Clear Channel (was Re: rock club question)

[DennisCraigLee at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/2/2004 12:22:36 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
cpdavngr at gmail.com writes:

Technically, Clear Channel could be limiting what bands play where  and
for whom IF the band is working with C.C.  If they are working  with
C.C. and choose to play non-C.C. venues, C.C. has been known to  give
the bands less or no airplay on C.C.'s radio stations.  So, if  the
bands in question care about airplay on C.C. stations (or  whatever
other perks C.C. holds over thier heads) they may not be willing  to
play non-cc venues.  It depends on how much the band is willing  to
work with C.C. or tell the corporate bastards to go f$$k themselves.  
:
 
I work six weeks out of the year for Clear Channel (a few gothlisters know  
what I do), but I have no quams about biting their hand. They are, IMO,  WORSE 
than Republicans; they have systematically neutralized all that has been  
dynamic in American culture in the last four decades. ...ahhhh, excluding when I  
work for them, of course.
 
I worked at a factory in Westmoreland County over the summer, and radios  
were playing there daily in most sections. All the stations they were  tuned to 
were CC owned. It wasn't that their playlists were merely banal, they  were 
also mindnumbingly repititous every day. If 'Hotel California' was playing,  it 
must be 10:45am. If you hear 'Another One Bites The Dust', you can set your  
watch to 2pm, and so on. They sometimes played what I consider to have been  
great songs, now classics, but in the context of their format, once-important,  
groundbreaking music becomes more trash for the heap. Actually, context is  
irradicated on CC stations; for instance, Neil Young's 'Southern Man' is  
sometimes played, then an hour or so later you'll hear 'Sweet Home Alabama'.  These 
songs in their time were about a fued over civil rights in the South;  their 
lyrical content is out of date and superfluous. And I doubt few  listeners care, 
because it's just backround musak; whatever power it may have  once had is 
effectively trivialized and neutrilized.
 
The factory I worked at was in a valley where it was hard to pick up the  
smaller, better independent stations. But I don't doubt the highest percentage  
of working people with radios on are tuned to CC's crap state and  nation-wide.
 
I'm not going to refuse to work for CC next year, and I'm also not going to  
claim sanctimoneously to be trying to change the system from within. I offer 
no  excuses, just a reason, perhaps a greedy one at that; I enjoy getting paid 
well  for using my creativity, and I haven't found many venues that pay that 
well.  Call me a whore, and I'll show you just how great a whore I can be.
 
ever,
- - -D C L