"Market forces" is actually a multilayered code phrase for a vast engine of circular, mostly hermetically sealed advertising/creation of demand/de facto censorship. Sink or swim in the "free market" long enough and you begin to take notice of a few salient patterns: people generally get excited about new or creative music if they are exposed to it, especially live; small can still work fairly well if everything is proportionally small and grows organically; money is just energy in a strange form and all forms of sponsorship/patronage are essentially the same and similarly problematic; "Do It Yourself" is in fact often a powerful saving grace for any form of culture outside the circle of created demand. In the US now, local, state and federal governmental bodies as well as non-profit presenters originally intended to encourage emerging culture that didn't fit into the "free market" are bought and sold by the same corporate interests that use culture as advertising. The Verizon Wireless/Jazz at Lincoln Center/National Endowment for the Arts Jazz in the Schools Curriculum is but one example of thousands.

Functioning as an artist within a capitalist/new socialist system for me means facing reality. Attending to the business side of music (on whatever small a scale) is required in the current contexts and until this changes it is pointless to bemoan it. Whining is not social action. If wishes were horses we all could ride.

PB
peter breslin | Homepage | 12.06.07 - 16:46 | #

I have a little experience in musicians management, and from my point of view Marc Ribot article it's really interesting.
Outside the US there's a concept, in most of the musicians, that it's the Heaven for musicians, and even when it's better than the Third World, well my friends, it's not a great time up there.
Anyway, it's an article to read many times, because in the whole world art it's having a bad time. I mean "real art", not Britney...
Federico Antin | Homepage | 14.06.07 - 1:13 | #