Carl's Country Club

A note from David Macias via Rich Robinson’s facebook page:

When an artist and a manager have a fundamental disagreement about how the business of a career is to be run, then the manager has to be the one to go, of course. I’ve managed Rich Robinson’s solo career for some time now. Though we maintain great love and respect for one another, we’ve had a fundamental disagreement about how his touring can and should be funded. On my insistence, we launched a Kickstarter campaign to help him cover the shortfall in international touring for 2012. Rich felt conflicted about it from the beginning, and I probably should have listened. Because of negative feedback from fans and other associates, we are suspending the campaign. My side of it: the music business in 2012 is not what the music business was in 1992. The business has gotten a lot smaller, a lot more fragmented, although the costs of band members, airline tickets and the like have not gotten smaller. To help bridge that gap, a lot of artists have turned to fan funding through sites like Kickstarter and Pledge Music. Acts you know are doing it. The fact is that we will not cover our costs, and someone will have to underwrite that shortfall. Neither Rich nor I are in that position. Perhaps I was lacking in imagination in how else the gap was to be bridged, and if that’s the case, then I should probably go for that reason. The idea being these fan-funded campaigns, which was pointed out by supportive fans, is to provide an experience or item that a fan perceives to be worth a certain value. If fans feel that the offering is of sufficient value, then it’s a win for them. The artist wins in having investment capital to underwrite certain initiatives. As I said, in this day and age of shrinking options in the music business, this is happening often. For those who are harboring suspicions that we were asking for more than was needed, all I can do is promise you that two tours to Europe and one to Japan (which was what we were planning), was going to cost us that much as we were trying to establish Rich as a solo artist in those markets. Rich was involved in the tour budgeting process, and there was no padding involved. As conflicted as he as about the whole thing, he wouldn’t have allowed it, and anyone that knows me knows that that kind of thing is not in my nature. But ultimately, Rich did not want to do this, for reasons I understood then. I insisted, and he gave in. I’m honestly shocked and disheartened by the cruel things that have been said about Rich vis-à-vis this whole experience. Rich is one of the best people I know, and he’s made a brilliant album. Simply brilliant. For those of you who haven’t, take the time and listen. For those of you that haven’t gone to see him in concert, you should do so. It’s pretty easy to sit back and judge harshly when you are making ill-informed judgments about where someone is in their lives and their reasons for undertaking certain courses of action. But Rich has built years of goodwill and respect from the Crowes fanbase, and the fact that I did not anticipate how this would be received in this most important of communities for Rich is another reason I should go. As I exit from the stage, I would implore you to be more patient and understanding to artists and those around them in general, and Rich in particular. Making this all work on the business end of things is hard. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, please be careful about the negativity you throw out into the universe. I hear a lot about the ideals of peace and love from those around the Crowes community, and many, many, many of you that I’ve met through working with Rich have exemplified loving support. For those of you that have bought the CD, gone to a show, participated in the Kickstarter campaign to date, I thank you. For those of you that have fallen short of loving kindness, I hope that you remember that in all of the truth teachings of the world, the idea of karma, that you reap what you sow, is a universal truth. You can justify your lack of loving kindness, but it will come back to bite you in the ass. I leave proud of the work that I’ve done for Rich, but also proud of Rich, as a man and an artist. I wish you all peace, and I am out. David Macias Thirty Tigers