It's an odd experience having Katherine Whalen as your lunch waitress.
As weird as having Aimee Mann as your cleaning lady? t /Portlandia
Oz ,'Beneath You'
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
It's an odd experience having Katherine Whalen as your lunch waitress.
As weird as having Aimee Mann as your cleaning lady? t /Portlandia
Actually, I *have* been waited on by Thalia Zedek. That was a little weird.
The message from all this, people, is that even though you think music pays well, it doesn't.
The message from all this, people, is that even though you think music pays well, it doesn't.
Shut up! Brittney Spears and Mick Jagger are rich!
There are these sort of rueful articles which pop up in Mojo periodically where they track down some relatively big musician from the 70s who's off in the country somewhere, scraping by, playing at local pubs.
Then there's the drummer from Iron Butterfly who made enough money from "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vidda" that he bought a house in suburbia and retired. Or Nick Lowe who made more money from one song being on The Bodyguard soundtrack than he did from all his other music combined. Or Tom Waits who made more money from suing Frito-Lay than he did with his music. Or John Doe, of X, who was only able to buy a house because people kept casting him as an actor in movies.
We just did a huge facebook fundraiser for a guitarist and songwriter (songwriters are supposed to be the ones raking it in, man, all those putative royalties) because he'd lost his house and he and one of his kids are having severe health problems, and he was so deep in the hole he was never coming out. One of the premiere players, from the 70's onward. And yet.
The revenue streams are all jacked up, man. There's flotsam and jetsam everywhere, and right when you think you've got it worked out, it turns out there's a giant dam. Someone's making money, but it's often not the musicians.
Or Tom Waits who made more money from suing Frito-Lay than he did with his music.
Didn't he also make a fair amount of money when "Downtown Train" got covered and became a hit?
Also, didn't Iggy Pop make a lot more money when Bowie released his version of "China Girl" than Iggy did off his own music? (Bowie and Iggy wrote the song together for an Iggy album, so he got royalties from Bowie's version.)
Didn't he also make a fair amount of money when "Downtown Train" got covered and became a hit?
Yep, and some of Tom's later albums like Mule Variations have sold very well. Also, he's got a real sweetheart deal with Anti records where his royalties are much larger than the industry norm. But he really gave that label a lot of credibility and visibility by joining them. But he made his first million from Frito Lay.
Also, didn't Iggy Pop make a lot more money when Bowie released his version of "China Girl" than Iggy did off his own music?
Absolutely. Let's Dance was a huge, huge hit. You've got to remember that a lot of Iggy's early albums with the Stooges were out of print for a longish chunk of time too.
For the Mark Lanegan fan who has everything: [link]
Getting back to musicians with day jobs, I was walking home last night, and did a double-take. There was a house for sale and the realtor listed was "Aimee Mann"! Not the same one, though: [link]
On the other hand, Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom really is a realtor: [link]
I thought that both members of The Kills were in The Dead Weather. I was wrong but it got me thinking, are there any bands that are entirely contained by other bands?