Interesting post from Jay Postones, drummer of TesseracT, relating to being a musician these days

maltingsaudio

I would like to suggest for people reading this with a view to future life choices, the decisions are do I want to be a musician and make money, or do I want to make a living from music. The latter includes all types of industries supporting working musicians such as driving catering touring as road crew solicitors and even working in music shops etc. 

Stevepage

thecolourbox said:

Stevepage said:

I know a few people were in the industry for many years up until around 2006. Distribution CEO, record company CEO and a music publishing CFO. All earnt millions for themselves before record sales took a nose dive.

Every single one of them said the internet killed off the industry as they/we knew it and the reality is very different from the glamour we’re all told it is for top celebs etc. the same people have said that friends still in the industry have to find additional income elsewhere (investing in start ups, property) as the money just isn’t there any more.

I believe even Lady Gaga said in a interview a few years back that record labels just don’t have the money they used to, which is why people like her (even at her status) have to also have perfumes, clothing, make up etc. It seems the industry as a whole is just bumbling along and doesn’t have the clear direction it once had. In short, it’s a lottery. If you’re going to play in a band within a ‘niche’ genre then the odds are even worse to win.

In fairness, I'd love to have the share cash to invest in property and start ups, so I assume they are operating still on a higher level than what we would consider average?

I guess everybody's perception of "enough" is different. Interesting original post by that musician

Yeah you’re correct. Because of their positions in their businesses they got huge pay outs when they stood down , very different from what would happen for a musician. 

DefaultM

PolarityMan said:

DefaultM said:

I used to be really in to Tesseract at the start, but I went to see them and to be honest I just didn't think they were very good. 
As far as I remember they then started the new singer/band member carousel and I lost interest.
I didn't realise they had that singer back and were still going, so I need to listen to them again, but to me they're a support band.

They were still first wave djent though. Pretty influential.

Yeah I think the issue was gear related thinking back on it. When I went to see Devin Townsend around that time I was really disappointed cos the sound was weird like I was just listening to a pristine copy of the record. He had no cabs or anything on stage just all axe fx. Usually you'll get that clothes flapping feeling at a gig, but it wasn't there, and I think it was the same with Tesseract. 

GoFish

darthed1981 said:

No, Napster was somebody using new technology to enable people to do what they did for years, share music on tape etc. on a global scale.  At the time the industry made bank by selling CDs, as that revenue went bye-bye, so did the old industry.

The idea that file sharing was some kind of virtuous art-loving freedom-quest from it's users is disingenuous to a hideous extreme, people were offered an opportunity to get music for free and they took it.  I remember hundreds of bands being dropped, labels collapsing left, right and centre and a lot of very smug people telling me they had downloaded the whole top 40 that week.

Bad taste in the mouth.

Now, did it lead to any good in the long run?  Yes, of course.  Streaming is a fantastic bargain for the consumer.  It has led to bands engaging more with fans, to less of a daft "aura" around them.  The old idea that the bunch of hairy blokes on stage were gods among men instead of a bunch of half-decent musicians at best full of cocaine.  To quote a fellow forumite "do I miss the days of the old industry when a coked up drummer had a higher income than some African countries... no"

No mistake though... illegal downloading was the end of the old industry, it cost many tens of thousands of jobs and has made it harder to make money from music, and almost impossible to make money from recorded music.

In the absence of gatekeepers, anyone can upload music to streaming services, and EVERYONE does.  Has it democratised music, sure, but who is going to wade through 60,000 songs per day of shit?

There is nothing less artistically valid about rappers than the Rolling Stones, that's just a matter of taste.  Both are perfectly legitimate forms of artistic expression.

You are right that the diversity of things has monopolised the attention of teenagers.  We will probably never get another Britpop (though everyone seems to hate it anyhow) and music movements will at most count their followers in the thousands.  Unless you count Ed Sheeran as a movement...

Don't underestimate video game design BTW - at their best superb immersive storytelling.

BTW - Who said anything about Kiss?!?

I think we probably agree more than we disagree in general - I'll start by saying I used your post as a jumping off point. The Kiss thing was in response to another post to show that it's always been about the payday for some acts and music offered a seat at the table. Today it's influencers or coding (!) or something I'm too far gone to understand. Professional writing has gone much the same way. I could have been clearer in saying that talented young people are rapping or doing game design or other music instead of wanting to be the next Rolling Stones or Stone Roses. More power to em. The only mainstream musical movements now tend towards a parade of the bland.

Re: The old days - yeah, the coked up drummers and private 747s were never what it should have been about. But a niche outfit like the OPs would have been able to live off their earnings and not compromise thier musical visions for greater exposure and better pay. That doesn't seem possible for him anymore.

The absence of gatekeepers is a double edged sword, as you point out. That's democracy though, innit? It can be shit but It's not like the gatekeepers had much of a clue anyway. It was the blind leading the blind.That probably refelects my personal tastes though.The truth is, there was a lot of great music that did get made, paid for and promoted under the old system.

 I think Britpop  as an umbrella term is justly reviled, having lived though it. A handful or talented, interesting bands  and a dozen copycat acts for each of them. All tempted into releasing increasingly commercial material whilst thinking they weren't going to be the ones exploited and dropped as soon as tastes changed. Which is what happened. It's what always happens. Psych bands form the 60s and proggers from the 70s will comfirm.

Illegal downloads were an easy bogeyman to blame. I'd liken it to an abusive relationship where one party puts up with crap for a long time before something changes. The product wasn't worth it and the crash was coming, like it did every 10 or so years (try being a hair band in 1993). Of course it became a huge thing and ended up supplanting buying music but this wasn't overnight. Consumers and producers were treated like shit for years and the "value added" from buying music had become minimal. by 2000 and whatever it was, by and large, badly written, appalingly mastered and premium priced with artists getting less of a cut than before. and frankly, having less to say. If 128kb and lower quality mp3's are seriously impacting your sales, perhaps lashing out and trying to criminalise kids wasn't the best response? The industry lost a generation due to heavy handed, corporate twattishness.

FWIW, I used to have the entire top 40 on my T90 or two every week in much higher quality than Napster shite. I also had a huge pile of albums on copied tapes. Did this make me a criminal or lead to me being a "music fan" who the spent thousands of pounds on buying and rebuying music for the next 20 years? Probably both. It was never a zero sum game for the labels, they chose to not compete.

Anyway, rant over. And it was a rant, goodness!

CavemanGrogg

Richard Patrick, the original guitarist from Nine Inch Nails, has been a house painter since he left education, the only time he's not painting houses, is when he's touring

darthed1981

GoFish said:

I think we probably agree more than we disagree in general

Agreed

GoFish

PolarityMan

CavemanGrogg said:

Richard Patrick, the original guitarist from Nine Inch Nails, has been a house painter since he left education, the only time he's not painting houses, is when he's touring

The dude from Filter?

TeleMaster

PolarityMan said:

CavemanGrogg said:

Richard Patrick, the original guitarist from Nine Inch Nails, has been a house painter since he left education, the only time he's not painting houses, is when he's touring

The dude from Filter?

I doubt that's true. He's a multi platinum selling artist in multiple super groups. Nothing on Google about this. I'd ask for a link or some evidence but he never provides any. The guy just says stuff. 

CavemanGrogg

PolarityMan said:

CavemanGrogg said:

Richard Patrick, the original guitarist from Nine Inch Nails, has been a house painter since he left education, the only time he's not painting houses, is when he's touring

The dude from Filter?

Yes the dude from Filter who wrote, Hey Man Nice Shot.  He's done many interviews where he's stated that the reasons he formed Filter was because he was sick of playing to sold out stadiums, international touring, and Trent not lettiung him contribute much, nor crediting him for his input, and because he prefer playing small venues.  Not to mention Trent was shafting the rest of NIN with their pay and expenses.

TeleMaster said:

PolarityMan said:

CavemanGrogg said:

Richard Patrick, the original guitarist from Nine Inch Nails, has been a house painter since he left education, the only time he's not painting houses, is when he's touring

The dude from Filter?

I doubt that's true. He's a multi platinum selling artist in multiple super groups. Nothing on Google about this. I'd ask for a link or some evidence but he never provides any. The guy just says stuff. 

I don't have the link to hand, but he talks about it during an interview, specificily he talks about Axl Rose asking how things are going, and his reply is something along the lines of, how do you think, I'm painting your fucking house.  YouTube interviews with him, especially the ones where he talks about NIN and his huge falling out with Trent.