So Michael Hosking of Midas Promotions got name-dropped in today’s Life! Entertainment power list. There have been a few disagreements with the way he (or his company) handles things with regard to security and local acts (ref. [1] 88db Review, para. 4 and [2] The Straits Times, Aug 5 2008) — the Straits Times article put it in a very politically correct way, but essentially the second stage didn’t work very well. And yes, we played for free and sold our souls for wider market exposure that never materialized.
Melanie Subono — a regional act that played on the main stage — got really annoying when she started harping on about women’s rights and girl power; if women can get annoyed at someone promoting women’s rights, there has got to be something wrong. Nobody should talk about the same thing between every song over the course of 45 minutes.
But I could care less about Michael Hosking, his way of promoting local music and what he thinks of the scene here in Singapore, because he’s right in some ways.
There. I’ve said it. I’m playing the devil’s advocate here and striking out against the very culture I’m a part of. But bear with me for a while and understand where I’m coming from.
To be honest, the ratio of bad bands to good ones in Singapore is probably about the same as any given state in the US. It’s just that they have 48 states and we have… one. I’ve seen horrible acts in New York (Crystal Castles is just trashy live, honestly. I prefer the album) on large stages as well. Think about it — if Singapore as a city-state has, say, 5–10 commercially viable bands to push to the international market, the US has 240–480.
Of course, that was a stupid, sweeping generalization that probably shouldn’t be taken seriously, but you get where I’m going with this. If I can pull in 48 good international acts, I’d pull in the one local act that could match up with them. It’s all a matter of ratio. If I could (theoretically) pull in 48 international acts and 24 local acts, the local acts are going to annoy the hell out of the me because half of them don’t match up to my expectations of what I paid $150 for. There were 16 international acts and 18 local acts this year. Eighteen! Think about it. You don’t see a ratio like that at Summer Sonic for a reason. Or BKK 100, which has “Bangkok” in it. You can’t really say anything about the “Sing” in Singfest if you look at it that way.
So this is what happened for Singfest 2007 — The Great Spy Experiment was that one local act that Hosking (or more likely his assistants) felt could possibly match up to the level of every other international act that played. And they did, going on to play SXSW. Sure, they didn’t get paid for Singfest, but it’s a start. (They got paid for Singfest) Despite what anyone says, Singfest can be a fantastic platform to push local acts out into the global market — if they know how to do it properly, and if they give a rat’s ass about local music. Managers and handlers come down with the international acts, and if they really like something they see, they just might do something about it.
Singfest 2008 was a case study to see what happened if Midas really threw down the gauntlet and got a boatload of local acts in, because there was so much noise made about Singfest 2007 and the lack of exposure for our own bands. You as an audience asked for more local acts, and you got it — and it didn’t work, because you didn’t show up. I think we’re at fault here as much as Midas.
What happens next? With any luck, Midas will manage to strike a balance and bring in two or three exemplary local acts to perform on the same stage that Travis (who were fantastic, by the way. They made Singfest worth it for me) played. One is too little, and eighteen is way too much. Get someone involved with local music to advise on things if necessary. This can work to the benefit of all involved; it’s just going to take a lot of work. And please, please, please pay the local acts next year.
Midas, are you listening?
I’m paying £30 quid to watch The Cure headline a festival with Crystal Castles next year. Harhar.
Anw, not the point. I got too much to say about this—I should do a blog entry about this, along with wankers with DSLRs. Sorry, I mean photographers.
Hey J,
Just to clarify, we were paid for our role in Singfest in 2007. When we were originally approached, we quoted our minimum fee for an event of such as scale. They offered us publicity (“advertisement in all media formats”) but no money (“no budget for local bands”). We have a strict policy against this so we formally turned down the offer to play the gig. This was a good month-and-a-half before the event.
About three weeks before the event, Midas got in touch with us again and offered us two options: the sum we requested but with a stipulation that we had to leave immediately after our performance, or 40% of the sum we requested. Needless to say, we accepted the former.
After the event, we sent our invoice to the company for billing. The whole time we’d been liasing with Mel Tyler, with Michael Hoskings kept in the loop via email cc. A month after the event, Michael sent a note which said “I thought this was $xxxx?”, a sum which was a good 25% less than the agreed fee. This, even though he was fully aware of all prior discussions of the agreed sum. Thankfully, we had email records of all correspondence and were therefore able to insist on the agreed fee.
Administrative matters aside, the festival experience itself was great. We were very well taken care of, with due attention paid to our musical demands. And we did get to stay on after all – no one asked us to leave.
It became clear to us through all our correspondence with them that Midas appears to have a policy of not forking out any amount of money for a local band, which is something we are fundamentally opposed to.
The local stage at this year’s Singfest really typifies Midas’ attitude towards local bands for me. I view their supposed apparent support for local music (by dedicating a whole stage to local acts) with the greatest scepticism, for the following reasons:
1) The sponsorship leverage for having eighteen local bands on the bill is massive. Any corporation would love to be seen to support an event that supports local music in a big way, even if very little of that money goes towards the bands themselves or the cause.
2) The cost of erecting a stage for local bands, compared to the above, is minimal at best. Midas has everything to gain, the most important of which is getting those patriotic monkeys (who were overtly critical of them for the lack of local bands in the 2007 edition) off their backs once and for all.
3) This year’s event had the support of some major sponsors. Despite all the costs involved in holding an event of such a scale, there definitely was money for local bands. Them not paying local bands was more a matter of policy (choice) than it was of necessity.
4) Despite the promise of publicity, there was actually little mention of local acts in all wider promotions of the events.
I do agree with you about the numbers ratio and about getting the numbers right, and hopefully that’s something that will be put right in next year’s edition. Personally, I just hope that the organisers will see that local bands can hold their own against the international big guns and give bands like yours the stage you deserve.
Sorry for the impassioned reply to your post. Keep on keeping on!
Saiful
GSE
Hey Saiful — wow, I honestly didn’t expect a reply on that level. Thanks for clearing up the bit about payment. I guess we’ll see what happens in a year or so :)