If you're a freelance film-maker
you should be happy you're making a living by your creativity.

Speaking as someone who is in 2 serious bands - neither of which are professional but both of which will play very regular gigs and from time to time luck out and play to a few hundred people - I think it's our responsibility, as musicians, to push it as far as it will go and get where we want to be OFF OUR OWN BACKS and due to our own hard work. Fuck the mainstream music industry, create something that means something to you and makes you feel alive, learn how to make it happen yourself and be brave enough to face the consequences if you can't make it pay its way. That's my approach anyway.

New album out now!
www.myspace.com/flowersoffleshandblood
(rampants, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 14:13, 1 reply)

I am.
Very happy. Never been happier in fact. But I had to work fucking hard to get what little wages I get now. But I've easily worked harder at being a musician. And for longer.

I've been freelance for a year and a half, and I made more money in one day than I have in 12 years of playing music. Now, I think my music is good (well, I wouldn't write music that I think is shit...). Subjectivity aside, our music is well produced, catchy, our singer is (was) good, and whilst we weren't exactly likely to grace the front cover of the NME, we put some effort into the way we presented ourselves so that we looked like a professional outfit. And yet we got nowhere.

Perhaps I'm massively off target, and our music was completely shit (although people always seemed to enjoy it live, even people who had never heard us before).

Or perhaps I'm not, and we did write a decent album, and do all the things a band could do to make themselves marketable, but theres a massive problem in that people just don't give a fuck about hearing original music any more and would rather just fucking sit at home and listen to soulless shit.

I think it's because I make my money in an industry that - despite having absolutely no money to give to anyone - still allows people to make a living from being creative that I get so riled up about the music industry. From where I'm standing the power lies squarely at the feet of people like Simon Cowell and it shouldn't. It should lie at the feet of the people who create the music.

There are ways to get your films out there without having to fit into a certain little box, and without having to pander to a specific market, and you can make a living by doing that.

There is no equivalent for music. Sure, you can get your music on the internet, but thats like saying you can go to the beach and piss in the ocean.
( PMGT -Bacon., Tue 4 Jan 2011, 19:28, closed)

Oh,
and if we're spamming links: www.myspace.com/aconflicttocure

Broke up now, but we're putting our 12 track album up there when the mixing is done for free downloads and such. Rough demos up there now. Listen to "Shock And Awe" if you're gonna listen to any of em.
( PMGT -Bacon., Tue 4 Jan 2011, 19:51, closed)