Skronk wrote:With b, you are making your art the commodity, like the coffee they are selling. It (your art) ceases to become the end in itself, but becomes a means by which coffee is sold. It is a gimmick to try and get potential customers into their store by offering your art.

Skronk, I believe this view is highly subjective. The end toward which an artist works is a very personal matter.

If you take this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, that is, the opinion that commercialization is the death of art, then as soon as you put a price tag beneath a painting or offer a CD for sale, it ceases to be art and transubstantiates into a commodity, regardless whether you sell it in a gallery, on the sidewalk, in a shopping mall, a record store or a coffee shop.

Sometimes artists will choose a specific venue or route of delivery for their work, that suits a given purpose. Like if a painter, having achieved a level of respect in the "fine art" community, decides to produce a run of serigraphs or lithos for distribution via poster stores and small galleries instead of high-end galleries. The clientele in such an outlet is going to be very different from your upscale gallery, so the artist might choose such a venue in the interest of accessing a completely different market.

this is all so stupid.

I remember the same conversations about the Sex Pistols. Then it was REM, then it was Nirvana.

Steve thinks what steve thinks. That's fine. I can separate the art from the artist, and the artist from his facilitators.

For me, I either like the music or I don't. The record label and retail environment that the material is sold in are not gonna keep me from buying music that I like.

And if T&G puts the shittiest record ever, and only allows it to be sold in approved hip independant record stores, If it sucks, I ain't buying.

SY can do whatever the fuck they want. They have put out more good records than the stooges and mission of burma combiined. Nobody is pissing on the stooges for being aligned with a major label. Ian Mckaye in starbucks....

sparky wrote:

tommydski wrote:Thanks a lot, sparky.

That's an excellent response that has given me a lot to think about.

Thanks tommy.

It was a good question, which I've been thinking about myself a little. I am writing a novel (along with 75% of British university-educated males of my age) and am wondering to what extent, if at all, I need to think of someone actually wanting to read the horrible thing.

I'm no musician and I've been leaving it to fellow musicians to comment so far, but as a writer, I can relate to this one.

My gut instinct, strictly as the "artist," is absolutely do not think of it. If a writer does not allow the audience to come to him, he hasn't written the book he's had inside him for years. He's written a de facto commissioned piece.

sparky, you know how difficult it is to write something about which one is uninspired. And the vast majority of fiction authors, to be brutally frank, only have one good novel in them. (Actually, most of us don't even have that.) It's the one they've burned to write since they first knew they were to born to put pen to paper. I think changing a single period or comma of that novel based on a hypothetical reader's expectations is the worst kind of self-sabotage.

And I'm not talking strictly for reasons of "artistic integrity" or any other high-minded but nearly impossible to define ethical concept. I'm talking about the quality of the work itself. Pandering is transparent to any semi-conscious reader and will kill not only the novel itself, but the sort of burning inspiration that leads a writer to write one in the first place.

At worst, putting out a record to be sold in Starbucks is just tacky. I've never looked closely at the CDs for sale in a Starbucks but I've always imagined that they were accesories - like jazz music to put on in the background if you're entertaining friends or want to create that coffee shop vibe at home. The idea that a collection of music's association with Starbucks - some vague notion of a creative place, a place to write or study or have deep conversations, a place for people who have discriminating tastes and appreciate the finer things in life like Starbucks coffee- would make it attractive is laughable. But there are people out there who buy into this. I would be embarrassed to present and sell my work in a place like this to people like this.

Assuming this is even true, maybe they expect to make some money repackaging a bunch of old songs and selling them at Starbucks. It's not wrong, really, just lame.

Colonel Panic wrote:

Skronk wrote:With b, you are making your art the commodity, like the coffee they are selling. It (your art) ceases to become the end in itself, but becomes a means by which coffee is sold. It is a gimmick to try and get potential customers into their store by offering your art.

Skronk, I believe this view is highly subjective. The end toward which an artist works is a very personal matter.

If you take this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, that is, the opinion that commercialization is the death of art, then as soon as you put a price tag beneath a painting or offer a CD for sale, it ceases to be art and transubstantiates into a commodity, regardless whether you sell it in a gallery, on the sidewalk, in a shopping mall, a record store or a coffee shop.

I think the issue here is that the gallery or record store is far less likely to have a rigid set of "brand values," communications parameters, and the other voluminous rules that come with corporate marketing; rules that will become the artist's rules, like it or not, if that artist wants to continue having a relationship with that business.

A record store isn't likely to refuse to sell an album because that album is called "Bacon Is God," and the owner of the store happens to be a vegetarian. (Unless the owners is a vegetarian AND an asshole.) But would Starbucks sell an album called "Coffee Killed My Grandmother"? No way in hell and thus associating your album, and your subsequent work, with Starbucks has now put restrictions on your artistic expression. It's a very dangerous thing to make the sale of your art dependent on values that are not your own. And there's no way to predict when your values may eventually conflict with those of your patron when your patron is willing to change his values based on a fluctuating market.

I never, ever liked this band much. I listened to the albums, saw them live. They did nothing for me. Still don't.

And the only encounter I've ever had with any of them was when Kim Gordon's pet project "STP" opened for us once in NYC at the hideous Pyramid.

"Hey, you guys are friends with Steve, right?"

"Uh, sure, we've met him, I think"

"Can STP use your gear? It's really hard to live in New York and be in a band, and carry around gear!"

"Uh, sure, .. I guess so."

They used our gear, sucked very badly, then went downstairs and drank all the backstage boozes, laughing and yakking it up while we played and didn't even have the courtesy to watch us play one song.

What were we talking about again?

zom-zom wrote:And the only encounter I've ever had with any of them was when Kim Gordon's pet project "STP" opened for us once in NYC at the hideous Pyramid.

"Hey, you guys are friends with Steve, right?"

"Uh, sure, we've met him, I think"

"Can STP use your gear? It's really hard to live in New York and be in a band, and carry around gear!"

"Uh, sure, .. I guess so."

They used our gear, sucked very badly, then went downstairs and drank all the backstage boozes, laughing and yakking it up while we played and didn't even have the courtesy to watch us play one song.

I hate this kind of behaviour. It happens more and more these days...

zom-zom wrote:and didn't even have the courtesy to watch us play one song.

This annoys the shit out of me when I see it to happen to my friends' bands. I realize that bands, especially those that tour often, see a ton of other bands and often just plain tired. But they should also know what it's like to play to a room of five people plus the bartender and what it can mean to have 4 or 5 extra people in that room, even for just a couple of songs, to add a little more energy.

Just common courtesy and doesn't require much.

1. There is always a douchebag creep in the chain of doing anything.

2a. Every band that plays out in a venue is playing to make the venue money. Is playing to move drinks. This is how venues stay afloat, by making money.

2b. Often douchebag creeps are associated with these venues.

3. I have been playing in bands for a decent chunk of time, with varying and limited success. There is always a douchebag creep, regarding each step related to further progress.

4. So what is the difference? Hopefully, if one is adept at navigating, one can minimize the douchebag creep interface in order to progress to your desired state:

- A state of making lots of money doing what you enjoy doing, with guarenteed (if tempered) douchebag creep interface

or

- A state of relative autonomy to do what you enjoy doing, and 'freedom' from douchebag creep machinations


5. Douchebags and creeps are inevitable. If I hadn't come to terms with this, I wouldn't be able to walk down the street.

Colonel Panic wrote:

Skronk wrote:With b, you are making your art the commodity, like the coffee they are selling. It (your art) ceases to become the end in itself, but becomes a means by which coffee is sold. It is a gimmick to try and get potential customers into their store by offering your art.

Skronk, I believe this view is highly subjective. The end toward which an artist works is a very personal matter.

If you take this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, that is, the opinion that commercialization is the death of art, then as soon as you put a price tag beneath a painting or offer a CD for sale, it ceases to be art and transubstantiates into a commodity, regardless whether you sell it in a gallery, on the sidewalk, in a shopping mall, a record store or a coffee shop.

Sometimes artists will choose a specific venue or route of delivery for their work, that suits a given purpose. Like if a painter, having achieved a level of respect in the "fine art" community, decides to produce a run of serigraphs or lithos for distribution via poster stores and small galleries instead of high-end galleries. The clientele in such an outlet is going to be very different from your upscale gallery, so the artist might choose such a venue in the interest of accessing a completely different market.

Putting a price tag beneath your painting or whatever doesn't have be the death of your art. If you want to make money off of it, you'll need to sell it. That's not where the problem arises from. The problem is the other hands in this process, like the gallery, or the place you'll end up selling it at.

This issue isn't black or white. Let's say you have great art, and a gallery is willing to sell it for you, becoming the link between your art and the buying public. If they sit you down and say they want more than 10% of whatever piece your selling, it can turn bitter. The more and more the label, gallery, or store wants in return, the more your art becomes the tool by which they'll make a profit. This is not a generalization, we all know of good and bad labels, and it's a crap shoot when dealing with people. Either they'll be helpful, and step aside, or they'll invade and try to control what goes on.

If you choose to seek a third party to go through, some of these things are probably inevitable. It's a give and take. An art gallery probably won't have an objection with controversial art, but a place like Starbucks, who's got a firm business practice, they'll probably have a problem if you have an album called, "Carmel Coffee Enema". Starbucks won't give a shit whether your art is sincere, or groundbreaking, as long as you help them sell coffee. An art gallery will at least be receptive to the artist, even if they're in it for profit, too.