[NewMusic] Dying Industry...(sic)

[weasel walter]

ha ha ha. i'm 35. my generation came up watching too much MTV. i feel
like many white kids in my generation got the impression that playing
music was a really easy, fun thing to do. all you have to do is be
magnificent and wham, you're a rock star. you make records, play concerts
and everybody goes nuts. i mean, after all, there's hundreds of groups on
tv and they're doing great! i want to be just like them!

oops.

my parents made either the mistake or good decision to tell me that i
could do whatever i want to with my life as long as i do it "all the
way". that's why in lieu of a "real job" i do things like scrape around
for rent, playing in as many bands, making as many recordings, hustling
as much as i do - all music related, all the time. i've had to diversify
the fuck out of my abilities in music just to survive. woe to those who
don't, because then you join the lottery - the lottery of maybe getting
some recognition or money. the odds get more and more shitty on cashing
in everyday. in music, popularity has more to do with social skills than
merit. the popularity of my own music projects seems directly
proportional to how much i go out to bars and drink with other "popular"
people, which is to say right now it's at a medium low point and i'm not
getting drunk very often. 

someone asked me why i make so many records if i believe the music market
is so utterly saturated. i told him that apparently i'm egotistical
enough to think my voice should be heard. then i took it down a notch and
said, well, honestly, i make records so i have something to listen to
that meets my aesthetic criteria. i went on to say that it happens to be
that my records generally fill a niche that is uncommonly filled, i.e. i
make relentlessly brutal free jazz records - i don't hear anybody making
those anymore. i would like to hear a record like that, therefore, i
suppose i have to make it. by extension, there must be others who want to
hear this really brutal free jazz record since there aren't a lot of
others being made. so, therein lies the demand: small but relevant. these
are my motivations. i am still very compelled to continue what i'm doing
in spite of the morass of mediocre bullshit that is contemporary music. 

ww