SUBJECT: Let the Clubs Close. Main points (copies and pasted from the post)
1. The music business has completely flipped. Most acts gain their start online.
2. Life has changed. The experience has changed. Used to be you had to leave the house for socialization, to meet people, to get laid. But that hasn’t been true for years. Now, you can meet people online, and it’s a much more efficient process.
3. Music is no longer a scarce commodity. It’s everywhere. If anything, we can complain that there’s too much music in the pipeline. It’s hard to find your way through the detritus. And the dirty little secret is that – just because you make it – does not mean people will want to listen to it.
4. So we could address the issue at its heart. How to get more types of music, that of developing acts, in front of the audience. That’s a worthy cause. But starting in burgs with clubs, that’s a fool’s errand.
5. People are hungry for music, the new and the different. But today it rarely starts in clubs. For all the denigration of the internet, that’s where it starts, and then it goes to live, that’s the formula.
6. And “…guys, gritty from the city, working it out on stage, playing rock music… isn’t the kind of music people want anymore anyway.”
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Comment from Steve Pavey: This is written from a very narrow perspective, and from not knowing two very important facts about music: first, music is subjective. One person can hate a song, another person can love it and a third person can totally take it or leave it. All three are right.
The 2nd fact is that music goes in cycles. Carl Perkins was doing Rockabilly in 1958, Dave Edmunds re-introduced it in 1970 and the Stray Cats bought it back in 1978. In between, people were listening to something else. Psychedelic music has come, gone and come again. Same with Power Pop and vocal music.
So just because no one may want to listen to gritty city guys playing rock now doesn’t really mean anything because 5-10 years from now, it may be the exact opposite.
I do agree that there’s a glut of music in the marketplace and not all of it is music anyone wants to hear. But if you use online marketing effectively, you’re almost guaranteed to find an audience. It may be small and it may not be sustainable financially, but it’ll be there.
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Chris K. rebuttal: I agree that you can almost always find an audience. Hell, there’s still an audience for 8-track tapes and Benny Goodman music.
I think that Leftsetz is specifically looking at is the issue of taxing the biggest shows and venues in London in order to pay for the smallest venues,where this proposal is gaining interest it seems.
Should we subsidize a failing part of an industry to keep it afloat? And if so, should we tax the “bigs” to feed the “smalls”?
He’s arguing from the economic pov that the kinds of demographics that once upon a time made rock rooms happen doesn’t exist anymore, hence the Noah Kahn reference and solo women with guitars.
I no longer see that side of the business since I’ve moved mostly into more event type stuff – where as a buyer I’m looking for marque value based on known metrics.
There will be live music. But more and more of it will be free to attend.
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Photo: Chris Kresge