Our conversation in Episode #186: "How To Make A Dollar Performing Music" got the audience and panel writing us back.
Things have changed a great deal in a pretty short period of time in the music business. Here is the continuation of that conversation to bring us up to speed:
Our listener Joe Hill writes:
I know that it's been a lot of years since i was in the music biz at Ten Years After in Hickory NC ('85-'95) but since when is it the musicians job to have to promote themselves. I depended on them or their management to supply posters, slicks, bios and music to play in the club but after that it was up to me to make the show a success. I was the one who had to cover the door and make the evening profitable enough to keep the doors open.
It would seem so much easier now with direct e-mails, FaceBook and stations such as yourselves. I had to snail mail monthly calendars, buy newspaper advertising and try to get flyers out as much as possible to get the word out, i had to hustle to make a show work. it was VERY rare to have a new act that already had that great a following that i didn't have to sweat the door.
I think it's great that musicians have taken a more active road to promotion, but i'd hope they could come in and play a great show without the stress of how it was going to go...that's always a difficult call even today....
Joe Hill
Panelist Carol Rifkin responds:
Hi Joe, i wish that too! Great thoughts. Unfortunately, it's so bad now that some clubs in new york ask you if you can guarantee attendence of say 50 people before they hire you and most of the burden of promotion now falls on the artist. the days of the record label with the marketing and promotions department are mostly over. Most artists now have to manage photos, have pr written, contact newspapers, and club owners often expect that or make it part of the deal. Social Media does make it easier but it still has to be done, someone has to update the website, create the event, get posters made, etc. On top of that, most independent artists produce their own cds, doing all the footwork on royalty's, marketing, graphics, writing liner notes. Yes, it's true, these days much of the burden is on the artist unless you are successful enough to hire a publicist and have a dedicated booking agent. Clubs are so shorthanded they often don't even bother to turn in calendars (or not enough in advance) so if you want to get in the listings, you have to do it yourself. Most club owners now, i feel pretty sure, would agree that there is more burden on the artist from the start to fill the seats in a hall and that everyone is understaffed and overworked all around. It's a lot of work to be a musician, wouldn't it be nice if we could just show up and play and sing!
Carol Rifkin
Take5 Asheville Citizen-Times
"This Old Porch" WNCW 88.7 FM
Paul's Creek Band
What It Is panelist Brian John Mitchell also weighs in:
Hey Starz,
Yeah, it really varies, I mean there are some clubs that do still offer guarantees & pay young artists, but these are mostly bars that are making good money & don't care if there's a live band or a jukebox, so it's hard to say that's a great environment. The selling tickets thing for a touring band (& that's been going on for the 15 years I've been gigging) is a scam of course & it's unfortunate that smaller & smaller venues are starting to use it. Maybe worse to me is that booking agents & clubs are sometimes more or less auctioning off opening slots for big bands (pay $20 submission fee on Sonic Bids for a possible opening slot for whoever). Of course the problem is that people just aren't going out to shows like they did in the 1990s & the clubs need to make their money to stay in business & that's just the way things work. When you can pay a DJ $200 for an 80s dance night & bring in 500 people or pay an established touring band $1000 to bring in 50 people, the economics explain where we are today. Though I would like to point out that I think a lot of bands of all levels of popularity don't understand their job is to entertain & give the audience a good time & there are way too many people taking themselves really seriously & singing sad songs instead of party anthems (I'm admitting this as a sad bastard singer-songwriter).
hrt
Brian John Mitchell
www.silbermedia.com
Fred Mills also writes in:
Both Carol and Brian hinted at another issue that lurks in the shadows – I call it the “he who cannot be named” aspect of modern-day marketing and networking for bands: all the ancillary leeches who have attached their suckers to the music industry even as it has, ironically, freed itself from the vice-grip of the major labels. Artists are so ga-ga over all the so-called opportunities that they can seemingly avail themselves of that they conveniently overlook the fact that as an artist you are only worth X amount of dollars at any given point in time and only have so much time in the day to go about the business of living your life, that each of those opportunities also represents a money, time and resource drain. Meanwhile, everyone in the industry sits around with their thumbs up their asses, not calling anyone on their bullshit, because there’s always a chance that they, too, can get in on the action if the right scheme comes along and they happen to be on hand at ground zero. Out of political correctness, and the fact that some of these folks are, uh, my friends, and others I do business with on a regular basis in my capacity as editor of Blurt mag (new issue on newsstands now, Wilco on the cover, ask for it by name!... speaking of leeches and marketing…), I won’t name any names, although one of them may or may not crop up in Brian’s comment.
Let’s briefly review what we’ve learned now, shall we? (With apologies to Andy Partridge…)
Years ago the layers tended to be thick, but at least discernible: between the artist and his public would basically be just manager, booker, and record label. The former handled the legal end and had his lawyers on hand, while the latter took care of manufacturing and promotion. EACH OF THESE ENTITIES GOT A PIECE OF THE ARTIST’S PIE. Fair enough. Most artists were clueless in such matters anyway, and the whole idea was to free them up to create their art.
Gradually some of these duties became decentralized – which explains, for example, why nowadays you have tons of independent publicity firms “working” an artist or his latest project even when the label already has a perfectly good in-house p.r. person or staff. (I liken indie publicists to one-celled organisms that constantly keep dividing – sorry, can’t remember the scientific term, mytosis or halitosis or something?) – which means that if Ann Publicist is working for Flack Co. today, by next year Ann will have split off and formed her own Ann Publicity, and by next year each of her staffers will have also branched out to form their PR Group B, PR Group C, PR Group D, and so forth. It’s no joke to propose that this arithmetical spawning of publicists will eventually yield more flacks than bands, although don’t plan on ‘em eating their own tails anytime soon. EACH OF THESE PEOPLE GETS A PIECE OF THE PIE.
Then you have the slow but steady rise of new media, which in its purest analogy might be the rise of video directors in the ‘80s and all the ancillary businesses, from the hair and makeup people to the animal wranglers to the pyro guys. Soon the ad and marketing folks step in too, with product placement and the like designed to tap potential new revenue streams. EACH OF THESE PEOPLE GETS A PIECE OF THE PIE.
Enter more new media with the rise of the Internet; enter more people deploying new marketing and promotion strategies, because, duh – THEY ALL WANT A PIECE OF THE PIE. Particularly as still more new alternate revenue streams crop up – it’s easy to forget that as recently as 10 years ago it was considered a novelty to hear, say, a new artist’s song used in a key scene in a network TV show. The earlier model remained putting a familiar Phil Collins song in a Miami Vice episode (if at all); now it’s some ghastly Hotel Café wannabe singer-songwriter getting placement of her weepy song in yet another groan-inducing Grey’s Anatomy episode.
And don’t even get me started on the maze of social-networking schemes aimed at “connecting artists directly with their fans,” or web platforms where you the artist pay to have your EPK placed “prominently before our community of tastemakers,” or even yet another variation on the MP3.com model where “smart and like-minded musicians gather” and upload their music for download, riches no doubt awaiting them, because of course, if you post it, they will come. (Funny, I could have sworn that iTunes wiped that particular slate clean, but apparently not.) I put those terms in quotes because they have become such meaningless clichés. But the biggest, baddest, and unfortunately most enduring cliché is, you guessed it – ALL THESE PEOPLE GET A PIECE OF THE PIE.
Sorry if I sound like Lefsetz on a bad hair day, but all of this is true.
***
Fred Mills
Editor, Blurt Magazine
Joe Hill responds:
How sad....it was the promotion that i really enjoyed, when i could find a creative way to bring in more people to see an act they'd never heard of.
i don't mean this next statement as a slam of WNCW, i love the station, but when ya'll came on air the awareness of all the acts i promoted became more widespread. More clubs popped up and soon my attendance started to drop as i competed with bigger clubs or bigger markets. it will always be something that changes the status quo...i just hate that the musicians that are the focus are hurt by tangibles beyond their control. This is also a cyclical issue, there have been ups and downs for decades, lets hope we will soon be on the upswing again son so that these talented individuals get their due!
thanx for listening!
Joe Hill
Thanks for visiting What It Is Radio and feel free to post a comment here or write us at whatitis@wncw.org - joe
]]>
