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Local Live Music Is Dead
- Thread starter Altitude
- Start date
Perhaps not, but if that charter school locates in Deep Ellum and the City of Dallas holds to their no-alcohol boundary around it, it will be killed stone-dead again. The City of Dallas is the worst enemy of Deep Ellum, now and forever.
First of all, I'm supposed to be on your ignore list. Not sure why you are reading my posts. I guess I got a temporary reprieve 
Actually, that is not the point that the OP stated. This is what he said:
I understand that you came into the thread and made an attempt to turn into a discussion about how working musicians had it so good in the 70's and everyone now is screwed, but sideman pay wasn't the original point of the thread. It was about the state of local live music as entertainment.
Actually, that is not the point that the OP stated. This is what he said:
I understand that you came into the thread and made an attempt to turn into a discussion about how working musicians had it so good in the 70's and everyone now is screwed, but sideman pay wasn't the original point of the thread. It was about the state of local live music as entertainment.
Also might want to check spelling on the word "hobbiest" especially if you are going to continually throw it around in this back-handed fashion.
No... it was about the state of live music and whether it was sustainable.
I'm going to argue that it isn't sustainable - there is a definite trend at work, and because that trend leads to lower pay (which leads to lower quality which leads to lower pay...) it's a positive feedback loop reinforcing the trend.
I think we can all agree that pay is going down, but I don't think that means that local live music is dead. Some play for more than money and that alone is enough to sustain a local music scene.
First of all, I'm supposed to be on your ignore list. Not sure why you are reading my posts. I guess I got a temporary reprieve
Actually, that is not the point that the OP stated. This is what he said:
I understand that you came into the thread and made an attempt to turn into a discussion about how working musicians had it so good in the 70's and everyone now is screwed, but sideman pay wasn't the original point of the thread. It was about the state of local live music as entertainment.
Also might want to check spelling on the word "hobbiest" especially if you are going to continually throw it around in this back-handed fashion.
'sustainable level' to me means 'is it a professional endeavor' at this point. It is clearly not.
Again, if you are a part timer who is not playing for income, sure you can get a few 'classic rock' gigs or whatever a month for low pay. Nothing wrong with that.
The amazing thing is, there isn't even enough work to keep part timers who are just playing for fun particularly busy. Nothing particularly prejorative about being a 'weekend warrior', but judging if 'live music is OK' but that very low threshold (i.e., enough work for those playing for very low pay a few times a month), is a different discussion that I'm not particularly interested in.
mea culpa on the 'hobbyist' spelling... typing too quickly, not a word I typically use!
I'm wondering how much longer music programs at colleges and universities will offer performance majors to students.My upright teacher and I have had conversations about the sad state of gigs in her realm,orchestral/symphony,and how her degree in performance from Juilliard makes little difference to her proffesional life now.Something else to chew on.
I disagree strongly. Lower pay does not equal lower quality. In my experience, quite the opposite. As a customer, I've had way more fun and been much more entertained by bands just getting started playing small venues. As an artist, I've enjoyed playing much more on the gigs that were for little/no money. Why?
Because when the money sucks the gig has to be about something else, and in most cases that something else is a love of what you're playing. For a long time the scene was flooded with "professionals" who didn't care what they were playing, they just wanted the check. This isn't a knock, when you decide to make something your career you need to treat it like a business. A lot of times that means adjusting your product to fit the market. In my opinion, this leads to a lot of bland, watered down crap being passed off as live music, but at the end of the day its not much better than a jukebox. It's very polished, the musicians are very professional and they churn out tune after tune, night after night, but there's no soul to it.
Hopefully, the gigs for "professional sidemen" will dry up. Maybe when these hired guns get off the stage real bands will take their spots, and people will remember why they ever loved live music in the first place.
Most of us who do the former are also involved in the latter ... it's not an either/or situation.
onosson said:
True but don't you find you think about it differently when you're focussing on the money? I did, and it destroyed the fun for a while. It's one of the reasons I got a day job.
I moved from a cultural desert to an oasis. My hometown, Tauranga, is primarily young families and retired folk, so if you want live music it's either 14 year olds screaming away or a bar band on Sunday afternoons. I moved to the capital, Wellington, 2 years ago and there are many live gigs most nights, and a huge range. It's definitely a university city, but it's also been the cultural centre of the country for a very long time. I'm always astounded by the range of very creative original bands here.
yep. I'm 46 and it's an effort to stay out (or up) past 12AM. Bands should play from 8 to midnight.
No, but the way I go about it is I really try to refuse to take gigs if money is the only factor for me. I just don't want to go there. I'm fortunate that I get enough work with talented, creative people, and I get hired as a "sideman" on a lot of original projects - I've never been part of the cover circuit where I am, though I do play a few times a year in a CCR tribute, which is honestly a lot of fun and I have learned a lot playing those songs.
I came up in an original band that toured all through my 20s - I never played with any other groups until I was well into my 30s, so perhaps I didn't become so jaded on it as many people. However, financial worries have driven me back to school to try and find something better. I definitely don't ever want to find myself playing the "A" circuit doing top 40 music - ever!
Live bands are thriving here in northern Illinois. Not just in Chicago, but in the burbs and in all the surrounding areas.
I'm happy to have one of those gigs Saturday night. Probably my favorite place to play because of it.
In the aggregate, yes it does.
On an individual level - no. Across the entirety of the spectrum - yes.
It's sort of like big money recording studio albums - the sums spent are far past the point of diminishing returns, but those sums are what allowed the development of the professional mix engineer, computer recording, extensive processing, accoustic design in studios, etc.
When all the money falls out of live music, who is going to pay to design the acoustic perfect music hall? Who is going to design the next big studio advance? Etc.
Do you think Bach would have done the work he did if the church wasn't paying him to be a musician/composer? Or do you think having to have a fulltime non-music job to support his family might have cut into his creative output?
When I did the bar thing in Napa Valley/Sonoma County, many bars we played had the band play from 9 to midnight. There were always some later but I never played past 1am.
Back in the 80's playing in upstate NY, most gigs were from 10 to 2AM but near Albany, NY the bars were allowed open until 4AM. Starting a gig at 12AM til about 3:45 in the morning sucked azz. Got home with the sunrise.
I caught his set at Applebee's last Tuesday. He's really letting the quality slide these days...
