Grizzly Bear - Shields

haha, wait I just realized I was misattributing a key quote to the 25-yr-old guy that was actually the 34-yr-old guy. NM

isn't wooden wand a dude who commented on ilx? I may be thinking of someone else

no, you're right, same dude.

roger adultery

tbf it's a little more shocking that Grizzly Bear doesn't make a lot of money than that Wooden Wand doesn't make a lot of money. That's kind of a problem with these arguments -- a lot of the people making the arguments wouldn't have been making money in the old system either. It's more surprising that even getting to the relative 'top' doesn't earn you a great living.

have grizzly bear considered kickstarter

"Sing close harmony on our tour! You must send a video or audio recording of you sweetly singing 'ahhhhhhhhhh' -- we don't want just any old amateur!"

they have some old-timey incandescent globes that float around behind them, maybe they crowdsource people to move them up and down

Nitsuh is a champ for both "representing an attractive and saleable version of the band Grizzly Bear" and also "fashioning their non-committal comments re: their own income into a case to justify the scare quote-y cover".

what is so special about music that musicians should be glad to take a wage cut? like ok it is sometimes v enjoyable but so are a lot of other jobs people get payed good money for and they don't say dumb shit like "i feel lucky to be a member of a generation of scientists who work five days a week at a gas station to get by" are so ppl so afraid of seeming entitled that just asking to be remunerated for your labour is too much to ask?

musicians' labour has declined in value independent of any decline in actual demand for music, the cost of stealing music has just decreased and it turns out that was all that was keeping people from not stealing it all along; we feel entitled to all music. but we aren't (anyone making a claim to the opposite kind of necessarily also has to make some deep assumptions about intellectual/private property). yes it's true that musicians have to make a strategic decision given realistic payoffs of playing music/working part time, that doesn't mean it's a good thing that they are now guaranteed to make less irrespective of which they choose. also doesn't mean that people who bemoan the state of affairs are grumpy. saying "hey, mozart was buried in a common grave" doesn't take into account that austria was then a serfdom, not to mention the way music was distributed then is incomparable to now

it's a good thing to think about, sure! but i would wager grizzly bear make a fairly good living at what they do. maybe they should think about not living in new york city! i hear it's expensive there.

i absolutely think they should get paid, don't get me wrong.

you can't make a living these days writing fiction, either! you don't see fiction writers bitching about it. or music writers using that angle. (or do you?)

does anyone remember this article?

http://philip.greenspun.com/samantha/FAQ/wilcox.text

i remember reading it and thinking "JUST MOVE TO THE COUNTRY DUMBASS!"

or music writers writing about other writers using that angle. (or do you?)

i guess a lot of problems i have with 25 yo dude's arguments boil down to the hubris of youth (tho i am 4 years younger than him) but i also think aristotle could bust his balls p hard on deeper logical or moral flaws; seems to me his points ultimately come down to: musicians who happily work part-time are cool or real / musicians who hope to be financially supported by music are whimps

also i agree with owen that this debate couldn't possibly have been inspired by a better article

good post flops

I can't really comment on this so much b/c imo it all comes back to "universal public health care is the cornerstone of a diverse creative class" which is always catcalled as 'such a Canadian stance' although it admittedly could just as easy be described as Scandinavian/British/continental European/Cuban etc.

tbf it's a little more shocking that Grizzly Bear doesn't make a lot of money than that Wooden Wand doesn't make a lot of money. That's kind of a problem with these arguments -- a lot of the people making the arguments wouldn't have been making money in the old system either. It's more surprising that even getting to the relative 'top' doesn't earn you a great living.

I'd be curious to hear from an indie band who was at the "relative top" in the 90s - like, say, Pavement or whoever. Is there an indie band that sold 250k back then? What sort of living did they make? My impression is that all indie bands, at all times, have attained modest financial success/stability compared to their friends who got real jobs. These days it's different in that the bar for making it into the Billboard charts is a lot lower, and the internet has changed the way people consume music... but I think the ratio of indie bands who "make it" and those who eventually bounce out a la Travis Morrison is not hugely different.

I seem to recall a big story back in the late 90s all about how Doug Martsch had to battle with his label just to get health insurance (and Built to Spill was on a major!), which sort of underlines this point.

grizzly bear went to mexico for a month to "get the juices flowing", i think they're doing just fine

who knows, mexico is pretty cheap if you have a place to stay

idk, they could have spent less on food and been able to work faster due to fewer distractions, I'd bet that travel expenses would be less than a month of health insurance premiums

I'd be curious to hear from an indie band who was at the "relative top" in the 90s - like, say, Pavement or whoever. Is there an indie band that sold 250k back then? What sort of living did they make? My impression is that all indie bands, at all times, have attained modest financial success/stability compared to their friends who got real jobs. These days it's different in that the bar for making it into the Billboard charts is a lot lower, and the internet has changed the way people consume music... but I think the ratio of indie bands who "make it" and those who eventually bounce out a la Travis Morrison is not hugely different.

― scott pgwp (pgwp), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 18:54 (1 hour ago) Permalink

Well part of the argument is whether Grizzly Bear is the equivalent of a 250K seller back then or a million seller back then, because bands sell a lot fewer records than they used to, which is (arguably) part of why they make less money (if that's really true)

roger adultery

o rly? That's cool, I had no idea!

When illegal downloading first started the narrative was very much "it's labels that will suffer, bands never see much from record sales anyway." So I'd also be curious to know how a popular-ish 90s indie band did in terms of money accrued from sales.

Don't worry about Droste, he's rich as all fuck.

is someone's inherited economic class an indicator of whether they deserve to make money?

No, not at all. But I do think it's a missed opportunity that Nitsuh didn't explore the backgrounds of Droste and co. Would have made a much more interesting piece. Although I suspect he would have become persona non grata with them afterwards.

I just saw somewhere that Sonic Youth never had a record that approached 500,000 sales, yet I think of them as a band that probably lives reasonably well. Maybe it's just because they've been able to stay consistently relevant for so long?

also they've toured forever

hope they saved enough money...

Yeah I guess they've kind of built themselves into a franchise.

You could make a lot of comparisons to other forms of small businesses -- most fail early, few succeed long term. Although music is now in a weird state where it's pretty hard to get the kind of start-up capital you need to actually have a shot at building a franchise.

it should also be noted that not only do bands sell less in numbers now but albums also cost much less. 200 is the new 500 (or w/e) but $9.99 is also the new $16.99

i think droste makes a reference to veckatimest's sales being inflated a bit because of an amazon first week promotion... i believe those albums sold for .99

Good points.

Also labels getting hurt by flagging sales = smaller advances, which makes it harder to get off the ground. I think the famous Albini piece inadvertently led to the misconception that advances themselves are some kind of evil financial trickery perpetrated by big labels, when they're actually potentially great for bands. The fact that labels "recoup" in itself isn't wrong, it's what they recoup for and how they do it that matters.

Any love for Daniel Rossen's Silent Hour / Golden Mile EP/ mini-album thing, or Chris Taylor's solo album as CANT? Just got them both yesterday.

I saw Taylor perform that record live last year. Wasn't that impressed by it at all. But I felt like I might have experienced the 'Amsterdam' live show.

I really dig the Daniel Rossen EP. The last track is outstanding. I was suprised it seemed to pass by so quietly without much interest, mind you every review I saw was positive. Big George Harrison vibe on it for me.

saw them the other night in Oakland, god awful sound, just terrible. they played as well as they could but for some reason the only thing you could hear was bass.

Bizarre.

it was like, completely overpowering. drums were barely audible, guitars may as well have not been there. people were still into it though. but it was annoying. the sound at this place (the fox theater in oakland) is never good but it's usually on the thin side. maybe they overcompensated.

I just saw somewhere that Sonic Youth never had a record that approached 500,000 sales, yet I think of them as a band that probably lives reasonably well. Maybe it's just because they've been able to stay consistently relevant for so long?

I mentioned on another thread, but the new David Byrne book gets into band economics a bit, in detail, which is rare. He basically calculates out that writing/recording/touring that last Byrne/Eno disc, which was largely independent/DIY, netted him something like $160K a year. I don't know if at this point David Byrne is/was on a tier with Sonic Youth as a recording/touring act. In fact, at this point I have no idea how many new copies of the Talking Heads catalog sell each year, let alone what they bring in to Byrne, but wiki says that "Fear of Music" got certified gold in 1985.

Talking Heads were/are considerably more commercially successful than Sonic Youth ever was. They have several songs that get airplay on classic rock radio, and a top ten single.

This says that Speaking in Tongues,and Stop Making Sense soundtrack were all double platinum, Little Children was platinum, and Buildings and Food was also gold:

http://tsort.info/music/jprrkc.htm

and Remain in Light and Naked, also gold

Yeah, no doubt. Just bringing it up compared to Sonic Youth. If the Heads usually stop around gold, even after decades as catalog staples, then of course Sonic Youth doesn't make there. Just wondering if Byrne solo pulls in more than Sonic Youth did.

this album is nice but i don't feel compelled to come back to it ever. 'a simple answer' makes me think of grandaddy.

(this is a good thing)

I'm listening to this loads, way more than any previous GB records. This may be because most of my CD collection is packed away, but I've still got about 60 albums out to choose from.

admittedly towards the end of the lp i became more interested in hearing again. side b > side a.

I remember reading one review which lauded the first side and said the second sucked!

Ha, in fact it was Stevie T's Uncut review, linked above (and again - http://www.uncut.co.uk/grizzly-bear-shields-review).