Is the Irish Music Industry unethical/immoral to independent artists? (1 Viewer)

[washingcattle]

6th word I quoted from the article.

The other point about it being 10 years or so ago,can't say I've noticed any change in that opinion ,but,I don't really pay attention to the music industry for the most part.

Mind you,maybe the people who think it's great that the music industry is a mess are those people who use fundit/pledge type things.

I couldn't give a toss about the "industry" either but I think most of us here would have rathered that it had collapsed from the top down rather than the arse falling out of it the way it did.

almost every band I've played in in Ireland has this victimisation complex where they feel like the scene owes them something.
Pull your fingers out, get on with it, and be happy with your lot, ffs.

Pull our fingers out and do what ?

That's the fucking point here. What should we do ? there's no shortage of bands working hard as fuck but the issues we're talking about still prevail. It's like we're banging our heads against a brick wall and your answer is to bang harder.

 

[nooleen]

bang harder

snigger

 

[washingcattle]

snigger

Touché.

 

[shower another shower]

I couldn't give a toss about the "industry" either but I think most of us here would have rathered that it had collapsed from the top down rather than the arse falling out of it the way it did.



Pull our fingers out and do what ?

That's the fucking point here. What should we do ? there's no shortage of bands working hard as fuck but the issues we're talking about still prevail. It's like we're banging our heads against a brick wall and your answer is to bang harder.

get your business heads on. dont look for subsidies or handouts. be clever. get people to come to your gigs. hype yourselves to the point that promoters want to book and pay you. repeat and expand. world domination.

or...book your out gigs, pay the house, take the profit and laugh all the way to the bank.

 

[shower another shower]

or don't worry about getting paid. make art.

 

[shower another shower]

kick ass.

 

[nooleen]

bang hard

 

[shower another shower]

marketing/pr is the other half of the "music business". If ye wanna get paid, it's business. write great songs, become a deadly live band, publicise your band. ch-ching.

 

[shower another shower]

find somebody that's smart and believes in you.

 

[washingcattle]

get your business heads on. dont look for subsidies or handouts. be clever. get people to come to your gigs. hype yourselves to the point that promoters want to book and pay you. repeat and expand. world domination.

or...book your out gigs, pay the house, take the profit and laugh all the way to the bank.

What promoters ?

Hype yourselves how in which publications on what websites where and more importantly how ?

Write great songs that will be heard by who ? and where ?

Should we just jump on the retro gravy train and copy LA or London or NYC and just deny our own culture because it's popular ?

If it's so easy why haven't you done it ?

You and perhaps Milanpanic are living in the past. The fact is that and I'll underline this and make it big and bold and italics

NO ONE IS LISTENING


What industry there was is dying. Not the upper tier of it the indie labels, the indie magazines, the little guys they're all fucked, there aren't even any record stores any more. Your advice is out dated by at least 20 years.

The chances of making a living or a "career" out of music was always fucking slim and yet still that seems to be the crux of all nay sayers derrision of a very simple ask. Thus far Milanpanic has bashed us with some cockamamy €5 an hour wage bullshit and banging on about some super tax which will bring down society itself. Now you're giving us the hackneyed advice of basically (I like this may get it printed as a T shirt) "Bang harder" when the issue all along was simply a fair days wage for a fair days work. It's incredible that still among our peer group there is such animosity towards the idea of getting a few quid and perhaps a pint at the end of a gig. It's fucking baffling.

Most bands today play what I've in the past termed as suburban traditional music. I could explain that in depth but I won't now.

Actual Irish tradition musicians get much better deal than any of us and they are rarely shelling out for huge amounts of gear or practice space or even bothering to make records. Some get paid and most drink for free in the bars they play in.

Very few of us can even get that for fuck sake. And as soon as someone suggests that it would be nice if we did, it's a case of "who the fuck do you think you are?"

Fuck this I'm off to the horn thread.

 

[Cormcolash]

Don't you get it Washingcattle? It's simple.

JUST BE MATES WITH SOMEONE THAT WORKS FOR HOTPRESS OR MCD.

Also known as 'marketing/pr.'

That's how every single band in Ireland that builds enough of an 'image' to get paid for every gig does it.
It has absolutely FUCK ALL to do with music. I mean, people here have actually HEARD the Original Rude Boys, right?
It's actually incredible how EVERY SINGLE band that reaches the 'breakthrough' kind of level that is essentially being promoted above has an uncle, or cousin, or aunt, or family friend, or former gardener, that JUST HAPPENS to work for MCD or Hotpress or some other such.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Incidentally the Original Rude Boys look quite different to how they looked about 2 years ago

Don't suppose their music has improved 20-fold in the meantime as well?

 

[pete]

Don't you get it Washingcattle? It's simple.

JUST BE MATES WITH SOMEONE THAT WORKS FOR HOTPRESS OR MCD.

Also known as 'marketing/pr.'

That's how every single band in Ireland that builds enough of an 'image' to get paid for every gig does it.
It has absolutely FUCK ALL to do with music. I mean, people here have actually HEARD the Original Rude Boys, right?
It's actually incredible how EVERY SINGLE band that reaches the 'breakthrough' kind of level that is essentially being promoted above has an uncle, or cousin, or aunt, or family friend, or former gardener, that JUST HAPPENS to work for MCD or Hotpress or some other such.

allegedly

 

[nooleen]

ha, yeah
you losers certainly wouldn't know

 

[Space]

almost every band I've played in in Ireland has this victimisation complex where they feel like the scene owes them something.
Pull your fingers out, get on with it, and be happy with your lot, ffs.

I blame Crass.

 

[egg_]

Actual Irish tradition musicians get much better deal than any of us and they are rarely shelling out for huge amounts of gear or practice space or even bothering to make records. Some get paid and most drink for free in the bars they play in.

That's because they attract other drinkers to the bars they play in. People actually go to trad pubs to hear trad music, whether or not they know or have heard of the musicians. Have you ever gone to an indie venue without knowing who was playing, just out of interest? I've been playing in a band since 1987, and I've done that maybe 10 times in my life

NO ONE IS LISTENING

That's not the venues' or promoters' problem - that's your problem. Some kind of well thought-out govt investment programme might succeed in creating a self-sustaining scene here, yes it might, but that's a whole different thing to whether it's fair for POD to not pay my shitty band for playing EP. And also - it's not a problem that a whole heap of people care about solving so ... well, you'd have quite a job to convince the dept of finance

(edit - but it's not impossible, y'know, and fair balls if you want to actually give it a shot)

 

[egg_]

Oh btw there's a chapter in David Byrne's "How music works" about how to create a scene - iirc the bones of it are 1) have bands on every night 2) they get the door 3) everyone in a band gets in free 4) everyone in a band gets the odd free drink. He has some more to say about the design of the venue and shit, can't remember it all now, but I'm sure all your nerds have the book. Now, if some bar in Dublin actually tried that it might be a very good start

 

[egg_]

... but that, again, is a very different issue to whether you get paid at a festival

 

[ernesto]

Oh btw there's a chapter in David Byrne's "How music works" about how to create a scene - iirc the bones of it are 1) have bands on every night 2) they get the door 3) everyone in a band gets in free 4) everyone in a band gets the odd free drink. He has some more to say about the design of the venue and shit, can't remember it all now, but I'm sure all your nerds have the book. Now, if some bar in Dublin actually tried that it might be a very good start

Yeah but you're also quoting the man what also said: 'The internet will suck all creative content out of the world'.
Which I think is a bit extreme and far fetched.
Now, I think the guy is great and all and this could just be him being way ahead of his time again but some things he comes out with don't quiet reflect the world I live in so his idea for a 'scene' might be great in theory but really aren't easy or possible to implement.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

I think one thing that mitigates against a 'scene' in dublin at least is the sheer number of bands. I dont know if this is just an irish thing - for example Ive never been in a city where theres the same number of musical instrument shops in a small area as dublin. (perhaps @MilanPan!c might comment?)

If theres more bands per overall head of population, then its harder to build up a general buzz, as every bodies brother/sister/cat is in a band, and going to see your the guys down the road play isnt somthing that excites the general punter particularly

so the hardcore audience for independent original music is limited to a small pool of people, most of whom are also in bands.

The only genre in dublin that seems to have managed to develop a scene to any extent imho (and Im speaking purely as an observer rather than a participent) are probably the DIY/punk and metal scenes (could be wrong on the metal), where there seems to be a general level of support common to certainly most of the gigs Ive attended over the years

perhaps one of the reasons the original rude boys built up a bit of a local following/buzz was that theres not a lot of original bands in ballybough/east wall? certainly Ive never come across them.

however, its 4pm on a day I started with a splitting headache - so quite likely Im talking shite..