Really interesting reading some of Kerry King’s comments about the current Mayhem tour (now in the news section) which features Slayer and King Diamond as headliners. The owner of the festival had made some comments about how difficult it is to keep viable metal acts that draw on a bill while also keeping costs down. He also made some comments about metal and the fans saying some of the artists have gotten “fat and bald and scared off girls” (not like girls were ever the driving force in this genre of metal!). Kerry is one of the most unfiltered people I have ever known in this business. He simply speaks his mind and always did. The tour is clearly struggling to draw and Kerry’s latest comments were basically saying it was not booked correctly. Was really interesting to see the leader of the headlining band on a Summer package tour being this honest. This all speaks to a bigger disturbing trend I can’t quite figure out. MANY bands at all levels being booked in venues they shouldn’t be in. I don’t know if it’s a by product of too many venues, too many bands on the road, or just too many bands over touring (a huge issue I think and a by product of no money from record sales), but every day I am scratching my head about concert bills I am hearing about at all levels in venues they should not be in. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Slayer (now half original) and King wouldn’t be a big amphitheater draw. It’s not a knock on any act, it’s just common sense. But promoters are in a tough spot. They need these festivals and branded tours to go out, but they also can’t got to the next level of talent booking because it would destroy the tickets being affordable. I get that. What I don’t get is club acts in theaters, theater acts in arenas, etc. I would much rather see a band in a setting with a vibe and packed house full of energy than an arena curtained in half or half empty. Or a show that is “papered”, the industry term for giving away a ton of tickets just to make money on beer sales and get bodies in the room. You have no idea how many shows I am asked to help “paper” all the time because they are stiffing. It’s not the artists fault for the most part. It really falls on the agents and promoters to know what they are buying and know if people will care. There is no amount of marketing anyone can do if people don’t want to see a band or have seen them too often. And although a largely papered show may give the appearance of people in the building, it is also easy to feel in the room since most are indifferent because they got in for free. It’s a catch 22 in some ways. Bands need to tour because tickets and merch are pretty much their primary income, but too many tour too much and as a result their draw has been shot. You’re seeing it at the festival level as well. There are a ton of them now, many with very similar bills. Something the organizers of Download in the UK (a huge yearly event) recently discussed as an emerging issue in the business. The idea of a festival was to be a special destination gig. Now they are everywhere. A rock themed cruise used to be unique, now there are many of all genres. It’s just massive over saturation and will impact the little guys more, because the big super acts will for the most part always be able to sell.
Which leads to the next question; what happens when the super acts are done? AC/DC, likely the last tour I would think. As it is there was no real tour, more special scattered stadium dates. Brian is 68? Aerosmith? Tyler as great as he is is 68 and now looking toward country. Sabbath, likely done as far as touring but maybe another run? Van Halen? Anything can happen and it was surprising to read in a recent Billboard article the current tour has been a bit soft in some places selling tickets (apparently ticket prices an issue here as well). Rush? Pretty much done touring. Kiss? Believe what you want but they haven’t been a headline arena act in the US since 2000. Which is why they have co-headlined sheds (and a huge difference between sheds and arenas by the way) for the most part here. Regardless they are likely near the end for what’s left of the original band. Motley? Done in a few months. And they got a huge pop playing the Farewell card and wisely had a name legend opening all the dates. Priest? Said they were done, pulled a reverse, and are hanging in a bit more. But they have not been a full arena headline in a long time here. Maiden? Maybe the biggest global metal act along with Metallica. New album coming and dates in 2016, but these guys are not getting younger and Bruce already had a major health scare and we don’t know yet how he will recover from it. Bon Jovi? Like them or not a massive global stadium act even with just 3 original members. How much more does Jon want to work in his early 50s and with other interests? Where are the next true headliners?
Metallica is erratic as far as how much they play and making new music. But that actually may work to their favor since they far from over tour. You have to hope bands like A7X, FFDP, etc, continue to grow. Foo Fighters are clearly the biggest rock act out there right now and cross over to many genres appealing to rock and metal fans. But outside of Foos, and what Metallica has left in the tank, we really need to hope some of these emerging guys warming up in the bullpen can graduate to the big big leagues. Which leads to an even bigger question. Is that even possible now the way the music is and the way it’s consumed? For a while it was trying to sell downloads. Now that seems to be abandon in favor of just hoping people LISTEN to the music. That’s what streaming is. Don’t even own it, give us nothing, just listen to it! So music has become so devalued today that I wonder if that translates and stagnates an artists potential to even become huge again? This is all just out loud thinking and I welcome your comments and thoughts here. But one thing that does bother me (besides the lack of regard for physical ownership of music) is seeing artists booked in venues they have no business being in, and people saying; “look, I told you rock was dead”. Nobody’s rooting for this stuff more than me. But we have to hope there is a new generation to carry the flag and people embrace new artists they are hearing that they like so the next generation of rock and metal fans has something to celebrate. We are at the tail end of what’s left of the golden era of rock and metal from the 70’s and the 80’s. As for 90’s guys? Foos rule that pack and Pearl Jam are certainly alive and more than well. Soundgarden still viable, but not that consistent as far as playing. AIC? Same deal. Pumpkins and Manson? Currently co headlining sheds. Foos and Pearl Jam the biggest from that era. So where are we at 10 years from now? I wonder and curious what you guys think? Let’s hope there is a kid in his garage somewhere right now with a guitar that has the answer..
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The cause of the effects of which Eddie and Dana speak are, to my mind, the death of the old business model. That is, there used to be qualified people: managers, and A&R, who could spot, and cultivate talent. These people had vision and we’ve lost that filter. Music used to have to go through a process, and the net result was that we got the best of the best: Halford, Ozzy, Kim Carnes, Billy Joel, Metallica, etc, etc. Even when this system gave us less than great, we at least still got a finished product that was viable. Now, the market is flooded with so many people who play instruments well and can sing, but don’t have anything unique that makes them special. These are people who wouldn’t get past the A&R person or the manager, and the average music fan is left there, this multi-tasking, sensory overloaded kid, with no real faculty to be able to discriminate, to sort of fend for themselves. The net result of which is this massive dumbing down of popular culture. David Lee Roth said that rock and roll is not something you can just go to, someone has to take you there, and without qualified people who know real talent as a filter, you end up with what we have now. Moreover, with the record label there was a product that conveyed value, it commanded a respect, which has now has been reduced to being demanded, and when you demand something, you’ve already lost. Eddie is right, we can’t even get people to listen to music anymore, you can’t even give it away,
There is this notion that technology makes us smarter because we have algorithms to make our decisions for us, we are not prey to human intuitions any more. So, then, the ends justifies the means, but it certainly does not follow that we are smarter, in fact, the opposite. Technology is making people dumb, and the death of real talented artists is just hastening this leveling down.
The dumbing down of the rock audience is real and accurate. How else do you explain kids listening to the crap most of the “modern” rock bands are putting out. Most can’t sing, can’t write a catchy tune, don’t have a guitarist who can kick ass, and worse, they don’t want one! When confronted with a real talented band, the kids just don’t get it. Black Tora is a young band from Texas. These guys are the real deal! Killer tunes (they don’t write a bad song), killer guitar riffs, great vocalist, I can’t stop listening to them. They play Rocklahoma every year, but are relegated to a side stage. They blow away nearly ALL the mainstage acts. Yet, there is not a national platform for this band to be “discovered”. Eddie Trunk has Trunk Nation on Monday nights on XM Hair Nation and even he doesn’t play these bands like Black Tora. He should.
Doug, thanks for the info, I checked out a few of Black Tora’s videos on you tube and I had to smile …but for a few reasons. They are a good group, but what’s funny is they sound exactly like a mid 80s group, and in that context they are pretty unremarkable. It’s hard for me to listen to their well composed songs which consist of just about every lick I’ve already heard thousands of times. But, I am sure those songs work much better live. That you would inflate their rating only shows how desolate rock is now…
I am looking for a band that pushes the form forward, a new sound, and I just don’t see it on the horizon. BVB tries to do this while at the same time acknowledging that there is only so much they can do….you can’t really do anything revolutionary any more without just tearing down the form completely, which is what death/black metal does, and this is not a viable answer. In other words, you do something out of desperation, and you end up settling for anything, even something that bears little resemblance to music at all.
For me it’s simple: Price & Never come to my area. Van Halen w/ Dave is my all time fav band, but I won’t pay $360 for 2 tickets, for average seats, so I bought 2 tickets to a hockey game of my fav team for this upcoming season for $220 total & 2nd row seats. I’ll have to live w/ my memories of seeing VH w/ Sammy, my 1rst concert (still was a great show) on the 92′ Right Here, Right Now Tour.
As for bands I would like to see, who charge $40-50, Warrant, Winger, Stryper & AIC, they never come to my city,so…I have my firepit setup on the weekend, crack a few beers, & have my own concert, listening to my favs live albums.
As for the “Next” generation, u can all but forget it IMO, most of them listen to rap, & not anything good like classic hip hop. (I’m a fan of different kinds of music, mostly 80’s & 90’s.
Seems to me that streaming, rather than devaluing music, has replaced radio as the way to discover rock’s emerging acts. Getting heard means a chance to get the listener to buy the ticket, T shirt and even the CD at the venue (something I’ve done numerous times). Even better, you create the playlist, not some robot program created by some mega-corporation. Spotify and the like have been a godsend to music lovers who are into discovery but can’t afford to shell out $15 every time they want to hear something new.
As for live shows, the promoters and bands are solely responsible for the current state of affairs. Pricing has gotten so outrageous over time that Live Nation has stated that their average customer sees less than two shows a year. This means people are not getting into the habit of going regularly because it’s too expensive. So, they save up for the ACDC show, get hammered, sing along and spill beer over everyone and they’re done til next year. Also, why in heavens name does the headliner think it makes sense to hit the stage at 11PM on a weeknight? There are shows Ive passed on that I would have loved to see but couldn’t manage because I’d never make it to work the next day. A little consideration for the working folks would go a long way.
That’s just how I feel, man.
You’re missing the point on streaming. At what point does “exposure” turn into profit? As Eddie said, bands are over-touring because that’s the only way they can make ends meet, largely because you don’t want to spend 15 bucks on a CD. Acts make way more on merch than on ticket sales at the venues, so once again, they aren’t getting paid for the art they created, or the live performance, but for the goddamn t-shirts. That’s just pathetic, and not just a promoters fault, but the fan’s fault.
Of course concert tickets have gone through the roof. It’s the money that makes the wheels go round, and it’s also what helps create artists.
I grew up in the 80s with all kinds of handmade music, especially rock genres, very much alive and the golden era of groundbreaking bands and sounds (Zep, Sabbath, Purple etc.) not that far behind and still sort of echoeing in the rock acts of the late 70s and 80s. We (those who had no talent for football/soccer ….) wanted to be in a band, there were maybe 6 or 7 in our class of 35 kids that took up an instrument like guitar, keyboard, bass, or drums. There were maybe 20 regularly gigging bands in our hometown of only 40,000 inhabitants and a large number of those still practisong in a garage. There are seldom concerts of local bands in the same city today. I became a teacher and I can tell you young people of today just grow up and think differently, it is a fact we cannot deny nor do I want to judge them. They are not political anymore, learning a guitar or forming a band is not in their focus anymore, only a few compared to the days of my youth learn to play guitar and want to go up on stage to realize themselves and possibly be kinda “cool” or just express themselves in a way different from others. Other ways of being “cool” have emerged, the development of new media and technology has taken us new and exciting places, but it has also taken its toll when it comes to what you said that the constant availabilty of art, be it music, pictures, or film, has devalued it all to an extent that young people even do no longer know what sound is listening to music on their sh…y smartphone “speakers”, music as some sort of background noise. Being in a band is no longer on the top list of what you desire to be or how to attract girls. When AC/DC comes to town, look at the audience, it’s maybe 80% people older than 35. These bands will soon be a memory, and so these people – people like me – will stop going to (big) concerts. I do not think that people like me will embrace new rock bands as much as to make them the new arena acts because, and that is true for all generations, the bands that are now about to call it quits are the bands that shaped our musical taste in a phase of our life when this is common or natural. They also thereby set the standard of what is seen as cool, melodic, desirable, good sound, good pastime activity, valuable, etc. We all will love the bands, the songs, the genres and sounds for as long as we live that grabbed our attention, that excited us, that even irritated us when we were young. So it is natural that new bands have a hard time exciting us the same way these older bands did. Maybe the younger generations can still be excited by current bands the way it happenend to us, but I am not sure. But certainy the number of these people will be smaller than before. Rock is dead? I do not think so, but we have to acknowledge (with a sad feeling) that a certain kind of music is bound to a certain bunch of bands and a certain audience, and a certain time with its set of values, its way of life, and its people thinking in a certain way. The rock I came to love in my youth is about to fade away in this decade. Simmons, Iommi, Halford, Johnson, Tyler will retire, even though I do not want to realize it. Some may be around for another 10 years or so, musicians like Iron Maiden, Bryan Adams or Foo Fighters, but then? There are no new legions of fans to fill the gap. Example: There were three outdoor rock festivals this year in Germany looking to draw the audience of one classic festival that had very successfully existed for 26 years. They all had the same line up, Kiss e.g. as one headliner of all of them. Two did not draw enough people to fill the space and make the promoter earn enough money. One finally changed the venue from an airfield (which they had used in the past) holding 80,000 to an arena holding 40,000, and still, in spite of top acts like Metallica or Kiss, was far from being sold out. The reason I think is that there is now a limited amount of people of our generation (35 to 55) who will buy these tickets, you cannot stretch that to three big festivals, nor will that be possible in the future. – So let us cherish the bands of that era as long as it is still possible, whatever the size of the venue might be. And let us also hope that one day, when all the pieces of art or products of creativity have been totally devalued just because of their digital availability, people will find back to a mode of appreciating things and be selective again, knwoing that only things that cost you something (money, but also the time and effort you need to find them) are worth something. Back to a time that again will give young people the opportunity to really discover something, like I e.g. discovered all the old albums of Jethro Tull after watching them perform their then latest album “Broadsword” on television. That precious time of stepping into a world you discover for yourself and according to your tastes, which is something I think the young people of today are missing without knowing it. From my point of view, they miss out on something that enriches your life like only few things can do.
I’m with you on being sad that these killer bands we grew up with will be retiring before long. However, there are still young bands that are trying to keep the torch burning and I am NOT talking about these “modern” rock bands that can’t rock. Check out Black Tora, Mach22, Ragdoll (from Australia). These young bands are rocking hard, and trying to catch a break. They need fans like you and me to help them.
Great discussion guys. Read all your comments. Very insightful. However, I believe the problem is that the music business had a chance to not be in its’ current state, had it not gone after Napster. Instead it could have reached a deal with Napster guys and worked them to try to make a better business model in terms of selling music. I feel also the other part of this problem is people wanted to get CDs but were turned off by the industry overpricing them to the point they decided that they could just go online and grab that one song they wanted cheaper and free. Again that is all just theory, but in this “what if” scenario, maybe things would have been better, who knows. As for new music, I am generally turned off by newer rock acts. My reason is that I feel every time I hear a new rock act on the radio, the singer sounds like a rip off of alt rock singer (thank you Nirvana and grunge for outlawing clean bluesy and operatic-style singers from rock), and the rest of the band sounds like they are forever stuck in following in the footsteps of a grunge band. I would like it (but I know I am dreaming with this, but hey it is fun to dream) if there was a reverse kind of punk movement, but instead of three cords and simplicity, it was a return to 70s arena and prog rock and 80s glam metal (albeit minus the over-the-top make up and poofed hair). Especially if the 80s glam metal style returned, these neo-glam metal bands would probably learn from the mistakes of the 80s and just have the front person wear some make-up, and the rest of band have the simplistic glam look. But that’s just me. Thoughts on this?
Usually, history (of arts and in general) develops in circles or like the movements of the waves, action and counteraction, call and response, refusal and embrace. So maybe a new appreciation of skill, talent, etc. will follow this current devaluation and leveling of music etc. So, yes, your thought that there might come some kind of renaissance or even rebellion is not that far-fetched, but I guess the current development towards a society in which the most important values are total availability (which accounts for the loss of individual value) and conformity will go on for some time until there might be a “counterstrike”, a broad movement of people rethinkin the pros and cons of the age of digital. The current mantra of fitting-in (e.g. on facebook) must be replaced by the new/old directive of individuality and singularity.
But the irony is that the advent of social media, and customizing your own profile, which people now rely on an algorithm to do for them, even for finding their spouse!, was predicated on this notion of individuality, and non-conformity. If people would just obey the laws that are already there, we would be in much better shape. It is illegal to pirate music, no matter the ease from which this can be accomplished. I am very dubious of changing people’s mindsets, to me, that is a fascistic notion. All that can be done is to point out the consequences of certain attitudes and norms, and enforce negative rights, i.e. no one has a right to infringe on someone else’s right to earn a living.
By saying “must be replaced” I did not mean that a new mindset must be forced onto people. I want that to happen, or in other words, it needs to happen. But I am sceptical. Might be that the young people of today do not even feel that their life is very much ruled by the directives of conformity, uniformity and leveling out differences that are the concern of the big companies and global players (that to my mind have infiltrated all governments and made them their instrument) to control the masses and be able to sell their often useless products when the people themselves are still feeling like they are living according to their personal, thus individual tastes.
This misapprehension is typical of our modern western society. You are given (fed) the illusion of being able to choose from an endless variety of consumer goods, philosophies, religions, food etc. etc. so that the act of consuming either products or media is now the one thing that gives meaning to your life. the one thing that makes you part of a community, and man does need to be part of a community.
Digital in connection with consumption has become a new form of religion which actually resembles fascist principles. When in fact this plethora of things available everywhere, anytime, has made you unable to pick or filter the things that really fit to your personality because you are not doing it from the heart but you are remotely controlled without realizing it.
So on the one hand we clearly profit from a world in which so many things have become available through globalisation, e.g. me writing in a forum whose physical base is 5000 km away from me, on the other hand, and by the same principle we have lost our sense for something precious, unique, and personal or even private. Look at posts on facebook like “I made a sandwich today”, including a photo of that sandwich, it is all so trivial.
People are exposed to so many offers and possibilites that they understandably follow the broad way laid out for them by others, like lemmings. Our day is crowded with information, mostly useless or meaningless. So just as the opportunities and data and the range of products have multiplied, quality and value and thus individual expression have declined. It seems paradoxical but in fact is totally logical.
This is true for music but also for many other fields. You download or pirate a thousand albums from the internet, but will you be able or even interested in listening to them? It is just a reflex, what you can have you will have, collecting sth. has become more imortant than enjoying sth. The more you pirate the less you listen to, I am sure. I know lots of people who have a ton of external hard drives full of music and film, and when it comes to finding sth. you really like or want to use, it is like there is a strange emptiness in your head, you do not know what to choose.
And as far as illegality is concerned, young people do not see this. 90% of the videos and music on YT is actually illegal. But it is there, so the sheer fact that it exists overrides the existing law.
We cannot turn back time, in a few years we will witness the next step when information, personal and public, will be collectively available in the “cloud” and no longer “bound” to some physical device (stick, cd) – we will have to find a way of not losing our sense for sth. precious and unique and worth working and searching for. There is this revival of vinyl, it is relatively small, but at least some people have started to rediscover the value of discovering.