This from Time/Lefsetz:
Want to Be a Rock Star? You'll Need $100,000
"Our manager has snagged me an extra VIP pass to a show by a Grammy-winning British pop star she also manages. We make our way through the NYC crowd (2,000 or so jammed into the venue) toward the door that leads backstage. An imposing bouncer guarding the door sees our passes and steps aside, opening the door for us. This is the good life, I think.
What meets me backstage is nothing like what I pictured. No fountains of champagne, no elegant lounges. It's just as dingy as the venue itself, with a printed sign taped to the star's dressing room door. The band is hanging out on a couch that someone obviously found on the street, and there are some catered snacks that look like they could have come from the NYU dining hall I try to avoid."
Have you never been backstage at a rock gig?
Its not cool or romantic. If you get sandwiches and beer you're doing well, its the staff room. Well know musicians tend to have creepy super fans hanging around as a boost to their fragile egos too. Its not very nice to be honest, kind of like a royal court without the wealth, all about the headling "stars" ego. Quite depressing.
Investing in marketing, touring and PR will help to gain you an audience but really the essentials are good music and a hard work ethic. These guys sound like they are complaining and don't know what they are doing.
What about working a day job then spending 7pm til 11pm/1am at night building your music career (it can be done)? Then you can invest what you make into marketing to build an initial niche audience.
Work hard and make music people want to share, stop moaning.
3 comments:
I'm going to try and keep reading that article but I'm so annoyed by the author before I've got to his "cost breakdown".
For god's sake.
I love how he pines after the majors that wrote you a "blank cheque". How deluded is this idiot?
I'm proud and happy to be working up the long way. I'm getting to know many of the people who support my music individually, I'm having amazing conversations with others in the same position and we're all learning how to operate in incredibly creative ways that are beginning to contribute to the shaping of a new form of this industry.
Most importantly I'm staying right at the centre of my business and my music, like a car I can feel every bump in the road and adjust, I know when to change gear, I know when to slam on the breaks or pull out and overtake.
I also know that my future is very much in my own hands and I wouldn't have it any other way.
If these guys have what they say they have they are also waiting on quite a high quality PRS cheque. They need to learn some patience.
Getting "Page Not Found", so I can't read the article, but from the extract you quoted it reads like yet another case of a middle-man who contributes nothing towards the creative process trying to justify his existence.
All this "It costs 00000s to break an artist" or the old chestnut "It's impossible to record an album that doesn't sound like a teenager's bedroom demo without an advance from a record label" is complete and utter bollocks. You know it, I know it, yet people who ought to know better continue to peddle this rubbish in the media.
Fixed link - cheers Tim :) http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2094921_2094923,00.html
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