Marc Ribot: The Care and Feeding of a Musical Margin

”Do It Yourself” is a lovely idea, one which leaves its believers with a comforting sense of control over their destiny. the only problem is that when the “It” is running a business capable of treating musicians fairly and the “Yourself” is the musicians themselves, it doesn't work, for the same reason that kibbutzes haven't globally replaced private farming, food co-ops haven't replaced supermarkets, housing co-ops haven't (as their original proponents theorized) provided massive havens of low income housing and workers co-ops haven't replaced private industry: Businesses need capital. People who work gigs for a living, by definition, don't have it.

Without capital, venues either eventually fall back on the old strategies of musician exploitation, abandon new music priorities, fail or all three. If those venues are 'artist run', the only difference is that we get to exploit ourselves. Hooray for progress.

Where real capital is provided, a musician friendly business, co-op/non-profit or not, can succeed. I've spent close to two months a year on tour in Europe since 1984, playing over 1,000 gigs. For years, I've asked presenters how their funding was structured. I was often surprised at the answers: even some of what I thought were private clubs were in fact administered by jazz or new music societies or co-operatives. The European gigs were almost always subsidized: usually by the city or state government completely donating the performance space itself. Were Tonic subsidized in this manner, the yearly subsidy would be equal to the amount raised through benefits: but they would have received it EVERY year of their existence.

This is real subsidy, coming from those with access to real capital: not peanuts from a bunch of musicians half of whom lack health coverage, pension or savings.

“The fact that access to Europe was easier and cheaper for NYC musicians than for their LA counterparts is an important factor in the historical productivity of the NYC new music scene as compared with the West Coast.”

it's very true, though I'd probably prefer the term 'visibility' than 'productivity'. the west coast is busy, they're just a lot more insular about it. tim perkis' new film noisy people is a good documentary also touching on the social structure & economics of the sf scene.

that's a fantastic article though, ribot is great

Great piece. Brilliant piece.

LOVE THIS GUY

I'm not actually a Ribot fan (although I did like this article), but I'm looking forward to hearing his installment of Zorn's Book of Angels series.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan myself. I do like some of his solo guitar stuff and the Spiritual Unity album. The Cubanos stuff never did anything for me. Anyway, he's obviously a very smart and thoughtful guy. He should be, like, president of NYC new music or something.

Or he should at least write more articles.

good article, though I wonder at what point people will start referring to corporate commissions/patronage as subsidy. at least in this country, the only market with the available capital to fund art in the same way Ribot talks about in Europe is the corporate sector (which imo has influenced a lot of European markets, and is part of the reason the "neo liberal" govts there might be less open to funding art). He mentions the current administration not offering much hope for subsidy as if previous administrations were handing out grants and funding experimental music clubs. Maybe Ribot's "true believers" will just have to suffer in front of a computer rather than wash dishes, to exploit/cooperate with their industries like composers did w/their patrons in the 1700s.

xpost: He pretty much IS the president of NYC new music ... or at least is the best known leader of its proposed union. They just negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with the Knitting Factory, getting back royalties paid and masters returned to the artists who recorded for the label, apparently the first such agreement in US history. This article is taken from one of his blog posts at its site, http://www.takeittothebridge.com/ "> http://www.takeittothebridge.com/

I went to a protest that Ribot organized in front of Arlene's Grocery once - in protest of their policy of not paying musicians who play there. That was with his group "Noise Action Coalition". I'm glad someone is speaking up about these issues. I thought the article was quite interesting - shedding some light on the economics of the downtown music scene which are usually underreported.

The United States does seem to have this strange (even unique?) position in history as an empire with little interest in proclaiming its own cultural/artistic greatness. Our pop culture may happen to proclaim its own supremacy, but it does so independently of our government.

(and as such it shows little interest in funding the arts)

At the same time I agree with Ribot that that's not entirely a bad thing - institutions aren't always the best places for experimental music to flourish.

The United States does seem to have this strange (even unique?) position in history as an empire with little interest in proclaiming its own cultural/artistic greatness

That's cool. Having other governments sponsor festivals to pay our jazz musicians' mortgages is way cooler than doing it yourself.

Part of the upside of Wynton Marsalis's whole "national cultural treasure" argument about jazz, although I find it a bit constricting, is that it implies that more money should be provided.

I just want to say that I saw Ceramic Dog tonight and they were off the chain.

Spiritual Unity was good too.

This does actually kind of tie into the thread, because I was thinking about how acts Ceramic Dog (the more accessible of the two bands with elements of jam band, math rock, punk, etc.) can help their members support more *difficult* projects like Spiritual Unity (free-improv based on Ayler tunes).

holy shit this new Ceramic Dog record...goddamn

A pal saw the band here a few months back and was pretty bummed at how "rock" it was.

(Of course, I don't know why he was expecting it to be otherwise)

Loving Marc Ribot's funk band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x653ob3PeuM

Saw them last week, the drummer and organ player are killer. Of my agnostic crew who had no idea who he was, one loved it, one thought it was pretty good, and one couldn't stand it.

Drummer is from New Orleans, I saw him few times when he must have been all of 14, he's sick.

I didn't know Ribot had a book out. Came across it browsing in a bookstore this weekend. Skimmed a bit, he writes well.

saw the jazz bins live last year, it was just a boring as that video would suggest

haha

I like Cubanos Postizos. Enjoyed Muy Divertido! on a recent listen.