This space to let

By REBECCA BARRY

There is a strange but growing breed at the top of our music charts. They're called locals. This week Hayley Westenra's Pure returned to the number one spot where it's been on and off for many a week. Last week's number one was Wellington singer-songwriter Brooke Fraser. The week before that it was Christchurch-bred hip-hop artist Scribe.

In this week's top 10, five of the albums are by New Zealanders. If you counted all the local platinum (15,000 copies) and gold (7500) status local albums in the top 50, it would represent more than 300,000 sales - including Bic Runga's 105,000 copies of Beautiful Collision, Westenra's 75,000 of Pure and Nesian Mystik's 45,000 of Polysaturated. In all, that represents more than $9 million in retail sales.

So as New Zealand music makes its mark like never before at the cash register, it's clear why record companies are taking the business of spotting local talent more seriously.

Yet in New Zealand you can count the number of full-time A&R (artist and repertoire) managers, people paid to spot and develop talent, on one hand.

Sony Music's Malcolm Black is one of the few who solicit demos. Throughout the week he'll plough through at least 20; the rest of the time he'll rely on word-of-mouth through industry contacts to point him in the direction of talent.

That's how he heard about Fraser, whom he signed to Sony two years ago. She was brought to him by Matty J. Ruys, a former pop artist who had also discovered K'Lee and Elemeno P.

Ruys had heard the 19-year-old play at a small gig in Wellington and, amazed no one had already snapped her up, offered to manage her. He took Fraser around each of the five major record labels - shopped her, as it's known in the industry - before she signed with Sony, whose past commercial successes include Runga and Che Fu.

"From the outset we knew Brooke would be big," says Black, who listened to Fraser play a handful of songs in his Auckland office. "The songwriting and musicianship are strong, she's beautiful and she's also self-possessed and mature enough to deal with promotion. Plus she's very grounded, so we knew she'd be easy to work with."

Black is in the process of finding his next Brooke Fraser, although he's unlikely to sign anyone else this year as Sony prefer to invest more money into fewer artists. "I'm not interested in the next fresh thing, but someone who will sell incremental numbers of records. If you don't look for career artists they could be gone after one album."

Unlike Black, Festival Mushroom Records A&R manager Ashley Page discourages unsolicited demos. The piles on his desk are a combination of recordings passed on from others in the know and discs that will end up in the bin.

Like Black, he won't bother going to see an act he knows nothing about.

Tonight he is grinning like a proud dad on the sidelines as his latest signing, the Mint Chicks, play an intimate inner-city bar. As with most of his charges, he heard about them through the industry grapevine and after seeing them live thought they'd be a perfect addition to the company's subsidiary label, Flying Nun.

When he's not out at pubs and bars, deciding whether or not the buzz is justified, he keeps an ear tuned to alternative radio bFM, which often plays unsigned artists, and an eye on music mags and websites. Occasionally he'll go to the Battle of the Bands or the Rockquest finals but the mere fact that a band are talented, doesn't mean he'll sign them.

"There's a huge development period with most bands. A lot of them think they're all right but most of them could do with a couple of years working out that they actually want to be in a band and that they want to make it a long-term career."

He'd rather sign acts with a history that suggests they've obviously wanted to pursue a music career all their lives. That's why he signed ultra-ambitious former TrueBliss member Carly Binding, and P-Money collaborator Scribe. The MC was already signed to the small, independent, hip-hop label Dirty, which approached FMR for distribution. Since then he has made New Zealand music history as the first artist with a single and an album at number one simultaneously.

Sounds Music marketing manager Shaun Joyce says the major labels should take heed of Scribe's success and start looking for more hip-hop acts, rather than waiting for the smaller labels to come to them.

"They can get their heads around a singer-songwriter and a pop punk band like Elemeno P, fine. But it's the independent labels that will nurture the up-and-coming artists."

"There's nothing wrong with that," says BMG head Michael Bradshaw, who doesn't have a full-time A&R manager.

He's working with boutique labels Wellington-based Capital Recordings and Pacific-influenced Sugalicks. "We give them good distribution, PR and promotion and they get us involved at a street level which is where I want to be."

Bradshaw pays A&R scouts on a contract basis to report back from gigs, particularly those outside Auckland, meaning they can turn up anonymously.

"If you say, 'I'm thinking about going here', suddenly there's three people from different labels - it's like this ridiculous stampede. I don't want to get into bidding wars and all that sort of rubbish."

Bidding wars, where labels compete with each other to sign artists, can be generated by management companies and lawyers, to speed up the process and to secure a better deal.

Elemeno P might have been able to do that, had Page liked their show. He was keen to see them live but with six weeks until their next gig, the band wasted no time and signed with Universal instead.

"In retrospect," says singer Dave Gibson, "we should have worked both companies."

The fact that artists' business canniness is improving as much as their music means bands are getting more competitive. Whereas A&R used to be about spotting talent, then choosing the songs that would make up their repertoire (the "R" in the job title), these days it's more geared towards marketing an existing product - the artists who look good, can write their own songs and know how to promote themselves are much more appealing.

Technology that allows cheap but decent demos makes this much easier, and plenty of bands are making their own at home.

A good demo, says Mark Thomson, co-founder of fledging hip-hop label 833 Records, is vital if you want to be signed. He'd rather know what someone sounds like on CD than see them live - but not if it's a scratchy, basement demo.

"They might not have a huge budget but if they've done it once or twice before they'll know that time is money," he says. "Eminem had an album out before he was signed. 50 Cent had something like 60 songs out before he was signed. Nappy Roots had two albums."

Elemeno P made a makeshift studio by soundproofing their flat with blankets and using computer software that can be downloaded off the internet.

Then Gibson spent weeks sneaking into music-industry functions, schmoozing with record-company people. "We needed to find a way that they would get listened to properly," he says. "So we wanted to find a way to meet the people in charge."

Luckily, he also had a friend in Matt Ruys, who liked their songs and offered to shop them around.

Gibson also took matters into his own hands, which were shaking with nerves as he tucked the demo CD in his pocket, hauled open the heavy concrete door to Universal Records and calmly told the receptionist he was there to see the A&R manager. He didn't have an appointment, and as the receptionist made a phone call he waited anxiously to be told to leave. A week later they had a record deal.

Steriogram's story is also unique. The proudly westie rock band were virtual unknowns until American label Capitol Records stumbled across their website. Then there are the Datsuns, who signed to Richard Branson's V2 label after extensive self-funded international touring.

But an international record deal doesn't always herald success. No one knows that better than Anika Moa. The Christchurch singer-songwriter was the first New Zealand artist signed to an American label without having established a career here first. Her deal with Atlantic Records helped to make her a multi-platinum-selling star in her home country, but just 2500 Americans have bought her album.

The problem of artists being world famous in New Zealand is one being looked at by a dedicated committee of industry types who make up the New Zealand Export Music Task Force.

Chaired by Malcolm Black, they are hoping to improve international networks and promotion. While the Datsuns, the D4, Westenra, Blindspott and Che Fu are among the few who have already made inroads into America, Europe and Asia, there is still a lot of work to be done.

Perhaps America or Europe's roving eyes will be on our TV screens when the ever-growing Idol franchise reaches New Zealand next year. But not everyone is welcoming its arrival.

"New Zealand Idol absolutely terrifies me," says Page. "We've created this culture of an A&R person who is expected to be evil and critical, they expect them to be [acerbic judges] Simon Cowell or Ian Dickson. They almost expect to be told, 'You don't look very good, you're rubbish, you're this, you're that', whereas we're much more diplomatic than that. I think it's a very brave record-company person who's going to put himself out there and sit and be very critical. We're too small a country. I think they'll get their heads kicked in."

Bradshaw disagrees, but then you'd expect him to - BMG has the rights to release albums by any of the final 10 contestants. "Everyone thinks it's really cruel because it's on TV but the truth is, that is how record companies work."

The Idol franchise has sold 10 million albums worldwide and has made stars of American Idol contestants Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aitken and Ruben Studdard. Whether their popularity will last is yet to be seen.

"We're a culture that lives in the here and now, so once it's off screen, there's another reality show on and that's great for five minutes," says Page. "When we're watching, we're going, 'Absolutely, we're going to support this gung-ho' - and one hour later ... As a culture we move on to something else very, very quickly."