Failure to Europe

The St. Petersburg music journalist Max Hagen changed his role, went to the Tallinn Music Week festival as a participant in the Neon Lights Indi-Pop Group and looked at the wrong side of the most close to Russia , the eyes of a Russian musician seeking to recognize in Europe.

In truth, the sensations before leaving for Tallinn Music Week 2015 were somewhat cosmic. As a journalist, I have been driving for years to the same TMW , his Finnish “elder brother” Music & Media in Tamper and other festivals, talked with promoters and musicians, helped other indie groups and, as far as possible, advised the organizers of the festivals of relatively interesting names in the Russian Indie music. And at some point it turned out that the Neon Lights project in which I play is briskly growing and looks good even against the background of the "firms". Why not try an international exit? When the confirmation of the participation of Neon Lights in TMW came, it became a little nervous. Either justified mandrazh before leaving for the European exhibition, which suddenly came to the realization of the fact that all these people from the muzin executive, with whom I talked for almost a dozen years, will suddenly see a familiar guy not with a recorder and a camera, but with a synthesizer on stage. Yes, and my partner in Neon Lights , Evgeny Lazarenko, guitarist of the group "Cartoilms" and the chief editor of Time Out Petersburg magazine, besides the fact that he himself has been playing for a long time, also an old colleague in journalism and editorial matters. Some friends jokingly called us - “ Editors group”. It would be a shame to screw up such burned characters.

Neon Lights - "Alright"

The musician gathering on TMW is first of all to remember that this is a showcase festival, and in a simple way-a talent fair. Honorary groups performing at the festival are not paid here: the main thing is to show themselves and see people. The group manager or its participants themselves must establish contacts with the professionals of the club industry, which, for example, this year more than 800 came to Tallinn - and all in order to talk about business and look at new groups.

For Russian independent musicians, TMW is the best showcase festival from similar ones. First of all, among the various “windows to Europe”, the festival is most affordable geographically and financially. Indie-musicians are attracted by the Norwegian By: Larm , and the English The Great Escape , but practical moments like prices for flights and accommodation are immediately forced to think once again. Send five to six people for a distant land for the sake of an unstopent chance of being noticed at a large exhibition of achievements, rather, a normal label.

For Russian independent musicians, Tallinn Music Week is the best showcase festival.

In addition, it is not easy for a separate Russian group to compete with a mass of the same British, Swedes and French, who often already have grip managers and label with international ties behind the bright future. Perhaps the closest competitor of TMW for the Russian indie musician can be considered Finnish Music & Media : a model of a conference-festival in two small but active countries is similar to details, and many familiar promoters and producers with whom you drink various drinks in Tallinn, you can also find here. The autumn showcase in the Tamper is focused on the formed Finnish and Scandinavian music market (however, there are chances here, especially for groups from the Russian north-west), and TMW is actively working for eastern and central Europe as a whole, easily accessible in terms of applications, and its organizers are well aware of the weight and interests of the Russian-speaking population in Estonia and the Baltic countries.

TMW 2015

Applications for the participation of TMW , passing in April, collects until December 1. Before the organizers of the TMW, you can only remove the hat here - they have to consider hundreds and hundreds of groups. This year, only about forty applications were sent from Russia. The TMW 2015 program found a place for more than 200 groups or musicians, of which there were 9 Russian ones. Moreover , they represented a wide stylistic spectrum- from the Mordovian ethno-group Oyme to Moscow fashionistas on- Go .

Organizational communication with TMW left the best impressions. After confirming your participation, messages, clarifications and reminders from the organizers of the festival regularly begin to pour you. Experienced Estonians try to foresee even something that there are not enough brains of young musicians, who, as you know, are still those baldbes. “Do not forget to pump SoundCloud ” - the musical section is guided by this service on the festival website. “Clarify the time of arrival and the composition of the arrivals in advance so that we will throw you to the hotel”, “Get information for merchandising”, “In the attached file all the information regarding your exit.” All this happens gradually, and a couple of weeks before the festival, the manager or participant of the group has the maximum set of the necessary information and the exit organized to the smallest detail. The TMW staff reacts to questions quickly - in the right case, he will send the necessary bureaucratic and visa pieces of paper and generally extremely sweet and prompt. In general, the TMW does not throw his own.

Experienced Estonians try to foresee even something that there are not enough brains of young musicians, who, as you know, are still those baldbes.

The showcases that I have been on are usually sorted by promotional groups, labels, festivals or some other organizations representing their choice of artists. Neon Lights fell under the roof of the Estonian festival of Manka Boutique and its “home platform” DAF Studio - this is a semblance of a small cinema of two hundred with a specific but not deadly sound, very “passable” in the framework of TMW and with a grateful audience. Manka Boutique -the brainchild of Ruslan RX, the frontman of local Russian-speaking rock stars PX Band and a very active Tallinn promoter, who has been making the mentioned summer festival, concerts and parties since 2006. His work is mostly focused on Russian -speaking Estonians. Apparently, the choice of groups from Russia to the TMW linap is largely falling on it. According to friends from Tallinn, in Estonia there is a division according to a linguistic feature- you are somehow included in the Russian or Estonia-speaking part of the population, and accordingly, most of your activity will concern the “your” audience. Even if the group plays universal English-language material, they will pay attention to you, first of all, “their own”-at least because this is your main circle of communication. By the way, the Estonian promoters and musicians themselves do not really like the situation: you elementarily do not have a public, which, with a real -working cultural integration, could come to you.

NEON Lights performance on TMW 2015

The separation of the audiences was very visible the next evening after the NEON Lights performance, when I happened to get to the magnificent ErineVate Tubad E Klubi club. An excellent Estonian English-speaking Dream-Pop was served here, but there was no Russian speech at all-and the feeling was comparable, rather from Helsinki. Thus, Neon Lights on the TMW were in a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, they completely “hit the west”, and on the other, they remained “western value” for the Russian environment. Such attention is pleasant, but, alas, cuts off real exits to promoters that could advance the group further to Europe. In the opposite situation, were on -the- go , who performed the previous evening at the Sinilind club under the brand of the music store 311.e : although the vocalist of the group Yuri Makarychev and actively thanked the audience in English, there were more than half of the Russian Estonians in the hall- everyone came on the same “their own”.

Such cultural and linguistic inconsistencies, of course, are solved-at least with regard to the business part of the conference, which requires the status of a delegate. A person who wants to attend not only concerts, but also seminars, lectures and meetings, has to pay for participation in TMW from 100 to 250 euros. But for each group, one single pass is reserved-ideally for a manager or a tour manager. Its owner will have open access to important persons at seminars, in bars and other sidelines, where active business communication takes place. He will be able to receive the admission to the basis of the addresses of other delegates - and here are promoters, label managers, and representatives of the press: it remains only to look out and write down potentially useful contacts. If you wish, you can call your concert personally at a meeting, but it is better to scatter letters-implaces, using the address of the addresses: if you send it to a hundred delegates, it will most likely come ten times less (again, you are not one), but you can already agree with this ten. And, of course, it is not worth drifting in the same “sidelines” - music conferences and exist for dating, searching for new partners and groups. So it is never harmful to ask the neighbor on the table, who he is, what he is, and tell about himself. You may turn out to be an Estonian who will be a strategic contact for further exits to Baltic organizations and clubs, or a cheerful Englishman who twisting music in Iceland can also meet - all the possibilities are good.

To make forecasts for the future for any indie group is not the most grateful thing. But according to the results of TMW , if not a window, then at least the window in Europe Neon Lights was opened. We went not in vain - we can talk at least about the interest shown from the Baltic promoters, strengthening contacts and preliminary ideas with Finland and Austria. Moreover, after the TMW in the post of Neon Lights, there was a letter from the Ministry of Defense from Boston. For any indie group, such attention is always valuable, and to expect that after one appearance you will be called immediately on Glastonbury is not very reasonable. A pack of fresh business cards appeared on the table, the reasons to shine and shine - two steps are taken forward.