Pay-to-play (was; my response)

[Jeremy David]

On 3/5/06, TERROR FIRMA SKY <terror_firma_sky at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Jeremy David <epistemology at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Until you reach a certain level of success there's
> something called
> "paying your dues" which means you get out there and > flier and sell
> tickets and do what ever else it takes to let people
> know what's
> happening.

Hey man, I've payed $200 and three Sammy Sosa rookie cards for the
privilege to play a concert inside an operating sewage refinement
plant for an audience of 5 deaf Swedish fishermen, so don't talk to me
about paying my dues.

OK. You caught me. That's a lie, but I think there are several dues
which I have paid, and it's something that I might know a little bit
about. I think I'm happy to do hard work to make shows happen. What
I'm not happy to do is someone else's job. My point was not that no
one should work hard to make a show happen. My point is that if I'm
going to do the bulk of the work myself, then I want a bulk of the
profits myself too. Why would I want to do lots of work and assume
lots of the risk if only to line someone else's pockets? If I'm going
to be a musician *and* a promoter, then I expect to get paid as both.

Why bother bringing a "promoter" into the deal if you're going to do
the promotion yourself anyway?

> Even if you have a really great promoter who has spread
> the word like wild fire, there's always a chance you may be able to
> reach people they havn't. If you're not willing to do this then you
> probably don't have the drive it takes to be successful in the first
> place. It's a lot of hard work and takes up a lot of time that could
> be used for writting or practicing, but that's just the nature of
> how things are.
>
> "I just wanted to kick it . . . one time . . . signed, a ghost"
>
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