Rob-Rivera.com

The Integrity of the Musician

People love music. It’s one of the first and most important means of expression known to man. People fall in love, find a cause, discover friendships and cure their ills every day thanks to the power of song. As it is with our current societies, though, sometimes being a musician (or an artist, for that matter) must come with a degree of corporate compromise: money. Virtuosos or not, an artist has to eat, and sometimes he/she has to adapt to what’s popular at the moment. In the end, the people rule even though sometimes it would seem otherwise.

There’s a whole study prime for writing about the quantum tapestry of pop music and how what’s hot today may have burnt out by tomorrow. Still, the true artist marches on because being one requires an unprecedented amount of perseverance, lest you fancy being run over again and again by everyone with a pulse and the power to help you succeed.

I don’t know what it’s like in your neck of the woods, dear reader, but from where I am being an artist is being recognized as a legitimate means of self-subsistence only until recently. When I first decided I wanted to write for a living, absolutely everyone told me it was a bad idea: my family took it as a joke at first, but after they saw I was serious a 4-month feud followed. My friends, who were about to start their college lives doing routine careers such as engineering, architecture and the like looked at me like I was bonkers. My girlfriend at the moment seemed more concerned with other things than my existential crisis, and even the girl I was hopelessly in love with at the time (not my girlfriend, as you might’ve guessed) gave me a railing on it, saying it would be a difficult life and I would starve to death. When everyone under the sun wouldn’t give me an iota of support, I felt somewhat alone in the world. Still, I trucked on to the person I am today, and I’d be lying if I said that my strength of character didn’t benefit from that quintessential turning point.

Because I know what it’s like, I sympathize heavily with musicians whenever they voice their concerns over their environment, monetarily-wise; not only do I tend to connect with them from a composition angle since I believe that writing lyrics and creating music is something absolutely remarkable (you know how you can win me over? Sing me a song you wrote. Hell, sing me a song with the message you want me to hear, period. Songs kill me), but I also know what it’s like when people dismiss your talent because it’s “artsy.”

To me, my perception of the vast majority with disposable income, the people who can make an artist live off his/her craft in a local scale, narrows down to a dinner I had once at a KFC with my aforementioned girlfriend and her parents. I had just started to find my way, and was very scared. I didn’t know if I’d be able to pull it off; at this time, that moment when you need support the most, was when I met the representation of the person I’d have to cater to if I wanted to accomplish what I set out to do. Mother (she dug me, in a roguish type of way), Father (he despised me with every fiber of his being), older brother (he liked me because his father despised me with said fiber of his being) and little brother (frickin’ loved everything I did. I could’ve pooped on his head and he would’ve kept the turd in a jar for future admiring) were sitting in a table of a KFC restaurant near their apartment. Noticing palpable tension due to my presence, I anticipated my girlfriend (let’s call her Muppethead, for the sake of comedy. It’s my party and I’ll call people names if I want to!) didn’t know what she was doing by pitting me and her dad across a dinner table in a public place: another thing I had recently discovered at the time was how much I loved confrontation. With that in mind, the following conversation followed, the silent stares of the others looking on:

Muppethead’s Dad: So, “Rob,” what exactly are you planning to do for yourself?

Rob: Well, I’m going to go into art school.

MD: “Art” school? There are art schools in Panama?

Rob: There are. Ganexa became a certified university a year ago (Editor’s note: this was circa 2003).

MD: Fruitcakes usually go to art school.

Rob: Social retards usually study engineering (Editor’s note part deux: this particular social retard was an electrical engineer).

MD: Are you calling me a retard?

Rob: Are you calling me a fruitcake?

MD: No.

Rob: Then I’m not.

*Round one ends as silence takes over the table. Rob: 1. Muppet Dad: 0.*

MD: So… you’re going to art school, eh?

Rob: Yes, sir.

MD (in the most rasping, scathing tone I’ve ever heard): So you’re going to be an artist!

Rob (pauses): I guess I am!

MD: I didn’t know you wanted to go on a diet… because you’ll starve to death. I haven’t even seen you play, draw or write a thing!

Rob (giving Muppethead a moment to step in and defend his man, then going back into the fray after realizing that the cavalry would never come): I write. I think I’m pretty good, actually.

MD: Who says?!

Rob: Everyone who’s read my stuff.

MD: Have you published anything?

Rob: Not yet.

MD: You’ll need money, which you won’t get since you’ll starve to death.

Rob: If that’s what you think…

MD: Yes, that’s what I think. Who do you think you are? I don’t want my daughter going out with a deadbeat artist.

Rob: Last I checked, your daughter wasn’t sucking the milk out of your tit.

MD (turning to his wife): I don’t want this guy at our dinner table!

Seeing that no one would stick up for me, I got up and went home. That was the beginning of the end for that relationship, and in many ways it’s one of the reasons why it affects me like drops of Alien acid whenever any of it is brought up in conversation. Knowing what I was up against, though, I started looking into what made this kind of person tick and what he liked, what his children would be into, and so on. Of course, things are different now (thank Christ) but they’re still difficult. I wanted to give you this preface so that you could buy this humble writer’s approach to the struggles of the musician, and how we share the same frustrations albeit for different reasons. Throughout the years I’ve been lucky enough to meet many talented musicians, people who have managed to make ends meet by playing at every gig they could get, and one of the primary complaints that you hear no matter who you are in that pool is how promoters/venues undervalue the artist. A recent blog post (technically, it’s a Facebook post but I don’t know if there’s a term for that other than “note”) got me thinking about the subject.

One of the most prolific musicians of my local scene, Jesus Almenas, wrote about his concerns. He takes his craft very seriously, and in the interest of fair play I’m convinced he expects patrons and promoters to do the same. The problem then, as it is, is that the promoters tend to dismiss him and his comrades in pretty much the same way Muppet Dad dismissed me. “Oh, he’s an artist. As such, he must be bohemian. And because he’s bohemian, he won’t mind if I pay him half of what I should.” As a result, the respect people should have for the musician has been diminished. People don’t take the craft seriously because, unless you’re Fall Out Boy or some other garbage then you’re supposed to count your blessing if you do get paid. Now, this is a little more complex since I believe there are different ways to “compensate” artists: I wish I had the capital to pay bands what they deserve whenever Porto does a gig, but sadly we’re a pro-bono (out of my own pocket) deal at the moment and all we can offer are services. That limits our options, but in the end I believe it’s only fair. Thing is that, as Jesus accurately points out, the bar is lowered when musicians of inferior caliber/talent play for peanuts, while others try to raise the bar to a remotely respectable stance. And of course, since the promoter knows this, whenever a musician offers to play for $X fee, said promoter will counter-offer by saying he can get X Shit Band of 4 people to play for what you want to charge for yourself alone. Just like that, boom goes the dynamite.

There has been talk of an independent musician’s union, where they could set a universal flat rate per musician and that way force venues to pay what artist’s are very much entitled to. I believe this kind of thing is necessary, but my only fear is that, as it is with most artists, ego clashing can destroy everything. I saw it happen, to a degree, with my country’s Association of Writers; the group is alive and well, and for a “founding member” I keep my distance from it, but it seems to me like it’s like the West Coast Avengers: not terribly necessary, but good to have for organizational purposes.

You can read the note here (it’s in Spanish), if you’re inclined. If there’s something good to say about social networking sites is that generating discussion is a hundred times easier than five years ago; there’s already much talk going on in that note alone. In the end, I recommend that if you call yourself an artist and love what you create enough for it to give you your bread and butter, it’s good to remember that there’s strength in numbers. Hopefully you and other bright, like minded individuals can truly make a difference in your city, or country. In the meantime, here’s the great Bill Hicks on the subject of integrity, and other things.

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