Re: where's the money?

[Travis Hartnett <travishartnett@gmail.com>]

Eno was in a "hot" band (Roxy Music) before striking out on his own in
a time when musicians could put out a series of small-selling records
and not get dropped.  His production skills, work ethic,
self-promotion skills and canny sense of the direction of popular
music put him as the right guy in the right place at the right time
repeatedly--Bowie in Berlin, the late 70's New York punk scene,
ambient music, U2, and so on.  He doesn't regard himself as primarily
a "musician", and moves between music, visual art, design theory,
philosophy, charity work and just about everything else.

For those who do define themselves primarily as a "musician", the
question may not be "How can I make money in music and art related
fields?" but perhaps "How can I get people to give me money for music
I've recorded and performances?"  Personally, I have almost zero
interest in getting involved in music production, interactive screen
savers, ambient art installations, speaking engagements or any of the
other fascinating Eno projects, but I am very interested in getting
paid to play music in public and sell CDs directly related to that
music, and that's been the center of this recent thread.

Brian Eno and John Cage are more the exception than the rule for "How
do I make a living in music?"

TravisH

On 1/9/06, 3nki <3nki@modaldub.net> wrote:
> with all this discussion of declining CD sales, "selling ourselves" and 
>so
> forth, i was wondering... it seems to me that most artists' don't make 
>most
> of their income from CD sales. there are artists like Brian Eno, John 
>Cage,
> philosopher-types one might say, who have managed to brand themselves
> essentially and are far more well known than their record sales would
> indicate. Eno said he'd never sold more than 10,000 copies of a record. 
>but
> you can find his name in any history of modern music, and he makes pretty
> good money on associated activities like speaking engagements, 
>production,
> etc.  plus, he gets to do whatever he really wants without being 
>restricted
> by thoughts of how much his new CD might sell, thoughts of suicide at
> over-commercialization, or who copies it off the web for free. or, take 
>even
> a hyper-commercial artist that does sell a lot of "records", for example 
>U2.