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Looper's Delight
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At 8:48 AM -0400 6/18/09, james fowler wrote: >"recordings are increasingly ads for live shows" > >i disagree with this on a fundamental level. that's a pretty poor >forecast for the recorded medium. It's not a forecast, it's an observation. And a valid one, in my view. >i think the studio is a unique environment where you can slowly (or >quickly, i guess) sculpt a record into something that could almost >invariably never be replicated live. Yes, of course, and I ache for the day when it was feasible to spend a lot of time and resources making a studio album. >on the record, you (the artist) are in complete control of what the >listen is going to hear...they can only control the volume ; ) the >subtlety, just to name one thing, is never going to come across live >and i contend that live performance and sitting still for 45 minutes >with headphones on are two very different creatures. i love live >music but i love a well-done record even more. I think we all do. But what Eno is saying is that it is difficult, verging on impossible, to make a living selling records. You have to go out and play gigs. And what few records you sell, you'll sell at gigs. In the "Americana" and "jamband" worlds I travel in, CD sales are way, way down. One band I know, typical of many, tells me that about 80% of their CD sales are at gigs. You play the festival set and then you go sit at the merch table, making contact with your fans. They'll buy the CD from you there and you'll sign it; they ay also buy a t-shirt, if you can afford to make them and carry them with you on tour. In the 20th century, musicians toured to support album sales. They didn't sell their records at the gig - they'd play shows, and do radio appearances and in-stores, to support the sales of their product in record stores. (Of course, the record industry was set up from day one to deny payment to the artists, but that's another screed). Now, you make a CD as a calling card to get gigs and maybe if you're lucky some airplay to help get people to your gigs. And if you're lucky and you didn't spend too much in the studio, you might break even on the coast of making the disc. -- David Gans - david@trufun.com or david@gdhour.com Truth and Fun, Inc., 484 Lake Park Ave. #102, Oakland CA 94610-2730 Blog: http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com Web site: http://www.dgans.com Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgans Music: http://www.cdbaby.com/all/dgans