PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic The pandemic effects on the music industry

Here’s a synopsis of the effect on the music industry:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/coronavirus-music-business-latest-974262/independent-artists-are-making-more-music-than-ever-984576/

And I had 7 months of gigs, my main source of income cancelled. And who knows what will happen after Mid-October when our next scheduled gig is.

While I feel sorry for Pearl Jam, the Stones and Ms.Eilish, I feel worse for all the local musicians who depend on gigs to put food on the table and pay the rent.

Fortunately I live below my means, my mortgage is paid off and I have only 3 more car payments. Other than the car payments I am debt-free with a savings. But not every musician is fortunate enough to be in this position. I know of some who are really hurting.

Insights and incites by Notes

My gigs, mostly retirement complexes, are set up a year in advance so I most likely am done for the year.
Lost income from approx. 70 performances. Fortunately I have a retirement from 37 years as a band director.
I have second thoughts about resuming my performances after the covid19 ban is lifted as I am in my (very) late seventies and maybe it’s time.

As much as I hate to say this.... I believe this is true. I hope I am wrong.

Life as we knew it in January 2020, will NEVER return. There is a new paradigm that will be the "new normal" from this point onward.

The Overton window has now been moved by a great distance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

B I N G O! Somehow I feel Pearl Jam, the Stones and Ms. Ellish (who has a story about her in the news everyday, otherwise I would not have a clue who she is) will survive just fine.

We are rowing in the same boat, another reason I will continue doing eConcerts as I still have the urge to perform despite our opportunities to do so are shrinking due to the virus.

Later,

"Life as we knew it in January 2020, will NEVER return. There is a new paradigm that will be the "new normal" from this point onward." Guitarhacker

I think this is going to be true across the board. The disruption to the world economy will cause the closure of many businesses. This new paradigm will evolve
over the next couple of years.The possibility of famine killing huge numbers of people is real. All the entertainment business will suffer.

South Florida is considering opening the hotels on Miami beach. Who do you think is going to hop on a plane to come stay there?

Social distancing was becoming more common before the virus. "Stay Home Stay Safe" is not a new idea.

I am very fortunate, I like being alone or perhaps with one of my fiends in my boat fishing. The further offshore we go the more comfortable I get. My fuel bill on the boat for a normal day has gone down to around $150 from $600.

I also like driving around in Europe playing music. Because of my age I think I have perhaps made my last trip.I will truly miss going to Europe every year.

We have a farm business here in South Florida. I will most likely dump a million three dollars worth of plants in the trash. The government sent me a check to help out ....$68,000. I thank them for the help. Another year I get to work for nothing.

Lots of change coming.

You spend $150 a DAY on fuel? So if you go out twice a week you spend $1200 a MONTH for fuel?

Wow! The cheap Slovenian in me would NEVER allow me to spend $150 for a day on a boat. Or anything else.

But that's me.

I am going to make a comment that is pretty much indicative of the reason nobody here likes me much.

All you you people in your 70s.... WHAT is this urge to become the richest corpse in the graveyard? Yeah I get the whole romantic "I play because, oh, I love it so...." mentality, but geeze. You going to walk off a stage and directly into a grave? It's called retirement for a reason. And the "I am never going to retire" flex makes no sense to me. I can only speak for me, but i LOVE being able to wake up whenever the hell I want to and do absolutely nothing all day if I choose not to. People get bored by choice.

The Pearl Jam and Billie Eilish example holds water up to the point where you consider one thing. They are mega recording and touring acts. (Though I have NO idea why Billie Eilish is popular.) There are people on this forum far more talented than her but the truth is that you don't do what she does and your window TO do what she does is decades behind you. Point being it is comparing apples to weed trimmers. I have ZERO doubt that, using Notes as the example, if Notes chose to he could audition for and win a spot in a nostalgia band like Tower of Power or Average White Band and make much bigger money. But do you want to travel like that at what, 75 years of age? Are you willing to NOT do a duo with tracks and your wife involved? At some age, priorities and goals change. I would personally hate myself to the point of tears if I played with backing tracks because of how I refuse to see bands who do it.

As far as being corona-tined, much like Plano Billy, I don't even notice it. I rarely leave my house in the best of times and do everything I can to avoid human contact. (It's a PTSD thing.) The band I currently work with pretty much lost our whole year too, as our dates were outdoor festival type and there will be no crowds allowed this summer. It doesn't matter to me all that much because I don't really need the money. I clear enough to live comfortably on for someone who grew up extremely poor and knows no other standard of living.

Just my dime.

$150 a day? No bad actually. You haven't seen the boat

I have a small boat. 28 foot Contender with twin 250 Yamaha. 200 gal fuel tank.
Running wide open it burns 50 gal per hour at about 50 miles per hour.

I go to the Bahamas from Miami a lot. My fuel bill runs about $80,000 per year when gas cost $4.50 a gal here in Florida. More or less about $1000 a day to go fishing....if I don't break anything. Sometimes less if we have a lot of windy weather or a bunch of problems go on with the business that I a forced to deal with.

The yacht in the picture cost about $80,000 a day to run. lol The guy I sell my products to has one about half that size. He takes me out whenever I want to go. We run his boat down to Alabama once or twice a year to fish for yellow fin tuna. The engines in his boat cost more than my house!!


BOAT=Break out another thousand....I like fishing and I don't care what it cost.

I had a friend who used to sell "products". He gets out in maybe a year or so.....

This is another example of "lifestyle to which you are accustomed". I have never even considered what having $80,000 would be like. I would be afraid to have $80,000 a year. And that's what you pay for boat fuel? Would you please adopt me?

Eddie1261 - the idea of never retiring is not to be the richest corpse in the cemetery, it's to postpone the trip to the boneyard and live a fulfilled life on the way.

People need a purpose to stay alive, golf and fishing are not enough. We must have a need, not a hobby. The Japanese call it ikigai.

A large part of my gigging income is playing for retirement communities. I started this end of the business when I was 40. I've gotten to know a lot of audience members and I've seen what happens to the majority when they retire. The same thing that happened to my father.

The first couple of years of retirement are like a vacation. Fishing, golfing, dancing or whatever they didn't have enough time for when they were working. Then slowly things start with "Ah, I don't feel like going fishing (or whatever) today, I think I'll just stay home.' Then more and more the TV becomes their focus in life, and in a year or so they die of boredom.

Me? No I'm not planning on retiring. I turned off the TV in the late 1980s, disconnected the cable and took down the antenna and mast.

I gig because it's my bliss. I gig with the musician who is now my wife because it's her bliss. It's our second favorite thing to do.

It gives us a purpose in our life, we have contracts ahead, people are depending on us to bring them joy, we are depending on them to return the joy to us, and for us it's more fun than fishing, golf, sailing, tennis, or television.

If Tony Bennett, Keith Richards and Willie Nelson can enjoy this until they are ready for the big sleep, so can I.

I see no need to retire and let the TV or the proverbial rocking chair get me. I don't intend to die of boredom.

So when the gigs open up, I plan to be working again. And if the restaurant who hired us once a week for 12 years opens, I plan to volunteer to play for meals for a few weeks until the crowds come back.

Insights and incites by Notes

Agree 100%. Sitting around and doing nothing all day? No thanks.

Exactly! It took me six weeks to start a new business/company after I retired the 1st time. Doing nothing, heck even playing golf and fishing became a bore within that time. Thought I'd retire the 2nd time and play a few music gigs every month, can't wait to get back into that routine.

Later,

Same here. After I retired I went to part time work as a computer tech. After a couple of years I got tired of that and got a part time job that I really loved, teaching guitar and bass. I had done that on a limited basis since the late 1960's. Unfortunately that store went under so I went to a local teaching academy. That went under a year later. Now I have only one student, a nephew, as the others had to quit. I teach him via the Internet.

PS - I'm to active to get bored!

Notes/Planobilly, be on the lookout for this guy.....

All good points. I am a lazy slob to start with, so.....

Notes, my point of using you as the example was this. You are at a level where you could play big stages, fly to gigs, etc. Play at that level. In my mind, because that was the dream that escaped me, that would be my version of musical bliss. Something along the lines of "Boy, get those keyboards set up and make sure that the keyboard on my left side is exactly 6 inches to the side of the main stack. And make sure those cables are run so neat and clean that they don't even show. Call me in my room when you are done so I can come and sound check." This after flying to the city where the venue is. I don't play more now because I don't want to schlep gear around. Load it all into my car, carry it in, set up, play, tear down, load it into my car again, drive home, and bring it in the house. Nope. I just don't want to do that, If I don't have people to do that roadie work for me, I am not all that interested.

That's just how I feel and don't expect anybody to agree. I had that dream that I would be a star. I wanted to play those 20,000 seat arenas. I would imagine all of us did at some point. I saw The Beatles in 1964 and my world changed dramatically. My grades went down because suddenly all that mattered was playing music. All that was missing for me was talent, training and opportunity.....

It makes me shake my head when people who have "that" level of talent are afraid to go for it. There are a few around here where I live that could play bigger stages but they refuse to risk it and take their shot. One refuses to live her multi-millionaire daddy's business because he would write her out of the will and she would lose millions in inheritance money. And that has been her convenient excuse for not having the guts to try for years. I think it's also her excuse because she is afraid to fail. When you are afraid to fail, you have no chance to succeed.

But that's all for me on this topic. Other than to say that I hope everybody keeps taking whatever measures have been working to keep you all safe. I know that most of us are in that seniors area that is the most easily effected. I also check the diabetic and weakened immune system boxes, so I have been pretty much living with gloves and a mask while wrapped in bubble wrap. I have had pneumonia 5 times in my life and malaria when I was in Vietnam (because I was too stubborn to take my anti-malaria pills. I mean they were the size of jawbeakers!). My temp hit 104 and I actually wished that I would just die and take me out of my misery. Until "they" actually come to an agreement about what this really is and how to deflect it, I will be here, in this home office, in front of this computer, or on the couch reading books. All the reading I should have done in high school. Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc....

So you worked at 2 places that went under?

You're familiar with the concept of cause and effect, right?

A girl that used to work at my vets office had been there for about 5 years. The rest of the people were always new faces, but that one adorable young woman was there through all the change. And I used to tease her all the time that I finally figured it out. She was there and the people around her came and went so fast that apparently SHE must be really hard to work with! And now she moved to Columbus with her boyfriend and I really miss her smile.

Retirement? What's that? To each his own and it seems like Eddie is perfectly happy and that's great. For me? I would go bat**** crazy lazing around the house watching TV all day. As a tax guy I have enough clients and outside consulting work to keep me busy enough and have plenty of time for music.

On the music side, I'm constantly focused on the next gig, I rarely practice scales and things like that, I practice on things I'm actually going to play on the next gig. I like playing difficult stuff that I have to seriously focus on. Right now no gigs so I did tune up my piano and I'll play some things but not a whole lot. That's just not me. I'm not that interested until the lights go on, the crowd is ready and the bandleader goes OK, 1-2-3 and off we go! That's what I live for musically, I'm a performer and I need to perform.

I like having 2 or 3 people standing next to or behind me watching me play keys and making comments like you're the best man! They push me to perform better. I love that especially if they're young ladies. No, no, no get your mind out of the gutter. I look at them like my daughters. I just like the attention, what can I say? It doesn't matter if I'm doing Misty or Wave on solo piano at a private house party and someone stands next to me saying I love that song or I'm rocking out at a July 4th festival gig. It's the same vibe and I'll keep doing it until I physically can't any more. Music is not a job that I can't wait to retire from.

So no, I'm not retiring from that. This virus will pass and we'll all get back to gigging but unfortunately I agree this year is probably toast. I have the same four gigs booked just before and including New Years. Maybe those will still happen. The next few weeks will tell us a lot about people gradually getting back to work in certain areas especially Boeing. They have 27,000 workers who just want back this week. Don't know how many but it's a fair number of them.

Bob