RIP Sam Ash. All stores closing
- Thread starter HeHasTheJazzHands
- Start date
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I don't think the issue is that younger folks aren't making music, they're just not making live instrument driven rock music as much, per capita. So where as kids used to want to play guitar or drums they now want work with keys and synths and virtual orchestration and composition.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Spaced Out Ace
Well-Known Member
FUCK TAYLOR GODDAMN SWIFT! Zeena Schreck, take your daughter home already!
wankerness
Well-Known Member
I think the fact it's way harder to make a living as a musician now and basically can't profit off album releases is "necessarily wrong," but other than that, yeah. I know bands kept me social in high school but if I'd had the tech so easily accessible I absolutely would have been bedroom 1 man computer band guy.I don't think the issue is that younger folks aren't making music, they're just not making live instrument driven rock music as much, per capita. So where as kids used to want to play guitar or drums they now want work with keys and synths and virtual orchestration and composition.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Is it harder now because of how we consume music or is the pool so big that you have to be even more exceptional to make it?
I feel like the death of album revenue is misconstrued. Smaller bands never made much money from album sales directly. The acts missing out on tons of cash are the sort of big acts that would make money anyway, that would be going Gold or Platinum in sales.
It's sort of like how industry groups for movie studios claim that every copy of something pirated would definitely be a real sale. The RIAA uses the same rhetoric. So yeah, it's a provocative headline when you see "Artsit has 15 million streams, only make 6¢" but that doesn't mean 15 million copies of the album would have sold.
I don't think that many even get into music to "make it." Obviously some do, but I think most folks just want a cool hobby.
wankerness
Well-Known Member
It's a symptom of seeing how my brother's been "making money." He gets some money from venues (less than 10 years ago for sure, they just keep squeezing artists under the guise of "FREE PROMOTION!!"), he gets streams and is on apple music/spotify, but the total he's made from spotify/apple music is probably about a dollar over the last 15 years. Like, selling ONE ALBUM at ONE SHOW is already outdoing everything he's ever gotten from Spotify. And since no one buys cds anymore besides people with old cars or old people, that revenue stream is slashed considerably compared to pre-spotify. Sure, he wouldn't have been rich, but I'd wager he's selling at least 80% fewer albums than he would have had he been doing the same thing pre-streaming takeover.
TedEH
Cromulent
I don't think I'm convinced this is true. It might even be the opposite. It's easy to imagine it was easier before because nobody is familiar with the failure cases. History only remembers the successes, but it's not like we had an abundance of famous musicians then and not now.
On the other hand, the avenues to learn, produce, etc., are abundant now. A failed musician used to have to just hang up their instrument and "go get a real job", but now you can diversify and give lessons and start a youtube channel and do reviews and write and record and self-publish at home without needing access to expensive facilities, and marketing materials and the business side are handled by fiver and gig jobs and AI meaning you don't need a company or a team or the support of some famous producer, you just need some pocket money, a bit of time, and the ambition to do it.
And I can hear the argument now, that none of that means you'll make money - but making music has never been a reliable money maker unless you were literally Metallica.
Sounds like he's not really changing with the times. If folks want to support his band there should be other options than the absolute most lackluster form of now practically useless physical media.
It's not like merch was invented yesterday.
I think a lot of folks who cut their teeth playing in the 90's and early 00's have an unhealthy love affair with CDs. I get that used to be "the goal" as it represented a certain level of seriousness and success, even if not financially so, but it was even antiquated almost 20 years ago.
When computers (~2005) and cars (~2014) stopped coming with CD players it should have been the sign to switch to other forms of revenue/support.
wankerness
Well-Known Member
It's just that like...it's not that there are "new revenue streams," it's that there are FEWER revenue streams for releasing actual original music so now you just make less money and have to focus on those because the other ones were taken away. Unless you're talking about Patreon or something. He did successfully do crowdfunding for a few of his albums, because now that record labels don't give people money to make albums and instead CHARGE money, that is what you have to do.
If you're a jazz artist you're not selling T-shirts, unless you're Ambrose Akinmusire and can capitalize on a Jay Z quote. That's just not the audience. Jazz artists survived on live shows, record deals, and album sales, and now one is drying up in most regions and the others are pretty much dead. Youtube lessons (as Ted suggested is easier to make money from than albums used to) are like, an entirely different skillset and have nothing to do with anyone's compositions and also leave the rest of the band behind. Not to mention with the enshittification of Youtube that's getting harder and harder to make money from. I would imagine the people that are actually profiting from youtube lessons and making a living from it are almost as few as the number of rock bands formed post 2010 that your average joe can name.
My father was in a jazz fusion group in the 70s/80s and they were given something obscene like $30,000 dollars (in that day's money) by WB to just record an album (more than once!). That would NEVER happen today.
If you're a jazz artist you're not selling T-shirts, unless you're Ambrose Akinmusire and can capitalize on a Jay Z quote. That's just not the audience. Jazz artists survived on live shows, record deals, and album sales, and now one is drying up in most regions and the others are pretty much dead. Youtube lessons (as Ted suggested is easier to make money from than albums used to) are like, an entirely different skillset and have nothing to do with anyone's compositions and also leave the rest of the band behind. Not to mention with the enshittification of Youtube that's getting harder and harder to make money from. I would imagine the people that are actually profiting from youtube lessons and making a living from it are almost as few as the number of rock bands formed post 2010 that your average joe can name.
My father was in a jazz fusion group in the 70s/80s and they were given something obscene like $30,000 dollars (in that day's money) by WB to just record an album (more than once!). That would NEVER happen today.
wankerness
Well-Known Member
Right, of course not. Originally I was just saying that guitar stores struggling is all a symptom of the same slow slide into oblivion. They didn't all close overnight and I'm sure some will struggle on in some form indefinitely. We're just a long way from what it was like from about the 60s through the early 00s.
But I think it's a natural progression, progress being the key word there. Falling behind sucks, and I don't think it's always fair, rarely if anything, but this is just niche retail in a nutshell.
It's not like no music stores are successful, but you either have to run smart and lean, specialize, or a good combo of the two.
Sam Ash didn't fail because of some giant guitar reckoning, they just couldn't compete with a VC propped up GC/MF, the online monster that is Sweetwater, the "easy payments kings" that are the AMS/zZounds group, or the bigger fancier regional boutiques that are usually really good on the socials. They were an underdog the last 15 years and it just didn't pan out.
Sam Ash was hilariously behind the times when it came to online sales/marketing. I kept forgetting they existed online at all. Don't think I've bought more than one thing from them in 25+ years of playing, and it was probably from a Reverb listing.
Regarding the discussion about instrument sales in general, I think the low end of the market is always fickle. All the music stores around here that've gone out over the last decade+ have been the schmucks selling beginner packs. The boutique stores have been doing fine and getting bigger.
Regarding the discussion about instrument sales in general, I think the low end of the market is always fickle. All the music stores around here that've gone out over the last decade+ have been the schmucks selling beginner packs. The boutique stores have been doing fine and getting bigger.
Reverb/eBay and social media is really what did in small time "Main St." music stores. When casual local players could sell their stuff easily online, find techs working out of their garages, and lessons galore, they no longer needed these small shops at all.
tedtan
Well-Known Member
Those recording budgets weren’t cases of the artist being given the money, it was a loan that had to be paid back from the artist’s royalties from album sales. And if it wasn’t paid back, the debt would carry over to the next album. And the label owned the recording, not the artist so had the only say as to whether/when/how or was released or not.
The artist was also signed to (trapped into) a multi-album record contract where they couldn’t release anything without the label’s permission, including something as simple as a guest appearance on another artist’s track.
So while it may have had some up sides, it definitely had down sides, too.
wankerness
Well-Known Member
While I'm sure that was the case with many record contracts (I've seen many, many stories from rock bands describing exactly that, especially in the 90s and on) it wasn't the case with all of them, including my dad's band, so I dunno. Probably cause with instrumental groups they didn't really care if the members went off and did other projects since it wasn't like they were "names" unless they were Miles Davis or something.
Regarding the "loan" thing I suspect again that was a YMMV situation and a lot of it came down to the particular contact at the studio you got and how dumb your band's management was. The only negative interaction they ever had with WB was decades after they split, when they had the rights for the albums sold off to some album mill that now has them in print again and has the band totally cut out of the loop financially (WB got paid by that label, and that label gets all the royalties and anything else they can make from the music, band is totally gone from the equation). But, considering that these are jazz fusion albums from the late 70s, no one in the band really is that upset about it cause the money made would probably be pennies. And they never had any issues doing reunion tours or anything like that - once WB had published those albums that was it, the band still had rights to perform the material and use their band name and all that fun stuff, they just didn't have a contract with WB anymore.
Emperor Guillotine
The Almighty Ruler
Okay, old timer. I agree with your implicitly expressed sentiment that she is a genuine annoyance in the form of a blatantly manufactured industry shill artist produced entirely through "daddy's money"; however, I think it's about time you calm yourself down for the day. We've got your applesauce waiting for you next to your rocking chair.
I'd actually argue that it is both easier and more difficult to make a living as a musician nowadays.
It is more difficult because musicians simply don't rely on album sales, merch sales, and touring as a form of income generation anymore. Those days of simply waiting for a record label to pay you out (and/or receive a check from ASCAP, BMI, etc.) are long gone. Instead, musicians have to diversify their income streams by doing a ton of different things such as: creating music, creating social media content (including YouTube content), ghostwriting for other artists, producing music for others, offering audio engineering services, giving instrument lessons, giving masterclasses or starting up a course/lesson website, offering guest appearances on tracks, starting up an audio plugin development company, starting a clothing line (or a collaborative merch line), starting up a podcast, relying on sponsorships or placements, starting up a Patreon for donations, offering audio editing services, offering video editing services, offering graphic design services, maintaining a day job, etc.
There is simply so, so, so much stuff that musicians have to do in order to just scrape together a few dollars here and a few dollars there. And thus, it is more difficult because dabbling in all of these income avenues requires a ton of skillsets. You no longer can just play an instrument well, write good music, and know a thing or two about audio. Instead, you have to be educated and somewhat proficient in all of the other facets/skillsets. Yes, you can onboard an amazing team behind you; but then you have to go through the process of filtering out qualified candidates who actually know what they are doing and who you feel that you can put a lot of trust into in order to effectively run your income avenues, especially if you tack on the touring obligations of a standard recording contract into the mix on top of all of this stuff that a musician has to do just to barely make a living nowadays. It all gradually adds up into becoming one hell of a behemoth to juggle.
With all of that said, there comes the risk of all of this ultimately culminating in burn-out when a musician stretches themselves far beyond their means and ends up overworked (simply just burning out) from having to maintain all of these various income streams, regardless of whether the musician has a good team backing them or not.
At the end of the day, the musician is a business-owner running multiple businesses. The head atop the pyramid, so to speak.
To circle back to my initial statement: on the flip side of the coin, it is also easier to make a living as a musician nowadays if you factor in exposure as a metric. Since musicians no longer have to rely on record labels for exposure (which is a total waiting game that puts the musician at the mercy of the label) due to the dismantling and reshaping of the music industry in our current times, the musicians can instead now rely on their various income avenues for exposure.
You can discover a musician not only through their music, but you can also instead discover them through social media, or through YouTube, or through their plugin development company, or through their merch line, or through their guest appearances, or through a lessons/teaching website, or through their graphic design portfolio, or through publishing, etc.
The more income avenues that a musician branches out into across various formats, mediums, products, platforms, etc., then the more exposure that the musician will have that could ultimately drive traffic from one income avenue to another.
For example: you might discover a cool musician via YouTube's suggestion algorithm based on your watch history. You find that the musician in question whose content you've stumbled upon actually makes content that really resonates with you or really intrigues you. So, you sit through a few YouTube ads while watching a handful of the musician's videos. (Keep in mind that YouTube ad revenue is a thing for content creators.) Then, after watching a handful of their content, you feel compelled to check out the musician's original music. You become a fan of their music; and maybe it persuades you to buy a piece of the musician's merch, or buy a book they sell, or buy the musician's video-based masterclass course on a particular topic that the musician is exceptionally proficient in. Maybe their ability and marketing even persuades you to schedule a single 1-on-1 lesson for the sake of wanting to learn more. From there, you might find a plug for a podcast that the musician in question happens to be a part of (via hosting or something). So, you give an episode a listen. Later on, maybe weeks or months later after you had that lesson you scheduled, you circle back to the musician's YouTube content and feel compelled to click an Amazon affiliate link in the description to purchase a piece of equipment or item that you're sold on.
...and it goes on and on and on with one income stream leading to another.
It's literally just basic brand inundation if you think about it.
Labels do not simply give musicians money. Labels give out loans.
When an artist is signed to a recording contract for x-amount of albums over x-number of years, they are given an advance upfront to (hopefully) pay for all the necessary costs that ensue in order to release a product. This includes: studio time, production, engineering, paying guest musicians, any necessary gear acquisitions, pressing of physical formats, etc.
When an artist goes on tour while signed to a recording contract that mandates necessary tour cycles in between albums, they are also given an advance upfront to (hopefully) pay for all the necessary costs that ensure in order to facilitate a successful tour. This includes: vehicle rental, vehicle gas, vehicle drivers, audio technicians, lighting package rental, lighting technicians, backline rental, food (per diems) each day, lodging (if necessary), etc.
Sometimes, these touring costs are paid overtime throughout the duration of the tour (like on a weekly or daily or monthly basis); but usually, labels nowadays seem to want to operate in a similar manner to a film production company where management works with the label to pay-out all costs/overheads for a tour upfront instead of overtime. (Possibly for easier profit and loss calculations?)
That debt must be paid back in its entirety, along with any interest points that the label tacks on of their own volition, before the musician/band will see even a penny of profit. (If you're a band with multiple members, this is even more brutal because any profit after the payment of the debt is then split amongst multiple members, which means each member gets even less of a cut.)
If the debt isn't paid back via album sales, touring, etc., then the debt rolls over into the next album cycle. Lather, rinse, repeat. And if a musician is unable to generate enough income in order to pay back the debt that is owed to the label, then the musician must pay out of their own pocket in order to square away the debt before they are allowed to cleanly exit their recording contract at the end of the contract's tenure.
Sam Ash's website looks like it is still stuck in the mid-to-late 2000s.
I have been reading through this thread and just thinking to myself that I don't believe I have ever purchased anything from Sam Ash (whether via online or from a brick-and-mortar store) in my 15+ years of being a musician.
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Spaced Out Ace
Well-Known Member
It'd sure be funny if I was your age or younger. Lmfao
Emperor Guillotine
The Almighty Ruler
But you’re not. So, it’s not funny.
The only thing that is funny is your choice of rhetoric when contrasted against your age, given that you have your birthday explicitly visible on your profile.
Spaced Out Ace
Well-Known Member
How old are you then?
