Grumpy McTrumpy

I have a baseball cap that says NY on it.

Grumpy McTrumpy

why do you hate my bank account?

kensuf

I keep calling Sarah Palin 46, as in she'll be elected president #46. My wife's not amused.

OK, no more P&R.

rog

Yep...Every single musician I know, even the really successful ones, have a story about doing a gig to an empty house, then going outside for a smoke, and seeing the sports bar across the street, packed to the gills.

And for the music fan, making sure that when you find an artist that you like, you go to a show, and actually buy whatever music of theirs that you want to acquire.

shovelhd

Touring has become a loss leader for record companies for at least the last decade. Combine the audience demand for a big, splashy show with union salaries, increased security demands, fuel and energy costs, and so on, and it's break even at best. Ironically, the money is in the content and the resultant royalties, and the same companies are homogenizing it into oblivion.

rog

Touring is the musicians main source of income, record companies reap their reward in album sales. It's a fairly recent development that record companies are forcing musicians to give a (sometimes very high) percentage of gate receipts, merchandising, etc.

Grumpy McTrumpy

last time I was on tour we did some shows on the day after or before some big name rock bands.

they would travel with 14 semis worth of stuff. enormous waste.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I think there is a psychological disconnect somewhere when you examine this:

people would rather pay 90 bucks to go and have their heads blown off in an arena by a band that may or may not be lip-synching to a recording, with a 14-trailer-truck circus of glitz and glamour, seen from a distance of 200 yards and probably hard to follow

vs.

paying fifteen dollars to go experience something made by a real person that you might even know, and watch and listen to them put their heart and soul right on the line, for you. Including a drink.

shovelhd

Really? I can see that would be true for independent musicians like Grumpy, but for musicians that produce content, aren't song royalties the main source of income? I'm talking about arena level acts, which is what we started discussing a few pages back.

gsteinb

Thankfully Spawn has taken his lifetime of listening to my music as his own and he's befriended several of those musicians he admires. He writes with them on FB, they help him with lyrics or chords, and they occasionally send him the kind of meaningless schwag that sores the heart of a pre-teen. The only hardship is that they usually play late at night and at 21+ shows.

Grumpy McTrumpy

you don't get most of your royalties on that level. the management takes percentage of your composer's royalties. the record company owns the publishing and they get all of those royalties.

Grumpy McTrumpy

here's a viewpoint from someone with a lot more industry pull than me (it's old, but still relevant)

https://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love

shovelhd

That's either a shame or my condolences, depending on the color of the lettering.

truckstop

Have you ever seen this piece?

roadiejorge 

That will be interesting because instant gratification has permeated every aspect of how a good portion of the population views things.

Hida Yanra

thinking about last season - posted a very emotional race report that was near to my heart...
writing it up got me shivery and made my heart race.

I gotta get back to racing some time soon.

rog

If you own your publishing rights, it is potentially a lot of money. But as G McT points out, you probably aren't going to get rich off of it. Even with arena level acts, unless they sustain that level for years, they aren't going to make a ton off of publishing. Merch and touring is generally the bulk of it, except the very top - and by the top, I mean artists who have 20 year careers.

Flatballer

Just watched "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters". Excellent, excellent movie. 9/10. Documentary about the Donkey Kong game and the world record scores. It's much, much more interesting than it sounds. There's an underdog, there's lying, intrigue, spies, a jackass, money, victory.

Well worth a watch.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I have now. thanks.

rog

I played for a guy, a long time ago, that I took much less money from than I normally would, in exchange for a piece of the pie once we "made it". His career was completely derailed by signing a letter of intent.

truckstop

Yes! I nearly turned it off five minutes in, but ended up getting wrapped up in the drama... about Donkey Kong.

truckstop

You're welcome. It was in this book, which I thought (er, 15 years ago) was a pretty interesting read.

(I got it in the first place for the Albini piece.)

jwible

Too deep for me to jump into this thread today. Let me know when levity returns.

El Diablo Rojo

I learned the hard way never to get paid "in the back end". I never saw a penny for over two months work. It was a really cool project, we covered the 1991 Redlands Classic, and was going to turn into a VHS. Pre sold over 1000 copies at the event, never ever got put to tape. I was a cameraman and editor for the project, I got it about 95% finished and the producer just pulled the plug. Took the money he was paid and vanished. I've never done anything on spec again.

shovelhd

Beats geek talk.