7 ms·

I was reading an interview with the band "Agriculture" recently and they had a really interesting take on this. From this interview https://www.treblezine.com/a

I was reading an interview with the band "Agriculture" recently and they had a really interesting take on this. From this interview https://www.treblezine.com/agriculture-interview-quiet-violence-of-consumption/ https://www.treblezine.com/agriculture-interview-quiet-viole... : "DM: We exist as a band because we sell t-shirts. Our job is that we sell t-shirts and the way we promote those t-shirts is by playing music. If we were talking strictly economically, that’s just a fact. LL: Weirdly, it’s also our most direct engagement with the money we make and with our fans. We’re often selling our own shirts at the merch table; that’s actually how we talk to a lot of fans and get feedback on our sets. We get cash in our hands; that’s one of the most direct economic exchanges in our lives as musicians. So, it is funny because it seems cynical, but it’s actually one of the more grounded exchanges in what we do." As it turns out, I had a nice little chat with their drummer when I bought one of their tshirts.

ageitgey 6mo ago
It's very smart of them to recognize that. The world is full of these weird business cases where people aren't aware of the actual product, like how Starbucks US morphed from a coffee shop into an iced dessert drinks company that also incidentally sells hot coffee. Edit: Other fun examples - In the mid-2000s, Porsche was an incredibly successful hedge fund that also sold cars who tried to acquire VW using a short squeeze. Most US airlines are profitable frequently flier points companies that also operate airplanes to justify the program. Target US is a real estate company that operates also (profitable) stores.
- VBprogrammer 6mo ago
  Or Blockbuster being a massive real-estate company. Or McDonald's for that matter.
  - pixl97 6mo ago
    Car manufacturers being financial/loan organizations is another.
    - rationalist 6mo ago
      RV companies are more-so that than car companies. RVs are put together by methheads and there are less protections (such as no lemon law for RVs) for the consumers. Many RVs spend there whole one year warranty period in the shop with no actual fixes being done and then the warranty runs out. The people that do hear about RV problems, buy new thinking that will be less problems, when in fact the newer RVs are the lower quality ones that have issues. There are YouTube channels dedicated to this phenomenon (https://youtube.com/@LizAmazing https://youtube.com/@LizAmazing), and why one famous consumer lawyer (Steve Lehto) says "You Must be INSANE to buy an RV These Days": https://youtube.com/watch?v=xElhTNS_xn8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=xElhTNS_xn8 A great video where one major manufacturer does not even properly VIN their RVs leading to a $600,000 fine given to one RV owner: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zGOANydJURQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=zGOANydJURQ
  - neutronicus 6mo ago
    On the other hand, the naming of Blockbuster[1] makes more sense with that context. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting
    - pc86 6mo ago
      Because Blockbuster Video played a pivotal role in early-1900s segregation in the United States? I think it's much more likely it's just a reference to extremely popular and economically successful movies but happy to be proven wrong.
      - saalweachter 6mo ago
        The movie term derives from a different piece of slang, a WWII term for a large bomb that could destroy an entire block. Before movies bombing was a bad thing, a successful movie was "exploding" like a blockbuster bomb.
      - MathMonkeyMan 6mo ago
        Yeah I heard it describes a movie where the line to get into the theater went around the block. edit: ah, but wiki disagrees <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(entertainment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(entertainment)>
  - ljm 6mo ago
    Similarly Wether spoons, the chain of pubs in the UK. More interestingly, they tend to set up in historically significant or listed buildings and as a result, preserve them. Not unusual to find a Spoons set up in an old 19th century bank or something.
- estearum 6mo ago
  Starbucks is also (one of?) the largest payment processors in the world, with also a perpetual like ~$2B float from its customers
- matthewkayin 6mo ago
  I don't know if the Starbucks example is quite the same as the band example. If anything, their focus on iced desserts shows that they know exactly what their audience wants and is paying for. When I think about the band shirts, I think about this time an indie game dev youtuber did a full breakdown of their different revenue streams. They were a "full time indie gamedev", but the overwhelming majority of their income came from gamedev Udemy courses. So really, they were an online course seller that used their gamedev youtube content to convince people to buy the courses.
  - Forgeties79 6mo ago
    to add to this, the iced dessert drinks are still caffeinated, so they still fill the purported role of a Starbucks.
    - lokar 6mo ago
      Well, not the original role. That was to bring some americanized version of European/Italian coffee culture to the US. Serving espresso based drinks in a comfortable public cafe style setting. It was very popular for a long time. Busy cafes full of people, selling lots of drinks, opening new shops, etc.
  - btilly 6mo ago
    The reality is that Starbucks is the world's biggest unregulated bank, with their claws in the real estate industry. Who got that way by selling the experience of hanging out in a convenient coffee shop. Their business has run into trouble a couple of times because MBA types in the company lost sight of this, then focused on trying to sell drinks efficiently. Thereby diluting the brand and business. If you've got 22 minutes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym7YwFq8ZuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym7YwFq8ZuM is a very informative walkthrough of the history and the business by the always funny youtuber, The Fat Electician. Highly recommended.
    - lokar 6mo ago
      IMO, they, like many other companies, were doomed by the constant chase for growth. Once they had a large share of "have a milk-coffee drink in a nice lounge" market, growth slowed. But having a large market share, good margins and growth that is the same as population/gdp (+/-) is just not acceptable. So they try to find a way to get more growth, even if it changes and perhaps kills what the business was.
- hydrogen7800 6mo ago
  Or that GM is a bank that also sells people the collateral for loans (i.e. cars).
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  Now do the International Code Council, and Harvard, and Unicef, and government departments, and, and, and..... The reason we don't evaluate things in this "measure what is actually goin on" manner is because the actual goings on are only able to go on as they do so long as a public image that emphasizes something else is maintained. People wouldn't go to starbucks in the manner they do if they thought of it as a sugary drink place.
- cm2187 6mo ago
  And McDonald’s is known to be primarily a real estate company. Berkshire Hathaway is meant to be an insurance company. Military aircraft manufacturers are really maintenance companies.
- socalgal2 6mo ago
  > Most US airlines are profitable frequently flier points companies that also operate airplanes to justify the program. Freakonomics Radio had a series about airlines. They claimed this was not true and that frequently flier points only accounted for 5% of profits. https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/freakonomics-radio-takes-to-the-skies/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/freakonomics-radio-take... WSJ said it was true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTW8RDJUEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTW8RDJUEE I don't know who to believe.
  - SoftTalker 6mo ago
    The version I've heard is that airlines are credit card companies that also fly passengers on airplanes. Also the one about Target being a real-estate company I've also heard about McDonald's.
    - socalgal2 6mo ago
      My understanding is that's true for McDonald's. They own all the stores and rent them out. Target owns its stores but does not rent them out.
  - nunez 6mo ago
    It's not true. I thought it was also, so I looked at United Airlines 2024 Annual Report to confirm or deny my position. [^0] If you look at their revenue sheet, you'll see that UAL made ~$51B from passenger revenue (tickets sold * available seats across their entire fleet) while they made ~$24B from "other revenue", which includes, amongst other things, annual fees from credit cards. Same with Delta, though they made ~$10B from their "other" revenue. [^1] However, it's a bit of a positive feedback loop situation. The "other" revenues in these 10-Ks don't tell the whole story. Airline frequent flyer programs have tiers with minimum flight and spend requirements per tier. This benefits both frequent flyers and VFR customers (visiting friends and relatives). If you travel a lot for work (frequent flyer), there are very heavy incentives to get to that top tier. Customer service at the highest tiers is eons better than what you'd get at lower tiers. You also get priority boarding, first-crack at upgrades, upgrade certificates that move you to the top of upgrade lists, and more. These benefits make air travel, which many people don't like doing, much more tolerable. If you're an infrequent flyer, getting to that airline's mid-grade tier usually gets you more free checked bags and priority boarding. Checked bags are EXPENSIVE after the first freebie (thanks, Southwest!) which is usually enough of a draw to get people to chase that status. (If you live near a hub, you can gamble and hope that the gate agent offers to check bags gate-side for free to speed up boarding, but that's not foolproof. Anyway, checking baggage is a fool's errand; one-bag for life!). Getting the airline's co-branded card usually provides bonuses that make it easier to hit those tiers. So you get the card and put all of your personal (and corporate, if your company allows it) expenses on the card. Airlines also have gotten very aggressive about pushing the card onto gen pop. You're almost certainly going to get hit with a 60-80k mile offer on every flight you take in the US for spending ~$3k on that airline's co-branded card, no matter the airline. (It's almost always enough for a round-trip ticket to some coveted location in the US, on an award flight, which are harder and harder to come by, but that's another topic for another post.) United flew 173M customers in 2024. $3k card spend from even 10% of those customers is $52M! And that's before you consider that most people will continue spending on credit cards after earning the spend benefit! (However, at $0.01/mile earn rate, the $14M worth of flights United would be beholden to is recorded as a "frequent flyer deferred revenue" liability. But, again, the chase for status and benefits would generate more revenue that's hard to forecast, though I'm sure the airlines have forecasting models in place.) If this interests you, and if you like math, "The Global Airline Industry" by Belobaba et. al. is a fantastic book that explains this and other peculiarities of how airlines work. This was recommended to me by an old colleague that ran a small airline. It's excellent. [^0] https://ir.united.com/static-files/d4c854c7-427c-49a9-8129-d43c97e5c14e https://ir.united.com/static-files/d4c854c7-427c-49a9-8129-d... [^1]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/181345880/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/DAL-12-31-2025-10K-2-10-26-Filed.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/181345880/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/...
- nitwit005 6mo ago
  > Target US is a real estate company that operates also (profitable) stores. They're exactly as much a real estate company than a mom & pop store that owns their space. They just have a lot of stores.
elsa_pato 6mo ago
[dead]
NikolaNovak 6mo ago
1. I understand the truth of it 2. The inefficiency bugs me I.e. I want to support the band, but feel like only a fraction of the money spent on merch goes to the target. Same with websites that have mugs and such. I don't want another mug, I don't want to pay 5.99 for shipping, I don't need to support the white box oem mug manufacturer. But I guess in the real pragmatical world, that's the support mechanism that actually works :)
- abap_rocky 6mo ago
  Yeah, also the fact that most venues take a cut of merch sales really dampens the idea that buying merch directly from artists is the best way to put money in their pocket. I even recall going to a show many years ago where the lead singer refused to sell his t-shirts at the venue and implored us all to meet him outside at their tour van for direct sales. I don't think he got invited back to perform there!
  - MidnightRider39 6mo ago
    Never heard about venues taking a cut off the merch - that’s fucked up… They already take (in almost all cases) 100% from drinks and bar sales. In my experience the ticket sales and merch go completely to the artist. Anything else I would consider a rip-off
    - longwave 6mo ago
      In larger UK venues this has been happening for some years now, there is a campaign against it: https://thefac.org/venuedirectory https://thefac.org/venuedirectory This has been followed up by similar action in the US as well: https://weareumaw.org/my-merch https://weareumaw.org/my-merch
    - tastyfreeze 6mo ago
      That is certainly the case with many venues in the US after the LiveNation/Ticketmaster merger. Independent venues are much more rare, due to the LiveNation monopoly, but make their own deals with talent that are reasonable to both parties. LiveNation operates so much of the venue spaces they can take whatever they want. Artists have been complaining to congress about it since the merger in 2010.
rglover 6mo ago
Agriculture has just joined my rotation thanks to this story. The process works.
- pchristensen 6mo ago
  Now go buy a t-shirt!
MengerSponge 6mo ago
In the same way, LeBron James has earned more money from selling shoes than playing basketball.
georgeecollins 6mo ago
I think all this talk of entertainment economics is missing the point of the article. Yes, today bands more money from tshirts then recordings. However, in the 70s and 80s they typically made a lot of money from LPs and CDs. In the time of the Ramones, that was how bands made money. The point is that punk rock was culturally very influential but never very musically popular. God Save the Queen was a hit record but that is the outlier. I think it is useful to consider that a lot things that endure are not the things that were popular at the time, particularly with music. I saw the Pixies at the Hollywood Bowl a couple years ago and it occurred to me that when they had recorded the songs they are known for I saw at venues not much bigger than bars. They were never really that popular. Or Elliot Smith, who was seriously obscure in his short lifetime.
- Triphibian 6mo ago
  The argument has been made that punk finally broke in '91 with Nirvana and then Green Day and myriad other pop punk bands selling records. And there's also a case for the bands, especially of the '77 era New York scene breaking, but doing it by playing less textbook punk-sounding music (Blondie, Talking Heads, etc). I do think The Ramones were robbed in way. If radio at the time wasn't ready for them, classic rock radio now should be. Most of them play The Clash already.If Blitzkrieg Bop is too weird or raw, "Rock 'n Roll Radio" is polished enough that it would fit right in.
Triphibian 6mo ago
Great band, cool shirts. Gotta say all the Flenser bands got the memo on strong merch.
gamerdonkey 6mo ago
MC Frontalot and MC Lars had a fun take on this same concept in "Captains of Industry", which you may enjoy, depending on your feelings on old nerdcore hip-hop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrKmP7oU9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrKmP7oU9U It's pretty funny, and includes Fronalot's characteristic wordplay with lyrics like: > Captains are we. Of what? Industry. Which could also be taken as: > Captains are we, of what industry?
- apgwoz 6mo ago
  I was hoping someone made this comment! It remains high on my list of Frontalot songs. Big fan of “I’ll Form the Head” and “Stoop Sale” also from that album as well.
nunez 6mo ago
Great band!!! The Spiritual Sound is an excellent album. As far as this interview: I mean, that's every band ever; the music is an ad for their shows and merch, which is the product. Some, like these folks, come to grips with this easier/quicker than others!

ageitgey 6mo ago

It's very smart of them to recognize that. The world is full of these weird business cases where people aren't aware of the actual product, like how Starbucks US morphed from a coffee shop into an iced dessert drinks company that also incidentally sells hot coffee. Edit: Other fun examples - In the mid-2000s, Porsche was an incredibly successful hedge fund that also sold cars who tried to acquire VW using a short squeeze. Most US airlines are profitable frequently flier points companies that also operate airplanes to justify the program. Target US is a real estate company that operates also (profitable) stores.

VBprogrammer 6mo ago
Or Blockbuster being a massive real-estate company. Or McDonald's for that matter.
- pixl97 6mo ago
  Car manufacturers being financial/loan organizations is another.
  - rationalist 6mo ago
    RV companies are more-so that than car companies. RVs are put together by methheads and there are less protections (such as no lemon law for RVs) for the consumers. Many RVs spend there whole one year warranty period in the shop with no actual fixes being done and then the warranty runs out. The people that do hear about RV problems, buy new thinking that will be less problems, when in fact the newer RVs are the lower quality ones that have issues. There are YouTube channels dedicated to this phenomenon (https://youtube.com/@LizAmazing https://youtube.com/@LizAmazing), and why one famous consumer lawyer (Steve Lehto) says "You Must be INSANE to buy an RV These Days": https://youtube.com/watch?v=xElhTNS_xn8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=xElhTNS_xn8 A great video where one major manufacturer does not even properly VIN their RVs leading to a $600,000 fine given to one RV owner: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zGOANydJURQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=zGOANydJURQ
- neutronicus 6mo ago
  On the other hand, the naming of Blockbuster[1] makes more sense with that context. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting
  - pc86 6mo ago
    Because Blockbuster Video played a pivotal role in early-1900s segregation in the United States? I think it's much more likely it's just a reference to extremely popular and economically successful movies but happy to be proven wrong.
    - saalweachter 6mo ago
      The movie term derives from a different piece of slang, a WWII term for a large bomb that could destroy an entire block. Before movies bombing was a bad thing, a successful movie was "exploding" like a blockbuster bomb.
    - MathMonkeyMan 6mo ago
      Yeah I heard it describes a movie where the line to get into the theater went around the block. edit: ah, but wiki disagrees <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(entertainment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(entertainment)>
- ljm 6mo ago
  Similarly Wether spoons, the chain of pubs in the UK. More interestingly, they tend to set up in historically significant or listed buildings and as a result, preserve them. Not unusual to find a Spoons set up in an old 19th century bank or something.
estearum 6mo ago
Starbucks is also (one of?) the largest payment processors in the world, with also a perpetual like ~$2B float from its customers
matthewkayin 6mo ago
I don't know if the Starbucks example is quite the same as the band example. If anything, their focus on iced desserts shows that they know exactly what their audience wants and is paying for. When I think about the band shirts, I think about this time an indie game dev youtuber did a full breakdown of their different revenue streams. They were a "full time indie gamedev", but the overwhelming majority of their income came from gamedev Udemy courses. So really, they were an online course seller that used their gamedev youtube content to convince people to buy the courses.
- Forgeties79 6mo ago
  to add to this, the iced dessert drinks are still caffeinated, so they still fill the purported role of a Starbucks.
  - lokar 6mo ago
    Well, not the original role. That was to bring some americanized version of European/Italian coffee culture to the US. Serving espresso based drinks in a comfortable public cafe style setting. It was very popular for a long time. Busy cafes full of people, selling lots of drinks, opening new shops, etc.
- btilly 6mo ago
  The reality is that Starbucks is the world's biggest unregulated bank, with their claws in the real estate industry. Who got that way by selling the experience of hanging out in a convenient coffee shop. Their business has run into trouble a couple of times because MBA types in the company lost sight of this, then focused on trying to sell drinks efficiently. Thereby diluting the brand and business. If you've got 22 minutes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym7YwFq8ZuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym7YwFq8ZuM is a very informative walkthrough of the history and the business by the always funny youtuber, The Fat Electician. Highly recommended.
  - lokar 6mo ago
    IMO, they, like many other companies, were doomed by the constant chase for growth. Once they had a large share of "have a milk-coffee drink in a nice lounge" market, growth slowed. But having a large market share, good margins and growth that is the same as population/gdp (+/-) is just not acceptable. So they try to find a way to get more growth, even if it changes and perhaps kills what the business was.
hydrogen7800 6mo ago
Or that GM is a bank that also sells people the collateral for loans (i.e. cars).
cucumber3732842 6mo ago
Now do the International Code Council, and Harvard, and Unicef, and government departments, and, and, and..... The reason we don't evaluate things in this "measure what is actually goin on" manner is because the actual goings on are only able to go on as they do so long as a public image that emphasizes something else is maintained. People wouldn't go to starbucks in the manner they do if they thought of it as a sugary drink place.
cm2187 6mo ago
And McDonald’s is known to be primarily a real estate company. Berkshire Hathaway is meant to be an insurance company. Military aircraft manufacturers are really maintenance companies.
socalgal2 6mo ago
> Most US airlines are profitable frequently flier points companies that also operate airplanes to justify the program. Freakonomics Radio had a series about airlines. They claimed this was not true and that frequently flier points only accounted for 5% of profits. https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/freakonomics-radio-takes-to-the-skies/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/freakonomics-radio-take... WSJ said it was true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTW8RDJUEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTW8RDJUEE I don't know who to believe.
- SoftTalker 6mo ago
  The version I've heard is that airlines are credit card companies that also fly passengers on airplanes. Also the one about Target being a real-estate company I've also heard about McDonald's.
  - socalgal2 6mo ago
    My understanding is that's true for McDonald's. They own all the stores and rent them out. Target owns its stores but does not rent them out.
- nunez 6mo ago
  It's not true. I thought it was also, so I looked at United Airlines 2024 Annual Report to confirm or deny my position. [^0] If you look at their revenue sheet, you'll see that UAL made ~$51B from passenger revenue (tickets sold * available seats across their entire fleet) while they made ~$24B from "other revenue", which includes, amongst other things, annual fees from credit cards. Same with Delta, though they made ~$10B from their "other" revenue. [^1] However, it's a bit of a positive feedback loop situation. The "other" revenues in these 10-Ks don't tell the whole story. Airline frequent flyer programs have tiers with minimum flight and spend requirements per tier. This benefits both frequent flyers and VFR customers (visiting friends and relatives). If you travel a lot for work (frequent flyer), there are very heavy incentives to get to that top tier. Customer service at the highest tiers is eons better than what you'd get at lower tiers. You also get priority boarding, first-crack at upgrades, upgrade certificates that move you to the top of upgrade lists, and more. These benefits make air travel, which many people don't like doing, much more tolerable. If you're an infrequent flyer, getting to that airline's mid-grade tier usually gets you more free checked bags and priority boarding. Checked bags are EXPENSIVE after the first freebie (thanks, Southwest!) which is usually enough of a draw to get people to chase that status. (If you live near a hub, you can gamble and hope that the gate agent offers to check bags gate-side for free to speed up boarding, but that's not foolproof. Anyway, checking baggage is a fool's errand; one-bag for life!). Getting the airline's co-branded card usually provides bonuses that make it easier to hit those tiers. So you get the card and put all of your personal (and corporate, if your company allows it) expenses on the card. Airlines also have gotten very aggressive about pushing the card onto gen pop. You're almost certainly going to get hit with a 60-80k mile offer on every flight you take in the US for spending ~$3k on that airline's co-branded card, no matter the airline. (It's almost always enough for a round-trip ticket to some coveted location in the US, on an award flight, which are harder and harder to come by, but that's another topic for another post.) United flew 173M customers in 2024. $3k card spend from even 10% of those customers is $52M! And that's before you consider that most people will continue spending on credit cards after earning the spend benefit! (However, at $0.01/mile earn rate, the $14M worth of flights United would be beholden to is recorded as a "frequent flyer deferred revenue" liability. But, again, the chase for status and benefits would generate more revenue that's hard to forecast, though I'm sure the airlines have forecasting models in place.) If this interests you, and if you like math, "The Global Airline Industry" by Belobaba et. al. is a fantastic book that explains this and other peculiarities of how airlines work. This was recommended to me by an old colleague that ran a small airline. It's excellent. [^0] https://ir.united.com/static-files/d4c854c7-427c-49a9-8129-d43c97e5c14e https://ir.united.com/static-files/d4c854c7-427c-49a9-8129-d... [^1]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/181345880/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/DAL-12-31-2025-10K-2-10-26-Filed.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/181345880/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/...
nitwit005 6mo ago
> Target US is a real estate company that operates also (profitable) stores. They're exactly as much a real estate company than a mom & pop store that owns their space. They just have a lot of stores.

elsa_pato 6mo ago

[dead]

NikolaNovak 6mo ago

1. I understand the truth of it 2. The inefficiency bugs me I.e. I want to support the band, but feel like only a fraction of the money spent on merch goes to the target. Same with websites that have mugs and such. I don't want another mug, I don't want to pay 5.99 for shipping, I don't need to support the white box oem mug manufacturer. But I guess in the real pragmatical world, that's the support mechanism that actually works :)

abap_rocky 6mo ago
Yeah, also the fact that most venues take a cut of merch sales really dampens the idea that buying merch directly from artists is the best way to put money in their pocket. I even recall going to a show many years ago where the lead singer refused to sell his t-shirts at the venue and implored us all to meet him outside at their tour van for direct sales. I don't think he got invited back to perform there!
- MidnightRider39 6mo ago
  Never heard about venues taking a cut off the merch - that’s fucked up… They already take (in almost all cases) 100% from drinks and bar sales. In my experience the ticket sales and merch go completely to the artist. Anything else I would consider a rip-off
  - longwave 6mo ago
    In larger UK venues this has been happening for some years now, there is a campaign against it: https://thefac.org/venuedirectory https://thefac.org/venuedirectory This has been followed up by similar action in the US as well: https://weareumaw.org/my-merch https://weareumaw.org/my-merch
  - tastyfreeze 6mo ago
    That is certainly the case with many venues in the US after the LiveNation/Ticketmaster merger. Independent venues are much more rare, due to the LiveNation monopoly, but make their own deals with talent that are reasonable to both parties. LiveNation operates so much of the venue spaces they can take whatever they want. Artists have been complaining to congress about it since the merger in 2010.

rglover 6mo ago

Agriculture has just joined my rotation thanks to this story. The process works.

pchristensen 6mo ago
Now go buy a t-shirt!

MengerSponge 6mo ago

In the same way, LeBron James has earned more money from selling shoes than playing basketball.

georgeecollins 6mo ago

I think all this talk of entertainment economics is missing the point of the article. Yes, today bands more money from tshirts then recordings. However, in the 70s and 80s they typically made a lot of money from LPs and CDs. In the time of the Ramones, that was how bands made money. The point is that punk rock was culturally very influential but never very musically popular. God Save the Queen was a hit record but that is the outlier. I think it is useful to consider that a lot things that endure are not the things that were popular at the time, particularly with music. I saw the Pixies at the Hollywood Bowl a couple years ago and it occurred to me that when they had recorded the songs they are known for I saw at venues not much bigger than bars. They were never really that popular. Or Elliot Smith, who was seriously obscure in his short lifetime.

Triphibian 6mo ago
The argument has been made that punk finally broke in '91 with Nirvana and then Green Day and myriad other pop punk bands selling records. And there's also a case for the bands, especially of the '77 era New York scene breaking, but doing it by playing less textbook punk-sounding music (Blondie, Talking Heads, etc). I do think The Ramones were robbed in way. If radio at the time wasn't ready for them, classic rock radio now should be. Most of them play The Clash already.If Blitzkrieg Bop is too weird or raw, "Rock 'n Roll Radio" is polished enough that it would fit right in.

Triphibian 6mo ago

Great band, cool shirts. Gotta say all the Flenser bands got the memo on strong merch.

gamerdonkey 6mo ago

MC Frontalot and MC Lars had a fun take on this same concept in "Captains of Industry", which you may enjoy, depending on your feelings on old nerdcore hip-hop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrKmP7oU9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrKmP7oU9U It's pretty funny, and includes Fronalot's characteristic wordplay with lyrics like: > Captains are we. Of what? Industry. Which could also be taken as: > Captains are we, of what industry?

apgwoz 6mo ago
I was hoping someone made this comment! It remains high on my list of Frontalot songs. Big fan of “I’ll Form the Head” and “Stoop Sale” also from that album as well.

nunez 6mo ago

Great band!!! The Spiritual Sound is an excellent album. As far as this interview: I mean, that's every band ever; the music is an ad for their shows and merch, which is the product. Some, like these folks, come to grips with this easier/quicker than others!