I am honored by the many thoughtful comments that last week's article "Songs as Gifts Simultaneously Received and Given (Don't go to SXSW®)" has inspired. My first piece of was a more poetic, general, and less narrative work, but a few readers seem to be looking for a more specific follow-up, so I am happy to oblige...
Some have missed a key distinction, which I may not have made quite clear, I am not criticizing musicians who play at SXSW® or other inadequate venues or festivals, I am criticizing the festival. However, if musicians refused to engage with these exploitative and mediocre systems, the festivals/venues would disappear or change. Hence the call to boycott, and my strong language: “don’t go”.
I have personally felt very unhappy performing in many loveless commercial spaces, bars in particular, and eventually came to the realization that it is not necessary. Creative practice (a.k.a. art) is not the same as entertainment, sometimes they are interchangeable, but not as a rule. Spaces that want to sell something (other than the experience of the music itself) are interested in entertainment as a method of bringing people into the space to sell to them.
So are you revealing truth and beauty or are you selling drinks? Of course it is possible to do both at the same time, but why should you? Why should we cow down to a parasitic and mediocre set of parameters? And who’s pockets are we padding, and what exploitations are we propping up? Most musicians are underpaid or not paid at all for their hard work. In my experience it is the less commercial venues (art galleries, houses, community spaces, unofficial clubs, etc.) that pay artists a reasonable percentage of the money they bring in.
SXSW®'s clear commercial agenda is certainly enough to throw up a red flag or two. This little gem of a statement on there website kind of says it all: "With numerous avenues for exposure to over 36,000 key industry representatives, SXSW® 2011 is the most valuable addition to any marketing plan." Their key sponsors are… Chevy, Miller Lite, AOL, Pepsi & Monster Energy Drink… to my mind this kind of multi-national corporate underwriting is an obvious problem that doesn’t require overt analysis. May it also be noted that despite the distasteful sponsorship there is a $25 fee for all bands to apply to the festival. Tens of thousands of bands apply.
Unfortunately there are a lot of non-creative middle-men that profit while artists’ starve, and grasp in the dark for recognition. SXSW® uses a particularly shabby intermediary called sonicbids(dot)com that charges artists a monthly fee to set up a profile, and then collects additional money for submissions to venues and festivals. It is even more unfortunate that musicians are led to believe it is necessary to engage with similar parasites in order to share their tunes. Further more, these middle-men and bad venues contribute to a setting of competition that benefits them and not us. Bands will pay to be considered “legitimate”, and step over each other to play for someone else’s profit.
We sometimes pay a much higher price when we attempt to engage with the sacred in a place where very few, if any, could succeed. We may loose our way back to the ecstatic source, we may eventually no longer hear the songs, and we may give up the quest entirely.
So, a practical summary… Musicians who are interested in making a better artistic community/habitat ought to… demand payment if money changes hands anywhere in a venue, seek out spaces that care about music for music’s sake, make your own way as much as possible, and support each other! This is not cynacism, cynacism implies resignation, I believe that a better way is out there, I have tasted it, and I want more.
PART ONE: Bravo, Fletcher - I appreciate your eloquence. While I remain an individual of minimal musical development and, thus, have limited experiential opinion on the matter for festivals and venues, I take my usual route of translating the unfamiliar into the familiar in order to achieve deeper and more lasting understanding.
ReplyDeleteI am currently hovering Lakitu style in non-citizen space above the current nonsense of Australian climate change politics and find myself understanding the grievous loss that occurs when inspirational acts become codified into profession. I'm not so dull to believe that this is anything but the natural progression of most human minds given the hoarding tendencies predisposed by the prominent economic/social structure currently popular with Earth's current dominant species. It has been demonstrated time and time again that the movement from the spiritual to the secular is hallmarked by the centralized and exclusionary movement into the golden temple, from which authenticity is banished for fear of the light revealing the deep fissures hidden in the darkness. When existence is defined by competition inspired by fear of loss rather than inspired by cooperation inspired by faith in communal security, the natural tendency is to develop the professional niches that feed like remoras on the detritus of authenticity left over by the systematic sharks. Leadership, in my mind, started out as a natural occurrence of (relatively) altruistic and (relatively) selfless behavior for the greater good of ones own people. Call it a modified version of survival of the fittest or whatnot - altruistic leadership was a service performed beyond the realm of personal gain.
However, we exist in an age where the competition-based systems for human existence have picked up considerable speed on the tracks and the once noble pre-mass-civilization act of leadership is now a survival/accumulation mechanism that utilizes the mires of democracy to ensure job security. We have fully accepted the human-production model so fully that altruistic acts have become akin to the once numerous American bison. Professional politicians no longer represent the good of the tribe and this is so readily accepted that it is admitted openly without public shock. Something intended to be a mechanism of inclusiveness has become bastardized to the point that the inspiration source is indistinguishable and, if stumbled upon it is often shot or disemboweled by the media/social blades that be. It seems to me that the systems so vulnerable to destruction by their origin authenticity are often the best at convincing those it interacts with that they must pass through its systems to reach such authenticity – our own country, with its revolutionary Constitution and politico-media soma-induced social comas, serves as an excellent example. I take great interest in the event of Egypt and Libya as they dismantle the democracy-via-garbage-disposal systems in place of self-determination. Let’s hope that revolution-back-to-the-source cannot be trademarked and marketed by Coke.
PART TWO: So what of it all? It isn’t just politicians. Our mother culture is so connected that the loss of the spiritual in the secular is common, with efforts to shake up the system (art, music, environmental activism, etc) are quickly co-opted by competitive structures that they ironically turned into Borg without awareness. And in that transition, the flame burns lower and recognition of the authentic is more difficult. We have become a ghost culture that has eaten its soul to fill its belly. The taboos have been destroyed, the rituals have been marginalized, and the peace has become packaged.
ReplyDeleteBut I believe the recognition of the authentic and the ancestral is undeniable. This story of existence is just that – a veil that holds no power beyond its ability to obscure and sow doubt. The power of an individual expressing authentically without hope for gain beyond personal fulfillment is bewildering to the system. The response comes in the form of ignoring the act in hope that its walls will withstand any losses. This quickly moves to the acquirement-model that attempts to trade such an individual shiny things for the power of their expression. If no ground is gained, social ostracism or annihilation assumes priority, as the survival of the system is paramount in light of penetrating authenticity. It is the realization of what has been all along: a hollow dream induced by those who are so inextricably dependent upon a consumptive system. Power lies in the realization of the individual and the expression of the pure without hope for hoarder gain. Those shaking off the mantle and rejecting the need to pass through the system to reach the enlightenment a fundamentally pure act yields are mocked by those within the system. Such is the case with all that live outside of a system in that mockery and ostracism is the best way for any individual in the system to avoid the pangs of introspection that come when an alternative sheds light on ones own choices. It is a lofty goal to slough-off and I hope that one day I can touch its edges.
Despite all my ramblings, I hope this has come through. Huzzah!