The truth of the matter is that not that many people make money making music. And even those that are moderate with their significant income at the time rarely make enough to live off the rest of their lives after their unbelievably short shelf life.
Remember that lots of those musicians weren't able to hang on to their publishing rights; those got signed off to the record companies, so they may not be making residuals off any new sales. So what they have is what they made during their few years in the spotlight. The advances all got paid back out to reimburse the record companies for their expenses. Probably they didn't personally own the merchandising rights. Ticket sales go to the venue and promoter.
In Christian music, nobody is making any money except for a few songwriters. I'd imagine the situation is similar for many of the other smaller genre markets.
I stand corrected! Greg Norton's restaurant: [link]
Nevermind - I clearly skipped an important part of the conversation.
There's a couple of interview with Norton at his restaurant in the Minutemen documentary.
I think that here's where I note that T. Corey Brennan, who was a bassist for The Lemonheads, wrote his Harvard PhD thesis on Roman history while touring Europe. He was a professor I knew in college, and now teaches at Rutgers. And he's in Wikipedia! [link]
Let me just say that sometimes I envy the copy guys. You're in, you're out, no muss, no fuss. Just making copies. I'm not sure if I feel *worse* for the guy in the Hall of Fame. I mean, I guess I regret that Glover's not rolling in dough, but I don't know why he's not.
Let me just say that sometimes I envy the copy guys. You're in, you're out, no muss, no fuss. Just making copies. I'm not sure if I feel *worse* for the guy in the Hall of Fame. I mean, I guess I regret that Glover's not rolling in dough, but I don't know why he's not.
Now this reminds me of the time years ago in SF when my friend and I were at a copy shop and the dude who worked there was helping her print out her resume. When he saw that she'd worked in Santa Cruz he said he'd been in a band there--Camper Van Beethoven. I can't remember which one he was, though. He seemed fairly bitter about it. I think he was one who sided against Dave Lowery.
(And in trying to figure out which one he was on the wikipedia I found a page for dieselhed! They were one of my faves back when I lived in SF)
We were just talking about Camper Van the other day. They played Take the Skinheads Bowling on JackFM.
Conversations You Can Have in San Francisco Bars
::walk into the Gold Cane tonight on Haight Street. Get happy hour margarita and put the Dusty Springfield 33 1/3rd book on the counter. Bartender bends over to take a look and I flip it for his review::
Bartender: That's a cool series. I just read the Daydream Nation one, and really liked it.
Me: Actually, I'm writing a book in the series.
Bartender: Really?
Me: Yeah, on Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones.
Bartender: That's one of my favorite records! Well, actually I like Rain Dogs best. Then Swordfishtrombones and Bone Machine.
Me: Rain Dogs is probably his most perfectly realized album. But Swordfishtrombones is where he reinvented himself and his style.
Bartender: So that's on Continuum? They do a lot of academic books. I just read
[some philosophy book involving the word "dialectial"]
Me: Huh. Do you study philosophy?
Bartender: Some. I just got my MFA in poetry.
Me: Here's a line of inquiry I've been pursing recently. I've been thinking about Tom's work compared to Frank O'Hara's.
Bartender: That's an interesting take. Definitely something in the conversational style. You know who you might want to read? Ted Berrigan.
Me: Brother Ted!
Bartender: Yeah. Berrigan was a huge O'Hara fan. Tried to write like him. But I think he's even closer to Waits' style.
Me: I will definitely check him out.
Bartender: Shit. You're writing about Tom Waits. That's the best job ever.
