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

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

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

name them

Thread would have been much better if it had actually just been a poll of the jobs, tbh

The Magic Band were living on a cup of lentils a day when they were working on "Trout Mask Replica" but that's apropos of nothing as this thread is a nostalgiac look back to the days when Razorlight were given half a million and six months to hone their important second album.

name them

How much do you pay per word?

name them

― blokes you can't rust (sic)

buckle up old friend

https://medium.com/@embirdened/everything-critical-on-carly-rae-jepsen-5b0f13b6be62
https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/18/9173525/carly-rae-jepsen-emotion-album
https://newrepublic.com/article/136360/case-carly-rae-jepsen
https://themuse.jezebel.com/this-is-why-carly-rae-jepsen-isnt-more-famous-1826070349
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/05/646424840/carly-rae-jepsen-is-the-21st-centurys-queen-of-a-million-kingdoms
https://www.theawl.com/2015/08/notes-on-21st-century-mystic-carly-rae-jepsen/

ouch, I bet that hurts, sic

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.

And yet I have a difficult time imagining any of those people bagging my groceries at Trader Joe’s.

I don’t play music but I have many friends that do, and I don’t think any of them are under any allusions about being rock stars or about “making it.” I think they’d merely like to be spared the indignity of requiring a side hustle. The artists you name, afaik, had contracts, were paid advances, generally sustained themselves as musicians. Jackson C Frank wrote for other artists; Nick Drake made three records for a major label. Ed Askew is maybe the odd man out here (and ESP were obviously notorious for ripping off artists) but even he was probably paid more per show than whoever is opening for Lambchop or the Mountain Goats right now

NPR is the only link there that qualifies as music press though? but even if they were, what is this meant to prove? That "music writers" are ignoring indie musicians in favor of [whatever category CJR falls into] and thereby consigning indie musicians to poverty?

fwiw, in Ponzi's remixed meme, the first party is Pitchfork but afaict they have never written a 5000-word thinkpiece about Jepsen

Credits per the liner notes of Emotion.

Music:
Noonie Bao – backing vocals (track 1)
CJ Baran – all instruments (tracks 2, 9, 17)
Rostam Batmanglij – keyboards, piano (track 11)
Ajay Bhattacharyya – synths (track 10)
Peter Carlsson – solina (track 3)
Samuel Dixon – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, synths (track 7)
Carl Falk – instruments, guitars (track 8)
Ethan Farmer – bass (tracks 5, 12)
Wojtek Goral – saxophone (track 1)
Oscar Görres – backing vocals (track 1)
Zachary Gray – bass, synths (track 10)
Jeff Halatrax – drums, synths, keyboards, bass (track 3)
Svante Halldin – violin (track 4)
Oscar Holter – backing vocals (track 1)
Devonté Hynes – guitars (track 5)
Wouter Janssen – all instruments (track 14)
Carly Rae Jepsen – lead vocals (all tracks); backing vocals (track 1)
Jakob Jerlström – backing vocals (track 1)
Tommy King – keyboards (track 12)
Daniel Farrugia - keyboards, piano (track 5)
Greg Kurstin – bass, drums, guitar, keyboards (track 6)
Katerina Loules – backing vocals (track 14)
Lukas "Lulou" Loules – all instruments (track 14)
Roger Manning, Jr. – synthesizers (track 5)
Mattman & Robin – backing vocals, bass, drums, percussion (tracks 1, 4, 15); guitars (tracks 1, 4); vocoder, synths (track 15)
Missy Modell – backing vocals (track 3)
Daniel Nigro – guitar (track 12)
Emre Ramazanoglu – synths, percussion, drums (track 7)
Rami – instruments, bass (track 8)
Ariel Rechtshaid – synthesizers, percussion (track 5)
Sibel Redžep – backing vocals (track 1)
Ben Romans – all instruments (tracks 2, 9)
Ludvig Söderberg – backing vocals (track 1)
Marlene Strand – backing vocals (track 8)
Peter Svensson – drums, synths, keyboards, bass, guitar (track 3)
Greg Wells – drums, synths (track 13)
Production:
Henrique Andrade – engineering assistance (track 7)
CJ Baran – production, programming (tracks 2, 9, 17)
Rostam Batmanglij – production, engineering, drum and synth programming (track 11)
Ajay Bhattacharyya – production, recording, drum programming (track 10)
Mikaelin 'Blue' Bluespruce – recording (track 5)
Mario Borgatta – mixing assistance (track 10)
Julian Burg – engineering (track 6)
Martin Cooke – engineering assistance (track 10)
Rich Costey – mixing (track 10)
Tom Coyne – mastering (tracks 1–4, 8)
John DeBold – engineering assistance (tracks 5, 12)
Samuel Dixon – programming (track 7)
Micky Evelyn – engineering assistance (track 5)
Eric Eylands – engineering assistance (track 3)
Carl Falk – production, programming (track 8)
Nicholas Fournier – engineering assistance (track 10)
Kyle Gaffney – engineering assistance (track 14)
Chris Galland – mixing assistance (tracks 6, 12)
Serban Ghenea – mixing (tracks 1–4, 8)
Zachary Gray – production, recording (track 10)
Gene Grimaldi – mastering (tracks 6–7, 9–17)
Josh Gudwin – vocal production, vocal recording (track 7)
Jeff Halatrax – production, engineering, programming (track 3)
John Hanes – mix engineering (tracks 1–4, 8)
The High Street – production (track 7)
Devonté Hynes – production, programming (track 5)
Chris Kasych – engineering (tracks 11–12)
Greg Kurstin – production, engineering (track 6)
Lukas "Lulou" Loules – production, engineering, mixing (track 14)
Eric Madrid – mixing (tracks 7, 13, 15)
Manny Marroquin – mixing (tracks 6, 12)
Mattman & Robin – production (tracks 1, 4, 15); programming (tracks 1, 15)
Mitch McCarthy – mixing (tracks 16–17)
Scott Moore – engineering (track 4)
Daniel Nigro – additional production, programming (track 12)
Robert Orton – mixing (tracks 5, 11)
Alex Pasco – engineering (track 6)
Noah Passovoy – additional vocal recording (track 15)
Emre Ramazanoglu – programming (track 7)
Rami – production, programming (track 8)
Ariel Rechtshaid – production, programming (tracks 5, 12); recording (track 5); engineering, drum programming (track 12)
Ben Romans – production, programming (tracks 2, 9)
Will Sandalls – engineering (track 16)
Matt Schaeffer – engineering assistance (tracks 14, 16)
Ike Schultz – mixing assistance (tracks 6, 12)
Wesley Seidman – recording (track 5)
Kyle Shearer – production (track 16)
Shellback – production (track 1)
Laura Sisk – additional engineering (track 12)
Stint – production (track 10)
Shane Stoneback – engineering (track 11)
Peter Svensson – production, engineering, programming (track 3)
Juan Carlos Torrado – engineering assistance (tracks 3, 17)
Randy Urbanski – engineering (track 4)
Jaime Velez – engineering assistance (track 3)
Robert Vosgien – mastering (track 5)
Vincent Vu – mixing assistance (tracks 7, 13, 15)
Greg Wells – production, programming (track 13)
Wired Masters – mastering (track 14)
Business:
Scott "Scooter" Braun – executive production, A&R, management
Greg Carr – marketing coordination
Lisa DiAngelo – publicity
John Ehmann – A&R
David Gray – A&R
Pamela Gurley – legal representation
Brad Haugen – marketing, creative direction
Laura Hess – management, marketing
Dyana Kass – marketing
Allison Kaye – management
Steve Kopec – management
Evan Lamberg – A&R
Kenny Meiselas – legal representation
Katherine Neiss – A&R coordination
Olivia Zaro – A&R
Packaging:
Jessica Severn – art direction and design
Karla Welch – styling
Matthew Welch – photography

This is not including her touring crew for the album, so if you think about it, CRJ is making way more musicians and music-related employees make ends meet and pay rent than any of those indie musicians.

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.

Or capitalism, for that matter. If anything, the exponential swell of recorded music in the internet era has not been accompanied by an analogous increase in audience. There's a human limit to the amount of acts one can follow, even within a given sub-genre, even for crazed obsessives who revel in the glut such as ourselves. This is equally true for other art forms, which in some sense means that the notion of 'audience' is simultaneously more and less precious than ever. Most of today's artworks exist in a quasi vacuum, and it's not going to change any time soon. Much is and will be consigned to oblivion even prior to its inception, regardless of quality (there's no such thing as a bottomless archive).

This is not including her touring crew for the album, so if you think about it, CRJ is making way more musicians and music-related employees make ends meet and pay rent than any of those indie musicians.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, April 11, 2019 10:45 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, because otherwise the "artists" that make up that legal department and four people handing "management" would surely be destitute

The Magic Band were living on a cup of lentils a day when they were working on "Trout Mask Replica" but that's apropos of nothing

I think this was more a manipulative cult leader head-trip tactic on the part of the good Captain than an actual economic reality but if it prevented them becoming Razorlight it was worth it

Sometimes I think about Freedy Johnston selling that farm to feed the band...that land would be worth so much money now

as a carly rae jepsen thinkpiece writer who somehow also manages to write about indie musicians struggling to make ends meet, i fucking hate this conversation

Maybe somebody could organize a benefit project for struggling pop musicians, call it "Band Aid" or something

irl lol

How many Christmases have bands missed because they were on the road? Did they even know?

Tonight thank god it's them instead of U2

U2 should give out grants, otherwise the next Pete Yorn could fall through the cracks.

I think this was more a manipulative cult leader head-trip tactic on the part of the good Captain than an actual economic reality but if it prevented them becoming Razorlight it was worth it

Possibly, though Beefheart himsekf was still relying on food parcels from his granny!

Making a living in the sense we are discussing is also related to the lack of affordable housing in big cities.

u2 should pay their taxes moreike

ouch, I bet that hurts, sic

where is Jia Tolentino’s piece about indie musicians struggling to make money, and when did she quit writing about Trump committing sexual assault and about youth vaping and Brett Kavanaugh and Miss America and novels and abortion law?

where is Ryan Bird’s piece about indie musicians struggling to make money, and where does he get paid to write about music?

I only checked the first and last btw, perhaps all the other pieces contained links to paid writers’ sad thoughts about indie musicians

Credits per the liner notes of Emotion.

two different people are credited with "all instruments" for track 14... seems fishy to me... CRJ needs to tighten up her oversight of the payroll.

carly rae jepsen is a tax-avoidance scheme CONFIRMED

I think some of capitalism's best work is ruthlessly exploiting middle class indie kids and making them miserable!

the Beefheart side-quest in this thread is delightful

expecting a tweet with the "[x]: statement / [also x]: contradictory statement" construct to accurately refer to the same people is as futile in this instance as it always is

at any rate, sic, the point isn't at all that the same writers are doing exactly this dual thing. that's not how the "___:. also ____:" trope works. the point is that there are many, many more long pieces about e.g. carly rae jepsen et al than there are about e.g. cass mccombs, but when the mccombs piece runs, people lament the state of the biz. part of the state of the biz is it supports the already-successful & devotes whole pieces to their sales, the nature of their popularity, etc., and doesn't leave a lot of room for "look, you've never heard of cass mccombs, but his music's tremendous, here's a long piece about his new one, we're giving it as much ink as we gave carly rae because it's at least as good"

the core complaint here is, I think, that the broadly-considered "music press" (meaningless concept almost in 2019) is more the entertainment business press, and its priorities involve the maintenance of a sort of hierarchy, though I don't like the word "hierarchy" in this context. an order, anyway. that order involves more attention to the people whose merit has already been demonstrated by their having become famous. this isn't really a new complaint, but I think it is one that's been hand-waved a lot since the 80s or so

xp right!

“some people say one thing, but a completely different group of people say an entirely unrelated thing” is a pretty pointless call-out

I think some of capitalism's best work is ruthlessly exploiting middle class indie kids and making them miserable!

WOW this is an excellent take would buy a t-shirt

as a carly rae jepsen thinkpiece writer who somehow also manages to write about indie musicians struggling to make ends meet, i fucking hate this conversation

it's cool man, we've all gotta eat

Making a living in the sense we are discussing is also related to the lack of affordable housing in big cities.

glad someone other than me brought this up. I know people who would be making a comfortable middle-class living from music ... if they lived places that weren't the SF Bay Area/NYC/LA ... but, if they lived places other than where they do, they would be way less likely to have the income/opportunities that they currently do.

Re: Carly Rae
This is not including her touring crew for the album, so if you think about it, CRJ is making way more musicians and music-related employees make ends meet and pay rent than any of those indie musicians.

This is verging on the logic for giving tax breaks to large corporations -- it's definitely "trickle down theory" for sure

I feel like one of the key factors in "being able to devote enough time to one's musical career: y or n" is rent control -- granted, I probably spend way more time asking way more people about how much they pay in rent (or for mortgage/taxes/etc) than most people do -- so maybe I'm "too close" ?

weird how no one ever mentions that one of the major factors driving down the value of musician labor is the fact that so many people are willing, even enthusiastic, enough about doing it that they will do it for free. capital exploits this. They don't need to increase anyone's wages because there is literally a vast labor pool that will volunteer to exploit themselves and (perhaps after a little conniving/false promises/duplicitous business practices) give away their goods for free. this is not true of any other kind of labor I can think of.

that's why there will never be a strike or a meaningful union - because the creation of music historically has always been a communal/hobbyist practice that is open to pretty much anyone and that people do for the sheer enjoyment of it. the only real analogy is sports - where pro athletes are the equivalent of major label superstars.