April 12th, 2007
Interview with Derek Hogue of G7 Welcoming Committee
I am very proud to share with you the following interview with Derek Hogue of G7 Welcoming Committee. When I started this label interview series, Derek was one of the first people that came to mind to interview and not because Suburban Home handles G7’s distribution. Derek and G7 have always taken a very forward thinking approach to running their label. It came as no surprise when Derek phoned me about a month ago to tell me of the label’s decision to discontinue manufacturing CDs and to offer future titles as digital only. G7 is most well known for being Propagandhi’s label, but they have put out one of the most diverse and incredible catalogs I know of boasting releases by the Weakerthans, Submission Hold, Clann Zu, Greg MacPherson, GFK, Subhumans, and more. Regardless of whether you will love every G7 release, all are worth getting to know as the label doesn’t follow trends and have always pushed boundaries with the releases they put out.
I think if you are going to read one interview on IndieHQ, this should be the one you read. Derek has very intelligent, honest answers about the future of music sales, their decision to stop producing/distributing CDs, and you will not believe what release G7 almost put out. I want to thank Derek for taking the time to answer these questions and I hope everyone takes the time to read.
And again, please keep recommending labels that we should interview. I have some great ones planned for the coming weeks, but I hope to feature 2 label features a week, on Monday’s and Thursday’s.
IndieHQ: When did your label start? What inspired you to start the label? Where is your label based? Do you do the label full time? What don’t most people know about you/your label?
G7WC: G7 started officially in 19 ought 97 (although we had some “unofficial”, DIY-style releases before that). I wasn’t involved in starting it up – that was Chris and Jord from Propagandhi, and another guy named Derek, who’s now a parole officer (I have to see him once a a week). We’re based out of Winnipeg, MB - though we are now expanding to Halifax, NS as well so I can run our East Coast operations.
At one time the label was a full time job for 3-4 people. Now it’s a part time job for 2, but that’s mainly because browsing eBay, reading Znet articles, and looking at videos of cats doing cute things on the internet were excised form the list of daily tasks, so we can do more with less now.
Most people don’t know that we were asked to release Refused’s “The Shape of Punk To Come”, dragged our feet, then missed the boat.
IndieHQ: What active bands are on your label? (please include myspace urls or website urls)
Propagandhi
Greg MacPherson
GFK
Hiretsukan
Subhumans (Canada)
Mico
Weakerthans (catalogue)
IndieHQ: What do you look for in a band? Have you ever signed a band from a demo? What advice do you have for bands trying to get your attention? What band or bands would you kill to work with?
G7WC: We look for a band that has something interesting/revelatory/insightful to say, and in a new or compelling way; plays music that strikes us as passionate, exciting, or groundbreaking; and is in no way looking to make a living off of their band.
We have signed bands from demos before. But that’s because those bands possessed the above qualities. There’s no ‘trick’ to getting us interested. Maybe that works for some labels, I don’t know. But we hate your press kits, photos, presentation folders, stickers, buttons, and other garbage.
A good rule of thumb is this: record your demo - then listen to it as though it is a band whose CD you just bought. If it sounds like a band trying to sound like their favorite bands, don’t waste your time and money sending it out. If you love music, keep making music. But don’t think that gives you some inalienable right to have it pressed onto discs and shit out into the world.
We’ve always wanted to do a record with Tragedy. They continue to rebuff our proposals.
IndieHQ: What one marketing/promotions tool do you find is your greatest asset? What vendor/manufacturer that you work with do you recommend the most?
G7WC: Word of mouth I’d say. Advertising is a crap shoot (though at least with online advertising you can measure your results), reviews are basically pointless, and paying stores to carry your CDs is a fucking swindle.
For manufacturing, we’ve been lucky to work with local folks in Winnipeg from the very beginning who’ve been really good to us, tolerating our outlandish and ‘controversial’ album covers/record/band names/t-shirts, and extending unheard of credit to us at various times. Those are Polar Bear Productions (CD broker) - http://polarbearltd.com – and Special t-shirt company.
IndieHQ: What release is your best selling title? How many has it sold?
G7WC: I think Propagandhi’s “Where Quantity Is Job #1″, which has sold something like 40,000 copies worldwide.
IndieHQ: Music retail is tough these days, what steps, if any, have you taken to adapt in the post-file-sharing/post-Tower Records music retail landscape?
G7WC: Well, we’ve just officially announced the complete phase-out of CDs at G7. In a year’s time we’ll no longer be pressing or selling CDs at all, including our entire back catalogue. I don’t know how much this is an adaptation to the “retail landscape” … I mean, we sell *a lot* of some of the CD titles we’re killing.
But by offering high-quality MP3s for sale on our site, and offering full, downloadable artwork for our catalogue, I’d hope people would see fit to remunerate us and the bands for our efforts and support us that way.
IndieHQ: Who handles your distribution?
Suburban Home in the US (and world), Sonic Unyon in Canada.
IndieHQ: What do you see as the future of music sales?
G7WC: In the near-term - the decline of CDs and increasing share of digital sales. But in the long-run, I don’t know. I don’t really care either. Lovers of music and art will continue to make it whether it’s for sale or not. In fact, the best music is made by those who are uninterested in its commercial value.
IndieHQ: Are your releases available on Emusic? Why or Why not? Are your releases available for streaming on sites like Rhapsody, Napster, and Urge? Why or Why not?
G7WC: Yes, because when it comes down to it, we’d like our stuff to be available to as many people as possible.
IndieHQ: If you could tell the world to buy one release on your label, which one would you tell people to purchase? Why?
G7WC: I find it very hard to answer this question. In terms of a record that most people would have heard of/already have: Propagandhi’s latest record “Potemkin City Limits”, because I think overall is it’s the best record in terms of the depth and profundity of ideas, and ripping power/advanced musicianship tune-wise.
But to expose someone to something new, I’d say warsawpack’s “Gross Domestic Product”, as it is truly genre-defying musically, and speaks articulate truths about the state of our planet with insight.
Written by Virgil Dickerson
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On April 12th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Jim B. Ovine said:
Did you know only 17% of the worlds population is on the internet? Did you know only 70% of North America has internet access. Check here http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.
And even less of those people are on high speed internet which is needed in order to download anything significant. This is a downright horrible idea.
On April 12th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Seth Progression said:
I wonder what percentage of the world’s population bought a CD in the last year? There are 6.5 billion people in the world and most of them are poor. Something tells me it not higher than 17% (1.1 billion CDs). I would imagine the same people that do not have internet access because of poverty also are not buying (legal) CDs and internet connectivity is increasing worldwide every day.
It may be a bit premature to stop selling CDs altogether, but there is a much larger future market for digital sales than CD sales.
On April 12th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
will said:
I applaud the label for making the leap of faith and doing something different but I think they will struggle even moreso.
Kids that are still buying music buy it to have a physical copy. The answer is not to make everything digital…the answer is to offer something unique beyond that physical copy. A digital copy of an album is certainly not that unique something.
On April 12th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
The Dude said:
One of the best feelings for me is going to the record store, picking up the cd and feverishly unwrapping it and then blasting it right away in the car on the way home or wherever I’m going. I like having the album art in my hands, because as an artist myself, I’m really critical of art. And also, as a complete music nerd I like to look at my massive cd collection from time to time and wallow in the glory of what awesome taste I have. I love G7 Welcoming Committee Records and am an avid Propagandhi fan, so I will support them with whatever decisions they make, but honestly I hope this “digital revolution” doesn’t catch on, because I just think it’s kind of dull in a way. Oh well, music is music I guess!
On April 12th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Jim B. Ovine said:
It’s simple Seth, you don’t cut off any potential consumers when you’re running a business. If you chose to start selling white power cds you would have to understand that many people would now pass on buying your records. There’s a reason why most labels do cd, vinyl, and digital. It gets the music to the most people possible, which is the real point, or at least should be. How many times do you hear a band say they’ve moved from an indie to a major simply because they want to be available to more people? A move like this for G7 limits who can hear their music and will make casual and future fans who can’t afford high speed internet to take their business elsewhere. It’s a bad business move, period.
On April 12th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
DuckPunk.com » Blog Archive » IndieHQ talks to G7, Bridge 9, Abacus, Reignition said:
[…] IndieHQ recently posted the latest in a series of interviews with label bigwigs like Derek Hogue of G7 Welcoming Committee, Chris Wren of Bridge Nine and many others. […]
On April 12th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Evan said:
You can download the music, burn it to a disc and listen to it, they offer high res art as well so print it out and create your own CD. I personally buy a disc, rip it and put it on my ipod, the physical disc sits on my shelf collecting dust. All my music files have the CD art embedded so it displays on the player. Digital distribution makes sense when you want to maximize the money for the artist and it helps out the environment on many different levels. The crap that you need to manufacture CD’s, the energy used, think of all the discs that sit in Music stores never bought taking up space. Also on CD launch day, you can get a copy no problem. I like it.
On April 12th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Joe said:
Does this mean that if bands on tour want to sell CDs of their music they have to sell burned CD-Rs or just tell people to go buy it online when they get home?
The majority of CDs I actually buy are from bands at shows.
That said, I already purchased the re-release of the John K Samson songs on their site even though I had downloaded them years ago.
On April 12th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Sean said:
they could always sell cards like digital revolt offers instead of cds at their shows:
http://indiehq.com/2007/03/30/disc-revolt-the-future-of-digital-sales/
On April 12th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Derek said:
Hi - uh, couple of things:
1) We do not care about “bad” versus” good” business moves. This decision was not a “business move.”
2) We recognize that in the short-term, we will ostensibly get less of our music into peoples’ hands. We’re not thrilled about that. But such is life. We’re no longer willing to make that compromise.
3) Bands will do whatever they like - press their own CDs, get someone else to press them, or exterminate them as well. I expect a mixture of all of these.
On April 12th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Corey said:
“A move like this for G7 limits who can hear their music and will make casual and future fans who can’t afford high speed internet to take their business elsewhere”
This is a decent point - the speeds involved with downloading full albums. But, I think that begs the question of how far are we from the absolute eradication of dial-up internet? High-speed prices are going down considerably, and with all the deals out there, it only seems logical to think that the days of dial-up are over. In addition, the amount of “high speed internet hot spots” are seriously increasing, at least in my area, and two counties here in MI are already taking initiatives to develop a county-wide wireless internet system. I’m not sure if they are planning on paying for this with taxpayer money and if they have considered the potential problems that could arise, but I think that says big things about where the internet is going regardless - at least in America. I think the download rate and the availability of the internet should be the least of concerns for labels turning to digital means. That said, I still don’t think it is a great move to completely kill someone’s chance of buying a real cd.
On April 12th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Mattack said:
G7 is a label that continues to stray from the mainstream in ways that are crucial steps towards a planet that understands it’s most intelligent creature is also the most destructive. I am a serious Propagandhi and otherwise G7 fan in general. Although they have already started the transition to digital only sales, I am not so sure that it is the best idea they’ve ever had.
I do understand the reason they are doing it. The manufacture and production of CD’s is probably a horrible contribution to the environment for the amount of good it does. Perhaps they can produce some other type of hard-copy media without the conventional compact disc. Along with “The Dude” I agree that from an artist standpoint the type of art they put out is the type that I have no problem paying for. Hopefully they continue with their idealist practices but somehow come upon a way to cater to those artists who truly appreciate their work, other than viewing it through their 17″ CRT computer screen.
On April 12th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Don Chris said:
Mattack…Youre ideas are outlandish and completely pre-historic. I question if you even understand the ideas/ideologies that the band actually stand for. People like you bang their heads to the thrash sounds of propagandhi but you are too dumb to understandtheir message of pre-emptive planteray intervention. We need to seriously reduce, reuse, and recycle and also listen to bands that are actually saying something like earth crisis and mxpx. i think that if you are going to purchase a cd then you might as well burn in hell. cause thats the only place that is capable of handeling the people that have ruined our planet with their non-reusable resources. what a waste. shame on you Mattack. i hope you realize how much destruction you have done to our world.
On April 14th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Kenny said:
Whoa, Don Chris.
That is some downright, hateful, fundamentalist vomit you’re spewing.
I agree with you on the fact that we DO have to look forward and change what we’re doing to make this a better, cleaner, more efficient world… but, honestly, being a pretentious asshole isn’t going to clean up my fucking atmosphere, i’ll tell you that for free AND cleanly.
On April 17th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Jordan said:
It’s obvious Props and G7 are practicing what they preach and they walk the walk. Although I agree on both sides of this discussion regarding waste and physical ownership of a cd, if you absolutely dig a band and want their album, you’ll somehow get it from somewhere or another. So where there’s a will, there’s a way. Damn, I’ve only got dial-up so when I get the chance to download an album, it’ll be worth the wait (or maybe I’ll scab a buddy’s broadband limit).
Regardless, Props and G7 are looking out for our earth and they provide insane music. Keep thrashin’ people!
On April 26th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Will K. said:
I have a question for Derek, why is it so important to you that a band not earn a living off their music? I ask out of simple curiosity. What does that imply with regards G7WC and its roster? I assume the label is not your means earning a living then… You see, I was in a band that toured 5 years straight in a van. We slept on floors, ate PB sandwiches and all that… I don’t regret a minute of it. But I’m certain I would still be touring if i was fed properly, given a bed to sleep in every night, and provided a decent earning for my performance. I’m not talking execesses and gluttony…I’m talking the basics… I’d like to know if you could elaborate or clarify your statement about musicians not expecting to earn a living… I may be interpreting your interview wrong but that kind of statement seems rather obtus, ignorant and rather arrogant…glad to hear your label is doing so well!
On April 27th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Ran said:
Derek isn’t saying that it’s important that a band not earn a living off of their music. He’s saying that shouldn’t be why they want to make music. If they’re only making music for the money, that is something G7 isn’t interested in.