New boy band from UK enters US at #1

Money destroys music and sets up idols in its place.

That’s the quote of all the English bands who play for nothing and get nowhere. :mrgreen:

You might have a point if the money is thrown at the band but if the band attract money and put on a good show then money can help them make more music.

I agree. It’s a shame that so many gifted young artists
won’t realize their full potential because so much of their time
has to be spent ‘making a living’. That’s all our loss.
Forget the record companies.
Today many of these artists could keep themselves afloat selling
their work online - and keeping the profits, but piracy has made
that impossible.
I wonder how far Zappa would’ve made it if he had to work
a day job from 9 to 5. Surely there’d have been no state of the
Art studio at his house - no performances by symphony orchestras
That he paid for. No paying of the finest musicians to rehearse full
time for his shows.
Naahhhhh… After coming home tired from the workaday world,
I reckon he’d have topped out just after Lumpy Gravy. :slight_smile:

to keep this on topic, wasn’t Reuben and the Jets one of the
first boy bands?

Where does music “go”? Is there a place where music must “get to” ? If you mean it has to get to notiriety, or fame or whatever, then you’re not talking about music anymore.
Music has nowhere specific to go. Music is.
I believe together we’ve dialecticly stumbled upon a truism.
And this truism sheds light in my favor on this very subject.
There is music, and there is an edifice of control built around music.

Is “more music” then…music? I don’t think so.

Yes, music simply ‘is’ - but an artist, if he wasn’t born into money, has to ‘get to’ a place where he’s free to
fully devote his life to his art.
It’s not necessarily about fame or notoriety - just the ability to make a living - and follow your muse, full time.
It’s sad to see musicians with the talent and drive to live a prolific, creative life - reduced to being weekend
warriors and glorified hobbyists - because that’s what music has come to today.
If you want to do it full time - you’ll have to spend your life in a beat up van…hungry.

I know of one such group. They’re called ‘Three’. http://theband3.com/
These guys are the shiznet! I haven’t lost my infatuation with their music since
I discovered them 10 years ago. The upside is that because of their poverty - I was able to get them to play
at a house party I threw(for a fair price)- and I sat in with them. :slight_smile: They’ve toured with Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree
and get tons of hits to their fb page asking 'when are you guys coming back to Colorado - to Brussels - etc etc.
A few weeks ago they posted a message asking if anyone in the Woodstock area needed their house painted,
so the band could pull together enough money to tour this summer.
I don’t want these guys painting houses! I want them busy writing songs for their next album!

Most of the artists we grew up with and admired were able to live the life - but that life is becoming near impossible to achieve to those with real talent who are unwilling to cater to the shallow desires of ‘the industry’, and who need to pay the rent and put food on the table.

I’ve always made a living from the bread and butter circuit. If you know what your market wants you give it to them and throw in your own as it suits. You don’t have to sell your “soul” either.
If you don’t enjoy playing “bread & butter” gigs then you’re unlikely to like doing international tours, promotion and phot shoots and all the other associated things that go on. It’s hard work whatever you do.
Those boy bands everyone of a certain predilection seems to think are the death of “music” really do work as hard as any “serious” rock, metal or indie. They have to be “on” whenever a camera is in the room and give the right answers without ranting to anyone who asks. They employ studios, choreographers, tour managers, orchestral arrangers, television crews and have a working relationship with a large team.
I don’t much like them myself but make no mistake they do work and some are just like us. Anyone can get landed with these jobs and there’s few who would be too proud to do it if they could, at least for a while. It’s manufactured just like Meatloaf was or the Monkees. Yes, they might have an instant number one and I’m glad they’re stuck with it and not me. If you’ve ever signed a contract to do anything like that then you’ll know you can’t just walk away if you decide it’s beneath you.
One of them might actually specialise in your field and down the line he might ask YOU to play or compose for him for a large wedge.I bet he isn’t turned down. :mrgreen: It’d be a much better gig than that indie club playing with five other bands to ten people in the backwoods waiting for that “rep” to turn up.
The industry has shallow desires because that’s the best they get. Show yourself to them. Be warned showing yourself takes much more work than three hours a week in rehearsal studios going over the same 5 numbers.
And you’ll find all your fave musos have a"proper" job or qualification they can turn to so they might actually be found painting a house because that’s what they do as well. What’s wrong with painting a house for a musician anyway?
Charlie Watts was a plumber, or was that Bill W? Anyway Charlie is also a specialist in antique guns, Brian May is an Astrologer. Sting could still be a teacher.
Being poor is not a qualification to play music and playing music is not a qualification for being poor.

Actually a lot of the poorer musicians I know do rather well because they know what and how to pitch. A couple I know have actually, over the years, made more money than more famous players who have had hit records and while the famous get a bit heckled when they go for a beer sometimes the others can go anywhere they want. If there’s an upside to not being internationally famous it’s that. You do keep your own life on your terms. Beware you might get what you wish for.

I think Brian May would not be best pleased to be called an Astrologer !!!

+“A Very Large Number”! He has a Ph.D. in Astrophysics, and is my son’s hero for his combining music/Guitar God-dom with a quantitative field so successfully (my son is studying to be an engineer - NOT a sound engineer :smiley: ). I believe Dr. May was well into pursuing his advanced astrophysics degree when he had to make a tough choice whether to drop his studies and take a chance with this possibly up and coming band called Queen or just do another semester or so and receive his Ph.D.

I guess he made a pretty good decision!

Brother, tell me about it! I’m 51, and lately I am having troubling remembering the details of things I’ve read and/or seen mere hours beforehand

IT SUCKS!!!

Regarding “boy bands”

These groups are almost always assembled and promoted by some sort of impresario… and he’d be a fool to put forth a group that was completely devoid of talent.

What surprises ME is the relative paucity of GIRL GROUPS! Sure, there’s been a few… but even the ones that made it big typically had one “looker” amongst a few skanks. :laughing: I mean, aren’t teenage boyz a market waiting to be tapped? Wouldn’t an all-girlie group that “rocked hard and performed well” actually do quite well?

Come to think of it… perhaps the target market for sexy girl groups ISN’T teenage boys, but rather fat, middle-aged white men… :laughing:

Yeah, that’s an insult! :laughing:

:blush: :mrgreen: :blush: :mrgreen: :blush: Of course Astronomers tell us where we are and what’s going to happen and astrologers just make money out of gullible fools.

Deliberate mistake well spotted. :mrgreen: (lying b#gger I am)

o c’mon. There are astologers who are really good writers, thinkers, artists and social commentators. Rob Brezney is one. Can you think of another artistic discipline thats been around forever, is vague and abstract, and is susceptable to the ear and heart of the observer? Anyone?

Fantasy, Scifi and Religion doesn’t care much about checking whether what they say is true outside their own expanded minds either so maybe that’s a good start?

Thanks for your contribution. Any other artistic disciplines we can think of thats vague and abstract, poetic, nuanced, infinately varied and traditional?

Cooking.
Or is that called Chefing? Na. You can tell a cook what you want but a chef tells you what to eat.

Cooking! Very good. :slight_smile:

Kock has spoken? :laughing:

If you’re THAT big, might I suggest one of the Ungulates? :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: