By Alex Strekal

To art or not to art…that is the question…

A Little Back History…

I’ve more or less been a musician my whole life. I took piano lessons when very young, participated in school band passingly on viola and alto sax, and I took up drum lessons and started picking up the guitar throughout my teens. I ultimately settled on the guitar as my instrument, though I actually was primarily a drummer at first. And I ended up going to college for music for a time in my early 20’s. After that, I started hitting up jam nights and open mic nights around the Cleveland area, and I have moderately gigged as a sideman on and off and joined a number of bands in that time.

Aside from theory, composition, ear training, guitar lessons, and jazz band as the classes during college, there was also a music business class, though I honestly was relatively disinterested and it was the one class I didn’t do great in. Among other things, I do recall that they talked about how to maintain copyrights for your work and the nature of organizations like ASCAP/BMI, in combination with various legal minutia, which involves licensing requirements, fees and fines, for performing other people’s work live in a business. I had no idea coming into music that such things were a factor, but looking at it later, ASCAP/BMI seems like a bit of a protection racket for industry middlemen, in the name of maintaining strict intellectual property.

What The Music Business Is Actually Like…

I also had no idea coming into the local live music scene how any of that truly works either, at first I just wanted to put myself out there and play with other people instead of being stuck playing by myself at home or to backing tracks, so I attended jam night events where a house band plays and hosts it, and then fairly randomized lineups of musicians are put together by the host for maybe 15-20 minutes of stage time. They may or may not have a sign-up sheet, and one must talk to the host to potentially play. There are also “open mic” events that are similar but more for solo and acoustic acts to come up to perform by themselves. Otherwise, either type of event potentially could have people show up and perform as pre-existing band lineups, as essentially a night on the town that’s free promotion for their band, at the curtesy of the host.

I’ve never steadily gigged for a living or anything like that or particularly been part of official recording releases unfortunately. But I’ve done a share of gigs at bars and small clubs, occasionally a fancy diner or a casino. I have been in bands in the past that did their own little independent demo recordings, and I used to do more of my own recordings with simple home studio equipment. I hadn’t considered when starting out how much of a financial barrier to entry there is for this stuff – having the gear to pull off a reasonable recording to begin with costs money, otherwise you are at the mercy of a local recording studio, which also can charge significant money.

Local level gigging is also a bit of a crude world, as I discovered. The average pay scale hasn’t especially changed since the 70’s or 80’s, according to many older musicians I’ve spoken to. The typical arrangement for young original bands that are first starting out is to be forced to sell tickets by the venue and then receive chump change as a percentage of the ticket sales, or something that is generally chump change well below 50 dollars per musician, or in some cases literal “pay to play” arrangements. Cover bands can be a bit more of a reliable bet at making money, while it’s tribute bands that are the safest bet, as there is a built-in crowd for it and it taps into nostalgia. But no matter what your route is, no one knows who you are as a startup.

More generally, club owners expect people to bring a sizable crowd, while it is likely that an upstart band, even if it’s a cover band, mostly is going to just have family and friends showing up, maybe a small fanbase follows it too, but it’s competing with a lot of other things, including other shows at the same time. A lot of bands make maybe 100 bucks per musician for the night. Maybe even 50 bucks. 200 if it’s a nicer deal. There are some who have gigs that pay much better, even 500 or 1000 per musician, but those gigs are inherently tightly gatekept, often by older professional musicians. The natural math of it also makes it more lucrative to be a solo act, since being in a band can mean splitting pay between 4, 5, 6 or even more people.

Gigging as a relative unknown also ends up meaning that you’re often playing to strangers in bars who aren’t actually there to see you play. You may win over some of them just by being there, though that itself isn’t necessarily the way to build a fanbase. The practical reality would seem to be that, for the most part, nobody knows or cares who you are until you get some sort of press or promotion done for you, or you are given accolades by other people in the scene who already are established, but this is also where things inherently get political. Getting press and promo requires connections or otherwise costs money, while the pecking order of who is treated as important in the scene is at the whimsy of those who are established, their clique.

The exact class categorization or status of people who are “working musicians” seems a bit ambiguous or mixed. One could say that it’s a precarious version of being working class, as being a gigging musician at an average local level is effectively being an “under the table” / unwaged worker with an arrangement with some bar or club owner, who is effectively hiring you on the expectation that you have a draw so that people will buy alcohol and food. It’s precarious because the work hours and pay are unpredictable or sporadic, and sometimes club owners stiff the band, while it’s a highly competitive environment. People have to treat it as a hustle to string enough gigs together, often with a handful of groups, to actually make a living from it, while many musicians teach lessons on the side or even as their main income source.

But there can also be a notable aspect to this where a portion of the more highly successful local professional musicians are definitely coming from relative wealth. People can get a leg up at a young age or even enjoy “child star” status because they have wealthy parents who more or less bankroll free press and promo for them to launch their careers. It also almost inherently requires at least “middle class” means to especially get the equipment to be a professional musician and record in general. Furthermore, if someone makes it to the point where they are fully self-produced, and they are able to independently make a living from their own recordings, it does become “petite-bourgeoisie” then. Band leaders past a certain point can also function in their way as a person hiring someone else, while potentially pocketing more for themselves on the basis of what capital they bring or their leader status.

And when it comes to gigging, it does become dependent on collaboration with local business and city government, and some people even literally get grants to gig with. Some professional musicians take this in a YIMBY sort of direction in the name of “supporting the scene”, highlighting local efforts to “invest in the arts”, but these sort of business and government collaboration efforts from my perspective seem to mostly just benefit people who already are well connected with opportunities to have a space and spotlight, or to showcase their own particular cliques. It never seems to end in better pay for local musicians in general or an opening of the scene, so much as just some local investment in further developing gentrified business districts.

But it isn’t likely that too many local-level musicians are fully self-produced artists who don’t need a day job or a side job. When it comes to recording, one is more likely at the mercy of someone else who quite literally “owns the means of production”, a producer/engineer who is likely going to charge you. If you are lucky or connected in the right way, you could be someone used by a producer who owns a studio as a studio musician to throw down on a variety of other people’s tracks, with you actually getting paid for it. Otherwise, you’re left to do recordings DIY style.

Whatever method of recording one uses, there’s a difference between production and distribution. So even if you’re given a good deal to record on the cheap or do it yourself for free or a small upfront investment in gear, it’s ultimately just a file on a computer or a burned CD and no one knows about it unless you tell them. If you’re an upstart without any press or promo connections, you have few options but to put it on some website like SoundCloud or perhaps make a Bandcamp. But it isn’t likely you’re going to be making much more than occasional chump change with it even if you monetize it on some contemporary platform like ITunes, as a nobody.

This is where press, a manager or recording company role traditionally would come in, to actually provide promo so that people even know you exist in the first place at a more significant scale. This sort of thing still exists but the promo is more online now, while it’s more common for musicians to be expected to take on business roles that used to more likely be covered by others. For example, I have a friend who had a flirtation with relative fame in an all-girl metal band. When they started out they were just playing local-level shows in Cleveland and Detroit, but once they got connected to the famous producer Joey Sturgis because one of them was dating him, their band suddenly got significant online promo, a full professional press reveal with hundreds of thousands of reacts online. My friend ultimately got screwed out of royalties for her songwriting contributions and kicked out of the band, then later won a lawsuit over the matter for some of the royalty rights. But my point is that being connected and given that kind of boost makes all the difference.

The whole idea of an outright “rock star” or “pop star” who is a globally famous multi-millionaire is a relatively modern thing that only exists as a reality for a small portion of artists. And it always came with its own trapping and crude realities. I had no idea growing up that recording contracts, for example, are traditionally more or less a form of debt that artists payed off by touring and selling merch, while the record companies largely kept the profits. They may be fronted what seems like a large sum of money to record a certain number of albums and pay for all the largesse required to do their thing at that scale, but it could end as a wash for them and they generally gave up the full rights to their own music in the process. Artists who make steps to retain the rights to their music can more easily end up as independent millionaires.

In the current age things have shifted more towards online platforms, while intellectual property standards have arguably become stricter in recent years, lessening what used to be more public domain territory and allowing for dead legacy artists to have the rights to their music abused to extremities under the ownership of major corporations, and with YouTube creators running into overhanded punishments just for featuring something as background or demo music for a purpose. The streaming platforms used to make money for recorded material also infamously aren’t as lucrative as even the older model was for most artists, and in general, putting your stuff online faces the question of the algorithm. Your online presence is generally a hidden drop in the bucket without some industry insider push or what otherwise devolves into the new version of “payola” or “pay to be seen”, per for example Facebook’s monetized model for engagement on an artist’s public page.

We get this image from movies of some record executive approaching an unknown artist after their gig and hooking them up for big time fame, but that’s highly unlikely. Artists who are actually rich “stars” could be said to be massive commercial enterprises in and of themselves, though it also often seems to come with having “handlers” in some way and it’s common for contemporary artists to have a fairly transparent “industry plant” backstory. A lot of it isn’t very organically forged stardom necessarily, there is often some industry or family relation. And the music business at that level is filled with intermediaries who are not artists and have purely business interests. True “fame” at that level comes with a lot of absurdities, some of which are inconvenient for the artist, such as lack of privacy and the paparazzi. Rich and famous yet surrounded by vultures, then your legacy appropriated after you die.

Scenes Suck…

So short of true “fame”, which probably isn’t desirable anyway if you think about it in a balanced way, you’re probably left looking at being a local or regional artist, or perhaps if you can get properly launched with it, being an online content creator. Living in an urban area probably helps a lot at the whole “local scene” thing having a meaning. But it’s a cliche for people to say “support your local scene”, while it tends to strike me that people often really mean “support me and my friends”. The problem with “scenes” is that you learn they are like high school, but for adults. Cliques naturally form and gatekeeping happens, and people cluster around specific niches as to what music they do, or there are considerations about neighborhood and generation. One could say there are scenes within scenes, based on which particular friendship and professional collaboration network is involved, or genre preferences.

Local music scenes also have their own cliched conflicts of interest and rivalries. It’s common for original artists and tribute bands to have radically different perspectives on what music is about, with tribute bands being written off as uncreative or opportunistic mimers milking someone else’s brand, while the tribute people shoot back at original acts as being not quality enough to justify success. And it’s a competitive environment in general. There is a limited number of potential gigs and professional opportunities relative to a very high number of artists. People who take lower paying gigs are also often complained about by older, established professional musicians in protectionist terms, blamed for lowering everyone else’s pay. While others complain about gatekeeping and seeing the same musicians and acts put into the spotlight or exclusively engaging with each other, while others are invisible.

What one finds trying to navigate scenes as a musician is that playing and music itself is about 10% of it, while the rest is business and social connection considerations. And in this day and age, when it comes to social media, having a proper professional presence with a full formal press reveal with posing pictures and promo art is almost a requirement, and it helps to have a website with a handy set of quotes from other people in the scene or some sort of press source praising you, and a glowing poetic description of who you are written as an introduction or “about me”. This is usually accompanied with aggregated links to your work for sale. But this sort of thing can’t be accomplished without boosts from others or otherwise becoming an entrepreneur, and there can be friction between the entrepreneurial and artistic side of things.

If one is focused entirely on being an artist, financial success can become an issue. This is perhaps well illustrated by Allan Holdsworth’s story, as he infamously was staunchly artistically pure and defiant towards playing the commercial game, and at various points had to sell his equipment to get by or even get home from touring somewhere, and ended up dying broke, with his family having to start a crowdfunding campaign to pay for his funeral. This is despite have a reasonable degree of legacy fame, at least within his niche of prog and fusion, and being named checked and promoted by Eddie Van Halen in the early 80’s. Holdsworth often had to rely on others for help throughout his career and was probably mismanaged at points.

But on the other end of the spectrum, people can fully embrace music’s commercial and pandering trappings or aspects, to a point that hollows out the idea of artistry in the first place. People can treat music as punching the clock or with a sort of cynical mentality to make money at all costs, even if it means doing what is convenient or pandering to the lowest common denominator or laying heavy on the entertainment shtick. It is common for local scenes to get overly flooded with too many cover bands playing the same sort of setlists because it keeps things safe and is low effort, or otherwise local musicians can become “band whores” who play whatever gig they can. Questions of authenticity or self-honesty linger once one is playing music one doesn’t necessarily like or love for the sake of being in a band or making money.

The music industry is definitely not all cake and roses. I’ve personally more or less given up on “the dream” of even “making it”, where “making it” is simply a steady middle class income from being a staple in a local music scene. It’s not impossible but it can be difficult to find the right musicians to do what you would ideally like to do, along with the right social and financial connections for anything to come about and matter professionally. It ends up having an upfront cost, in not just the equipment but the consumption involved in attending events, time spent rehearsing or mingling before there are gigs when one could be working making money, etc. And unfortunately, one has to be wary of being taken for a ride by people who either are purposefully exploitative or simply can’t provide reasonable paying gigs.

The other side of the coin of professional gatekeeping is that there may well be a share or category of people who are kind of lousy or at least mediocre who try to get you to work for their group or want to jam with you. There may be a threshold of “being nice” to appease such people or perhaps encouraging them or mentoring them, but it also generally points you either towards low paying or free gigs or a casual part of the scene that isn’t particularly taken seriously or respected (I.E. a hobbyist scene), which in turn could reflect badly on your own reputation. One does have to draw a line somewhere, at least for oneself as a musician, or standards devolve and performing stops being fun if the situations you’re working with are pretty lousy.

The jam nights and open mic nights are a mixed bag. On the surface or in theory, they are a community platform for exposure and networking, which is a community service provided by the house band or host. They can be a good way to get initiated in the scene and get experience playing with others. Underneath the surface, they can be competitive, or have an implied prize at the end of the tunnel of favoritism and professional opportunities, to be featured, shouted out, hyped, collaborated with, etc. The other side of these events, beyond the community aspect, is a clique and nepotism thing, which almost seems to unconsciously or naturally play out. The host ultimately has the power, and the overall surrounding scene has its own dynamics, with pre-established people who are friends and in professional networks, and crowd favorites.

Similar dynamics play out on social media, but in a way more transparently, as local musicians show the favoritism and clique patterns in their behavior there, as reflected in the distribution of likes and reacts and overall engagement to content. Aside from this, there is of course the possibility of one’s content getting a bit lost in the algorithm, which has gotten worse over time. My own algorithm ends up giving me the impression that my non-music, non-local friends, or otherwise fellow musicians in another country, care about my music-related content more than my own local music scene people do, which sends a confusing message. Perhaps this reflects who is most likely to show up to a gig of yours – I.E. people who are there out of loyalty or respect to you as a person, but who aren’t necessarily invested in the music as a fan.

Local or regional scenes can certainly have differences, but there are some near-universal things that seem to apply, especially relative to age demographics. In almost any town in the US, there is likely to be a boomer-aged “white blues-rock” scene as one of the major default formats for local live performance. There may also be more of a Gen X dominated, pure rock or 80’s rock and metal sort of crowd. And there is always the folkie and americana singer-songwriters with their own format. And, of course, we get the indie and alternative crowd, which used to be a younger crowd but also is at its roots an aging Gen X thing along with the 80’s rock/metal bro folks (they are sort of like the cultural left vs right of Gen X in how this plays out). The jazz scene probably exists too, partly linked with the local colleges, along with classical.

Classical and jazz in a sense significantly come pre-packaged with economic status considerations, precisely because one typically goes to school for them and they are associated with academic formalism. People fought to include jazz next to classical at the colleges and in the 60’s and 70’s, college jazz programs boomed and the infamous Berklee College of Music produced an endless list of what became famous musicians. Ultimately, I think that this was both a victory and the beginning of a loss for jazz. The victory was that a black derived musical form had been given high culture status and jazz could now be fostered educationally beyond the bandstand. The loss was that jazz became a formalized, gatekept, collegiate space often associated with upper middle class white people who wear scarves and turtlenecks and tuxes and gowns, or something for select “high achieving individuals”, while its formalization into an educational curriculum and a rulebook of expectations doesn’t address jazz’s own fundamental creative and individualist aspects, I.E. people learn jazz in order to treat it as a museum replica piece of the 30’s-50’s, a historical re-enactment society, and to more or less become a copycat of a famous musician who could be their grandpa.

Blues can suffer from much the same issue, minus the academic formalism. That is, people who insert themselves into the blues space can get into all sorts of ideologically loaded territory in the name of notions of authenticity, and it’s a music genre that more or less stopped evolving long ago and can be treated as a re-enactment or cosplay that gets layed on a bit thick. It comes with its own costumes just like jazz, is also a black derived form that became predominantly white, and it has a rather vocal share of people who want to stake a special claim on it and put a fence around it, and get rather high and mighty in their rhetoric about what can be taken seriously as real blues. Half the time, the same people doing the gatekeeping aren’t even close to traditional blues themselves and are basically rockers. But no one lets that get in the way of their pretense to being more authentic and rootsy than thou. Except instead of being represented by upper middle class collegiate liberals, it’s upper middle class hillbillies who tend to make the modern blues scene awkward.

What I generally call “the indie / hipster scene” is its own story. It’s almost a sort of exaggerated inversion of the elitist aspects of jazz into a different type of elitism, where one’s authenticity and credibility is based on some sort of punk rock derived rulebook of culture, with a whole edifice built to determine what is cool and not cool – and with actually being a high level, accomplished musician who engages with music beyond a folk-tradition level being considered uncool. The indie / hipster types can transparently fetishize being a sloppy musician who can hardly make a pleasant sound from one’s instrument or especially sing in tune, often have to attach some extra-musical cultural significance to it that is more important than the musical content, while otherwise defaulting to nostalgia for old American folk and country music. What one finds, indeed, is that much of what floats in this space is pure retro pastiche, often minus non-white musical influences. People from this scene are likely to have a negative and resentful attitude towards musicians who can seriously play, or to people coming into their spaces without having the prerequisite punk-derived reference points for what they think music is supposed to be like. So you can cork sniff just like a jazz elitist without actually being very musically cultured. Great.

This is a variety of ways of saying that I don’t like “scenes”. I like people. I like jazz and blues music, and I occasionally like something I hear that someone tells me is “indie”. I don’t like people hinging their whole identity on some music genre label that is taken as a rulebook for exactly what you should think or wear, or isolating themselves into little exclusive cults based on a narrow slice of what music can be. Generally, when I’m in a setting where live music is happening, there is a baseline level of respect for what’s involved in it because I’m a musician myself, and I can appreciate and get into almost whatever is going on at some level. But I could care less about this whole idea of a scene as a cultural identity. I don’t see why you shouldn’t play jazz in jeans and a metal t-shirt, or shred on your guitar with distortion while wearing what looks like a professor or accountant’s outfit. And I don’t see why you have to swear fealty to a social group’s code to engage with a type of music.

Music is wonderful. But economics and loaded cultural bullshit makes it weird. I think that the primary reason anyone should play music is because it’s a form of personal therapy for them, it’s something they can’t help but do or just part of who they are. Becoming a musician is inherently a sort of obsessive behavior or a fetish. The other considerations come long after the primal fact of one’s personal connection to the sound. Sometimes I think some professional musicians forget why they actually started playing, I.E. it’s a natural type of personal therapy and obsessive expression. Sure, some guys will say they started playing guitar to pick up women, and it’s a shallow reason and I don’t take them seriously if they say that because they are telling me they don’t take themselves seriously. But such comments are just as likely to be a front or some boomer asshole’s idea of being cute. Assuming we’re not just devoting ourselves to “fun” or “party” music, therapeutic emotional resonance is why you play. If that’s not the case, if it’s just frivolous jollies or a means to money or sex, I think that there are more fitting areas for you to be pursuing than music.