Arooj Aftab

Riley got a bit more of the spotlight than necessary I felt, a few times I got itchy waiting for Aftab to sing again while he soloed

have to agree, good as he was

some kind of electric...idk, something in the sitar family tree

I also wonder what it was, here's a bad photo I took, maybe someone can help identify the instrument:

https://i.imgur.com/PuMCQcW.png

Ooh that is actually cooler looker than I realized in a dark & neon-lit club (Aftab made fun of the lighting at one point; I felt kind of bad for the tech, but they were pulling out all the stops to an absurd degree).

Still not sure what it is--I said "sitar family" because iirc it made a sustained, droning noise rather than a something more lute-like. It could be a really simplified veena maybe? I can't remember what his hands were doing while playing it though

I saw her last night in Ljubljana. Beautiful music, crystal clear sound. She could tone down the between-song banter a bit, which I felt broke the spell at times. By all means talk to the audience but I found some of her anecdotes rambling and not as funny as she thought they were. I just wanted them to get on with the music. Wonderful musicians [guitar & violin] + voice, though, obviously.

lol i loved her banter but can see what you mean

I like the idea, as mentioned on here upthread, that she likes to put her audience at ease. But some of her gags and stories were just lame or didn't hit their targets. Oh well, sorry to dwell on that aspect because it was otherwise a very special gig.

I do agree it doesn't really benefit the music

maybe some of it is nervousness

but the music's so good it doesn't really matter

Here's a brief interview with her in this 'culture news' report on Slovenian TV, in which she comes across really well: https://4d.rtvslo.si/arhiv/kultura/174891899 [I'm in the background briefly!]

I love what she says about connecting with the music even though you don't understand the language. I love the idea of someone singing with gentle power in (what is to me) a completely unknown language.

I see what you mean, giraffe, but I saw her last Saturday in Katowice and personally didn't mind her stage banter at all (though she didn't really tell actual anecdotes, more just was vibing with the energy in the room).

TBH it did initially take me out of it to see her being this down-to-earth chill performer pouring herself wine on stage, joking, and taking a selfie video with the audience but I suppose it was only because I had no reference point—I had never seen or heard her speak before, only listened to Vulture Prince a lot since last year, and probably subconsciously projected the heavy emotions in the songs onto the person behind them. So maybe I half-expected a solemn mystic singing behind a haze of smoke—but that's obviously on me!

Actually, now that I think about it, her warmth and laidback attitutde provided a nice counterpoint to the gut punches served repeatedly in the songs (the performance of the actual music was absolutely top notch). She seemed genuinely lovely and like a cool person to hang out with, her band members (Gyan Riley on guitar and Darius Donovan Thomas on violin) too.

Lots of good points,ˈʌglɪɪst preɪ [How do you pronounce this?]. When someone you've never seen or heard live before walks up to the mic you have no idea what kind of person they're going to be and there's a measure of trepidation all round. When she started talking I was taken aback by the contrast between the solemnity of the music and the chilled comedy of the performer between songs (she was unbelievably relaxed at the mic). Maybe we were unlucky with the package of jokes we got... :)

reminds me of Townes Van Zandt on some stages, going back & forth, stark ballads and zings

meanwhile,

Hugely honored to receive the Presidents Pride of Performance Award today wowwww thank you Mr.President @ArifAlvi and H.E US ambassador @Masood__Khan for the nomination

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) August 14, 2022

Her tweet thread about touring and playing to large crowds but still losing money is getting attention

Touring has been amazing. We headlined a ton, had massive turnouts and have proven ourselves in all the markets. Yet still, running 10s of thousands in debt from the tour and I’m being told that it’s “normal”. Why is this normal. This should not be normalized.

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) September 6, 2022

This is after artists already lost so much income during Covid. Now post covid flights fuel visas taxes and hotel prices are outrageous, promoters afraid to raise ticket prices, audiences still nervous to go out… what a fking mess and we are expected to take the hit

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) September 6, 2022

I don't know all the ins and outs but it sounds like a lot of those things are outside anyone's individual control?

Yeah, I mean, that's why it's such a depressing situation, there's not magic bullet solution. Raising ticket prices enough to cover all of those other cost increases is really unlikely to help, it'll just encourage more people to stay home.

That said, I don't know enough about her specific tour to know if this is indeed entirely representative. The "10s of thousands" sound pretty shocking for sure.

The magic bullet solution is twofold: to boycott streaming services and for everyone to get vaccinated

That tweet is ultra depressing. I mean she was on Obama's playlist for chrissakes

I read that more as a riposte to the idea that "touring is how you make money in the music biz" rather than a specific critique of venue prices, even if that seems like the only immediately available solution

obama should give $100,000 to everyone he puts on his playlist

or royalties on his next book

Not sure about other cities, but she played a pretty small venue here in the spring (~200), so am curious if others have seen "massive" turnouts. Tickets were only $31 all-in with venue fees and taxes. I have to imagine her audience is older, which means she can probably stand to raise prices and not lose as many, but I do think her demos have been slower to return to nightlife post-covid.

yeah, i think what she is saying there is "hey i'm doing pretty well and still drowning, help our industry is dying"

obviously i don't think bands playing shows is ever going to disappear, but the one-two punch of predatory streaming and COVID may take out a lot of them ... probably already has and we just don't know it yet.

adding this after seeing Indexed's post: yes, her interpretation of "massive" and proving oneself in markets may be different than others'.

Well, feeling guilty, I just bought VP on vinyl. Didn't realize it had finally been released.

bummer for sure

usually would not advocate for patronage but the margin on a vinyl is not great afaik, so I imagine sending ~2 dollars directly could possibly benefit as much as buying a 30 dollar vinyl

touring should not have a negative margin

I wanted to buy Vulture Prince at her gig - I like buying directly from the artist where possible - but they were charging 40 euros. I want to be a good fan and support her but I couldn't justify spending that much on an album.

Not that that detracts from what she's saying.

I find it hard to believe that many artists are touring at a loss right now, let alone a loss of “tens of thousands” of dollars

yeah, for a three piece... I dunno, should be possible to pay hotels and travel expenses

but then again, it's the music biz

remember when I first read abt members of TLC filing for bankruptcy at the height of their immense commercial sucess (but I digress)

I think they played a lot of festivals, which I could see not paying super well (?). Also, on her list, "visas" stood out to me. I don't know if she has US citizenship or not, but especially if she doesn't, I imagine that is pretty expensive

I see she has a European tour coming up. Possible that they have just had to pre-book (and pay for) lots of plane tickets, visas, hotels, etc. in advance of getting paid?

I thought festivals (and colleges) were the big money makers on tour? That's what I have always heard.

I read that more as a riposte to the idea that "touring is how you make money in the music biz" rather than a specific critique of venue prices, even if that seems like the only immediately available solution

― rob, Wednesday, September 7, 2022 2:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Her wording in the two tweets shared above kind of conveys that feeling popular tweets often do where people are meant to be whipped up to "take a stand" against some oppressive societal system or power ("This should not be normalized" & "we are expected to take the hit") so while I agree with you about their likely intention I was a little unsure myself, hence my own initial response. Also I do wonder how universal her experience is, not to push back against it or anything but there are a lot of baseline variables depending on who you are, where you're going and what you need to bring with you.

I find it hard to believe that many artists are touring at a loss right now, let alone a loss of “tens of thousands” of dollars

― zacata, Thursday, September 8, 2022 7:34 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

why is it hard to believe that artists are touring at a loss?

festival guarantees are much much smaller than a regular gig for all the small font artists. if an artist wants to book hotels instead of sleeping in cans or buses, a 20+ day tour can run up thousands of dollars, even if all three band members share a room.

the venue also takes home 50% of the door and 100% of the bar for the vast majority of artists who aren’t at the superstar level. and in rooms like the ones aftab is playing, you basically have to sell out to see any money at all

50% of the door is a generous estimate that not every artist gets, they usually just get a flat guarantee (given the budget that a lot of small venues work with, that number is prob much smaller than you think it is) and the promoters get the ticket proceeds

Lots of venues take a percentage of merch sales too

which is bullshit

Do they really? Not just when they provide a merch person?

No, the venue usually gets the money from the merch person. They count everything in during load in and recount it after the show. It's a really shitty practice.

I have never understood why bands don't just load more merch in during the opening band. I guess you'd have to be pretty attentive to keep track of it all (ie "why is there more merch here now than when you started?")

I actually don't know how widespread it is, but Stereolab recently posted that there were only 2 venues on their upcoming tour which don't take a cut.

xxp

That is such a bullshit practice that needs to be shamed out of existence, ASAP. I've seen a couple of impassioned arguments FOR the practice from small venue owners that bemoan how much things cost for them, but none of it was enough to convince me.

My most detailed peek into touring band finances was a band some friends were in that used to tour Europe playing mostly small theaters. 8 piece band in a bus plus a sound person, driver, and merch person. Pre-pandemic they would come home with some money, let's say $5 - 15k per person depending on the length of the tour. Not great money at all if you're trying to live on it, and can't take a a full-time job so you can tour a few months out of the year. But definitely not losing tens of thousands of dollars.

I'm sure things are worse now in terms of missed shows due to travel snafus and COVID, lower turn-out and sales, etc. But I'd love to know how much worse, ie does that explain everything or are there additional factors in Aftab's situation.

I see she's booked to come back to the Washington DC area in April 2023 on a bill with Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily all together in a collaborative project called Love in Exile at the fancy suburban Strathmore Music Center in Maryland that I think holds 2,200 people. $23 to $68. Not sure they will fill the place, but maybe she gets a sizable guarantee?

recent conversation i had with two booking agents suggested that Europe for jazz/"world" is good guaranteed money, US is not.

Lots of venues take a percentage of merch sales too

this is insane? does that go for both US/EU?

xxpost To have an idea of what you might be for with Love In Exile, scroll up to where I posted the link to their streaming concert: click on that, then click on the Vimeo you'll see, as I just now did: seems fine, although I didn't try to play the whole thing. Mainly because, as I said in my comments then (May, 2021), I sometimes got frustrated by the knottier, lengthier piano traffic patterns, despite the excellent vocals and bass---piano was effective at times as well, but judging by posts about recent shows, seems like she still gives her colleagues a lot of space---and Vijay is my least favorite of the people she's performed with (although he's always been an effective anchor-to-axis-and-back for Burnt Sugar). But she's mentioned a Love In Exile album that was finished a while back, and I would like to hear it---for one thing, maybe studio budgeting etc. would rein him in.

Time to spill the beans … https://t.co/a1OrLh39Gg

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) November 18, 2022

Definitely looking forward to that at Big Ears.

looking forward to hearing that

Been checking out Love in Exile video online from the last few years via NYC shows and a DC one at the Phillips Collection art museum. Improvised and a bit more melancholy. Definitely rewarding

Oh, some of the Love in Exile stuff is mentioned upthread. They first did it in 2018 and have done it on and off over the years.