I have seen the future and it's a bit of the past.
A curious phenomenon is unfolding. Its roots go back to the big bands of the 1930s and 1940s. It's the business of bands carrying on as working entities long after they were supposed to have ridden off into the sunset.
I have a dear friend (who shall remain anonymous), and from time to time he has expressed a dilemma with his working situation. He is a superb professional guitarist with a long history of contributions to popular culture, mostly as a member of a huge band in the late 70s and 80s. Some folks might not agree with the idea that his group was an important band, but they wrote and recorded some cool songs. Of course, the group has disbanded and my friend has a family to support and has been, for the last few years, working over 100 nights a year in a "revised" version of another major band of the sixties. His quandary is that he doesn't feel like it's a "real" band and that somehow, it's less-than-honest work. This is absurd and I'll tell you why. It's both simple and complicated.
First things first, a guy's gotta eat. A place to live is also fairly important. To be able to raise a family and send kids to school, pay doctors' bills and buy clothes are pretty real too. All these things are real world needs. These are the basic building blocks of life. For these reasons alone there is no valid argument to be made. But let's pull back a bit and take a look at the reality of the situation.
The life of a musician is not really what most people think it is. The public at large, I think, believes that we all make millions of bucks and travel from one exotic concert location to another, with beautiful "hos" hanging on our arms. Then we get our comeuppance and crash and burn and end up on "Behind the Music." At least that's the way MTV, VH-1 and the rest of the rock media portray it.
The truth is often more mundane. Just going by the statistics, your chance of ending up rich as a musician are about the same as ending up rich in the NBA or the NFL (Not For Long) or professional baseball. It's about one hundred thousand to one. Very, very long odds. But if you worked ridiculously hard and were really, really lucky, you might have been in a hit band for a year or two, or written a hit song. You might have pulled the golden horseshoe out of your ass once, but fact is, it don't last. Then you're faced with the prospect of finding a way to support yourself and your loved ones with the only job skills you have.
I will never criticize anyone who finds another way to make a living outside of music. If a guy or girl finds that selling real estate or building houses or teaching school is a better bet, I say, "God bless 'em." Make no mistake. This business of music is a very tough row to hoe. It's not set up for you, as an artist, to make any money. You get paid last, after the label, publisher, manager, lawyer, accountant, booking agent, travel agent, hotel, bus rental company, equipment rental, roadies and caterers (not to mention dealers and bartenders and x-wives).
So, back to my friends quandary. He looks at it philosophically and I think correctly. He gets paid a decent wage to do what he loves doing. So where's the beef?
Could be our refusal to grow up. Musicians are often not only child-like but also can be childish in our view of the world. Accepting change can be a daunting challenge. It means letting go of old ideas. Doctor Carl Jung said that man would rather do the same thing he has always done, even if it's wrong, than do something different that's right. Adapting to real life takes a degree of maturity that many musicians are not familiar with. At least that's been my experience.
Whatever motivates us at 19 or 29 years of age inevitably will not be the same at 39 or 50. Most of the people I know and work with as professional musicians have a much wider view of the world of work and how they can function in it. You must, or else you will not survive in this way of life. As my dear friend John Sinclair says, "Remain flexible and maintain your sense of humor."
It reminds me of the sort of things I used to hear when I was a kid around Local 5, Detroit Federation of Musicians, union hall. They had a cheap bar in the basement for members and you could hang out there all afternoon and get hammered for next to nothing. If I had some union business to do I would end up at the bar with the old timers. These fellows could talk all day about the different bandleaders they worked for. All the different bands they were on. They'd talk endlessly about this gig and that gig, and this boss and that club owner and, truth is, I couldn't relate to it at all. I was from a different generation. I was from the world of "Bands" as lifestyle, as social group, as tribes or gangs. The band was our symbol. I came from a time and place where you got your band together and that was going to be it, For Life. One for all and all for one. This feeling was reinforced by the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, the Who, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, et al. All the contemporary groups of the day represented this mentality.
There's a scene in the movie "Help" where the Beatles are coming home after a hard day's night and each of them enters through a different door on the same street. Inside, each door led to the same huge living room. It was as if they all lived together. They were so "together" it was inspiring. And it was also untrue. It was the movies.
Now it's thirty years down the line and something is happening here and I'm wondering what it is.
I'm seeing a lot of groups from the last few decades return to the regular touring circuit and selling tickets and making a living in the process. These are bands that cut their teeth on endless tours. Groups who built followings the old fashioned way, criss-crossing the world for years. But the kicker is that it's not the original line up and guess what? It doesn't even matter!
I know there's a handful of pundits who hold musicians up to an impossible standard that has only existed in a fantasy from the beginning. They may find this troubling, but I don't. In fact, it seems unfair to hold musicians up as adjudicators of purity. Might not the principle of "To thine own self be true" apply here?
Since I've become aware of this phenomenon, I'm starting to see it everywhere I look. The Doors are gigging again. Of course, they hired on a new singer, but what the hell. He kinda looks like the last guy and sounds close enough, so all the hits will sound pretty much the way we remember them. (As if we could forget them.) They're played on the classic rock stations more today than they were back when. Truth is, to today's fans, young and old, it doesn't matter. For them, all bands exist right now as they have always been. I do appreciate drummer John Densmore's declining to participate on the grounds that "we don't need the money," but drum ace Stewart Copland was looking for a gig and he did it. He doesn't need the money either so why did he do it? He wants to play his drums.
I think what's going on here is that Ray and Robbie just want to be in a band again, their band, doing what they were meant to be doing. You spend your youth learning to do something and if you can, you want to get out there and do it. It's only natural. Dancers need to dance, writers write, painters paint, sculptors sculpt, actors act and musicians play music.
Let's me see if I can make a short list of the bands out there right now that are hitting the boards. The parenthesis indicates how many original members are in the current band.
The Who (2)
The Stones (3)
Journey (2)
Pretenders (2)
Bad Religion (3)
Lords of the New Church (2)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (hard to tell)
Damned (2)
The Cult (2)
The Knack (3)
Metallica (3)
REO Speedwagon (?)
Chicago (who cares?)
The Eagles (ditto)
Jefferson Airplane/Starship (depends on which version and when)
This was off the top of my head. I'm sure an accurate list is much longer.
Ringo has embraced this idea with his annual All Star Tour, and he packs the house wherever he plays. People come and have a ball with him and his friends.
This is an old tradition in R&B with groups carrying on with one or two original members but still being viable, even with new lead singers who are sometimes even better in version 2 or version 3 than the original.
I ran into a pal at the used music instruments store last week. (I was selling some gear. I needed the money.) Anyway, he told me he saw The Who the night before and Townshend smoked the place. Burned it down.
"Man, he was playing his ass off," my buddy said. "It was like without Entwhistle he had more space to play in, like he had something to prove."
Plus, the new bass player Pino Palladino is not exactly a slouch. The Who represent one end of the spectrum where leader Pete Townshend wants to work. Pete has always wanted to work. And work he does. He keeps challenging himself, and us, with projects and ideas that force us to rethink old ideas. Sometimes they work sometimes they don't, but at least he's out there trying to come up with something of value. He is as vital today as ever. Pete's efforts really speak to the point that music is an activity that is not really dependent on youth. Look at the world of jazz and blues plus all the other ethnic and regional music of the world. As a craft or profession, it's one that you can continue to develop and hone your skills through the whole of a lifetime. Right on till the final bar.
But really, this is nothing new. The Count Basie Orchestra, The Duke Ellington Orchestra, The Lester Lanin Orchestras, in fact, all the big bands have been doing this forever. This has been the way it is since there were bands of musicians traveling the earth. The bands become the training ground, the apprenticeships for the next generation of working players. And yes, most of them need the money. I'm not sure where the idea that "it's not a real band" comes from but I'm pretty sure it's lost its usefulness.
In the context of today's popular bands, all of this potentially takes on more meaning. Here's why: No one I know knows, or cares, who the individual members in Korn or Marilyn Manson or Linkin Park or Disturbed or P.O.D. might be at any given moment. The possibility is that these bands have franchises that can work forever IF they learn how to entertain an audience.
Trouble is, most bands that hit the mainstream today hit it big outta the box. This happens with millions of promotional dollars poured into radio "consultants" pockets. The "hits" are bought and paid for before the bands ever earn a following. The shelf life of popular groups is about a New York nanosecond. They never get the chance to develop touring chops or a following because, by the time they hit the road, the fans are already there. Bought and paid for. And the fan tastes change as fast as the next big thing comes down the pipeline to them. The bands are hot one day then they're old news.
So today we find a situation where fans that have been around a while and still dig a great concert attraction are happy to shell out the bucks to see their old favorites, with or without all the original members. And to young people who have no sense of history before Nirvana, all bands exist now just like they never left. Music fans are locked in today, with no reference to the past. They hit the net and have access to every record ever recorded.
To them it's all the same. And, truth be told, it's all good.
Best, w
A curious phenomenon is unfolding. Its roots go back to the big bands of the 1930s and 1940s. It's the business of bands carrying on as working entities long after they were supposed to have ridden off into the sunset.
I have a dear friend (who shall remain anonymous), and from time to time he has expressed a dilemma with his working situation. He is a superb professional guitarist with a long history of contributions to popular culture, mostly as a member of a huge band in the late 70s and 80s. Some folks might not agree with the idea that his group was an important band, but they wrote and recorded some cool songs. Of course, the group has disbanded and my friend has a family to support and has been, for the last few years, working over 100 nights a year in a "revised" version of another major band of the sixties. His quandary is that he doesn't feel like it's a "real" band and that somehow, it's less-than-honest work. This is absurd and I'll tell you why. It's both simple and complicated.
First things first, a guy's gotta eat. A place to live is also fairly important. To be able to raise a family and send kids to school, pay doctors' bills and buy clothes are pretty real too. All these things are real world needs. These are the basic building blocks of life. For these reasons alone there is no valid argument to be made. But let's pull back a bit and take a look at the reality of the situation.
The life of a musician is not really what most people think it is. The public at large, I think, believes that we all make millions of bucks and travel from one exotic concert location to another, with beautiful "hos" hanging on our arms. Then we get our comeuppance and crash and burn and end up on "Behind the Music." At least that's the way MTV, VH-1 and the rest of the rock media portray it.
The truth is often more mundane. Just going by the statistics, your chance of ending up rich as a musician are about the same as ending up rich in the NBA or the NFL (Not For Long) or professional baseball. It's about one hundred thousand to one. Very, very long odds. But if you worked ridiculously hard and were really, really lucky, you might have been in a hit band for a year or two, or written a hit song. You might have pulled the golden horseshoe out of your ass once, but fact is, it don't last. Then you're faced with the prospect of finding a way to support yourself and your loved ones with the only job skills you have.
I will never criticize anyone who finds another way to make a living outside of music. If a guy or girl finds that selling real estate or building houses or teaching school is a better bet, I say, "God bless 'em." Make no mistake. This business of music is a very tough row to hoe. It's not set up for you, as an artist, to make any money. You get paid last, after the label, publisher, manager, lawyer, accountant, booking agent, travel agent, hotel, bus rental company, equipment rental, roadies and caterers (not to mention dealers and bartenders and x-wives).
So, back to my friends quandary. He looks at it philosophically and I think correctly. He gets paid a decent wage to do what he loves doing. So where's the beef?
Could be our refusal to grow up. Musicians are often not only child-like but also can be childish in our view of the world. Accepting change can be a daunting challenge. It means letting go of old ideas. Doctor Carl Jung said that man would rather do the same thing he has always done, even if it's wrong, than do something different that's right. Adapting to real life takes a degree of maturity that many musicians are not familiar with. At least that's been my experience.
Whatever motivates us at 19 or 29 years of age inevitably will not be the same at 39 or 50. Most of the people I know and work with as professional musicians have a much wider view of the world of work and how they can function in it. You must, or else you will not survive in this way of life. As my dear friend John Sinclair says, "Remain flexible and maintain your sense of humor."
It reminds me of the sort of things I used to hear when I was a kid around Local 5, Detroit Federation of Musicians, union hall. They had a cheap bar in the basement for members and you could hang out there all afternoon and get hammered for next to nothing. If I had some union business to do I would end up at the bar with the old timers. These fellows could talk all day about the different bandleaders they worked for. All the different bands they were on. They'd talk endlessly about this gig and that gig, and this boss and that club owner and, truth is, I couldn't relate to it at all. I was from a different generation. I was from the world of "Bands" as lifestyle, as social group, as tribes or gangs. The band was our symbol. I came from a time and place where you got your band together and that was going to be it, For Life. One for all and all for one. This feeling was reinforced by the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, the Who, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, et al. All the contemporary groups of the day represented this mentality.
There's a scene in the movie "Help" where the Beatles are coming home after a hard day's night and each of them enters through a different door on the same street. Inside, each door led to the same huge living room. It was as if they all lived together. They were so "together" it was inspiring. And it was also untrue. It was the movies.
Now it's thirty years down the line and something is happening here and I'm wondering what it is.
I'm seeing a lot of groups from the last few decades return to the regular touring circuit and selling tickets and making a living in the process. These are bands that cut their teeth on endless tours. Groups who built followings the old fashioned way, criss-crossing the world for years. But the kicker is that it's not the original line up and guess what? It doesn't even matter!
I know there's a handful of pundits who hold musicians up to an impossible standard that has only existed in a fantasy from the beginning. They may find this troubling, but I don't. In fact, it seems unfair to hold musicians up as adjudicators of purity. Might not the principle of "To thine own self be true" apply here?
Since I've become aware of this phenomenon, I'm starting to see it everywhere I look. The Doors are gigging again. Of course, they hired on a new singer, but what the hell. He kinda looks like the last guy and sounds close enough, so all the hits will sound pretty much the way we remember them. (As if we could forget them.) They're played on the classic rock stations more today than they were back when. Truth is, to today's fans, young and old, it doesn't matter. For them, all bands exist right now as they have always been. I do appreciate drummer John Densmore's declining to participate on the grounds that "we don't need the money," but drum ace Stewart Copland was looking for a gig and he did it. He doesn't need the money either so why did he do it? He wants to play his drums.
I think what's going on here is that Ray and Robbie just want to be in a band again, their band, doing what they were meant to be doing. You spend your youth learning to do something and if you can, you want to get out there and do it. It's only natural. Dancers need to dance, writers write, painters paint, sculptors sculpt, actors act and musicians play music.
Let's me see if I can make a short list of the bands out there right now that are hitting the boards. The parenthesis indicates how many original members are in the current band.
The Who (2)
The Stones (3)
Journey (2)
Pretenders (2)
Bad Religion (3)
Lords of the New Church (2)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (hard to tell)
Damned (2)
The Cult (2)
The Knack (3)
Metallica (3)
REO Speedwagon (?)
Chicago (who cares?)
The Eagles (ditto)
Jefferson Airplane/Starship (depends on which version and when)
This was off the top of my head. I'm sure an accurate list is much longer.
Ringo has embraced this idea with his annual All Star Tour, and he packs the house wherever he plays. People come and have a ball with him and his friends.
This is an old tradition in R&B with groups carrying on with one or two original members but still being viable, even with new lead singers who are sometimes even better in version 2 or version 3 than the original.
I ran into a pal at the used music instruments store last week. (I was selling some gear. I needed the money.) Anyway, he told me he saw The Who the night before and Townshend smoked the place. Burned it down.
"Man, he was playing his ass off," my buddy said. "It was like without Entwhistle he had more space to play in, like he had something to prove."
Plus, the new bass player Pino Palladino is not exactly a slouch. The Who represent one end of the spectrum where leader Pete Townshend wants to work. Pete has always wanted to work. And work he does. He keeps challenging himself, and us, with projects and ideas that force us to rethink old ideas. Sometimes they work sometimes they don't, but at least he's out there trying to come up with something of value. He is as vital today as ever. Pete's efforts really speak to the point that music is an activity that is not really dependent on youth. Look at the world of jazz and blues plus all the other ethnic and regional music of the world. As a craft or profession, it's one that you can continue to develop and hone your skills through the whole of a lifetime. Right on till the final bar.
But really, this is nothing new. The Count Basie Orchestra, The Duke Ellington Orchestra, The Lester Lanin Orchestras, in fact, all the big bands have been doing this forever. This has been the way it is since there were bands of musicians traveling the earth. The bands become the training ground, the apprenticeships for the next generation of working players. And yes, most of them need the money. I'm not sure where the idea that "it's not a real band" comes from but I'm pretty sure it's lost its usefulness.
In the context of today's popular bands, all of this potentially takes on more meaning. Here's why: No one I know knows, or cares, who the individual members in Korn or Marilyn Manson or Linkin Park or Disturbed or P.O.D. might be at any given moment. The possibility is that these bands have franchises that can work forever IF they learn how to entertain an audience.
Trouble is, most bands that hit the mainstream today hit it big outta the box. This happens with millions of promotional dollars poured into radio "consultants" pockets. The "hits" are bought and paid for before the bands ever earn a following. The shelf life of popular groups is about a New York nanosecond. They never get the chance to develop touring chops or a following because, by the time they hit the road, the fans are already there. Bought and paid for. And the fan tastes change as fast as the next big thing comes down the pipeline to them. The bands are hot one day then they're old news.
So today we find a situation where fans that have been around a while and still dig a great concert attraction are happy to shell out the bucks to see their old favorites, with or without all the original members. And to young people who have no sense of history before Nirvana, all bands exist now just like they never left. Music fans are locked in today, with no reference to the past. They hit the net and have access to every record ever recorded.
To them it's all the same. And, truth be told, it's all good.
Best, w
<< Home