Would Arrowhead's Toys in the Attic sell today?

[alanm]

Was bored when I got home and wanted to listen to some music. So I was perusing and saw Arrowsmith's Toys in the Attic amonst the multitudes of CD's. It's been a long time since I listened to this particular album. But I think it still holds up. Yeah it's Bronco week. **** off. Just wondering.Remember I was bored. And maybe feeling a little old.

[Nzoner]

Originally Posted by alanm

Im sorry is there no one out there who makes your jaw drop anymore playing a instrument like the guitar. Does it even matter anymore? And if not that's got to be the saddest statement on the matter of popular entertainment or music at the moment.

Speaking purely for my own tastes Joe Bonamassa still does it for me.

[TEX]

Awesome album! Works for anything!

Good call!

[gblowfish]

When I'm bored I prefer listening to Iggy Pop.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by alanm

Im sorry is there no one out there who makes your jaw drop anymore playing a instrument like the guitar. Does it even matter anymore? And if not that's got to be the saddest statement on the matter of popular entertainment or music at the moment.

Dude you are still not "getting" it. It's business. There is no money to be made being a shredder in a rock band. It doesn't mean its not cool, an awesome time worthy fun thing to do. It's not reasonable to expect to make any money in that career choice. There is just no money to be made. The market decided that. Deal with the reality.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Dude you are still not "getting" it. It's business. There is no money to be made being a shredder in a rock band. It doesn't mean its not cool, an awesome time worthy fun thing to do. It's not reasonable to expect to make any money in that career choice. There is just no money to be made. The market decided that. Deal with the reality.

I'm a shredder. I know tons of LA guys that are shredders, too. I mean, monster players. But there's absolutely zero dollars in "shredding".

So what do we do? Write music for TV shows. It could rock underscores for shows like Counting Cars, Pawn Stars, ESPN, Fox Sports and more. It could be Danny Elfman type orchestral music for The Real Housewives series. It could scoring Film & TV like Tyler Bates does or Charlie Clouser or any number of insanely talented musicians.

But here's the key: We're not paid to be musicians that wow the world with technique. We're paid to create music for genres requested by the Producer, Director and Music Supervisor, which is a talent in and of itself that requires far more than just being able to play an instrument.

It requires knowledge of the recording studio, a studio in your home in which to produce the music at an extremely high level. It requires one to know what a drummer is supposed to play or a bassist or cellist or keyboardist and on and on and on. It also requires one to work quickly and provide quick turnarounds on music.

Kevin Kiner, who scored CSI: Miami, Star Wars Clone Wars and now Star War Rebels told me he had to write 50 pieces of music (cues) per week for CSI. 50. Most bands don't write 50 songs during the course of their careers. Guys like Bear McCreary, who was hired directly from USC Film school before he even graduated, composes hundreds of pieces of music each week for shows like Outlander, Agents of Shield and The Walking Dead.

I ran into Brian Tyler last week, who scored Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Now You See Me and Hawaii 5-0 on CBS, among many others. The guy plays 35 instruments! There are videos of him on YouTube playing drums to his tracks, then cuts to him engineering sessions, then to him as the conductor of an orchestra. The man is insanely talented. Insanely. But he would have wasted his talents and his life had he tried to be a "Rock Star" in an age in which there are no rock stars and music is disposable.

If there's anyone reading this that wants a career creating music, enroll at Berklee in Boston or USC/UCLA Film school or even NYU film school. Study, compose each and every day, learn Cubase/Logic or Pro Tools inside out, buy every sample library available and just create.

That's how to make it in today's world.

[cmh6476]

Originally Posted by Chromatic

Also, Steven Tyler looks like he's prepping to play "Auschwitz survivor # 3" in an upcoming film. Dude looks like a lady these days.

fyp

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

But here's the key: We're not paid to be musicians that wow the world with technique. We're paid to create music for genres requested by the Producer, Director and Music Supervisor, which is a talent in and of itself that requires far more than just being able to play an instrument.

Same thing in I.T. Techs are smart as hell, can program, know multi-levels of tech. In the I.T. world they can shred. But the majority of jobs with businesses is admin or engineer their software. Can you run Exchange, SCCM etc. Thats not a high level of what your dreams were but the reality is that is what business is needing. Thats the reality of the market in I.T. Your not paid to wow us with how smart you are, can you admin this software? No? Sorry on to the next guy.

[Halfcan]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I'm a shredder. I know tons of LA guys that are shredders, too. I mean, monster players. But there's absolutely zero dollars in "shredding".

So what do we do? Write music for TV shows. It could rock underscores for shows like Counting Cars, Pawn Stars, ESPN, Fox Sports and more. It could be Danny Elfman type orchestral music for The Real Housewives series. It could scoring Film & TV like Tyler Bates does or Charlie Clouser or any number of insanely talented musicians.

But here's the key: We're not paid to be musicians that wow the world with technique. We're paid to create music for genres requested by the Producer, Director and Music Supervisor, which is a talent in and of itself that requires far more than just being able to play an instrument.

It requires knowledge of the recording studio, a studio in your home in which to produce the music at an extremely high level. It requires one to know what a drummer is supposed to play or a bassist or cellist or keyboardist and on and on and on. It also requires one to work quickly and provide quick turnarounds on music.

Kevin Kiner, who scored CSI: Miami, Star Wars Clone Wars and now Star War Rebels told me he had to write 50 pieces of music (cues) per week for CSI. 50. Most bands don't write 50 songs during the course of their careers. Guys like Bear McCreary, who was hired directly from USC Film school before he even graduated, composes hundreds of pieces of music each week for shows like Outlander, Agents of Shield and The Walking Dead.

I ran into Brian Tyler last week, who scored Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Now You See Me and Hawaii 5-0 on CBS, among many others. The guy plays 35 instruments! There are videos of him on YouTube playing drums to his tracks, then cuts to him engineering sessions, then to him as the conductor of an orchestra. The man is insanely talented. Insanely. But he would have wasted his talents and his life had he tried to be a "Rock Star" in an age in which there are no rock stars and music is disposable.

If there's anyone reading this that wants a career creating music, enroll at Berklee in Boston or USC/UCLA Film school or even NYU film school. Study, compose each and every day, learn Cubase/Logic or Pro Tools inside out, buy every sample library available and just create.

That's how to make it in today's world.

Great post! What bands were you in before you changed careers?

I have found the same thing with my art and writing. People expect it for free, just like music. Less people read books now or appreciate photography and art. It is a sad state for the world when the Arts mean so little to a majority of the people.

I go to a lot of art shows and they sell next to nothing. My photography friends are doing amazing work and the second it goes on the net - it is stolen - they make Nothing on prints anymore. My latest book was available less than 48 hours on the market before several companies stole it and were using it to drive traffic to their crappy rip-off sites. Not only did they have the balls to use my work without permission -they implied they were working With me and had my blessing. I immediately put them through to the right people that made them take it down.

I am working on my third novel now. I have pretty much decided that I am writing it for the accomplishment of it. I am sure it will make a nice profit like my first two - but when there are 25,000 books going in print every day, less readers and so many companies trying to rip you off - it is very long odds to have a major hit.

[Halfcan]

Originally Posted by headsnap

sorry, but there is nothing more pathetic than a thread full of old guys lamenting the fact that the music of their youth is no-longer popular...

"today's music sucks!!!!" I remember my dad saying that...

If your favorite music is classic rock and that is all you've listened to for years, you are stuck, your brain is no-longer making those connections. Music changes, it evolves... I'm lucky that by being a musician I have been somewhat forced to stay with the current music, also I have a 17 year old daughter that has awesome taste in music... Tame Impala, Portugal The Man, etc... There is some really cool stuff out there!

The problem with music today is the throw away disposable society in which we live, BITD people would latch onto bands and be 'loyal' to them for years/decades, today's listeners are fickle, it's a rarer today for an artist to have more than one successful album. A big part of that is what I call the 'fashion show' of music, where in the past there were 4 or 5 genres of music, today there are hundreds, there is a much smaller piece of the pie for the artist and it's much more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff...

my 2¢...

Awesome post. I know that i am guilty of this. I grew up with bands like Rush, Zeppelin, Beatles, Boston, Pink Floyd, ect ect that spent months and years creating amazing masterpieces. Beautiful layered music with texture and rhythms that matched poetic lyrics. I was spoiled by guitarist like Jimi, Jimmy, Eddie, Alex, Randy and Stevie that lived, breathed and loved music more than anything else. They spent their entire life learning and relearning how to play their instruments and wanted to make something unique that matched the music in their soul.

Now kids that don't even read music - can "sample" sounds out of a computer, add a pre-made drum beat while a guy screams his angst in a microphone, so loud and so fast it makes no sense to anyone- and this is what they call music? "Artist" push some buttons- hit save and the "music" is out there, world wide in a few minutes-the same amount of time it took to "create" it.

So yes I am jaded when it comes to the new "music" that is popular these days.

[cmh6476]

I went into the non-profit world so I could feed starving musicians

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Dane, do you practice your modes and spaghetti-o's?

[Dartgod]

I've always thought Rocks was their best album.

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

I've always thought Rocks was their best album.

Truth.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by alanm

I wrote Arrowsmith but it came out Arrowhead in the header. Go figure.

If you had typed Aerosmith, I wonder if it would have come out Aerohead. :p

[mdstu]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Unfortunately, this just isn't true.

Most of the bands out there, especially on tours like the Van's Warped Tour, are being financed by their parents. There's very little to no money being earned through record sales, streaming is abysmal and as previously noted, there's no airplay revenue (Performance Income paid by ASCAP, BMI & SESAC).

Rock is dead.

The most successful people in the music business these days are writing music for Film & TV doing underscore, trailers, bumpers, advertising and theme songs. It's an extremely competitive field because there just aren't many alternatives these days.

It sucks that "Rock is Dead", but fortunately, if you are looking for it there is still some good shit out there.

I'm listening to the new Monte Pittman stuff right now and holy shit is it good.