Three thousand

AB: I wanna say Side Four sold about three thousand copies, yeah.

AAJ: And that's pretty typical for an Adrian Belew release?

AB: It is now.

The title of this post doesn't refer to the Dr. Octagon track of the same name, but to an Adrian Belew interview I found at allaboutjazz.com. I've always been a huge fan of King Crimson (through the 80s incarnation at least), and I have to admit that Mr. Belew has most certainly peed in my musical gene pool. He plays on Talking Heads's Remain in Light, one of my all-time favorite records. His solo on The Big Curve, which alternates between the highest and lowest parts of the guitar's range, still excites me. His song She Is Not Dead on his solo album Twang Bar King is a great song, and his album Desire Caught by the Tail has some of the most emotionally varied work created with a guitar synthesizer, an instrument that is really hard not to be totally cheesy on. Although I was always a big Fripp head as a teenager, I wanted a Strat with a whammy bar all through high school so I could play like Adrian. Never got one, though. I'm not really interested in that now.

So, Adrian Belew, original guitarist-- great guitarist. Has played with Zappa, Bowie, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Crimson, Tom Tom Club, etc. I have to imagine that millions of people have seen him perform, and probably millions of people own at least one record that he plays on. Granted he's not on a major label, but surely this man deserves to sell more than three thousand records.

True, he does report that when he was on a major and selling about 80,000 records at a go, he made absolutely no money. Now, he pretty much sells his stuff at shows like the rest of us and makes more money selling three thousand records outside of the corporate industry. I don't doubt that at all. I usually make more money playing in a basement than I do in a club.

But still, if that's all that a world-famous guitarist can sell, how many CDs of my own do I realistically think I can sell? If I print up a thousand CDs, and considering the fact that I am infinitely less famous than Mr. Belew, by that math, I should be selling, what, something like ten CDs? This does not bode well. I think breaking even seems impossible let alone making any kind of income from playing original music. 

In reading this article, you really get the sense that even though Belew and Fripp are probably reasonably comfortable (photos of Belew's house on Fripp's online diaries show it to be a pretty nice upper middle-class looking pad), they are still very much working musicians, hustling to make a buck. Neither are in a position to sit back and enjoy their great wealth and wait for interesting offers and gigs and speaking engagements to come their way. They seem concerned about what they're going to do next year and in keeping their careers alive. Fripp's motives in releasing so much Crimson live material, Belew suggests, is to keep the Crimson legacy vital because this legacy is the man's major source of income. In other words, Fripp is still hustling after a distinguished career making highly influential albums. This seems terribly unfair.

It reminds me of an Orson Welles quote about making film: "It's about two percent movie-making and ninety-eight percent hustling. It's no way to spend a life."

I'm not sure how to take this information. In one sense, it is totally discouraging. The music world is something like Brazil -- very few people with money, and the vast majority quite poor. I would place Belew and Fripp in the very small upper middle class, certainly not upper class. In my experience, a lot of journeyman musicians -- the lower classes beneath them -- do not live the best lives. Their lack of sufficient income finds them in substandard housing with no sort of medical insurance. They don't get proper medical care when they're sick, and this situation is exacerbated by the poor lifestyle choices they make about alcohol and drugs. Three of my colleagues were in this situation in the past few years and now they're all dead. It's not a pretty way to go.

Or maybe this information is liberating. Once there is no illusion of success, then it really doesn't matter what kind of music you play, or how weird you want to be. If Adrian Belew sells only three thousand CDs, then maybe I won't feel as bad the next time I drive to New York to play for two people, or sell one CD per month, or have only 10 people attend a show I promote.

And if you're reading this, and you can afford to, buy an Adrian Belew CD for the love of Pete. The man deserves more. 

 

Marotta Hour #3

Outside the Urban Arts Space

We had the third installment in the Marotta Hour series last evening at the OSU Urban Arts Space. At this point I'm actually starting to feel confident that we will continue to attract an audience. Considering the cold, wet weather and the amazing amount of construction going on in downtown Columbus, this is no small accomplishment.

Our audience

Last night, we had Mike Shiflet, who is the first performer who wanted the whole hour to his- or herself. Mike has gotten so good at his art and this performance really showed it. Last week, Mike and I had an interesting conversation about how he had now pretty much completely distanced himself from note- or rhythm-based music and was now thinking in terms of sound and texture. Mike did an hour-long laptop set using samples of naturally-generated sounds such as crumpling paper, rolling marbles, and a power generator to create a sonic landscape as complex and intricate as one derived solely from computers or electronic oscillators.

Mike Shiflet

This is also the first concert were the audience had some questions afterwards. One of the best thing about a concert of experimental or improvised music is that the boundary between performer and audience breaks down. The performer often finds him or herself in the role of audience to the sounds being created. The audience, in turn, is asked to do a lot of work in listening and framing the sounds, so it only makes sense that they would feel more comfortable to ask about the music just created.

Gigs, gigs, gigs

For some reason in my career, gigs tend to come in clusters. I might not be busy for the longest time, then all of a sudden I get a bunch in a row. If this happens in the wintertime, one of the gigs, usually the one that I am looking forward to the most, will be accompanied by some sort of illness. And I don't actually get sick all that often usually.

A recent weekend was a good example of this phenomena. On a Friday, I did a last-minute gig with Steve Perakis and Jimmy Castoe accompanying a singer named Cathy Wicks at a celebration for Obama volunteers. We were playing at an indoor shelterhouse at the Park of Roses here in Columbus, and it was the first night that it was really cold with temperature going down to about 15 degrees. The venue itself was not super warm either. It was a long room with a tiled floor and a high, barn-like roof. If you've guessed, yes, the acoustics were lousy. But the acoustics are almost always lousy wherever I play, so this is no surprise.

There's a lot of speeches and congratulations. There is a large American flag hung over one of the fireplaces which is waving in the warm updraft from the fire. Looking at that and sitting in a room of ecstatic Obama supporters makes be feel warm about American democracy, but soon my Chomsky-mind kicks in and that ends.

The gig is pretty decent. The first two tunes are great. We start with "People Get Ready," which is one of my all-time favorite tunes, and one of the things I play on guitar the most. However, I've never actually played it on a gig before, so this is a blast. Next we do a great cover of "Blue Bayou," and I'm able to get some nice pedal steel sounds using the Tele and a volume pedal. The rest of the gig has its moments, but it is pretty much so-so. However, I love playing session man on other people's songs and gigs. Truth be told, this is probably what I'm best at, not free improvising.

Saturday, Honk, Wail, and Moan played a corporate function. The gig is supposed to run from 8-11 p.m., but with all of the speeches, we don't get started until 8:30. Whoever was planning the event had the band set up on steps facing a large empty space with our backs to the dining area. The idea, I think, was that people would eat in one place, and then come around and dance to the band. As it turns out, everyone stays seated, so we basically play an evening's worth of music for a huge empty space. Every once in a while, though, some people come by and smile at us to keep us from feeling lonely. I think four people in total danced for a total of one song all night.

At the end of the night, one of the coordinators apologizes to us, saying that it was too bad that people were not in the mood to dance that evening. That happens, I realize. Then they say that they want us back next year. I can only imagine "why?" Don't they know that everyone hates jazz, and most people would rather not have live music at their functions? Most people just want to get drunk with their co-workers and talk, and jazz just gets in the way. But having jazz around is like having a very expensive contemporary abstract painting over your sofa that no one really understands, yet they somehow feel culturally elevated in the presence of it.

Of course, by the time I get to the Saturday gig, I'm feeling under the weather. Nothing terrible. Mostly a little tired and rundown with a scratchy throat.

So, by the time of my Sunday gig at Skylab with Ryan Jewell and Hasan Abdur-Razzaq, I'm feeling like I'd rather be in bed than playing free jazz. This sucks, because I've been wanting to play with Ryan and Hasan as a trio for a long time. To compound the situation, the gig starts late, and we're scheduled last because we're most likely to be the quietest act.

Hasan

Part (maybe 90%) of doing experimental music is networking, and I am not feeling on top of my game-- not that I am a master schmoozer in any event. I am able to hand out a few Pimalia label sampler CDs, shake some hands, and listen to some good music, but it is not easy. By the time we hit around 11:45 p.m., I am really tired, but once I put the guitar on, I get some energy. We play a decent set. I think my playing has its moments, but my tiredness causes me to fall back on some of my standard tricks. The tough thing about playing free jazz or anything improvisational is that you really don't want to be phoning it in. You really want to challenge yourself to come up with some surprising things, which is difficult when you're run down and tired.

People seem to like the set though. Hasan and Ryan are great. I hope we get to do it again.