Selling out – When is the timing right?
That got your attention didn’t it!? Well, bear with me folks, I’m not about to suggest we all go and whore ourselves out to the first bidder or otherwise sacrifice your artistic integrity. But I want to initiate a little discussion and mention my brief experience with the concepts of ’sponsorship’ and ’selling out.’
Recently my brother alerted me to the fact that our Toronto mates ‘The Golden Dogs’ have a song featured in a Budweiser commercial. Sure enough a few days later I caught it one night as I settled down to watch some hockey. The song is called “Yeah” and rocks in a Sloan-style power rock kinda way. Upon checking with Google and Wikipedia I see I somehow missed “Birdsong” appearing in a Zellers commercial in 2006. In any event, the band have worked hard and I salute them – hopefully their publishing deal gets them paid fairly for this kind of license. (by the way, The Golden Dogs appear live in Toronto this weekend).
Ulysses Castellanos, whose wonderful voice and humour is found on my CDR on the track “Coconut Radio”, gave me a CD by his brothers a few years ago. Heineken sponsored their Quadrasonic disc and also many of their parties. The only complaint I had was attending a gig for Toronto’s Brazilian group “Maracatu Nunca Antes’ at Supermarket and being told the only beer for sale was Heineken – now that was taking sponsorship over the top! But I won’t knock the brothers Castellanos – they are a hardworking crew and non-sellouts. More power to them.
The truth is it’s hard to finance the albums, videos and recording – getting a helping hand from a corporate sponsor is not much different from getting a loan or grant from a government agency. And in Canada, help from Factor or VideoFACT is very commonplace. So to sum up, I don’t pass judgement on other people’s business. There is no perfect time to ’sell out’ – kidding! -but I believe all your actions have to be something that feels right and doesn’t aid and abet any blatant corporate evil. And on that note – keep on rockin’ in the free world my friends.
