I Met The Maestro
Written by Aldo Parise
Usually the conferences aren’t that interesting. If you have a band and need to know how the others live, it’s better to ask them out for a beer. The booze wakes them up and makes the truth roll easier.
But sometimes the conferences aren’t exactly about you. They aren’t about making a multi-record deal or signing for big bucks. Sometimes — well sometimes they are about meeting The Maestro.
Big names like Bob Harris, Thomas Dolby and Hugh Cornwell hit the platform at this year’s North by Northeast festival. Rock always rules at the big showcase fests. But it was Saturday’s hip hop-themed interviews that had a lot of people out.
First stop Fab 5 Freddy being interviewed by Maestro Fresh Wes. You can’t kick it more old school than that (shaking the Maestro's hand was a big deal for me). The questions flowed as Fab told us, “to embrace the technology.” He was very impressed with artists like The Cool Kids who’s videos have now been downloaded thousands of times — a tough prospect in the ever commercial MTV world.
But he didn’t stop there. Without the prompting of Maestro, Fab went to hammer some rap artists. “Watching a lot of rappers is like watching paint dry,” was the line of the day. It seems that Fab feels some hip-hip artists have lost the art of entertaining — a line that was repeated in the Socan: Bring Tha Noize conference. Segway …
Bring three hip-hop guys together with three punk guys and what do you get. A pretty good discussion it seems. Socan was brave enough to sponsor a conference detailing the successes of punk bands touring and the digressions of some hip-hop artists. Finding it tough to get venues and merch sold when they have shows, the hip-hoppers were surprised by the numbers some punk bands were bringing down — sometimes gating $500 a show profit.
A lot was said but in the end it’s the artists that have the work to do. That seems to be the running theme of these conferences. It may be to inspire or just to get them off their asses.
