Imagine this …
You spend a life-time learning a craft, perfecting the requisite skills that are not necessarily available on every street corner as you build a business, contacts, friends and associates. You invest pretty much ALL of your social time in it as a youngster, eventually working the most anti-social hours known to mankind, with total failure just a small piece of plastic away.
Then, within the lifespan of a worker ant, the walls begin to crumble and copyright law becomes an ass in a world that is consumed with Expansion. Suddenly, your fortunes depend on the model of a cash-rich industry that has just about as much going for it as BETA Video… circa 1980.
The conversation becomes consumed with negative perceptions, with all of the problems that the feckless freeloaders now face as the rivers of cash gradually drain from the Mountain. There are still a few performers taking bucks of the table… but surely they’re not in the same business as The Beatles, Stones, Jacko or Duran.
The other side of doom and gloom is that of unique opportunity. Change and the sacking of the old order drove the cultural shift in the late 70′s, giving rise to Punk Rock, New Wave and New Romantics. The stagnant consumerism that promotes “brand over band” cannot be sustained, and the lack of an industry leaves space for the emergence of alternatives.
This is happening with the Electronic Dance Movement in the United States. EDM has all of the fundamental triggers firing at once. This movement is driven by a new Generation, Cultural Change, Industry in Transition, a Higher Quality of People-Driven Product, and a Cool Not of the Mainstream perception. It’s “What they Want” as opposed to “What Is Rammed Down Their Throats” by the Industrial Media Complex.
Now is the time to seize this opportunity. Beyond the adversities faced resides an even better future for music, fans of music, creators of music et al – but not for the fakers. On-demand transparency will curdle the efforts of many who once had an armour of Industry Teflon… they have TV shows for that now. The biggest winners will be the fans… and lest we forget… we are ALL Fans First.
Andy Taylor TV is a means of communication for the ongoing Creative Process, broadcasting our own “Direct to The People” media channel.
Become your own Information Service. Why? Because you can. Because its right Here, right Now. Nothing is beyond the realm of possibility. But you have to get off the Treadmill. Stop running… chasing… chasing what? The Preconception of What It Truly Is.
What does it mean to be a musician in these times? How do you catch a break, if there’s even a break to catch? Where have all the record stores gone ? Where have all the recording studios gone? And it’s not only the physical plant and machinery… not just the brick n’ mortar that is missing.
No… it’s “Where have all the people gone? The Skills… the Support ?” What has replaced the matrix co-operation facilitating this success? ALL of these questions and more are pertinent for the aspiring musician. The Journey to Independence is a liberating cause… to remove the shackles of dependency on an industry that in all reality is no longer Fit For Purpose.
The journey begins… and the journey is what this is all about. This is the start of a very New Beginning. Who could have possessed the foresight to proclaim that Technology would have brought us here?
We have arrived at a place in time where what was once Unimaginable now becomes Tangible, where the Levy’s of Norm have been breached and swept away. What once lived in a room, you can now put in your pocket. We have arrived at the age of “Upward Creative Mobility”.
So where do you start? Whats’ your own Ground Zero? Where is the hub of your Process? What are your guiding principles? That’s what this is about: Creating a House… a Space… a Home… a Base.
And now the fun begins…
“Why doesn’t this work on the bloody iPhone? And this… and this… Oh! and what about the iPad? Err… that’s a third format.” When does 1+0 =3 ? When you do a 360* web build — Desktop, Mobile and iPad. The downside to it all is TIME. The payoff is the discovery of things you need to know, but so clearly didn’t. Ignorance may be bliss, but it ultimately leaves you as dumb as when you started.
Merely accepting the fact that your previous experience may have Fundamental Intellectual Value is not enough. There are higher levels of Skill and Technology which rule you either In or Out.
“Okay, so how longs this gonna take? Can’t I just get some management company to do this?” The most amusing aspect of this argument is that there are still many successful management organisations out there that are simply dumb. Of course they understand the cold metrics of Social and Fan Power… but they’re all playing catch-up. Top 40 radio, the invention another century, is still their mantra. You’re gonna have to do a lot better than that if you expect to survive — let alone thrive — in the future.
The innovators are the Technologists, and the laggards are the Music Business. And don’t confuse The Business of Music with Music, Art and Creativity.
Is it now possible for art to find a place of emanence? That the process of people producing soulless, repetitive music to garner product endorsements from their corporate pals will become irrelevant? YouTube has already cemented the foundation of this trend, so lets all hope that “process production” — the Mini Vanilli way of doing things — will be the bloodiest victim of the digital transition.
The biggest winner will be all of us. Musicians, writers… even drummers will have something more than an 18-month career spike at the age of twenty three. There will be more sustainable, more mature and progressive alternatives that not only give the artist the benefit of controlling their own mind and time, but also deliver a much better deal to fans — meaningful insight and genuine talent and entertainment.
Because it’s never been about simply one issue.
