Music

You may have noticed by our constant references to them that Time Out hosts monthly free On The Up gigs. But did you ever wonder why we do that? Partly, of course, it’s because of the feeling of amniotic bliss we get from sharing hot new music with you, our beautiful readers. Mostly, though, it’s so we can harvest your email addresses and try to sell you a subscription.

Of course, we’re not the only evil corporation to have cottoned on to the potential of music sponsorship. Pulling in big-name bands for your corporate event has long been a traditional way of keeping up with the Dow Joneses. And as celebrities command more and more of the nation’s total column inchage, having a famous person involved with your brand is now practically essential to a successful launch. And to pull in young, hip consumers (or, more accurately, consumers who are scared of being old and irrelevant), music is the most obvious celeb pantheon to choose from.
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Anyone who read the red-top gossip pages last week, for example, will be at least unconsciously aware that Samsung launched a new music-friendly handset called Purple, thanks to the fact that Girls Aloud played a special show to commemorate its launch (and pick up their comically outsized cheque). But there are also lower-level, longer-term arrangements, whereby brands pay to sponsor certain venues or events in order to increase their profile among the music-appreciating demographic , by way of sustained Pavlovian programming. One such example is the Levi’s Ones To Watch strand at the Barfly. Now entering its fourth year, the season is celebrating with a four-night spectacular starring Time Out faves Foals, Time Out anti-faves The Wombats and general press darlings Johnny Foreigner and Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong. It’s easy to see what bands get out of it – money – but why exactly do Levi’s want to align themselves with music’s lower leagues?

‘We want to help people get on the ladder to success, rather than trying to buy credibility through big bands who’ve already made it,’ says Levi’s marketing director Andrea Moore. ‘We’re not willing to invest the money required to do so. There are so many brands with so much more cash out there that can do it – the beer brands and the mobile phone brands that are throwing money at these things – so we had to find a way for us to do music in a Levi’s-relevant way, that our consumer would respond to as well.’

The most common criticism with these occasions, obviously, is that the bands involved are ‘selling out’. Not a problem if you’re Girls Aloud, but what if you’re punk paragon Patti Smith, and you get into money-bed with Jack Daniel’s to play a special gig at their distillery in Tennessee? Well, it turns out that’s not a problem, either. ‘I did think about whether I should do it,’ mused Smith backstage at precisely that show a fortnight ago. ‘I’m very sensitive about alcohol issues, but alcohol itself is not an evil thing. If it was a pharmaceutical company I wouldn’t be here, because they’re evil. I turned down the most money I’ve ever been offered in my whole life because a pharmaceutical company wanted to use one of my songs. We live in a modern world, I’m not a purist. I just try and adapt.’

Obviously, we’re not going to disagree, because they took us out to Nashville to see the gig and get these quotes (it was great by the way – really, really great, and also, Jack Daniel’s is delicious), and the distillers have booked lots of ads in the magazine. But hey, if it’s good enough for Patti Smith, it’s good enough for us. After all, TV, cinema and – yes – magazines are already supported almost exclusively by advertising.

In an era where there is widespread debate and localised panic about the future of the music industry business model, doesn’t it make sense to apply some of the same ideas to music? Take the influence of the ubiquitous Carling, for example. Carling’s significant, and sustained, investment has been credited with keeping festivals like Reading and T In The Park financially viable for the last decade. But then, we would say that as well, since Carling also sponsor all the Academy Music Group venues, including the one at which we host our gigs. Still, there is a positive twist to the proliferation of sponsorship. It could herald a return to the patronage system which supported musicians from Byrd to Beethoven. Most existing record contracts run, effectively, like bank loans with the added threat of artistic interference. If a band can raise enough money from sponsored gigs to record an album and own their master tapes, doesn’t that make them more indie than someone who sells their souls to Fierce Panda?

‘I think the thing that’s gonna be fascinating to watch in the coming years,’ says Channelfly mogul Jason Brick (publisher of the Fly magazine and A&R for LOTW). ‘Is that artists now will have to be asking themselves the question of whether they are prepared to do sponsored events, and what the premises for those sponsors are. Everyone’s gonna have their own feelings about it. ’

The involvement of brands in the music world will only increase. Mobile phone companies are a particular case in point; they are looking to offset the costs of those expensive 3G licenses through content provision rather than, you know, quaint phone calls. That means they need something to sell beyond crappy wallpapers and microscopic stripper vids. Nokia, already heavy sponsors of live music, this week launches its Nokia Music Store, a mobile iTunes rival, and is unlikely to be the last company to make this move. This offers the prospect of being able to tour, record and distribute music without record companies becoming involved at any stage.

‘Any manager worth their salt will be looking at the wider picture,’ says Brick. ‘If you think about it, Levi’s are a quality, respected retailer; they’ve got loads of young cool people walking through their shops every day, they’ve got wallspace, they’ve got music playing and they’ve got tills. There’s no reason why, in theory, they couldn’t start selling a bunch of seven-inches from behind the counter.’

The Levi’s Ones To Watch Four Night Revue starts on Tuesday at the Barfly.