The Death of the Middle Class Musician (feat. Tim Pierce)

In this episode, Tim Pierce and I talk about the disappearance of working class jobs in the music industry.

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[joelshields]

The best thing about music today is that anyone with a laptop can make a record.
The worst thing about music today is that anyone with a laptop can make a record.

[mikesmusicden]

Not just the music industry. I was a warehouse worker in the 80s and was paid well with good befits until they fired everyone and went with temps (and drove the wages down 70%). Knew guys that worked at Radio Shack and other stores in the mall (like Al Bundy working in the shoe store) and were able to support a family on that income. It's a different world now...

[lukameah]

I was a full-time NYC studio musician back in the day.
I was on the B-list:- about 120 musicians who took the work the A-list musicians (about 15-20 individuals) didn't have the time to do. Really good money but the pressure was terrible. One strike, and you were OUT. The producers usually enjoyed letting you know there were 10, 000 guys waiting to take your job. I got tired of the strain and became a music instructor. Not as exciting but music became fun again. Be careful what you wish for if you want to continue loving music.

[espana]

great insight, I’m 73, played with Tennessee Ernie Ford when I was 19. For musicians things are worse and it makes me sick. We are losing our culture. This is not the lament of an old man, this is reality, sad but, true. Rick, more power to you, same to Tim.

[jamesnotsmith]

I like how Tim holds a guitar during the entire interview even though he does not plan to play it. It is as if the guitar is a natural part of his wardrobe.

[Pete-nt]

In the 70s I was playing gigs with guys that were in their late 50s early 60s . They told me of the days when there was so much work for musicians you could work 24/7 . Every radio station, television studio, restaurant, bar, hotel lobby, theater, party, political event ie everything required live music if music was required at all.

[jkrause]

An old song comes to mind:
"Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end.
We'd sing and dance for ever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days,
Oh yes those were the days."

I'm getting old.

[craigcoughlin]

Being a full-time art director / graphic designer for 30+ years I can fully identify with this conversation.

[joyb.]

My dad came out of the NY jazz and big band scene of the 1940s. He was a total middle class musician his entire life. My dad did a few sessions, some TV, and he was in the background of a movie once, but mostly he made a living playing live. He played the Catskills and Vegas for awhile in the 50s and then ended up in South Florida in the heyday of the big Miami Beach hotels. He gigged usually 6 nights a week even into the late 90s, and taught lessons out of our house here and there. There were enough retirees in South Florida who wanted to keep dancing to the music of their youth that he had plenty of work. The musicians union helped us have health insurance. We were never rich but he made enough to support our family. He bragged until the day he died that he never did an honest day's work in his life, lol. He felt bad for younger musicians because people weren't hiring live bands as much over the years and there just wasn't the work available.

[Johnrack]

Good episode Rick.
I’m a guitarist who lived in L.A. for two decades. My wife plays B3, and as weekend warriors our blues band, and jazz band, played all over town.
We were lucky to have good day jobs so we didn’t have to struggle like many other club players.
We were also able to record CD’s, and made three of them over the years. We also met one of Dave Roth’s engineers who had his own studio, and through him we hired Gregg and Matt Bissonette as our studio rythym section, which was great.
Long story short, our BluesTrain singer ran Andy Brauer’s cartage and rental business, and when he retired in 2005 we bought him out, and started Hollywood Studio Rentals.
The cartage and rental businesses were not very profitable, but we eventually rented two 15, 000 sq ft warehouses, which we stored touring band’s gear. We had Van Halen, John Fogerty, the Eagles, System of a Down, The Goo Goo Dolls, Robert Cray, Daryl Jones, and most of the A list studio guitarists like Luke, Michael Laudau, Dean Parks, Michael Thompson, and Carl Verhyen.
We eventually built out a recording studio and drum tracking room for Kenny Arnoff, and rehearsal studios for the Goo Goo Dolls and John Fogerty.
And few years later we bought out Drum Paradise, and got Vinnie Coliuta.
At any rate in 2013 my partner bought me out and my wife and I retired to Hawaii, where we still play blues and jazz to this day.

[boldmove]

I was running around New York City in the 80's. Still a vibrant music scene. Rows of music stores on 48th street. Stores dedicated to instruments, repair, sheet music, showing off your virtuosity in the guitar room, celebrity sight seeing, and just the hang.. You'd run into BB King at Manny's picking up a new amp. Michael Brecker walking up the stairs to sax repair joint. Art Farmer checking out the trumpets at Giardenelli's. 1st and 2nd generation bebop musicians were still around. Kids out of music school would work the front desk at the music stores. All the horn players had studio work. Remember when records had horn sections? We would jazz club hop from the Village Vanguard, to the Blue NOte to Barry Harri's Workshop and see all the studio musicians checking out all the jazz greats. 48th street was more than a row of music stores. It represented the heart beat of the New York music scene. Musicians, repair men, scores of every kind. A whole industry revolved around music. Rockefellars decided to build a garage and before you knew it. It was gone. The bebop musicians started dying, the studio work started drying up, and the age of Digital technology arrived. And here we where the hell are we, actually? The great unknown. A societal transition that is being reflected in the music and music business. I miss the good ole days but the one thing certain in life is change. Gotta role with the times. Whatever that might be.

[steelframe]

Our Daughter at 18 played bass in a very loud punk rock band in Seattle. We learned through her Facebook page that they were planning a West coast tour in the summer, I think it was around 2008. We were very concerned both for her safety and that they had planned to play somewhere every other night and there was almost no time budgeted for travel or rest. She managed to borrow a neighbor's old 70's Suburban and somehow they got 4 musicians and their gear to fit. I was going to put my foot down and squash the whole trip but we decided that since she had spent some of her senior year battling cancer that I wasn't going to deny her the once in a lifetime experience of rock band road trip that would take them South to El Paso the over to San Diego and back up the coast to Seattle. I was worried sick the whole time but also a little envious as I was in a band at that age but never had the balls to hit the road like that. She was in a few bands after that but like most of us has settled into a successful grown up life. Good on her and her friends for following a dream. I'm sure the memories will last forever.

[maxherron]

My first job in 1969 was being a drummer in a local cover band. We played a lot in our small Texas town and learned how to play in front of our friends and school mates. That job put me through college, helped fund our first home and everything else we needed in early marriage. Now, there may be 3-4 gigs per years. I feel so sorry for young musicians, there are no places to play, no money and that is just the players.

Great video! I love these things.

[MarkSmallwoodWriter]

Great conversation, guys. I grew up in LA area, I was 13 in 1968 so I can totally relate to Tim's comments about "heydays." Another cool thing was that at that time, it was possible to see up and coming artists at small venues--case in point, I saw Linda Ronstadt in 1971 at the San Clemente High School auditorium for $5. Saw so many bands in 1971-72 for $10 dollars a shot. Even the Troubadour in the early 70s was pretty reasonable. One thing to clarify, for any younger folks, is that rents, costs, etc., were enormously lower as a percentage of income than they are today. Wealth inequality has screwed so many. My first wife and I rented a two bedroom apartment in LA for $185 a month, which was a lot for us (we were earning a combined $950 take home pay per month). But still, it was possible to have a life.

[lost-in-the-blue]

Still some great music out there in small places...much harder to get out of those small places these days. Musicians, just keep grinding...Support local live music!

[RamonaJan]

Hi Rick: I was one of the first female recording engineers in the biz at Mediasound on W. 57th St in NYC and then at Power Station. I was trained by Bob Clearmountain and Tony Bongiovi. I worked with many artists in including Ramones, Talking Heads, Eno, Sinatra, Mick and Keith, Laura Nyro; the list goes on. Also worked with the NYC 'wrecking crew' on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. and at the same time played in the synth punk band Comateens and other new wave groups. I sang with Buster Poindexter and was a founding member of the all girI group Venus Fly Trap with Lisa Lowell and Soozie Tyrell (recently touring with Springsteen). Got lots of stories. Love your show!

[zippitydoodah]

I was a "middle class musician" for a decade. At one point I was playing in 5 bands at once. My main band was signed by a label for a minute and then split up shortly after. I have had 3 songs published, one recorded 4 times, and reserved twice. I've played on three albums and wrote at least half of the songs on each of those albums . . . one of those albums co-written with a Grammy Award winning writer.
And today? I haven't played in public in a dozen years. My last shows were in Nashville. Young fools play out now. And they sadly have no idea what they are missing when they do. My band regularly pulled in about 50 people to any show anywhere, and weekend shows, we would pull in about a hundred or so. We made decent money. We played original music. We had fans that would follow us anywhere we played within a couple hundred miles of home base. We had roadies that helped us for free. We got them free drinks and dinner in the nicer places we played, but no guarantees. We ALL did what we did _because we loved the music_ . We loved the kinship, friendship, and fellowship of like spirits being on the same wavelength, at the same moment, on the same ride, for a few hours of escape late in the evening.
{edit for paragraph} I went back recently and did not recognize the place. Those kinds of fanbases no longer exist. If video killed the Radio Star, then the Industry killed the spirituality of musical communities everywhere. Now? The core of my last community still gets together once or twice a year on a riverside, in and around a rental house where we commune the old way, writing, singing, playing, canoeing and kayaking, talking, loving . . . we live for those weeks. We even invite a handful of our hard-core fans from back in the day.

[MarsGuitarOfficial]

Being a full time middle class musician for almost 30 years, I feel blessed but always viewed it as 7 part time jobs lol !!! Thank you guys I appreciate you both:)

[davidwtaylor]

I love these conversations that get people to start thinking about how we can find a "happy middle ground" between the efficiencies of the digital technology revolution and the quality of life for everyone. The technological revolution came about so quickly that those at the top took advantage of its benefits while leaving everyone else behind. The giant middle class is now starting to wake up to the realization that we need to re-structure business models that were developed at the start of the technology revolution, so that we all get a fair share of the pie. We need to find a happy middle ground that maintains the efficiency gains of new technologies but isn't structured as a business so that it leaves everyone out in the cold, except those at the top. Keep this conversation topic ongoing!!

[FLOWERSONTHEGRAVE]

As a working band, this is also hits home. Doesn't matter your quality, only matters if your making someone money, and only then can you get the opportunities to move up the ladder.