Lost Canadian music ? WHY ! and the biz

[Robert Smith]

I love Trooper's first LP !975, I have the LP and I have wanted it on a CD for a long time. One of the songs on the LP is Roller Rink and I think its cool but I cant get it anywhere.

WHY? (Its long but worth the read)

Writen by Ra McGuire of Trooper
Posted: June 5th, 2007
My son Connor has recorded his first album. It’’s full of power, grace, poetry, honesty, and
passionately performed music and singing. He wrote every note, every word. He created all the
arrangements, played all the instruments (except the Cello, Viola and two violins on two of the
songs), sang all the harmonies and wrote a large part of two string quartet arrangements. I helped
him make the record, and so did Debbie. But, short of expressing our opinions when he asked us
for them, we had nothing to do with the creation of his amazing songs.
I was nervous about the project from the moment we began talking about it. I wanted to help
Connor make the record but I was conflicted. We work really well together and I’’ve had a lot of
experience with producing recording sessions - budgeting time, tending the vibe and generally
keeping things running smoothly - and I could provide many of the services of a producer
without the expense. But, I was concerned that my involvement might hurt as much as help.
A few years ago at a friend’’s wedding, a drunk musician cornered Connor and belligerently
chastised him for, essentially, being my son. He was angry that Connor had been given what he
saw as an unfair, and undeserved, advantage in the music business. Connor was hurt and
confused by the encounter, but I recognized a variation on a theme I had experienced when
Trooper’’s first album came out. Despite the fact that Randy Bachman, the guitar player from the
Guess Who and BTO, had chosen to produce our band because of the quality of our songs and
performances - we were often branded as his pet project and accused, repeatedly, of riding his
creative coat-tails. Some people (including Randy in later years) even insinuated that Bachman
had taught us how to write the hit songs we were performing when he first heard us.
Living in someone’’s shadow diminishes the already minimal rewards of success. In Trooper’’s
case, our initial breakthroughs were seen by some as unearned. I didn’’t like that, and didn’’t
want it to happen to my son.
Connor, Debbie and I talked it out. We agreed that I should help with the production of the
record. Although I wanted to co-produce without credit, Connor insisted that my name be used in
order to acknowledge the time and energy I had contributed.
While I was away, Connor and Debbie spent weeks preparing an application to ““FACTOR”” -
the Foundation to Assist Canadian Artists On Record - an organization that awards talented
songwriters and performers a sizable loan to help with recording costs. After months of waiting
Connor was turned down. Although he received the highest marks for all categories related to the
songs and their performances, they were apparently unimpressed with his ““marketing plan””. So
Connor took a loan.
My good friend, and award-winning engineer, Pat Glover signed on as part of the studio team.
We recorded all the music, including the string quartet, at Whitewater Studio. We recorded all
the vocals at home. We worked hard and conscientiously and had a great time making great
music. We started in April and are days away from finished. There are two songs that Connor
wants to re-mix and he’’s been listening to them over and over in our upstairs music room that he
wants to call ““Liberty Studio””.
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 - Fort Erie, ON - The First and Last
Posted: June 3rd, 2007
On March 28th 2007, after a bizarre month-long exchange of email, LP jacket information and
two CDs - one from Japan and one a bootleg - Suzan from Universal Music assured me that,
once the ““metadata entry process”” was completed and the ““Digital Scheduling process”” had
““moved ahead””, she would give me a ““targeted release date”” for the first and last Trooper
albums released on MCA/Universal. Counting the two months that have passed since then, it’’s
been three since I asked Trooper’’s first record company to complete the seven-album MCA
portion of Trooper’’s iTunes catalogue. I emailed Suzan about this, again, today. I received an
““out of the office”” automated reply.
Back in February, Universal Canada quickly determined that the two albums in question were
““not in the system””. They wrote and asked me if I had ““finished CDs”” of the albums that I
could send to them. And the front and back cover artwork. And, uh …… could you copy some
information off your vinyl versions of the records and send us that too.
Fortunately, The last MCA album (the one that had no name - or any other information - on the
cover) was re-released, in Japan only, on CD, and I had ordered one in the nineties. I sent it to
Universal. The first ““LP”” - the orange one featuring the hideous seventies plexiglas
construction - was never ‘‘officially’’ released on CD. So I sent them a bootleg made by a fan.
Universal wasn’’t hoarding these albums in a vault somewhere, refusing (or simply neglecting) to
make them available. No one at the company knew they existed. It is brutally ironic, and
fundamentally sad, that it is against the law to copy and share this collection of songs that cannot
currently be purchased anywhere, from anyone.
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 - White Rock BC - Record Companies
Posted: February 20th, 2007
Trooper recorded their first seven albums while under contract to MCA Records. In December of
2006, Universal Music (formerly MCA) released five of those albums to the iTunes Music Store
where they can now be purchased and downloaded.
Two albums remain conspicuously absent from the digital music store. Trooper’’s first album
was not part of the iTunes offering, nor was the seventh, and last, album released by
MCA/Universal.
In the non-digital world, products with marginal sales are discontinued. Manufacturing, shipping
and storage expenses eclipse potential income. For this reason, the first and last MCA Trooper
albums (ironically, both titled ““Trooper””) have not been available in stores for years. But
digital replicas of those albums are not encumbered by the brick-and-mortar paradigm. They
require no warehouse space, no shipping - and can be cloned, like magic, from the master
recordings. The tracks from the missing albums could have been prepared and uploaded with
minimal additional effort. I am cursed with a mind that cannot help but ask why they weren’’t.
I’’ve emailed the record company asking them to upload the additional albums, but I am obliged
to accept whatever action, or inaction they choose to take. Notwithstanding the fact that I wrote
and sang the songs, spent months in the studio recording the albums and months on the road
promoting them - Universal owns all seven records and can do whatever they want with them.
This can include, sadly, making them disappear off the face of the earth forever.
Very few people understand the relationship between a band (or singer, or musician - the contract
refers to us all as ““The Artist””) and their record company. Many still believe that the artist
owns and controls the recordings they make. In most cases, nothing could be further from the
truth.
Most record company contracts ‘‘loan’’ the artist money to record an album. In exchange for this
recoupable loan (and promises of promotion and distribution), the record company takes
ownership of the resulting recordings. The artist is promised a royalty - a small percentage of the
retail price of the finished ‘‘product’’. BUT …… before the artist receives any ““artist
royalties””, they must first PAY BACK the record company the total cost of the recording (and,
usually, the video) - not from the total profit on the sales but from their artist royalty. If you have
not paid off your first album debt by the time your second album is released, the difference is
simply brought forward and you continue to pay back the accumulated amount.
Although it feels like dropping single grains of sand into an ever-enlarging beach bucket,
Trooper eventually, with the help of a greatest hits album that required minimal recording costs,
paid back all of their recoupable loans. Nonetheless, we still do not own those recordings.
Many people would ask why someone would sign on to a contract like that.
Because, for years and years, it was the only game in town.
In 1994, ““The Artist (get it now?) Formerly Known as Prince”” inked the word ““SLAVE””
onto his face. He told the press that he had become ““merely a pawn used to produce more
money for Warner Brothers”” (his record company).
In 2000, Courtney Love delivered a scathing, landmark rant to the Digital Hollywood Online
Entertainment Conference in New York. She began by saying:
““Piracy is the act of stealing an artist’’s work without any intention of paying for it. I’’m not
talking about Napster-type software. I’’m talking about major label recording contracts.””
She went on to say that:
““The system’’s set up so that almost nobody gets paid.””
Most major recording artists rely on their major record labels for their major money, but, because
Ms. Love had developed an income from films, she could afford to bite down hard on the hand
that ostensibly fed her. Everyone with even a remote interest in the future of recorded music
should take the time to read the transcript of her speech.
Prince and Courtney Love kicked open doors that have since been pinned wide open by a
growing storm of discontent. The digital world now looms large and threatening over once
arrogant and implacable RIAA executives. Not unlike Courtney Love, I have very little to lose by
talking candidly about my former record companies. The royalties I receive have gone from
pitiful to laughable and I haven’’t had a new record hanging in the balance for many years. I have
a list of grievances - real and possibly imagined - that could, no doubt, parallel hers. Like many
of my peers, I believe that the reign of record company control over recorded music, and the
artists who make that music, should and will end soon. I can say this with confidence and a
reasonable certainty. But talk is cheap.
One way or another, Connor will be recording his first album this year. He’’s been thinking a lot
about how he’’ll get it out to the world. Questions about the feasibility, morality, and, for that
matter, longevity of record companies have become, suddenly, non-hypothetical.
As the old paradigm dies …… what will rise to replace it?

Thank you Ra for answering my quetion.

[Radar]

Geeeeeez you have to feel sorry for the artists in these new times!
Making records can be an expensive venture, especially if you plan on lots of production like George Martin, Todd Rundgren or even Alan Parsons type of heavy engineering to get a rich sound. This takes CAPITAL.
Artists sure aren't getting it back like they did in the old days when records use to fly off the shelves. Then again the record companies were getting filthy rich too, as well as the opulence of the artists.

"These Times they are a changing"

[Robert Smith]

Thank you for taking the time to read This Radar
We all need to support Canadian artest (Canada Rocks)

[Robert Smith]

CANADIAN REAL OLDSCHOOL

Trooper - 3 Dressed Up as a 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3uH-vam ... re=related

Raise A Little Hell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STiuregS ... re=related

Trooper - The Boys In The Bright White Sports Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU304Gs3 ... re=related

And ther sill out there rockin