Gerard Cosloy. Photo from austinsurreal blog.
Gerard Cosloy is one of the four owners of ‘90s indie giant Matador Records (Pavement, Sonic Youth, Liz Phair etc.), which still has the occasional Ole! (Kurt Vile, Savages, Belle & Sebastian). After a few years running the company from New York and London, Cosloy moved to Austin in 2004 and fell in love with the scene on Red River- specifically Beerland and Emo’s. He’s got strong opinions- caustic, some might say- but he’s a gentleman about it, just telling you what he thinks.
Cosloy recently murked up the serene waters of the Austin music harbor when he debated a KOOP radio interview on his sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding. Music blogger Morgan Davis of ovrld.com had opined that one thing holding back the Austin scene was a lack of qualified publicists. That set Cosloy off.
“Just to make sure we’re all perfectly clear on the message, here are things Austin apparently does not require,” Cosloy wrote, with sarcasm as strong as garlic tea. “Cheap housing and affordable rehearsal spaces for musicians. An arts weekly or dedicated music website that was remotely conversant with the town’s best music. A 24/7 listener supported radio station that emulated, say, WFMU instead of established NPR monoliths. Club patrons willing to shell out $5 for 4 fucking bands without objection or negotiation.”
Ovrld managing editor Davis answered back in the CSTB comments: “To be clear, I don’t think what the Austin scene needs is publicists. I was trying to say that I think Austin has some great indie labels (I mentioned 12XU, Holodeck and Graveyard Orbit by name) and some of the best bands in the world, but I think that it needs more industry infrastructure on the whole.”
Cosloy had his own turn on KOOP’s “What’s New?” show, hosted by Tracey Schulz, on Monday. One part, about 10 minutes of the 75-minute interview, stood out as something worth transcribing:
COSLOY: I’m not particularly obsessed with “how do we make the Austin music industry stronger?” I kinda don’t really care about the Austin music industry. I care about bands that are good. I care about people that are creative and doing things that are interesting and new. I don’t believe necessarily that they are going to be elevated by the Austin music industry being stronger or being more populated with professionals. I think we need less industry and I think we need more fans.
KOOP: Like if a band gets, like Spoon or Okkervil River, if it becomes like more of a national landscape band. The realism is that’s rare and you can’t just make that happen…
COSLOY: I don’t think it’s wrong that it’s rare. I don’t think it’s terrible that it’s a rare thing. We can all sit here and say “well there (are) various Austin bands that I believe should be bigger world-wide. Why aren’t the Young bigger world wide? Why weren’t TV Torso bigger world wide? Why isn’t Carolyn Wonderland bigger world wide?” Well, OK, if you’re going to say that, pick the international artist from somewhere else that you’d like to get smaller, pick somebody else from another city who’s doing well that you’d like to see squished down to mortal size. It kind of doesn’t work like that. I would take the exchange, if you’re going to syphon off thirty thousand sales from the Black Keys and give it to the Young. Sure, I’d vote for that in a heartbeat. But I also know that’s not how it works, that’s not how people fall in love with music, how they fall in love with bands… The pay-to-play culture exists in ways that are insidious and it exists in ways that are blatant. The blatant way is that you show up at some bogus showcase at a venue on Red River that I won’t mention, because I think Red-Eyed Fly is an awesome room, with awesome people- and some third party has booked some weird showcase-y thing that’s happening on the Tuesday of SXSW. It’s a faux battle of the bands of some sort and people pay for the privilege of taking that space on stage. That’s blatant pay-to-play and even a layperson knows that’s lame as hell… But conversely, those same people who think that pay-to-play thing is bad, it’s evil, it stinks- those same people will willingly chat on email and chat on the phone with PR people who are paid 2000 dollars and maybe more to work a record for a band that maybe spent 700 dollars recording it.
KOOP: And what are they doing? Calling the radio stations?
COSLOY: A PR person generally doesn’t work radio, there’s generally a radio person doing that. That’s another fee… I’m not saying for example people don’t have the right to spend their money as they see fit… but for the bands that I know, that are doing interesting music that’ll stand the test of time, these are not generally people that are playing the Saxon Pub, with all due respect. They’re making records that are recorded rather cheaply. They’re spending their own money to ship their albums around the world. The margins are incredibly thin as is. Now they’re being told by somebody… if you want to make it, you have to give ME this payment, this walking around money, as it were, and I’ll make things happen for you.
KOOP: It’s a false premise. It’s like odds are that won’t come to be. Even if you give them money, they won’t make you a star.
COSLOY: I’m not saying there’s no correlation between independent PR and actual, real, tangible press that’s helpful and moves things along. I’m not going to lie to you and say that Matador doesn’t employ a PR person. And would never use an independent PR person. I don’t feel that, of all things Austin Texas musicians really need, I don’t think that independent PR people and band managers and entertainment lawyers are high on the list…
I know I’m coming at this from a different viewpoint than other people, and I know I sound kinda disrespectful about it, but it’s the constant emphasis on “Austin music industry.” Let’s take the word “industry” out of it, just throw it in the dumper… Let’s concentrate as much as we possibly can on music and art and elevating the culture and let’s see what happens then. Let’s see what good things come out of it. Instead of throwing money at people that are pretty replaceable in the overall scheme of things- and I do think most industry professionals, present company included, are pretty replaceable. I don’t think genius artists are replaceable, I don’t think life-changing records are replaceable. That’s what I’d like to see people focusing on more. And the whole idea that the town somehow desperately needs a more refined industry: I would settle for thirty or forty more people who just want to pay to get into shows. I think that would make a big difference. I’d like to see that.
Go here to listen to the entire interview.
(NOTE: This is a new series at Arts + Labor Magazine that will explore some of the issues and difficulties facing the Austin live original music community. Your input is valued, so please tell us what you think in the comments section.)