[Harp-L] Death of Live Music...



In 30 years of playing in and booking various bands I've witnessed, surfed, and survived
both boom and bust cycles. Some of the observations regarding the present youth demographic
are interesting and spot-on. American youth between the ages of 12-20 directly control discretionary spending
of between 110 and 165 BILLION dollars EACH YEAR. If you're interested in how the ever consolidating
entertainment industry manipulates that market, I highly recommend watching the PBS Frontline documentary,
"The Merchants of Cool". It's a few years dated...but they make a very compelling case about corporate
homogenization and appropriation of 'youth' culture....and they use two bands as prime examples:
Limp Bizkit and Insane Clown Posse....the entire 'rage rap rock' phase of a few years back.
The entire sham behind MTV's 'Total Request Live' bullshit about 'empowering the youth audience'
is especially sardonic....hearing a soft drink shill drone on about how Sprite isn't just a popular drink
among the DJ set...Sprite has become an integral part of the 'hip-hop lifestyle'. You can puke now if so inclined.


Our band no longer plays 50-60 shows a year for a number of reasons. One of these is that the
effort to book and sustain a schedule like that on a regional basis consumes too much time, energy, and resources.
The pay scale for most live acts has remained or lost ground to what we made back in the 1970's.
Our expenses have gone up...gear...gas...food...lodging. And our prime audience is getting older.


Two of the 'changes' our band hammered club owners on for years was to:

1) have earlier start times. Our crowd is happy to come out, eat dinner and stay for a 8-11 or 7-10pm show.
They do not stay much beyond the first set when shows don't start until 10:30.


2) more non-smoking venues or shows. Not trying to incite or troll a flame war here.
I just know that our audiences are ALWAYS bigger at nonsmoking venues or outdoor shows where smoking is less of an issue.


What we used to consider our 'home' venue finally caved on these two points after 4 years of arguing.
Our audience doubled, they sold twice as much food & beverages, AND PEOPLE BROUGHT THEIR KIDS.
And when people brought their kids, we had kids coming up to us asking about learning to play harmonica, mandolin,
drums, etc. People bought CDs and played them in their minivans when driving their kids around.
Some of those kids have booked us for their weddings. Go figure.


It's also worth noting that many now-older rockers (uh, Dan Zanes comes to mind...) are having far more
success as 'kids music' bands than they ever did on in their drive- from-dive-to-dive-days.


-Will




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