Four Minutes, Fifty-One Seconds

4'51". It's a tall order to ask people, whether or not you’re already a part of the death spiral that is the music industry to invest nearly 5 minutes of their time to be told that their sp*tify subscription is contributing significantly to the end of said industry. To those unhappy few that are in said death spiral, it may be even a bigger ask considering your painful and intimate familiarity with this reality, unless you long for commiseration. (you’re welcome.)

But I urge you to do so. Every point made here by Israeli artist Asaf Avidan is so succinct and devastatingly spot on, and his willingness to use his platform—a thing I have never, nor ever will have—to shine a light on this deserves some attention.

There was a time when people like me were able to survive on what we made as musicians, as long as we kept a low overhead and didn’t try to live beyond our means. This means, for example, never taking a vacation. Travel has always required a gig—work—to offset travel expenses. It also means becoming very good at doing your taxes and leveraging every single exception at your disposal. This is paramount because people who earn very little to begin with are taxed at a disproportionate rate, and what would amount to a modest living quickly becomes untenable if you’re not shrewd at tax time. Doing so however means never owning a home because one must show such little income as to become radioactive to lenders.

It means living in fear of a break-in, a car crash, a broken bone, an illness, a fire, because these are all things you will not financially recover from. Not only will you be responsible for medical bills, car repairs, loss of your instruments, etc.; you will be out of work with no safety net, and by safety net, I mean savings. So also, it means you will work until you die.

Being a musician means applying for a job roughly 5 times a day, 7 days a week. A better-than-average success rate is about 1-in-25. For you baseball fans that means you are hitting at an anemic 0.040 average. This is what makes booking agents so attractive. But before you ask why haven’t I gotten myself a booking agent, it’s not for lack of trying. I have spoken with and been rejected by every North American agency that handles folk and traditional music. (Charmingly, the very same agents who rejected me continue to mine me for contacts to help them book gigs for the artists on their roster.)

Still, this was the bargain, and it was one I willingly made when I was young and foolish. I would say it’s a decision I didn’t regret…until the landscape changed so dramatically; turned upside down and wrung dry of every last drop of joy and security a person of my station once knew.

I apologize that these brogs have steadily taken a turn for the dark and dreary. 2024 ended with close to a worst possible scenario for marginalized people, and the promises made by the administration would indicate that a worse 2025 is almost a certainty. A majority of my fellow Americans would see this as a good thing.

Unfortunately, there is no bottom when it comes to the music business; by that I mean, it can always get worse. Having committed myself to this line of work for as long as I have means a a very particular set of skills, but not in the cool I will find you and I will kill you kind of way. More of a buddy can you spare a dime? kind of way. As dark as any chapter in my career as a musician has been, this is bar far and away worse.

“…any chance of a gig?”

More anon,
Hanz