this page was last updated
July 9, 2003
Jackdaws Presents:
grants,
blessings,
and worth
at a Calgary pub
excerpts from an email by Petunia
THE HIGHER THE COVER CHARGE, the more people expect.
The more people expect,
the more they demand.
Ask and it shall be
delivered unto you.
I have this radical, and seemingly unpopular notion that good music
is worth paying for, and that songwriters and musicians deserve
to make a somewhat [decent living].
If you pay $5 for a show, you expect a $5 show. When you pay $20,
you’re out to have a darn good time on that ticket. Whether that
’good time’ comes as conversation, letting looser, enjoying the
high cost of being alive ...or live music, doesn’t really matter.
The original meaning of the word ’blessing’ comes from the french.
It means ’wound’. If it hurts a little to part with a few greenbacks,
it’s gonna feel good soon. When we get used to $10 covers, we find
it doesn’t hurt enough. We could afford it all along, we just didn’t
realize until we had to pay, and decide for ourselves.
One of the main things to contend with, as a non-funded, thinking,
individually minded person, running my own business (like you run
your ’business’, like I run my ’business’), is that in Canada the
arts are government funded. Folk festivals, conferences, touring
expenses, recording space/time...etc. When I approach a studio for
rates, I find everything pro-rated to the ’Grant’ cost of making
a cd. Except that I don’t believe in applying for grants.
I learn more from life when I pay the higher costs too!
Grants are like fat. Good in the arctic for laying around all winter
and doing as little as possible to conserve your strength.
For eskimos and polar bears it means another spring.
For artists it means decay.
Yet, most Canadian artists thrive off of them needlessly, and at
the cost of ruining their God-given birth right to ’Do it your own
way’. Part of the cost of the grant system is that artists/gov’t
funded festivals/venue, don’t have to really earn a living.
But you can bet that money (grants) is getting spent.
In fixed amounts at fixed prices at fixed promo rates.
As long as one understands this; they are fighting an uphill battle
against not only ’fixed prices’, but ’fixed’ misconceptions of the
costs of real, true, unadulterated, honestly come by ’art’, ’culture’,
’live-entertainment’, call it what you may. Then, one is ready to
brave the storm at all cost.
Opinions expressed may not be Jack’s... Care to debate?
email the editors jackzine@hotmail.com
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