Greetings from Yerevan
I arrived in Yerevan early Tuesday morning (about 1:30am) and was up later in the day at around 1pm. After getting settled, Aram Hajian and I grabbed some lunch at Square One and caught up a bit. Aram was the best man at my wedding last year and has been living in Armenia for about 5 years doing various things, including being involved in the Chess Federation here. After lunch, we went to Oscar Records in the Marriot Hotel Armenia and I worked out a deal to sell our Iakovos Kolanian CD's. They pretty much have all of the Pomegranate stuff. However, with artists like Bambir and Hover, I let them sell their stuff in Armenia with all proceeds going directly to them.
After a little walk through the city center with Aram, I decided to call up Lilit Pipoyan and see how things were going. We met up in the late afternoon and caught up with some things, finalized the process of recording her new album to be released on Pomegranate. I really enjoy hearing Lilit and had a chance to hear the sketches of her new songs. I hope to have her playing more concerts in Yerevan and in the West soon as things head toward a CD release date in 2006.
Later in the evening, I met up with Raffi Kojian and some other friends at the Avant Garde Folk Club where we saw an Argentinian trio of musicians perform. Good stuff and very smooth. I ran into Artur Ispirian and we chatted for a brief while and he gave me a copy of his stellar new CD Jazzavans. Although I've met Artur only a few times, very classy guy and good voice. We then bumped into Armenia's premier Duduk/Zourna player Vartan Gregoryan (Armenian Navy Band, etc) and I had a chance to listen to his demo with Artur in their car. It's the best place to listen to music and this is how record deals are done sometimes. I was impressed and we may work something out for it to be released soon.
Later that evening, Dave Kelly, Aram and another friend went to Caucauses restaurant where we ran into Garo Adanalian. He is getting married this Saturday. Congrats to him and his fiancee. I know him back from our Boston days. It's certainly a small world.
Today, I went with Lilit Pipoyan to Vem Recording studio near the Vernisage where she checked out the space and booked some studio time for October. More on that later. We joined up with Aram and had some lehmehjun at a place near Opera and just chilled. I will probably catch some jazz tonight with a band at the Stop Club.
Tomorrow I meet with the sponsors of my trip, Noubar Afeyan and Raffi Festekjian to start working on our www.yerazart.org plans with New Names here in Armenia. We will meet for two days until they get going on their 2020 conference. Even though I was invited to attend the conference, I will skip that to continue working with some local talent to see the best path to get their careers moving.
Local Armenian musicians continue to fight a very tough battle to sell their music and perform live. I really encourage people to boycott buying pirated CD's from stores as the artists or labels never see the profits to further projects in the future. The profits go into the hands of local record stores and their theiving suppliers who create the illegal copies. The best way to stop this practice is to buy the real thing and boycott the illegals. I encourage people to go and see live shows and buy there.
Dear Senor Juan Abadjian, I received the CD from Kojian. Thanks a lot and I listened to it last night. Very fun stuff...!
More tomorrow.
After a little walk through the city center with Aram, I decided to call up Lilit Pipoyan and see how things were going. We met up in the late afternoon and caught up with some things, finalized the process of recording her new album to be released on Pomegranate. I really enjoy hearing Lilit and had a chance to hear the sketches of her new songs. I hope to have her playing more concerts in Yerevan and in the West soon as things head toward a CD release date in 2006.
Later in the evening, I met up with Raffi Kojian and some other friends at the Avant Garde Folk Club where we saw an Argentinian trio of musicians perform. Good stuff and very smooth. I ran into Artur Ispirian and we chatted for a brief while and he gave me a copy of his stellar new CD Jazzavans. Although I've met Artur only a few times, very classy guy and good voice. We then bumped into Armenia's premier Duduk/Zourna player Vartan Gregoryan (Armenian Navy Band, etc) and I had a chance to listen to his demo with Artur in their car. It's the best place to listen to music and this is how record deals are done sometimes. I was impressed and we may work something out for it to be released soon.
Later that evening, Dave Kelly, Aram and another friend went to Caucauses restaurant where we ran into Garo Adanalian. He is getting married this Saturday. Congrats to him and his fiancee. I know him back from our Boston days. It's certainly a small world.
Today, I went with Lilit Pipoyan to Vem Recording studio near the Vernisage where she checked out the space and booked some studio time for October. More on that later. We joined up with Aram and had some lehmehjun at a place near Opera and just chilled. I will probably catch some jazz tonight with a band at the Stop Club.
Tomorrow I meet with the sponsors of my trip, Noubar Afeyan and Raffi Festekjian to start working on our www.yerazart.org plans with New Names here in Armenia. We will meet for two days until they get going on their 2020 conference. Even though I was invited to attend the conference, I will skip that to continue working with some local talent to see the best path to get their careers moving.
Local Armenian musicians continue to fight a very tough battle to sell their music and perform live. I really encourage people to boycott buying pirated CD's from stores as the artists or labels never see the profits to further projects in the future. The profits go into the hands of local record stores and their theiving suppliers who create the illegal copies. The best way to stop this practice is to buy the real thing and boycott the illegals. I encourage people to go and see live shows and buy there.
Dear Senor Juan Abadjian, I received the CD from Kojian. Thanks a lot and I listened to it last night. Very fun stuff...!
More tomorrow.
posted by Raffi at 7:06 PM
6 Comments:
It's amazing how the second you land in Armenia, more things happen in one day than an average month in the US.
Raffi unfortunately I think the problem with pirated copies at 1,500 (just over $3) and the real copies at 8,000 (almost $18) is exactly that, the huge price difference.
I really do not think it's necessary for an artist to go to the US and spend about $1,000 to have about 500 copies of his/her album when they can do the cdr format in Armenia, but with a decent, non-photocopied (unless that is the style they prefer) booklet, and charge less than 8,000.
Depending on how serious this government tackles copyright rights in the future, sooner or later, I hope, we will see this issue resolved.
Hey Raf, email me when you get a chance....and or call me anytime.
Now I can finally picture where you're going when you write us these logs :) very exciting indeed!
Baykar
I am by no means an expert in the cost structure of non-pirated CD-s but there must be money in the pirated CD business. Why can't the artists adopt the pirates' cost structures? I mean, if you can't fight them then join them.
Many artists in Armenia do exactly what Nazarian says. i.e. price the legitimate copies of their CDs at the same price as the pirates or a little more. Virtually every CD here is sold at 1,600 drams although bands like MDP, Sard and Bambir sell theirs at 1,500-2,000 drams. I can't remember seeing any pirated versions so far although it has to be said, the market for rock music is very small in Armenia anyway.
Never seen CDs at 1,600 drams.
I even know a couple of stores that sell for 1,000 drams.
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