Could Sony have turned Echolyn into Stars?

[arturs]

I've just been re-visiting the brilliant turn-of-the-millennium Echolyn discs CPF and Mei. I think they might have had a lot of commercial potential... That rootsy, very American sound, I think it would have gone over very well with the NPR crowd. And the jam band folks too.

I can totally see how Sony had no idea what to do with As the World (though I love it personally) but the subsequent ones? I really think Sony dropped the ball by dropping this band; Echolyn could have made the company some serious $$. Am I onto something here or am I just an out-of-touch progger?

[rickawakeman]

Stars and Gardens, perhaps...

[dnieper]

I just watched the Stars and Gardens DVD recently. Ironically, I think their recent material would have had a much better chance of "mainstream success" than As the World or (especially) the post-AtW demos on When the Sweet Turns Sour would have, but they seem to just be making music now purely for the fun of it, whereas I got the impression they were really trying to break through in the mid-1990's. I was expecting to get more details on the whole deal-gone-wrong on the DVDs, but the few words there were about Sony were actually pretty complimentary, so I guess they were just being diplomatic.

[Gruno]

Could Sony have turned Echolyn into Stars?

No. Not at all.

[trurl]

In some parallel dimension this has in fact happened.


This one not so much though.

[Steve F.]

I suspect Sony signed Echolyn specifically as a tax write off thing, ie you sign a band, put out their album, then watch it flop, so you can claim it on your taxes as a lost income or whatever. From what I understand, record companies have been doing this for decades. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's why Arista signed Happy The Man, even as the original progressive rock era was coming to an end.

You are completely incorrect in both instances.

In both instances, there were A&R men who completely believed in these bands who signed them.

Albums may be released for dumb reasons or perhaps a superstar might get their label to put something out that the label would not otherwise release, but no label knowingly signs something just to lose money.

[Steve F.]

I always had the understanding that if you had the industry hype machine behind you, you can make it work.

Chris, that's an absolutely silly statement.

Think about it. If it were true, it would mean that everything that had/has the industry hype machine behind you becomes a big seller.

All you have to do is look at the long parade of major label, cut-corner, $1.99 CDs and lps, stretching back into the 70s to see that that isn't so.

[Baribrotzer]

In some parallel dimension this has in fact happened.
This one not so much though.

Funny - I've told Echolyn themselves exactly that at Nearfest.
Among other things, in that dimension:

- Mei was released to get out of their contract with Sony, by putting out an album with no possible single.

- Ray still has a bad back, but got it from jumping off the drum riser rather than installing floors.

- Dave Matthews never put together his DMB band, and is still pouring drinks and playing coffeehouses.

- And the Echolyn guys are probably happier in this dimension.

[GuitarGeek]

In some parallel dimension this has in fact happened.


This one not so much though.

Yes, there's also parallel timelines where:
Jimi Hendrix became the god of funk during the 70's
Tommy Bolin churned out a long string of fusion records
where Jeff Beck didn't get himself kicked out of the Yardbirds
where Keith Moon and John Entwistle did in fact quit The Who in 1968
where Hitler won the war
where Shakespeare wrote erotic literature (apologies to Douglas Adams for nicking that one)
where Genesis were told frell off by Jonathan King at "old boys day" at Charterhouse
where Robert Fripp became a real estate agent
where Gene Klein became a rabbi instead of changing his name to Gene Simmons and becoming the Demon
where Jerry Garcia didn't get kicked out of the Army (ditto for Jimi Hendrix)
where Eric Clapton became a prominent stained glass artist
where Edgar Froese never wimped out, never had a falling out with Chris Franke, and continued to make great music well into the 21st century
where Schubert finished the Unfinished Symphony
where Mahler finished the 10th symphony
where the Kennedy brothers became a rock group instead of a political dynasty
where Mick Jagger became an accountant instead of a vocalist
where Keith Richards became a mob kingpin instead of the god of guitar riffs
where Chuck Berry became a hairdresser instead of a musician, and thus rock guitarists remain in the shadows mostly unknown in relation to the singers they back up (or else weren't inspired to become guitarists in the first place)
where Dr. Brian May got his doctorate a lot sooner because instead of becoming a guitar god, he went back to school when Queen were unable to secure a recording contract immediately
where Patrick Moraz stayed in Yes
where Jon Anderson got kicked out Yes after the second album for being "little Napoleon"
where Chris Squire got kicked out of Yes after the first album for his chronic tardiness
where Anthony Phillips never got stage fright, and thus Steve Hackett remained in obscurity
where Eddie and Alex Van Halen both became concert pianists
where Keith Emerson actually studied classical music properly and became a prominent composer
where Robert Fripp got voted out of King Crimson in 1969
where Harrison Ford didn't have to use the bathroom at his first movie audition (and hence, wouldn't have been caught by the guy who chased after him down the hall for another part)
where George Lucas said "Ya know what, nobody's going to buy this 9 part epic bullshit, maybe I should just make American Graffiti II instead)
where George Lucas continued to make movies in the vein of THX-1138 instead of making populist fair like American Graffiti and Star Wars
where Star Trek didn't get cancelled after the third season, stayed another the air for another 7 years, spawning debates amongst geeks about whether or not it should have gone off the air after the third season
where NBC told Gene Roddenberry there wasn't enough room for another sci-fi show on American TV
where Magma absolutely conquered the US charts and proved to be bigger Stateside than they were in Europe

and ya know, I can keep going on and on and on like that. I know you've already stopped reading so what the frell is the point anyway?

[Paulrus]

In both instances, there were A&R men who completely believed in these bands who signed them.

My understanding was that the guy who got Echolyn signed to Sony (wasn't it their "505" sub label?) quit/was booted shortly thereafter and the band was left with nobody to champion them internally. Plus -- let's be honest -- As The World was not the right album to help break them. Those later albums might have had a better shot but I doubt it.

[GuitarGeek]

My understanding was that the guy who got Echolyn signed to Sony (wasn't it their "505" sub label?) quit/was booted shortly thereafter and the band was left with nobody to champion them internally. .

That happens a lot too, not just in music, but in the movie industry too. One of the reasons Rock And Rule was a flop was because it took Nelvana Productions so long to finish the film (they spent something like 3 years working on it) that by the time they were done, there had been at least one regime change at MGM, and the new bosses apparently had less faith in the film than their predecessors. So the movie was given a nearly non-existent theatrical release with little or on fanfare. (shrug)

And my apologies if anyone was offended by my previous comments in this thread. I guess that's what happens when someone who's never worked with a major record label repeats comments he's heard other people make (I've heard at least one band suggest their label intended for their album to be a "tax write off"). (shrug)

[trurl]

That's kind of my point- you can "what if" until you pass out but this is the reality we deal with. What if Sony hadn't dropped the band, they got really popular and successful and then they got hit by a meteor while playing Bonaroo?

[Progatron]

What if Sony hadn't dropped the band, they got really popular and successful and then they got hit by a meteor while playing Bonaroo?

OMGCONCEPTALBUM!!!!!

[Steve F.]

And my apologies if anyone was offended by my previous comments in this thread. I guess that's what happens when someone who's never worked with a major record label repeats comments he's heard other people make (I've heard at least one band suggest their label intended for their album to be a "tax write off"). (shrug)

I certianly wasn't offended, but I was surprised you repeated something as obviously wrong as that.

You can find someone saying just about ANYTHING, esp. on the net. Doesn't mean you should take it seriously.

[Steve F.]

My understanding was that the guy who got Echolyn signed to Sony (wasn't it their "505" sub label?) quit/was booted shortly thereafter and the band was left with nobody to champion them internally.

This could certainly be true - I wouldn't know - but that doesn't change the fact that when they were signed, the person who signed them totally believed in them.

And, do you really think that things they've done since are more likely to have propelled them to 'stardom' than As The World? I don't. YMMV.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
I suspect Sony signed Echolyn specifically as a tax write off thing, ie you sign a band, put out their album, then watch it flop, so you can claim it on your taxes as a lost income or whatever. From what I understand, record companies have been doing this for decades. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's why Arista signed Happy The Man, even as the original progressive rock era was coming to an end.

You could very well be right. They may not have been signed to lose money, but not to really make money either. I can't tell you how many times friends have been told by their accountants you have to spend X amount of dollars or you lose it to taxes. Many times you make more losing to stay out of a higher tax bracket. My oldest daughter lost money on this years taxes because she made too much last year so the government won't let her write off the interest of her student loans. That's fucking bullshit, but that's your government. If a government agancy is allotted 10 million dollars and only spends 8 million, they will only get 8 million the next year. So this agency will piss away the 2 million it didn't need just to get 10 million the next year again. Sony is a multi billion dollar corporation who probably pays less taxes than we do. So there is a good chance they let some low level piss ant sign a losing proposition just because some bean counter somewhere told him to.

[SteveSly]

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren’t Echolyn signed to Sony as kind of a counterpart to Dream Theater? I mean, from a prog fans perspective they are totally different bands, but I seem to remember the story going around that Atco records was having success with Dream Theater’s “Images and Words” album, and that Sony was looking to sign a progressive rock band of their own which ended up being Echolyn. I may be totally full of shit on this, but I remember hearing that story from someone back in the day.

Anyway, back to the question……….as others have mentioned I really don’t think “As The World” was probably the right album to try to break the band. Personally I love it, but how a big record company would market an album as eclectic as that one (from an unknown band no less), god only knows……

I think some of their later albums had more commercial potential (“Cowboy Poems Free”, and “The End Is Beautiful” come to mind), but hard to say. I have always thought that in a live environment, if they could have gotten some exposure to the modern jam band scene that they might have been able to win some fans over. Some of what bands like Umphrey’s Mcgee do today are not that far from Echolyn at times, especially live.

[GuitarGeek]

Probably completely irrelevant to the discussion, but I remember Michael Stanley telling a story from back when he was signed to MCA. For those of you not from Northeastern Ohio, Michael Stanley was/is a local celebrity in these parts. In the early 80's, The Michael Stanley Band could sell out Blossom Music Center (a 15,000 or so seat venue) multiple nights in the row in the summer, then do the same thing at the Richfield Coliseum for New Year's Eve. Although they got a degree of airplay on MTV in the very early days (some of you might remembers the songs My Town and He Can't Love You), they were never quite able to break big nationally.

So anyhow, Michael was telling this story on his radio show (he's not a jockey at WNCX, our local classic rock station), about how when his second or third album came out, he got word from the A&R department at his label that it was going to be one of the record's that month or that quarter or whatever that they were gonna put a lot of promo behind. The way Michael told it, record companies back then didn't really put a lot of promo dollars behind everything, so if your record was one of those chosen that quarter or whatever, that meant someone at the label really believed in you. And in this case, this particular album was one of the ones that was "believed in". The problem was, the other two records that they were putting a lot of push behind that month/quarter/whatever were Quadrophenia and (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd), and between those two records, Michael's album got squashed like a bug, apparently.

[GuitarGeek]

You could very well be right. They may not have been signed to lose money, but not to really make money either. I can't tell you how many times friends have been told by their accountants you have to spend X amount of dollars or you lose it to taxes. Many times you make more losing to stay out of a higher tax bracket. My oldest daughter lost money on this years taxes because she made too much last year so the government won't let her write off the interest of her student loans. That's fucking bullshit, but that's your government. If a government agancy is allotted 10 million dollars and only spends 8 million, they will only get 8 million the next year. So this agency will piss away the 2 million it didn't need just to get 10 million the next year again. Sony is a multi billion dollar corporation who probably pays less taxes than we do. So there is a good chance they let some low level piss ant sign a losing proposition just because some bean counter somewhere told him to.

Thanks for explaining that better than I could have. That was the logic I was using when I made the comment about record companies letting a given record die on the vine, as it were, for tax purposes. It's a little bit like the Hotblack Desiato gag in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy ("he's spending a year dead for tax purposes").

[JKL2000]

That happens a lot too, not just in music, but in the movie industry too. One of the reasons Rock And Rule was a flop was because it took Nelvana Productions so long to finish the film (they spent something like 3 years working on it) that by the time they were done, there had been at least one regime change at MGM, and the new bosses apparently had less faith in the film than their predecessors. So the movie was given a nearly non-existent theatrical release with little or on fanfare. (shrug)

And my apologies if anyone was offended by my previous comments in this thread. I guess that's what happens when someone who's never worked with a major record label repeats comments he's heard other people make (I've heard at least one band suggest their label intended for their album to be a "tax write off"). (shrug)

Was Rock & Rule good? I think I vaguely recall seeing it on HBO back in the day.

[arturs]

I think some of their later albums had more commercial potential (“Cowboy Poems Free”, and “The End Is Beautiful” come to mind), but hard to say. I have always thought that in a live environment, if they could have gotten some exposure to the modern jam band scene that they might have been able to win some fans over. Some of what bands like Umphrey’s Mcgee do today are not that far from Echolyn at times, especially live.

That is about what I was thinking when I started the thread. Had Sony had some vision regarding the musically proficient end of the jam band scene, I think they might have found a niche for Echolyn where they would have done well. Umphrey's McGee is one example of a successful band in that scene, and Sister Hazel is another.

More broadly though I think that Sony's all-too-fast dumping of a band like Echolyn is an example of the recording industry's complete loss of confidence in themselves to actually set trends (as opposed to just following what the teenagers are already digging, as per GuitarGeek's quote above).

I wouldn't doubt that the "either your first CD is a hit or you are out" approach which seems to have been the modus operandi since 1990 at least caused a large part of the subsequent fall of the industry (in addition to illegal downloading of course: see the ReR USA thread!). No one has loyalty to a band just because the first album is a hit, but if record companies would have built up bands over time, then the industry could have had more hits over a longer period of time.

Think of all the stars of the 1970s and 80s who had many not-so-big albums before the big one: REO, Journey, J Geils, Peter Gabriel, etc. etc.

[GuitarGeek]

Was Rock & Rule good? I think I vaguely recall seeing it on HBO back in the day.

Well, I suppose that depends on your tastes, but I personally think it's a great picture. The songs were done by Cheap Trick, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Earth Wind & Fire. And they used some cutting edge technology to produce some of the sequences (as well as using older technology like the multi-plane camera, which you didn't see often outside of Disney films). I've got the double DVD release, with both versions of the movie, plus The Devil And Daniel Mouse (a TV special that I actually remember watching when I was little that was done by the same production company).

If you got to see the movie back in the day, count yourself as lucky. I remember seeing the "making of" featurette (also on the DVD release) on Nickelodeon's Lights! Camera! Action! program (hosted by Leonard Nimoy) at the time and thought, "This movie looks awesome!", but then it seemed like it was never released (as I said it was, but on a very small scale). I guess it was shown on CBC a few times, but I don't think I ever got to see the movie until a few years later, when I found it at the video store, and that copy looked like it had been damaged somehow (maybe from being rented too many times by geeks like me, because that was the only way you could see it at the time).

[LASERCD]

The evil record label guy that signed Echolyn to Sony is a frequent lurker/poster here. He is also a loyal Laser's Edge supporter and general bon vivant around town. Perhaps with enough coaxing Mr. Michael Caplan will chime in.

Sharpen your daggers now!!!!

[Adrian]

Anyway, back to the question……….as others have mentioned I really don’t think “As The World” was probably the right album to try to break the band. Personally I love it, but how a big record company would market an album as eclectic as that one (from an unknown band no less), god only knows……

I think some of their later albums had more commercial potential (“Cowboy Poems Free”, and “The End Is Beautiful” come to mind), but hard to say. I have always thought that in a live environment, if they could have gotten some exposure to the modern jam band scene that they might have been able to win some fans over. Some of what bands like Umphrey’s Mcgee do today are not that far from Echolyn at times, especially live.

I was going to say something very similar to this, but my browser crashed in mid-post. I can absolutely hear Cowboy Poems Free appealing to the NPR-Phish-Umphrey's crowd. If that had been their Sony album, I think they easily could have built a niche for themselves -- maybe not so much in terms of airplay and hit songs, but more of an underground appeal, with the ability to tour all over the place to decent-sized crowds of very loyal fans.

Of course, back here in the real world, Echolyn probably never would have made Cowboy Poems Free if they hadn't gone through the Sony wringer first. From my understanding, their disillusionment forced them to step back and reassess their music, and what came out of that was something that sounded very different from As the World. Again from what I understand, these guys had already quit their day jobs and were prepared to make a career out of their music, and practically overnight it all came crashing down around them and they were left to pick up the pieces. That would have a profound effect on anyone, and I can understand how it could even affect their approach to music.

Whether they were pegged as a tax write-off from the get-go, I can't say. The guy who championed them to Sony probably didn't look at it that way, but maybe his superiors did. They may have decided Echolyn was worth a roll of the dice, and if it didn't work out, Sony wouldn't feel the pain.