Very few, I’m sure.

Obviously, there’s now a pretty big backlash against the New Music Seminar. The fallout is based on the belief that new music is somewhat more idealistic than any other genre around (The Clash shoved this bullshit down people’s throats years ago). But let’s face it, how many new music acts aren’t eager as a fuckin’ beaver to sign a fat deal with one of those major labels? So it goes both ways; there’s two sides to every story.

But most of the backlash probably has a lot to do with the untimely death

ity control in live showcases and industry panels is the lack of music business professionals involved in setting up the whole shebang. Most of those in charge of organizing NMS are remnants of New York’s once-great club scene. That’s how you end up with mental midgets like club entrepreneur/ god Rudolf moderating the Artists’ Panel, and managing to insult every one from Lemmy to Leonard Cohen to Andy Summers with his insincere superficiality and self-promotion. The pervasive attitude also probably explains why not one CREEM journalist was on the Rock Press panel. The NMS helmsmen are experienced party

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industry convention, an intimate outlet for the dynamic, young new music scene to show its burgeoning colors. The original NMS stance was decisively “alternative” and anti-industry.

Today, the New Music Seminar is Big Business—5,000-plus conventioneers shelling out close to $300 apiece to experience what amounts to a major label gala ball. Big-time panelists with even bigger egos passionately defend their half-hearted “ideals” against similarly-minded movers and shakers. Monster record companies dominate the live showcases with a plethora of unmemorable acts being marketed as “new music” for their only-recently discovered college radio-oriented market (i.e. zillions of R.E.M. and U2 soundalikes). The only niche not fully represented by today’s NMS is those people who want to experience upcoming and innovative sounds and styles.

So what happened? Why has the New Music Seminar turned into everything it-was supposedly against? It's called progress, my friends. If the NMS founding fathers had retarded their fantastic growth only to satisfy moreunderground-than-thou soothsayers, they’d probably have never lasted this

of Joel Webber. Joel was king of the schmooze, possessing that uncanny ability to keep everything running politically smooth and trouble-free. Words cannot describe the importance of having someone in an organization who can stroke the fragile egos of industry brass and scenesters alike.

Many NMS critics are quick to point out the major label domination of live showcases. While this point has validity, shows like the Henry Rollins Band/Live Skull at the Ritz, Social Distortion/ HR/Legal Weapon/ Honeymoon Killers at the World, Pussy Galore/Naked Raygun/ White Zombie and Original Sins/ Cosmic Oven at the Big Kahuna, Meat Puppets/Royal Crescent Mob and Das Damen/Soundgarden at CBGB’s ain’t exactly chopped liver either. There was a glut of good shows, by anyone’s standards. If anything, the New Music Seminar points out the hypocrisy of the NYC club scene when all the big discos in town that shun live music all year round reluctantly book bands during NMS to pretend that they too support the local scene. Like they say, money talks and bullshit walks.

A big reason why the New Music Seminar has so little consistency/qual-

people, and like it or not, great parties are always to be found at the Marriott Marquis.

And while the Seminar is too “straight” and "industry” for some, the (Mormon-owned) Marriott chain’s employee’s seem totally freaked out by the crowd NMS brings to their lovely hotel. Probably the funniest incident at this year’s gathering was when drag queen/performance artist Dean Johnson was surrounded by hotel security after walking out of the ladies’ room in full attire. It seems that the lodging police thought that Johnson was “working” the room. So much for freedom of expression ...

As you can see, the New Mdsic Seminar is definitely not the wildest, coolest thing you’ll ever experience. In fact, yours truly spent most of his time avoiding the assholes and scamming free lunches from the record company types, not attending any panels or taking part in any other likewise useful endeavors. If you’re seeking idealism and the attainment of loftier goals thru new music, NMS is not for you. But compared to the average convention at your local Holiday Inn, the New Music Seminar is a hella cool time, s Steven Blush There should be no misunderstanding about this. It was, first and foremost, a Bruce Springsteen gig. It was secondly an Amnesty International concert, a celebration of Human Rights, a plea for "Human Rights Now!”

Steven Blush

It speaks volumes that the wires should have become so irrevocably crossed, that the grand event itself should have been so hopelessly overshadowed by the power of this main attraction.

When the Boss rides back into town, nobody else in his wagon has a hope in hell, especially when their status as mere human beings is clearly at oddswith Springsteen’s own glory as god among men and, especially women.

It must be said that Youssou N’Dour, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Sting stood much more a chance than they would have done at, say Reading Festival. The 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium

happened.

I should add at this point that I don’t find anything offensive about musicians who are happy to satisfy a conscience rather than a bank balance, who genuinely wish to illuminate or issue an injustice in the hope of their audience will be persuaded to think about it too. I have no axe to grind either, with the people who buy tickets to watch. Just don’t expect me to enjoy it, that’s all.

It says much about the compelling nature of that afternoon’s entertainment that my own personal highlight was a chance meeting with The Alarm, an introduction to Mike Peters’s new wife and a reunion with the new alarmingly tan Deve Sharp. So much for mega-gigs. I was only there for Bruce anyway.

Youssou N’Dour, or an my esteemed colleague Mat Smith likes to refer to him, Useless N’Dire, was included on the bill, I suppose in a bid to educate us all, to offer “diversity,” a

ual, pumping heartbeat and the raising of arms that this invariably provokes, could not raise the shivers that it did at the Mandela show. You can only have a moment like that once. The second time it’s deja vu, you see it coming and you know what’s going to happen before it does. I suppose he did have to pay it—“Biko” of course—but its magic this time was that it hearlded the end of the set.

There was an interval, and Gabriel came back. Happily, it was only for a few seconds.

“I think this tour is one of the best line-ups I’ve ever seen,” he seemed to be saying, although I sincerely hoped he wasn’t. “I’m very pleased that we have on board this next artist who’s had a meteoric rise ...”

Tracy Chapman’s meteoric rise began three months ago at this same place, tucked away on a subsidiary stage where the attendant Mandela TV cameras turned her into a major

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on Friday looked like decent, respectable citizens who own CDs. They would not for a second have dreamed of throwing plastic bottles, full of piss at Peter Gabriel, of registering any kind of displeasure or ingratitude, because this was, after all, for a Worthy Cause.

Their intentions were as honorable as those of the artists, who performed and will keep performing free of charge as the tour makes its way around the world. The audience would not spoil the nobility of it all with any churlish displays of impatience. They would simply applaud— wildly—anything that moved on this stage until, their hero would move amongst them,

I may be'wrong, of course, it may be that I really was surrounded by 71,999 people who love Youssou, and loved Peter, and loved Tracy, and loved Sting, and happened to love Bruce just a little bit more. I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Because whatever the hypocricies or shortcomings of people who are so easily amused they must be idiots, the might that was Springsteen blew the whole day to pieces. Jgst as if none of the rest of it had ever

bit of ethnic texture. He was definetly not included on the bill as part of any plan to cater for the tastes of an audience who had paid to see Bruce Springsteen.

The end of the set brought a duet with Peter Gabriel, at which point my own personal hell caught a hold. I don’t own a CD, and I have never listened to a Peter Gabriel album. On the strength of the music he played at Wembley, it’s unlikely I ever will.

At least you can’t accuse him of jumping on a bandwagon: he’s been campaigning for the likes of Amnesty International for several hundred years, long before anyone so much as thought of holding a benefit at The Greyhound, never mind organising a tour of five continents. It was organized to convey the spoken work with any clarity. It has brought the press enclosure. Gabriel seemed to be saying, “Itsaboutdaily abusesof human rights” and sufice. if anyone out there had been hiding an underground cave for the last few years, then perhaps it was a shame they may have missed the great man’s declarations.

His one great moment of drama, the gentle beginnings and the grad-

property, almost overnight.

It’s a rise that I can admire, but will never understand. The woman’s a bloody hippie! Strumming her acoustic, singing acapella, warbling at length of her feelings and observations, telling her tales, she’s clearly attractive for her simplicity, for her apparent shyness, for the romantic notion of this sensitive young girl out there in a big, bad world, uninhibitedly telling her heart. What preplexes me is why the public have responded quite so massively.

It’s been suggested that the return of the singer-songwriter is in reaction to the paucity of real songs in our charts, a necessary return to quality. This may be all very well, but if any particular genre is to be resurrected, it should be surely resurrected for the purposes of improving upon, updating what has gone before. There’s nothing too ingenious, nothing outrageously perceptive, about anything I’ve ever heard from Tracy Chapman. We don’t need to name names again. We know where she’s coming from, and it isn’t the muse inside her head.

Carol Clerk