“Are You an Idiot?”
I can still remember the day a few years ago when I was running along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, thinking about the state of the music industry and, well, how drastically fucked up it was…that was the day that the initial idea around Fuzz was born. The night before, I’d been talking to a friend married to the front-man of a band that toured about 150 nights a year. The band had fans all across the US and internationally. Their most recent gig was at the Fillmore and I assumed they were blowing up. Exactly wrong. I asked about record sales and she nearly punched me. “Are you an idiot?” she asked. I nodded pretending to empathize, but I was really nodding in response to her question as I had no idea what she was talking about. She explained, “My husband, like most artists, has never made money selling music. The reason he tours and is never at home is because we pay the rent by selling merch and playing live. He’s signed, has thousands of fans, and from the outside, he’s a success. The truth is we’re still having problems making ends meet.” To ensure her further ranting, I naively asked about the label and what they were doing to improve the situation. She then went nuclear and began spewing concepts at me like “recoupment” and “advances are akin to slavery.” My wife then came running over to apologize thinking that I was drunk and was being a jackass. It was a pretty sobering chat to say the least. I was confused though–was it the artist that just didn’t have the business sense to make it work or was it that there were fundamental problems with the industry? Was it a little bit of both? As I started to find the answer, I was soon hearing similar stories on an increasingly frequent basis.
I’ve played in several bands since I was 13, none of which you’ve likely heard of. For me, I just loved the end to end process of playing - the nervous anticipation prior to a show, lying awake all night imagining playing to a packed house, hanging backstage after the show with, you know, attention, the focused intensity as I set up my gear. I loved the whole basic routine: properly setting the levels on my amp, not too much reverb to sound cheesy, but enough to cover my mistakes–check, making sure the 9 volt battery in my pedal still worked–check, tuning and re-tuning–check, making sure the makeshift channel switcher still worked–check. Then when the lights came on, the thrill of going on stage to be met with the harsh reality that there were more people in my band than folks in the audience…
OK, so it wasn’t always like that. We had our moments of glory. Maybe not in a universal sense, but enough to keep me tooling away in the woodshed practicing my chops, driving my parents crazy by asking for every piece of new gear that came out on the market, and the countless guitar geek zines that seemed to find their way to every corner of the house. Rewinding and playing cassette tapes to capture every nuance of one of Jimi’s riffs or even trying to learn Larry Carlton’s solo note-for-note on Kid Charlemagne was part of an ongoing ritual. The world was a great place and music was everything. Like every kid with a guitar in America, there were times I thought, “One day, I’m gonna be a star!”
Now I look back on those days thinking, “Damn, I was a clueless.” The reality of the music business then and now is that trying to be a hit making machine is next to impossible. Becoming a star or being “discovered”–forget about it. Trying to be that artist (or the label for that matter) at the top of the pyramid that can sell a million units–highly unlikely. Sure, there are always exceptions to the rule, but the truth is that going about the music business the way that it’s been done for years is a recipe for disaster.
Steve Albini once wrote a famous article about the dreams and the realities of the music business entitled, “The Problem with Music.” It’s an eye-opening piece that transparently and plainly discusses the dreams and the harsh realities of artists trying to make it in the traditional model.* After reading it, my entire conversation with the angry wife at the party made perfect sense. It’s no surprise that being signed to a traditional label has often times been described as the modern form of indentured servitude.
But, there is hope, if one can overcome the narrow notions of success as an artist. Success in today’s music industry can be defined differently, individually, and with more tools at your disposal than ever before. Success can be defined within the context of being able to pursue one’s art on a full-time basis; it’s about taking control of one’s own career and having the choice to make decisions both creatively and financially based on actual information that’s available anywhere at any time; it’s about realizing that dreams can be quickly smothered by the weight of harsh reality, but hard work increases your odds for success; it’s about the willingness to do business in an entirely different way–and it’s about making great music that means something to you.
It’s a revolutionary time to be in the music business…if you have the willingness to do things differently. You don’t need to be a 30-year industry veteran to figure that out. The web and technology has challenged the fundamental way that the music business is done. From discovery to production, marketing to distribution, the landscape has changed dramatically. Artists, known and unknown, are self-releasing new albums and are reaping the financial benefits overnight while maintaining full ownership of their masters. Gone are the days of $100,000 production costs for professional recordings. Mainstream music is dying fast as the internet has provided an easy means to discover even the most obscure niches and genres in the long tail. Online marketing has become a key means other than touring for emerging artists to make a name for themselves. One of the majors is owned by a private equity firm and radio is no longer the primary music discovery vehicle. In fact, more than 5,000 folks have been let go from record companies since the turn of the millennium. It is changing.
The turbulence brings great opportunity–artists now have more choices about how to take their career to the next level than ever before in the history of this industry. The four pillars of the old regime are decaying rapidly as new entrants are evolving innovative ways to contribute to the music uprising. No one has all the pieces and it’s going to be a hell of a show, but revolutionizing and democratizing the production and access to music is certainly a cause worth fighting for.
*In April, watch for the exclusive interview with Albini here on The Fix as he revisits his infamous observations on the music industry
As a teenager, Jeff Yasuda cast aside his cultural roots of violins and violas and asked his parents for an electric guitar. They said “no.” After saving to buy his own, further years of gear acquisition, and miles of tablature studies, he proudly states he is a bona fide hack. Yasuda strayed from his true love while pursuing bean counting, the IPO market, and venture capital. After 6 months away from that to travel the world, he reunited (and it felt so good) with his passion for music and the artists that create it. Yasuda grew up in San Francisco and has lived in Hong Kong, Boston, and New York. He started Fuzz with a few friends who share his belief that the music industry is ready for change and his strong desire to do something about it. Between being a husband, father, and running a start-up, he continues to hack in two San Francisco bands.
