17 Indie Artists on Their Oddest Odd Jobs That Pay the Bills When Music Doesn’t (not a poll)

When the likes of YSI/Megaupload/Mediafire etc. appeared and Bittorrent became a thing it was game over.

i doubt the vast majority of music consumers have ever used any of these.

Um

I align myself far closer to Turrican’s viewpoint than not, although for far different reasons and like it’s more complicated etc., and I’m surprised at your responses, Brad!

To say that “music these days is shit because nobody’s getting paid” is wrong; music is The Way It Is These Days because nobody’s getting paid.

This means: US or UK will not produce another Mark Hollis or Scott Walker with this current model

This means: we thankfully we be spared the vast amounts of coked-out-for-months-label-is-obligated-to-release-it-anyway releases that Too Much Money creates

This means: musicians will find new and ingenuous ways of creating capital-amassing product

This means: we may be forced to reconcile ourselves to the fact that “the current sound of nihilism” is reflective of the current economic model— XXXTentacion and his resultant success is fully a product of the nihilism that “no money and no privilege” creates and music to reflect that

The fact is that most of the music you love, Brad, relies upon capital investment and/or a particular level of privilege to get it to a level that you’d find digestible— unless, like me, you still have a 90s kid hangover and a taste for DIY and thus listen pretty-much exclusively to Tinashe’s self-produced material over her subsequent material

Music has changed (not for better, not for worse, it’s just changed) to reflect the fact that those of us who aren’t surviving largely on Arctic Monkeys Arcade Fire trickle-down and/or government-assisted grants, we just can’t actually make a living at this any more.

And as a result there is an incredible skepticism toward, and commodification of, musicians/technicians/engineers who actually do know what the fuck they’re doing— it’s like if tweecore became 100% aggressively politicized, and any semblance of “agency” is taken as a signifier of wealth

Unless you’re like Amen Dunes and hide your scion status or whatever

Me, I’m firmly in Camp Cass, kind of: recorded music as a saleable asset is a mistake, and culturally a net negative, and created a false economy in place of something that is inherently meant to be social and hobbyist. (I’m also 100% Team Fund-The-Arts, too)

The point is that it was (historically) the beginning of this whole mess, not that it's the current way people "consume" music.

historically the introduction of 33⅓ was the beginning of this whole mess

player piano music iirc

the error in turrican's theory is that we are saying that it equates file sharing with streaming because they are both digital distribution.... when file sharing is really the end of then not the beginning of now.

in file sharing there's still the idea that music has a monetary value, that it's something that you possess... either by buying it or stealing it. so yeah it is relevant that gen z doesn't know file sharing because they don't even have the idea of any media ownership, it's just as Bowie said, a utility... like turning on a faucet

It's both the end of then and the beginning of now - you cannot have an effect without a cause! The reason Gen Z wouldn't know file sharing is because of the changes to the industry brought on by... file sharing.

Brought on by technological change

And as a result there is an incredible skepticism toward, and commodification of, musicians/technicians/engineers who actually do know what the fuck they’re doing— it’s like if tweecore became 100% aggressively politicized, and any semblance of “agency” is taken as a signifier of wealth

this is totally otm and infuriating

This means: US or UK will not produce another Mark Hollis or Scott Walker with this current model

I was going to post something like this but decided against it because I assumed the response would largely be snark. You were smart to use two examples that are beloved by ILX; I was going to point out that under the current model we'll never see another Dark Side of the Moon, Rumours,, or any of the other coke-addled gajillion dollar records many of us still hold very dear

we won't see something like them but we will see something equally amazing

Yup. I mean, Daft Punk did the opposite of what many assumed they would on Random Access Memories. Rather than go for the kind of "in the box" production that already is sounding stagnant, they made an expensive, rich sounding blockbuster production.

Sadly, this is kinda an anomaly because - being a long-running act - Daft Punk had the money to be able to do it.

(x-post)

I'm worried we'll never see another Rigoletto

I know Josh is joking but it make u think

player piano music is a really weird artefact not replicated in history (as far as the top of my head is offering now):
- consumption was still social (as with the innovation of cheap sheet music enabling popular songs to be heard at home and in the pub)
- the "some musical ability" barrier of entry was removed
- but while some homes and many pubs already had a regular piano, possibly handed down over generations, the player piano was a wildly expensive & worse-sounding upgrade/replacement to a piece of hardware that was already extremely expensive when new

kind of like if Pono had been the next step after the CD player, without an ipod in between, but it only played 96kbps mp3s

not replicated in history - except for Conlon Nancarrow

we won't see something like them but we will see something equally amazing

― Dan S, Wednesday, April 10, 2019 8:45 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have grave doubts

Wasn't Sousa up in arms about sheet music being made widely available? It was Sousa, wasn't it?

I bet he hated the fuck out of the player piano

Has anybody written a good book about the 1942/47 Petrillo strikes? I would love to read more about them. It is amazing that all musicians went on strike for over two years and you really couldn’t hear any new music (apart from reissues and acappellas). That would NEVER happen nowadays.

― Mr. Snrub

and harmonicas because the harmonica wasn't a musical instrument

also there were v-discs

i do wonder what bebop would have been like if not for the recording ban

I bet he hated the fuck out of the player piano

― Paul Ponzi, Wednesday, April 10, 2019 5:54 PM (two minutes ago)

<3

the player piano was the 78, LP, cassette tape, cd, file sharing, streaming

kurt vonnegut's first novel

fgti i think you're totally otm and agree with you, the kinds of artists that receive support and the kinds of music that come from that support changes as the industry changes and revenues shrink and etc. i think about this all the time! i just don't think any of that is what turrican was or is saying. "for far different reasons and like it's more complicated" is pretty much the key difference to me

Part of the reason I laud Mica Levi as much as I do is not just that her music is amazing but that it’s amazing “in this economy”— she’s found ways of working within tiny budgetary requirements (expensive hiring of Herbert on Jewellery included; she was a kid and it was her debut and clearly money well spent), and can also turn out magic when given the larger budget of a funded orchestra or a movie score with a budget for orchestra; she can also make the best album of the year (Feeling...) with just a computer and little else; see also other perennial fgti favourite Total Freedom

i just don't think any of that is what turrican was or is saying.

Actually, fgti elaborated quite well on a lot of what I was/am saying.

oh my god just shut up

Hey, it's not my fault that that actually warranted clarification!

I loved Mica Levi's score to Under the Skin

This is a shitty thing to say, but maybe musicians don’t deserve to make a living. Maybe it should be a hobby. But if that’s true, I don’t want to see some talentless pop stars making what they make, while quality living museums of folk-music knowledge get paid nothing. That’s not cool. But I’m not the one to decide. It’s good for people to know that, when they come out to see a show, these people are putting their whole life on the line to give their heart and soul. It means something more than money.”

But it's not like this is a new thing unique to this streaming era. Let's be real: "quality living museums of folk-music knowledge" have been broke since the invention of music, in the recording era there were a few who broke the rule and made bank but for every huge singer/songwriter that didn't need to worry about rent like say, Bob Dylan or Cat Stevens or Paul Simon there were thousands of musicians like say Jackson C. Frank, Ed Askew or Nick Drake that were on the other side of the dime.

It's not that musicians don't deserve to make a living, it's just that there's way too many of them and not everyone gets to be a star. You'll find this trend in virtually every entertainment branch since the beginning of time and I've never understood the attitude of acting all bitter and blame it on these damn kids and their pop interests.

"Quality living museums of folk-music knowledge" do exist right now, except they are Club Mate-soused computer geeks who churn out hits for "talentless" pop stars, and are "museums" of the modern folk-music canon-- i.e., the pop charts.

Cass is himself an instrumentalist and he is lamenting a perceived economic decline of instrumental music, and rightfully so: he's the best songwriter, everybody knows it, and cherishes his albums, and yet still he underperforms at the ticket wicket, and it's a mystery as to why this is the case

Lol can you imagine if back in 2004 or whatever, Cass McCombs started making the same decisions that M.Ward has been making for the past 15 years? And vice versa? Wow that'd be really interesting. Cass sells out and forms a chart-topping kinda-twee duo with like Michelle Williams and M.Ward keeps on chugging out various versions of Vincent and wondering in thinkpieces why people don't respect the folk canon? I don't own a single M.Ward or She & Him album but that dude surely owns property by now

I should clarify, I really love Vincent and could probably sing every word of that album. I do like M. Ward and I'm glad he did good

This is all, btw, weirdly kind of apropos, since a couple of weeks ago in New York I had dinner with a musician friend of mine who was lamenting the state of things (for non-financial reasons, tbf). But I asked him, figuring he would know, if he knew many indie people making a living from making music, and iirc the person he eventually came up with was ... Cass McCombs. He didn't say he was making *tons* of cash, and he still had to tour all the time, but my friend said said he apparently did make enough to at least pay his band OK, and while I don't know if *they* are necessarily making a particularly good living, it ... beats working?

We did talk about a couple of other bands we knew, and their biggest issue was getting older, having families etc., and generally being unable to keep up whatever momentum they once had, at least not enough to attract new (which is to say, younger) fans who could replace their peers, who were going through similar stages of getting older, hailing families and not going to shows or buying music as much.

I honestly don't know if there are necessarily any fewer bands able to sell out relatively big clubs or venues than there were one the getting was good (if it ever was), but the paradox is that you have to keep touring non-stop while simultaneously working on new stuff. Which is a pretty tricky position to be in. But yeah, at least when it comes to performance, there doesn't seem to be a particular dearth of acts able to sell out shows, at least in this city.

I kind of wish that article was about some acts I actually recognized. Like, I dunno, a band like Best Coast. They haven't put out an album in three or four years, and while modestly popular they weren't huge or anything. What has she been doing in the meantime? Was she successful enough not to need a day job?

I like Best Coast - Bethany Cosentino

wonder what they're up to

It’s like this

Bands that exist within public consciousness— like Best Coast— can and will pull in 20-30k a year, passively. It’s like a zeitgeist thing? A playlist thing? Best Coast had SONGS and they’re still being played and licensed and the shit they’ve been sync’d for is still being syndicated. She’s ok.

Cass doesn’t have that. I don’t have that— my passive income is in film scores. Basically if you can make hay in “music industry” for a couple years you might be able to surf the aftermath. You know who I’m always wondering about? Marnie Stern. How is her income?

Cass’s “problem” if you could call it that is that he seems to have ingrained “don’t sell out” architecture and it appeals to me (I paid for that shit on vinyl) but until he licenses “The Executioner’s Song” to Grey’s Anatomy he will continue to sell half as many tickets as he should

<3 <3 ftgi, I hope you will have every success, your music is amazing, it's been a part of my life and of the lives of people I love

*fgti*

Xpost: isn’t Marnie Stern part of a late night show band? I remember seeing her like 4 years ago.

Yeah just checked, apparently she’s been on the Seth Meyer’s 8G band since 2013 so I guess playing music does pay for her bills.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_8G_Band

This is all, btw, weirdly kind of apropos, since a couple of weeks ago in New York I had dinner with a musician friend of mine who was lamenting the state of things (for non-financial reasons, tbf). But I asked him, figuring he would know, if he knew many indie people making a living from making music, and iirc the person he eventually came up with was ... Cass McCombs. He didn't say he was making *tons* of cash, and he still had to tour all the time, but my friend said said he apparently did make enough to at least pay his band OK, and while I don't know if *they* are necessarily making a particularly good living, it ... beats working?

Musicians having to tour - oh, the humanity! Surely Ms. McCombs would be all in favour of touring, toiling at the coalface, getting his hands dirty, unlike a pampered talentless pop star? Apparently Cass McCombs is 41, I wonder what Edgar Broughton was doing when he was 41, or the bass player from Piblokto or whoever, I wonder how they were making ends meet.

player piano music is a really weird artefact not replicated in history (as far as the top of my head is offering now):

not on the consumer side but it's the basic principle behind MIDI

ha ha yes but player piano was almost entirely a consumer medium (bcz the rigged-up western-movie saloon bar pianos that played themselves, vs ppl gathering around & singing while one person worked the pedals, was even more expensive?)

the idealistic principle of the piano operator working the pedals while playing basic bass counterpoints,or melodic embellishments, over the top is SO close to shitty members’ club or corporate-dinner duos with one midi-kbd player dude and a singer in a cocktail dress though, 💗 the comparison

Didn't they used to pirate player piano rolls?

Apparently there was a big law suit because the player piano people didn't pay anything for the music. The rolls were deemed a mechanical device, not a copy as such.

But I had in mind people punching their own rolls, copies of an original.

music writers: indie musicians are struggling to make ends meet wow so sad

also music writers: this album sucks 3.1/10 better luck next time lol

— Dent May (@dentmay) April 9, 2019

talking of timeless standards

Gaddis to thread

Musicians deserve to make a living in that they are a subset of “everyone” obv

more like

music writers: indie musicians are struggling to make ends meet wow so sad

also music writers: please enjoy another 5000 word thinkpiece about Carly Rae Jepsen

do the teens of today know what "file sharing" is? do they use "bittorrents"? are there any teens on this board?

I actually do wonder about that - whether there's be actual cash-money benefit to musicians whose records don't sell much if they got more of the ink/bits that the big-ticket names get - if the notion of "importance" hadn't reached a point of being strictly correlated with success (or, very occasionally, "influence") - ultimately I don't think it's reasonable to say "musicians are poor because critics don't write about them," but I think the way the money gets spread around is not unrelated to whose stuff is seen as "counting"

xp to Paul P

are there any teens on this board?

youngest person still posting turned 56 last month iirc