On The Record »

• Radiohead break the artistic silence on ticket touts

  March 9, 2012 @ 9:40 am | by Jim Carroll

  One of the least surprising elements in the fallout from Channel 4’s recent documentary The Great Ticket Scandal has been the silence of the acts.

  Many of us long had a suspicion that acts were complicit in how secondary ticketing services (or “touts” as we call them around here) got tickets for sold-out shows.

  After watching the Channel 4 show, no-one was in any doubt about how everyone from acts to promoters were caught up in this blatant, greedy, unsavoury business.

  It says it all when the biggest ticket seller in the business, Ticketmaster, can also own and operate a secondary ticket selling business, Get Me In, and still have promoters and acts using their services.

  

  While some acts from Nine Inch Nails to Bruce Springsteen have tried anti-touting measures in the past, there has been a noticeable silence from the artistic quarter over the contents and implications of the Channel 4 programme.

  Step up, then, Radiohead. This writer may have little truck with much of the band’s music, but hats off to the musicians and their management on this occasion.

  Aside from criticising the parasitical practice of industry-endorsed touting, they have also partnered with fan-to-fan ticket exchange service the Ticket Trust for their forthcoming tour. This will allow fans to resell tickets for shows they can’t attend to fellow fans who will get to buy them at face value.

  While some tickets for shows will inevitably make their way to tout sites like Viagogo and Seatwave, Radiohead’s efforts will help to lessen that number. We also hope the band will make efforts to ensure that their show promoters don’t hold back tickets for those secondary markets. It may be time-consuming, but it’s what Radiohead’s fans want and it shows a real respect towards those who buy the tickets, merchandise and albums. Let’s hope other acts take note.

• “Just ordered the Radiohead album, but why can’t I have the audio now?”

  February 14, 2011 @ 2:16 pm | by Jim Carroll

  That’s a tweet from Joe Taylor earlier this morning, one of many tweets, blog posts and news stories relating to the release of the new Radiohead album “King Of Limbs” (great title) on Saturday next. The album is now available to be ordered and it’s highly likely that it’s ready to go right about now – I imagine Radiohead are not the kind of band who leave things to the last minute in the recording studio. So why the hold-up?

  Traditionally, the delay between the announcement of a new record and the release date was to do with that old-school record business idea of building some hype around a release. You had a few weeks or days to get ink and media attention about an upcoming release. It applied to everyone: the record industry would insist that a band of Radiohead’s stature, a band with a fanatical fanbase built during years with and many releases on a major label, would have to put in the hype to get word out about the release.

  Personally, I don’t really think that Radiohead need to do this anymore. I reckon they could put the album out tomorrow and it would still dominate the conversation all week. But for all their experience and popularity, they’re still unable to get away from the way things have always been done.

  It is surprising because Radiohead have shown themselves open to trying out new-ish ideas (the initial release of “In Rainbows”, for example), yet they’re also quite conservative too (look at how they jumped into bed with established labels XL and ATO for the physical release of that last album). You would think that they’d feel confident in their own appeal not to have to spend the week before a release getting the interwebs excited about the album, but there you go. It seems that even the most self-proclaimed radical of bands feel they have to stay in tune with how things have always been done.

• No more altruism under Radiohead’s rainbow

  August 6, 2010 @ 10:11 am | by Jim Carroll

  Back in 2007, the music business story of the year was Radiohead’s decision to give away their new album “In Rainbows” for free.

  The majority of industry observers and commentators followed the party line that this was a revolutionary move.

  Few mentioned, though, that the Oxford band could only afford to do this because they established a huge audience over a 12 year tenure and a six album innings on EMI.

  But Radiohead’s altruism with “In Rainbows” was never going to be finite.

  The Torrent Freak blog reported this week that industry lobby groups the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) have begun to target fans who are sharing those “In Rainbow” songs online with cease-and-desist letters. Yep, the very same songs the band were giving away for free back in October 2007.

  The problem lies in the fact that the band signed a brace of deals with XL Records and Sony subsidary ATO for the December 2007 physical release of “In Rainbows”.

  Now, the RIAA and IFPI, the bodies who represent the labels Radiohead signed with, have sent in their legal eagles, asking blogs sharing the band’s material to stop.

  “These recordings are owned by one of our member companies and have not been authorised for this kind of use,” said the RIAA, which represents major US labels, in one letter.

  Given Radiohead’s previously stated stance on filesharing, you’d expect the band to be chomping at the bit to correct this situation. After all, do the labels really own the recordings or do they just have rights to exploit the physical distribution of the album?

  Sadly, a band rep declined to comment when contacted by Torrent Freak.

• There was gold at the end of the Rainbow after all

  October 16, 2008 @ 12:57 pm | by Jim Carroll

  A year or so after The Day The World Changed Forever Because A Rock Band Gave Away Their Album For Free, music publishers Warner Chappell have came up with the first details about exactly how well Radiohead did from their “In Rainbows” venture. Three million sales – that’s a lot of Yorkies.

  I would say that the Music Ally analysis will make for interesting reading for every band with an established audience thinking about doing a Radiohead in the next while. And for bands without an established audience built up by releasing a number of albums thanks to the largesse and patience of a major label? Uhm, er, ah, ugh, doh etc. Yeah, no change there.

• Cork bet and the hay saved. And Radiohead have left town too.

  June 9, 2008 @ 9:52 am | by Jim Carroll

  Ah, yesterday did the heart good as a team of Premier County young guns took the fight to Cork and came away victorious. It was a fantastic performance from a team who are just getting better and better as the year goes on. Best of all, they didn’t panic when Cork went ahead or when Cathal Naughton was dancing jigs in midfield. They just cooled the jets and faced down Cork again and again and again. Eoin Kelly’s goal was a peach, but it was also brilliant to see Liam Sheedy throwing on Michael Webster to run rings around Diarmuid O’Sullivan. That’s when you knew it was going to be a Tipp-top day.

  But I don’t think I’ve ever heard as much rubbish before any match as the guff about this Tipp-not-beating-Cork-in-Cork-since-the-dawn-of-time. And believe me, I’ve heard a lot of hurling guff down through the years. Yeah, they hadn’t won there in 80 years, but there had only been six Cork v Tipp games by the Lee in that time. I listened to Micheal O Muircheartaigh’s first half commentary on the radio and he never stopped going on about it. That and the fact that O Muircheartaigh’s commentary was hugely biased to the team in red (oh yes, it was) sent me to the TV and the rather flat Marty Morrissey view on what was happening on the pitch.

  O Muircheartaigh also treated the overcrowding issue very lightly, saying it would be good for the spectators to get close to the action. What, to get a belt of a hurley from Conor O’Mahony or Ben O’Connor? To get trampled on by a rampaging Seán Óg Ó hAilpín? No, the Munster council, Cork GAA and the Pairc Ui Chaoimh mandarins were very lucky no-one was hurt or seriously injured. We always knew that over-crowding was not just something which happened on Hill 16 when the Dubs are playing so lets hope this is take seriously and never happens again. Trying to blame it on the design of the tickets or people coming late to the ground (as some Munster council goon claimed on Morning Ireland this morning) is not good enough. This could be Babs all over again and we don’t want that.

  It was interesting that former Clare keeper Davy Fitzgerald (on last night’s Sunday Game) was the only one to pick up on how hard it must have been for Brendan Cummins to mind the Tipp net surrounded by that kind of crowd. Remember that he saved a penalty and a couple of other dead-cert goals with a couple of hundred red shirts standing right behind him. At last Cummins has an even temper – I’d hate to think what would have happened if it was Cork v Clare and someone started to have a go at Fitzgerald, a man easily riled when he was playing inter-county hurling.

  Anyway, enough about the big game. I hear the gig from this blog’s favourite laughing boys Radiohead at Malahide Castle was a hoot altogether. Anyone know if this really was the first ever non-smoking open-air gig in Ireland? Anyone cycle? Anyone have their bike nicked? Anyone have a good time?

• Etc

  April 4, 2008 @ 8:55 am | by Jim Carroll

  Ghostface Killah brings the ruckus to Dublin in May. The Wu-Tang Clan luminary, who has released some very fine solo albums (especially “Fishscale”) plays the Tivoli on May 15.

  Think you can do a better Radiohead tune than Radiohead themselves? The band are looking for fans to remix “Nude” from latest album “In Rainbows”. Full information here

  Don’t expect to see tickets for Paramore’s Irish debut at Dublin’s RDS on June 2 hanging around very long when they go on sale next Monday morning.

• Radiohead – someone finally asks Thom Yorke some decent questions

  December 19, 2007 @ 10:58 am | by Jim Carroll

  There’s an excellent interview with the Radiohead singer in this month’s Wired magazine. The man asking the questions? David Byrne.

  And he asks Yorke one of the questions I was waiting for someone – anyone – to pose in the light of how the world and its missus now thinks the “In Rainbows” model is the way forward for everyone.

  Byrne: What about bands that are just getting started?

  Yorke: Well, first and foremost, you don’t sign a huge record contract that strips you of all your digital rights, so that when you do sell something on iTunes you get absolutely zero. That would be the first priority. If you’re an emerging artist, it must be frightening at the moment. Then again, I don’t see a downside at all to big record companies not having access to new artists, because they have no idea what to do with them now anyway.

  Yeah, Yorke doesn’t have a clue what new acts are going to do in the brave new world either. But he has his fanbase so he’s sorted.

• Radiohead on ticket prices

  December 7, 2007 @ 5:21 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Thanks to Brendan and Karl from the excellent Analogue magazine for this out-take from an interview done today with Radiohead’s Phil Selway

  Analogue: Tickets for your gig in Dublin in Malahide Castle went on sale this morning and are very expensive, it’s €70.70, and there’s been some discussion of how you can justify the fair way of releasing your album and then charge that much for a tour gig?

  Phil: Right, and what’s been the general response on that?

  Analogue: Well I mean it is the most expensive gig of the tour and there have been arguments that you’re pricing out some fans, people who may have bought the discbox, big fans or students, who don’t have that much money to come to a gig.

  Phil: Right.

  Analogue: Do you have any reaction to that?

  Phil: Eh, well whenever we’ve looked at ticket prices and set them, we’ve wanted to make them as fair as possible so I would hope that we’ve pitched it right on this one, make it as fair as possible on the price. You know we’ve never really set out to max, as they say, our tour revenue so I think we’ve always put out reasonably priced tickets. That’s as much as I can say really.

• Radiohead tickets still on sale. Band blame Irish Times.

  @ 3:23 pm | by Jim Carroll

  I’m glad I decided to bet on the greyhounds this weekend rather than on this gig selling out.

  As various On The Record readers have been pointing out, there are still plenty of €70.70 tickets available for Radiohead’s big day out at Malahide Castle next summer.

  Heeeere’s Caitriona:

  Tickets are still available as of 14.10 – more than 5 hours after going on sale. given the crazed ticket-buying pace of other recent gigs, i think the rhetorical answer is no.

  Eric points out some rather disturbing data mining:

  When you’re about to finish buying these tickets, you’re told that you must consent to submit your personal information to Radiohead’s management in order to buy the tickets. And there’s a broken link to their privacy policy (that doesn’t even open in a new window).

  Text from Ticketmaster: “By purchasing this ticket(s) you acc:ept Radiohead’s terms and conditions and consent that your data can be passed to www.radiohead.com and Radiohead’s artist management.

  Thom Yorke is believed to be extremely upset about turn of events (he thought the fact that Malahide Castle has a fab model railway museum would swing a sell-out) and has written a letter to the editor. We will print that next week.

  And here’s more proof that it really is all about the money.

• Today’s rhetorical question – would you pay €70.70 to see Radiohead?

  December 4, 2007 @ 10:26 am | by Jim Carroll

  They might give your their music for free, but tickets for the Head’s love-in at Malahide Castle in Dublin on June 7 next will set you back €70.70 (plus whatever Ticketmaster will charge).

  Please note, Radiohead fans and right-on indie types, this is MORE than what Celine Dion is charging for her Croke Park show. It’s called “monetising your fanbase”, folks. You didn’t really expect Radiohead to play nice with their fans, did you? You did? Oh dear. But, as pointed out in this article, it’s the BAND who set the ticket price so you know who to blame.

  Tickets go on sale on Friday. Sure, there’s the Christmas present sorted for your dopey, grumpy younger brother.

  (Presses button, sits back, puts on kettle, waits for Radiohead fans to rise to the bait)

• Radiodread time again

  November 7, 2007 @ 2:57 pm | by Jim Carroll

  It’s the day when the record industry get their revenge on Radiohead.

  

  Sinead has already posted about this, based on a report in today’s Guardian, and there’s also a piece in The Times too.

  Before we take a bite of this, some caveats. In fact, more caveats than even those which apply when considering last night’s 8-0 drubbing at Anfield.

  No-one but Radiohead and their peeps can actually say how much cash they made or lost on the “In Rainbows” experiment. The surveys, the ComScore one which produced today’s stories and Record of the Day’s well reported What Price Did You Choose? one, are selective and only form part of the overall picture. They may be right but the real facts and figures are with the band and Courtyard Management and they ain’t sharing.

  Anyway, the gist of the pieces is that two thirds of those who downloaded the album didn’t pay a penny for it. OK, they paid the 45p “credit card administration fee” (anyone from Visa want to confirm if this is excessive?), but their generosity didn’t go any further. The rest paid an average of £2.90 with the Yanks a bit more generous (you can attribute that to the tipping culture, I suppose).

  Now, the spin is that this means that even fans of a band like Radiohead will not pay for music. They want it for free. The record labels are right after all.

  Leaving aside the random thought that ComScore may have some record label clients, this take is to ignore the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is fascinating.

  With hindsight, we should view this, purely and simply, as a marketing excercise. It was about establishing Radiohead as a cool, cutting-edge and innovative act. It was about priming the market-place for the CD release. It was about taking euro, pounds and dollars from the fan-base for those box-sets (interesting that no-one is willing to punt on the numbers here). It could even be viewed as experiment, by way of Freakonomics, in economics and morals.

  When you apply a rough cost-benefit analysis to the “In Rainbows” download campaign, you’ll see what I mean

  Cost of manufacturing CDs, warehousing and distribution? Nil

  Cost of serving radio and press with advance CDs? Nil

  Cost of PR and promotional activies to plug album? Nil. One press release did the trick

  While there were costs involved in encoding and digital distribition, these costs would be nothing compared to savings made above. I’m sure the charge for the box-set more or less offset the costs involved in producing that artefact.

  Add in the income which the band will earn from their deal with XL for the physical CD release, receipts from next year’s tour (you can bet they won’t be putting out a tip jar for that one), merchandise sales (big mark-up on those Fair Trade organic cotton tees) and publishing income and you can see why the band and their reps could afford to write-off the money from the downloads. Yet again, so many commentators are getting the wrong end of the story.

  Radiohead and “In Rainbows” – the marketing stunt of the year

  By the way, the album sucks. But that doesn’t matter, does it?

• Radiohead Day – your shout

  October 10, 2007 @ 8:49 am | by Jim Carroll

  The first review is in. Kilian was on at 7.56am with this:

  Listening to it now. It’s err… nice. Not groundbreaking. Not earth shattering. But free.

  As I write, the story is even getting traction on Morning Ireland (with “High & Dry” from 1995′s The Bends playing in the background rather than something which might startle the horses) so we KNOW this is a big one. Actually, hang on, this must be a HUGE story because Cormac Battle is on talking about it now. Woo-hoo!

  Over to you: what the hell is the album like? I bet the Cathy Davey album is a million times better….

• Radiohead – On The Record on the money

  October 5, 2007 @ 4:44 pm | by Jim Carroll

  We told you so. Per Music Week and Billboard, our new favourite excuse for a blog post Radiohead are talking to a load of labels about a CD release of “In Rainbows” for 2008 and expect to make an announcement next week about this.

  According to the band’s management team, Courtyard Management’s Bryce Edge and Chris Hufford, none of the labels they have been talking to knew about their online release strategy in advance. On The Record would have given anything to have been able to hear what was said on Monday morning when the labels offering oodles and oodles of cash found out about that one.

  So much for bypassing the traditional record labels, eh?

  But as pointed out below, a band like Radiohead can not and will not spend time, money or energy on putting together the infrastructure required (from production and warehousing to fulfillment and distribution) necessary to get one album – just one album – into record stores in every territory.

  This move shows that the band recognise the importance of having their record stocked in traditional retail outlets worldwide. It’s further proof of the truism that there will always be a need for a middleman to get the music from the musicians who make it to the audience who want to hear it. Given this, the trick for labels and stores now is to work out just how they can still be around in the future.

• You wouldn’t know that the Radiohead story was big news if you read Hot Press.com or Muse.ie

  October 2, 2007 @ 1:40 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Biggest music news story of the mo’ is the Radiohead yoke by a country mile. It broke on Sunday night and it has dominated proceedings since. It’s the story which will keep on giving.

  Yet if you look at the news pages on Hot Press or Muse, two online sites which purport to cover music, there’s not a mention of it. Not a sausage. And this is now Tuesday afternoon, over 36 hours after the news first broke.

  No wonder people are turning to blogs and bulletin boards for their music news (ironically, there’s a discussion about it on the Hot Press messageboard) if the music websites can’t do the job.