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Musicians Making a Living: What's Coming That Works?

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  • long deep article on indie music and money, centered around band Grizzly Bear,
    Grizzly Bear Members Are Indie-Rock Royalty, But What Does That Buy Them in 2012?
    http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/grizzly-bear-shields.html

    and another similar
    Grizzly Bear Are Not Rich
    http://stereogum.com/1165101/grizzly-bear-are-not-rich/news/
  • edited October 2012
    Related:

    Something I forgot to tweet last week: WHO HAS HIGHER NET WORTH - @PWELVERUM OR @DAVELONGSTRETH

    ALSO WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT

    WHO HAS THE NICEST DICK

    ETC

    REMEMBER DISMEMBERMENT PLAN?
  • edited October 2012
    If you read just one more story about Amanda Palmer, this one by amazing poet/activist Josh Clover should be the one: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/10/amanda-palmers-kickstarter-scandal.html

    "She promised instead to 'feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch, and thank you mightily.' This is a compensation package which, honestly, might be worse than nothing. Depends on the beer."
  • Alex:
    PW owns property.
    He wins.

    And also don't go there.
  • WHO SMELLS BETTER
    WHO CAN DO "CROW POSE" FOR LONGER
    IF BOTH OWN A HOME, WHICH HOME IS "SWANKIER"
  • SORRY JOEY! IT IS A REALLY DUMB JOKE I WASN'T EXPECTING AN ANSWER
  • i got dlo in a fists-only fight, cause he's got the length
    p-dub would take it in ultimate style tho, based on estimated "core strength"
  • WHICH WOULD WIN IN A TRADITIONAL "SHOUT OFF" CONTEST
  • edited October 2012
    dismemberment guy going solo and getting a 0.0 on pitchfork, which has been sited in essays i think as the meanest moment of the website's history
    and the moment the world discovered the power of pitchfork.com to change people's lives for the worse , and
    now he works for huffington post and is like fuggit and he's happy he's not in the music business any more?
    i never listened to that band tho. what kind were they?

  • edited October 2012
    Slightly proggy indie rock/pop, I guess?

    EDIT: PLEASE NOTE THIS IS COMMENT #311 IN THIS THREAD.

    IN HONOUR OF THIS MOMENTOUS OCCASION, A VIDEO:
  • I constantly hear so much Dismemberment plan gossip these days, guys. I liked them for a semester in college but I don't remember what they sound like.
  • The toured with Death Cab, so they probably sound like Death Cab... which I have never really heard.

    I can do "crow pose" for about 20 seconds.
  • edited October 2012
    I studied them for a second on youtube. Neutral Milk Hotel math rock with keyboards.

    Death Cab = SAT score blues.
  • edited October 2012
    what the hell kind of sick name is Dismemberment plan............ unless they are like straight up evil music. Misleading identity
  • that 311 songs is really doing me right now

    wonder what those dudes do for money today
  • There were 3 311 songs released for Rock Band this week.

    I will buy at least 2 of them and then 311 will make a buck.
  • Also 311 were big innovators in the Music Cruise business.
    They have done a couple cruises that were very successful which has led lots of other bands and music promoters to go this route (Weezer, Kiss, Coachella).
  • Did you guys see that wonderful tweet Fudge did about music fans?

    "Parrotheads, Phishheads, Primusmen, Bikini Kill Buddies, Deadhards, Beliebers, Smashmouthwomen, Chris Isaak Fan, regular person, 311ist."

    He is funny, like a little clown!
    I miss him.
  • HOW INDIE FINALLY OFFICIALLY DIED: THE BROKEN INDIE MACHINE

    http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2012/10/how-indie-finally-officially-died-broken-indie-machine.html

    think piece
    gotta love the hro re-design! brutal
  • Ugh, that "Purity Ring" video. "We put her voice thru FX and we have complicated lights." WOW, REAL MEANINGFUL WORK, Y'ALL.

    I hate listening to people talk about themselves, like on the worst DVD commentary tracks where they spend the whole time just explaining how brilliant everyone involved is.

    My 2012 theme was "Honesty" and my 2013 theme might be "Humility," because everyone is too fucking in love with themselves.
  • Yuck. That band in that video is like someone's perverse thought experiment: "WHAT IF HIGH PLACES AND POMPLEMOOSE HAD A HIDEOUS BABY"

  • (for the sake of clarity, High Places is one of my favorite bands in the universe, and Pomplemoose is my least favorite)
  • If I don't love me.... WHO WILL?
  • In my mind there is a difference between loving yourself (we all should!) and being narcissistically in love with yourself / your art.

    image
  • image

    Now that you mention it.... hating yourself is much cooler.
  • Likely there are many startups in the space of connecting live performances with the interwebs. This one launched last week http://stublisher.com/. They are a platform, so the funds could flow to the artist, or to the promoter, or to?
  • edited October 2012
    I interact with a lot of "internet startup" people. Here is my (probably unfairly sweeping) conclusion.

    Pitching out corrupts within. This is something Edward Tufte says a lot. I sort of want to believe that dudes like this, with their cute grins and company t-shirts and lapel mics will solve music's revenue problem but all these dudes (they are always dudes) just seem so very far from the lived reality of musicians' actual lives.

    I mean, I have talked to people who have generated over a million dollars in VC/startup capital for a concert booking/ticketing widget/app of some sort, but do not know the difference between a booking agent and a talent buyer.

    Same way I feel about "social entrepreneurs" and their ability to solve broader social conflicts. Products put forward as something we can turn to to redress power conflicts when actual politics fails us/is too messy/too hard.
  • (there are exceptions, of course! Mad respect to Cash Music! Topspin guys are legit. Bandpage dudes are good people, etc)
  • (and on the other hand, you could argue that independent record labels were doing the social entrepreneur thing 20 years before it was trendy)
  • edited October 2012
    Remember when you could go to the library and get order any CD you wanted for free, as long as you told them where they could order it from
  • Startup culture is fucked for sure. There's no denying that. Right now there is a load of money on the table, which attracts people who will do and be anything to get that cash. Everyone gets wrapped up in the buzzwords and delusion of "we will change the world!" and then they start actually believing it all and that's when they get scary to me.

    I really view one of my primary job tasks as keeping people checked in with reality.
  • can we make a playlist of songs that start ups use in their video promo pieces that are uplifting and of the "we are gonna change the world!" variety
    so then we can all feel so uplifted
  • edited October 2012
    I wonder if "scoring pitches for startups" is a growing revenue stream?
  • edited October 2012
    I think we have a friend who does that! I mean like started a whole company for it....
  • That Pandora piece is fucking brazen.

    What they don't mention is that they're trying to get their users to lobby to cut their payouts by more than 80%.
  • edited October 2012
    Also, that pandora piece is full of factual errors in the first graf. Donnie McClurkin gets tons of regular commercial airplay on gospel radio. And the "middle class of musicians" is rhetoric stolen directly from my employers.
  • who the f is the middle class of musicians?
  • edited October 2012
    it's an ideal that's never really been fully realized in this country. The idea was if we break up the media concentration, create healthy sustainable systems of distribution and compensation, etc we could create an ecology where most of our entertainment spending would no longer funneled to a tiny handful of corporations & superstars while the majority of working artists scrape by in relative poverty.

    Shared prosperity! That's the idea.
  • Sounds like your typical communist propaganda @kdawg!

    image
  • edited October 2012
    It's pretty standard blue dog democrat rhetoric really. But this Pandora jerkwad is appropriating on behalf of his investors, who want a better return by cutting musicians' pay by 80%+
  • edited October 2012
    appropriating your enemy's rhetoric? what a weird idea!
  • edited October 2012
    I guess it's normal in politics! I've just never been in a position where someone would want to appropriate my team's words before! I feel like Leslie Knope. So naive! So in need of waffles!
  • (i was joking of course. i would never call you a communist. we all know you're an anarchist.)

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  • http://www.economist.com/node/21541707
    The Amen Break: Seven seconds of fire
    How a short burst of [b-side] drumming changed the face of music; royalties never paid.
    I have always believed that there is some solution to sampling with micropayments and even payments to the sampler if benefit accrues to the original. A reasonable copyright period, say 20 years, is fine with me.
  • edited October 2012
    I'm probably in the grey(blue-green) area between Social Democrat and Democratic Socialist. Definitely not an anarchist; I like government.


  • (I was kidding of course. i would never call you an anarchist. we all know you're a nihilist.)

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  • lets not even talk about anarchy lest we get sent to prison
  • I love the USA !!!
  • Made me check in on the Bradley Manning situation. At least he's not in solitary any more, but his trial doesn't start until February!
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