[mplpost] Those CanCon lists

[Cameltrain Productions]

My two cents after Vic's excellent response:

As one who promotes artists and their music and as one who also 
does a radio show (jazz, so shoot me) on a college station:

seeing artists' names on those playlists is the only way to be sure
that the recordings are getting through to radio (who has money to
hire a tracker and be calling stations all over the US?).    And getting
that air play is important as hell in my book.  It's all about promotion,
albeit on a smaller scale than the majors with their megabucks.
If I see stations in a particular region playing an artist's music, that
says to me there may be a bit of an artist recoginition factor in that
area, which can help with presenters who sometimes surprisingly have
that very same artist on their local radio.

As a programmer of a radio show, those independent artists and small
labels are the life blood of their library collections.  I've found some very
good music in the stuff that comes my way. 

If these playlists are not accurate, they are still a step in the process of
getting the music and musicians out there. And that's what this business
is:   steps.  No direct elevator to the top floor.

MH




> Once again I'll respond to Richard's complaints, (thanks Lisa for 
> referring to the Maplepost archives).
> 
> Richard, your cumudgeonly and stubborn refusal to "get it" continues 
> to amaze me, particularly since your very business often has you 
> promoting and presenting some "unknown" folkies.  Part of a Canadian 
> folk musician's promotional arsenal is catching the ear of people who 
> will play their music on the radio...folk dj's for example.  Are 
> these shows on mainstream radio?  No, but they are on the radio, 
> people do listen to these shows and they make concert ticket and CD 
> purchases as a result.  Folk dj's post their playlists in the first 
> place so, among other things, other folk dj's can get song and 
> performer ideas for their own shows.
> 
> Richard writes:
> >Vic's latest summary of the playing of Canadian music in the U.S. is 
> >instructive - but utterly useless as any kind of reasonable guide to 
> >airplay.
> 
> It is a reasonable guide to folk airplay as reported on folkdj-l and 
> recorded by Harry Bryan.  No one has EVER made the claim on this list 
> that the charts are representative of total U.S. airplay received by 
> Canadian performers, folkie or otherwise.
> 
> >if one extrapolates from this that Enoch Kent gets more airplay in 
> >the U.S. than Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen, Fred Eaglesmith, (etc) 
> >they must be nuts.
> 
> No intelligent Maplepost folkie (aren't most of us?) is likely to 
> extrapolate that Enoch gets more TOTAL airplay in the U.S. than Bruce 
> et al.  What Enoch did get was more airplay two months running on 
> folkdj-l playlists and to me, that is significant.  Enoch's airplay 
> has waved a flag that here is a Canadian musician whose work I should 
> be aware of.  Until he showed up on the charts he was unknown to me.
> 
> >   Obviously, the folk who supply playlists to the folk-dj list serve 
> >are anything but typical,
> 
> Yes, yes and yes, the FOLK who supply playlists to the folkdj-l 
> listserve are anything but typical and THAT is the whole point! 
> Folkdj-l playlists represent our ONLY source for information about 
> folk airplay and where better to get it than from people who play our 
> kind of music?  It certainly isn't available anywhere else.
> 
> >and this compilation of useless figures - which obviously takes 
> >Harry Bryan all sorts of time to compile - means absolutely nothing 
> >at all.
> 
> I always bless Harry and his eyes for taking the time and I'm sorry 
> Richard but you are just plain wrong.
> 
> The last time Richard complained about these "useless" lists I 
> responded in part (5/1/02):
> 
> >I regard folkdj-l disc jockys as folk peers who like the music I 
> >like.  Their playlists represent airplay "votes".  When a new name 
> >shows up a lot, U.S. or Canadian, I take notice.  Folkdj-l airplay 
> >has directly led me to hire Lynn Miles, Fred Eaglesmith, J.P. 
> >Cormier, April Verch, Aengus Finnan and Jory Nash among others. 
> >Would I have picked up on those performers eventually anyhow? 
> >Probably, but not as quickly.
> 
> (footnote: At the time I had hired Jory but we agreed to put his date 
> off til next season.)
> 
> Richard has told us many times, with some exasperation, that in the 
> context of total airplay, folk airplay is meaningless.  Richard, we 
> know this, and though most of us wish it wasn't so, we know we work 
> in a musical backwater so far as mainstream music and airplay is 
> concerned.
> 
> Folk musician airplay is what I'm interested in, so where do we get 
> the numbers?  Certainly not from any kind of mainstream airplay 
> tallying if such a thing existed.  For total airplay gained by 
> Canadian folk performers, the folkdj-l figures we have are incomplete 
> but they're the best we've got.  Incomplete they may be but hundreds 
> of Canadian folkies have shown up on folkdj-l playlists over the 
> years.  Where else will we get that kind of coverage?
> 
> If there were 100% accurate lists that provided total U.S. (and 
> Canadian) airplay figures received by the Canadian folkies on Harry's 
> lists I would use them.
> Obviously, on such a complete listing, performers like Cockburn, 
> Mitchell and Young would dominate.  Performers like Keelaghan, the 
> Rogers brothers and Fred would slip lower.  Performers like Enoch and 
> Francey would be way, way down there.
> 
> Even on the folkdj-l lists it's the airplay being tallied by 
> performers on the next rung down that I notice.  It's of passing 
> interest to me that Stan hit the charts for 44 months running.  It's 
> of much greater interest that Joy Norman, Nicky Mehta, Michael Jerome 
> Browne, Enoch Kent and Terry Tufts made the top ten lists for the 
> first time.  The message to me?  Listen to their CD's and catch a 
> live show!  After that, who knows what may happen?
> 
> cheers,  Vic
> 
> 
> 
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Maurice Hogue/Cameltrain Productions/Winnipeg Manitoba Canada 
*   www.cameltrainproductions.ca
*   tel/fax 204-783-9236
*   jazz artists:  Jane Bunnett, Marilyn Lerner, Bryn Roberts
*   folk artists:  Nicky Mehta, Cara Luft, Art Turner, Gerald Laroche,
               Daniel Koulack, Daisy DeBolt and, yes, The Wailin'  Jennys
*   world music: Alexis Kochan & Paris to Kyiv, Lerner/Wall Duo,
               From Both Ends of the Earth


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