7/22/2008

No CD Sales, No Touring: Now What?


[Image courtesy of Idolator]

I refuse to buy music. If I really want to support an artist, I’ll come to the show and buy some merchandise. Playing live is where they make their money anyway.”

We hear variations on this one all the time. (And not just from the young’uns, by the way.) But you know what? We call bullshit: let's put aside for a minute the fact that is the lame cop out of someone who obviously knows what they're doing is wrong, and wonder what happens if the day they come into town you are sick, have to work late, are out of town, or you simply forgot, etc etc etc. Do you send them a check? Of course not. So spare us. What we’d like to know is how you plan on supporting a band that can’t perform live.

As we mentioned before, with rising fuel costs, many acts have had to pull the plug on touring. It’s gotten to the point that quite a few are contemplating leaving the current Warped tour, pushing tour sponsor AT&T to give each band a daily $500 gas card as an incentive to keep them on the road.

Think about that the next time you decide to ripp off an artist...whoops, sorry. We meant, the next time you file-share.