I hope Allan doesn't retire, but I can definitely relate. The travel can be brutal - sometimes two flights, a long van ride and then a gig. One tour we did 23 gigs in a row without a night off. I just played in Sweden with Scott Kinsey's band, and the next morning we had to wake up at 5 AM for a 6:30 flight to Copenhagen where we had a seven hour layover, to catch a flight to Prague and get there just in time for soundcheck. You're thinking, you guys should get a new agent, right? Normally I'd say that too, but in this case the difference in price for any other flight situation was ridiculous, so this is just the crap we have to put up with sometimes. It's also tough to be away from the family. Like Frank, I'm limiting my tours to two or three weeks. Factor in the current economy, and we all have a good reason to retire. I'm making less money per gig than I did five years ago, but I keep an optimistic attitude and hope the economy improves.
About the downloading issue, a very misinformed guy (let's call him Mr. Pantload) is writing on Frank's board about the evil record companies, and that downloading shouldn't be blamed for the sorry state of the business. He's totally wrong - people who steal music, movies, and software are exactly the ones to blame. They hurt the makers of the products, and they hurt the economy. Vilifying record companies is a convenient excuse to steal from them - most labels are small, and have enough trouble staying afloat in these hard times without people ripping them off.
Many downloaders say that labels take all the money and give little or nothing to the artist. That's bullshit. I'm so tired of hearing that, especially from people who've never had a record deal, so what the fuck do they know? I've been recording since 1985 - I got a fair deal on every label I recorded for, and my recording and publishing royalties pay the mortgage. A recording contract is like any other agreement - both parties have to negotiate for what they believe is fair. Record companies don't always get the better end of the deal. Artists have the opportunity to check everything out carefully, argue until they get what they want, or pass if they don't like it. If they sign something that sucks, it's on them.
Here's what happens if I blow off working with record companies. First of all, goodbye to my advance, which covers all the recording costs including paying the musicians, including myself. And where will I get the money for five to ten magazine ads? Guitar Player and Down Beat charge about 4000 per ad. Who's going to pay the publicist 2000 a week for the first month of the release, to call all the magazines for interviews and reviews? Who's going to market to radio? Not that it's a giant market for jazz, but the right phone call from an established label can get results. Should I quit practicing and writing and go into the record selling business? No thanks, I'd rather let professionals handle that and I'll concentrate on making music.
The label I've been on for many years is run by Mike Varney, one of the most honest people I've ever known. Now Mike tells me that he can't give me the same recording advances he could before, because half my fans will buy my record and the other half will download it for free. Mr. Pantload says the music industry should die and we musicians should just use the Internet. Great idea, that should put millions of people out of work. Let's do away with the film industry too - actors and directors should also work for free. Well, let's give James Cameron a 100 dollar budget for Avatar 2. He can do it on YouTube and we'll all watch it on our laptops. Hey Pantload, get a clue. I don't know what business you're in, but let's say you've got the brains to be a shoe salesman. What if I said the shoe industry should die? That makes about as much sense as what you're saying. Before you wish for the death of the record business, first try to make a living as a musician.
Hopefully the record industry will survive this, but unfortunately there's a huge number of assholes out there stealing music, and they know it hurts everyone and their families, from musicians, producers, engineers, all the way to the people who work at the CD pressing factory. It's so inappropriate to give these thieves such innocent titles like "music sharers" or the "downloading community" - they're the gangbangers of the Internet. A lot of them are kids who grew up thinking anything digital should be free, but it's hard to believe that even kids could totally disassociate the music they enjoy from the real musicians who make it. I can only blame that on bad parents who didn't give proper ethics lessons to fit the times - their spoiled brats are the perfect customers for bit torrent sites.
All my albums, books, and videos are available for free on bit torrent sites. Not exactly for free, you have to pay a small monthly fee to the foreign criminals who put them there, but since these sites are in Russia, and other countries with no copyright laws, I can't do shit about it. It feels like someone unlocked the doors to my house and put up a sign that says hey crooks, come on in and take whatever you want. Our only hope right now is the MPAA - they're much more powerful than the music industry. They've finally introduced a bill to the senate, and if all goes as planned, they'll be on the road to shutting these foreign motherfuckers down, along with their ethically challenged subscribers.
http://mpaa.org/resources/a5118846-763a-46a5-9ad9-18b8a9a6bf63.pdf
Feel free to copy and paste that rant wherever you think it'll do some good. Anyway, hard travel, away from the family, shitty economy, and scumbag pirates. Did I miss anything? But here I am in Europe with Scott Kinsey's band, and next month in South America with Jeff Berlin and Dennis Chambers. I still love playing music, despite it's problems.
Funny that I just talked to Allan last week and he sounded pretty positive about touring, more so than me. I personally think he's too great a player and too dedicated to music to retire anytime soon, but if he bails and starts a brewery, at least it's something he does just as well as music. And you can't download beer.
No, I guess I've been lucky. I would've reacted the same way. Knowing Allan, I think he'd be more pissed off at some of the badly recorded YouTube clips than at the whistler. I wonder if he knows about them. Sorry, we're on another subject now, one that's been talked about a lot on this forum, but I just saw a girl taping the Stockholm show, and sure enough, the next day her terrible sounding videos were on YouTube. They're gone now. Many of my musician friends call me to ask how to remove videos from YouTube. That got a little tiring so I finally wrote it in an email. For anyone who's tired of being posted without permission, here are the copyright complaint instructions:
First, sign into your YouTube account.
Go to the bottom of the page and click Copyright.
Click the Copyright Complaint Webform box.
Click "copyright infringement", and then "I am!"
Go to YouTube in a new browser window, then go to the video you want to remove, and copy the URL.
Go back to the Webform and paste the URL in the box.
From the pop up list, select my live performance, click on video and audio, and type the name of the song in the box. Type of copyrighted work could be concert, workshop, composition - any of those are OK.
You can click on the Add Another Video box and remove up to ten videos at a time.
Under "Tell us about yourself", just fill in your info. I type "guitarist/composer" in the Your Title or Job Position box.
Check all the checkboxes, type your name again, and click on Submit Complaint.
That's it. In a couple hours, you'll get this email:
Hi there,
Thank you very much for your notification. The content has been removed.
Regards,
The YouTube Team
YouTubers:
I don't hate YouTube - I have my own channel. But if you want to tape a concert, bring a decent mic and simply ask permission. If you shoot some good stuff, I'm happy to add it to my channel. If I don't like it, allow me the courtesy of not letting it be seen on the web. To the folks who do it the sneaky way, your crappy camera's red light makes you very obvious to the musicians, and a lot of them don't like you. I'm not this hardcore, but I've seen bands stop playing in the middle of a song to stop someone from taping. That could be very embarrassing. I've also seen people get thrown out of concerts for doing it. It's very easy to remove videos from YouTube. Don't waste your time since your videos will be gone the next day if your subject doesn't like them.
Hey Scott,
in a previews post you mentioned that sometimes you use a DSL100 when your OD is not available. How would you desrcibe the difference between those 2 amps? I remember Landau und Jeff Beck playing DSLs alot some time ago. And I think they really sounded great.
Quote:
I'm using one now with Kinsey's band, because it's a short tour and it wasn't in the budget to bring my gear. I love the DSL, I think it's the best amp Marshall's made since the old ones. It doesn't sound as good as my Suhr, but for the stage it's fine - I have no problem getting my tone with one. The DSL has more treble than an old Marshall or a Suhr - I set the treble at 5 on my Suhr, which equals 0 on the DSL.
Hi Scott, what's your official YouTube channel? Can't find a channel with your name...only videos upload by others...
Quote:
The easiest way to get there is by going to scotthenderson.net and clicking the YouTube icon, but the channel name is scott686.
Hi Scott,
I just learn the T. Laviz pass away what a lost, I was just wondering if you can tell us a little be more about him.
Sandro
Quote:
Jeff Berlin just wrote me an email about it. I'm shocked because T was so young and I haven't heard anything about him being sick. I guess I'll find out what happened soon. T was the first keyboard player I ever recorded with, on Jeff's record "Champion". It was exiting to meet him, because years before I'd seen him play with the Dixie Dregs. That concert was awesome and very inspiring for me, and at that time I dreamed of someday being in a band that good. Working with him was always fun, and he was my favorite kind of musician - he never took himself too seriously and was always making everyone laugh. We later did the Players project together and even though making a live record made me nervous, T made it fun. He moved to the east coast so we didn't talk as much but he called me last year to play on something. I couldn't do it because of a tour, but it was nice to talk to him after such a long time. I'm really sorry to hear about this.
Scott, I was just blindly agreeing with something someone else said. I don't know anything about this stuff, and I didn't even read what RD said that well before i agreed with him.
I'm a print salesman and a casual guitar player, and the print business is going away just like a lot of business.
I just hope quality music takes the front seat instead of some of the crap that gets spoon fed to the masses. And I've only read about some bad record deals, I don't know anything about this subject.
I haven't posted on FG's message board for a month, then I agree with someone and I get the blame for the thought? Just my fucking luck
on a side note, I just started reading "effortless Mastery" and I'm getting a lot out of that......
if this rant is copied and pasted around i would rather not be in it. I didn't write anything but "i agree...., i shouldn't have agreed without reading it better but I'm just a regular guy who does regular things....
Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 278 Location: Austin, TX
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:02 pm Post subject:
Quote:
Thanks for writing. As you can see, some of us pro musicians are pretty sensitive to what's going on. I should have commented that even though you said things I disagreed with, you did say that you still buy music and don't upload it for others to steal. The story you read about bad record deals could very well be true - there are con artists in every business. I have close friends who I believe are being ripped off by their label, and I'm constantly bothering them to look elsewhere. Bottom line, we still need the record business to make a living. There may be a web based system in the future where the middleman is cut out and artists record for the iTunes label, but right now I have to wait for my publishing check to come in the mail, and I'm sure you can relate to that.
Glad you're enjoying Effortless Mastery, it's a great book. Thanks again for your post, and I'm editing my rant.
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