We talk about the labor practices and economics behind making music every day, but we don’t often recognize it as such. The Pomplamoose-inspired Big Tour Debate and the conversation around recent articles on streaming are, at their core, about labor practices. We are well familiar with the hard questions raised: How do we compensate musicians for their work in this society? Is that fair? What is fair? Can someone survive playing music in this economy? Should they be able to? All of these get at the same consideration: how do we value music, as a culture, a society, a community?
Most musicians in the U.S. are are experiencing a dismal state of affairs in terms of how creative work is honored and paid for. My experience as a musician is a far cry from that of, say, Pomplamoose, which is a matter of choice as well as circumstance. I am a regular working-class person; I have a day job outside of making music, and so does everyone else in my band. We do everything 100% DIY, because that is what we know and where we are comfortable. I’ve always sunk my own money into tours and never expected to get it back; breaking even is a boon.
While this is not how every band or musician operates, what we all share is the right to be fairly compensated for our work; make no mistake, writing, touring and playing music is work. I am not arguing here that we live in some sort of fantasy world in which everyone has the innate right (or ability) to pursue the dream of doing Something That Makes Us Happy for a living. What I am arguing is that musicianship is work for which a few of us are paid a bunch and most of us are paid very little for, and that, just like any other job, it deserves fair remuneration.
What is "fair," of course, is debatable and changes based on the number of people involved in the production of the music as well as the scale of the production. I agree with Steve Albini’s assertion that compensation for music should go primarily to the musicians. So, what is a living wage for a DIY musician? How do we need to adjust door prices to adjust for inflation and economic changes, like the price of gas? In the world of DIY, show prices remain resolutely stuck below $8 most of the time, $5-6 on average, a price point from the 1980s. Many musicians work one or more low-wage service industry jobs, as that's the bulk of the jobs available these days, and those door prices are affordable to us. However, those door prices can’t sustain even bare-bones pay for a touring band—the price of a day’s van rental and the gas to get to the next city—even if the local bands forego their share and the promoter doesn’t take a cut.
In order for any size music scene to survive, fans (many of whom are musicians) need to be able to afford to go to shows and have the leisure time to do so. Showgoing, admittedly, is a luxury when you barely make enough for rent and food, a position many fans and musicians are in. The societal benefits of music and music-making can be hard to quantify, as they are often immaterial, and like the song says—it’s a material world. You can no longer demonstrate in record or ticket sales sales why music is vital, but we still need to pay for our practice spaces, buy instruments, rent our tour vans, fill them with gas—at the very least.
It’s obvious to me that musicians’ labor struggles are part of the same larger fight for economic justice taking place these days, with organizing efforts like Fight for 15 and activists putting pressure on state legislatures to adopt a higher minimum wage, mandatory sick days and other beneficial labor standards. Not only do we owe it to our larger communities to get involved, we owe it to ourselves—how many of us are making living wages? We are also in need of industry-specific solutions, like standardized wage minimums for a night’s performance and a way to certify venues that pay fairly. That’s just one idea—we’re creative people, let’s put our heads together and get creative about working solutions.
These days, it’s much easier to point out what isn’t fair rather than identifying examples of fair ways and means of surviving. There are ways that feel like they are working, places that mind the interests of musicians. There is Bandcamp, for album streaming and distribution, which takes a relatively small percentage of revenue from music purchases relative to other services. You can experiment with direct distribution through websites (one of the services offered by CASH Music, a nonprofit organization that seeks to use new and developing open-source technologies to help musicians [full disclosure: I spoke with The Pitch’s editor Jessica Hopper at a CASH Music summit last year, for which I received no compensation; the summit's aim is to bring musicians and music industry types together to think on solutions]. The Future of Music Coalition and W.A.G.E. (Working Artists for a Greater Economy) also seek to build and push legislative and commercial change to pay artists fairly.
While we need these organizations to help us figure out solutions and advocate for larger systemic changes, we need to keep the conversation going among ourselves about how we will sustain our musical communities. We’re long overdue for an honest conversation about how to best support the music that means so much to us, to have real discussions about how to sustain our local and national music communities. We need to be explicit about fairness and ask ourselves the hardest question: What are we willing to do to keep something that we can’t live without?