7 ms·

I respect the hell out of some of Steve Albini's work, but to avoid ending up a bitter old industry fuck like the guy who wrote this article is the reason I qui

by Jgrubb 12y ago

I respect the hell out of some of Steve Albini's work, but to avoid ending up a bitter old industry fuck like the guy who wrote this article is the reason I quit the music business. Also, FYI, there's a whole other music industry out there built around playing live shows, and almost none of these tired cliches and horror stories apply. There are different cliches and horror stories, but the bands are much more in control of their destinies and the career is (in a sense) more sustainable.

bootload 12y ago
"... There are different cliches and horror stories, but the bands are much more in control of their destinies and the career is (in a sense) more sustainable. ..." Q Do the bands you mention maintain control of their masters? I'm seeing the cliche-bands being burnt again with their record companies either not keeping the master recordings or compromising them. A real problem if they want to re-release in high quality digital format.
- Jgrubb 12y ago
  Since the majority of their income comes from playing shows, and since it's no secret that "real" record labels have no idea what to do with any of these bands (since they're primarily live bands) there's almost no financial incentive for them to sign labels deals in the first place. Most of them start their own "label" and keep everything for themselves. A smart banjo player I know summed up every record deal like this -- "It's a 90/10 split, all charges go to the 10". Unless you play the style of music that labels know how to market to the point that you can actually turn a profit with that kind of deal, what's the point?
  - bootload 12y ago
    "... Most of them start their own "label" and keep everything for themselves. ..." Courtney Barnett (Milk records) does exactly that ~ http://www.yenmag.net/music/courtney-barnett/ http://www.yenmag.net/music/courtney-barnett/ and http://www.milkrecords.com.au/ http://www.milkrecords.com.au/ I asked this Q because this was one piece of advice David Briggs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Briggs_%28producer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Briggs_%28producer%29) gave NY and Crazy horse - "Never give up the master tapes."
wturner 12y ago
Jaron Lanier has a great contrarian view of this where he points out that he went on a research project to find musicians that became independently wealthy in the 'internet age' and that he basically couldn't find any. The most he could find were a handful of people that made enough to buy a house - and that was the top of the pyramid. All the stories he found turned out to be fabricated by trust fund kids or claims by musicians that had had their initial career boost in the 'old' system. There's a clip on Youtube of him talking about it but I can't remember which one it is. Anyway the jist of his view is that in the long term much of it actually isn't sustainable.
- bootload 12y ago
  "... went on a research project to find musicians that became independently wealthy in the 'internet age' and that he basically couldn't find any. ... in the long term much of it actually isn't sustainable. ..." Is there any reasoning behind this observation?
  - frandroid 12y ago
    People pirate most music?
  - wwweston 12y ago
    Doesn't seem that hard to speculate. * Attention is scarce. There's lots of competition for it. * Revenue sources are scarcer. People expect to pay less (or not pay) for recordings than they used to. Part of this is because the industry dropped the ball and let non-blessed outlets set expectations. But that by itself would be manageable -- under a pay-for-recording system with loose digital restrictions, people might be able to get a hold of free music, but they know the difference between being patrons and mooches, and some critical mass that likes what they hear will choose the former. Streaming services make this fuzzier, and buffet streaming services like Spotify could actually outright kill this: they aim not to replace radio but recording collections in general (and replace recording revenue with fractional stream plays that are orders of magnitude smaller). But they make users think they're participating patrons. * Performance is a risk-heavy, often capital intensive, and non-scaleable way of getting revenue. * Telling musicians to support themselves with T-shirts and tchochkes is another way of saying they should have a job besides making music (which is fine if you actually believe that, I suppose, but it's another way of saying you don't care if they spend more of their time refining their compositions/performances).
tunesmith 12y ago
Check the story of Pomplamoose's recent tour for a counterpoint on just how sustainable a tour and live show is for a group of a certain level of popularity. https://medium.com/@jackconte/pomplamoose-2014-tour-profits-67435851ba37 https://medium.com/@jackconte/pomplamoose-2014-tour-profits-...
- Nissl 12y ago
  It's important to keep in mind that Pomplamoose made a conscious decision to hire 6 people to tour with with them and spend to put on a significant production. If they had instead chosen to tour as a duo with minimal production (not unreasonable considering they were playing to crowds of a few hundred outside their home base of SF), they would instead have made ~$20k each in a month. Not so bad.
  - tunesmith 12y ago
    They addressed that in the article: "We could have played a duo show instead of hiring six people to tour with us. That would have saved us over $50,000, but it was important at this stage in Pomplamoose’s career to put on a wild and crazy rock show. We wanted to be invited back to every venue, and we wanted our fans to bring their friends next time. The loss was an investment in future tours." So it seems they suspected that investing less in production would have meant lower ticket sales for that tour and in the future, which is a rational suspicion regardless of how accurate it would have ended up being. Plus, if they had stripped it down, they still couldn't tour twelve months out of the year so it still wouldn't have amounted to a decent yearly income. At any rate, the point is that Pomplamoose is very well-known and even if they overshot by a few tens of thousands of dollars, it still shows that touring isn't exactly big bucks for even well-known indie bands. More commentary: http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-artists-cant-survive-as-saints-and-martyrs http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-ar...
    - Jgrubb 12y ago
      I dunno, I still say this is exactly the kind of stupid business decision that a half decent manager could've talked them out of. They chose to go into debt to put on a crazy wild rock show thinking that future crowds will be big enough to make that investment worthwhile? Seems really far fetched, and very poorly thought out. Not to mention that they're going to have to now sustain that level of production next time around... Success in the live music business comes by staying it long enough, there's no "moonshot".
davidgerard 12y ago
He was a bitter young industry hack when he wrote this!

by Jgrubb 12y ago

bootload 12y ago

"... There are different cliches and horror stories, but the bands are much more in control of their destinies and the career is (in a sense) more sustainable. ..." Q Do the bands you mention maintain control of their masters? I'm seeing the cliche-bands being burnt again with their record companies either not keeping the master recordings or compromising them. A real problem if they want to re-release in high quality digital format.

Jgrubb 12y ago
Since the majority of their income comes from playing shows, and since it's no secret that "real" record labels have no idea what to do with any of these bands (since they're primarily live bands) there's almost no financial incentive for them to sign labels deals in the first place. Most of them start their own "label" and keep everything for themselves. A smart banjo player I know summed up every record deal like this -- "It's a 90/10 split, all charges go to the 10". Unless you play the style of music that labels know how to market to the point that you can actually turn a profit with that kind of deal, what's the point?
- bootload 12y ago
  "... Most of them start their own "label" and keep everything for themselves. ..." Courtney Barnett (Milk records) does exactly that ~ http://www.yenmag.net/music/courtney-barnett/ http://www.yenmag.net/music/courtney-barnett/ and http://www.milkrecords.com.au/ http://www.milkrecords.com.au/ I asked this Q because this was one piece of advice David Briggs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Briggs_%28producer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Briggs_%28producer%29) gave NY and Crazy horse - "Never give up the master tapes."

wturner 12y ago

Jaron Lanier has a great contrarian view of this where he points out that he went on a research project to find musicians that became independently wealthy in the 'internet age' and that he basically couldn't find any. The most he could find were a handful of people that made enough to buy a house - and that was the top of the pyramid. All the stories he found turned out to be fabricated by trust fund kids or claims by musicians that had had their initial career boost in the 'old' system. There's a clip on Youtube of him talking about it but I can't remember which one it is. Anyway the jist of his view is that in the long term much of it actually isn't sustainable.

bootload 12y ago
"... went on a research project to find musicians that became independently wealthy in the 'internet age' and that he basically couldn't find any. ... in the long term much of it actually isn't sustainable. ..." Is there any reasoning behind this observation?
- frandroid 12y ago
  People pirate most music?
- wwweston 12y ago
  Doesn't seem that hard to speculate. * Attention is scarce. There's lots of competition for it. * Revenue sources are scarcer. People expect to pay less (or not pay) for recordings than they used to. Part of this is because the industry dropped the ball and let non-blessed outlets set expectations. But that by itself would be manageable -- under a pay-for-recording system with loose digital restrictions, people might be able to get a hold of free music, but they know the difference between being patrons and mooches, and some critical mass that likes what they hear will choose the former. Streaming services make this fuzzier, and buffet streaming services like Spotify could actually outright kill this: they aim not to replace radio but recording collections in general (and replace recording revenue with fractional stream plays that are orders of magnitude smaller). But they make users think they're participating patrons. * Performance is a risk-heavy, often capital intensive, and non-scaleable way of getting revenue. * Telling musicians to support themselves with T-shirts and tchochkes is another way of saying they should have a job besides making music (which is fine if you actually believe that, I suppose, but it's another way of saying you don't care if they spend more of their time refining their compositions/performances).

tunesmith 12y ago

Check the story of Pomplamoose's recent tour for a counterpoint on just how sustainable a tour and live show is for a group of a certain level of popularity. https://medium.com/@jackconte/pomplamoose-2014-tour-profits-67435851ba37 https://medium.com/@jackconte/pomplamoose-2014-tour-profits-...

Nissl 12y ago
It's important to keep in mind that Pomplamoose made a conscious decision to hire 6 people to tour with with them and spend to put on a significant production. If they had instead chosen to tour as a duo with minimal production (not unreasonable considering they were playing to crowds of a few hundred outside their home base of SF), they would instead have made ~$20k each in a month. Not so bad.
- tunesmith 12y ago
  They addressed that in the article: "We could have played a duo show instead of hiring six people to tour with us. That would have saved us over $50,000, but it was important at this stage in Pomplamoose’s career to put on a wild and crazy rock show. We wanted to be invited back to every venue, and we wanted our fans to bring their friends next time. The loss was an investment in future tours." So it seems they suspected that investing less in production would have meant lower ticket sales for that tour and in the future, which is a rational suspicion regardless of how accurate it would have ended up being. Plus, if they had stripped it down, they still couldn't tour twelve months out of the year so it still wouldn't have amounted to a decent yearly income. At any rate, the point is that Pomplamoose is very well-known and even if they overshot by a few tens of thousands of dollars, it still shows that touring isn't exactly big bucks for even well-known indie bands. More commentary: http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-artists-cant-survive-as-saints-and-martyrs http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-ar...
  - Jgrubb 12y ago
    I dunno, I still say this is exactly the kind of stupid business decision that a half decent manager could've talked them out of. They chose to go into debt to put on a crazy wild rock show thinking that future crowds will be big enough to make that investment worthwhile? Seems really far fetched, and very poorly thought out. Not to mention that they're going to have to now sustain that level of production next time around... Success in the live music business comes by staying it long enough, there's no "moonshot".

davidgerard 12y ago

He was a bitter young industry hack when he wrote this!