On paying artists for their work, and the Amanda Palmer kerfuffle

I am a musician, a photographer, a writer, an actor. I have been paid to do all of these things, and I have also done all of these things for free. First and foremost, I do them because I have a passion for each and every skill and creative expression.

But a lady gots to get paid, too. I have bills. I need to eat.

And, you know what? I also don't think there's any shame in an artist saying that compensation for their work is also a way to feel legitimized and appreciated.

Yes, we do this because we love to do it. But it takes countless hours of toil to be any good at it, and the public at large benefits greatly from what we do. And being that we live in a society that forces us to pay our utility bills with actual cash and not through the barter system (or hugs, alas), we need to bring in money for what we do.

This is a discussion (and sometimes argument) I've been having with my fellow artists and art consumers for years. Here in Madison, Wisconsin we are constantly grappling with the too-pervasive perception that artists should always be happy for gigs regardless of if they're paid or not, like someone is doing us a favor simply by asking us to do our thing in a public forum. Sometimes it's even the artists themselves making that argument.

Which is bull shit, I'd say.

Sometimes we are happy to lend our services on a volunteer basis. Lots of people volunteer their various talents for a wide variety of reasons - not all of them artists. We should encourage more people to volunteer for good causes.

But we also should be doing a heckuva lot more as a society to grow our appreciation for the incredible amount of work that goes into the various arts, and the great value the arts have in our communities. Having a thriving art scene builds the mental/spiritual life of a people, and it bolsters economies.

So yes, I'm happy to lend my time and talents to causes I believe in, especially if they're not-for-profit situations.

I almost always draw the line at doing free work on behalf of for-profit enterprises, though.

Which brings us to the recent and on-going dust-up over Amanda (Fucking) Palmer's solicitation of volunteer horn and string players for her upcoming tour. AFP is an artist I admire a great deal, formerly a street performer, one half of the Dresden Dolls, married to Neil Fucking Gaiman, a pioneer of DIY music and all-around creative juggernaut.

If you're not up on the current hubbub surrounding her, go read this open letter to her about the issue here, and then read AFP's response here. There are plenty of other posts and tweets about it, too, and I'm glad to see such a robust discussion unfolding about an issue I hold near and dear.

Palmer's argument is generally that she has made sure that many, if not most of the musicians on tour with her are appropriately compensated - but that she wanted to try an experiment that involved including different people, some perfect strangers, with varying levels of musicianship to join them on each stop of the tour, to bring more people into the artistic fold, try something new, have fun, etc.

I like that, it's a cool idea.

Palmer also argues that we should allow space for each artist to find their own paths, try new things, try weird things - she talks about finding ways to support artists that have come on tour with her in the past when they couldn't pay them money, like guaranteeing free lodging and good food and sleeping spots on the tour bus. All of that is actually above and beyond what too many tour managers and promoters ever even attempt to do for opening/supporting acts.

I have little doubt that Amanda Palmer is trying to do right by her fellow artists, and I'm more than a little in awe of the new ground she's been breaking in terms of her incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the new album and tour, and all the work she's done in general to promote the idea of independent musicians making a living and doing incredible things along the way.

I also don't disagree with the people who were hurt to discover that several professional musicians were not paid to join her backing band, and in some cases, apparently weren't even mentioned by name from stage. Because that sucks. These folks had to audition, learn a ton of material, show up on time to a high pressure gig, and then perform in a high pressure setting. That's a lot of time spent not working on something that might help you pay your rent.

But it was their choice, right? They knew the gig would be unpaid.

If they weren't even acknowledged by name from stage, though, if that's what happened - that was one little thing AFP could have done to help make up for the lack of monetary compensation. Doing something for free in order to gain exposure only works if you're, y'know, exposed. I figured that would be something AFP, especially, could get behind.

The other big problem is two-fold: timing and wording. As my friend and fellow musician Eric Oehler from the band Null Device points out in his own blog on the subject:

...it was the way she asked.  She requested, to use her word, “professional-ish” players (specifically, a string quartet and six brass players).  A different choice of phrasing may have been enough to prevent this.  Whether she used it to just mean “really good” or mean “professional, but with enough weasel room that I can walk that back later when you ask for payment” isn’t clear, but the fact remains that she used that word.  That word – specifically the non “ish” part -  pissed off a world of professional musicians.  A lot of full-time players are not of the type that tour their own bands around the country, playing the music they love.  While there are a handful, your average Berlioz-slingin’ violinist or french horn-er is generally making a chunk of their income as a ringer.  It’s a journeyman’s job – playing in pit orchestras and as backup for touring acts they may or may not have any particular interest in.  But that’s a living.  It’s why there are musicians unions dictating pay scales, because otherwise it becomes a nasty race for the bottom where nobody can make enough to put food on the table.

Consequently, asking “professional-ish” players to play for free is telling all those working players “here’s a gig you won’t get if you want to get paid, that under normal circumstances would be next week’s groceries.”  Of course, it’s possible, and probably even likley, that if she couldn’t get the players, Palmer just wouldn’t do the songs, or would do them without the backing ensemble.   It just wasn’t stated outright, so a lot of the professional music world saw it as, at best, a dangerous precedent – touring bands demanding professional-ish volunteers instead of hiring local ringers would decimate an entire class of working musicians.

Eric goes on to highlight the incredibly poor timing of the request, coming, as it did, hot on the heels of her loudly touting the million-dollar success of the Kickstarter campaign. "It’s like showing up for a date in a brand-new Ferrari and saying 'hey, could you cover dinner? I’m a little low on cash,'" he writes. "It’s egregious to show up, hat-in-hand, after you’ve just spent more money than most people with your job will ever see in a lifetime, even if it’s factually true."

I'm not privy to her actual budget. I think a lot of people are looking at the $1.2 million she raised in the Kickstarter and assuming holy cow, that's a shitton of money, clearly she can afford to pay everyone and buy them all caviar and champagne. 

But she laid out exactly where the lion's share of that money is going, and it's not into her own pocket. Putting out a top-notch album, touring the country/world, and running an independent record label is not cheap. So there may be legitimate financial reasons why the AFP crew needs to cut a few corners in terms of who gets paid and how much. People are free to turn them down when asked to volunteer their efforts.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't be make-or-break for AFP to offer, say, $100 to each "volunteer" musician who agrees to help out at one of the shows on the tour. It's probably a lot less than what their time and effort is worth, but at least it acknowledges their talent in a tangible way. That and shouting them out from the stage, of course.

I know this is doable, because I produce a lot of shows. I hire artists and performers, stage managers, photographers, videographers, DJs, etc. to put on serious nights of entertainment for my fellow Madisonians. I love doing it, even if the work loads are enormous.

Rarely do I ask any of these people to do this stuff for free. I have no Kickstarter, no label, no company to back me up financially. All I have is the ability to hustle my ass off--and the incredible luck to rely on many other people to hustle their asses off--to give great show. We use the money we make at the door to pay our performers their guarantees, and so far have never had to dig into our own pockets to make that work. So far.

We do this, even though, more often than not, it means we only break even. That is, for all our efforts in organizing and producing the shows, I'm lucky to personally make a hundred bucks for the whole shebang.

Why keep doing it, then? Because I love it, because I love being able to provide a venue for super talented performers where they are treated with respect and paid appropriately for their time (though I wish we could pay them even more, still), because I love seeing the faces of the people in the audience, clearly having a blast, because I love doing my small part to build alternative, inclusive spaces and communities. Why wouldn't I keep doing it?

I'm still keen to find ways to be better compensated, though, and I have no shame about that.

Neither should you.

You're worth it. More.
 
AFP seems willing to talk about the issue, and genuinely interested in finding new and better ways of doing things. I hope, at the very least, she learns to always always ALWAYS acknowledge your supporting (especially if they're volunteer) band members from stage, and maybe to never again refer to any musicians as "professional-ish."

But you do it for the exposure!

Here's another tricky thing, though: Playing for free in order to gain exposure and further your career rarely actually works. In my experience, and the experiences of many of my fellow artists with whom I've discussed this, playing for free tends to breed...more invitations to play for free. It rarely leads to paid gigs, or real career growth.

You have to earn it and demand it. Kindly, firmly.

Years ago I realized that a band I was in was getting booked largely for unpaid, charity gigs. Like I wrote earlier, I dig playing on behalf of good causes, and I still do it now. But I made a conscious decision to cut back on how many of those gigs I accepted - because there has to be balance. If my calendar is full of unpaid work, then I don't have time to do things that will help me pay my bills.

I put my foot down. I started saying no, even when I liked the folks involved. I also started asking for more money to better compensate the efforts of my band, especially when we were asked to travel for a show. Not just enough money to cover transportation and lodging, but enough to pay us for our time - like you would for any consultant or businessperson.

Because, as much as I love what I do, this shit is work. I've spent almost my whole life becoming a better percussionist, photographer, singer, actor, writer. I've gone to school (and into debt I'll likely never pay off if this societal attitude persists) for it. I've hustled, I'm reliable, I take risks. I've invested. A lot. I expect to be appropriately compensated for that.

And you know what? People starting paying us what we asked for. And we got more and more paid gigs, and many of them had the added bonus of providing great exposure for us as well. I mean, we had to work for it, and we had to be good to work with, and gracious, and people had to actually like what we were doing - but if you don't stand up for yourself, even well-meaning people will happily take advantage of you.

I also understand--and this is where AFP's argument comes in--that this shift in how our communities treat artists has to come from both the public at large and we the artists. We all need to respect the decisions of others, the various paths we all create for ourselves, and the work we do. Sometimes that means doing work for free, as it does in any career.

It means getting to the point, too, where no one ever tells us we should "just be grateful to be asked to play."

That auto worker should be glad just to be asked to work on that super sweet car.

No.

We are already grateful to be part of the amazing arts community, to be given our various talents and dedications and ideas. We also expect to be paid for providing a valuable service.

I don't know what the exact answer is to the AFP situation.

I know I'm glad it's being more and more discussed--because more people thinking about ways to address it means we're more likely to find better solutions for the long-run, and build stronger communities as a result.

Vote 'yes' on the Garver Arts Incubator

Election day draws near (it's April 7, in case you forgot), and in amongst the many candidate and referendum choices available to Madison residents will be a question on whether or not the city should sell the old Garver Feed Mill to Common Wealth Development. And I highly encourage you to vote 'yes' for that move.

Why? Because CWD, a non-profit organization that has done a lot of good for our community over the years, wants to transform the beautiful old--currently vacant--building into an arts incubator. They're proposing a LEED-certified renovation of the space so that it will provide much-needed, affordable studio and learning space for area artists. According to a CWD press release:

The Garver Arts Incubator will include 40 art studios. Visitors can enroll in art classes, attend performances or view a gallery while interacting with artists. A three-story atrium, indoor/outdoor café, gift shop and rooftop garden are also included in the plan. In addition, the renovation will be a sustainable development project and the building will be LEED certified.

They go on to emphasize that the center will not be paid for with city taxpayer money. Instead, "If the referendum passes, the City of Madison will sell the Garver building to Common Wealth who would retain ownership of the land through a minimum 30-year lease." Money for the project would be gotten through private funds, tax credits, and some federal assistance.

Certainly there's added appeal for me in a project like this. I'm heavily involved in the arts community, and many of my friends are artists who would likely benefit from its creation. In fact, the idea reminds me very much of the Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center in Louisville, Kentucky. A few of my Wis-Kino comrades and I went down to Louisville to participate in their 48-hour filmmaking festival, and the final screening was held in a very nice room in the center.

It's an old, converted meat packing warehouse that now houses artist studios, a cafe, fitness center, some retail space, galleries, and teaching spaces. I remember being very impressed with the look and feel of the building, and that the city had such a great resource for its artists. The Garver Arts Incubator could be just such a space for Madison.

The main reason it's had to come up for referendum is that, "Under the city's shoreline preservation ordinance, voters must endorse the project located near Starkweather Creek before construction can begin." I'm hopeful that, based on CDW's track record of working closely with the community and paying close attention to environmental concerns, shoreline preservation will be a top priority in construction plans. They've already made plans to have "on-site storm water management and a comprehensive transportation plan that minimizes parking," which is a good start.

I encourage you to read more about it over at the CWD website. They have detailed plans and proposals available. And if it means anything to you, The Capital Times has endorsed the idea, and my own alder, Marsha Rummel, has been championing the project as well.

Vote Yes for the Garver Arts Incubator.

Madison Street Art

Apparently I don't have enough to do with my time, so I've gone and started a new blog. Madison Street Art will be a collection of photos and musings about the various types of street art to be found in and around Madison. I'm open to submissions from anyone, if you're interested. I'm hoping to include everything from public murals to stencil art to tags and everything in between. I love public art, but the blog is meant to provide a place to both appreciate and constructively criticize the various types that show up in our city. Please take a look and stop back when you can, as my goal is to publish several photos a week. Hooray!

You're so vain

You probably think this post is about you.

John Mendels(s)ohn has left the isthmus. He made sure we all knew about it, too, in his article posted at dane101 today. Full disclosure: I did some copy editing on that sucker before it went live. That is, however, the extent of my interaction with the man. I've never met him, so I can't speak to his actual, in-real-life personality. The only thing I can speak to is how he comes across in his writing: self-important and humorously biting.

Mendels(s)ohn made his debut on the Madison scene with a highly critical but interesting piece about its music, to which many of the named bands and their fans took great umbrage. It's never easy to take criticism (I know this first hand from literally countless ocassions, so I feel I speak with some authority on the subject), and always easier to give. But it becomes especially difficult to even consider said criticism when it's delivered in tandem with the hulking pile of ego for which John has become somewhat notorious. Heck, that first article starts right off with "When I, a formerly famous music critic who has lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London, relocated to Madison this past autumn...."

In his final piece at dane101, the ego flag is flown proudly above his prose: "If I’m a sensational writer, I’m an even better graphic and Web designer" and "Judging from their existing site, whose designer I adjudged myself to be approximately 10,000 times better than..." etc.

John's enormous sense of self import would be of little consequence to anyone save someone considering dating the man if it weren't for the fact that he's thrust his opinions onto the public stage. And he's got some good, challenging things to say. Madison's art and music scene is somewhat insular and protective of its own. In our desire to flip the bird to more well-known scenes, we are sometimes prone to intense navel-gazing that makes it difficult to really improve ourselves and grow. Really good criticism is frowned upon (just read most of the theatre reviews printed in this town). And certainly it becomes a much finer art to give constructive but negative crticism in a city as small as ours, where practically everyone in the scene knows each other.

But it's crucial that we be able to really examine ourselves and be open to growing and changing. That's why it's so frustrating, for me at least, when a critic like Mendels(s)ohn shows up and shows such potential, only to squander it so gleefully with mad egoism. Seriously, dude, we don't give a shit about where you've lived and who you've written for or why you insist on including parenthesis in your name--just tell us what you think. Leave the crotchety self-love out of it.

We need a better breed of critic in this town--not just for the arts, but for politics and everything else that makes this city what it is. I love Madison, and I firmly believe that it is a great place to live--but I try to make sure my love includes a desire to work for improvements where it's needed, too. We're not perfect, and there's room for a lot of tough conversations and changes.

And I'm spent

Wow.

Really, that's about all that needs to be said. But I'll go on anyway: what an amazing weekend. I am so, so grateful to so many people, I don't quite know where to begin. 422 of 'em paid money and came to see the show, and from the incredibly loud and enthusiastic sounds they were making, I suspect that they all enjoyed themselves. Which fills me with so much joy.

We managed to run a pretty smooth tech beforehand, which, as someone who has done theatre for some years, I recognize as a bit of an anomaly. We even had time for dinner before the doors opened. All of the performers were amazing, the emcee seriously rocked the house, I actually managed to be in one of the acts and then just sit back and enjoy the rest of the show, and we turned a profit. Holy shit, right?!

My heartfelt thanks to the Madison community and everyone who came out to support these talented performers and the performing arts scene in general. It was a resounding success, and I'm still not entirely sure how I managed to pull it off. I had help, of course, and should I ever do this sort of thing again, I will make sure to have even more help. But still, wow.

Expect photos and possibly some video of the whole shindig in the future, but for now, I'll just point you to a few fine shots taken by one of our performers, the lovely Olive Talique of Cherry Pop Burlesque.

And on a completely unrelated note, should you feel so compelled to do so, you can vote for my silly little blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards, which are linked in my sidebar. I'd be much obliged (I don't have any illusions of winning, but it's fun, nonetheless).

Photo by Timothy Hughes.

In defense of dane101

Full (and very obvious) disclosure: I've been a regular contributor to dane101.com for a couple of years now, and I'm rather fond of the little collaborative-blog-that-could. So it's likely to be with an extra amount of bias that I come to its defense when attacked. Also, I'm exhausted and a little cranky. So, you've been warned.

Over at Fearful Symmetries, Palmer takes aim and fires a series of salvos over dane101's bow. Among some of the many issues he seems to have lately taken with the site are its perceived lack of hard political coverage, the inclusion of personal essays, and a lack of diversity.

I have to give credit where credit is due: we don't always do a good job of covering everything that deserves covering. The Madison area is itself more than a bit diversity hungry when it comes to media, so it's not a huge surprise that dane101 sometimes suffers the same fate. I have to say, though, that compared to some of the more mainstream news and culture outlets, and especially when you consider that dane101 is entirely volunteer run, we do a pretty damn fine job.

If articles are skewed a bit toward the twenty-something crowd, that's because most of the writers we're able to attract are in their twenties. But dane101 is always open to new contributors--young, old, middle-aged, black, white, and everything else. Perhaps the author roster is simply reflective of the demographics of internet-surfing Madison, or maybe it's a chicken-and-egg scenario: if we covered a wider variety of subjects, would a wider variety of authors come out to help? Or vice versa?

My main beef with Palmer's post is that, in all of his complaining, he fails to mention that he, too, once wrote for dane101. And then stopped without warning. That's fine--contributors move on all the time, we have lives, and some have even landed more lucrative (see: paid anything at all) writing gigs. But he doesn't seem to recognize that that's exactly what happens all the time, and that it makes it difficult to maintain consistent coverage of anything when there's such constant turn-over.

In fact, I suspect that much of the griping that I've heard leveled against dane101 is the product of a similar misperception. Are some of the criticisms valid? Absolutely, and any publication/organization worth its salt should be open to them so that they can learn and improve. But I can't help but get a little miffed when said criticism is misplaced, or when it doesn't include possible solutions or offers for help. The people who run dane101 are attempting to provide a community service, to give something back, and to provide information and activities that might be valuable to their friends, neighbors, and strangers. Why tear an effort like that down? What good does that do anyone? Instead, why not attempt to help improve it, or even start your own version that may (or may not) be an improvement?

We need to and are constantly striving to include a wider variety of subject matter and opinions on the site. We could certainly use more contributions from people who are in Dane County but not necessarily in Madison. We could use more of everything, really. So the question becomes, if a site like dane101 is valuable enough for you to read and critique, is it not then valuable enough for you to contribute to in some way?

Making overtures to better management

Who's running the show over at the Overture Center, anyhow? The way they've been handling their trust fund for keeping the place afloat, you'd think it was a bunch of English majors. Actually, strike that--I was an English major and I think I would have had better sense than these folks. That is, I would have hired people who knew what they were doing, knew not to trust everything to our country's extremely volatile stock market, and knew not to blow whatever cash they blew on architect Cesar Pelli's soulless design (don't even get me started on that damn Jello mold of a dome).

After a poor performance in 2005, the arts district and a seperate trust fund board opted to undertake a refinancing plan, one which many people, including Mayor Dave, were opposed to. Apparently the opposition was for good reason, as the fund continues to do badly.

According to the WSJ:

The trust, which must be at least $104 million to meet all commitments, sank from $105.83 million on July 13 to $100.86 million on Aug. 15, doubling any prior decline and nearly forcing the district to tap other sources to meet debt payments.

The fund recovered to $103.31 million -- still below the $104 million mark -- by Sept. 28, according to the latest report by Madison comptroller Dean Brasser. The trust has since added another $400,000, the Overture Foundation said.

Overture Center was built with a $205 million gift from philanthropist W. Jerome Frautschi. About half the gift was put in a trust fund for operations and maintenance, while the rest was coupled with a $115 million loan to build the Cesar Pelli-designed facility on State Street.

But the original financing plan, which didn 't involve the city, failed in a weak investment market. In late 2005, the council approved a controversial refinancing deal, with the city providing a financial backstop on some debt for six years.

Under the deal, the trust covers about $7.45 million in annual debt payments and pays another $1.4 million every year to Overture 's operations and maintenance reserve. To do so, the trust must earn a 8.25 percent rate of return over the long term.

The trust, which stood at $109.3 million in late 2005, has fluctuated with the market and as it makes required payments.

After months of effort, the trust fund board earlier this year began a new investment strategy designed to get a strong return but better protect against market volatility.

But in the third quarter, due mainly to poor investment performance, the trust declined to a point where it couldn 't meet all commitments, said Chabot, who also sits on the trust fund board.

The trust 's performance came close to partial default, Chabot confirmed. If the trust drops between $100 million and $97 million -- as it nearly did -- Frautschi would cover the first $5 million in debt payments, then the arts district, and finally the city. No payment would be made to the reserve.

If the trust falls below $97 million, creditors would enter discussions with the trust fund board to evaluate the need for change.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I can't help but feel like better planning and more knowledgeable people running the show would have helped. And they may want to seriously consider making changes now, instead of waiting until the whole thing drops into default and everyone else has to help bail them out.

Between this mess and other little signs like Overture boosting their facility fees from 2 to 3 dollars last year, something just doesn't smell right. They're charging us extra to see shows, extra money that the performer's don't see, by the by--and they're charging those performers just to have merchandise tables out in the lobby in front of their shows, too.

The Overture Center was supposed to be a community arts space--welcoming to both national touring acts and local troupes. They put forth a token olive branch to the local arts community when they first opened, but, outside of the galleries, I haven't seen much local content since (and I mean really local--not just the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the occasional jazz band in the Rotunda). That might have something to do with the high rental fees charged for the various spaces (and they charge extra for tables and chairs).

Perhaps if they were able to get their act together with the financing/trust fund, they wouldn't feel the need to charge unreasonable fees for their rentals and their patrons. And that might increase use and attendance, which would in turn increase their revenues. Now there's an idea.