The fruits of the boom in independent music have been “gobbled up” by predatory industry figures, according to musician James Brooks.
The Canadian artist, who released one album as Elite Gymnastics before retiring the moniker earlier this year, believes the advent of file-sharing and music blogs has fundamentally changed the workings of the music business, enabling managers, agencies, publishers and lawyers to “sprout new tentacles” to take advantage of young acts’ inexperience and cream off profits for themselves.
In an extensive blog post, Brooks recounts his own experience with the Windish Agency, a booking agency he claims “finds clients by reading pitchfork, googling any acts they haven’t heard of to see if they already have a booking agent, and then emailing them if they don’t.”
He explains:
“at the time, i didn’t question the logic of entrusting the job of booking agent to someone who had never seen me live because a bunch of my friends had also recently been picked up by windish. none of us knew any better. windish agents generally seem to make money by picking up as many buzzy internet acts as they can get their hands on, collecting 10% of the proceeds from the initial spate of novelty bookings for college shows, support slots on larger tours, and new york bookings that all buzzy internet acts inevitably get offered. then, they drop the ones who don’t survive the process, who are unable to develop into acts that can sustain long-term careers independently. which is most of them.”
Responding to a recent piece on Buzzfeed that explored why bands are increasingly looking to place their songs in advertisements, Brooks says he often gets emails from “middlemen” hired by brands to find music for their campaigns. These companies offer no money but talk up the “exposure” that young acts will receive while “keeping the rest of the available budget for themselves”, he says.
Read the whole post here.
Brooks has previously spoken out about sexism and exploitation in the “overwhelmingly white and male” music industry.
