As I've been looking for employment lately, I have come to notice that anyone that is willing to try living the life of an artist is most certainly doomed. Regardless of what art form that may be, I think we are all destined to end up being slaves to Jeff Bezos.
Having looked at many music publications, a large portion of them really don't seem to want to pay people for the words that they write or the pictures that they take. These websites have the “paid in exposure” model of compensation. That makes me wonder how much “exposure” my mortgage company will accept so I can keep the roof over my head. I don't think the card reader at the grocery store takes internet links to a thing I made as a form of legal tender.
I don't understand who would submit their work to these publications. I guess these websites consider coughing up photo passes and access to shows to be enough of an incentive for people to work for free. I say, “Fuck that noise.” I'll keep doing what I'm doing and try to build something of my own. From the looks of most music websites, I'm already doing a similar thing that they are for the most part. Why would I give up control of my work to end up working for someone else? Especially if that someone else is going to pay me in “exposure” and then sellout to a vulture capitalist for millions followed by firing everyone.
The other side of that coin is trying to put together some sort of infrastructure to be able to tend to my little corner of the internet. Tech companies all want their pound of flesh when it comes to putting together a website to the point where it's cost prohibitive without clogging the screen with ads.
Art getting stuck under the boot of Capitalism is going destroy what little culture we have. The scales are tipped so far against the artist that if they don't monetize and create more “content,” the next time they'll be seen is dancing on TikTok without their dignity. And the fact that art is referred to as “content” makes me sick.
The business side of playing music has always been a disgusting roll in the mud but it has gotten increasingly worse over the past two years. Ticketmaster is posting record profits while increasing the unnecessary “convenience” fees on customers. And since they own most of the larger venues, they're taking bigger cuts of the door and a percentage of merch sales.
I don't know what universe venue owners live in but merch cuts are bullshit of the highest order. Bands take on the expense of paying artists and print shops in order to sell t-shirts and venues think it's okay to swoop in and take a percentage. Again, “Fuck that noise.”
Venues somehow justify merch cuts by saying that without said venue, bands would not have a place to sell their t-shirts. Well, by that logic, if bands weren't playing at these venues, no one would be there buying overpriced booze so bands should be entitled to a percentage of bar sales. And as more and more venues go cashless, it's getting more and more difficult to cheat the sales count than it was with cash.
Major acts have had to cancel tours or give up on touring altogether because it has become so cost prohibitive. They would have to gouge their fans at the box office to almost break even and don't feel that that's the right thing to do in this economic climate.
Touring was the last available means of making a living in music since no one buys records anymore. Spotify's fractions of a penny per stream is some criminal bullshit but everyone signed up for it out of convenience. I don't blame people that use the service but I sure do hate the companies and the lawyers that set up this payment scheme.
It's gotten so bad out there that artists are taking advantage of each other. I read a story somewhere about a photographer that had her picture of a band lifted off of the internet and used on the cover of their EP and subsequent promo materials. It was a shitty mid-level screamy/shouty whiteboy hardcore band on a mid-level indie label. The photographer only found out that her picture had been used when she walked past a poster for the EP and was dumbfounded. I could almost see the lunkheads in the band being able to plead ignorance. I did give their record a listen and I'll just say that they don't seem like a smart bunch of people. The label that put out the record sure as hell should have known that that photographer should have been compensated for creating the image that was used. Unless they figured that the photographer wouldn't be able to afford a lawyer when they stole the photo. It's a dick move either way.
From reading the room that I'm stuck in, I will begrudgingly end up back in the nine to five world out of necessity. Hopefully, I will still be allotted time to drag my carcass and my camera to shows while also trying to fill pages with words that no one reads. I'll start funneling funds from whatever day job I end up with into furthering this enterprise on my own.
I have once again come to a point in my life where I wish I could turn my brain off and drone along through existence like the majority of Americans. It must be so freeing to able to wander through life and only care about a day job and local sports teams. I see that one of the crucial mistakes that I've made in life is having rejected that notion and not fallen in line like the rest of society.
Fuck it. Off to the forced labor camp of Capitalism and American mediocrity I go. I guess I'll jam some sort of power tool up my nose to make existence palatable.
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