Comments on: Two million dollar Fischerspooner fiasco.

By: jonty Skrufff

jonty Skrufff — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:42:14 +0000

hey oliver and john: cheers for picking up on this story; very much appreciated.

I agree about the negative nuances in james palumbo’s quotes though must say overall he came across as a very passionate, likeable and even sensitive person (much to my surprise). I also thought emerge was a great track and still check out their new stuff immediately, with enthusiasm. a proper rock n roll swindle on their behalf:)

oliver, we must meet up in person soon, been too long!

Jonty

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:50:13 +0000

Thanks for posting this, Oliver – it’s interesting to look back on the early days of FS with a bit of perspective now. Last I’d heard they were actually doing pretty well, but with more of a focus on crowd-pleasing dance songs than high-concept art, and I’m pretty sure they even had some hits on the EU dance charts in ’06 or ’07. Either way, a great Rock ‘N Roll Swindle, in the tradition of Jobriath, the Sex Pistols, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, etc.

“Warren, press play on the CD player!” is still a great way to start a live show.

By: John Selway

John Selway — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:27:12 +0000

Thanks Oliver. And actually I have one little correction – the Serotonin release was actually 2000, not 1999 (which was when I saw Fischerspooner perform for the first time)

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:14:50 +0000

Thanks for the story John. Yeah this is one a hundreds of hype makes a big deal that doesn’t pan out in the music biz stories. The important thing is they released some good music!

By: John Selway

John Selway — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:16:41 +0000

It’s interesting to hear a bit of his perspective on that insane deal they signed, but yeah,he comes off a touch offensively. At least, you can tell he feels pretty burned by the situation.

I saw the rise of Fischerspooner from very close up and even played a small part in it. I released their Emerge single on Serotonin Records in 1999 and helped to hook them up with DJ Hell, leading to the deal with Gigolo that really kickstarted their hype explosion in Europe that eventually brought them to the Ministry deal. To me, it’s like the whole thing was one big art experiment, as if they partially were in it to see how far they could take things before it all collapsed in on itself (which it inevitably had to do). I’m amazed at how far it went, and it was pretty thrilling to watch, knowing them personally. I’m not at all saying it was one big stunt, they were honestly and genuinely creating their art and music. But I’m pretty sure there was a certain amount of “getting away with it” involved.

About all that money – people should realize that it wasn’t all profit that ended up in someone’s personal account or anything, much of that was for touring, promotion, video production, album production, paying performers in the show, coreographers, designers, etc. When you put in perspective as a budget for a world-touring conceptual art, music and dance production, as well as a multi-album deal, 2 million is actually not so outrageous a sum. But the hype died out so quickly that Ministry Of Sound was not able to capitalize on their investment. Bad luck I’d say, but it’s no one’s fault, “gay performance band” and “east coast jewish american lawyer” or not.