Gang of One Dave Allen has a website and wants to sell your album ...maybe by David.Also Across from the World Trade Center on SW Taylor, on the top floor of a 3 story building, overlooking a small section of Yamhill, Dave Allen is busy doing what he's always done: working both sides of the music industry. His story is unique. Here's an artist who has been blessed (or cursed) with the ability to make innovative music, while at the same time he's able to understand the business of music with complete clarity. For example, his second band, Shriekback, was using drum loops and layered tracks in a way that was very experimental and offstream for music in 1982, but EMI gave him free reign of the studio to record and release 3 records with absolutely no touring. When his first band, Gang of Four, released its debut album, Entertainment!, they were putting a swinging spin on political music, with fun vocals and a backbeat. It's what took them to the Top 40 charts, and eventually what doomed them to obscurity. With their UK hit, At Home He's a Tourist, Gang of Four was invited to be on the show Top of the Pops, kind of an American Bandstand for the BBC. The day of the show, the execs at the station sent down some official-type lackeys who let the band know that if they wanted to play on the show, they'd have to change a few things. At this point, the band and the BBC exchanged hand gestures and parted ways. You don't really get a sense of what Dave thinks of this story when he talks about it. On the one hand he's proud that the band did the right thing. On the other hand, he laughs while calling the tale "depressing." These days, Dave Allen is developing a web-based cd store. It's called OEBase.com, and works like Amazon crossed with CDBaby. There's one critical difference, though: He's very selective about who he sells. His goal is to keep the number of bands down to a minimum, so that if the shopper jives with his taste, said shopper is virtually guaranteed to like whomever else Dave might be featuring that week. In this case, OEBase will operate more like a record label/pr outfit for the local artists he chooses to work with. Make no mistake, most of the music he's selling appears to be big, major label stuff. I did this interview with him because he promises to feature local musicians on the index page of the site. So I came to sniff him out. How does he fare? Honestly, I don't know. Dave might be promoting a new model for album sales and record distribution that he really believes Portland music should be in on. Or, he might be trying to woo as many hip customers as possible. What I do know is, the guy is no savior come to rescue the struggling Portland musician, and he and I do disagree on the happiness of the Seattle mega-star, but the more I read the articles he puts on his website (all for free), the more I think the guy might be alright. When I met him, I didn't understand at all what he was trying to do, so I asked him to explain it: What I'm trying to achieve is to have a website based in Portland, Oregon, because the music scene is so rich here. And at the same time the music scene is very diverse and the people in the scene are kind of scattered and not very cohesive. My big idea was, could we have a site that pulled and drew everyone to one place to get for free what's in my head? All my knowledge of the music industry. How benevolent of you. I know...I think that's exactly where people smell a rat.
Or, "What does Dave want to get out of me?" Right. Exactly. So that's a big problem. And that's part of the hurdle. It's not unassailable, but it's been a roadblock. But, for instance, if I am called by South by Southwest to a conference, and they ask me to moderate a panel, I have to pay to fly down there. I have to pay for my own hotel. All I get is a free pass to the conference, meanwhile everybody else pays 3 or 400 bucks just to have the privilege, if you like, of sitting in a room and hearing a lot of people like me blow hot air. So now, why don't people question that? Now, why doesn't somebody go, "Goddammit, I'm never going to go to one of these conferences again because it cost me way too much money, everyone's saying the same thing, and nobody's very clear." And you can't capture in 3 days everything you want. I would imagine though that the artists that question what you're trying to do aren't the same people that are going to the conferences. That is a very good point. I believe very strongly that if you need to go to a conference to find career guidance for you and your music, then you're probably in the wrong business. If your music doesn't speak to you in such a way where as you have to pick up a guitar or a drum and you have to be in a band and you have to tell the world what you think-if you can't do that without going and buying a guidebook, then you've got to be doing something else. And you're going to be able to do that just from album sales? That's part of the goal. Another part of driving revenue for us is to work closely with bands that don't have a label and to push
Like you mentioned, the musicians do seem to have a fear of the market in general. But, in addition to that, I think he marketers and particularly media attention is a fear for people here. I'm constantly meeting people who are afraid of the whole idea of "the next Seattle" and what the dangers of having that happen could be. But then, at the same time these same artists are generally struggling in anonymity and complaining about the lack of audience. With as much work as you have done, what have you done in the last few years in order to tackle that issue in your life while still maintaining your artistic integrity? It's a challenge, I understand why people don't want the Seattle-ization of the Portland music scene. But there is also a problem I perceive as Portland [believing itself] not good enough. They complain about cities like Seattle. They complain about the LA scene. My second home was LA for 15 years, then I moved here. And I'll just say, "Hey, I'm from LA," and at first I couldn't believe the hostility to that line. I said, "You spent a lot of time there, and you really hate it?" And they'll go "No, I've been once, it sucks." And I was like, "Oh my God." I lived there for 15 years, and I know about that much (indicates small amount with fingers) of LA, but it was thrilling to me, cause I see Los Angeles as a pacific Rim city, off the coast of the United States. It has nothing to do with the United States. So you either understand it as such or not. What do you see as those dangers, and how does a community stay aware of them? Well, I think there was something unique about Seattle that happened. And it tied itself not only to the music scene. I think the music scene was strong for its time. It was a forceful cohesive music scene. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem was all the bands, and I blame Pearl Jam and Soundgarden for this, was the flannel and the cutoff jeans and the combat boots. Well, it created a "look" that all the big fashion designers around the world, and then the knock-off fashion designers, just put together as "grunge fashion". So, it became a global phenomenon that was removed from the music ultimately. So, I'm wondering, if Portland could have something happen on a music scale and not have every band wear the same damn uniform that's gonna put you on a global, soon-to-be knocked off the pedestal scale. That would be my thinking. So, why couldn't a band, like the Thermals-who are doing great right now, they're causing a little buzz for themselves, and they got their album out on Sub-Pop, they're on tour and they just play. They just play their lives away, and its fantastic. So I don't get why everyone couldn't just do that. But we don't all have to wear what the Thermals wear, right? But there could be a handful of bands that go, "You know what? I'm not complaining, I'm gonna play." And that essence might spill over into the audience that always turns out to see the Thermals. Well now you've got a few hundred people who might want to go down the road the next night and go, "Oh, another cool band doing that." If you start wallowing in uncertainty and "I'm not sure, I don't think Portland should be like Seattle," I mean, man, what a roadblock to your own creativity! Or, on the other hand, "What should I not wear?" or "How should I not look?" I think that's part of the trappings. If I go out and see bands in certain genres, say, in the electronic scene, inevitably, this seems to be the line-up: it's a girl singer with a DJ programmer
No shit, look at that. And it's something-now, why not just go do it, right? It's a lot of work. They're going to have to be hand built to keep the price down. But wouldn't you want one? Yeah, this is cool. I mean, that's just one example of what these guys can do. They're pretty much all around talented. They're already making their own video. They can do lots of programming and web stuff. Obviously there's a limit to what you can do, but the people who do something very different, like Charlie Campbell from Pond. Last Saturday at Ozone Records he had his CD release party in-store. And he had his CDs for sale and he was inside a cardboard box with a slit, and you could go up to the box and ask Charlie questions. I thought that was amazing. So, again you can do this in-store and go in like "Oh, where is Charlie?" "Oh, over there in a box." That's kind of cool. Where do you see this city going musically, as it is right now? Um, I have a sort of different answer to that. On a personal level, I've been getting very involved in the city as a creative center. I've been taking a few meetings with a person from the mayor's office, and advising her on a creative initiative. When you take meetings like that and you have to drill down into the topics, you have to realize just what is going on with the musicians, and you realize, well, not very much. And then you realize, perhaps that's not a bad thing. So, somehow the musicians themselves should get organized. Because if you start getting sort of a City Hall idea of creativity, top down, that could ruin things a lot. But to directly answer your question... Every now and again I'll see a great band in this town and I find it odd that they don't seem to be breaking out of this city, like Helio Sequence-I don't know how well they do on tour, but I know they do really well here in Portland. So maybe the true question is, "How talented is the majority of the artists in Portland, and what would that look like as a 'scene' in Portland?" But I don't think that Portlanders generally want a scene, it comes back to what we were talking about before. I think they're very afraid of it almost. I may be wrong, but it's like the Helios are going to be over there doing that and meanwhile Everclear and the Dandies are already over there... And we can't talk about them... No, we can't. Right. What are they giving back to the city? Apparently not much. So, what do you do? I think really what we are saying is that IS the dilemma. I think that what it also comes down to perhaps is that you are writing about things and the Willamette week is focusing on music more, but not in a trendy, jump on the bandwagon sort of way. And you know, perhaps Marty over at the Oregonian could look more in depth at what is happening, and then people could comment on that and then people who live here who are non musicians could realize, "Man, we do have 10 to 20 bands who, on an average weekend...you could drop 5 bucks and see a great band." I just don't think there is an awareness of the talent in this town. So, that is what we are struggling with. For me to answer that question is difficult. But that is because of the situation. So, in a strange way, that brings us back to this office and what I'm trying to do. And if I could feature these bands on my site, and on the front page there are 3 amazing local bands, as well as other national bands. Click on it, there's the radio "Wow, they're from Portland?" And I bet you'd get that. So, that's my job again, right? This is the Not-Smelling-a-Rat Dept. It's like, I can help! If you get a write up in the WW, there is a lot of (groans) "Oh, yeah," from the readers. It's so strange, I really do think that Portland needs to realize that it's an A-sector city. I think they see themselves as a B version of a big city. But we actually operate much like an A version of a city. And it's getting better. I think Portland is better than Seattle. Whenever I visit Seattle now, I used to be quite enthralled by the ocean, and they have a scene, but now I go up there, and I think...tired, old, nothing new. What's going on? Not much. But then you drive back into Portland from the road trip and the sun will be shining in from the rain and you'll think, "Yeah, we've got a good city." So why don't we take some fucking pride in that? Tell me about Squall Squall came about just over a year ago. Its been like 18 months now. And I ran into somebody on a plane who just happened to be the professor of music at Reed College, he was just great and we were chatting at length. And he, David Shiff, told me that when he was studying in Cambridge studying music,
You mentioned a musician's alliance. I don't know if you were thinking a literal union? When you say that, do you mean a collective of artists who are making plans for how the city will work? I'm backing out of that because I don't think committees work. I don't think collectives work. Because too often I see things come together, like it might be an art collective or "We've got this cool all ages space," but its like, "Well, yeah, but you have this one big night and then all the energy dissipates and nothing ever happens." So yeah, the thing for me to remember is that I'm not gonna be able to change the world. OEBase.com goes live June 5. Squall plays live July 5. (more details next month) |
"Why would they want to do that?" "Why don't I have to pay 150 bucks to go to a conference and hear Dave on a panel tell us how it should be?"
what we call micro-sites. So, we build a mini website, and part of that website will have an email-able website so that you can put when your shows are, when your CD's are about to be released, and that opens to a little window and can be forwarded many times to their friends.
and maybe some guy who you're not sure is doing what. And then they'll have their friends do some kind of bubbly electronic video thing in the background, or some grainy movie. And it's just a cliché. It's like, "Well, ok. The package is kind of alright." But then when you disregard the package and listen to the music, its like "Oh boy, that's dull." So they're using these props as tools to mask the real problem, which is just that they're not all that original. And only originality works, right? In many, many ways you can do it without copying everyone else. I mean, my favorite band in town right now is Menomena, and I'd do anything to help them do things different, like this is the prototype for their new album (hands me a flip book with 4 separate panels of band photos).
he had heard all about it because although he was jazz and classically trained he knew about the punk rock scene, and he'd heard about Gang of Four. "Oh my God, you live here in town?" And he said, "Look, we're having the annual Romp Festival, it's an annual arts, film and media festival at Reed." And would I put on a musical event? Like, whatever that should be. So I said yeah, even though I had no band, no music, no nothing. I signed up because sometimes those things just make you do it, right? Then I didn't do much about it and I see they released the press release 2 full months ahead and there's a big thing on me and I'm like "Oh my god." And luckily I'd run into John Askew who runs FILMguerro Records. Great guy. Guitar player too, as well as a producer, and engineer. And he and I just said, "We can do it, lets just put something together." So we got all the musicians involved and DJ Ism on the turntables, and also he does drum machine programming. And we got a drummer. We borrowed Jumbo from the Lifesavas and Derek Simms, local trumpeter that plays with The Damn Band and we and John and the core unit just jammed for weeks on end, and then crafted sort of an instrumental idea which is sort of a jazzy hip hop. It's pretty cool. I mean, I say it, but the picture I had in my head worked out. And then when the rappers got involved just live, and without any preconceived ideas, "Here's the groove and you're just gonna do your thing."