paulo Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 2 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said: @paulo I hear you .. I assume most of those bands were still covers bands in the "Charity" event? For widespread Paid in ORIGINALS bands playing in pubs etc every week I have to go back to 80s. As an aside you mentioned not great bands. I have a quick funny story on that. A local ORIGINALs band here in Cork did the circuit for a while .. there live set was about 12 ORIGINAL Tracks .. But here was the ingenuity .. They actually only had 4 songs and played them 3 times over at different tempo's and styles No, not at all, but many would throw a cover version (usually with a twist) into a set somewhere just for fun. Sometimes it was a useful tool to get the atmosphere going a bit if it was too quiet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan o driscoll Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 (edited) And have ye noticed .. Listening to the likes of THE 1975, The WEEKEND, M83 and lots of other artists these days in the charts .. Its now all unmistakenly 80s sound. And so much of our radio stations shows at weekends and evenings is 80s. I wonder why that is? After 90s it seems the music became unforgettable, probably due to its over commercialised manufacturedness? same can be said of TV Shows, Movies .. look no further than STRANGER THINGS for example or Wonder Woman 1984 Edited March 25, 2021 by aidan o driscoll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan o driscoll Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, aidan o driscoll said: @PopStarWannabe PLEASE read this as pragmatic and from lived experience. Not doom gloom, just trying to say it as it is from my years ion the biz Back in the 80s, maybe until late 80s was when you could have a stab at making music ( as an artist, in the band scene ) as a profession. Up to then THERE WAS A PROPER SCENE in most places. Even as young wannabes there was a healthy local live circuit ( in Ireland and I imagine UK also ) where a band could do the local and national circuit on tour to pubs and the like and actually HAVE A COVER CHARGE at the door ( unbelievable ), build a following and actually get on radio stations for interviews and plays etc. Back then it was all about original bands, if you played a cover you were blanked. Fans of the local bands followed them from venue to venue and knew there bands songs, a huge hunger for new originals which bands created in the practice rooms during the week and played at there next gig. Demo tapes and the like were the thing. It started to end about then. Along came the 90s with its stock aiken and waterman type manufactured bands being commercially pushed to No 1 slot at Christmas and all that. the serious commercial engineering started. Locally bands started switching to covers and pubs started having acts in on a thur fri etc FOR FREE, no cover charge. This of course started the devaluing of Music as a product. Right up to late 90s i was involved in ORIGINALS BANDS but to survive they morphed to cover bands and for the next 10 years I stayed in that game and regret it .. it wrecked my love of music further wrecked by morphing into Wedding band to MAKE A LIVING. And then the birth of the INTERNET as we know it happened in the 90s BUT the big event for the demise of music as an earner came in 1999/2000 when NAPSTER happened. This further drove a nail into musics coffin further devaluing it because now you could download it all FOR FREE also. Onward we go through 2000s and napster died per say but then the whole online thing became commercialised via SPOTIFY ( founded 2006 ) and the like with little return to artists. This was the beginning of MORE touring needed to make a crust. Then Itunes and then of course the IPHONE where you could devour your music for free or for very little while on the go. Also we had/have YOUTUBE .. FREE FREE FREE why would you even be spending 10 bucks a month on spotify for, its all on Youtube for nothing. In parallel since the 80s another thing started to happen, the days where you bought an album with 10+ tracks on it and listened to it over time when the whole album grew on you .. that started to disappear, this was also the beginning of peoples attention span getting shorter and shorter right up to now where its absolutely about the SINGLE and even if you have your FREE music platforms all thats listened to for a short time is that one track from an artist. So ALBUMS as a money maker with all the ancilliary sleeves/jackets and inlays disappeared too. So its 2020 .. free music everywhere, why should we pay for it ( esp younger generation, they know no better ), the "charts" commercialised to the nth degree. Record contracts and nurturing bands GONE. Yes, we have the internet with its alleged democratisation where all bands/artists can be free OF THE MAN and setup indie labels and sell there own music. To WHO .. that younger gen who now see no value what so ever in music .. its all free now. As an aside to that when we were doing covers as a band up to 2010, yes we made a living ( soul destroying for a musician who was born out of original scene ) .. i was noticing a thing. Back in the day if a band was playing at a venue I remember being at pub gigs, concerts and many people who PAID to get in to see the local band standing in front of the band and watching on in awe at the musicians and meeting up after with the guitar player etc. A healthy interest. Fast forward to 2010, WE were/are very good musicians, born out of years of live live live playing .. I remember being in a very busy pub doing our covers thing, hits of the day .. Killers and all that .. I was watching the people coming in the door as we played, 90% looking down at mobile, NONE looking up and even noticing a band was playing, no music fans standing in front of us soaking up the playing, the technique and so on. It was not an age thing .. us and them .. the broader point is there is no interest anymore really of being a guitarist etc. Was reading an article recently about this, guitar sales and other instrument sales in last decade have plummeted .. likes of YES Gibson ( smilie for here at CW ) in trouble. Reason why by the way .. back to my point about short attention span, learning an instrument is just too difficult and takes too long, so why bother. So to the core point of the OP .. NO its not the pandemic that has caused where MUSIC finds itself, this has been coming slowly but surely for decades as outlined above. All the pandemic has done is accelerated further its demise by now getting rid of even that living one might make as a COVERS Music / Wedding band. the structures like labels etc and a healthy originals scene and a public that VALUED music are now gone, how one might see a return of this, I have no clue. Best you can do now ( as I am doing ) is in my case back to originals, and just recording and making new music, instrumental + also collaborating online with Singers and other musos I know and just getting back that feeling of creating. Sticking it up on likes of Bandcamp .. if it sells it sells if it doesnt sell, who cares. It aint a living but thats about it ( my living is IT and websites .. wolf from the door, just about ) Bumping to PAGE 2 Edited March 25, 2021 by aidan o driscoll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulo Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 10 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said: They actually only had 4 songs and played them 3 times over at different tempo's and styles We actually had one song that we often had to play twice because one guy who came to all local gigs always demanded an encore. For "artistic" reasons we deemed it a set opener, but after we were done he wasn't gonna go home until he had heard it again. We changed it up a bit for the reprise version. Nobody seemed to mind. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan o driscoll Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 (edited) 5 minutes ago, paulo said: We actually had one song that we often had to play twice because one guy who came to all local gigs always demanded an encore. For "artistic" reasons we deemed it a set opener, but after we were done he wasn't gonna go home until he had heard it again. We changed it up a bit for the reprise version. Nobody seemed to mind. And you know something @paulo ... THESE are the stories and times you remember and stay with you for life which is the exact point made in THE 1975 track I mentioned on page one: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/18/why-bands-are-disappearing-young-people-arent-excited-by-them "The moment that we started a band was the best thing that ever happened,” sings Matty Healy on the 1975’s recent single Guys. The song is an ardent love letter to the band, and to the romance of bands in general: the camaraderie, the solidarity, the joyous fusion of creativity and friendship. It’s an old sentiment but an increasingly rare one. This is what it was all about .. playing the gigs, on the (local) road with like minded comrades, the craic, the buzz, meeting music fans .. Its what has been lost and what much of the disinterested youth of today are missing out on. Something that could last for a lifetime Edited March 25, 2021 by aidan o driscoll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulo Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 7 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said: And have ye noticed .. Listening to the likes of THE 1975, The WEEKEND, M83 and lots of other artists these days in the charts .. Its now all unmistakenly 80s sound Absolutely. Makes me feel like I was ahead of my time......? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulo Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 2 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said: THESE are the stories and times you remember and stay with you for life Very true. Good times for sure although I didn't always enjoy the having to take all the gear back to the farm-based rehearsal room afterwards. Bit of a comedown - one minute you're getting free drinks for being in the band, two hours later you're a nobody carting PA speakers in the dark trying not to stand in cow pats.? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan o driscoll Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 1 minute ago, paulo said: Very true. Good times for sure although I didn't always enjoy the having to take all the gear back to the farm-based rehearsal room afterwards. Bit of a comedown - one minute you're getting free drinks for being in the band, two hours later you're a nobody carting PA speakers in the dark trying not to stand in cow pats.? Actually in most cases .. locally anyway here in Cork .. we were allowed to leave the gear at the venue once we packed it in a corner and then collected AFTER NOON the following day back to rehearsal room .. this freed us up to go clubbing after the gig with our fans .. And no, the stuff wasnt nicked ever, lots of respect back then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulo Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 1 minute ago, aidan o driscoll said: Actually in most cases .. locally anyway here in Cork .. we were allowed to leave the gear at the venue once we packed it in a corner and then collected AFTER NOON the following day back to rehearsal room We had a couple of places likes that, but others wanted everything out before you left as they had other stuff going on the next day. For the out of town stuff it didn't really make any sense to have to go all the way back over there again the next day. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan o driscoll Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 (edited) 5 minutes ago, paulo said: We had a couple of places likes that, but others wanted everything out before you left as they had other stuff going on the next day. For the out of town stuff it didn't really make any sense to have to go all the way back over there again the next day. Yip though a good few out of town gigs we made 2 or 3 days of. A huge town for that was in WEST CORK, place called CLONAKILITY which was and still is Music Meca. Loads of international artists, bands inc Sting, Springsteen, many many others played local gigs there in pubs. Noel redding of hendrix's band lived there until he died in relatively recent times. EG - http://debarra.ie/about/ Edited March 25, 2021 by aidan o driscoll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulo Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 Love the Louis Armstrong quote I guess we better let the OP have his thread back now or it might get deleted for being OT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan o driscoll Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 (edited) 3 minutes ago, paulo said: Love the Louis Armstrong quote I guess we better let the OP have his thread back now or it might get deleted for being OT. K .. but I think all this is ON TOPIC actually. we are describing what its all about and from all we describe is where we sold product and built a fan base .. and TBH that is still the way it should be because it is the only way. The live circuit, the hard but enjoyable hours travelling and getting your band out there. There is no silver bullet, 5 min solution that DOESNT take effort, if you think otherwise then forget it, its not for you Edited March 25, 2021 by aidan o driscoll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhonoBrainer Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 4 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said: Right up to late 90s i was involved in ORIGINALS BANDS but to survive they morphed to cover bands and for the next 10 years I stayed in that game and regret it .. it wrecked my love of music further wrecked by morphing into Wedding band to MAKE A LIVING. I believe Adrian has hit every single nail squarely on the head, well done! I quoted the above part because it directly described my own experience . . . once you've played "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel 12,473 times, and otherwise great song will threaten your sanity, even if you are making $300 a throw. To the OP, I'm pretty sure the answer is no, but wedding bands are the canary in that coal mine. Unless weddings and corporate parties come back, there won't be any money in music for most musicians. And, is that really music, anyway, or is it just performance? You could be the teenage kid who likes to shoot hoops, asking if there's any chance to make it into the NBA. But there, talent actually matters! In music industry, not so much. My wish for you is that you can pass quickly through the commercial desires, and return to making your personal music for its own lovely sake, for the only thing music can really feed these days is your soul. Which is enough. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin Picker Posted March 27, 2021 Share Posted March 27, 2021 Came across this today. Islands in the Stream Musicians are in peril, at the mercy of giant monopolies that profit off their work. From the article summary on Slashdot "The platforms have driven the price of content to zero," says William Deresiewicz, author of The Deathof the Artist. "This demonetized content is still generating a fortune. But the artists aren't getting that money." "Artists today are beset on all sides by monopolists and oligopolists," argues a 7,000 word analysis in The American Prospect. "Like so many sectors of our economy, government inaction has allowed the music business to consolidate, with devastating effects on musicians. Radio is to a shocking degree in the hands of one company, Liberty Media. Two companies, Live Nation and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), control a large number of venues and artist management services, with Live Nation dominating ticketing. The major labels have been whittled down to three. Record stores, alt-weeklies, and other elements that nurtured local music scenes are largely gone. Dwarfing all that in significance is streaming, which has become the industry's primary revenue source, despite giving a pittance to the vast majority of artists. For the main streaming companies — YouTube and Spotify — music is really a loss leader, incidental to data collection, the advertising that can be sold off that data, and the promise of audience growth to investors... This radical upending of the industry's business model has benefited a few stars, while the middle-income artist, like so much of the middle class in America, struggles to survive... Chris Castle, an entertainment attorney who used to work at A&M Records, could see it coming when he caught wind of an advertisement for a rebooted version of Napster that operated as a primitive streaming service. The tagline was: Own Nothing, Have Everything. Castle recalled: "I thought right there, that's the end." David Lowery, lead singer of Camper van Beethoven and later Cracker, who now lectures at the University of Georgia in addition to making music, described the internet as reassembling all the gatekeepers that kept artists away from fair compensation. "We celebrated disintermediation, and went through a process of re-intermediation," he said. The article points out that in 2018 YouTube already accounted for 47% of all on-demand playtime globally, according to figures from a nonprofit trade group — while RIAA figures show that streaming now accounts for 83 percent of all recorded income in the U.S, while digital music downloads now earn even less than vinyl records. It remains to be seen whether movement building from all stakeholders, from musicians to fans, will be able to force platform monopolies to give creators just compensation. But the winds are shifting in Washington around Big Tech, and a united front of artists could prove key to raising public sympathies against exploitation and toward basic fairness. Artists would rather think of themselves as outside the system. "The wonderful thing about the DIY vision is also its weakness," noted Astra Taylor, a writer, filmmaker, and activist whose husband, Jeff Mangum, fronts the lo-fi rock band Neutral Milk Hotel. (Astra has occasionally played with the group.) But the system has come for them, and toppled the structures that allowed them to create. Everyone loves music, and most of us now have the capacity to listen to anything, anywhere, at any time. We can't hear through the noise that the people who brought us this musical bounty are in trouble. In the article Marc Ribot, a guitarist who has played with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, complains that "The same neoliberals in anarchist drag boosting indie labels in the '90s are now boosting Bandcamp. I love Bandcamp. I love the food co-op too. They've been around since the 1930s, they're 3 percent of the market, will never be any bigger... We need to either tear the whole thing down and create real socialism where I get an apartment for my good looks, or a functioning market." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bapu Posted March 27, 2021 Share Posted March 27, 2021 And so it goes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bapu Posted March 27, 2021 Share Posted March 27, 2021 Haysouse wept Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno de Souza Lino Posted March 30, 2021 Share Posted March 30, 2021 Shouldn't the whole "getting paid" thing be a consequence of you finding an audience, rather than something you think you should deserve? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan o driscoll Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 On 3/30/2021 at 11:38 AM, Bruno de Souza Lino said: Shouldn't the whole "getting paid" thing be a consequence of you finding an audience, rather than something you think you should deserve? @Bruno de Souza Lino Finding an audience is one thing, BUT finding an audience thats willing to pay for what they can get free elsewhere is the real biggy in my view Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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