I love hearing from disgruntled "musicians" who are angry cause they can't seem to make a buck playing their original numbers, and they take to social media to vent their misguided misgivings.
It's really not a lucrative field to get into in the first place, which is the real comedy. You could almost turn it further and say "hey man i don't like working for bosses cause people suck, and doing my own thing is what i need". It's just that things are the way they are, and it's not really related to what an individual weights their worth. If you can sell your music, or tickets to your show, then excellent, good for you, and you probably realize how much work it took outside the "strumming your instrument and singing your words"
Of course there is always the lottery hope that one day you could really make a lot of money from your "art". I remember being asked by a friend from my home town after i released my first record (CD for that matter), "are you rich yet?"... cause that's a big motivation for a lot of people whether they can admit it or not. Fortune and Fame, the greatest bait and switch known to mankind... and it's the fault of all the non supporting people out there that you haven't arrived.
My father went to his grave wondering why his son would put effort into something that he made no money from. It's the old school mentality, life isn't for embracing, it's for getting ahead, and to his credit he died with a surplus of money... much better than the alternative. If you are going to make music, than you better be able to sell it.
A friend of mine put it this way... recorded music hasn't really been around for that long in the grand scheme of humans association with music, so the fact that it's all free now (or can be), just marks the end of an era where commerce was derived from it, and if you could look at the graph of who made what money, you might find that the artists never really got too much in the first place. The idea being that, people that played music, did it and survived to do it before it was available to sell, and now in the era where you can stream almost anything for free (find a song on you tube... easier than taping it off the radio which i did as a kid), the game has perhaps eroded.
If anything, and independent artist can get the loins share of the money now... if they do it properly of course. Whining about it is not the route of course, which helps with the comedy if you know what i mean.
Another friend once equated why you want to be the musician... in the old days people would be doing labor and to help them slave away somebody might be playing an instrument, i believe it was a flute in the example given, and the question is: Do you want to be the guy playing the flute all day or one of the grunts digging with a shovel? I say the flute is a better job.
I would even argue that it is all the "musician" folk with money in their mind, rather than soul in their heart, that have ruined the "playing live music in bars" scene. There are just too many shitty "bands" out there that it is no longer worth taking a chance to go and pay for something randomly... and they are too fucking loud. Loud can be excellent in the right situation of course, but the folks i am talking about its more like... What they lack in talent, originality and creativity they make up for in volume, and it is somehow the audience's fault. It has gotten so bad that people go to shows and talk all the way through them... you went there for some reason, too be seen, too show support and then you talk through a whole set, and that's just normal in some places. I really believe the root cause of that is that people go to shows for other reasons than to actually catch the show, because the industry is heavy on the numbers game, and the bar needs people to come and drink... if you just show up that's all that matters, the band will get another show cause people came and the bar made money. It's rarely the love of music that fills the bar. Not saying it doesn't happen, cause it does, and when it does, you can always count on people wanting to be there cause it's happening and then just take their "talk through the whole set" mentality and bring it there. Some might even be having a conversation while holding up an iPhone recording the set to prove that they were there. It's a crazy disease, and to break through that culture takes balls of steel. Imagine if everybody who ever wrote a song had something important to say in that song, with a killer melody and a king hell groove... I'd like to live in that world. Nothing better than listening to a live act and getting something out of a song, but nothing worse than suffering a high decibel, cliche, shittier carbon copy of a successful band, but that's what happens, cause people are trying to make money. And sheeple are sheeple, they will baa with the heard in the most insane circumstances.
Think about how many clearly criminal and pure anti human politicians get elected because they run adds showing themselves as strong leaders... utter nonsense but if it gets you 51% for the 40% of people who bother to vote then it is worth whatever you spent, or even 36% of the 40% of people who bothered to vote if there are more than 2 candidates, which is even more insane when you think about it.
In music you vote with your concert ticket dollars and everybody wants to be on the winning team.. i don't begrudge anybody who makes a living playing music, way to go i say.
Why don't people talk through shitty movies? Doesn't seem to happen, they might just leave, some bizarre cultural thing.
I also wonder if the way music has been marketed to sheeple has had an effect on this whole game. the idea of getting sheeple to identify with a style of music so that they can be marketed to more directly. For example there was some "gangster rap" that i quite liked, a lot of it was horrible offensive shit, but as a genera it was very successful, many loved it and many hated it... there were people who i believed were offended that i liked some of it and wouldn't even listen to a track (honestly listen), that i thought was great, because they were predisposed to not like it... the equal and opposite force of those who loved it. Many sheeple will identify with a style of music and stay in that box, cause it's a safe and comfortable place to be, music has been marketed as an accessory to ones personality. Musicians are trained to find a unified popular sound to tap into this, which is why you had people who played in hair bands later playing in grunge bands... clearly you are not living you message i say.
As a failure i think i am expert to speak in terms of some of my failed history. One of the common criticisms i have had over the years was that my albums were far too diverse. The band Roadbed had a jazz sound, a metal sound and a quirky indie sound and you never knew what you were going to get hit with next. i liked that, but then I'm kind of a multiple personality kind of guy. On the short ep Autopilot we went with a rock sound cause all kinds of bands were releasing short rocking eps in the town we were in, and it got us no where, and perhaps irritated our small fan base because we strayed from our formula (and it was too short).
Never do what people tell you... they don't know... we had a great little band that was guitar guitar and drums, and fools kept telling us we needed bass... after a year setback we both got bass/ guitar double necks... we lost a lot of creative time fucking with nonsense to appear more like a regular successful band... the good news was that we became more alien as a result. It was not in us to appear normal, take the path, do the math and you end up as a different version of the oddity that you are. Sometimes we were horrible and other times we were king hell, but we were never accused of trying to be something that had been done before.
Do i want to make money from my art? Sure, that's why i still own all the rights... will it happen? Not sure, but that's OK... you see i already have all the things people would buy if they made money with their music. Well if one of my songs became a hit, i probably would buy a farm... dare to dream eh. Just being honest.
Shitty bands are like plastic in the ocean of life, clogging up the opportunities for the appreciation of good original music. And the people in the shitty bands are the ones doing all of the complaining about what's wrong... i just see a connection to the problem here.
It's really not a lucrative field to get into in the first place, which is the real comedy. You could almost turn it further and say "hey man i don't like working for bosses cause people suck, and doing my own thing is what i need". It's just that things are the way they are, and it's not really related to what an individual weights their worth. If you can sell your music, or tickets to your show, then excellent, good for you, and you probably realize how much work it took outside the "strumming your instrument and singing your words"
Of course there is always the lottery hope that one day you could really make a lot of money from your "art". I remember being asked by a friend from my home town after i released my first record (CD for that matter), "are you rich yet?"... cause that's a big motivation for a lot of people whether they can admit it or not. Fortune and Fame, the greatest bait and switch known to mankind... and it's the fault of all the non supporting people out there that you haven't arrived.
My father went to his grave wondering why his son would put effort into something that he made no money from. It's the old school mentality, life isn't for embracing, it's for getting ahead, and to his credit he died with a surplus of money... much better than the alternative. If you are going to make music, than you better be able to sell it.
A friend of mine put it this way... recorded music hasn't really been around for that long in the grand scheme of humans association with music, so the fact that it's all free now (or can be), just marks the end of an era where commerce was derived from it, and if you could look at the graph of who made what money, you might find that the artists never really got too much in the first place. The idea being that, people that played music, did it and survived to do it before it was available to sell, and now in the era where you can stream almost anything for free (find a song on you tube... easier than taping it off the radio which i did as a kid), the game has perhaps eroded.
If anything, and independent artist can get the loins share of the money now... if they do it properly of course. Whining about it is not the route of course, which helps with the comedy if you know what i mean.
Another friend once equated why you want to be the musician... in the old days people would be doing labor and to help them slave away somebody might be playing an instrument, i believe it was a flute in the example given, and the question is: Do you want to be the guy playing the flute all day or one of the grunts digging with a shovel? I say the flute is a better job.
I would even argue that it is all the "musician" folk with money in their mind, rather than soul in their heart, that have ruined the "playing live music in bars" scene. There are just too many shitty "bands" out there that it is no longer worth taking a chance to go and pay for something randomly... and they are too fucking loud. Loud can be excellent in the right situation of course, but the folks i am talking about its more like... What they lack in talent, originality and creativity they make up for in volume, and it is somehow the audience's fault. It has gotten so bad that people go to shows and talk all the way through them... you went there for some reason, too be seen, too show support and then you talk through a whole set, and that's just normal in some places. I really believe the root cause of that is that people go to shows for other reasons than to actually catch the show, because the industry is heavy on the numbers game, and the bar needs people to come and drink... if you just show up that's all that matters, the band will get another show cause people came and the bar made money. It's rarely the love of music that fills the bar. Not saying it doesn't happen, cause it does, and when it does, you can always count on people wanting to be there cause it's happening and then just take their "talk through the whole set" mentality and bring it there. Some might even be having a conversation while holding up an iPhone recording the set to prove that they were there. It's a crazy disease, and to break through that culture takes balls of steel. Imagine if everybody who ever wrote a song had something important to say in that song, with a killer melody and a king hell groove... I'd like to live in that world. Nothing better than listening to a live act and getting something out of a song, but nothing worse than suffering a high decibel, cliche, shittier carbon copy of a successful band, but that's what happens, cause people are trying to make money. And sheeple are sheeple, they will baa with the heard in the most insane circumstances.
Think about how many clearly criminal and pure anti human politicians get elected because they run adds showing themselves as strong leaders... utter nonsense but if it gets you 51% for the 40% of people who bother to vote then it is worth whatever you spent, or even 36% of the 40% of people who bothered to vote if there are more than 2 candidates, which is even more insane when you think about it.
In music you vote with your concert ticket dollars and everybody wants to be on the winning team.. i don't begrudge anybody who makes a living playing music, way to go i say.
Why don't people talk through shitty movies? Doesn't seem to happen, they might just leave, some bizarre cultural thing.
I also wonder if the way music has been marketed to sheeple has had an effect on this whole game. the idea of getting sheeple to identify with a style of music so that they can be marketed to more directly. For example there was some "gangster rap" that i quite liked, a lot of it was horrible offensive shit, but as a genera it was very successful, many loved it and many hated it... there were people who i believed were offended that i liked some of it and wouldn't even listen to a track (honestly listen), that i thought was great, because they were predisposed to not like it... the equal and opposite force of those who loved it. Many sheeple will identify with a style of music and stay in that box, cause it's a safe and comfortable place to be, music has been marketed as an accessory to ones personality. Musicians are trained to find a unified popular sound to tap into this, which is why you had people who played in hair bands later playing in grunge bands... clearly you are not living you message i say.
As a failure i think i am expert to speak in terms of some of my failed history. One of the common criticisms i have had over the years was that my albums were far too diverse. The band Roadbed had a jazz sound, a metal sound and a quirky indie sound and you never knew what you were going to get hit with next. i liked that, but then I'm kind of a multiple personality kind of guy. On the short ep Autopilot we went with a rock sound cause all kinds of bands were releasing short rocking eps in the town we were in, and it got us no where, and perhaps irritated our small fan base because we strayed from our formula (and it was too short).
Never do what people tell you... they don't know... we had a great little band that was guitar guitar and drums, and fools kept telling us we needed bass... after a year setback we both got bass/ guitar double necks... we lost a lot of creative time fucking with nonsense to appear more like a regular successful band... the good news was that we became more alien as a result. It was not in us to appear normal, take the path, do the math and you end up as a different version of the oddity that you are. Sometimes we were horrible and other times we were king hell, but we were never accused of trying to be something that had been done before.
Do i want to make money from my art? Sure, that's why i still own all the rights... will it happen? Not sure, but that's OK... you see i already have all the things people would buy if they made money with their music. Well if one of my songs became a hit, i probably would buy a farm... dare to dream eh. Just being honest.
Shitty bands are like plastic in the ocean of life, clogging up the opportunities for the appreciation of good original music. And the people in the shitty bands are the ones doing all of the complaining about what's wrong... i just see a connection to the problem here.
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