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Unfamiliar Records takes on the Canadian music industry

Greg Ipp, the head of Vancouver indie label Unfamiliar Records, has been making a bit of noise on the Internets by posting a scathing open letter to the Canadian music industry, criticizing the way that VideoFACT and FACTOR distribute their grants to Canadian musicians.

When I first read his missive, my reaction was that it sounded exactly like the conversations I’ve been having with other musicians ever since I became aware of these two institutions.

When you’re playing in a struggling unknown band, it’s really easy to get pissed off when you see acts that already enjoy radio play and have videos on MuchMusic getting money that you clearly deserve more. When it’s a band that you hate, or one you perceive as mainstream, the outrage is only compounded. It makes you feel like the awards have nothing to do with merit, and only come down to familiarity, or worse, internal back-room politics.

But then I remember that bands I’ve been involved with eventually did get a bit of grant love. While it may not have been a huge chunk of change, I have to admit that we probably couldn’t have made much use of a larger windfall. We weren’t going to get a video on MuchMusic and we weren’t in any position to tour internationally, so what exactly did we think we deserved to get?

Hell, even Ipp admits that one of his acts has received a small grant for touring. With all due respect to the bands on his label, that’s exactly the kind of thing they should be qualifying for, as that’s what they’re going to have to do to be in a position where they can actually make the most out of a big bag of money.

Having said that, I don’t agree with the peanut gallery who are dismissing Ipp’s complaints as sour grapes.

Yes, there is an unfortunate overall theme of “my bands are better/cooler/more indie than Metric, so where’s our money”? And yes, when you actually look at the complete lists of winners, you can see that there is a large representation of unknown acts, along with a handful of bigger names who might be able to use the cash to break out of the tiny Canadian market, which is pretty much what these institutions should be doing, at least according to their mandates.

The part of his rant that we should be paying attention to is when he identifies the need for specific grants designed to provide seed money to small and/or new indie labels.

When I interviewed Jeffrey Remedios and Kevin Drew of Arts & Crafts recently, they were very careful to attempt to dispel the myth that A&C is a huge institution that’s closer to a major label than an indie.

“Those grants have kept us afloat,” Drew claimed.

“I wouldn’t say that the grants have kept us afloat,” Remedios corrected, “but they have allowed us to punch above our weight class.”

That advantage has allowed A&C to promote Canadian independent music to the world as a whole, which has a trickle-down effect across the industry, encouraging interest in the larger scene, which in turn helps everyone.

However, let’s be honest – Remedios’ background in the major label system makes it easier for them to navigate the business and make the most out of their grants. A label like Unfamiliar Records does not have the same advantage, but it would be in the interest of the larger Canadian music industry to help these smaller labels get to that next level.

So lets set aside problematic concerns over artistic merit (do we really need to keep reminding people that taste is subjective?), and get to the core of the problem: how can we better help nurture small labels, amidst the collapse of the larger industry?

Unfortunately, money alone isn’t going to cut it. Throwing money at a music video doesn’t make sense if you don’t have international distribution, a good PR firm can’t do much for you if your band doesn’t have the resources to tour effectively, and a grant to develop a website doesn’t mean anything if you don’t know how to generate traffic.

What would be useful would be some combination of cold hard cash and something that might resemble some kind of mentorship program.

Many small labels have most of the pieces they need to get to that next level, but aren’t aware of how important the parts they’re missing are, or aren’t clued in on how to effectively turn a hobby into a business.

The truth is, knowledge is more important than money in the new music industry, so when you’re complaining about the success of others, maybe take a closer look at how they got there before you assume they have some unfair advantage.

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