Letters to Profane Existence

Hi there Dan,

Sorry to hear about the latest troubles with PE but glad that it's not the end of everything and that it sounds like plenty of stuff will still be going on in the future.

I was interested in some of your comments on "internet pirating" of DIY punk stuff and the effect that it has on bands as it's something we've been thinking about a lot recently. Over the last few years we've noticed a real drop in the amount of CDs and records we've been able to sell on tour although we're now getting more gig offers than ever and still the same numbers of people at the gigs. So often when we're on the stall trying to punt stuff at the gigs we'll hear the old "Oh, got that, I downloaded it the other day - pretty good" instead of buying the actual hard copy. Nice for them to be able to get the music for free of course but sadly we still had to pay for the studio and a decent sound doesn't come cheap. Over the years we've always tried to go for a decent studio sound and that's always meant a lot of scrimping and saving to get the money to pay for it. As we've always been surviving on fairly low incomes it's not always easy and we've relied on getting the money to finance recordings back from CD and vinyl sales. As you pointed out, this money also helps bands afford to tour and it's enabled us to play a lot more benefit gigs over the years by subsidising the travel costs.

The result of all this free downloading now for a band like us is that we can no longer afford to tour so much, we have been forced to turn down a load of benefit gigs recently either because we couldn't afford to get to them or because we've had to play local gigs to raise money to pay for our own recordings instead of raising money for local political groups - something we would much rather have been doing. We're also in the situation of being well through the process of recording a new LP and other stuff without having the money to pay the engineer and not much idea where it is going to come from - luckily he is a patient fellow!

We can just see this leading to a downward pressure on the quality of recordings as bands have less money available - and indeed less trips to the studio altogether - unless of course you are a bigger "commercial" band or the band members are actually fairly well off with spare money themselves - not usually the case with DIY punk!

Cheers,
Deek

Dan,

I just read your article/editorial in issue no 57 and I wanted to write to thank you.

I am a subscriber and I also run a record label. It’s not a punk label, as such, but we are strongly DIY and completely independent. So, hopefully this speaks to the universality of both what you said and to PE as a publication.

EVERYTHING you said regarding the state of music is, to my mind, dead on. The sense of entitlement is not limited to the punk music movement. We see bootlegs and pirate mp3 sites and, perhaps the most frustrating of all, the “music fan” blogs which post entire albums of ours for download along with the cute note saying “make sure to buy it if you like it.”

Most of our releases are pressed in quantities between 500 and 2000. After artist copies, promo copies, and copies sent to web/print press, that doesn’t leave much for us to sell to try to make our money back.

The truth is: if someone rips off a Metallica mp3, or doesn’t pay for their download of the new Nine Inch Nails album, it really doesn’t hurt those artists a bit. When they take from us, and PE too no doubt, they are taking a much bigger slice of the pie. Every copy sold really does help. Every copy downloaded and not paid for, really does hurt.

I am also completely unconvinced of the argument that these stolen downloads help sales. That’s ridiculous. Many people have a “gotta catch ‘em all - 20,000 songs on my iPOD” attitude and they seem to just want to fill up their listening devices with tons of music.

PERHAPS there are some people who listen to an album and like it enough to seek out the physical release ... but this would be far more likely to happen for bands like Metallica where the person will find the album in Wal Mart and such, staring at them from a endcap. Especially with the demise of so many independent record shops, it’s less and less likely that anyone is just going to happen to run into albums from small labels. The likelihood of a person taking the time to search out the physical release and actually mail order it diminishes exponentially.

My wife and I decided a short while back to try to make our living creatively. Outside of the normal 9-5 world. We live in a very small home, with income well below the poverty line. Our family doesn’t have every modern American convenience, but these are sacrifices we chose to make and we feel the lessons we’re teaching our kids - about doing for oneself and about living creatively - outweigh any conveniences that can be bought. We both have part-time jobs to supplement, but the bulk of our income comes from our record label and my own music and art. This is getting more and more difficult.

It would be nice if music were free. It would also be nice if food were free. And rent. Why not free fuel? Yet no one treats these other things as they do music.

I am starting to wonder if people WANT independent music to be nothing more than a MySpace page and a link to iTunes? With gas prices preventing many bands from touring, and with the sense of entitlement from internet music “fans,” that’s where things are headed.

Thanks again for what you wrote. It hit home here. I hope people will take it to heart.

-tiMOTHy

Dark Holler • Hand/Eye