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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLQ293VZzRc

They are stealing the very food out of the mouths of indie musicians.

wait - are you talking about Negativland or babies?

Both.

ok i will let them know

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.

1. I'm pretty sure that The Magic Band would rather they hadn't been living on a cup of lentils a day, although I'm quite sure a lot of the stories surrounding that album is just bullshit in the name of good old rock mythology.

2. Where did you get that figure from? Loveless cost £250,000 - for some reason I doubt the second Razorlight album cost that much.

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 love Total Freedom and think he's a legend. I believe he also works at Chipotle.

1. I'm sure but, you know, there wasn't that much money around, not like the 1990s.
2. You think I know how much the second Razorlight album cost to record?

(xp)

I'm pretty sure that The Magic Band would rather they hadn't been living on a cup of lentils a day

uh, that's kinda the point of the post as I read it?

I've just realized Razorlight weren't around in the 1990s!

i didn't know razorlight from a fleshlight -- so I googled them, and it said they formed in 2002

I thought I'd get that in before I'm schooled on the exact date they were formed and the recording costs on their sophomore album.

i think it's also really important for someone to inform us exactly what type of lentils the Trout Mask musicians were eating ... probably more interesting than razorslight

*second album.

(x-post)

can't believe no one has made a Razorlight vs. A Cup of Lentils (T/S) thread yet

(xp) That's what I said.

Oh, Razorlight were absolute garbage - but an absolute garbage band who somehow managed to have three Top 5 albums and 5 Top 10 hits in their very short lifespan, so I guess they did alright for themselves. I don't believe for one second that any of their albums cost half a million to make, though.

pretty sure they ran on beans tbh xps

Actually it might have been a cup of rice, rather than a cup of lentils.

... nah, definitely (maybe) lentils.

rice vs. beans

mitigating factor: Trout Mask Replica was recorded over the month of Lent.

"Where did you get that figure from? Loveless cost £250,000 - for some reason I doubt the second Razorlight album cost that much."

Perhaps, but a quarter of a million pounds in 1990-91 and a quarter of a million in 2006 are two different things.

Also, Razorlight were on the very huge Vertigo and MBV were on Creation Records, which hadn't been sold to Sony yet (as a direct result of the final bill for the Loveless sessions).

Second Razorlight LP was recorded at British Grove Studios by Chris Thomas, neither of those things are cheap.

Perhaps, but a quarter of a million pounds in 1990-91 and a quarter of a million in 2006 are two different things.

well tbf, the inflation rate between 1991 and 2006 wasn't all that much, £250k in 1991 was £370k in 2006. e.g. compare to 1971 and 1986 (£1.2m!)

i didn't know razorlight from a fleshlight -- so I googled them, and it said they formed in 2002

― sarahell, Thursday, April 11, 2019 1:23 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this could be a painful mixup

Even accounting for the inflation differences, choice of producer and choice of studio, I'm utterly unconvinced the second Razorlight album cost that much.

It didn't, so can we stop talking about the cost of the second Razorlight album?

facts aside i would like to point out that i was otm in this thread

Young musicians without a rich family should expect their unheard music to remain unheard regardless of its quality. Otherwise, expect the time/cost/effort/thought/creativity/travel/etc invested into the work to be a complete waste.

sad but true

expect the time/cost/effort/thought/creativity/travel/etc invested into the work to be a complete waste.

yr a complete waste

making music is fun!

Beats working for a living, er....

I would estimate that the vast majority of musicians that do manage to make money use PR, or have a label that does. This is another expensive stumbling block that you probably need to get wide coverage in the age of musical saturation.

https://www.ludwig-van.com/toronto/2019/04/09/liszts-ten-composers-who-had-day-jobs/

Classical version. The John Cage one is kind of interesting I think.

Indeed, especially as Cornelius Cardew also worked as a graphic designer.

the idea that making music is a "waste" if it doesn't make money or even if it's never heard is so wrong to me, playing music with people is a joy, especially playing with people and improvising, moments that aren't documented or meant to be....

it's such a sad, joyless way to view life, if you spent an afternoon painting and it was never sold was that a waste?

I don’t work much with rock acts as there isn’t that much to pick from in my city and travelling costs for bands always send the budgets to the moon but I do work with djs and electronic producers and I can tell you it’s very profitable at least on those music genres over here. I don’t know about the culture in the US but at least in Europe and Latinamerica almost every decent dj I know is constantly touring, even the lesser known ones have a fee of 1k + flights and acommodation per night and they don’t split the money with anyone else. I’ve paid 25k for djs (at those levels they do split money with their booking agency) that are booked for practically every weekend of the year and they even charge more on bigger venues.

Since they’re constantly touring they don’t waste much money and there’s no need to be paying rent in a stupidly expensive city like New York. It’s better to just buy an apartment or a house in a less expensive city to go relax to on your downtime.

The Eric Whitacre one is perfect.

it's such a sad, joyless way to view life, if you spent an afternoon painting and it was never sold was that a waste?

No. But what if no one ever looks at it? Is that a waste? I guess it depends on why you're painting.

Indeed. If a painting is commissioned and not sold or even looked at, then it has been a waste in the long term, no matter how enjoyable the process of creating the work was in the first place. If the work wasn't commissioned, then I suppose the artist gets the self-indulgent thrill of creating something, but only in the short term. Of course, lack of recognition and lack of financial success can be demoralising and lead to apathy and a "what's the point?" attitude.

Fwiw, when a band/artist is under a recording contract, all albums can be considered commissioned regardless of how much or how little creative freedom the artist has. They are commissioned as products to be sold and to be heard. If they are not heard and not sold, then it has all been a waste of time, regardless of how much or how little the artist has enjoyed making the record.

Don't even know where to start with that pile of garbage tbh.

carly rae jepsen is a tax-avoidance scheme CONFIRMED

? arli$$ and bible black (bizarro gazzara)

michael nesmith's first solo album was a tax avoidance scheme, it's pretty good though i do like magnetic south better

don joyce isn't stealing any food from anybody's mouths, he's been dead since 2015

the captain beefheart poverty stories i know are the ones from "the real frank zappa book" were zappa talks about him and don living on giant jars of peanut butter, and also going to a local diner for chili and spending more money on the jukebox than on the chili

bob dylan, of course, got his start as a folk-singer by stealing the record collection of everybody in the village, maybe that's a romantic myth too, i don't know. avoiding that simple truth probably had a lot to do with dylan becoming such a good storyteller, at least.

that website didn't want me to read about how classical composers made money because they aren't making money from my reading that

has anybody come right out and said that capitalism is bad and we should get rid of it? because that's what this thread seems to mostly be dancing around

'Politician' is the ultimate side hustle.

I just typed about 1000 words but I decided against posting it. Summarized:

- most countries aside from the US and UK offer subsidies for their musicians, either directly or in the form of employment opportunities (funding venues and festivals)
- 3% of musicians don't need any help and they're just Grimes or Robyn and it just works, they roll up and people will pay anything to see them do anything, it's not hype, it's just talent and star-power
- 22% of musicians do need the help and the hype, you have to tell people that Lucky Dragons are coming to town and that it's really important and worthwhile to go see them, etc
- it totally fucking sucks to be part of that 22% and to be out on tour and find that the promoter has just opted not to invest the time and take a loss on the show, and you drove three hours to play to six people, the show just isn't listed in the papers or even at the venue, this happens to people all the time
- 75% of musicians simply do not have a long-term viable career available to them
- 75% of musicians make music that is fine but is also inessential; it doesn't fulfill a baseline requirement of being worth the listener's investment of time and/or money
- 75% of musicians, when faced with this reality, try and find other ways of making their music work. Sometimes this means developing a magnetic Twitter presence which attracts more listeners than the music itself justifies. Sometimes this means revamping your sound over and over again until you figure out the right way to do it (Dev Hynes, i.e.) Sometimes this means going online and shit-talking other musicians bitterly, tweeting shit like "Porches is a pedophile" because the US is still Kissinger Country, creating chaos in the lives of your "competitors" is surely profitable (or at least pleasurable to American brains). Sometimes people in this 75% bracket will do interviews with Vulture and blame falling revenues as a result for why they simply can't turn a profit anymore (and they're right, but lamenting this fact doesn't turn you a profit.) Sometimes people just decide to go whole-hog and embrace Patreon and Kickstarter-- in many ways, I have to respect Amanda Palmer for being the most quintessentially American musician for, somehow, turning a monstrous profit with such little talent or personal magnetism.
- Or sometimes this just means embracing the fact that your music is your hobby, or a part-time job-- just because you don't have a career-in-music available to you does not mean that your music isn't valuable and worthwhile and necessary. I've stated here and likely elsewhere that all my favourite musicians in my city have day-jobs. My favourite songwriter is a stonemason. My favourite pianist works in telecom. My favourite guitarist.. is a guitarist, but he primarily does side-man work.
- lastly, I don't know how it is for other people, but I write songs to impress my boyfriend, to express anger about a shitty thing that happened, to respond to something, like, to correct an error, and for other reasons, but at the heart of this creative impulse is an endgame fantasy: I will get paid, and I will be applauded. Might be $10 and "an appreciative thing spoken by a friend", or it might be $10k and a standing O from a packed house, but the endgame is always part of the creative impulse.

If they are not heard and not sold, then it has all been a waste of time, regardless of how much or how little the artist has enjoyed making the record.

this is objectively wrong btw

ums otm in this thread, permaban Turrican

If they are not heard and not sold, then it has all been a waste of time, regardless of how much or how little the artist has enjoyed making the record.

These days it's almost impossible to remain completely unheard. At least one advantage with the current way is that you can always get a couple of hundred of people to hear your music anyway even with minimal promotion.

Selling records is more of a challenge though. T think the trick is you have to be a regular presence on social media, which is a shame in some ways but necessary if you want to sell records in 2019, unless you can enlist someone else to do this stuff.