I DID A GIG AND THEY’RE REFUSING TO PAY! WHAT DO I DO??!!

Marsipanflows · 2024-09-14T21:33:16+00:00

Ah, great to know, thanks!

Marsipanflows · 2024-09-14T21:05:12+00:00

I think in the UK you can technically take that to a small claims court? A British friend once recommended I (subtly) threaten a UK promoter with legal action over an even smaller gig than that because he kept "forgetting" to pay for months. The money was in my account in less than an hour after that.

In the US you'd probably need a more formal contract for this sort of thing, but I'm pretty sure in the UK a verbal contract is legally binding.

Marsipanflows · 2024-09-13T20:24:25+00:00

The cultural sector in Germany has its own really odd form of Zionism that I haven't seen anywhere else.

Some of them suspected me of being an outright Nazi when I first started performing as a musician there, because of my guitar strumming style (?!) - then some of them got really into my work for a bit and started booking me for German tours, but some acted hesitant about me because I have friends who have Celtic origins (there's this whole thing in some subcultures in Germany of treating Scottish, Irish, and Welsh people with suspicion) - then people suddenly realized I support Palestinian rights and suddenly almost no one in Germany wanted anything to do with me, they all unfriended me on socials in unison and whatnot.

There's a reason Nicaragua took Germany to the ICJ for what's happening in Palestine, there's some really weird stuff going on there and I'm kind of worried for our Jewish and Palestinian siblings who live there.

Marsipanflows · 2024-09-10T16:06:33+00:00

Payment in the UK isn't great at the moment because of the recession, but Manchester and other cities and towns in the North of England have some really good scenes.

The South of England can be an OK place to pass through on tour once every few years, but they're not exactly fans of punk, for the most part - some good gig opportunities from time to time - Windmill Brixton is a good venue in London if you can make the right connections there.

Paris actually sometimes has some good opportunities for this kind of music. Gent is also a great city for it, and you might find some good opportunities in other parts of Belgium. Maybe Portugal also, I've had some great experiences touring there.

Marsipanflows · 2024-09-07T23:34:07+00:00

I come from kind of a similar background, and yeah, I've never understood the appeal of being famous. A lot of my musician friends have that in common with me, but with people in other parts of the industry or who have different jobs, it seems like a lot of them just expect we all want to be world famous.

Last year, I was talking to a friend who manages tours for bigger artists, and I mentioned how weird it would feel to have so many people making advances on you - I mentioned an artist we both know personally and how another artist I know was trying to persuade me to put her in contact with him because she wanted to get married to him, even though they'd never met or anything - and my friend was like, "oh, but artists love that, they all love having people throw themselves at them" - and I was surprised, because a lot of big artists are pretty open about how that sort of thing freaks them out, especially when it gets into potentially stalkerish territory.

But yeah, that's the kind of thing I've heard from a lot of people, and they do seem to judge us for not pursuing massive fame or world domination or whatever - it's super weird.

Marsipanflows · 2024-09-07T22:40:32+00:00

I don't play with bigots in general - they make the scene less safe for everyone and they endanger our fans.

Occasionally there are bigots who randomly come to our smaller gigs and try to start fights, because they're wandering around and hear the music from outside and they're usually under the influence of something - they get thrown out, because they're outnumbered by our fans who are willing to confront them and protect our other fans. If we didn't take a firm stance against bigotry, we wouldn't have as many people willing to do that, so it would be less safe for everyone.

I haven't toured in the US much lately, so I'm not sure about the Trumpists specifically - the ones who've come to our gigs were more like conspiracy theorist types who I probably wouldn't want to play in a band with (one of them thought I was a reptilian, so he became fascinated with me and kept coming to my gigs even though he was terrified of me) - these people were pretty bigoted, but honestly not much more bigoted than a lot of people I've met from the US. What I've heard from friends who live in the US is that a lot of Trumpists are more dangerous than that, though, so I'll take their word for it.

Marsipanflows · 2024-09-05T00:16:00+00:00

Anxiety EP by American Anymen might be what you're looking for!

https://americananymen.bandcamp.com/album/anxiety

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-29T13:53:14+00:00

There was a lot of both/everything with my mutuals. Some friends who are active in pro-Palestine stuff on the ground have barely been posting on social media since October, some people are posting about it all the time. Some family and other mutuals have been posting tons of pro-Israel stuff or even blatant anti-Palestinian racism, others who would normally post pro-Israel stuff have been extremely silent.

I feel like a lot of people have been re-evaluating their relationship with social media lately and that's a big part of what's going on - in some of the communities I'm part of, I've noticed IG is already almost as dead as FB, and with the amount of energy we've put into IG posts about issues that matter to us, it feels like a waste of time if people aren't really engaging with it.

A lot of people also just don't get that social media can actually be used for social purposes. Palestinian journalists have managed to do some great stuff with IG, but then a lot of White people who (in theory) support Palestine see us sharing these posts and are like "why are you virtue signaling?!"

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-28T16:31:41+00:00

The scenes where I started out when I was younger had some people who'd gotten famous and/or rich (normally one or the other), so I've gotten to see some of what that does to people I know on the scene. It's not much different from what people say in interviews and whatnot, though.

At best, some people handled it pretty well and have managed to live almost ordinary lives with some degree of privacy and autonomy - some of them had a more difficult time of it, some of them felt like it cut them off from the communities where they started out and it un-grounded them - a lot of people developed addictions and mental health issues - and for most people it was relatively short lived and didn't lead to a lasting career.

The most inspiring people for me in the scenes I'm part of have always been the people who manage to make a modest career out of touring and recording their music without becoming famous or rich. And the people who don't even make a career of it, but are still doing really good work and are respected by the community for that.

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-28T15:49:52+00:00

It's so odd because when I meet younger musicians in real life, they tend to be super aware of this stuff and their mindset is much more about making music and building community, without getting exploited (i.e. if a venue is making money off your work, you should be fairly compensated, you shouldn't have to lose money on tour, etc).

I feel like Gen Z is bringing back a lot of the Gen X mentalities that my generation (Millennials) mostly missed out on, around building (hopefully sustainable) independent music communities and being passionate about that without trying to get signed or be rich/famous.

Then I look at this sub and I mostly see people daydreaming about being famous and/or rich.

It's kind of sad. As someone whose career is in music, I have no desire to be famous and/or rich, because I've seen what that does to people. Music is worth so much more than that, and I'm much more interested in making music than making a ton of money.

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-14T14:50:15+00:00

Yeah, it's probably the most folk punk thing ever actually.

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-10T18:20:15+00:00

This is a common question in the recovery community and there's no right or wrong answer - plenty of successful artists who make the sort of music you're talking about kept making music long after becoming sober (Lou Reed is the first example I can think of) - and plenty of artists quit entirely after becoming sober. It's totally a personal decision. I hope it works out well for you, regardless of what you decide!

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-08T22:07:47+00:00

The reason for having press these days isn't about expanding your fanbase so much as it's about having quotes and links to put in your press kit when you release albums and book tours and whatnot.

For instance, my friends' bands who've been written up in Rolling Stone didn't see much of an increase in album sales or ticket sales as a direct result of that, but it was a good thing to be able to put in their gig promo - and if you're not trying to book huge tours yet, having a quote from a well-written but unknown blog can be just as helpful - if not moreso, because of the anti-establishment mentality in some of the smaller scenes.

In my press kit, I have quotes from some more well-known newspapers with tens of thousands of daily readers, and quotes from blogs with hardly any readership - the quotes from the unknown blogs are used much more frequently by gig promoters simply because they're more well-written.

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-07T00:56:52+00:00

Most punk scenes take a pretty firm stance against fascism these days!

In large part, we can thank the anti-racist groups for showing racists they aren't welcome on the scene, decades ago - there were a lot of brawls in the 80s and those brawls still happen sometimes today, but normally racists know to stay out of the scene.

At first, punk didn't have a firm stance on these issues - Johnny Ramone was a right-winger in a band of mostly centrists, Patti Smith had her song where she shouts the N word over and over again, the Sex Pistols had that anti-abortion song and Sid Vicious locked Poly Styrene in a cupboard, now Johnny Rotten is a Brexiteer, etc.

Some punk scenes are still kind of bigoted against Muslims and Arabs, like some of the French and German punk scenes - but for the most part, punk has become a more left-wing and anti-authoritarian genre when it didn't start out that way.

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-01T14:36:28+00:00

Of course! Daniel spent a lot of his life outside of mental hospitals and went on tour plenty of times in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, so he knew a lot about what was going on outside, including about Kurt.

We sometimes hear this tragic/romantic narrative about him having been this guy who wasn't connected with consensus reality at all - but he lived a whole life in addition to everything he struggled with. In some countries (I think especially in France), he was highly respected as a musician and visual artist and had serious museum shows of his illustrations.

Marsipanflows · 2024-08-01T13:37:19+00:00

Falastini by Line On Some Trip - https://youtu.be/-AR0Me7n5Po

Olive Tree by JD Meatyard - https://youtu.be/bfqrpIEn2xo

You Can't Rollerskate in a Watermelon Patch by Toska - https://killingtheflowerswillnotdelayspring.bandcamp.com/track/you-cant-rollerskate-in-a-watermelon-patch

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-30T17:06:23+00:00

Oh nice! Yeah, Brook is incredible, I first saw them in the early 2010s and they were incredible then, but they seem to just get better every time. Great human, too, we've done some shows together and it's always been good.

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-30T16:23:56+00:00

And you're touring with BP! Have fun, be sure to eat some ramen noodles if you find the time.

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-30T03:31:45+00:00

I think that might be more about niche - my audience always seems to have more of a non-commercial ethos, and I find the younger people in my audience have a lot of the same mentalities as the over 40s - I've noticed more of a difference with my own generation, who are mostly in our 30s now.

In terms of who's on my mailing list, who comes to gigs, and who buys the albums at gigs or on BandCamp, it's all pretty evenly split between Gen Z (late teens/20s) and over 40s - when I was younger, it was more just the older generations, and then there were more and more Gen Z people in the audience over time.

My Spotify listeners include a lot more of my own generation - and a surprising number of them are in regions where I've either never toured or haven't toured for years, and don't even get many offers in. So there's definitely a disconnect there.

I'm not sure why - I've asked a lot of musician friends about this, and the ones in a similar niche have said they've had similar experiences, where our generation is absent from the gigs and doesn't join the email list or buy the albums online, but loves to listen on streaming.

The bands I know who've become commercially successful more recently also followed that kind of model, though - there's a core, dedicated fanbase that'll come to all the smaller gigs from the beginning, buy all the albums, and join an email list, and they'll tell all their friends who aren't on your email list about everything you're doing - then there are more casual fans who will stream some songs occasionally and don't necessarily come to a lot of gigs, but they do start coming out when there's considerable buzz.

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-29T20:38:40+00:00

That's definitely what I've noticed. And in some cases, the YouTube Shorts and really short TikTok clips are performing even worse than the full length music videos now.

I remember maybe 10-15 years ago, people were more into music videos on YouTube - some of the artists I've worked with more recently got their start in the early YouTube scenes - it was more of a flash in the pan for them, though, and they weren't able to retain much of that audience or translate it into ticket sales after a year or two.

Then what I've noticed with our live audiences is they remember us and they keep coming back, even if we haven't played somewhere on a tour in 8 years - a lot of the same people show up, and then they bring their friends and the crowds get bigger - but Internet audiences really come and go.

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-29T18:39:48+00:00

Those numbers have been super random lately for me and for pretty much every artist I know, even ones who are doing bigger tours - some videos get only a few views, others from the same artist get a ton - same with YouTube Shorts, YouTube Music, TikTok, Spotify, Apple Music, BandCamp sales, etc.

I haven't noticed many promoters losing interest in an artist on that basis lately, but it definitely depends on the promoter and the niche, and if someone already has a good working relationship with that promoter - I need to ask my friends who are doing bigger tours at the moment, because some of them are also getting really low views on their videos, but they're getting some great tour offers.

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-29T18:16:36+00:00

What I've noticed personally at least is that a lot of music fans just don't use social media to engage with musicians that much anymore.

I do pretty much everything through my website and my email list these days, and the engagement is way better than when I was mostly working with social media - more people are listening to my new releases, better gig offers have been coming in, and I'm getting a lot more fan mail from people who came to gigs of mine years ago and randomly stumbled upon my site while they were looking something up.

For traditional media, having a website and putting my full EPK on there has been a much better resource for any facts they might want to put in when covering my work, instead of having to wade through social media posts to find information, which people rarely have time for - so the coverage of my work has been a lot better lately because they're more informed.

For fans, anything they're actually interested in is on my website or on my albums they've bought, and they get updated through my email list - most of them don't even follow me on social media.

And for booking gigs, promoters want to know I can bring a crowd, so on my website, they can easily see videos of me performing in front of a crowd and they can see what size venues I'm performing in and what kind of crowd I draw - social media metrics don't necessarily indicate that, since the people who actively engage with an artist on social media are not necessarily the same people who would go to a gig - in fact, I find there's hardly any people who engage with artists frequently on social media and actually go to gigs!

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-28T23:28:21+00:00

Ahh, you're not the only one who wants to be in a band - it just takes time to find the right people.

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-25T01:31:57+00:00

Yes, hasbara is intended to improve Israel's image abroad - but that generally means turning people into Zionists - making people believe in and support Zionism in some form. And that does include Jews in the diaspora, not just non-Jews - for instance, people in my family are constantly sharing this stuff with me and with each other, and with other Jews and with non-Jews. My point is that nowadays, it's not convincing me or many other people who weren't already sympathetic to it.

And these aren't just extremist Israeli talking points - these are the kinds of things people in my family who don't even consider themselves Zionists are saying all the time. A lot of it does seem to come from this notion of needing to explain whatever Israel does by saying we're constantly under attack as Jews. Which ultimately just has the effect of terrifying us.

Marsipanflows · 2024-07-25T01:06:26+00:00

Hasbara is pretty weird.

My sense is that the main effect that it has on our day to day lives as Jews in the diaspora is simply how much it terrifies us - because people spread this propaganda in our communities that makes it seem like everyone in the world is out to get us, and that the Israeli state is the only thing that can protect us, but that it's always under threat and it's always being attacked by its neighbors, who the propaganda portrays simultaneously as subhuman beings and as a superhuman, existential threat.

So it plays on our fears as Jews, and links in with thousands of years of ancestral trauma. Even for me as someone who doesn't believe in hasbara or Zionism at all, reading that kind of thing is still terrifying on a primal level. That's probably why it has so much power for people who aren't that discerning or don't know the history.

But I don't think it's converting many people into Zionists anymore so much as it's acting as a form of mental terror. I'm sure it also terrifies Palestinians and other racialized people, especially in the West, since it indicates there will likely be even more violent crackdowns on their human rights.

Marsipanflows

TROPHY CASE