Robert Fripp's Diary

DGM HQ A grey day

DGM HQ.

A grey day in the Chalke Valley.

DGM is in active mode, and has been at least since my arrival here yesterday lunchtime from Canterbury.

We are refining the presentation & appearance of the new DGM website, to be launched in January. Part of this is to address the issue of downloading --

1. The current music-user standard for downloaded music is free.
This is unsustainable.

2. The current industry standard for downloaded music is expensive.
This is unsustainable.

3. A sustainable industry & music-user standard for downloads is cheap.

Widespread downloading needs to become legitimate. A reasonable objection to the high-price of downloading is that despite high prices, the bulk of the money does not go to the artists. No material object is changing hands, incurring high manufacture, deliver, storage & shop-rental charges: this is an information stream. It is significantly cheaper than hard-copy stuff.

We should differentiate between a handful of mega-artists who generate huge amounts of income (that they do not necessarily receive much of in the short term anyway), the bulk of working artists & players who earn a good living, and a greater proportion that just get by.

Making records in the traditional manner is relatively expensive. This doesn't have to be the case (cf. live recordings, official bootlegs, works in process, Club releases), but considered statements of the formal "studio album" kind cost upwards of $250-350,000. Works in progress are snapshots of the process & audio quality is not the determining element. Where audio quality is important, music-users can pay a higher price.

But if artists don't get paid for their recorded work, where do they get money? The answer, in principle, is simple: from everything but their recorded work. Live performance & stuff - DVDs, t-shirts, posters, memorabilia, tour programmes - and subscription websites. In practice, this gives three concerns --

1. Earning money from live performance (more on that below);
2. Creating a distribution channel for stuff;
3. Building a subscription website.

Two of these concerns are active within DGM HQ today: the website & touring. As a related aside, this is from my reply to the author of a doctorate thesis on "Financial relationships between artist and record company in the Internet era -- A value chain analysis of three reintermediated cases" --

one thing that is hard to convey to an outsider is the fundamental, all-pervasive nature of exploitation within the music industry. it's rather like arguing against the slave trade when the slaves are well-fed, given acceptable accomodation, and only ill-treated when they voice disagreement with the basic premise: one person is owned by another.

For anyone who might object that this is an exaggeration, and trivialises the historic record, in the music industry:

the primary ownership is the works of the person;
the secondary ownership is the rights to that person's image & public persona (as on artist websites);
the tertiary ownership is in control of the person's choices & decision-making process.

That is, slavery concealed by smoke and mirrors, good meals & acceptable accommodation. And drugs. And flattery. And emotional & psychological manipulation. And lies.

The aside now aside, back to the subject of earning a living from live performance & a practical issue arising from settling the accounts of this summer's KC Eurotour Of Terror, Dread, Pain, Horror & Suffering. These are David's two letters to a travel company, in respect of two hired cellphones for the KC production team in Europe --

Letter One

Thank you for the amended copies of the telephone bills relating to Crimson Tours. I am pleased that you agree with us that the initial bills contained a vast number of errors. Unfortunately, these new bills raise as many questions as they answer.

In comparing the two versions of the bills, I discover that, by your own admission, £1,252.03 of calls were mistakenly created by the computer billing system. In addition, £1,584.95 of calls were overcharged. And finally, £726.92 worth of calls were apparently omitted altogether.

This means that of a bill totalling £10,498.29, there were £3,563.90 of errors. That is a percentage error of over 33%.

When we queried the original bills, we were assured that they were computer generated directly from information supplied by Orange. In the light of this, the number of errors is particularly disturbing. On one of the two accounts, the computer had invented 67 calls to one number alone. In the light of this, I fail to see how we can be expected to have any faith in the figures that are now being sent to us.

When these bills first arrived, they were three or four times higher than we expected. I still think that they may be vastly inflated. In paying bills on some else's behalf, as I am in this case, I have a particular duty of care. I need to be sure that the facts and figures are one hundred percent accurate.

Under the circumstances, I will please need a detailed explanation of how every single error came to be shown in the original accounts, and given further detailed explanations why I should not expect that there is a similar large error rate in the second bill.

Until then, I have unfortunately instructed that these bills should not be paid.

Letter Two

Thank you for recent letter concerning the telephone bills relating to the King Crimson tour. Unfortunately, this letter does not address the questions raised in my previous letter.

The central question remains how over 100 calls were invented by the computerized billing system on your first bill, and were removed from your second bill. I must repeat my request for a detailed explanation of how each and every one of these errors came to be made.

There is also the question of how the same computer system has, in a small number of cases, come to change the times at which certain calls were apparently made. This is of particular interest, as we pointed out to (the travel company) that the times shown on the initial bill were, in some cases, physically impossible.

While understanding that the cost of some calls has fallen due to the initial use of the wrong billing structure, I also please need an explanation of why the cost of some incoming calls has fallen, and in other cases, risen. It would seem that this cannot have been due to a change in pricing structure, as the vast majority of incoming calls in the same territories on the same days remain unchanged.

Finally, I must also question the explanation about "roaming" as the reason for the additional calls that were initially missing. The additional calls are, almost without exception, the incoming call charge made when one of our two cell phones called the other. It seems extraordinary that throughout Europe, all the networks should charge every incoming and outgoing call correctly, but only make mistakes on incoming calls from one number - which happens to be the other cellphone we hired from you.

We ourselves informed (the travel company) that these incoming calls were missing from the initial bill, and that, had they been present, it would have been more obvious that a large number of bogus calls were included on these bills.

As I said in my previous letter, we still believe that this bill is vastly inflated, by at least 33%. We are prepared to come to a settlement, but we first need the detailed explanations we have requested, so that we can be assured these mistakes were honestly made. Unfortunately, credibility is at stake.

From David's letter to The Team --

Dear all,

I attach two letters that I have sent to (the Travel Company) who supplied two cellphones for the European tour.

Their initial bill was a staggering $15,000.

Having compared the phone bills with the finest of toothcombs, I noticed a number of errors, where the two bills were mutually inconsistent (Mary Jo being charged to talk to Greg, while at the same time, he was being charged for talking to someone else).

I have since received a second draft of the bill, some $3,000 cheaper, on which these errors have mysteriously disappeared. As you will see, I continue to dispute the bills, and am demanding an explanation for the initial errors.

Robert thought you might like to know that we continue to fight the good fight on your behalf. And to warn you all, should you again venture into Eastern Europe, that cellphones calls are horrendously expensive.

From my e-mail to The Crimson Team --

dear team,

when the cellphone company receive more from a tour than i do, i become involved & exceptionally displeased.

And from a second e-mail to The Team --

dear team,

it feels to me that my primary function is to keep an enormous machine rolling, that (for example) a cellphone company might be enabled to continue in business by charging dishonestly high fees.

i have also mentioned, on too many occasions, that once the golden goose is cooked it no longer lays golden eggs. the eurotour, to which i was committed without having sufficient prior discussion, did me a lot of damage, not just physically. i will not be returning to europe in any presently conceivable future.

for future touring, i have to ask: what is the aim? if the aim is to maintain the machine, it's not for me. if the aim is, to present music to the world that would not otherwise be available, how might the machine support this aim? incredibly high cellphone charges are not part of the answer.

no doubt, more soon.

There we are. All part of a day's work at DGM HQ. Dealing with stuff. The creative aspects of building a fun website, making & recording music, are put aside while we are relegated to addressing Stuff. We are not yet cynical, nor are we yet prepared to accept the endemic, accepted, low-level, corruption that undermines so much of our business world. And this isn't dealing with EG. And Broad Chalke isn't Buenos Aires or Moscow.

18.53 Two positive points:

Logic is installed in the DGM G5 downstairs in SoundWorld II;
there's a good chance that Fripp & Eno will have another day together at Studio Eno, and before Christmas.

Now back to stuff. This morning we received a call from our bank - the DGM overdraft is hiccupping. This is directly because of the unrecouped monies that DGM has outlayed to fund various KC ventures - Eyes Wide Open, Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With & The Power To Believe. We have only been paid for TPTB. Meanwhile, we continue to pay interest on the unrecouped $50,000 that is a result of DGM supporting the Crimson venture.

The DGM strategy tends to be - we will do this - and then we make it happen. Conventionally it comes down to paying bills, in accordance with the aphorism you can do whatever you wish, providing you pick up the tab. In finding solutions to Crimson difficulties & problems, there has always been a distance between what is available and what is necessary. Since 1994, that distance has largely been filled by DGM initiatives and bill-paying. Much of this has been invisible to the band members.

Now, looking at the positive future of KC Line-Up Eight, maybe even Line-Ups Seven & Nine and ProjeKcts, and the DGM history of making-it-happen whatever-it-takes, I note that there remains a distance between what is possible & what is available; and that DGM is unlikely to pick up the tab in the customary fashion.

19.37 David has just gone home. I am about to load up the car & do the same.