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Re: This is dumb

{{{{I have two friends, an actor and a writer in california, who would blow up
a
 small school of children to have the chance to sign a major deal.}}}}

Hmm... see the problem with the ol' "stop whining, there're plenty of people
who'd love to be in your shoes" line, is this:
Your comment suggests that simply because your friends would do anything for
fame, that Over The Rhine should too; that there it's some kind of universal
interest that everyone *else* be enthusiastic about, non?  How does that
follow?  See I've got a friend who would probably small school of children to
have the chance to consume massive quantities of heroin, but that mean that
*I* should feel compelled to jump at the chance if offered.
I'm a writer myself, and sure, I'd like to be well-known, but many are the
lines that I won't cross just to get myself signed.  If I think a certain deal
is going to put me in a position where my work is less than the best it could
be, I'm not going to take it, no matter what the public relations benefits.
Don't get me wrong, it's not about altruism, or about maintaining some kind of
underground credibility; but why would you want your work to be widely
publicised if as a result, your work suffers for it?  What good is having your
work known, if the work that's out there is the less than your best?  Or if
it's been heavily distilled and sanitised and reworked and whatever else by
whichever artistically-uninterested suits happen to control your contract?

As far as Over The Rhine going bigtime or not, I find myself on both sides of
the issue, to an extent.  I'm not saying that OTR shouldn't sign at all, and I
mean personally, I find myself on both sides of the issue (and I think I'm
about to write another whole post on that matter)... but if you can't
understand why a band (or a writer, or an artist, or an actor) isn't
necessarily going to want to sit up and beg for any company offering a
contract, then I'd have to doubt know much about what a lot of artists've had
to do to get to "the top," as it were.

Stefan