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Iggy Pop
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In the UK we have never really valued our serious artists. I think that comes from a suspicion of intellectualism (as against the French say, who lionise their philosophers, visual artists and authors to the extent they are the Pop Stars of that society, not, well any pop star).The difference between music and writing is that music is being destroyed by pirated downloads, whereas in publishing it's the glut of publications and the give it away for free models of either Kindle or people doing it online for free. That conventionally published authors can't make a living is due to the collapse of the sizable advance model (which was always illogical)twinned with the short-termism of any book deal no longer being of a duration suitable to nurture a writer's talent, nor provide him/her with the economic stability to undergo that developmental process over time. You're lucky if you secure anything more than a two book deal these days.
As we all know 'the world owes no-one a living'. However, people who regard themselves as 'artists', think this applies to everyone else, but not to them.
Trouble is, the rest of the world doesn't agree.
The problem is that if I get a plumber in to do a job, rave to my friends that it's a good job and I'm really happy about it, but then don't pay him, he can take me through the courts and if I don't pay then he can trash my credit record, get a lien on my house or even make me bankrupt. (OK if I don't have any money it's a waste of time)But if I steal a writer or musician's time by taking their work and not paying for it, it's there fault for expecting the world to owe them a living?
The most economically successful art form in the UK is its rock & pop industry, which receives very little public subsidy. It is almost impossible these days to make a case for public subsidy for the arts when nurses and other vital occupations are being cut to the bone. So the arts are really thrown back to the free market with all the problems that entails. A nation of Philistines, which I believe the UK largely is, find it hard to accept the concept the arts enhances cultural life and improves all our lot. Faced with all this, we are each on our own and drowning in the marketplace.
The advantage that music has is the 'live gig'If you take the live gig as your business model then you can even accept the pirating of your music as a way of spreading the word so people will be tempted to come to the gig.
At the gigs you'll probably hope to sell some of your own CDs as well, which you can pitch at a reasonable price because you're cutting out the middle man.But the live gig is something only you or another live band doing covers of your work can offer. The pirates cannot do that. (I'm probably moving into Will Macmillan Jones's territory here by taking a musical example. )
Live gigs aren't money for old rope, I've been involved with some and the band effectively got about £12 an hour each when you took into account the actual hours they spent setting up etc.
The problem with the novelist etc is there is no real equivalent of the live gig.
I've come across writers offering 'readings' for free because they hope they might get some sales,but I'm not sure I've come across a situation where people paid the writer to come and do a reading in their local pub for £12 an hour and expenses.
I suppose for the writer the nearest thing is journalism where if you can do deadlines, know your stuff and have contacts you can still sort of make a living.
Certainly one article can easily earn me more than a book will in a year.
I always swore to myself I would only write the things I wanted to write and wouldn't try and put my writing skills to other uses such as journalism. But that is only a personal preference.Live gigs for new bands (plus merchandising) are really the only way for new bands to make any money at all, as The Arctic Monkeys showed with their "Blair Witch Project" approach to marketing & promoting themselves. By the time their debut album came out, they had a large following who had already bought their T-shirts et al.
Jim wrote: "But if I steal a writer or musician's time by taking their work and not paying for it, it's there fault for expecting the world to owe them a living?."Well, not really no. The problem is caused by the fact that technology has taken what was once a limited supply - physical books and records (which is the plumber's parts and labour) - and made them more or less free to duplicate. The problem is that the payment system based on the old scarcity model has not caught up with this brave new world.
The same will happen to the plumber a few years or decades down the line when he can be replaced by a robot plumber and 3d printing of parts, making plumbing repairs as free as pirated tunes, books and films are now.
Pessimists think this will lead to world of extreme haves and have nots, while optimists think we'll have a moneyless world akin to the Star Trek Universe or Iain Bank's Culture.
Meanwhile we stand here like flint knappers who've just paid out a whole load of mammoth skins for a new flint quarry, only to see young Ug walking up the lane with one of those new-fangled bronze daggers.
generations are historically condemned to the scrapheap simply through the accident of when they are born
Jim wrote: "The problem with the novelist etc is there is no real equivalent of the live gig."Perhaps. After all, writing is an odd business when you think about it.
Writing evolved as a way to store and transmit information, but now we have other - arguably more efficient - ways of storing and transmitting that information.
So maybe writing will go the way of cave painting and we will have to go back to being live storytellers, or work in the new places where stories are told: TV, film, computer games or something new that evolves out of them.
Marc wrote: "generations are historically condemned to the scrapheap simply through the accident of when they are born"yep.
The trick is not to be standing on the line when that new-fangled steam train is chugging along it behind you.
Marc wrote: "It is almost impossible these days to make a case for public subsidy for the arts when nurses and other vital occupations are being cut to the bone."Yes, well why should Jim's plumber have to pay towards me watching Hamlet or Rigoletto?
A nation of Philistines, which I believe the UK largely is, find it hard to accept the concept the arts enhances cultural life and improves all our lot.
Does it improve our lot though? I used to think 'art' was good thing, these days I'm not so sure - especially publicly-subsidised art.
Anyway, is it the people who don't 'understand' art, or is it the art that doesn't understand the people? After all, I can assume the plumber above has no interest in Shakespeare or the opera and in most cases I'd be right.
Without an interest in Shakespeare, I would argue the plumber's lot is slightly worse than it would be with it in his life. Art is a good thing. If nothing else it is the finger in the dyke that holds the torrent of dumbing down just beyond it. But we can expect to drown in the effluence of reality and talent shows very soon I suspect
Marc wrote: "Without an interest in Shakespeare, I would argue the plumber's lot is slightly worse than it would be with it in his life. How and why? I can spot a quote and have a good chance of telling you which play it's from, but I can't fix a knackered boiler And a sonnet won't fix a leaky tap.
I might have some rather erudite insights into the human psyche, an understanding of the way that power alters human relationships and a bunch of other such stuff as dreams are made on, but I can't help thinking the plumber is more use.
Maybe too, in all his years of dealing with folk and their plumbing problems he has a a better understanding of what it means to be human and our place in an indifferent universe, but merely lacks the ability to express it, especially in blank verse.
Art is a good thing. If nothing else it is the finger in the dyke that ..."
I can't help thinking though that when I was in Barbarella's watching Iggy Pop back at the arse-end of the 70s, those schoolmates of mine who were dancing at the disco were having a far better time than me, and they probably still are, even if they can't quote Macbeth.
I know I ought to feel that art makes us better folk (on the whole, leaving aside the concentration camp commanders with a love of Mozart & so on), but - like I said - how or why?
What's an iggy pop? Some sort of ice-lolly?
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance... and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process. Henry JamesWhat that man said.
And - http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/num...
I have also heard many scientifically-orientated people say (I know quite a few, as mine is a family of mainly scientists and medics) that life depends on what they do, but it's art that makes it better... Our brains give us our technical abilities and our soul gives us our art. I don't believe as humans we can actually have one without the other.
All of which doesn't actually contribute anything to the original discussion about it being hard for artists to make a living!
Kath wrote: "What's an iggy pop? Some sort of ice-lolly?"James Newell Osterberg, Jr.
You could look him up on the interwebnet - but he does have a habit of forgetting to wear clothes at times.
Marc wrote: "Art is a good thing. If nothing else it is the finger in the dyke that holds the torrent of dumbing down just beyond it. But we can expect to drown in the effluence of reality and talent shows very soon I suspect ..."
Not having a television enables you to keep the standard of what you watch really high :-)
Rosemary (The Nosemanny) wrote: "I have also heard many scientifically-orientated people say (I know quite a few, as mine is a family of mainly scientists and medics) that life depends on what they do, but it's art that makes it better... Our brains give us our technical abilities and our soul gives us our art. I don't believe as humans we can actually have one without the other.All of which doesn't actually contribute anything to the original discussion about it being hard for artists to make a living! ..."
When I was at school there was a media fear that we would produce a generation of science students who were utterly ignorant of the arts.
What we discovered (and the school brought in classes to remedy it) was that we had a lot of arts students who hadn't got a clue about anything practical such as wiring a plug or whatever.
It was explained to me that nobody ever used a knowledge of higher maths as a successful chat up line, but being able to bluff about culture worked better :-)
Ah well. I knew there was no point finishing writing this book.
Tim wrote: "Ah well. I knew there was no point finishing writing this book."Don't give up. I have the feeling there are lots of plumbers out there who still enjoy a good book in their time off.
I suspect most of us would sell better taking a stand at a plumbers convention than at the Booker Prize award night shindig ;-)
Jim wrote: "I suspect most of us would sell better taking a stand at a plumbers convention than at the Booker Prize award night shindig ;-)"I think you are probably right, but then I'd much rather hang out with the plumbers anyway. I think of the two it would be the much better night.
Rosemary (The Nosemanny) wrote: "It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance... and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process. Henry JamesWhat that man said."
"All art is quite useless." - Oscar Wilde.
As he went on to say:
My dear Sir
Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way. It is superbly sterile, and the note of its pleasure is sterility. If the contemplation of a work of art is followed by activity of any kind, the work is either of a very second-rate order, or the spectator has failed to realise the complete artistic impression.
A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one.
Truly yours,
Oscar Wilde
Not that I agree with him, either (especially about the flower). But that's by the by.
Art may well be necessary, good or whatever (depending on what is defined as art & all that jazz), but that doesn't necessarily mean that people ought to be able to make a living from it, especially when they - like Mr Pop himself - choose to work in a not very commercially-lucrative niche market. After all, there are a fair few rock & pop folks who have not been as... shall we say, individual as Mr Pop, who have managed to buy the odd island or two here and there with the rewards from their musical musings, despite suffering just as much if not more of a jolly rogering from the pirates.
I suppose I ought to insert somewhere here the obligatory internet proviso that my scepticism here doesn't mean I think the pirates are a good thing, by any means.
Wilde was an aesthete. Of course he would regard art as in the above quote.
Marc wrote: "Wilde was an aesthete. Of course he would regard art as in the above quote."Yes.
I'm sure a plant dependent on pollination for reproduction finds a flower exceedingly useful. I'm also sure that, were it capable, it wouldn't give a stuff what Oscar Wilde thought on the subject. In the plant kingdom, Oscar Wilde is utterly irrelevant. Although it is said that his heinous ideas are propagated through the murder and subsequent mutilation of innocent trees...
Are we not? I found a lot of soil in my teenager's bed the other day. (I'm so not going to ask why...)And now I'm off to bristol con where I'll do some stand up based on my material in the books, then try and flog a load of them on saturday. I suppose it's the equivalent of a gig...
bet I lose money on it though
Marc wrote: "we are not plants though really"Ah, but on the internet no-one knows you are a rhododendron.
I beg your pardon. I happen to be a gingerlily. Nothing hidden here...
Gingerlily - Elephant Philosopher wrote: "I beg your pardon. I happen to be a gingerlily. Nothing hidden here..."Show off.
'A penny for your thoughts' is clearly a saying that's had its day. The corps got all the pennies - and kept the tax.
It would have to be a euro for your thoughts where I am...and spending a penny has become euronating!
Penny Lane wld have to be rebadged .. 'Free Content Highway' ??
Iggy Pop cannot make it, what chance do the rest of us have?
To quote the article
I have a soft spot for Iggy Pop, partly because I interviewed him once and he was the soul of charm and erudition, like a particularly smart music professor who just happened to be wearing leather pants and eyeliner. On stage, he’s awe-inspiring, dancing like an electrified Twizzler. (I mean that as the highest possible compliment.) He still makes lean, ferocious music.
At least he used to. As the head Stooge and godfather of punk revealed this week, he can’t actually live off music any more. Not that Iggy ever had the commercial clout of say, Justin Bieber – which is proof, if you needed, of a god-shaped hole in the universe – but he struggled along from label to label, alienating executives here, picking up new fans over there.
But a new reality has tripped him up and it’s the same one shafting artists all across the world: Namely, that everyone wants to listen, and no one wants to pay. This week, Iggy gave a lecture for the British Broadcasting Corp. called Free Music in a Capitalist Society. Artists have always been ripped off by corporations, he said; now the public is in on the free ride, too: “The cat is out of the bag and the new electronic devices, which estrange people from their morals, also make it easier to steal music than to pay for it.”
To keep skinny body and maverick soul together, Iggy’s become a DJ, a car-insurance pitchman and a fashion model. If he had to live off royalties, he said, he’d have to “tend bars between sets.” As I listened to his enthusiastic stoner Midwestern drawl, I thought: If Iggy Pop can’t make it, what message does that send to all the baby Iggys out there? In a society where worth is judged by price, for better or worse, what are you saying to someone when you won’t pay for the thing he’s crafted?
A few days before Iggy’s lecture, Australian novelist Richard Flanagan won the Booker Prize, the most prestigious in the literary world, for his Second World War story The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Just in time, it sounds like: Mr. Flanagan told reporters that he was making so little from his writing that he was thinking about packing it in and becoming a miner. (He comes from a small mining town in Tasmania.) The prize money of about $90,000 and the following sales bump will allow him to continue, but most of his colleagues aren’t so lucky: “Writing is a very hard life for so many writers,” he said.
This is borne out not only in the quiet sobbing you hear in corners at poetry readings, but in the numbers. This summer, the Guardian newspaper reported that professional writers’ salaries in Britain are collapsing, falling almost 30 per cent over eight years to $20,000.
Here, the Writers’ Union of Canada estimates that authors make an average of $12,000 a year from their words. That will buy approximately two wheels of a car or a door knob on a house in Toronto or Calgary (a broken knob, if the house is in Vancouver).
I hear your cry-me-a-river sighs. You’re thinking, “Nobody asked writers to write. Don’t they know a nice degree in commerce will serve them better in the long run? Nobody asked Iggy to roll around on stage in broken glass. He could have had a nice job as an actuary, although he would have had to keep his pants on.”
But in truth, we do ask: Every time we go to a library or shop, we want it to be full of new books, and when we search various channels (legal and illegal) for new music and movies, we expect to find them. Someone has to produce this content – this art – and sadly, the shoemakers’ elves are all busy stitching elsewhere. And after it’s been produced, someone has to buy it. Or not buy it, as is more likely the case.
It comes down to a question of value: Do we value artists’ effort? The boring years spent in the studio or rehearsal hall, the torched drafts – Mr. Flanagan burned five early versions of his novel before he got it right – the slow, fungal growth of something that lives in the dark and may never be ready for the light? Sorry, that’s the novelist in me talking. Never mind.
I’m glad Iggy Pop and Mr. Flanagan have brought the issue of artists’ earnings out into the open, because it’s too often avoided as embarrassing or demeaning or irrelevant to the process. In fact, it’s crucial. As author and cartoonist Tim Kreider wrote in a recent essay about not getting paid for his work, “money is also how our culture defines value, and being told that what you do is of no ($0.00) value to the society you live in is, frankly, demoralizing.”
Or, to give Iggy the last word, which I think he’d like: “When it comes to art, money is an unimportant detail. It just happens to be a huge unimportant detail.”