RS: Can you give me an example of an artist or a song?
Gary Salzman: Speaker Box, which was a top twenty air play record,
couldn't get played on Sirius because it had a female vocalist. It was
played on the internet stations, and then the regular terrestrial
stations played it. XM played it, and then it really became a record
that worked wherever it was played. It downloaded well, it got
bookings, it licensed overseas and it's doing well there. That's the
type of record that became (more widely played) because of internet
radio. A lot of people, when they were first positioned with that
record, they didn't love it … because it was a different-sounding
record. Then XM went with it, and they really did well with it. That's
a fantastic station, the XM guys are really excellent.
RS: Going back to Big, one thing that you're working on right now
is Dance Music Productions. What exactly is that?
Gary Salzman: Dance Music Productions is a label started by Tony
Moran and we're partners in it, as we are in all of the label groups
that we've started. We're basically trying to put together a bunch of
labels that can help each other, work with each other, support each
other, and create new music. Dance Music Production has the new Martha
Wash record out. It just took TMW number one on the Billboard club
chart. It's a really good lifestyle label, coming from a place, a
position, a sound, and it really supports a lot of the lifestyle
stuff. We're going to bring Danielle Bollinger out of there. That's
another record that both I-Party and Fusion have really jumped on, the
Surrender Me record, and because they're jumping on it, it's number
one and number three respectively, on the two radio stations. We're
going to release it, we're going to put it out, make sure that the
full package is done and we go for it. This shows that you have to
look at what comes back to you from those radio stations more than you
might think. We're also finding bookings for Danielle from these
internet stations, which is more than I can say for any station in New
York, where you can't get a record played and you can't get a booking.
But if you can develop your artist on these internet stations, and
start getting real crowds, real people showing up at real venues,
because of the internet radio play, you know it's real.
RS: You mentioned the world "lifestyle," and a lot of people see
dance music as a lifestyle and not a business. Can you address that?
Gary Salzman: Yes, it's a problem, the same problem that began when
rap started, because they looked at the kids rapping and said,
"there's never going to be an album for you." They were wrong, it was
a lifestyle. Anything that the kids do in the streets, that they do
for no money, and that they do over and over again, will eventually
sell. So look at records and at how the clubs are packed, at how big
the club scene is in places like Atlantic City and Vegas and New York
– you're looking at lifestyle stuff. You see that people are going
from playing hip-hop to playing dance music again. And a very
interesting thing happened a year ago, with a record called Kiss the
Sky, by Danielle Bollinger. The urban clubs were playing it. We were
showing up in all of the urban club charts. I would go to CDD and say,
"but you're dance," and they go, "No, we've got to play rhythm." You
have to play what people want to hear it. They hear this stuff on the
radio all day, they have no choice, they can't listen to other stuff.
So when you say "lifestyle" – it's a different place to go to hear a
different type of music. And then you have lots of different types of
lifestyle music. You have circuit clubs that play certain styles of
music, and you have other clubs that play certain trance styles of
music or certain house styles of music or undergrounds styles of
music. Or you end up with clubs like Webster Hall, which are fantastic
big clubs that play everything in different rooms. You have an urban
room, you have a big ballroom for big house dance music, you have some
trance, you have a Latin room. It's very reassuring to see these
things work because then you know people will buy your music, that
people want to hear your music. People will figure out how to put your
music into things like film and TV because it's lifestyle and if it's
lifestyle, it'll work.
