tegs07

It’s not necessarily an age thing. Some middle aged, middle class professionals will go regularly to gigs at random. I would not rely on them randomly stumbling across my band though if I was trying to make a living from music.

Or weekends. Most of the time I have commitments and strangely enough getting in at gone midnight doesn’t gel well with getting in to work and doing a decent job. Your rant is not for me. If you don’t want to prostitute your self on the socials or want people to use streaming platforms that is up to you but as you said “no effer want to get off their fat one” So I guess it’s everyone else who is at fault for not knowing about you? I will continue going to see relatively unknown artists who I discovered in the digital space. I hope that I contribute in some small way to them making a living. As I have already said most of these bands have an audience no larger than The Fall in their early days and from what I gather previous members hardly made a fortune from record sales even in the good old days.

I am in my mid 50s. The days of frequenting random gigs mid week are 30 years behind me. The generation that you need for that are teenagers to mid twenties and like it or not they get their information from the digital space.

I do. I just tend not to blindly pay £25+ for tickets, £7+ plus a pint and £15 plus on transport on a whim. Like most people.

This is getting very circular. How do I find these musicians? Talk to my middle aged IT mates? Ask my kids? How do they find the bands? Streaming and social media, they don’t read the NME or listen avidly to John Peel (largely because he is dead), they don’t join bands by taking the little serated number from the add in the local corner shop. Like it or not the world has changed and it’s digital. I don’t do social media as I genuinely have concerns about the political and social ambitions of the big tech companies so streaming is the least worst option.

Do you think that you are missing the point? No is the answer. Do I think people are going to start buying records and CDs again and restricting their social lives to pubs and working man’s clubs? No So we can’t re write history. We can utilise technology. Even in the glory days I have read enough autobiography from people in smaller bands like The Fall, Spacemen 3 etc to know that they earned very very little from sales of recorded music.

The key phrase is by recorded music. Musicians made money by selling records and CDs for probably about 40/50 years in several centuries. Musicians made money before the gramophone. They make money in the digital age. The important part of the debate is how. Not moaning about the change. Embracing the technology that is available to make a living. I would say that even in the glory days getting well known relied on getting a record deal, getting a promoter etc and unless bands were hugely successful they saw very little money. In many ways smaller bands are better off without the good old days.

Not like the good old days! Things have changed though. The music industry has changed. People’s priorities have changed. How people spend money has changed. Their aspirations have changed. Taking advantage of these changes is far more constructive than moaning about the good old days. The propensity of the UK moaner is something to behold. No matter how much resistance we have the next generation will see things differently, they will use technology differently and they will spend their money and time differently. Musicians made money from recorded music for a very brief period in the big picture. Probably a couple of decades in hundreds of years. That era is over.

I remember even in the late 80s early 90s pubs being rammed to capacity when the most established local bands were playing so can well believe it. It’s not something I witness now but I have limited exposure. It may well still be a ‘thing’?

The one musician I know who makes a full time living wage and has been at it for years, has established audiences and booking agents tends to get around 250 to 300 max under their own steam so if the venue takes a punt on unknowns to fill that number it must be a very successful venue with a top notch team.

Local unsigned artists playing 300-500 capacity? Wow that is pretty incredible.

Yes true but ultimately it is pointless going all Don Quixote. This technology is out in the wild. Some of it is useful, some of it is deeply destructive. Ultimately we can only learn to use it and make our own decisions about what elements to embrace and what elements to resist. In the same way I never gave Cowell a penny of my money or willingly watched any of his abysmal TV shows I will avoid AI generated music. I have to let other people make their own decisions about it though.

when it’s relevant to a the discussion at hand I am. Otherwise I have limited interest. You rarely seem to have anything to add other than to tell everybody else that they are wrong.

I noticed a thread where you have got rid of all your televisions. Personally speaking we are in the golden era of TV. Streaming services like Netflix and Apple TV have created utter gems with outstanding writing, acting and soundtracks. I am currently listening to the soundtrack of Down Cemetery Road on Spotify and will check out the artists I like. The world has changed. Some technology is incredibly useful. Narrowing your sources down to physical print media or analog media is going to severely restrict your access to news, culture and information, not to mention your ability to understand the world of the younger generation. The generation who don’t remember a time when Spotify didn’t exist and are using an entirely new toolset to create, communicate and educate.

Interesting thanks for the replies. I am not a gigging musician but a punter. I tend to rely on Spotify to find new artists and Dice to let me know when they are touring. As has been mentioned AI is a threat but for now I think people are safe. Formulaic music has been around since forever with the likes of Stock, Aitken and Waterman and later Simon Cowell. I am not convinced that AI music is anything different but just another step. Some people will go and see a holographic performance of AI content. I can envision this unfortunately. I am sure that just as people went to whatever boy band was going through the motions, many others will continue to seek something different.