Re: [microsound] the great depression of experimental music?

[Praemedia <praemedia@xxxxxxxxx>]

> it just seems so much better to distribute music
> this way.

It is a better way to distribute music, but it is not
a better way for artists to earn a little money at
making music. 

> why tragic? if the music is formost, it will still
> be available. just in
> a more ephemeral format than before [and music is so
> ephemeral anyway].

Couple of problems with that. First being that you
contradict yourself. Music cannot be both 'available'
and 'ephemeral' in the long run. Talking over
generations here. If it is ephemeral and easily
disposable it is less likely to survive and therefore
eventually WON'T be available. 

The second problem is that if music is left to be
'ephemeral' then we are doomed to make the same bad
music for the next thousand or so years as we'll have
no history to build from. Part of progress is leaving
behind a residue called 'history' for people to
reference. 

> if you define a hobby as something that you don't
> make 'your daily
> bread' from, then prolly more and more musicians
> will become hobbyists.
> this actually frees up the music, as there is no
> constraint to make it
> 'marketable'.

I've heard this one before and its got to be one of
the biggest and dumbest trains of logic one can follow
when dealing with experimental music. I don't think
someone like (just a for instance) Current 93 made
much of a move to make their music more marketable,
yet now that their label/distributor (world serpent)
is going under, david tibet (really all there is as a
stable current 93 presence) is being forced to sell
his home. Same could be said of the example originally
given. I really didn't see a whole lot of moves on the
part of mille plateau or their artists to move to a
more 'marketable' stance (though they did help carve
out their own niche market, but thats another thing)
and now that they are gone, so is the network of
support that existed for a lot of those artists. 

And this doens't consider the available 'time'
factor....thats a whole different story.

And if you've got some delusional rock star image
stuck up your ***, I've known a few of the people who
have had release(s) on mille plateau (usually
acoompanied by releases on other labels
simultaneously) and none of the ones I know were able
to fully divorce themselves from the day job world. 

Sadly, the BEST we could do as a support network of
experimental music, where we all shared our resources
(because thats what money is) didn't really support a
booming industry to begin with. Now that fewer people
are willing to share even a few bucks for a cd (or for
a show - here in the states anyway, people will
complain about $5 to see a musician play), then i do
believe the music will suffer. It won't disappear,
because we'll also still be fiddling around in our
bedrooms at night, but it sill still suffer.

IMHO

disclaimer - i run a tiny label that only makes back
about 10% of what it spends to release good music and
who props it up with this awful dayjob thing.

lance grabmiller
www.praemedia.com




		
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: microsound-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: microsound-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
website: http://www.microsound.org