[lbo-talk] why Prince is right

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Mon Jul 12 06:31:40 PDT 2010


At 02:22 AM 7/12/2010, Michael Pollak wrote:
>1) First, most musicians have never heard of him, have never heard of his
>kind of music, and probably wouldn't like it if they did -- and that's
>completely irrelevant. Real musicians -- people who live to play and
>write, and whose indispensable goal is to make some kind of living at it
>because it's the most important thing in life to them -- are all very much
>alike in their position in the universe. The people who makes spaces for
>them play are almost always interested in something else and rip them off
>a lot -- no matter how cool or progressive or highbrow the facade looks.
>An avant garde violinist and a death metalist are both hustling a living
>in a similar way.

Why does he make a distinction between real musicians and the rest? I guess, when I think about the band I was involved with, and about the people I now work with who are in bands or who are artists or dancers or comediens, I can't see how they are any less real or serious or enthusiastic or whatever about what they do.

I'm not sure it's helpful to suggest there are "real" artists/musicians/writers and everyone who apparently don't have the drive and ambition to figure out how to make a living at it. I was thinking about the pre-internet days, about whether there was something different about trying to get noticed, and the band I was with.

I thought, hmmm, yeah, we drove all over hell - to some bar near Bard College where Natalie Merchant was always drunk/high off her ass to CBGBs where we freakin constantly got nailed for parking violations to dive bars, like Whiskey Dick's, in the boonies to coffee houses downtown and in the uni district to play acoustic. So yeah, a lot of work involved there. There were weekends when I helped stuff press packs. The afternoons I sat there and listened to her call CBGBs endlessly to listen to their fucking recording, trying to get through to a human. The radio shows and interviews the band did, to try to generate interest. A lot of work involved - so I was wondering if Keenan was right that there's more work now -- and all to play venues for free.

But band members all made their livings at day jobs. Just as the band members, artists, dancers I know now. In that old thread where Doug agreed to post his book for free download, Yoshie quoted a report to say that most writers survive with a day job.

So maybe I'm missing something, but this author sounds a little like Keenan who, like all of us, rants away about the "lesser" musicians who fill up social media sites and iTunes with schlock.

And in another email, you speak about him being a monument to the idea that you can make a living at it if you try. I guess this just freakin' infuriates me because it sets up a distinction between the "real" ones and the poseurs who just don't try hard enough or know enough - and by the way, buy my book so you can learn the secrets to making a living?

I don't see how we should turn to the tropes of the self-help movement - you can be well off and climb the ladder of success - if you just try. that the reason why you aren't there is because of some inner failing on your part - rather than the structural facts we should all know as lefties: artificial scarcity created by markets.

-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)



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