On Tuesday night I went to see the “Bottle Rockets”:http://www.bottlerocketsmusic.com/ , supported by “Romney Leigh Getty”:http://www.romneygetty.com/ , play at the social club attached to my local RC church. Very good they were too (review “here”:http://tinyurl.com/9uzw3 ). But I write not to praise the Bottle Rockets but to wonder how the whole thing makes economic sense. Here are four guys, who have travelled to Europe from St. Louis, Missouri (plus the two Canadians in the support act). They have to meet their expenses, pay their entourage, agent, manager etc. They have to pay the cost of travel. The people who run the club have to break even, etc etc., the bar has to sell enough beer. My guess is that there were 50 people in the audience who all paid 10 pounds (and some of them bought CDs for another tenner). Maximum income for the night is therefore 700 pounds. Sure, touring sells CDs and builds name recognition, but how much difference does it make? Enough? This is the sort of thing which “Tyler Cowen”:http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ has probably got an opinion on.
{ 26 comments }
gzombie 07.14.05 at 7:44 am
Good question. The only additional source of income you might be overlooking is if the club gives them a cut of the bar sales, which is, I think, sometimes the arrangement. And were they selling t-shirts?
cornellian 07.14.05 at 8:06 am
and does the club break even? I don’t know the details but i could see live music being seen an advertising write off.
dsquared 07.14.05 at 8:17 am
I’m presuming[1] that they didn’t make the whole trip just to play a social club in Bristol. If they have a couple of big nights in London and Glasgow which cover the bills then the marginal cost is the bus ride to get there. Also, some element of this will be an investment in building market share so that next time they come here they will play somewhere bigger and make more money.
[1]Possibly erroneously. Working men’s clubs in the North were often big enough and profitable enough to pay big American stars like Sammy Davis Jr to come over and appear in Wigan.
Simstim 07.14.05 at 8:25 am
This might be of some use:
http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2004/08/08#1091959020
McDuff 07.14.05 at 8:32 am
It depends how many dates they’re working on. Normally at this level you’d expect to break even on a tour you were promoting yourself, and if you were signed to a minor you’d earn about the same as if you were working full time at McDonalds (but get to play guitars, sleep with perky groupies and drink on the job, which makes up for a lot).
If you can get ten dates in the UK, that £700 can become £7K. If some of those are tour supports you can also get a certain guaranteed fee from the promoter.
You’re not going to get rich touring, but the more you do it the better the economies of scale look.
Also, even if you lose money on an international, if you have a good local fanbase in your own country the increased exposure makes a certain amount of sense. You have to remember that musicians, moreso than most other economic actors, are not “rational” creatures. Touring is fun, especially if it’s in another country, and especially if it’s low-grade enough to be shit at the same time. More stories that way (“dude, remember that sheep?”). It’s a moderate risk gamble that rarely pays off in economic terms, but the other factors combine such that barely breaking even can be considered a pretty good success.
david 07.14.05 at 8:44 am
Bottle Rockets are great.
I saw Sally Timms and Johnny Dowd in Cambridge MA last year, and at the end of the set they had to beg for money for food and gas to get to NYC. Touring behind albums that were not going to sell lots (but buy them by all means). I can understand how you do it when you’re 20, sleeping in vans and on floors, but it must take an iron will or immense inertia to keep it up over time.
rbyrne 07.14.05 at 9:17 am
The Rockets are good pals of mine — well, at least Brian Henneman and Mark Ortmann are — from my St. Louis rock critic days.
Chris is correct in wondering just why bands do this. Touring in this way in another country is almost definitely a loss leader. One caveat: If you sell enough shirts and CDs at the shows (and get a fair deal that the venue), you tend to have the gas money to get to the next gig. One square a day is usually included in the concert rider as well.
So why do it?
1) Bands love (and live) to play.
2) Economy of scale. In the US, bands travel much further distances for two gigs than the Rockets’ current tour travels in Britain to get them four (London, Bristol. Leicester, Newcastle)…
3) Publicity garnered in the UK offers a certain cachet and it also sells records. For a band at the level of the Rockets (mid-level indie), you have to go to London to get a sniff from the the UK press. (And, remember, London is the gateway to the Irish Press and Aussie press as well, much more so than the US.)
I’m delighted you went to see them, Chris. They have always been critical darlings here, yet one can’t help feeling that they have been somehow undervalued — and deserve a broader audience…
cw 07.14.05 at 9:35 am
There was a seattle band called the Walkabouts that made no money at all in the US–couldn’t get 50 people to a show in Seattle–but became popular in countires like germany, spain, and what used to be checkoslovakia. They started going on long tours over there a couple times a year. I think they made a sort of lower working-class type income for a few years. The club dates more or less payed for the trip, they made money on CD sales and merchendise.
djw 07.14.05 at 10:41 am
If my memory serves me correctly, I think the Walkabouts finally gave up on Seattle and moved to Europe.
Jo Wolff 07.14.05 at 11:50 am
I asked a similar question to a friend who makes a living playing jazz (with a bit of teaching on the side). The answer in his case is that there are also Arts Council subsidised events which pay enough to smooth things out. In an interview about the ’70s band Brindsley Schwartz, Nick Lowe said much the same thing about rock bands and gigs at student unions. If I remember correctly he explicitly said that bands would name outrageous fees because after all they were negotiating with a teenager who was spending government money. It would be very nice to be able to thank the British taxpayer for the existence of pub rock and all it led to.
ogmb 07.14.05 at 1:48 pm
There was a seattle band called the Walkabouts that made no money at all in the US
They’re not the only ones. There are many bands that made money hand over fist (well, in indie music proportions) in continental Europe while being virtually unknown in the US. The Bedlam Rovers, a SF band from the early 90’s was able to pay off their debts incurred from recording and touring in the U.S. with one tour of Germany. Calexico and Lambchop, indie darlings at best in the U.S., are juggernauts in Europe. Etc., etc.
The UK on the other hand is the poodle of the U.S. in that regard.
JDC 07.14.05 at 1:57 pm
Why do bands tour? Forthe same reason that ugly guys learn the guitar (I *really* should’ve done this): chicks dig the band.
thejtrain 07.14.05 at 2:22 pm
My impression, from the few people I’ve known from bands who might go tour Europe: even if all you can do is break even, that means you’ve had a free trip to Europe.
John S 07.14.05 at 2:51 pm
Not to be completely humorless about it, but can we take “getting chicks” off the table as an economic consideration?
An American band touring the UK or Europe in a van for the first handful of times is almost certainly losing money or at least earning less than they would at any day job, in hopes of stirring up enough enthusiasm to make future visits profitable. Van hire, a driver, airfare and equipment rental (or worse, shipping their own equipment) are all costs most US bands wouldn’t face at home, assuming that like most bands they own their own van.
The club will most often at least break even, except in the rare case when they’ve promised the band a guaranteed fee that’s not covered by door receipts or margins from the bar. Even then it’s sadly not that uncommon for the club or the third-party promoter to simply refuse to pay.
And like Jo Wolff says, even in the US, a single university date can offset the losses from a dozen miserable club gigs.
dacoit 07.14.05 at 2:59 pm
Excellent question, and one that opens up the larger issue of the economic feasibility of being a professional musician today. It has been incredibly difficult for up and coming musicians to earn a living for some time now. The pioneering punk musician and sound engineer Steve Albini has perhaps rendered the situation most eloquently in this rant, composed sometime in that remote era before the internet became a major player in the music industry.
The problem becomes even more acute in an environment where almost any recently released music is available as a free download to anyone willing to spend a few minutes on a P2P network and undertake the very light risk of minor legal repercussions. So while bands like the Bottle Rockets, and most anyone else touring the bar/club circuit, might not make much of an income playing shows around the US or internationally, it almost certainly provides their major source of income since record contracts and royalites will at best cover recording expenses (outside of flipping burgers or cutting drywall, of course).
Michael Neumann recently discussed the implications of downloadable music for intellectual property rights, but ends up coming up with schemes for the protection of consumers rather than thinking much about the plight of contemporary artists.
As it is, live shows are the bread and butter of the bulk of musicians out there. And as your example shows, in many cases the bread is a mere crust and the butter a bit rancid.
One can imagine few workable systemic solutions short of establishing government grants to musicians in various genres. In practice, solutions are often ad hoc, ranging from couch surfing and living the ‘struggling artist’ life, to simply getting a second job, to licensing your songs for advertisements (this last is of course not possible for everyone, and it certainly makes me think twice about buying the album when I see Tortoise hocking Volkswagens on teevee).
John S 07.14.05 at 3:24 pm
it certainly makes me think twice about buying the album when I see Tortoise hocking Volkswagens on teevee
At the risk of derailing the conversation: why is this so, in your case? As a working musician who is in the position to be able to benefit from television licensing, I can of course argue until I’m blue in the face that a bit of corporate patronage shouldn’t take anything away from the music, but it’s a plain fact that many people agree with you here. Is there any rational reason for begrudging the artists a chance to earn money from their work, or is this just an indie prejudice?
Kieran Healy 07.14.05 at 5:35 pm
reason for begrudging the artists a chance to earn money from their work, or is this just an indie prejudice?
Sheer prejudice. It affects jazz, too — who was it (a jazz musician) who complained that the problem with jazz was that if more than nine people like you, you were “mainstream”?
John S 07.14.05 at 6:12 pm
That makes a certain kind of irrational sense, of course, as part of what the listener is “buying” from the musician is membership in a select group of initiates, and it’s not crazy to think the value of this membership decreases as the number of members increases.
I wonder if people feel more or less uncomfortable with songs being licensed for advertising or film & television soundtrack use, as opposed to straightforward mainstream radio success. I can see the filthy ad agency lucre carrying more of a capitalistic tinge, but mainstream success means the common people are fans, which seems a bit more mystique-crushing.
I suppose this can apply to jazz as well, although I don’t even know what mainstream jazz success would look like — but I wonder if elitist fans would prefer to hear their darlings in Microsoft commercials or on tour with Kenny G (for lack of a less ludicrous example).
Mill 07.14.05 at 7:50 pm
Mainstream jazz success looks like Diana Krall.
I’m not sure why “getting groupies” (ok, let’s make it gender neutral) should be taken off the table as an economic consideration. Tasteless and medieval as you may find it, it is nevertheless an extremely popular fringe benefit that influences decision-making in that area. I know bands that tour certain cities more often because they prefer the groupies there, for example.
John S 07.14.05 at 8:04 pm
That’s perfectly fair and reasonable. I was more objecting to it as a first-order explanation for why bands tour at all. It enters into decision-making, to be sure, but no more than, say, hating German food, or loving the weather in Spain.
engels 07.14.05 at 9:11 pm
who was it (a jazz musician) who complained that the problem with jazz was that if more than nine people like you, you were “mainstream�
Kenny G?
obelus 07.14.05 at 11:14 pm
I used to be a touring musician. Way back when I was with a country band and we toured VFWs and American Legions. We took a third of the bar and we all got about $60 bucks after expenses. This was in 1979. I still play and I get about the same. Bands make their money off of merch. Sometimes they can finagle a guarantee, but unless they have a lot of press and a committed fan base…forget it.
I hate to sayh it, but when I moved to Chicago some time back I noticed a trend in what I refer to as “trust fund bands”. These are eager, nice, and sometimes exhuberantly creative bands that don’t really need the money. Clubs are then free to book based mostly on a political process of letting the “cool kids” play.
Make no mistake. Clubs find a way of winding up making money. Usually they have a nut that they take for the house sound and the engineer. The bar sales typically will cover the rest of the overhead and then some. Any door profits (after the house take) goes to the band(s). The pickings quickly become paltry.
Support your local musicians. Many times there is someone out there more committed and more talented than those who have risen in the ranks. I see terrific talent all the time. A little bit of encouragement goes a long way. I am the proud owner of a lot of DYI discs. I listen to it more than the label stuff. Some is of unique and thrilling caliber.
Support your local musicians. It is rough out there.
Ray 07.15.05 at 7:00 am
” wonder if people feel more or less uncomfortable with songs being licensed for advertising or film & television soundtrack use, as opposed to straightforward mainstream radio success”
Personally, I don’t mind bands being on the radio, or doing soundtracks. Ads are uniquely irritating because they only play 20 or 30 seconds of a song, and you’ll hear that snippet over and over again over the course of a campaign. I find it almost impossible to listen to Moby’s Play these days without thinking “Car ad … Coffee … Different car … Tyres…”, for example.
Michael 07.15.05 at 7:35 am
I used to be the “entourage” of a touring band. Maybe one night in fourteen we were in a (cheap) hotel. Otherwise, we were in someone (or multiple someones) house. Sometimes it was the promoter or club-owners. Tours were planned around keeping costs low.
Some places we played for the door or a cut of the door, sometimes we got a percent of the bar, some places had a guarantee. As the engineer, I got a set, pre-negotiated amount. The Band’s money was in product sales. A new venue might not have 50 people in it, but if a band has 5 CDs, it can make more money from them than it does from the door. Buying CDs direct from the band provides the band with a much larger percentage of your cost than buying it from a CD store.
We usually looking for two things in new places. The first was CD sales. The band needed those to pay back the investors from the last CD, who were usually family and friends. The second was contacts and word of mouth and exposure. It helped, for instance, to get into the Milwaukee Irish Festival to be able to say. “Last year we played Mo’s Irish Pub and we had a great time, as did everyone who came out.” Better still to meet the head of the enterainment committee and invite her out to the show in 2005 so she knows who you are in 2006. One contact can make a mediocre tour worth something.
Oh, and I also know of a number of bands who have produced “The NameOfBandHere: Live in Europe 200x” to pay for the trip. Sometimes that works, too.
Slocum 07.15.05 at 7:39 am
I hate to say it, but when I moved to Chicago some time back I noticed a trend in what I refer to as “trust fund bandsâ€. These are eager, nice, and sometimes exhuberantly creative bands that don’t really need the money.
Sort of like the “trust fund kids” who feel free to take jobs in, say, Public Radio, without worrying having enough to send their own kids to elite private schools?
I seriously wonder if this is the future of music–not just trust fund kiddies but also local bands that may record but rarely or never tour because their well-paid day jobs don’t permit it. Who knows–maybe musicians will even start to live off the largesse of rich patrons, again. In fact, given how little it would probably keep a band going, I’m surprised this isn’t happening already. $50-$100K a year would probably do it and wouldn’t ‘owning’ a band be much cooler (not to mention 100x cheaper) than, say, owning a sports team?
Another thing I think musicians are facing now–music doesn’t seem to *matter* to kids in the same way it used to. I think of the scene in Almost Famous where the big sister reverntly pulls out her secret record collection and says, “This will change your life”. My own teenage kids listen to a huge assortment of stuff compared to the few albums I owned at the same age (no, they’re not downloaders), but none of it is critical to them. There are no musical heros whose next release they eagerly await. They’re not really much interested in concerts–going to one certainly wouldn’t be any kind of quasi-religious experience. Maybe they’re not typical (though the attitudes of their friends seem similar) and maybe they’ll change when they move out and go to school, but maybe not. Something basic seems to have changed.
Michael 07.15.05 at 8:55 am
I seriously wonder if this is the future of music—not just trust fund kiddies but also local bands that may record but rarely or never tour because their well-paid day jobs don’t permit it.
I don’t think anyone has a good take on “the future of music” right now. I’ve heard (and recorded) some damn good music by day-job bands. The economic models that have led to touring acts are undergoing massive changes.
It no longer takes a half-million dollar room to record an album. It may not sound as good if you record it on a Mac Mini setup with Garageband, but it’s 90% of the way there, and you’ve got the gear for the second album. This makes it easier to get the skills and tools and take the time to make the song you want.
The economics of “single” versus “album” are changing again. The current price/value model of a single song versus a collection depend on physical production, distribution, and retail sales. However, if a band makes 10 songs and sells them for $10 as “an album” or 99 cents each on iTunes and finds that they only make money on 3 of the 10 tracks, then bands may start making only the “money” songs and not the filler. We may also see the old “an album is a discounted collection of previously released singles” model reappear.
Internet distribution is not tied to a specific locale. Not only does the internet mean that it’s incredibly cheap to keep old material “in-print”, it also means that gelgraphically indistinct groups may be buying the music. If your audience is getting the music from “tartanpodcast.com”, the band doesn’t necessarily need to book gigs in the Glasgow area, becuase the audience is in Christchurch and Jersey City.
Nobody knows what to do with this. It’s one of the reasons that it’s unclear what bands should be doing to be successful. Should you tour, should you sign, should you stay indie, should you put out a CD, should you go to iTunes?
I like the idea of patrons, but then I’m married to a medievalist.
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