Next they'll be holding Garage Sales...

[richardmac]

I caught the headline this morning that poster child for DIY Amanda Palmer just raised 85 grand for a US tour via kickstarter. Is this the future of the music business?

 

I have kicked in for a grand total of ONE kickstarter program - a group of old high school friends are trying to get a DVD made so I kicked in. But I felt stupid doing so... because we live in an era where we have the technology to burn "just one DVD." So I paid $20 and if a whole crapload of people ALSO pay $20, I will get a DVD. But if they don't, then I pay nothing but I get nothing.

 

To me that's dumb - I'd rather pay $10 and get a DVD, right now, with no artwork or cover or box or anything. It's just going to go into a sleeve in my DVD book anyway.

 

And tell me there's no business out there that won't print "one of" DVD's.

 

This isn't 100% fair of me... they may have spent a bit of money filming the live show, and they are attempting to recoup that investment. Could be.

 

But is fan-based funding the future of the music biz, or just a passing fad? And is this a good or bad thing?

[flatfinger]

Richard, Richard, Richard;

 

 

"The poster child " is very pejorative of you !! You are denigrating the shining new path that is the future !!

 

 

Look ; you know ( as well as anyone else who has suffered through the insufferable group activities such as high school or college !) That almost every dam thing groups of humans do devolves into lord-of-the-flies , Cult of personality popularity contests .

 

 

 

The problem with such score keeping is that it's all about initial traction and the pandering to the base ...That's the real problem with social media .... How many "Worshipers" errr... followers can I amass if I wax poetically, am uber kewl ( and photogenic AND show my midrift ) and pander to my tribe's whims in a typical finger in the wind first , politicians manner

 

 

 

I posted an article about how we really don't even have a real yardstick anymore about what's popular anymore ( " the #1 song in America is ??) the only thing to trust is real sales figures as since so much is now given away gratis . Folks who appreciates something (for real ) is willing to pay something for it ...

 

 

Raising money for a tour used to be about finding an investor who had venture capital that they were willing to invest in hopes of a suitable return on investment . No one in there right mind is going to invest in a sucker proposition such as funding a tour for anything but a knock out home run legacy act . Things are just to bumpy at the moment .

 

In fact , smart investment money has always stayed away from the music biz ... The old timers were music nuts who couldn't help themselves .... It's a shadow of it's former self now , and , the bean counters run it all in true , souless fashion .

 

A.P. has to pass the hat to her trust fund baby cultist in order to do anything... It's apples and oranges my Friend . Don't compare a "semi successful dilettante" to any of the serious acts who were successful based only on the merit of their musical compositions and performances . Without the P.R. and electronic marketing ( usually by raising {censored} storms ) allot of these " poster children" wouldn't appear on the most powerfully galactic radar ever conceived ... get it ???

[sventvkg]

 

I caught the headline this morning that poster child for DIY Amanda Palmer just raised 85 grand for a US tour via kickstarter. Is this the future of the music business? I have kicked in for a grand total of ONE kickstarter program - a group of old high school friends are trying to get a DVD made so I kicked in. But I felt stupid doing so... because we live in an era where we have the technology to burn "just one DVD." So I paid $20 and if a whole crapload of people ALSO pay $20, I will get a DVD. But if they don't, then I pay nothing but I get nothing. To me that's dumb - I'd rather pay $10 and get a DVD, right now, with no artwork or cover or box or anything. It's just going to go into a sleeve in my DVD book anyway. And tell me there's no business out there that won't print "one of" DVD's. This isn't 100% fair of me... they may have spent a bit of money filming the live show, and they are attempting to recoup that investment. Could be. But is fan-based funding the future of the music biz, or just a passing fad? And is this a good or bad thing?

 

 

KUNAKI will print one off DVD's

[sventvkg]

I'm not going to beg people to help fund my artistic lifestyle. Doesn't sit well with me. Never has. It's no business model either. I don't know what the answer is but there are defnintely more talented artists than you can shake a stick at working at Starbucks...And it's difficult to get a job at a Starbucks these days.

 

So where does that leave us? Basically you tour, sleep in your car or on friend's floors and try to get people to dig what you do..i.e. as Lefsetz says, you have to be GREAT to have any chance. If you are you slog it out for 10 years until you get to the point where enough people want to see you in all your markets and you can make money at the door and sell enough wares to survive. Even at that point, you are barely getting by. I know this because I have friends who have gotten to and are at that point. Only IF you are that one in 10 Million artist who is that and ALSO appeals to a mass number of people, will you get the chance to do better. You're really much better off going to trade school.

 

So again, where does that leave the professional Artist. Probably in a similar position to the professional Painter. I don't know much about their struggle but I do know they have to put in their proverbial 10K hours to get to the point where they are great. How are they surviving holed up in their SOHO lofts? Have they mostly been homeless living with friends and or relatives, and surviving on patronage? MOST great Painters who are considered masters today, died penniless...Is that the direction even great musical artists are going yet again? Really makes you re-evaluate the Cover thing where we can at least make a few bucks but still, being a musical artists today is a crazy crazy endeavor...probably not feasible as a business mode for the vast majority.

 

So if we research painters and how they survive, I think you'll see the future for original musical artists.

[TieDyedDevil]

"... people to help fund my artistic lifestyle ..."

 

They're called "patrons of the arts". That's the way it has always been. Whether you woo patrons yourself or use the services of a middleman, you still need patrons. Or a day job...

[richardmac]

 

KUNAKI will print one off DVD's

 

 

KEWL! I knew there had to be someone. Do they do the printing of the packaging, the whole deal? Or just burn it? Never mind - I can go to their web site and find out. I'm not in the market to make a DVD right now, but in the future I could see doing one.

[scarecrowbob]

I don't think Kickstarter is all that stupid. All it is is a way of ensuring that there is enough real demand for something before folks make it.

 

Think about it like college classes: folks can sign up for them, but if less than the number needed to create the class sign up, the class doesn't make.

 

It isn't begging; it's just a way of lining up purchases with no risk to the purchasers and less risk for the producer.

[michael_B]

I'd agree. I think Kickstarter and other similar ideas are a great way to go, but like everything else, it doesn't apply to everyone, and it won't work for everyone. The vast majority of Kickstarters fail, just like most businesses fail, and just like most artists fail. Amanda Palmer raised 85k because....drumroll please....she's Amanda Palmer, and it doesn't hurt being married to one of the most popular authors out there today. It's certainly not begging, or at least it doesn't look that way to me, but who cares? Busking always feels like begging. Asking some people on the internet to fund a project and get a physical product in return (or whatever else you can think up...) seems like business. In the end, all art meets business, always has, always will. Banksy is art for arts sake, he isn't on facebook, twitter or myspace, he doesn't profit from the sale of merchandise made in his name, but he rakes in the big bucks, because people will plop down 250k for a piece of him.

 

In the end, and it pains me to feel this way, but music has completely lost it's cultural relevance in today's world. Beyond the niche of country or maybe blues, (kudos to those that write, perform and consume it, but I can't stand either one...), the vast wasteland of American and Western culture is adrift in a sea of poop. (yes, I said poop.) Popular music historically has usually been attached to some kind of vast social movement, or at least something vaguely relevant from the 50's to the 90's, with some exceptions... Why do musicians have to be everything but a musician to get people to here their music? Because, music itself is less important than it used to be.

[MargeHowel]

 

Popular music historically has usually been attached to some kind of vast social movement, or at least something vaguely relevant from the 50's to the 90's, with some exceptions...

 

 

I don't know that's a great example, only a 50 year slice out of a few thousand years.

I think it's easy for us to think about the last period as "the traditional", but it could be more a blip on the longer timeline

 

the sci--fi author William gibson had some thoughts on this in Spook Country (I'm not saying it's 'THE right perspective' or anything. I think there's too much of that in the "where are we going" conversation as it is , but it is an interesting thought to mull over)

 

In the early 1920s... there were still some people in this country who hadn't yet heard recorded music. Not many, but a few. That's less than a hundred years ago. Your career as a "recording artist"... took place towards the end of a technological window that lasted less than a hundred years, a window during which consumers of recorded music lacked the means of producing that which they consumed. They could buy recordings, but they couldn't reproduce them. The Curfew [fictional band in the novel] came in as the monopoly on the means of production was starting to erode. Prior to that monopoly, musicians were paid for performing, published and sold sheet music, or had patrons. The pop star, as we knew her... was actually an artifact of preubiquitous media... Of a state in which "mass" media existed, if you will, within the world'. 'As opposed to?' 'Comprising it'.

 

[Matximus]

 

But is fan-based funding the future of the music biz, or just a passing fad? And is this a good or bad thing?

 

 

My guess is this thing Neil Gaiman did will remain a niche phenomenon: How many times can you exploit the shallow funding source that is a niche music acts rabid fan base? Also, no-name no-celebrity acts will never get traction here. Also, it seems like you are kind of asking your customer to pay twice - once just to get you to show up, and another time to get a ticket to see you.

 

The only kind of entertainment where that kind of thing is sustainable is in the sex industry: You pay the stripper to show up. You give her some more money everytime she gives you a lap dance.

 

There's {censored}-returns in bankrolling a music act right now. The only thing that will change that are big picture market forces.

[Matximus]

 

In the end, and it pains me to feel this way, but music has completely lost it's cultural relevance in today's world. Beyond the niche of country or maybe blues, (kudos to those that write, perform and consume it, but I can't stand either one...), the vast wasteland of American and Western culture is adrift in a sea of poop. .

 

 

This is garbage. Music is more ubiquitious in people's lives than perhaps it ever has been.

 

What you should be saying here is: People don't like the kind of music I like anymore and that makes me angry and confused.

 

People don't need to buy music in stores anymore and they have more freedom than ever to make it and distribute it at an incredibly low cost. And this make sit less important than it used to be because??? People can't sell 20 million records any more? Who needs to buy 20 million records when you can enjoy that {censored} for free on Youtube or BTJunkie or have a gas making an acoustic cover of that {censored} and uploading it yourself somewhere....