
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Rocker - kawera
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/long-distance-rocker-miller
======
ZenoArrow
What's interesting is that Bandcamp is relegated to a passing note at the end
of the article, but the service that Bandcamp offers is better than almost any
record label contract in the "good old days". You get a much higher cut of
your profits, and you almost certainly keep the rights to your own music.

The downside in the new arrangement is that you're expected to do more of your
own promotion. However, as your visibility grows you can hire someone to do
that.

In terms of human connection, there's still plenty to be had in the act of
performing music.

When it comes to starting to learn an instrument, I agree that there are fewer
role models around than when I was young. However, popular music moves in
fads. Where I'm from, guitar-based music was last "in" in the late 00's, I'm
sure it'll come around again.

~~~
coldtea
> _The downside in the new arrangement is that you 're expected to do more of
> your own promotion. However, as your visibility grows you can hire someone
> to do that._

The real downside is that with no gatekeepers there and so many acts (orders
of magnitudes more) you can make and release albums that nobody hears at all.

Whereas in the past, if you made it to have an album out, you had a small
following almost guaranteed.

At least back when you couldn't even make the album without being picked by a
record company, you could blame your failure to those A&R guys that failed to
appreciate you, or get your lack of contract as a sign that you're not good
enough to begin with.

Now that you can easily make an album, everybody both feels more entitled to
success, but also gets to see firsthand how the audience just doesn't care.

~~~
mikestew
_At least back when you couldn 't even make the album without being picked by
a record company_

Though I get what you’re driving at, there have been companies that will press
your basement demo onto a vinyl LP almost as long as vinyl records have been
made (and later cassettes and CDs, of course). They’d do the artwork, too,
from “we’ll have an in-house artist do it for lots of money” to “we’ll put
your camera-ready art on it for a little extra”. But pre-internet, that meant
selling the hard copies at shows and _maybe_ the local indie record store.
What one is missing, of course, is the promotion from a label. But the
production of hard copies of music hasn’t been a barrier for a long time.

~~~
delinka
"...the production of hard copies of music hasn’t been a barrier for a long
time."

How many copies must one have ordered up front? I'd guess it was so many as to
have been prohibitively expensive for a fledgling artist to handle.

~~~
kdazzle
You can do as little as 100, but I think most small artists get 300 made cuz
that’s where the price per unit gets low enough that you can at least hope
you’ll make your money back.

Prices have gone up a lot in the last 5 years. I think it’ll run at least
$2,000 to get an LP pressed. Plus a year wait. Probably half that or so for a
7”.

Depending on the label youre with (theres a ton of 1 person labels), you can
split the cost. If theyre bigger, they’ll just pay for it.

------
coldtea
> _It’s all different now. My own observation of the current music industry is
> colored by my history with the extinct model. I can’t begin to imagine what
> it must be like to come up in this world of SoundCloud rappers and Swedish
> hit factories churning out auto-tuned EDM or whatever. Believe me, I’m
> keenly aware that even these two meager examples must make me sound
> impossibly old. My point is that if I was a fourteen-year-old depressive
> nowadays, I’m not sure what would even draw me into the world of music to
> begin with._

Not much. And indeed, kids todays are much less invested in music than kids
where in the 60s till the 80s or so.

For one thing, there are now tons of competing outlets that weren't around
then: tons of movies of all eras available (and most current top-tier movies
made for teenage sensibilities, less All ), great TV series with huge
production values, Netflix and co, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, the
web at large, texting, computers, mobile apps, and games.

Besides, there's less mystery in music acts (total transparency and 24/7
social media exposure for any fan who cares who check), less exclusivity (all
music available on online services), and less ubiquity (each act gets a much
smaller of the attention pie, and can even have a top-10 hit nationwide that
half the nation haven't even heard or knows -- something impossible when there
was huge radio and only a few TV stations and outlets and hits were hammered
constantly without other recourse to everybody).

------
javajosh
First, I was curious to know if Google ripped this guy off. I could only find
his song ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdM4zNN-
PxU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdM4zNN-PxU)) not the Google ad. But, as
a (amateur) musician myself, I don't think there is much to the chord
progression. It sounds like a thousand other songs - the lyrics and delivery
are what make this song unique and good.

Second, incredibly well-written. Very persuasive.

Third, it's been clear for a long time music was going to only get harder to
succeed in, for the sole reason that as time goes on you are competing with
the entirety of music history. Your recorded music is competing with
everything ever recorded, Beatles, 80's glam rock, Mozart, and rain forest
nature sounds. (Live music has magic, yes, but people are getting immune to
it.)

Fourth, the 60's-00's was a golden era where technology made it just barely
possible to record and distribute music, in a way that required a lot of
labor. That labor made it more collaborative, and served as a kind of
distributed gate-keeper to the market. Now, technology is too good, and unless
an EMP pulse from a solar flare or nuke destroys all digital recordings of
everything, it's not going to turn back.

Fifth, I think the solution is to embrace and extend the modern trends. Get
people to collaborate with you on stage using their cell phones. As a
performer, connect your phone to the PA, then run a webserver that people in
the audience can access over the local subnet. They can then affect the sound
in arbitrary ways (perhaps most simply by making beats).

------
JohnnyConatus
The nice thing about the old world of music was that when you played for an
audience there was nothing going on but what you were doing. Now the band has
to compete with everyone's phones.

~~~
vondur
The two Misfit reunion shows have a no cell phone policy. They even have
secure lockers set up to store them.

~~~
coldtea
The problem is that the band still has to compete for the instant
gratification that those (now locked) cell phones offered their fans all day
around.

~~~
kbenson
That doesn't seem like it should be that hard. You are at the concert
experiencing the concert, which should be pretty instant and gratifying.
Either you like it enough that you don't miss your phone, or you decide that
the concert experience isn't what you're looking for.

Being at the concert but doing something else seems like they are doing it to
say they were there, and there are are always other ways to signal status
people can fall back on.

------
Mizza
The artwork is done by Brian Chippendale, the drummer from Lightning Bolt, who
are the greatest band in the world.

~~~
deadmetheny
The best show I ever saw was Lightning Bolt in an abandoned warehouse with a
couple of drone/dark ambient acts opening up. It was surreal, amazing
experience. They are crazy live.

This piece was written by Rhett Miller of the Old 97's, who are a similarly
great live band who are absolutely worth seeing if you can.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
I had a similar Lightning Bolt experience in college in Indiana. Did the
audience surround the band in a circle?

~~~
deadmetheny
Yup, even when I've seen them play at clubs with proper stages they set up
their kit in the middle of the floor.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
I always loved that about them, it's such a friendly gesture and shows a real
level of trust they've been able to establish among their fan base.

Nice username by the way, but I hope Metheny does not die for some time. :)

------
davidw
It's kind of hard to disambiguate the time in my life and the music that I
grew up liking with everything else, so it's really difficult to judge for me.
I recognize that sort of 'scene': one of the redeeming things about growing up
in Eugene was seeing the Daddies play at the local place. Still an amazing
band in terms of being good at being eclectic. Maybe technology is letting
people connect with the sort of music they like these days in other ways
though?

------
1337biz
Not that long ago it was far assumed that record labels would loose their
power and the easy path to production and promotion would lead to a lot more
independent structures. What happned that we still have a similar superstar
culture as we had 20 years ago?

~~~
goldmouth
Check out hip hop. Many of the current stars started out posting videos to
YouTube or tracks to SoundCloud.

The diy hustle of making mix tapes and homemade videos is how the current
stars of rap, Migos, blew up.

SoundCloud rappers are a thing. It's a drug influenced, dreary subgenra that's
launched dozens of stars, lil uzi vert or for example.

~~~
1337biz
But why do they almost all still end up at one of the big 3 labels? Or are
there many soundclouders actually able to make a decent living from it?

------
smelendez
> For every one of these fledgling anarcho-syndicalist collectives, there are
> a thousand or a million kids alone in their bedrooms staring at Protools
> screens wondering what they have to do to get the Swedish cabal to write a
> hit song for them.

There's always been pop music. More people were listening to Ace of Base and
Hanson in the '90s than to Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

I get it's a personal essay, but I wish he had spent some time talking to
young people who _are_ making music about their actual practices.

To bring it back to HN, nobody's typing Basic code out of Creative Computing
or swapping homebrew code on the local BBS anymore, but there are more people
making video games than ever.

------
empath75
Edm is still extremely social and face to face.

Keep in mind that dance music is fundamentally music for a club and designed
to be experienced on a loud system in a dance floor full of people.

The process of making and distributing the music may be digital and remote,
but the intended way to experience it is as social as it gets.

If you want your music to get attention one of the best ways to do it is to go
to a lot of clubs, and meet promoters and DJ’d face to face and to DJ
yourself.

------
b1daly
One thing the articles references, which I don’t think people grasp yet,is
that young people are inclined to create the music in the vein that they
listen to. Nowadays, that means music that is entirely synthetic in its sound
sources, and production methods. This music is not “performed” it is
“programmed.” The expressiveness of music is no longer tied to some kind of
real-time activity, generated by human muscle.

The music that dominates the charts simply cannot be performed. A concert of
this music is more akin to a pantomimed multimedia presentation.

Because the care and feeding of an actual musician is quite high, I think we
are undergoing the end of musicians, as a category. This is the end of an
ancient practice. It’s a kind of singularity, of unknown outcomes.

This is not to say there won’t be some musicians, but the cultural weight of
this activity is being drastically marginalized.

Performing music with others is a wonderful activity, that provides rewarding
connections with others unlike anything else I know. Soon, people won’t know
what they are missing.

~~~
icebraining
_This music is not “performed” it is “programmed.”_

I think this is a false dichotomy - it's often both. Even people using
completely digital sources (like electronic musicians) still perform live, and
not all just press play.

I'm also reminded of Bret Victor's demos in _Stop Drawing Dead Fish_ ;
programming and performing can be intertwined into new art forms.

------
jimbokun
Any advice for the parent of a teenage who absolutely loves making music?

~~~
TrueTom
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13648043-platform](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13648043-platform)

~~~
jimbokun
That looks really interesting, thanks!

------
sgt101
The end of culture -> a culture needs a community to generate it, the current
set of social structure being mediated by internet technology isn't
sufficient.

------
TYPE_FASTER
Anybody have favorite sites for music discovery? Soundcloud any good? Reddit?
Blogs? NPR Tiny Desk?

Years ago, I used to use the "similar" feature in Rhapsody and found some
music that way, not sure what people use today.

~~~
icebraining
In my case, YouTube (related videos, not their recommendations), Wikipedia and
search engines. But that's with active search, not passive suggestions.

------
cousin_it
Yes, the rock music scene is dying, but some other music scenes are very alive
and social (like edm). So we probably shouldn't blame YouTube. It's just rock
music that's dying.

~~~
analog31
Sixty years is a pretty good run. I think that's longer than the jazz era.

