are the days of the band numbered?

an artform's future is not rosy when it descends into self-parody

Bierce was making jokes about novels as an artform precisely along these lines back in 1880...

Maybe I don't get it, but haven't there been solo artists for a long time? These can fall into self-parody as well. The *friction* of a band can produce some great music as well. New doesn't necessarily equal better.

I think the reason why what my mate said won't happen is because there is a real need, from the consumer's perspective and hence a real market, from the seller's perspective, for the stardom aspect - having a group of ppl making music together whom the masses can admire, follow (sometimes literally!) and so forth, but also go the gigs. It is very difficult for the DJ in his or her booth to generate the excitement and energy of seeing a live band. I know some do manage, but they are in a minority I feel. Last night's Bravery gig was actually and unexpectedly everything a gig should be. The band looked good, posed well, drew more groupies than any gig I've been to (helped by the fact that the whole band hung around very visibly for the club afterwards) and most importantly played well. It was actually quite an accomplishment I thought for them to play as well as they did given how much attention they were giving to the image side. And their music wasn't nearly as derivative as I had been led to believe previosuly, unlike that of, the Killers, say.

Substitute The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy, as examples of self parody and then think what happened in the years immediately after.

I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

Sorry, Mark, but your mate is an idiot, and quite possibly an asshole.

Sorry Mark

Oh man, wasn't that funny?

Seriously though, as long as there are groups of people who enjoy the same music, there will be bands. I don't doubt, however, that there will be changes.

finding dependable venues for bands to play in SF just gets tougher and tougher. the only way for new venues to seemingly survive is to also have 'dance nights'. people are willing to pay $10-25 covers to go out to dance, hang out, hook up; from this gross, all the venue needs to do is buy a video projector, a fog machine and pay a few DJs who just show up ten minutes before their shift with a bag of records.

some of these venues are committed to hosting live music nights, with two to four bands; this requires extensive soundchecking, with a sound person & ideally another tech on the clock, as well as the place simply being open & staffed earlier. people flinch at paying anything more than $5-8 for most 3 band tickets, though they'll grudgingly spring for $10-20 when it's a big star.

in other words, the dance nights are usually funding the live music nights, which are increasingly seen as risky and even antiquated things to book entire nights for in their struggling venues; managers increasingly begin to see their committment to hosting live music nights as an act of pure altruism.

-- Alba (albab...), February 13th, 2005.

This is so delightfully fitting it needed to be said twice.

There's always a club in town that can lower the overhead at the expense of the band. No sound man. Minimal P.A. It was a way of life in the Lehigh Valley and while some of the clubs would eventually be condemned there was always one more, in a slum somewhere, to fill the bill. And with any place like that band's arrived to fill it.