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Originally Posted by jonathan
Live bands are a fantastic way of making a decent living.
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Honestly, this is such bullshit - and unfortunately, I'm obliged to not qualify that. Let's say I know someone who's in band x, who've sold x million records; let's also say I know someone who's sold nearly a million records. Neither consider touring a valid way of making money. Not in the old way. Ok, they make a substantial amount of money. Yes, there are external revenue streams - sponsorship (hello, ticketmaster), advert/ soundtrack affiliations, merchandise - but none of these are available to anything more than a preposterously tiny percentage of the population. I know (again, I'd best not name them) a band who can play in front of 5-10,000 people in central Europe for whom touring is simply less financially feasible than working in a bar for minimum wage. The US has smaller fuel premiums, and is more negotiable for less money, certainly - so I'll accept that they might have a different situation. But for the band in the UK, or across most of Europe, without financial subsidies from the state, it's not feasible. As a for instance - it's nearly more feasible for me to play in front of 20 people in Leipzig (542 miles, according to a recent google) because plane and train fare is cheaper and the government supports culture than it is to play, as I did tonight, 20 minutes walk away.
All this meritocracy bullshit is just bullshit. I'm very prosaic - I realise that my work will not translate into money. I look to other things for a career. Meanwhile, a good friend who's spent 10 years working genuinely very hard at nothing but music - including gladhanding promoters, learning the trade, getting inter/national press etc was admitted to hospital from malnutrition recently.