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Clubland Veteran Warns Media Against Dance Is Dead Stories

Author: Jonty Adderley
Saturday, August 31, 2002
Dance magazines publishing 'club-land is dead' stories risk destroying themselves with self-fulfilling prophecies, according to one of clubland's most experienced and influential figures Eddie Gordon who made his comments in a letter sent to prominent UK media outlets this week.

"Telling people en masse that dance is dead can only be detrimental to the readers' perception of what they are buying into," said Eddie. "Therefore, magazine sales figures will suffer, advertising revenue will fall and the decline is self perpetuated.

What's actually happening is just natural wastage."

However, the natural wastage he appears to welcome relates to many of the DJs still dominating the UK press.

"At the end of the 80's an entire group of DJs who had reached their early 40's and whose riders became more important than the content of their record boxes were replaced by the youthful enthusiasm of a group of younger DJs were keen to play to the punters - not for themselves," he continued.

"We are at that point again. DJs charging £20,000 to play on a Saturday night in a club holding 1,500 people tells its own story, as does Ibiza clubs charging door prices of over £30. Or DJs refusing to go their gig because only 400 people have turned up or DJs blocking other DJs from playing on the same bill.

Greed kills everything but music will always survive - it always has," he concluded. "Look for the positive dance music areas and extol them to your readers. We're actually entering a new clubbing era. House music is not dead, it's hibernating".

Eddie Gordon is the chairman of Neo Records and a highly experienced UK music business executive.
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