Though the Velvet Rope has gotten inundated with n00bs and dudes whose qualifications as an “industry insider” are playing in a band for a few days back in the ’70s, sometimes it still provides interesting tidbits, such as this list of everyone TVT Records, who recently declared bankruptcy, owes money to. The list includes Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger (who is owed $945.46), Aaron Spelling Productions (owed a whopping $0.86) and some lesser known folks owed a far more substantial amount of money, such as Kaye Scholer LLP, owed upwards of $4,000,000. Elsewhere in the thread there is much lulz to be found, for those interested in the inner workings of a failed record label. Perusal is recommended. 

My earlier post about SXSW 2008 got me thinking: where are all the party invites, press releases hyping showcases and all the other annual hoopla surrounding what is supposedly the music industry’s most important yearly gathering? The pre-festival buzz for this year’s festival hasn’t just been toned down, its been practically non-existent. A non-scientific poll of many of the publicists, industry heads and random cred stackers I got drunk with last year at SXSW finds that most of them are taking a pass on SXSW 2008. It seems like they aren’t the only ones either. Discussion over at the ever-vigilant industry board Velvet Rope seems to be unanimously negative in regards to this year’s festival, including rumors as to the possibility of the perenially badass Levi’s / Fader multi-day party being a no-go this year and the possibility that the fest has perhaps gotten a bit too big for its own good:

I think it may have jumped the shark last year. Too much PR about bands that didn’t matter. Too many things going on to focus on music that might have mattered. Too much like an economic development trade fair now.

Its bigness was an asset for awhile — everyone would be there. But once it got to a certain size, then it was probably too big to get anything done. When you have 1500+ bands getting official showcases and most of them getting ignored, sooner or later you end up asking, why are they here?

I know several industry insiders telling people not to bother to register or buy a pass because there are enough free events that you don’t need one. And I think the bands themselves have grown tired of spending $30 to apply when they know they won’t get in. And if they come to accept that they don’t have a chance, they can just tune out the whole thing.

I guess we’ll see in a couple of weeks.

Photo of me from SXSW 2007 by Melissa Welliver (Hardly Knew Her)

So granted, that video with the dude beating his wife or whatever was pretty corny, but TRJA did scan over 800k units of their first record, which even by today’s margins is no chump change, especially for a label like Virgin, whose roster reads like a dollar bin in a used record store. Nevertheless, in a blog post titled “Virgin Records, Soundwave, and our NEW record…” the band states:

Stay tuned for a series of important announcements regarding Virgin Records, the Soundwave cancellation, and our NEW record…

To our fans in Australia - an announcement has been making the rounds that we are not playing Soundwave in order to stay behind and make another record for VR - this information is highly inaccurate and something that we did not approve -the full story shortly. Don’t You Fake It.

Long Live The Alliance

-RJA-

Hints as to what this might mean are pretty much summed up elsewhere on their Myspace profile, where under label they list “none.” So the real question is who dumped who? The all-knowing wisdom of The Velvet Rope seems to to point to El Droppo, which is kind of sad until you remember….THEY ACTUALLY CALLED THEMSELVES THE RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS!!111

Anyone who calls their band something like is srsly asking for it. But on the bright side, after selling 811,176 copies of their last record and touring on it for a couple years, each band member - after recouping costs for recording, promotion, tour support, etc - probably made literally tens of dollars, so I’m sure they won’t be hurting for a least a couple of days. Rock and Roll! The only job where your paycheck is really just a loan! In their downtime the members of TRJA are busy coming up with totally original concepts like this:

Actually…wait, didn’t that already happen?