The Logic Off Topic list

> I am not a US citizen, so hopefully someone will correct me in this. But
> ... a big problem US artists have in becoming national is the sheer size of
> the market. You can be a very big star in say Detroit or Seattle while
> people down in LA or across in Boston or Florida have never heard of you.
> Your point is probably right, though, that in order to become 'national' a
> band has to be more 'corporate' or 'marketable' before a national label and
> the like will look at them. The US is not one monolithic market but a
> disparate array of varied musical tastes and in order to be successful
> nationally a band or group must surely be marketable across all of those
> different markets. And since a band that is extremely popular in say
> Honolulu is unlikely to be on a label that is national ... and therefore
> international ... there's a lot of great US music that most people inside
> the US, never mind outside it, never get a chance to hear.
> 
> Could someone with more knowledge of the US scene comment on the likelihood
> or possibility of this observation?

yes, you are exactly right. I am a left wing cultural terrorist type of
artist who is quite irreverent in the tradition of Zappa, but I pay my bills
by hawking lame copies of jennifer lopez to the majors so I can hopefully
get enough cash in one to finance having good time playing my music to a
bigger audience. so far only a few of these so called "art"ists I work with
have paid off but not enough to create financial independence. I don't even
play my music for the major label people, I just pretend to be mr. producer
because they would be very scared of me if they heard my art... I've seen
others try and get laughed at. right now i only play in NYC where I am very
appreciated by my people, but to take it on the road I need cash. I've
thought this through and if i just dedicated my life to my own music i would
starve and I can't play on an empty stomach... neither can my family...

there are many different types of people in the United States of Right Wing
Christians, but unfortunately the huge republican contributing Corporations
are really in control of everything and, with the government, they are
REALLY trying to create a 1984 scene where everyone sits around watching the
home shopping club and the 700 club and calls in with their credit card
number to supply the non intellectual money grubbing leadership with the
capital they need to manifest their disgusting selfish destiny. I am very
pissed off that so many of my people buy into this crap and stick American
flags on their SUV's. If anyone knows where I can call with my credit card #
to combat this shannanigen, please let me know. They say the US woke up when
the WTC went down.... I say we went deeper into sleep, the REMs just got
more speedy.

tk
brooklyn, NY