| There’s only a handful of guys in our profession that still play this intense high-energy, Nineties rock music. We both had to strike that balance of ‘We never want to complain,’ but there are real, specific things about what we do that’s really f***ing challenging and really difficult... It’s like we have to be able to sort of run a marathon every time we hit the stage. |
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| Jazz drummer Jonathan Barber at Zankel Hall, New York, March 16, 2019. "Poetic," his third album with his band Vision Ahead, is out now (self released). |
| (Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“There’s only a handful of guys in our profession that still play this intense high-energy, Nineties rock music. We both had to strike that balance of ‘We never want to complain,’ but there are real, specific things about what we do that’s really f***ing challenging and really difficult... It’s like we have to be able to sort of run a marathon every time we hit the stage.”
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- Matt Cameron, Pearl Jam drummer, on the late Taylor Hawkins
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| rantnrave:// |
Can't Buy Me Ducats
Should it cost 700 bucks to treat your parents—huge BEATLES fans who've never been to a concert before—to the worst seats in the house at a PAUL MCCARTNEY stadium show? Standard supply-and-demand arguments say why not. Simple inflation analysis comes to a similar conclusion—as with anyone else currently on tour, McCartney's crew's gas and electricity prices went up just like yours did. A Southern California writer, musician and adjunct college instructor who wanted to surprise his BEATLE fan parents who've never been to a concert with tickets to McCartney's show at SOFI STADIUM last week says, and I quote, "What the f***?" And with apologies to an industry fighting back from a devastating two-year shutdown, peopled mostly by artists and workers who don't have Paul McCartney bank accounts, RYAN RITCHIE's open letter to McCartney hits home because it gets at the uniquely personal nature of this particular case of supply and demand run wild.
Agents and promoters will explain to anyone who asks—they have in fact been explaining for several years—that the ticket resale market has made clear what people are willing to pay for tickets and they'd be remiss in their jobs if they didn't do their best to get that price on behalf of the artists they work for. Which is a not unreasonable explanation, and which doesn't mean every seat for every concert has to cost hundreds of dollars—but does mean there's a good chance it's going to cost in the hundreds of dollars to take your parents to a Paul McCartney show or your kids to a BAD BUNNY show and sit close enough that you can actually see. Ritchie, who says he "grew up going to five-dollar punk shows where the musicians were two feet away from me and my friends," counters with an argument that boils down to, OK, but what if you just charged less?
Live music supply and demand, as Ritchie is aware, is different than other supply and demand. If you can't afford that $3,000 handbag, you might not be happy but you'll have other options, maybe for $300, maybe for $30. If you can't swing that island vacation in a prime week, you might be able to to find a deal a few weeks earlier or later. Similar off-price options don't for your favorite artists don't exist like that. There aren't backup BILLIE EILISHes. What does exist is someone to be angry at and write an open letter to. If that Broadway musical staring IDINA MENZEL is out of your range, you're probably not going to complain to her because you understand she isn't the one setting the prices. If DODGERS tickets exceed your weekly salary, you'll be mad at baseball but not at MOOKIE BETTS. But concerts, rightly or wrongly, come with someone you can blame. And it's someone with whom you have a bond. Artist-fan relationships are personal and one-to-one. You're not buying a ticket to LIVE NATION or to TICKETMASTER or to UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP. You're buying a ticket to Paul McCartney. You've probably had the relationship for years, and he probably wants it to keep going.
What if the real the equation isn't the supply-and-demand binary? What if it's more like supply and demand and relationships? Bloomberg's LUCAS SHAW reported on Friday, the day of McCartney's SoFi Stadium show, that COLDPLAY "has gone in the opposite direction" of skyrocketing prices, with its fans' wallets in mind. The average ticket price on Coldplay's current tour, he reported, is a purposeful $77.80, well below what other top current touring acts are charging and even below what Coldplay itself was charging a few years ago. And there's demand. Playing stadiums in Mexico and Central America, the band sold more tickets than any other act in March and April and grossed more than anyone but Bad Bunny, whose average ticket goes for more than twice as much. "The relative affordability," Shaw wrote, "has been good for business." (The tour is sustainable, too.)
Ritchie, for his part, remains a huge McCartney fan, like his parents: "There’s pretty much nothing you could do to get me to stop loving you and your music." But there's also nothing Macca can do do get him to fork over that 700 bucks, which would have covered three cheap seats, parking and other basic extras. Me, I could direct Ritchie to any number of $10 or $15 or $20 shows featuring fantastic live bands, but he's a musician who grew up on affordable punk shows; he doesn't need me for that. And none of them would be Paul McCartney anyway.
(And don't get me started on airline-like dynamic pricing, which I've written about before and I'll write about again. There's a reason people hate airlines. A lot of reasons, to be fair. But that’s one of them.)
By the Numbers
BILLBOARD's 21 Under 21 (artists, that is, including OLIVIA RODRIGO, LIL TECCA, TATE MCRAE and it's kind of amazing that BILLIE EILISH, whose Interscope debut came out five years ago, still qualifies)... POLLSTAR's Impact 50 (live music execs, that is, led by C3 PRESENTS' CHARLES ATTAL, AMY CORBIN and CHARLIE WALKER, who manage a portfolio of 31 festivals including LOLLAPALOOZA, which the trade mag says was "a bellwether, lighting a path forward for how events could safely return" as the live event industry emerged from lockdown)... 40 years of the WIRE (the magazine, that is)... 70 years of the RIAA (the platinum anniversary, literally, that is).
Rest in Peace
Prog-rock passenger RICKY GARDINER, who was the principal guitarist on David Bowie's "Low" and Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" and co-wrote several songs on Iggy's album. Gardiner was also a founder of the Scottish prog band Beggars Opera.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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The New Yorker |
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| How the South Dakota Symphony Became One of America's Boldest Orchestras |
| By Alex Ross |
| The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, the musical pride of Sioux Falls, has an annual budget of $2.3 million, which is microscopic by the standards of America's leading orchestras. The Chicago Symphony spends more than that each year on Riccardo Muti's salary. |
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Streaming Machinery |
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| 'MusicLinks' |
| By G.C. Stein |
| Sharing music recommendations could be a much easier, efficient and richer experience. |
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Crush Material |
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| On Arthur Russell and 'Virtuous Art' |
| By Alexandra Molotkow |
| In the throes of a crush, other people can appear very distorted, which tends to feel like a violation, even if nobody else even knows or cares. There are antidotes for this, and Arthur Russell's music is a good one. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Lil Keed Had More to Give |
| By Alphonse Pierre |
| What was most exciting is how far he pushed the boundaries of his delivery; he wailed and whimpered and bellowed like a wolf in the forest, switching it up freely from line-to-line. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music | Media |
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| “REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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