A Bandit Subscriber’s impressions of MIDEM 2002

MIDEM was quite the event I must say. I had decided to go to Cannes the last minute, scattering about to scrape up some money to try to attend the conference. It sounded like a great idea in an attempt to get some international exposure, and to just gather as much information as possible. I was pretty nervous about attending, for I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Some industry friends of mine that had attended some years before, had offered me some tips on what to do, but did not put me at ease. Having been with Kylie Minogue in customs at the airport in Nice was a good start. Have you seen her sister Danni? It would be terrible to see them fighting each other in mud, terrible.

Anyway. Apparently indie artists at MIDEM are somewhat of a rarity. It's a very expensive affair. I am very lucky also due to the fact that one of my songs is on the Bandit MIDEM Sampler from Gotham Records, so I actually covered even more territory through my stalking of industry people, and through the compilation. Barry Tomes of Gotham Records was very helpful and encouraging while I was there, giving me all sorts of advice, and sharing with me his love for T. Rex. We agreed that Power Station’s cover of "Get It On" has major balls. Thanks Barry!

I checked in the first day, got my badge and MIDEM Bible, which listed all the people attending. What a wealth of information! I could target whom I wanted to attack just from that book! Yes well, easier said than done really. Before the event began, I had snuck into the trade show to get a taste of what was going on. All these extravagant booths, from the farthest reaches of the earth, all these different companies from labels, to publishers, to manufacturers, etc. This was very exciting. Many booths were still under construction. After a walk, a run in with a drunk guy, and an encounter with Snoop Doggy Dog, I decided to walk back to the hotel to look through my new MIDEM book, and to mark whom I wanted to go after in the days to come.

Walking out of the Palais, I saw a frantic crowd waiting and looking anxiously towards the red carpet stretched over the main steps. The NRJ Awards were being held with a plethora of stars including Mick Jagger, Kylie Minogue, Pascal Obispo, Seal, and so on. Unfortunately I did not have an invitation, but I watched it on the telly in my hotel as I went through my MIDEM guide. About 5 hours and several hundred pages later I fell asleep.

The first day rolled in, and I started quite early. I wanted to be at the trade show by 9 am., so I grabbed my MIDEM guide, backpack, small suitcase with CD samples, and headed over to the battlefield. Upon my arrival, I picked up my Daily MIDEM News magazine, highlighting the events of the previous day for everyone to read. As I entered the trade show, my jaw dropped. There was so much going on it was totally overwhelming. I didn't know where to start! I figured I'd look up the Greek companies first, in an attempt to woo my countrymen into considering my work. There were small labels and big labels such as Edel, Avex, Sony. It's hard to get the attention of major labels by sending them things, but as I walked past the booths of some of the larger companies, I said to myself "Self, do you want to try to talk to these larger companies for the hell of it?" Sure what have I got to lose? I had no idea that these A & R people would be so accessible. Wow how unexpected! I had with me some of my press books with 60 pages of reviews and a list of 70 U.S. radio stations that I am being played on. This turned out to be an impressive tool. Even the VP of A & R for a somewhat large company was giving me positive feedback on my CD’s a few days later after having heard them. That was really interesting.

So really, if you are an indie artist attending this thing, go right up to these people and ask them for your time. Most of the time the people you want to speak to are booked. You have to therefore make an appointment, or leave a card so that they can get back to you. I left CD’s and a card, but didn't think anyone would really try to make an appointment with an indie artist, unless of course they had heard of me and wanted to meet me. So what I did was kept returning to the booth looking for my target until he/she was free. You never know who you'll be able to talk to. I learned that most people would take the samples back to their homeland and listen there. I was told that the norm was to follow up in a few weeks, to give the person time to listen.

Everyone attending MIDEM had their own mailbox. If someone wanted to meet you, they could send you a message, and/or you could stuff the mailboxes of companies that you wanted to target, that did not have a booth. It's important to try to find out as much information as possible about your target, because you could end up wasting a lot of your packages. I wanted to give a package to a German company that did experimental music, but when I spoke to them, they were interested in experimental jazz, not what I was doing. As I walked around, my eye would catch a Bandit compilation flyer in almost every corner. Barry was making sure everyone and their mother's, uncle's roommate knew about it. On Tuesday I think it was, Barry's face was in the MIDEM News magazine talking about the compilation and his label. Great exposure.

Having had the opportunity to sit down with some executives, one of which was an incredibly beautiful and mesmerising girl from Paris, who somehow made me forget about her company as I gazed into her emerald green eyes, I felt more confident about approaching other companies. I was actually more interested in smaller indie companies in the UK, and Europe, but was very open to Sony or Atlantic wanting to throw a few hundred thousand dollars at me, if the chance had risen by some freak of nature.

I covered as much territory as I could that first day, having collected several books of labels from different countries, and seen Evander Holyfield's chewed ear. Yes, he was there promoting his new label. It was odd walking past a booth with a cut-out of Evander, and right below the cut-out Evander!

Food is pretty expensive. McDonald's is somewhat reasonable, but anything other than that is definitely overpriced. You know how us musicians tend to eat a lot of pizza because it's cheap? Ever pay twelve dollars for a pizza the size of a large pancake? Not to forget the cup of coke at the Martinez Hotel that cost seven Euros. It was pretty cool not having to divide French francs by seven to figure out the dollar cost. Made things quite easy.

I spent most of my nights reading and studying what I had collected during the day. Books on German labels, Dutch labels, Swiss labels, Swedish labels, British labels and so on, trying to see what kind of music they had in their repertoire, so that I could find them the next day. One night I went to see some English bands play in one of the hotels. As I was walking down the sidewalk, suddenly a blue piece of paper caught my eye on the windshield of a car. Barry Tomes had struck again! As I walked farther, I chuckled at the site of about 10 cars all parked behind each other with a Bandit compilation flyer on their windshields. It definitely caught my eye, as it did other people's I'm sure.

After being very uninspired by the bands I saw in the smokey room that night (although Mull Historical Society sounded the best I think), I headed on back to the hotel to read more information, and to watch more videos on MTV. It was The Cure night on MTV. After the 3 hour rockumentary, I fell asleep.

As the days went on, I was realising that really the purpose of this conference was more for gathering information and contacts. If one expects to go to MIDEM to get a record deal on the spot, forget it. Although I'm sure it's possible, don't go there expecting anything. Everyone is really friendly and helpful, more than one would expect. There is so much free music from all over the world. I collected everything I could find, hoping to stumble across some ideas I could utilise in my own music. I probably went through the entire trade show five times, collecting, targeting and returning to places I had wanted to hit. I left with a suitcase full of books and CD’s. Now comes the real work of following up, and sending packages to the other companies listed. I think I have about 122 Euros left to implement this.

ERIC ALEXANDRAKIS - www.ericalexandrakis.com - www.mp3.com/ericalexandrakis

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