I have a habit of writing down what people say when I overhear something interesting or if something said strikes me as odd. After this year’s SXSW, my hand is cramped from scribbling down stupid quote after stupid quote. Between the two of us at KOAR, our rolodex is expansive, however at one point we looked at each other and said ‘who the hell are all these people?’ This year was overrun with ‘newbies,’ and while a part of me wants to be excited that people are so interested in entering the music industry even with all of the problems, a new industry packed to the rafters with people who don’t know what they’re doing won’t exactly solve the problems. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from SXSW07:

(manager to band) “The A&R heard part of your song and said he liked it. I got his card, so I will call him next week and we can start negotiations.”

(band to A&R) “We’re the only band that can successfully pull off 3-part harmonies.”

(indie label owner to me) “That classic rock sound is cool and everything, but I don’t think it has a place in the mainstream. Right now its all about dance pop and emotional rock. That’s where the smart money is.”

(A&R to artist) “If you don’t move to New York or LA, you’ll never make it.”

(PR to band) “It can be difficult to stand out. You need to get your image together. You need the hair, you need the style. Consider wearing matching suits.”

(band member to band member) “With all this industry here, how could we not land something?”

(douchebag to douchebag) “Brooklyn sets all the trends. If its not hot there, it won’t be hot anywhere.”

The last, and best, comes direct from a major label employee. I’ll let you guess which department…

“The more you know about music, the less objective you can be.”

So, this is where we are. Some of these are adorably naïve and some are simply frightening. Sure, there were good performances…even some great ones. Bratty over-hyped brit rockers tearing apart stages, and some kick ass straight up American Rock n Roll, but they were just leaves in the SXSW pool of shitty fad bands and mediocre singer/songwriters. What happened?

AJ, KOAR

Check out new artist Eric James who is signed to Pure Tone Music which is owned by Pete Ganbarg who recently A&R’d albums for Daughtry, Santana and Aaron Neville. Comparisons to Death Cab For Cutie and Pete Yorn. Eric James has been added to rotation on XM Satellite Radio’s “The Loft”. Producers Christopher Thorn and Brad Smith (Under The Influence of Giants) worked on the recent EP “The City Lights”.

‘While I get a lot of comparisons to Coldplay, which these days seems to go hand in hand with touching a piano at any point in the set, I have a lot of respect for Springsteen’, says James. He’s had a lot of things to say and has always found an artful way of saying them.

Pure Tone is looking for a label and/or publishing partner for Eric. For more information contact Pete Ganbarg or manager Chris Bradstreet (Lovedrug). Check out the tracks Its Ok, Daylight , and Trust.   Â

And……………………………….Â

Who is the most hated artist?Â

Nickelback!

Read the article ‘Sales Can’t Buy Love For Some Top Bands’. Few bands inspire such intense hatred as Nickelback. Hinder is hated too.

Yet these acts have sold millions upon millions of albums. So are the critics wrong? Do music buyers have bad taste? Is this karmic payback to all the haters?

The New York Times called Nickelback “hard-rock ridiculousness” and Allmusic.com called them “unspeakably awful”.

Nickelback sells records to music lovers and to consumers who typically won’t buy CD’s. Do you really think passive music buyers give a crap about the White Stripes or Bloc Party? NO! those bands sell records to 18-24 year old hipsters who pay top dollar for VINTAGE clothing.

Bottom Line: Its a good sign When an artist can sell records to passive music listeners that don’t typically buy CD’s. This means that something struck a chord with the listener.

News Corp and NBC are joining together to challenge YouTube and plan to launch the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled with the most sought-after content from television and film. The site will debut this summer with thousands of hours of full-length programming, movies and clips. The new company will be located in New York and Los Angeles.

“This is a game changer for Internet video,” said Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer of News Corporation. “We’ll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch. And for the first time, consumers will get what they want — professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live.

This seems to be a lot of HYPE. How are they going to detract people from going to YouTube? YouTube has an enormous following in part due to its strength in user-generated, user-submitted content. News Corp. has also sued to force YouTube to take down clips of some of its shows.

More lawsuits coming your way…….

Music Publishers have Filed a Federal Lawsuit against XM Satellite Radio and alleges that XM engages in massive copyright infringement through its illegal subscription digital music download service known as XM + MP3.”

Kill The Alarm will be performing at the Knitting Factory (NYC) TONIGHT. Reps from labels are expected to attend. For more information email management.

US sales of physical CD’s plummeted 20% in the first three months of the year as downloading of songs continued to knock the underpinnings from record studio revenues.

89 million CD’s were sold from the start of the year through March 18 as compared with 112 million CD’s sold during the same period in 2006, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Sales of individual songs in digital format on the Internet rose from 242 million tracks during those months last year to 288 million this year, according to SoundScan.

Consumers are sending a message to artists that “while you may have put a lot of thought into the sequence of the album, I only like these three songs,” said digital music industry analyst Michael McGuire of Gartner Research.

“It comes back to consumers being in complete control of their media experience, and that is not going backwards,” Gartner told AFP while discussing the drop in album sales and the rise in single-song track purchases.

“This is a tough business being a record label because they have to find new sources of revenue.”

Album sales continue to decline and singles continue to rise. This is a product issue. Artist’s need to make sure they are offering a complete product with more than one single. I still can’t comprehend why major and indie labels allow product to hit the shelves with one single. KOAR will say this again and again…consumers will not purchase music until there is something worth to buy. Nickelback ain’t complaining with 5 million sales, Kelly Clarkson ain’t complaining, Carrie Underwood isn’t moaning, and Daughtry isn’t crying. You can’t contribute ALL this success to American Idol since the TV show has peddled plenty of STIFFs.

HIT Songs that are carried by HIT artists’ will sell records. This is a fact. Now stop hiring bloggers and new media monkeys to peddle more crap and spend some time finding artists that can write hits.

MTV’s “Total Request Live” is no longer totally live. It’s another sign of how both the audience and cultural juice have faded for “TRL,” once the most influential program on television for music superstars from the Backstreet Boys to Beyonce. Two weeks ago, MTV began taping “Total Request Live” two days a week in an effort to save money. After live shows air Monday and Wednesday afternoons, shows are then taped for the following day.

At its peak in 1999, “TRL” had 757,000 viewers a day, with 346,000 of them aged 12 to 17, according to Nielsen Media Research. So far this year, the show — now seen at 3:30 p.m. ET — averages 351,000 viewers a day, Nielsen said. The 12-to-17-year-old audience is only 113,000, half what it was only two years ago.

New Found Glory have split with their label Geffen Records.

Fiction Plane, the British alternative-rock band featuring Sting’s son Joe Sumner, has signed with hard rock indy label Bieler Bros Records. They will be releasing their new album, “The Left Side Of The Brain” on May 22, 2007. They are also tapped as the direct opening on The Police world tour.

One Less Reason is almost cracking the TOP 50 Album Chart in Jackson, MS.