(TV) Baloon / "Black Postcards" Revisited / Steve Albini

["Leo Casey" <LeoCasey@comcast.net>]

Obviously my joke about Television's cd-release party went over like a 
lead baloon...pretty lame. (smile).  [Hey, isn't 'Baloon' a Television song?] 
So, for penance I'm typing up some quotes from Dean Wareham's (of Luna) new memoir.

 Russ wrote:
>No mention of Verlaine seems like a big oversight, am I right?

Yeah given that T.V. played on more than 1 track and contributed the monster solo on "23
Minutes In Brussels", I was a little taken aback.  
Moreover, he does mention VU's Sterling Morrisson's guitar solo on another Luna album.

Pure speculation: But maybe Wareham was actually being nice by *not* mentioning Tom.  
Maybe T.V.'s behavior was bizarre, or/and Wareham was disapponted when T.V. failed to live up
to his unrealistic guitar-hero image he had of him?  

>I had heard , maybe it was a review, that this book was 
> Wareham obviously score settling. Did you get that feeling? 

Definitely.  The very first paragraph of the book is a scathing putdown of Wareham that a
couple of the members of Galaxie 500 (Damon Krukowski.and Naomi Yang) had given in a 1997
magazine interview.

But Wareham doesn't defend himself immediately; instead he begins with his boyhood in
Australia.  By the time I got to the end of the book he had discussed all of the 'charges'
against him.  He's paints a honest and not always pretty portrait of himself (... 'brutally'
honest and blunt are probably better descriptors).  

Along the way are accounts of:  his favorite bands (and fave-hates) while in college [pretty
stellar taste IMHO]; drugs; the grind and temptations of touring; losing at love; drugs; the
sleaziness/business-side of the indie-music landscape; drugs; and self-inflicted wounds
...including the dissolution of his marriage.   
He didn't name it "*Black* Postcards" for nothin'.

One of the parts I found most interesting was Wareham's critique of producer Steve Albini's
infamous article, "The Problem With Music" in which Albini showed with dollar and cents
examples how bands who sign with major labels are totally fucked from the get-go.  

Wareham generally agrees with Albini's indictment but accuses him of "...using some bloated
figures..." and that the Albini model hadn't worked that way in Luna.   

Just part of Wareham's critique [quoted without permission]:  Starts with a praise of Albini's
producer skills, then .....

"It is certainly true that a major label deal can bite you.  All the money that gets spent on
making or promoting your record means that sometimes you are only digging yourself a hole, a
deep bit of record company debt.  You may get a 14 percent royalty rate, but with all those
expenses being charged to your account you are never going to see those royalties anyway.

"But at least the major labels send out detailed accounting statements, itemizing exactly how
you are being overchsarged and underpaid.  They have a system in place.

"Are you safer doing a handshake deal with an upstanding indie guy who doesn't want to bother
with the formality of signing a contract?  A guy who offers you a 50/50 profit sharing deal
(after expenses), which sounds much better than a 14 percent royalty rate?  Of course, he can't
give you the $250,000 advance---maybe he can give you $5,000 or $20,000.  But you'll keep your
costs down and start to see royalties much quicker.

"Unless the indie label files for bankruptcy and retains ownership of your record.  Or the
label takes your mechanical royalties and buys a new BMW, while your repeated requests for an
accounting statement are ignored.

"You pick your poison in the music business.  There is a difference between being promised a
great royalty and actually receiving it.  My own feeling is that you take the money when it is
offered---and up front is a good place to start." 

Our own MM Mailing List several years ago had a long thread on Albini's article:  it starts
here: http://tv.obbard.com/tvlist-archive/0204/msg00305.html  

Leo

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tv-owner@obbard.com [mailto:tv-owner@obbard.com] On 
> Behalf Of Russ
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:42 PM
> To: tv@obbard.com
> Subject: Re: (TV) Wareham & Britta/ "Black Postcards" Lowdown
> 
> I had heard , maybe it was a review, that this book was 
> Wareham obviously
> score settling. Did you get that feeling? No mention of 
> Verlaine seems like
> a big oversight, am I right? Hell, in the recent Sonic Youth 
> bio ( Goodbye
> 20th Century) it is revealed that Verlaine spent the night of 
> Sept 11, 2001
> up with the band at the Moore/Gordon household in 
> Massachusetts. Those are
> the kind of tidbits that distinguish a great read from a 
> merely adequate
> one.
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Leo Casey 
> <LeoCasey@comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> > I finished Dean Wareham's memoir, "Black Postcards".
> >
> > It's extemely well written and quite candid (albeit it runs 
> out of steam
> > close to the end).
> >
> > I'd recommend it if you can get it from your library (or 
> via inter-library
> > loan).
> >
> > There is absolutely no mention of Tom Verlaine or his 
> contributions to
> > Luna's album,
> > "Penthouse".
> >
> > Leo
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