Daily (more or less) commentary on news and events in Carbondale and the Southern Illinois region, with occasional excursions to other locales.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Mellencamp on Music
More precisely, John Mellencamp on the music business and why it shouldn't be the responsibility of the musician to promote themselves but why they have to. Interesting read.
"But my major complaint is Mellencamp's misguided concept that musicians have to do it all by their lonesome, that they've got to be "songwriter, recording artist, record company and the P.T. Barnum, so to speak, of his own career". Uh, John... Isn't this the way it's always been, when an act was starting out? The singer may have written the songs, but the drummer was making fliers and calling clubs and... Hell, bands have always done almost everything themselves until they've broken through. The same is true today. The only difference is, once you've gotten traction, you don't have to play by the old man's rules, you can invent your own!"
From Bob Lefsetz--
ReplyDelete"But my major complaint is Mellencamp's misguided concept that musicians have to do it all by their lonesome, that they've got to be "songwriter, recording artist, record company and the P.T. Barnum, so to speak, of his own career". Uh, John... Isn't this the way it's always been, when an act was starting out? The singer may have written the songs, but the drummer was making fliers and calling clubs and... Hell, bands have always done almost everything themselves until they've broken through. The same is true today. The only difference is, once you've gotten traction, you don't have to play by the old man's rules, you can invent your own!"