Notes from the Boneyard: What do you do?

Someone asked the artist what he does. When the artist said he’s a musician, the person said, “Yeah, but what do you actually DO?”

As if what they do doesn’t count as work.

It’s a loaded question, with a lot of layers.

Getting music or any art into people’s earshot, whether it’s a vinyl record, Spotify, radio, or whatever, is a lot of dirty work that nobody wants to do.

It doesn’t just magically appear, to a presentable standard, with glorious artwork attached, a product, out of the blue.

It takes months of work.

You know when a record label puts out an album and employs people and a full team to work every day in an office doing various jobs?

Well a lotta artists today don’t have that machine behind them.

They have to do all those jobs and wear all those hats themselves.

So when the artist answers and has to justify what they actually DO, the list is a big one, and playing music isn’t high on the list.

They are an-around-the-clock secretary, taking care of admin, a radio plugger, a press agent, sales rep, distributor, accountant, publisher, art director, web designer, studio engineer, producer, label manager, live agent, tour manager, a travel agent, driver, roadie, performer, at any minute of the day or night be the point of contact if anything goes wrong or right.

It’s not 9-5. It’s 24/7.

A one-person record machine, all while keeping from going insane and maintaining a happy face and not stopping, because the second they stop caring, it all falls apart.

They do all this with no income and zero weekly pay, in the blind hope that what they are doing will somehow pay off in the future and at least pay for itself.

A constant weight on the shoulders that all their effort and work, while meaning the world to them, could end up meaning absolutely nothing to anyone else and the whole thing is a pointless waste of time, energy, effort and money… (a friend told me they worked every day last month and it only cost them £3k).

As a business it makes zero sense (or cents). But It’s not money-driven.

It’s driven by an unrelenting belief in what they are doing and their work will still be around for a long time after they are dead and buried.

Leaving their mark in the world saying they existed and they did something.

Plus they were the person who had an idea and got off their ass and did something with it, whether it’s a song or a painting or a book or a movie.

They wrote it, recorded it, and took the effort to put it out there into the universe as a gift for everyone else to enjoy.

Or not to enjoy.

But hey, at least they gave it a shot – and at least it exists.