It often seems that those most critical of artists' rights have rarely spent any time trying to learn a living as an artist. It's a stereotype to say that they are all techie geeks who love to move data around online and hate anything that makes that difficult, but it's more likely they fit that profile than that of a hard-working artist on tour.

I say that because the refrain we often hear from these critics is that they should no longer be able to earn income from recorded music, and should instead earn money by performing. This of course ignores several key facts, such as: 1) Just because the cost of replicating a digital recording is near zero doesn't mean the recording itself has that value. 2) The largest-grossing touring bands today – Rolling Stones, U2, Police, Eagles – got there through recorded music, which will be much less likely to be recorded if there is no chance of profit after the investment. 3) Songwriters can't go on tour, nor can music publishers. 4) Some musicians really want to make music that we can all enjoy but don't want to live on the road. I'm curious – would any of these tour advocates have wanted while growing up to have their parents spend all of their time on tour? 

But I've distracted myself. The "tour" refrain is made not for social reasons, but economic. This, we're told, is how musicians will earn money in the future. (Instead of splitting money with managers and labels they will split it with managers and venue owners.) But what if they can't afford to get to the next gig?

Peter Cooper has a fantastic article in the Nashville Tennessean on the eve of the Country Music Awards about the impact of rising gas prices on country music tours. Here's his opening: 

Dierks Bentley always figured the country star thing would be more about finding ways to get his music on the radio than finding ways to fill his vehicles with fossil fuel. Turns out country stardom is no buffer from the current economic climate.

"It's bad, man," Bentley said. "It's six grand to go to the pump with two buses and four semis. And we do that two out of every three days." 

Among the facts spelled out by Cooper in the article:

• Touring fleet semitrailers and tourbuses run on diesel, the cost of which is up 190% in a year to about $5 per gallon.
• Diesel ends up costing about $1 per mile per bus and truck.
• Kenny Chesney's tour uses 17 trucks and 10 buses.
• Tim McGraw's tour loses $5,000 a day if gas goes up a penny.
• Filling 40 vehicles in one stop costs more than some Tennessee schoolteachers' annual salary.
• Many country fans live paycheck to paycheck, and are less likely to splurge on a live music ticket when gas prices rise.

I actually know a bit about touring. I toured the Rocky Mountain region with seven other band members in an Astrovan, most of us sitting in the back with no seat belts, sandwiched between amplifiers and other equipment. I toured all over the United States, from New England to Hawaii, with a 30-member choir. We didn't have many instruments, but we took up space and we traveled with risers and sound equipment, as well as a keyboard for venues lacking a piano. As one of the males, I doubled as a roadie.

With those tours, depending on the length, we could usually get away with a 47-seat Greyhound-style bus and an accompanying truck or van. But we paid not only for gas but for food and lodgings (except when we knew people we could crash with along the way). It was fun for certain lengths of time, but no way to live, and certainly not a way to earn a living.

Nothing is a substitute for live music. I can't get enough of it. I'm looking forward to seeing the Eagles next month at Verizon Center, but I also love going to a small club like Iota and enjoying a band I've never heard of. I want musicians to continue to tour. I want them to work the economics so that this can continue. But if they're making a bit of money off of their sound recordings, it will be a little easier to finance tours, even with gas prices soaring.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 3:31 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under creators, economy, market forces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.