There is one word you hear more than any other if you’re an independent musician. Especially if you are relatively unknown. EXPOSURE.
It is more than a word though, it is a unit of currency. And like all currencies it is subject to an ever-fluctuating rate of exchange, not to mention the manifold peculiarities of our society’s notion of value.
Ian Carroll (@icytunes) says
A great read Louis, thanks for taking the time.
In my moments darkness I often wish that, instead of being an employee with a secure, well paying job, I was a creative-thinking free spirit, a musician or photographer. Surely such a path must be so much more rewarding than the one I am on? Surely this golden age of global mass communication must be the answer for unshackling human creativity?
The more I read about the state of the creative/business interface, and the role the internet age plays in it, the gladder I am for my life choices. But as an avid devourer of music it worries me. I have already seen the demise of the record stores I loved. I am resisting hard against the clamour to “join Spotify” as some sort of replacement, but I just cannot see how this is helping to support the people who do what I love…the musicians.
Finding those musical gems that really make life better is actually getting harder, there is more “chaff” to confuse the radar, and too many computer generated recommendations – which seem more based on corporate income predictions. Gone are the days when Malc at Reveal Records (an actual real person) would hand me a CD by someone I had never heard of and say “give this a go”. This was how Neko Case’s “Fox Confessor Brings The Flood” and Shannon McNally’s “North American Ghost Music” came into my life – neither of which I would have considered without human intervention, and from which a well spring of fine music has bubbled up at my feet.
Recently I have been fortunate enough to find a new well spring, I think Liz Green was the source, and from that origin have come The Bedlam Six, Honeyfeet, Alabaster DePlume and Rioghnach Connolly. From what I have observed (I could be wrong!), there seems to be a genuine camaraderie involved in this musical nexus, and I wonder whether this could be important for musicians generally? As well as musical cross-fertilisation, perhaps such aggregation of like-minded creatives could behave as a business cooperative? I am not talking about a “record label” in the traditional sense, but something less rigid.
I guess that, as a…I don’t know…client? consumer? customer? I would like to know from musicians how the best way to support them is? What channels best recompense musicians? How are musicians themselves seeing the current situation, and what changes do they think are needed to the current status quo?
Anyhoo, thanks again for stimulating some brains cells, as well as my ears and feet, much appreciated!