So me and my music partner got into a heated hammered debate last night.

Would you take your hit songs and hand them off to some talented 18-year-old, and manage him, mentor him, and send him out to make a million-seller (so you reign in the phat cash), OR, would you go out and perform/sell the song yourself, where, as an older person, you might not be able to have the stage moves, energy, and teen-market-appeal that would bring you all those clams?

Personally, I'd find greater satisfaction playing the songs and making that connection one person at a time, whereas the other side of the coin is, oh my lord, I really hurt this morning cuz I was up til 2am playing to 5 people in an empty bar. They REALLY loved my songs, but, it was 2am, playing to 5 people.

5 people at 2 am isn't exactly fame, yo. But I know what you mean. I don't want someone else getting love and attention because I wrote a brilliant song. I've always felt that people who don't write their own music are fake, like how can they REALLY express what the song is about if they didn't write it themselves?

I don't know about mentoring and being so involved in a teen-star's life... but songwriting does pay the bills... Look at Diane Warren. So a little of both would be cool. Remember Cathy Dennis? She wrote Can't Get You Out of My Head for Kylie Minogue.

Playing the songs to 5 people at 2 in the morning and meaning it.


back to my day job...

Yeah - no - my point is that, those 5 people were totally digging it, and will return. So, you build up the base, 3-5 people at a time, sometimes, and it could take years, but you get to work it.

I guess it's the diff between being self-employed, and working for the man.

otan :

Yeh, do that, and ....


Yeh bit of a Pandora's box aint it, The Pain, the bucks, the groupies....
If your after the $$$, take both roads and see what happens...
It's about soul & 'clams'... There's something about the applause, even if it is only 5 people. The feedback is such a buzz.
I think you need a manager, but not "The Man". Keep at it is my advice, performing; it's only gonna get bigger...spread the word and play at some different venue's.

It's such a full on lifestyle on the road. Youth is an advantage, not as if you're old though. And the luck factor is a biggy. It's late, i'm stuck...
You can do it, whatever choice you make.

otan said:

Do you really have the patience to do this? You seem to lose interest in stuff as fast as me! LOL. You could always pull a Prince - do your own thing and have five side projects. How prolific are you?

No-brainer.

Let the young 'un get the temporary glamour and glory from the "faithful public" with my commercial pop-gems
that would be written under a pseudonym.

I'll take the cash, relative privacy and sanity.
The vats of money could then be used finance a band of stellar musicians that could travel to exotic places around
the world playing the non-commercial/experimental/instrumental things we're into for people who enjoy more dangerous music.

If I could have the money, i'd much rather be respected and accepted by other musicians that I admire.
And that's the truth.

Btw, where is this kid?
( more importantly, where are these commercial pop-gems?)

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

I don't think I could handle fame, so give me the cash please. I'll just produce these catchy (but still quite leftfield) pop-gems (I wouldn't completely sell my soul to the devil) and live a quite life. Although I'd still use my status as hitproducer to get entrance to nice decadent celebrety parties and score the chicks, but at the same time I could walk the streets incognito...

I'll take that cash and start producing people, while working on my own skills.

I am a hellafied dancer but when that bank roll in for royalties, that's when I'll really be

Fame is nice and all, but it has an expiration date. The Beatles / their families are still eating off their riches...even though they are not per4ming...(cuz 2 of em are dead and all..)

If U believe you are that talented...then you can go both ways. Prince and numerous other artists do it all the time.

Well - to me, the money is nothing. I thrive on the applause and seeing people dancing and jamming to stuff I wrote. It totally clicked for me when after a gig a few years ago, I'm packing up, and somebody is leaving the bar singing my song!

I'll take broke up on the stage over rich in the studio.

I understand the reward of continuing to perform your own gems. However, take yourself for instance...O...U pump out some very good material. Perhaps, just perhaps one of your tunes tickles the ear of a young upcomer already making noise to the masses and wants to use your song. Are you going to hold back, when in fact it is Xtremely possible that your song could rise to the top, making you not only even more known than you were before, and as a bonus to your craft, they dump some cash into your account. Wouldn't that be the ideal situation?

theAudience said:

I honestly dont think I couldve said anything like that better myself..
( I'll take the cash...)

With cash you can always buy fame. You can't always get money from fame though.

otan said:

I like that too, but the problem is I am very shy. I used to be a singer in bands when I was 20 or something and the few gigs we did were hell for me. All those people staring at you, I had to do the talking in between, and taking all these compliments afterwards is justtoo much for me, hehehe, especially because I always saw a lot of flaws in my performance. So that's why I don't particularly like it to be on stage. But on the other hand, it IS very cool to see people reacting/dancing to your music...

Red said:

Well, hell yes I'd pass a song on to someone else who would become huge. (and in fact, that happened when Alana Davis covered Ani DiFranco's "32 Flavors"... I went into the store to get the Alana Davis record, and the employee turned me on to Ani instead). So, to be specific, no, I would definitely allow anybody to cover my songs, but, the original question addressed a key decision to avoid the stage entirely, and for me, I just can't do that.

My fans need me.

oh DAMN I kill me. But seriously - I understand what you're saying A08 about the stage fear and all that stuff, but I got over that crap - two words: sun glasses. Damn right I wear them onstage. I don't like staring into people's eyes when I'm singing/playing - cuz I'm totally zoned out and dont really think about who I'm looking at... so the sunglasses help to avoid having my ass kicked cuz I stared at a dude during the humpty songs.

otan said:

Huh? No fear here - I love being up on stage and acting like an imbecile. It was cool Saturday when I was performing Outkast with the big afro wig and sunglasses. I was gyrating around like an idiot. And it felt good because it was like I was in disguise. I go out in the crowd and dance and play guitar just because it's fun. I hear ya!! BUT I would certainly let somebody cover one of my songs and take the cash. In fact, go right ahead and cover "Sex Ballad." Hahaha.

theAudience has a clear head
otan don't you have a Son who's in a band . Yeh, i know, "piss off Dad, i'm not playing your shit !" (??? just a thought.)
Good thread, we've looked at 'The big picture' and come up with the right images .

Been thinking of post by Frank Axtell of interview Re: Todd Rundgren.His language is kinda Biblical.

I edited it a bit to get the essence as i see it:

Todd Rundgren interview; [excerpts]

Music is a sacrament. This has been true for thousands of years of human history, save the last 100 or so. I'm sure it was not Edison's purpose to debase such an important aspect of our collective liturgy, but what would one expect when something that was once ephemeral and could only be experienced at the behest of other humans is reduced to a commodity on a shelf.

The mechanisms of music, how and why it affects us the way it does, are still mystical even to a cynical older record producer like myself. Anyone who denies the depth and power of this medium has simply forgotten, in the face of the relentless Philistine argument, that all things can be commoditized regardless of their sacred origins -- that all music is worth exactly what the RIAA says it is.

Most musicians who have enjoyed any success under this model are in an ethical bind: On one hand, you may believe that your survival depends on effective marketing of a commodity; on the other, you realize that your truest expressions are being trivialized to fit properly into a prealloted space. How many times have I heard the argument, "Love the record, but we don't hear a third single -- back to the studio"?

I must remind my fellow players that for the vast majority of history we have only been appreciated for the quality of human expression we could produce at the moment. Great performances were only memories in the minds of those who witnessed, each unique except perhaps for the calliope at the local merry-go-round which was, of course, a machine.

After nearly 40 years in this business I know who my friends are. I know it isn't the labels who lost interest in my "fringe audience" decades ago. It is that fringe audience who still await any recording or performance I may come up with despite the RIAA trying to drive some symbolic wedge between me and my listeners just because their ass is in a sling. Don't do me any favors.

Audiences and musicians are on the same side. Musicians come from the audience (unlike record execs who come from the ranks of failed musicians). We experience together the mystical sacrament that a musical performance can represent. Additionally, we will be comfortably if not handsomely compensated by that audience if we can deliver a suitably affecting performance with some regularity.

Todd Rundgren interview
Published Oct. 22, 2003

Beau, keep playing to 5 people. You may have inspired one of those people on a personal level. If a person took one of your songs and put it to mass media, by the time it got through the studio and the multi-million treatment, your blues may end up sounding like P-Diddy with some overplayed Zeppelin samples behind it. That's why what we, and you are doing is the best way. You, and we, are about inspiration and message. I believe that if we do things the right way, that in the end, the money will flow for us all as a positive result. You never know, somebody may want to cover one of your songs who will do right with it, keep it real sounding and close to your sound, make millions, and you will benefit from that financially also- and in the process, you get mad props and promo from that.

I can't tell you how inspired I am from just knowing that I have influenced people online. From the people that I inspire online and in person, the benefit from that, is worth it way more than money. If I can let people know about the love, positivity, and corrective change/teachings of Christ through subtle words in song and essay, I would do it forever and not ask for a dime. If I happen to be blessed financially in the process, that's cool too!

Peace,
JD

I agree with you 100% FP... do what you love and the rewards will come.

And, hey, if P Doodoo wants to lay carpenters samples over my songs, so long as the clams find their way to my acocunt, I don't mind!!

and the choir said, "Amen".

FLUX said:

I'm hoping this isn't what you meant...





Just kidding. Todd's really got the "clear head"

Btw, i've got something for you that i'll post soon titled "For FLUX: The 20,000 Person Question".
As I figured, I couldn't state it succinctly so it's pretty long. Anyway it was fun thinking back through the experience.

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

SET @ ECHO ON = AUDIENCE DEVICE DRIVERS.

Looking forward to it !

give me the performing any time! the look and response from someone who digs your songs is priceless. if thats in front af 10 or 10,000 people, i dont care. i never learnt to get "a deal", i learnt, and continue to do so, so i could hopefully be part of a band that held the audience in the palm of its hand. i could only dream of being as good as my heroes but what they do live and on record and how that affects someones life, even for a minute....thats what makes me reherse, practice, gig and perform. i dont completly object to handing my stuff over and being a mentor as such but i would want a bigger part of it, musical director or something? the buzz on stage is incomparable to anything i have ever felt and that is where i am "me". i feel stiffled and suffocated by life and my get out clause is music. i dread to think what i would be doing or what i would be without being able to perform.
5 people dug your thing, it was two in the mornin but if you make it and i hope your persaverance pays off, its nights like those that will define the artist you become, and it will be people like those 5 that will help you become the artist you will be. the very best of luck to you
there you go, thats my thoughts!
[Edited 12/7/04 10:56am]