Would you (really) want to make it "BIG?!"

[DAS44]

I just want to play, write and perform. It's the funnest thing I can do.

 

As long as I'm playing, writing and performing, my pay doesnt matter (<cough> assuming I have a day job <cough>)

 

No brainer in my opinion.

[crazyhair]

I just want to play' date=' write and perform. It's the funnest thing I can do.

 

As long as I'm playing, writing and performing, my pay doesnt matter (<cough> assuming I have a day job <cough>)

 

No brainer in my opinion.

 

 

To me being able to play guitar and having fun doing it, is making it!

[milod]

Last nite I was talking to a guy I'd "known" since my mid '60s rock days. He was gigging with a good drummer and a wonderful and beautiful blonde keyboard-vocalist "girl" who happens also to be his daughter.

 

We talked about exactly this subject. Bottom line kinda comes down to reality. He's kept gigging to help pay for 7 kids and I think was good enuf to "make it" but didn't. He's making weekend money now, trying to emphasize his daughter more since there just aren't that many girl singers of pro quality around this region.

 

Once we both were playing in bands advertised regionally. Now... a couple of "old men" who have managed to stay in decent physical condition and love playing. He's gigged through decades I was traveling and takin' pix for a sorta living.

 

But to "make it," in the sense of the "giant" bands... I don't think it's possible today for anybody in the sense that it was in the '60s and he pretty well agreed. The big record companies lack the "power" they once had to escalate an Elvis or a Beatle to being "the" band. We have far more than three or four TV channels.

 

Internet adds ability to learn much more about technique but subtracts from a band's uniqueness. It also makes "selling" easier, but in a huge marketplace where even a .0001 percent of the pie is a good return. I think one reason "Christian Rock" has kinda come in and even replaced a number of "Christian Country Ministries" is some folks looking at making a realistic living doing music in an environment they're comfortable with.

 

I think too there's a realistic dream and a daydream. Frankly I think making a decent living long-term and being able to pay the bills with a couple of bucks going into the bank is a realistic dream today. Wanting to be a Clapton or Harrison is probably a daydream regardless of talent and skill just 'cuz the way the biz has changed.

 

m

[LarryUK]

On a different side. I always felt more nerves at a small gig than a big one. At a big one it's so distant. I prefered the big gigs for sound though. You could crank the marshalls up and it wouldn't matter. Long time ago now though. At least I played at the original marquee in London. Memories. Ahh.

[charlie brown]

And yet, is "uniqueness" really needed/wanted, anymore? What sells Big, seems to be "sameness." The market

isn't about "your" sound, anymore (seems to me), but about what the market wants...and that's familiarity.

I'm not saying, that some unique bands, or individual entertainers, can't make it...a lot do. But, overall it

seems, anyway...that the same old, same old, in a different package or "look," sells more than say the kind

of individuality that was more prominent, in the '60's...when there was an explosion, of experimentation,

in and around the "root" music.

 

CB