{"id":227,"date":"2014-04-11T00:07:39","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T00:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/?p=227"},"modified":"2014-04-11T00:09:03","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T00:09:03","slug":"why-your-music-is-worthless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/?p=227","title":{"rendered":"Why your music is worthless"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, a friend of mine posted this picture<\/a> on his FB profile of this musician\u2019s clever response to a restaurant owner looking for someone to play at his joint, without pay.\u00a0 Which, if you\u2019re like me you\u2019ve seen this response a few times.<\/p>\n

The problem is, I saw it the day after my girlfriend and I walked out of our local bar mid-drink because the band playing was so bad.\u00a0 I mean, it was really bad.\u00a0 I compared it to a cat getting killed by bagpipes.<\/p>\n

And, well, this Coachella thing is happening, so for all of you aspiring musicians, I\u2019m putting this out for your benefit:<\/p>\n

Your music is worthless. \u00a0You need to deal with it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying this as an insult, I\u2019m not here to stomp on your self-esteem for my own sick pleasure, I\u2019m just another guy who likes music.\u00a0 Good music.\u00a0 But if the music does not improve on my own thoughts or conversation, I do not want it around.\u00a0 That makes it worthless, at least to me, but I\u2019m sure others around me agree.<\/p>\n

But what is this thing, \u201cworth\u201d?\u00a0 And why is a musician somehow entitled to get paid for his music just as much as a restarauteur does for his cooking?\u00a0 In this clever letter I see not only someone who thinks his music has some intrinsic value, but it devalues the work the restarauteur has made to build up his establishment and clientele.\u00a0 And considering he\u2019s looking to find musicians like you on craigslist, his establishment is hardly famous.<\/p>\n

Personally, I blame this perverse American dream that makes people in this country aspire to deliver entertainment more than they do basic necessities like food, shelter or clothing.\u00a0 But let me tell you that no matter how famous a restaurant is, the owner still has to work his ass off.<\/p>\n

And plenty of restaurants go belly up or don\u2019t make any money.\u00a0 Plenty give away samples of their food or offer it at next to nothing to build up exposure.\u00a0 People invest hoards of money in their businesses, more than I imagine most musicians will ever invest in their bands.<\/p>\n

So to go after this restarauteur, who worked his ass off to build up his restaurant and give you a ready-made audience, as someone who somehow owes you money?<\/p>\n

I mean I could say \u201csupply and demand, bitch. Join the horde of aspiring nobodies dying for any gig they can find.\u201d\u00a0 But that would be mean.\u00a0 Nor am I even going to jump on the \u201cexposure\u201d bandwagon, because I\u2019m well aware people use it as an excuse to short-change people.<\/p>\n

But just take my example from the top of this post, and understand that he\u2019s taking a risk on you as well.\u00a0 You could just easily clear out his restaurant and make him throw away a bunch of food.\u00a0 You know, food those working suckers worked their ass off to bring to you.<\/p>\n

So keep in mind, nobody even knows you well enough to know if they like your music or not.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to have to make some investments to get popular enough to make a living off it.\u00a0 Until then, you\u2019re no better than the rest of us, so you should probably keep your day job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, a friend of mine posted this picture on his FB profile of this musician\u2019s clever response to a restaurant owner looking for someone to play at his joint, without pay.\u00a0 Which, if you\u2019re like me you\u2019ve seen this response a few times. The problem is, I saw it the day after my girlfriend and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[116,118,115,117,119,120],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}